The rhythmic nature of folk song carries us into another field of speculation, namely, the influence of the people’s daily occupations, the close relation between daily life and song in ages when life in its individual and social manifestations could be reduced to simple formulæ. Occupational songs have from earliest times (cf. Chap. IV) been an important factor in folk music, and it is obvious that early in the Middle Ages such songs were closely associated with the movements of the human body in various occupations. Dr. Bücher[73] calls attention to the fact that the blacksmith at his anvil, the navvy in the street, are striking iambi, trochees, spondees, dactyls, and anapests. He has collected an enormous amount of folk songs that were sung by the woodman as he wielded his axe, by the boatman plying his oars, by the peasant as he plowed his acre, scattered the seed, mowed the field, and reaped the harvest. This, however, pertains particularly to Germany, where Bücher’s investigations were chiefly carried on, and whither we must now direct the reader’s attention. To trace and formulate distinctions between the folk songs of the northern and southern nations is a hazardous undertaking, since the Celtic element which so largely determines the music of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales is also present in France and Spain, and since the wars between the various races, as well as the great international movements of the Crusades, tended to modify national distinctions. All these meetings and collisions between the different nations have left traces in the songs of the individual peoples. However, northern folk song may in general be said to be simpler and more regular in outline and striving for greater continuity of design or pattern than southern. Rhythm is simpler, firmer, and less given to eccentricities. The tonality is usually clearer and minor scales seem to predominate. In the dance songs the passionate and boisterous element, characteristic of the dances of the Slavic and Latin races, is lacking. The folk song of Northern Europe draws largely upon the stock of topics held in common. Ever since Johann Gottfried Herder, in his _Stimmen der Völker in Liedern_ ('The Voices of the Peoples in Song’), called attention to the treasures of folk song, the patient research of painstaking scholars has brought forth proof upon proof to show how closely the nations of the North are related, in spite of political boundary lines and other barriers. The recurrence of the same saga or story of ancient myth or hero-lore in Scandinavian song and in German, the resemblance between the German Tannhäuser, the Swedish knight Olaf, the Scottish Thomas the Rhymer, and the Flemish Heer Daniel or Heer Halewyn, make the question of priority seem irrelevant. North and south of the Channel, and even east and west of the Rhine, the contents of legendary song are curiously alike.