Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 194, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 August 1918 — CRADLE SONGS ARE ANCIENT [ARTICLE]

CRADLE SONGS ARE ANCIENT

Many Very Gid and Were Handed Down From Mouth to Mouth for Generations. Almost all popular cradle songs are very old, some of them so old that, were they not familiar, they might be considered the veriest curiosities of literature. Through all the changes of language they have held their own upon the lips and In the hearts of the people, observes a writer in Kansas City Journal. From mouth to mouth they have come down through the years with an Irresistible swing of rhythm and patter and jingle of words* till they seem to have been rather a natural growth than a human invention. In all the melodies there Is a certain likeness of rhythm with a national, I might say a temperamental, difference of movement and of meter from the slow assured major of the German to the wild plaintive minor of the Scotch, characterized by the short accented notes of the weirdness of the Hungarian with Its sudden changes. That these old songs should have embodied and retained the-characteris-tics of the people among whom they originated gives them an importance which their crude words and the elementary character of their melodies scarcely seem to warrant. The words often seem a mere meaningless jumble, the melody Is always within the easy compass of home voices. No doubt both express, in some supernally wise way, the one unalterable sentiment of maternal love. It may be that even the words of these baby songs had originally some significance they have since lost. The mother little thinks that “Bye Baby Bunting” was once a tale full of verity. To her the rabbit skin is indeed a “fairy tale,” for she much prefers dainty muslins and silks and laces. While, though, “papa” may be a mighty hunter, it is well known that the game he bags is dollars. But in that time, antedating civilization, when this song was first sung, the rabbit skin was an important part of the baby’s wardrobe. It was then that it became crystallized in song so that muslins and laces have never been able to supersede it, and it has become ohe of those incantations that set baby off on journeys of his own through dreamland. It is but one of his many illusions.