During my long sojourns in Moldavia every now and anon I happened upon a hora of an unmistakably rollicking character — "Am un leu" is a shining example of these exceptions to the rule — but on inquiring carefully into the origin of these cheerful airs I invariably found that they hailed from Transylvania, where the influence of Magyar musical joviality had been effectively brought to bear upon the languorous plaintiveness of the Roumanian melodic method.