Spanish Highways and Byways

The daughters of the Moorish king
Our wedding rings shall wear.'

'Come back, my sweet señores!
Bear not so high a crest.
You may take my eldest daughter,
But leave me all the rest.'"

The dialogue is transferred to one of the suitors and to the princess at the farther end of the line, on whose head the handkerchief now rests.

"'Will you come with me, my Onion?'
'Fie! that's a kitchen smell.'
'Will you come with me, my Rosebud?'
'Ay, gardens please me well.'"

In similar fashion all the daughters are coaxed away until only the youngest remains, but she proves obdurate. They may call her Parsley or Pink; it makes no difference. So the suitors resort to bribes, the last proving irresistible.

"'We'll buy you a French missal.'
'I have a book in Latin.'
'In taffeta we'll dress you.'
'My clothes are all of satin.'
'You shall ride upon a donkey.'
'I ride in coaches here.'
'We'll give you golden ear-rings.'
'Farewell, my mother dear.'"

In some of the many variants of this game, the Queen herself, adequate as she may be to earning her own living, is wooed and won at last.

I have not met with fairy-lore among these children's carols. The only fairy known to Spain appears to be a sort of spiritualistic brownie, who tips over tables and rattles chairs in empty rooms by night. The grown-up men who write of him say he frightens women and children. He can haunt a house as effectually as an old-time ghost, and a Casa del Duende may go begging for other tenants. One poor lady, who went to all the trouble of moving to escape from him, was leaning over the balcony of her new home, – so the story goes, – to see the last cartful of furniture drive up, when a tiny man in scarlet waved a feathered cap to her from the very top of the load and called, "Yes, señora, we are all here. We have moved."

So the childish imagination of Spain, shut out from fairyland, makes friends with the saints in such innocent, familiar way as well might please even Ribera's anchorites. The adventurous small boy about to take a high jump pauses to pray: —

"Saint Magdalene,
Don't let me break my thigh!
Oh, Saint Thomas,
Help this birdie fly!"

The little girls express decided preferences for one saint over another.

"Old San Antón,
What has he done?
Put us in the corner every one.

"San Sebastián
Is a nice young man.
He takes us to walk and gives us a fan."

Santa Rita is best at finding lost needles, and San Pantaleón is a humorist.

"San Pantaleón,
Are twenty and one
Children enough for an hour of fun
Slippers of iron
Donkey must try on.
Moors with their pages
Ride in gold stages.
But if you want a
Girdle, Infanta,
Cucurucú,
'Bout-face with you!"

At this one of the children dancing in circle whirls around, remaining in her place, but with back turned to the centre and arms crossed over her breast, although her hands still hold those of her nearest neighbors. The rhyme is sung over and over, until all the little figures have thus turned about and the circle is dancing under laughable difficulties.

But the dearest saint of all is San Serení. Two of the best-known games are under his peculiar blessing. One of these is of the genuine Kindergarten type, the children dancing in a circle through the first two lines of each stanza, but then loosing hands to imitate, in time to the music, the suggested action.

"San Serení,
The holy – holy-hearted!
Thus for thee
The shoemakers are cobbling.
Thus, thus, thus!
Thus it pleases us."

Even so it pleases seamstresses to stitch, laundresses to wash, carpenters to saw, silversmiths to tap, ironsmiths to pound, and little folks to dance, all for "San Serení de la buena, buena vida." In the second game, a gymnastic exercise, whose four movements are indicated in the four stanzas, he is apostrophized as "San Serení del Monte, San Serení cortés."

"San Serení of the Mountain,
Our saint of courtesy,
I, as a good Christian,
Will fall upon my knee.

"San Serení of the Mountain,
Where the strong winds pass,
I, as a good Christian,
Will seat me on the grass.

"San Serení of the Mountain,
Where the white clouds fly,
I, as a good Christian,
Upon the ground will lie.

"San Serení of the Mountain,
Where earth and heaven meet,
I, as a good Christian,
Will spring upon my feet."

With the legend of St. Katharine and her martyrdom childish fancy has played queer caprices.

"In Cadiz was a wean – ah!
The gentlest ever seen – ah!
Her name was Catalina.
Ay, so!