mfmm
University of California • Berkeley
From the book collection of
BERTRAND H. BRONSON
bequeathed by him
or donated by his wife
Mildred S. Bronson
THE ENGLISH AND SCOTTISH
POPULAR BALLADS
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2007 with funding from
IVIicrosoft Corporation
http://www.archive.org/details/englishscottishp12chilrich
THE
ENGLISH AND SCOTTISH
POPULAR BALLADS
EDITED BY
FRANCIS JAMES CHILD
IN FIVE VOLUMES
VOLUME I
PART II
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
tEtie Kiberstiue Impress, CambriDgc
LONDON : HENRY STEVENS, SON AND STILES
<0ne ^{loujs'anb €tspk^ {Mnteii
No. £%S1
COPYRIGHT, 1884, BT F. J. CHILD
AIJi BIGHTS RESERVED
29
THE BOY AND THE MANTLE
Percy MS., p. 284. Hales & Furnivall, II, 304.
This ballad and the two which follow it
are clearly not of the same rise, and not meant
for the same ears, as those which go before.
They would come down by professional rather
than by domestic tradition, through minstrels
rather than knitters and weavers. They suit
the hall better than the bower, the tavern or
public square better than the cottage, and
would not go to the spinning-wheel at all. An
exceedingly good piece of minstrelsy ' The
Boy and the Mantle' is, too; much livelier
than most of the numerous variations on the
somewhat overhandled theme.*
Of these, as nearest related, the fabliau or
"romance" of Le Mantel Mautailli^, ' Cort
Mantel,' must be put first : Montaiglon et
Raynaud, Recueil G^n^ral des Fabliaux, III, 1,
from four manuscripts, three of the thirteenth
century, one of the fourteenth ; and previously
by Michel, from the three older manuscripts,
* After I had finished what I had to say in the way of
introduction to this ballad, there appeared the study of the
Trinkhom- and Mantelsage, by Otto Warnatsch : Der Man-
tel, Bruchstiick eines Lanzeletromans, etc., Breslau, 1883.
To this very thorough piece of work, in which the rela-
tions of the mnltiform versions of the double-branched story
are investigated with a care that had never before been at-
tempted, I naturally have frequent occasion to refer, and by
its help I have supph'ed some of my deficiencies, indicating
always the place by the author's name.
t The Bibliotheqne des Romans, 1777, Fcvrier, pp. 112-
115, gives an abstract of a small printed piece in prose, there
assigned to the beginning of the sixteenth century, which,
as Warnatsch observes, p. 72, must have been a different
thing from the tale given by Legrand, inasmnch as it brings
in Lancelot and Gawain as suppressing the jests of Kay and
Dinadam.
} The custom of Arthur not to eat till he had heard of
some adventure or strange news was confined to those days
when he held full court, according to Perceval le Gallois, II,
217, 15,664-71, and the Roman de Perceval, fol. Ixxviii.
It is mentioned, with the same limitations, I suppose, in the
Roman de Lancelot, III, fol. Ixxxii, and we learn from this
33
in Wolf, Ueber die Lais, p. 324. A rendering
of the fabliau in prose, existing in a single
manuscript, was several times printed in the
sixteenth century : given in Legrand, ed. Re-
nouard, I, 126, and before, somewhat modern-
ized, by Caylus, ' Les Manteaux,' CEuvres Ba-
dines, VI, 435.t
The story in ' Cort Mantel' goes thus. Ar-
thur was holding full court at Pentecost, never
more splendidly. Not only kings, dukes, and
counts were there, but the attendance of all
yoimg bachelors had been commanded, and he
that had a bele amie was to bring her. The
court assembled on Saturday, and on Sunday
all the world went to church. After service
the queen took the ladies to her apartments,
till dinner should be ready. But it was Ar-
thur's wont not to dine that day until he had
had or heard-of some adventure ; | dinner was
kept waiting ; and it was therefore with great
last romance, I, fol. xxxvi, that Arthur was accustomed to
hold a court and wear his crown five times in the year, at
Easter, Ascension-day, Pentecost, All Saints, and Christmas.
