broached before. But M. Nourry does more than popularize it. He follows it out in new directions, and brings such further evidence of it as his space will permit. He contends that the seasonal quest is not merely a modern deformation of an ancient rite: it is really a magical circumambulation.
A most interesting account is quoted of the Feast of Fools at Chalons-sur-Marne, apparently in the sixteenth century; but unfortunately we are left to guess at its date. One kind of song which it is argued is an incantation is a cumulative song of the form of "This is the house that Jack built." In the example given from the Haut Boulonnais, the lover asks:
"Le premier mois de l'année
Que donnerai-je à ma mie?
Une partriole,
Qui va, qui vient, qui vole,
Une partriole
Qui vole dans ce bois."
The second month the lover proposes to give "Deux tourterelles, une partriole qui va, etc." It does not seem to be known to M. Nourry that there is an English variant. But here the beloved is represented as saying:
"The first night of Christmas my true-love sent to me
A partridge on a pear-tree.
The second night of Christmas my true-love sent to me
Two turtle-doves and a partridge on a pear-tree,"
and so on.
It is therefore not in English a forecast or an incantation for the months of the forthcoming year, as the author contends the version from the neighbourhood of Boulogne is. What is it? Probably it has some ritual origin.
The ballad or song of London Bridge ("London Bridge is broken down, With a gay lady") is fully treated, and with a good deal of ingenuity. After examining a number of variants from various parts of France, from Denmark, from Russia and other Slav countries and from Roumania, he comes to the conclusion that it was derived from an ancient ritual an a bridge and representing the casting into the water and drowning of the old year, conceived as a woman, and her
