Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o'er the unbending corn and skims along the main.

When a kindergarten child, the most timid one of a group, on listening
to the telling of _The Bremen Town Musicians_, at the description of
the Donkey and the Dog coming to the Cat, sitting in the road with a
face "dismal as three rainy Sundays," chuckled with humor at the word
"dismal," it was not because she knew the meaning of the word or the
significance of "three rainy Sundays," but because the sounds of the
words and the facial expression of the story-teller conveyed the
emotional effect, which she sensed.

The connection between sound and action appears in _Little Spider's
First Web_: The Fly said, "Then I will _buzz_"; the Bee said, "Then I
will _hum_"; the Cricket said, "Then I will _chirp_"; the Ant said,
"Then I will _run_ to and fro"; the Butterfly said, "Then I will
_fly_"; and the Bird said, "Then I will _sing_." The effect is
produced here because the words selected are concrete ones which
visualize. Repetitive passages in the tales often contribute this
effect of sound upon meaning, as we find in _The Three Billy-Goats
Gruff_: "Trip, trap; trip, trap! went the bridge as the youngest
Billy-Goat Gruff came to cross the bridge." The sound of the words in
this entire tale contributes largely to the meaning. The Troll roared
and said, "Now I'm coming to gobble you up!" Usually the bits of rhyme
interspersed throughout the tales, illustrate this contribution of
sound to meaning; as in the _Three Pigs_:--

Then I'll huff,
And I'll puff,
And I'll blow your house in!

Especially is this the case in tales dignified by the cante-fable
form; such as Grimm's _Cinderella_:--

Rustle and shake yourself, dear tree,
And silver and gold throw down to me!

Or in _Little Two-Eyes_:--

Little kid, bleat,
I wish to eat!

Or in _The Little Lamb and the Little Fish_:--

Ah, my brother, in the wood
A Iamb, now I must search for food!

The suggestive power of words to convey more than they mean, is
produced, not only by the sounds contained in the words themselves,
but also largely by the arrangement of the words and by the
speech-tunes of the voice in speaking them. Kipling's _Elephant's
Child_ is a living example of the suggestive power of words. The "new,
fine question" suggests that the Elephant's Child had a habit of
asking questions which had not been rece