The Roman de Merlin, II, \y\^, or, as cited by Southey,
II, 48, 49, says that " King Arthur, after his first dinner at
Logres, when he brought home his bride, made a vow that
while he wore a crown he never would seat himself at table
till some adventure had occurred." In Malory's King Ar-
thur, Kay reminds the king that this had been the old cus-
tom of his court at Pentecost. Arthur is said to observe this
custom on Christmas, " vpon such a dere day," in Sir Ga-
wayn and the Green Knight, Madden, p. 6, vv 90-99. Me»-
sire Gaiivain says " i feste ne mangast, devant," etc., p. 2,
vv 18-21. Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival does not
limit the custom to high holidays, ed. Bartsch, I, 331, w 875-
79 ; and see Riddarasogur, Parcevals Saga, etc., ed. Kolbing,
p. 26. Neither does Wigalois, vv 247-51, or a fragment of
Daniel von Bluhenthal, Symbolse ad literatnram Teutonicam,
p. 465, cited by Benecke, Wigalois, p. 436 f, or the Fiiroe
Galians kvseSi, Kolbing, in Germania, XX, 397. See Mad-
den's Syr Gawayne, which has furnished much of this note,
pp 310-12; Southey's King Arthur, II, 203, 462. Robin
Hood imitates Arthur : see the b^inuiug of the Little Gest.
258
29. THE BOY AND THE MANTLE
satisfaction that the knights saw a handsome
and courteous varlet arrive, who must certainly
bring news ; news that was not to be good to
all, though some would be pleased (cf. stanza
5 of the ballad). A maid had sent him from
a Tery distant country to ask a boon of the
king. He was not to name the boon or the
lady till he had the king's promise ; but what
he asked was no harm. The king having
said that he would grant what was asked,
the varlet took from a bag a beautiful mantle,
of fairy workmanship. This mantle would fit
no dame or damsel who had in any way mis-
behaved towards husband or lover ; it would
be too short or too long ; and the boon was
that the king should require all the ladies of
the court to put it on.
The ladies were still waiting dinner, un-
conscious of what was coming. Gawain was
sent to require their presence, and he simply
told them that the magnificent mantle was to
be given to the one it best fitted. The king
repeated the assurance, and the queen, who
wished much to win the mantle, was tlie first
to try it on. It proved too short. Ywain sug-
gested that a young lady who stood near the
queen should try. This she readily did, and
what was short before was shorter still. Kay,
who had been making his comments unguard-
edly, now divulged the secret, and after that
nobody cared to have to do with the mantle.
The king said. We may as well give it back ;
but the varlet insisted on having the king's
promise. There was general consternation
and bad humor.
Kay called his mistress, and very confi-
dently urged her to put on the mantle. She
demurred, on the ground that she might give
offence by forwardness ; but this roused sus-
picion in Kay, and she had no resource but
to go on. The mantle was again lamentably
short. Bruns and Ydier let loose some gibes.
Kay bade them wait ; he had hopes for them.
Gawain's amie next underwent the test, then
Ywain's, then Perceval's. Still a sad disap-
pointment. Many were the curses on the man-
tle that would fit nobody, and on him that
brought it. Kay takes the unlucky ladies,
one after the other, to sit with his mistress.
At this juncture Kay proposes that they
shall have dinner, and continue the experi-
ment by and by. The varlet is relentless ;
but Kay has the pleasure of seeing Ydier dis-
comfited. And so they go. on through the
whole court, till the vai'let says that he fears
he shall be obliged to carry his mantle away
with him. But first let the chambers be
searched ; some one may be in hiding who
may save the credit of the court. The king
orders a search, and they find one lady, not
in hiding, but in her bed, because she is not
well. Being told that she must come, she
presents herself as soon as she can dress,
greatly to the vexation of her lover, whose
name is Carados Briebras. The varlet ex-
plains to her the quality of the mantle, and
Carados, in verses very honorable to his heart,
begs that she will not put it on if she has
any misgivings.* The lady says very meekly
that she dare not boast being better than other
people, but, if it so please her lord, she will
willingly don the mantle. This she does, and
in sight of all the barons it is neither too short
nor too long. " It was well we sent for her,"
says the varlet. " Lady, your lover ought to
be delighted. I have carried this mantle to
many courts, and of more than a thousand
who have put it on you are the only one
that has escaped disgrace. I give it to you,
and well you deserve it." The king confirms
the gift, and no one can gainsay.
A Norse prose translation of the French
fabliau was executed by order of the Nor-
wegian king, Hdkon Hdkonarson, whose reign
covers the years 1217-63. Of this translation,
' Mottuls Saga,' a fragment has come down
which is as old as 1300 ; there are also por-
tions of a manuscript which is assigned to
about 1400, and two transcripts of this latter,
made when it was complete, besides other less
• • Qnar je vons aim tant bonement,
Que je ne voudroie savoir
Vostrc mesfet por nul avoir.
Miex en venil je estre en dontance.
For tot le royaume de France,
N'en voudroie je estre cert ;
Quar qui sa bone amie pert
Molt a perdu, ce m'est avis.' 818-25.
