PERFORMANCE	39
teenth century in some of its items; but the fact was probably
unknown to her, or if known, of no importance.
Though these songs were unaccompanied, Cecil Sharp had come
across one singer who used a guitar, and the use of the 'dulcimer'—
a shallow wooden box with four sound holes, three or four strings,
plucked with the fingers—has been more than once described. In
the Balkans and the Ukraine there are a number of instruments
associated with ballad-singing, such as the one-stringed 'gusle' of
Montenegro, the three-stringed Bulgarian 'gadulka', and the
Ukrainian 'bandura1 with many strings, as also wind-instruments
like the bagpipe among the Greeks. The simpler the instrument,
the more heroic the style.
A good number of English and Scottish ballads were sung only,
but others must have been danced. Even when they were merely
sung, the performance was probably more extensive than it is now in
America. A number of preliminaries are gone through by Balkan
singers before they are in the mood to commence the ballad, or
sure of the attention of the audience. The programme of a fifteenth-
century Spanish entertainment has been preserved (not that of a
ballad-singer),1 and shows that the performer began with a pious
ejaculation, then recited saws to catch attention, then burst into a bit
of the Llbro de buen Amor, then more saws, an appeal to the public for
money, &c. The opening sections of theLibro de buen Amor are them-
selves admirably adapted for recitation in the streets and squares,
and include even the appeal to the audience not to scrape their feet.
Midway between dancing and not dancing is the curious ritual
described in the Kalevala. The performance was, and is still,
accompanied by an instrument, the 'kantele'. Vainamoinen's
technique was as follows (Kirby's translation):
In his hands the harp then taking,
very near he felt his pleasure,
and the frame he turned to heaven,
on his knees the knob then propping,
all the strings he put in order,
fit to make melodious music.
When he had the strings adjusted,
then the instrument was ready;
underneath his hands he placed it,
and across his knees he laid it,
1 R. Men<§ndez Pidal, Poesia juglaresca y juglares, Madrid, 1934, pp. 462-7.