[22] Supposed to denote fruitfulness. CHAPTER XXII. THE ROUMANIANS: DANCING, SONGS, MUSIC, STORIES, AND PROVERBS. The dances habitual among the Roumanians may briefly be divided into three sorts: 1. _Caluseri_ and _Batuta_, ancient traditional dances performed by men only, and often executed at fairs and public festivals. For these a fixed number of dancers is required, and a leader called the _vatav_. Each dancer is provided with a long staff, which he occasionally strikes on the ground in time to the music. 2. _Hora_ and _Breûl_, round dances executed either by both sexes or by men only. 3. _Ardeleana_, _Lugojana_, _Marnteana_, _Pe-picior_, and _Hategeana_, danced by both sexes together, and in which each man may have two or more female partners. These last-named dances rather resemble a minuet or quadrille, and are chiefly made up of a sort of swaying, balancing movement, alternately advancing and retreating, with varied modes of expression and different rates of velocity. Thus the Ardeleana is slow, the Marnteana rather quicker but still dignified, and the Pe-picior is fastest of all. Also, each separate dance has two distinct measures, as in the Scotch reel or the Hungarian _csardas_—the slow rhythm being called _domol_, or reflectively, and the fast one being danced _cu foc_, with fire. All these dances are found in different districts with varied appellations. There is also a very singular dance which I have not myself witnessed, but which is said to be sometimes performed in front of the church in order to insure a good harvest—one necessary condition of which is that the people should dance till in a state of violent perspiration, figurative of the rain which is required to make the corn grow; then the arms must be held on high for the hops to grow, wild jumps in the air for the vines, and so on, each grain and fruit having a special movement attributed to it, the dance being kept up till the dancers have to give in from sheer fatigue. The Roumanian does not say that a man is dancing with a girl, but that “he dances her,” as you would talk of spinning a top. This conveys the right impression—namely, that the man directs her dancing and disposes her attitudes, so as to show off her grace and charms to the best advantage. Thus a good dancer here does not imply a man who dances well himself, but rather one skilful at showing off two or three partners at a time. He acts, in fact, as a sort of showman to the assortment of graces under his charge, to which he calls attention by appropriate rhymes and verses. Therefore the sharpest wit rather than the nimblest legs is required for the post of _vatav flacailor_, or director of dances in the village.