29. THE BOY AND THE MANTLE
259
important copies. This translation, -which is
reasonably close and was made from a good
exemplar, has been most excellently edited by
Messrs Cederschiold and Wulff, Versions nor-
diques du Fabliau Le Mantel MautailliiS, Lund,
1877, p. 1.* It presents no divergences from
the story as just given which are material
here.
Not so with the ' Skikkju Rimur,' or Man-
tle Rhymes, an Icelandic composition of the
fifteenth century, in three parts, embracing
in all one hundred and eighty-five four-line
stanzas : Cederschiold and Wulff, p. 51. In
these the story is told with additions, which
occur partially in our ballad. The mantle is
of white velvet. Three elf-women had been
not less than fifteen years in weaving it, and
it seemed both yellow and gray, green and
black, red and blue : n, 22, 23, 26. Our Eng-
lish minstrel describes these variations of color
as occurring after Guenever had put the man-
tle on : stanzas 11, 12. Again, there are
among the Pentecostal guests a king and
queen of Dwarf Land ; a beardless king of
Small-Maids Land, with a queen eight years
old ; and a King Felix, three hundred years
old, with a beard to the crotch, and a wife, tall
and fat, to whom he has been two centuries
married, — all these severally attended by
generous retinues of pigmies, juveniles, and
seniors : I, 28-35 ; m, 41. Felix is of course
the prototype of the old knight pattering over
a creed in stanzas 21-24 of the ballad, and he
will have his representative in several other
pieces presently to be spoken of. In the end
Arthur sends all the ladies from his court in
* See also Brynjulfsson, Saga af Tristram ok Isond, samt
Mottuls Saga, Udtog, pp 318-26, Copenhagen, 1878. There
V is a general presumption that the larger part of the works
translated for King Hakon were derired from England.
C. & W., p. 47.
t That is, the current 'one. The Samson saga professes
to supply the earlier history. Samson's father is another
Arthur, king of England. An abstract of so much of the
saga as pertains to the Mantle is given by Cederschiold and
WnlflF, p. 90 f. Warnatsch, p. 73 f, shows that the Ri'mur
and Samson had probably a common source, independent of
the Mottnlssaga.
t By Warnatsch, who gives the text with the correspond-
ing passages of the fabliau in a parallel column, pp 8-54 :
the argument for Heinrich's authorship, pp 85-105. ' Der
Mantel ' had been previously printed in Haupt and Hoff-
disgrace, and his knights to the wars ; we will
get better wives, he says : III, 74, 75.
The land of Small-Maids and the long-lived
race are mentioned in a brief geographical
chapter (the thirteenth) of that singular gal-
limaufry the saga of Samson the Fair, but not
in connection with a probation by the mantle,
though this saga has appropriated portions of
the story. Here the mantle is one which four
fairies have worked at for eighteen years, as a
penalty for stealing from the fleece of a very
remarkable ram ; and it is of this same fleece,
described as being of all hues, gold, silk, ok
kolors, that the mantle is woven. It would
hold off from an unchaste woman and fall off
from a thief. Quintalin, to ransom his life,
undertakes to get the mantle for Samson. Its
virtue is tried at two weddings, the second
being Samson's ; and on this last occasion Val-
entina, Samson's bride, is the only woman who
can put it on. The mantle is given to Valen-
tina, as in the fabliau to Carados's wife, but
nevertheless we ^hear later of its being pre-
sented by Samson to another lady, who, a
good while after, was robbed of the same by
a pirate, and the mantle carried to Africa.
From Africa it was sent to our Arthur by a
lady named Elida, " and hence the saga of the
mantle." f Bjorner, Nordiska Kampa Dater,
cc 12, 14, 15, 21, 22, 24.
There is also an incomplete German ver-
sion of the fabliau, now credibly shown to be
the work of Heinrich von dem Tiirlin, dating/
from the earliest years of the thirteenth cen-1 '
tury.J Though the author has dealt freely
with his original, there are indications that
mann's Altdeutsche Blatter, 11, 217, and by MullenhoflF in
his Altdentsche Sprachproben, p. 125. Of this poem, which
Warnatsch, pp 105-1 10, holds to be a fragment of a lost
romance of Lanzelet, written before the ' Crone,' only 994
verses are left. Deducting about a hundred of introduction,
there are some 782 German against some 314 French verses,
an excess which is owing, no doubt, largely to insertions
and expansions on the part of Heinrich, but in some measure
to the existing texts of the fabliau having suffered abridg-
ment. The whole matter of the church service, with the
going and coming, is dispatched in less than a dozen verses
in the French, but occupies more than seventy in German,
and just here we read in the French :
Ci ne vueil je plus demorer,
Ni de noient fere lone conte,
Si con I'estoire le raconte.
