enchantment born of direct contact with the forces of Nature, and the worship, fear, and propitiation of many unseen powers and divinities. A great part of the people still inhabits a region of fiery dragons and apples of gold, and with ready imagination peoples streams and woods, sea and air with spirits. December and June are connected with the birth and supremacy of the sun’s power, and paganism, thinly disguised, survives in several of the ceremonies of the Christian Church, and serves to increase the Church’s hold on the minds of the people. Both the songs and the dancing with which it was accompanied were no doubt originally religious. The movements of the dance seem to have influenced the song, so that its metre was divided by real feet. When the Archbishop of Braga, Frei Bartholomeu dos Martyres, was visiting his diocese in the sixteenth century he was met by Minhoto peasants with _danças e folias_ and with _cantigas que entoavam entre as voltas e saltos dos bailes_,[708] songs evidently similar to those in the works of Gil Vicente, with _leixapren_ and refrain (_aaxbbx_[709] or _abxbcx_).[710] The _volta_ would correspond in action to the _leixapren_[711] of the song, the _salto_ to the refrain. The origin of the refrain was perhaps the pause (preceded by a final leap into the air) made by the breathless dancers, as in the words _no penedo_ of this version of ‘The House that Jack Built’: _Quaes foram os perros que mataram os lobos que comeram as cabras que roeram o bacello que posera João preto no penedo._[712] The phrase _ver cantar_, ‘to see these songs sung’, might be defended.[713]