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dent in the song of Deborah and Barak, in Judges v: Herder ven�tures a conjecture as to the style of the performance of this musical scene; he suggests that'' probably verses i-i i were interrupted by the shouts of the populace; verses 12-17 were a picture of the battle with a naming of the leaders with praise or blame, and mimicking each one as named; verses 28-30 were mockery of the triumph of Sisera, and the last verse was given as a chorus by the whole peo�ple." That the tune must have been a familiar one there can be no manner of doubt, and the whole scene, with its extemporization, its clapping of hands to mark the rhythm, its alternation of solo and chorus, would not be very unlike the singing at some of the negro camp-meetings on the southern plantations.
Against these military folk-songs after victory, we can place the minstrel songs of early medieval times before the battle. It was the custom of the minstrel of the Middle Ages to march at the head of a cohort of soldiers, singing ballads of heroism to encourage the men-at-arms, and as he sang he tossed his spear high up in the air, or twirled his sword dexterously. Out of this old custom grew the drum major of modern times, who marches at the head of a proces�sion, twirling his long silver-knobbed baton, and having no apparent connection with the band or the parade which he precedes.
The longevity of some folk-songs and their strange metamor�phoses can scarcely be exaggerated. The well-known bacchanalian melody sung in England to the words of "He's a Jolly Good Fellow," and in America to "We Won't Go Home Till Morning," has the most variegated history of them all. Beginning in the Holy Land as a song in praise of a French crusader who lost his life near Jerusalem, the "Chanson de Mambron " took such strong root in the Orient that the melody is sung to-day in some parts of Egypt and Arabia, where they mistakenly claim it to be au old Egyptian folk-tune. The " Mambron," altered by a French queen into "Mal-brooke," gave rise to " Malbrooke s'en va-t-en Guerre," which folk�song was used by no less a composer than Beethoven, in an orches�tral work�"The Battle of Vittoria." Crossing the channel, and afterwards the ocean, the song of the old crusader became the carol of the modern rollicker.
At about the time of the first crusade the folk-song was being used in a manner which was of the utmost importance in the evo�lution of the scientific side of music; it became the core around which the earliest composers wove their counterpoint; already in the twelfth century it was customary for the musician to choose some melody familiar to the people, and to combine it with another
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