260
29. THE BOY AND THE MANTLE
this, like the Mottulssaga, was founded upon
some version of the fabliau -which is not now
extant. One of these is an agreement be-
tween vv 574-6 and the sixth stanza of our
ballad. The mantle, in English, is enclosed
between two nut-shells ; * in German, the bag
from which it is taken is hardly a span wide.
In the Mottulssaga, p. 9, 1. 6, the mantle
comes from a puss, a small bag hanging on
the belt ; in Ulrich von Zatzikhoven's Lan-
zelet, from ein maezigez teschelin, and in the
latter case the mantle instantaneously expands
to full size (Warnatsch) ; it is also of all
colors known to man, vv 5807-19. Again,
when Guenever had put on the mantle, st. 10
of our ballad, " it was from the top to the toe
as sheeres had itt shread." So in ' Der Man-
tel,' vv 732, 733 :
Unde [= unten] het man in zerizzen,
Oder mit mezzern zesnitten.f
The Lanzelet of Ulrich von Zatzikhoven,
dating from the first years of the thirteenth
century, with peculiarities of detail and a
partially new set of names, presents the out-
line of the same story. A sea-fairy sends a
maid to Arthur with a magnificent gift, which
But possibly the last verse should be taken with what fol-
lows.
* In Hahn, Griechische Marchen, No 70, II, 60 f, a walnut
contains a dress with the earth and its flowers disi)layed on
it, an almond one with the heaven and its stars, a hazel-nut
one with the sea and its fishes. No 7, I, 99, a walnut con-
tains a complete costume exhibiting heaven with its stars, a
hazel-nut another with the sea and its waves. No 67, II,
33, an almond encloses a woman's dress with heaven and
its stars on it, a hazel-nut a suit for her husband. In the
Grimms' No 113, three walnuts contain successively each a
finer dress than the other, II, 142 f, ed. 1857. There are
three similar nuts in Haltrich, No 43, and in Volksmarchen
aus Venetien, Jahrbuch fiir r. u. e. Lit., VII, 249, No 12.
Ulrich's mantle is worked with all manner of beasts, birds,
and sea monsters, on earth or under, and betwixt earth and
heaven : Lanzelet, 5820-27.
t I cite the text according to Warnatsch. Warnatsch
thinks it worth noticing that it is the queen only, in Mantel
771 f, as in our ballad, st. 14, that curses the maker of the
mantle; not, as in the fabliau, the gentlemen whose feelings
were so much tried. These, like the queen in the ballad, ont
maudit le mantel, et celui qui li aporta.
} Not even for Ginovere hiibsch unde guot, or Enite diu
reine. The queen has always been heedful of her acts, and
has never done anything wrong : doch ist siu an den ge-
denken missevarn. Heaven knows how. Ulrich is very feeble
here.
is, however, conditioned upon his granting a
boon. Arthur assents, and the maid takes,
from a small bag which she wears at her gir-
dle, a mantle, which is of all colors that man
ever saw or heard of, and is worked with
every manner of beast, fowl, and strange fish.
The king's promise obliges him to make all
the court ladies don the mantle, she to have it
whom it pei-fectly fits. More than two hun-
dred try, and there is no absolute fit.:]: But
Iblis, Lanzelet's wife, is not present : she is
languishing on account of his absence on a
dangerous adventure. She is sent for, and by
general agreement the mantle is, on her, the
best-fitting garment woman ever wore. Ed.
Hahn, vv 5746-6135.
The adventure of the Mantle is very briefly
reported to Gawain, when on his way with
Ydain to Arthur, by a youth who had just
come from the court, in terms entirely accord-
ing with the French fabliau, in Messire Gau-
vain, ou La Vengeance de Raguidel, by the
trouvere Raoul, ed. Hippeau, p. 135 ff, vv
3906-55, and in the Dutch Lancelot, ed.
Jonckbloet, Part IL p. 85, vv 12,500-527,
poems of the thirteenth century. The one
lady whom the mantle fits is in the latter
A remark is here in place which will be still more appli-
cable to some of the tests that are to be spoken of further
on. Both the French fabliau and the English ballad give to
the luantle the power of detecting the woman that has once
done amiss, a de rien messerre. We naturally suppose that
we understand what is meant. The trial in the fabliau is
so conducted as to confirm our original conception of the
nature of the inquest, and so it is, in the case of Arthur's
queen, Kay's lady, and the old knight's wife, in the ballad.
