Joan was three years old when Agincourt was lost and won. It was a far cry from upper Normandy to the province of Bar where Domrémy lay; the Meuse flowed tranquilly by, but no echoes of the English war reached it at this time. Life went peacefully on; the children, as I have said, drove the cattle to the river meadows, frolicked beside the clear stream, gathering flowers, singing the immemorial songs of France; and as evening closed, drove them home again to the farm: or they tended their sheep on the Common, or followed their pigs through the oak forest that stretched behind and above it. In the forest lurked romance and adventure, possible danger. There were wolves there; no doubt about that. There were also, most people thought, fairies, both good and bad. Near the village itself stood the great beech tree known as "the Ladies' Tree," or the "Fairies' Tree," with its fountain close by, the Fountain of the Gooseberry Bushes, where people came to be healed of various diseases. Another great tree was called "_Le Beau Mai_," and was even more mystical. Who knows from what far Druid time came the custom of dancing around its huge trunk and hanging garlands on its gnarled boughs? They were pious garlands now, dedicated to Our Lady of Domrémy; but it was whispered that the fairies still held their revels there. The lord of Bourlemont and his lady sometimes joined the dancing; had not his ancestor loved a fairy when time was, and been loved of her? They never failed to join the rustic festival that was held under the Fairy Tree on the "Sunday in Lent called _Laetere_, or _des Fontaines_." One of Joan's godmothers said she had seen the fairies: Joan never did. She hung garlands, with the other little girls; danced with them hand in hand, singing. One would like to know the songs they sang. Was one of them the quaint ditty whose opening lines head this chapter? "_Quand j'étais chez mon père, petite Jeanneton, La glin glon glon, M'envôit a la fontaine pour remplir mon cruchon!_" Or was it the story of that _vigneron_ who had a daughter whom he would give to neither poor nor rich, _lon la_, and whom he finally saw carried off by a cavalier of Hungary, "_La prit et l'importa, Sur son cheval d'Hongrie, lon la!_" A warning to selfish Papas. Or did there come to Domrémy, wandering down the Meuse as the wind wanders, some of those wild, melancholy sea-songs that the Corsairs and the fishermen sang, as they sharpened their cutlasses or drew their nets in harbor? "_Il était trois mâtelots de Grois, Embarqués sur le Saint Francois, Tra la derida la la la!_" Olivier Basselin, of Val-de-Vire, died when Joan was six years old, but his songs are alive to-day: gay little songs, called from the place of their origin "_Vaux-de-Vire_," whence the modern word _vaudeville_. Perhaps Joan and her playmates sang his songs; I do not know.