2 PEOPLE AND POETS

The Inhabitants have a natural sense of form and a ready invention,
and they are thrown on their own resources for entertainment.
Story-telling and singing are the delight of the peasants, few of whom
(none of the good singers) know how to read or write. Schools are
few; the nearest rail-head is sometimes hundreds of miles distant;
and a vast forest zone sunders these regions from the rest of Russia.
This belt, and the rigours of their life, have saved them from the
serfdom which has cursed the easier lands to the south, preserving
their independence and initiative. The singers are men of the same
class as the listeners, but have acquired fame over wide areas for
their gifts of memory or voice. Frequently they have been special-
ized to their profession by some natural calamity, such as blind-
ness, which has lessened their usefulness in their proper trades.

Across the width of Europe and the Atlantic from these Russians
It is possible to encounter another ballad folk, of our own blood.1
The mountains of Virginia and North Carolina lie, indeed, at no
great distance from flourishing centres of American civilization,
but are scarcely less isolated than the peasants we have described.
No commercial prospects exist to entice traffic by rail and road.
The roads are few, and rough; when they peter out at some mission
school, the traveller must take to horse. A primitive cultivation
and soil erosion make the winning of livelihood a hard task; after
a severe season, famine cannot be staved off. The log-cabins lie
at distances apart, but relative prosperity confers on certain per-
sons the English title of 'squire'. There are few social services;
none maintained by the districts themselves. In such a community
old customs survive, together with traditional turns of speech and
the words and airs of old ballads. The ballads are sung unaccom-
panied, or to a 'dulcimer', and there are persons in the community
who have a superior repute for their repertoire. Transmission is
from mouth to mouth. Sometimes the words are jotted down as
an aid to memory, and note-books containing such jottings are
'ballet' books. To 'have the ballet' of a ballad is to have a written
text, but these texts are not for circulation, still less for printing.
The ballads, or £love songs' as they are called, are prized but not
praised.^ Any new jingle from the towns causes more admiration
for a while, and a certain disrepute attaches itself to love songs' in

x Described by Dorothy Scarborough, A Song Catcher in Southern Mountains
Wew York, 1937, An older account is that given in C. J. Sharp, English Folk-
S»*fi*m the Southern Appalachians, Oxford, x933. There arT'several[others.