But when we come to the charmingly pretty passage about
Cradock's wife, what are we to think 1 Is the mantle in a
teasing mood, or is it exhibiting its real quality ? If once
to have kissed Cradock's mouth before marriage is once
to have done amiss, Heaven keep our Mirandas and our Per-
ditas, and Heaven forgive our Juliets and our Rosalinds !
(" Les dames et demoiselles, pour etre baisees devant leur
noces, il n'est pas la coutume de France," we know, but
this nice custom could hardly have had sway in England.
Is then this passage rendered from something in French that
is lost?) But the mantle, in the ballad, after indulging its
humor or its captiousness for a moment, does Cradock's wife
full justice. The mantle. It uncompromising as to acts, at
least does not assume to bring thoughts under its jurisdic-
tion. Many of the probations allow themselves this range,
and as no definite idea is given of what is charged, no one
need be shocked, or perhaps disturbed, by the number of
convictions. The satire loses zest, and the moral effect is
not improved.
29. THE BOY AND THE MANTLE
261
Carados vrindinne, in the other Famie Car-
aduel Briefbras.
The Scalachronica, by Sir Thomas Gray of
Heton, a chronicle of England and Scotland,
1066-1362, begun in 1355, gives the analysis
of many romances, and that of the adventure
of the Mantle in this form. There was sent
to Arthur's court the mantle of Karodes,
■which was of such virtue that it would fit no
woman who was not willing that her husband
should know both her act and her thought.*
This was the occasion of much mirth, for the
mantle was either too short, or too long, or
too tight, for all the ladies except Karodes'
wife. And it was said that this mantle was
sent by the father of Karodes, a magician, to
prove the goodness of his son's wife.f
Two fifteenth-century German versions of
the Mantle story give it a shape of their own.
In Fastnachtspiele aus dem fiinfzehnten Jahr-
hundert, II, 665, No 81, ' Der Luneten Man-
tel,' the amiable Lunet, so well and favorably
known in romances, takes the place of the
English boy and French varlet. The story
has the usual course. The mantle is unsuc-
cessfully tried by Arthur's queen, by the wife
of the Greek emperor, and by the queen of
Lorraine. The king of Spain, who announces
himself as the oldest man present, is willing
to excuse his wife, who is the youngest of the
royal ladies. She says. If we lack lands and
gold, " so sei wir doch an eren reich," offers
herself to the test with the feai'lessness of in-
nocence, and comes off clear, to the delight of
her aged spouse. A meistergesang, Bruns,
Beitrage zur kritischen Bearbeitung alter
Handschriften, p. 143,| ' Lanethen Mantel,'
again awards the prize to the young wife of
a very old knight. Laneth, a clean maid,
who is Arthur's niece, having made hei-self
poor by her bounty, is cast off by her uncle's
wife and accused of loose behavior. She
makes her trouble known to a dwarf, a good
friend of her father's, and receives from him a
mantle to take to Arthur's court : if anybody
huffs her, she is to put it to use. The queen
opens upon Laneth, as soon as she appears,
with language not unlike that which she em-
ploys of Cradock's wife in stanzas 83, 34 of
the ballad. The mantle is offered to any lady
that it will fit. In front it comes to the
queen's knee, and it drags on the ground be-
hind. Three hundred and fifty knights' la-
dies fare as ill as the sovereign. §
The Dean of Lismore's collection of Gaelic
poetry, made in the early part of the sixteenth
century, contains a ballad, obscure in places,
but clearly presenting the outlines of the Eng-
lish ballad or French fabliau. || Finn, Diar-
maid, and four other heroes are drinking, with
their six wives. The women take too much,
and fall to boasting of their chastity. While
they are so engaged, a maid approaches who is
clad in a seamless robe of pure white. She sits
down by Finn, and he asks her what is the
virtue of the garment. She replies that her
seamless robe will completely cover none but
the spotless wife. Conan, a sort of Kay, says.
Give it to my wife at once, that we may learn
the truth of what they have been saying.
