We think of the first eight or ten centuries of the Christian era as a chasm between the ancient and the modern. But this is of course not strictly true, least of all in folk-music. In the church, indeed, music struggled slowly and painfully, surrounded by doctrine and law. But in the music, as in the customs, of the people, there was no break. The apostolic succession of song continued unbroken from the time of the Greeks to the time of Schubert. Through all the mediæval period folk-music was flourishing, growing in richness and in influence steadily up to the time when it entered art music by the back door, so to speak, stealing into the Catholic ritual. For many centuries the songs of the old world continued in the new. For the Christian era did not come all at once. It attained formal dominance when Constantine adopted it as the official religion of Rome. But it needed many centuries more before it could attain complete sway over people’s hearts. Pagan customs and pagan songs were still living and beautiful. The Christian missionaries gained their hold over the people by compromising with the past. The old festivals were not rejected in favor of the new; they were merged with the new. Thus Christmas, among the Germanic nations, was made to absorb an older festival of the turning of the sun, and the mistletoe, which had had a profound religious significance for the Pagans became one of the minor symbols of the Christian feast and continues to-day an essential part of the Yuletide festivities, as we know. And thus it was with the people’s songs. Men’s beliefs were Christianized, but men’s feelings remained Pagan. And the two existed side by side for centuries without trouble. Charlemagne ordered a collection to be made of German songs (all of Pagan origin) and did not feel that there was anything impious in his action. The Pagan was honored along with the Christian just as, some five centuries later, the Classical was honored in the Renaissance. But the millennial year was approaching, when men expected the world to end, or Christ to come and take personal charge of his Kingdom. And throughout all Christendom there arose a desire in men to make themselves perfect for the second coming. And so arose a mania for exterminating all that remained of the old world. Charlemagne’s son, Ludwig the Pious, despised the German songs his father had collected. And it was so all over Europe. In these years the last vestiges of Paganism were stamped out, except for the sweet souvenirs of it which the institution of the mistletoe and similar symbols have retained.