Presently We Came Upon Half A Dozen Sheep Nibbling Grass
In The Spray Of A Stream Of Clear Water That Sprang
From A Rock Wall A Hundred Feet High, And All At Once
Our Ears Were Startled With A Melodious "Lul ...
L ...
L l l llul-lul-LAhee-o-o-o!" pealing joyously
from a near but invisible source, and recognized that we
were hearing for the first time the famous Alpine JODEL
in its own native wilds.
And we recognized, also,
that it was that sort of quaint commingling of baritone
and falsetto which at home we call "Tyrolese warbling."
The jodeling (pronounced yOdling - emphasis on the O)
continued, and was very pleasant and inspiriting to hear.
Now the jodeler appeared - a shepherd boy of sixteen
- and in our gladness and gratitude we gave him a franc
to jodel some more. So he jodeled and we listened.
We moved on, presently, and he generously jodeled us
out of sight. After about fifteen minutes we came across
another shepherd boy who was jodeling, and gave him half
a franc to keep it up. He also jodeled us out of sight.
After that, we found a jodeler every ten minutes;
we gave the first one eight cents, the second one
six cents, the third one four, the fourth one a penny,
contributed nothing to Nos. 5, 6, and 7, and during
the remainder of the day hired the rest of the jodelers,
at a franc apiece, not to jodel any more.
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