[_Bibliographical Note._--The festal character of primitive dance and song is admirably brought out by R. Wallaschek, _Primitive Music_ (1893); E. Grosse, _Die Anfänge der Kunst_ (1894, French transl. 1902); Y. Hirn, _The Origins of Art_ (1900); F. B. Gummere, _The Beginnings of Poetry_ (1901). The popular element in French lyric is illustrated by A. Jeanroy, _Les Origines de la Poésie lyrique en France au Moyen Âge_ (1889), and J. Tiersot, _Histoire de la Chanson populaire en France_ (1889). Most of such English material as exists is collected in Mrs. Gomme’s _Traditional Games_ (1896-8) and G. F. Northall, _English Folk-Rhymes_ (1892). For comparative study E. Martinengo-Cesaresco, _Essays in the Study of Folk-Songs_ (1886), may be consulted. The notices of the May-game are scattered through the works mentioned in the bibliographical note to ch. vi and others.] The foregoing chapter has illustrated the remarkable variety of modes in which the instinct of play comes to find expression. But of all such the simplest and most primitive is undoubtedly the dance. Psychology discovers in the dance the most rudimentary and physical of the arts, and traces it to precisely that overflow of nervous energies shut off from their normal practical ends which constitutes play[528]. And the verdict of psychology is confirmed by philology; for in all the Germanic languages the same word signifies both ‘dance’ and ‘play,’ and in some of them it is even extended to the cognate ideas of ‘sacrifice’ or ‘festival[529]’. The dance must therefore be thought of as an essential part of all the festivals with which we have to deal. And with the dance comes song: the rhythms of motion seem to have been invariably accompanied by the rhythms of musical instruments, or of the voice, or of both combined[530].