Joseph Jacobsand adapted it to the purposes of the masque at Ludlow Castle,
and of his allegory. Certainly no other folk-tale in the world
can claim so distinguished an offspring.
Remarks.—Distinguished as “Childe Rowland” will be hence-
forth as the origin of Comus, if my affiliation be accepted, it
has even more remarkable points of interest, both in form
and matter, for the folklorist, unless I am much mistaken. I
will therefore touch upon these points, reserving a more
detailed examination for another occasion.
First, as to the form of the narrative. This begins with
verse, then turns to prose, and throughout drops again at
intervals into poetry in a friendly way like Mr. Wegg. Now
this is a form of writing not unknown in other branches of
literature, the cante-fable, of which “Aucassin et Nicolette” is
the most distinguished example. Nor is the cante-fable con-
fined to France. Many of the heroic verses of the Arabs con-
tained in the Hamâsa would be unintelligible without ac-
companying narrative, which is nowadays preserved in the
commentary. The verses imbedded in the Arabian Nights
give them something of the character of a cante-fable, and
the same may be said of the Indian and Persian story-books,
though the verse is usually of a sententious and moral kind,
as in the gâthas of the Buddhist Jatakas. Even as remote as
Zanzibar, Mr. Lang notes, the folk-tales are told as cante-
fables. There are even traces in the Old Testament of such
screeds of verse amid the prose narrative, as in the story of
Lamech or that of Balaam. All this suggests that this is a very
early and common form of narrative.
Among folk-tales there are still many traces of the cante-
fable. Thus, in Grimm’s collection, verses occur in Nos. 1, 5,
11, 12, 13, 15, 19, 21, 24, 28, 30, 36, 38a, b, 39a, 40, 45,
46, 47, out of the first fifty tales, 36 per cent. Of Chambers’
twenty-one folk-tales, in the Popular Rhymes of Scotland only
five are without interspersed verses. Of the forty-three tales
contained in this volume, three (ix., xxix., xxxiii.) are de-
rived from ballads and do not therefore count in the present
connection. Of the remaining forty, i., iii., vii., xvi., xix.,
xxi., xxiii., xxv., xxxi., xxxv., xxxviii., xli. (made up from
verses), xliii., contain rhymed lines, while xiv., xxii., xxvi.,
and xxxvii., contain “survivals” of rhymes (“let me come in—
chinny chin-chin”; “once again ... come to Spain;” “it is not