* Nul ferame que [ne] vouloit lesser sauoir k soun marry
soon fet et pense. T. Wright, in Archseologia Cambrensis,
January, 1863, p. 10. Mr Wright gives one of the texts of
Cort Mantel, with an English translation. We are further
told, in Scalachronica, that this mantle was afterwards made
into a chasuble, and that it is " to this day " preser%-ed at
Glastonbury. Three versions of the fabliau testify that
Carados and his amie deposited the mantle in a Welsh ab-
bey. The Skikkjn Rimur say that the lady presented it to
the cloister of Cologne ; the Mottulssaga has simply a mon-
astery (and, indeed, the mantle, as described by some, must
have had a vocation that way from the beginning). " Item,
in the castel of Doner ye may see Gauwayn's skull and Cra-
dok's mantel : " Caxton, in his preface to Kyng Arthur,
1485, I, ii, in Southey's ed. ; cited by Michel, Tristan, II,
181, and from him by Warnatsch.
t For this enchanter see Le Livre de Karados in Perceval
le Gallois, ed. Potvin, II, llSff. It is not said in the printed
copy that he sent the mantle [horn].
X Another copy, assigned to the end of the 14th century,
from the Kolmar MS., Bartsch, p. 373, No Lxix (War-
natsch).
§ Warnatsch shows, p. 75 f, that the fastnachtspiel must
have been made up in part from some version of the Mantle
story which was also the source of the meisterlied, and in
part from a meisterlied of the Horn, which will be men-
tioned further on.
II The Dean of Lismore's Book, edited by Rev. Thomas
M'Lauchlan, p. 72 of the translation, |^ of the original. Re-
peated in Campbell's Heroic Gaelic Ballads, p. 138 f, ' The
Maid of the White Mantle.' Mr Campbell remarks : " This
ballad, or the story of it, is known in Irish writings. It is
not remembered in Scotland now." Mr Wright cites this
poem, Archseologia Cambrensis, p. 14 f, 39 f.
262
29. THE BOY AND THE MANTLE
The robe shrinks into folds, and Conan is so
angry that he seizes his spear and kills his
■wife.* Diarmaid's wife tries, and the robe
clings about her hair ; Oscar's, and it does not
reach to her middle ; Maighinis, Finn's wife,
and it folds around her ears. MacRea's wife
only is completely covered. The ' daughter
of Deirg,' certainly a wife of Finn, and here
seemingly to be identified with Maigliinis,
claims the robe : she has done nothing to be
ashamed of; she has erred only with Finn.
Finn curses her and womankind, " because of
her who came that day."
The probation by the Horn runs parallel
with that by the Mantle, with which it is
combined in the English ballad. Whether
this or that is the anterior creation it is not
possible to say, though the ' Lai du Cora ' is,
beyond question, as Ferdinand Wolf held, of a
more original stamp, fresher and more in the
popular vein than the fabliau of the Mantle, as
we have it.f The ' Lai du Corn,' preserved in
a single not very early manuscript (Digby 86,
Bodleian Library, " of the second half of the
thirteenth or beginning of the fourteenth cen-
tury "), may well belong, where Wolf puts it,
in the middle of the twelfth. Robert Bikez,
the jongleur who composed it, attributes the
first authoi-ship to " Garadue," the hero, and
says that he himself derived the story from
the oral communication of an abb^. Arthur
has assembled thirty thousand knights at a
feast at Pentecost, and each of them is paired
with a lady. Before dinner there arrives a don-
zel, with an ivory horn adorned with four gold
bands and rich jewels. This horn has been
sent Arthur by Mangounz, king of Moraine.
The youth is told to take his place before the
king, who promises to knight him after din-
ner and give him a handsome present the next
day; but he laughingly excuses himself, on
the ground that it is not proper for a squire to
eat at a knight's table, and retires. Arthur
sees that there is an inscription on the horn,
and desires that his "chapelein" may read it.
Everybody is eager to hear, but some repent
afterwards. The horn was made by a fairy,
who endued it with this quality, that no man
should drink of it without spilling, if his wife
had not been true in act and thought. Even
the queen hung her head, and so did all the
barons that had wives. The maids jested, and
looked at their lovers with " Now we shall
see." Arthur was offended, but ordered Kay
to fill. The king drank and spilled ; seized a
knife, and was about to strike the queen, but
was withheld by his knights. Gawain gal-
lantly came to the queen's vindication. " Be
not such a churl," he said, " for there is no
married woman but has her foolish thought."
