Sugarmouse
First Post
I'm originally from around Cologne, and started some digging and Google-Fu'ing.
At a guess, the original chant(s) would have been in a regional dialect of old German, which is akin to old (old) English. And they would have some basis in non-christian tradition, indeed.
As an oral tradition, it would also have suffered from cultural drift. :\
[Speculation, and probably not helpful, but I would also guess that the chant would have been an amalgamation from the cultural backgrounds of the European settlers in Cherryville, who would have brought across the traditions of their militia guilds that Dioltach and TheClone mentioned. Or even something left over from Hessian mercenaries after the War of Independence.]
If you can trace some of the antecedents from the town records to their points of origin (some records of genealogy should exist, hopefully) you may have more luck in finding something more specific.
At a guess, the original chant(s) would have been in a regional dialect of old German, which is akin to old (old) English. And they would have some basis in non-christian tradition, indeed.
As an oral tradition, it would also have suffered from cultural drift. :\
[Speculation, and probably not helpful, but I would also guess that the chant would have been an amalgamation from the cultural backgrounds of the European settlers in Cherryville, who would have brought across the traditions of their militia guilds that Dioltach and TheClone mentioned. Or even something left over from Hessian mercenaries after the War of Independence.]
If you can trace some of the antecedents from the town records to their points of origin (some records of genealogy should exist, hopefully) you may have more luck in finding something more specific.