The _motifs_ of the dances and their _chansons_ must also at first have been determined by the nature of the festivals at which they took place. There were dances, no doubt, at such domestic festivals as weddings and funerals[551]. In Flanders it is still the custom to dance at the funeral of a young girl, and a very charming _chanson_ is used[552]. The development of epic poetry from the _cantilenae_ of the war-festival has been noted in a former chapter. At the agricultural festivals, the primary _motif_ is, of course, the desire for the fertility of the crops and herds. The song becomes, as in the Anglo-Saxon charm, so often referred to, practically a prayer[553]. With this, and with the use of ‘Thread the Needle’ at Châtre ‘to make the hemp grow,’ may be compared the games known to modern children, as to Gargantua, in which the operations of the farmer’s year, and in particular his prayer for his crops, are mimicked in a _ronde_[554]. Allusions to the process of the seasons, above all to the delight of the _renouveau_ in spring, would naturally also find a place in the festival songs. The words of the famous thirteenth-century lyric were perhaps written to be sung to the twinkling feet of English girls in a round. It has the necessary refrain: ‘Sumer is icumen in, Lhude sing cuccu! Groweth sed and bloweth med And springth the wdë nu, Sing cuccu! ‘Awë bleteth after lomb, Lhouth after calvë cu. Bulloc sterteth, buckë verteth, Murie sing cuccu! ‘Cuccu, cuccu, wel singës thu, cuccu; Ne swik thu naver nu. Sing cuccu nu. Sing cuccu. Sing cuccu. Sing cuccu nu!’[555] The savour of the spring is still in the English May songs, the French _maierolles_ or _calendes de mai_ and the Italian _calen di maggio_. But for the rest they have either become little but mere _quête_ songs, or else, under the influence of the priests, have taken on a Christian colouring[556]. At Oxford the ‘merry ketches’ sung by choristers on the top of Magdalen tower on May morning were replaced in the seventeenth century by the hymn now used[557]. Another very popular Mayers’ song would seem to show that the Puritans, in despair of abolishing the festival, tried to reform it. ‘Remember us poor Mayers all, And thus we do begin To lead our lives in righteousness, Or else we die in sin. ‘We have been rambling all this night, And almost all this day: And now returned back again, We have brought you a branch of May. ‘A branch of May we have brought you, And at your door it stands; It is but a sprout, but it’s well budded out, By the work of our Lord’s hands,’ &c.[558]