The queen demanded an ordeal by fire : if a
hair of her were burned, she would be torn by
horses. She confessed that the horn was in
so far right that she had once given a ring
to a youth who had killed a giant that had
accused Gawain of treason, etc. She thought
this youth would be a desirable addition to the
court. Arthur was not convinced : he would
make everybody try the horn now, king, duke,
and count, for he would not be the only one to
be shamed. Eleven kings, thirty counts, all
who essay, spill : they are very angry, and bid
the devil take him who brought and him who
sent the horn. When Arthur saw this, he be-
gan to laugh : he regarded the horn as a great
present, he said, and he would part with it to
nobody except the man that could drink out of
it. The queen blushed so prettily that he kissed
her three times, and asked her pardon for his
bad humor. The queen said. Let everybody
* Cf. Arthur in the Lai du Com and Fraw Tristerat
Horn, a little further on.
t Wolf at first speaks of the lai as being made over into
the fabliau, in regular court style, ganz nach hcifischer Weise,
about the middle of the I3th century ; then goes on to say
that even if the author of the fabliau followed another ver-
sion of the story, he must have known the jongleur's poem,
because he has repeated some of the introductory lines of
the lai. This excellent scholar happened, for once, not to
observe that the first fourteen lines of the lai, excepting the
fourth, which is questionable, are in a longer metre than the
rest of the poem, in eights and sevens, not sixes, and the
first three of the lai, which agree with the first three of the
fabliau, in the eight-syllable verse of the latter ; so that it
was not the author of the fabliau that borrowed. Warnatsch
(who has also made this last remark) has noted other agree-
ments between lai and fabliau, p. 61. Both of these ac-
knowledge their derivation from an earlier dit, estoire, not
having which we shall find it hard to determine by which
and from what the borrowing was done.
39. THE BOY AND THE MANTLE
263
take the horn, small and great. There was a
knight who was the happiest man in all the
court, the least a braggart, the most mannerly,
and the most redoubtable after Gawain. His
name was Garadue, and he had a wife, mout
leal, who was a fairy for beauty, and surpassed
by none but the queen. Garadue looked at
her. She did not change color. " Drink," she
said ; " indeed, you are at fault to hesitate."
She would never have husband but him : for
a woman should be a dove, and accept no sec-
ond mate. Garadue was naturally very much
pleased : he sprang to his feet, took the horn»
and, crying Wassail ! to the king, drank out
every drop. Arthur presented him with Ciren-
cester, and, for his wife's sake, with the horn,
which was exhibited there on great days.
The romance of Perceval le Gallois, by
Chrestien de Troyes and others (second half
of the twelfth century), describes Arthur,
like the fabliau, as putting off dinner till he
should hear of some sti'ange news or adven-
ture. A knight rides into the hall, with an
ivory horn, gold-banded and richly jewelled,
hanging from his neck, and presents it to the
king. Have it filled with pure water, says
the bearer, and the water will turn to the best
wine in the world, enough for all who are
present. " A rich present I " exclaims Kay.
But no knight whose wife or love has be-
trayed him shall drink without spilling. " Or
empire vostre pr^sens," says Kay. The king
has the horn filled, and does not heed Guen-
ever, who begs him not to drink, for it is
some enchantment, to shame honest folk.
" Then I pray God," says the queen, " that if
you try to drink you may be wet." The king
essays to drink, and Guenever has her prayer.
Kay has the same luck, and all the knights,*
till the horn comes to Carados (Brisie-Bras).
Carados, as in the lai, hesitates ; his wife
(Guinon, Guimer) looks at him, and says,
Drink ! He spills not a drop. Guenever and
* Montpellier MS.
t Perceval exhibits agreements, both as to phrase and
matter, now with the lai, now with the fabliau, and this
phenomenon will occur again and again. This suggests the
likelihood of a source which combined traits of both lai and
fabliau : Warnatsch, pp 62-64.
i So amended by Zingerle from Sjrmeyer lant. A third
many a dame hate nothing so much as her.
Perceval le Gallois, ed. Potvin, II, 216 ff,
vv 1.5,640-767. t
The story of ' Le Livre de Carados,' in Per-
ceval, is given in abridgment by the author
of Le Roman du Renard contrefait, writing
in the second half of the fourteenth century :
Tarb^, Pontes de Champagne ant^rieurs au
siecle de Francjois I", Histoire de Quarados
Brun-Bras, p. 79 ff. The horn here becomes
a cup.
A meistergesang, entitled ' Dis ist Frauw
Tristerat Horn von Saphoien,' and found in
the same fifteenth-century manuscript as Der
Lanethen Mantel, Bruns, as before, p. 139,
preserves many features of the lai. While
Arthur is at table with seven other kings and
their wives, a damsel comes, bringing an ivory
horn, with gold letters about the rim, a pres-
ent from Frau Tristerat of Savoy. The king
sends for a clerk to read the inscription, and
declares he will begin the experiment. The
damsel prudently retires. Arthur is thoroughly
wet, and on the point of striking the queen,
but is prevented by a knight. The seven
kings then take the horn, ope after the other.
