In manner, too, northern folk songs have many features in common; an instinctive simplicity of language, a freedom from obscurities and far-fetched allusions, the prevalence of a four-line strophe and alliteration and assonance which only in time yield to rhyme. The singing of the same tune to an indefinite number of lines or stanzas is common to Celtic bards, Norse skalds, and German singers, and links them to their forerunners in classical antiquity, the Greek rhapsodists. In following the outline of the poem, the melody is usually cast in lines, each closing with a cadence or 'fall’; the lines form groups or couplets, either similar or dissimilar, in the manner of rhyming verse-lines. The first couple of phrases is repeated to give the structure stability; the middle portion forms the contrast, either by being broken up into shorter lengths or founded upon different notes of the scale. The dominant in the middle cadence is of frequent occurrence. The rhythm is simple. Impressionable and receptive by nature, the German people have always been given to imitation of foreign models and there is no doubt that the international movements during the Crusades and the visits of wandering minstrels of foreign birth introduced alien elements and obliterated some of the original features of German folk song. The pathetic rise of a tune through the fifth to the minor seventh suggests Scandinavian influence; the alternation of major and relative minor may be traced to the same source. Still the German Volkslied has some traits that distinguish it from the folk song of other northern nations. It is more firmly knit, more formal, and less emotional. Unlike English song, which favors a repetition of short phrases, a single figure which, repeated on different degrees of the scale, sometimes makes up the whole tune, German folk song repeats short phrases only to establish balance after contrast or to make the essential parts of the structure correspond. There is a marked tendency to make the formal climax coincide with the emotional, but in this respect the _Volkslied_ does not reach the admirable symmetry of the Irish folk song. A distinctive form is the '_Jodel_’ or '_Jodler_’ of the mountaineers of Germany, the Tyrol, and Switzerland. Based upon broken chords or arpeggios, it suggests, as do some other folk songs built upon a harmonic foundation, that the German people had an innate sense for diatonic harmony long before harmony as such became an element of musical composition.[74] With the exception of the _Jodler_, which is unique for its exuberance of spirit, the _Volkslied_ is rather reserved and contained in manner. It reflects the serious, contemplative character and the healthy, well-poised temperament of a physically and spiritually strong race.