Six of them fare like Arthur. The king of
Spain looks at his wife, fearing shame. She
encourages him to drink, saying, as in the
other meistergesang, If we are poor in goods,
we are rich in honor. Arthur presents him
with the horn, and adds cities and lands. An-
other copy of this piece was printed by Zin-
gerle, in Germania, V, 101, ' Das goldene
Horn.' The queen is aus der Syrenen lant.|
A fastnachtspiel gives substantially the
same form to the story : Keller, Nachlese, No
127, p. 183. Arthur invites seven kings and
queens to his court. His wife wishes him to
ask his sister, the Queen of Cyprus, also ; but
she has offended him, and he cannot be pre-
vailed upon to do it. The Queen of Cyprus
sends the horn to Arthur by her maid as a gift
copy is cited as in the Kolmar MS., No 806, Bartsch,
Meisterlieder der Kolmarer Handschrift, p. 74 (Warnatsch).
A remarkable agreement between the French lai, 94, 97, 99-
102, and Wigamnr 2623-30 convinces Warnatsch that the
source of this meisterlied must have been a Middle High
German rendering of some form of the Drinking-horn Test
closely resembling the lai. See Warnatsch, p. 66.
264
29. THE BOY AND THE MANTLE
from a queen who is to be nameless, and in ful-
filling her charge the messenger describes her
lady simply as a sea princess. The inscrip-
tion is read aloud by one of Arthur's knights.
The King of Spain carries off the honors, and
receives in gift, besides the horn, a ducal crown,
and gold to boot. Arthur resolves that the
horn shall be forgotten, and no grudge borne
against the women, and proposes a dance,
which he leads off with his wife.*
We have Arthur joining in a dance under
nearly the same circumstances in an English
" bowrd " found in a MS. of about the middle
of the fifteenth century (Ashmolean Museum,
No 61) .The king has a bugle horn, which al-
ways stands before him, and often amuses him-
self by experimenting with it. Those who can-
not drink without spilling are set at a table
by themselves, with willow garlands on their
heads, and served with the best. Upon the oc-
casion of a visit from the Duke of Gloucester,
the king, wishing to entertain his guest with
an exhibition of the property of the liorn,
says he will try all who are present. He be-
gins himself, as he was wont to do, but this
time spills. He t^kes the mishap merrily, and
says he may ncfw join in a dance which the
" freyry " were to have after meat. ' The
Cokwolds Daunce,' Hartshorne's Ancient Met-
rical Tales, p. 209 ; Karajan, Friihlingsgabe
[Schatzgriiber], p. 17 ; Hazlitt, Remains of
Early Popular Poetry, I, SS.f
Heinrich von dem Tiirlin narrates the epi-
sode of the probation by the Horn with many
variations of his own, among them the im-
portant one of subjecting the women to the
test as well as the men.;}: In his CrQne, put
at 1200-10, a misshapen, dwarfish knight,
whose skin is overgrown with scales, riding
on a monster who is fish before and dolphin
behind, with wings on its legs, presents him-
self to Arthur on Christmas Day as an envoy
from a sea king, who offers the British mon-
arch a gift on condition of his first granting
a boon. The gift is a cup, made by a necro-
mancer of Toledo, of which no man or woman
can drink who has been false to love, and it
is to be the king's if there shall be anybody
at the court who can stand the test. The
ladies are sent for, and the messenger gives
the cup first to them. They all spill. The
knights follow, Arthur first; and he, to the
general astonishment, bears the proof, which
no one else does except the sea king's messen-
ger. Caraduz § von Caz fails with the rest.
Diu Cr6ne, ed. Scholl, vv 466-3189.
The prose Tristan confines the proof to the
women, and transfers the scene to King Mark's
court. Morgan the Fay having sent the en-
chanted horn to Arthur's court by the hands
of a damsel, to avenge herself on Guenever,
two knights who had a spite against Mark
and Tristan intercept it, and cause the
horn to be taken to King Mark, who is in-
formed that no lady that has been false to her
lord can drink of it without spilling. Yseult
* The king of Spain, who is agsun the poorest of all the
kings, p. 206, line 32, p. 214, line 22, is addressed by Arthur
as his nephew, p. 207, line U, and p. 193, line 30. Carados
is called Arthur's nephew in Perceval (he is son of Arthur's
niece), e. g. 15,782, and Carados, his father, is Carados de
Vaigne, II, 117. It is said of Kalogriis's amie in the ' Man-
tle Rhymes,' iii, 59, that many a lady looked down upon her.
This may be a chance expresbion, or jiossibly point to the
poverty which is attributed to the royal pair of Spain in
Fastnachtspiele, Nos 81, 127, and in Fran Tristerat Horn.
In Der Lanetheu Mantel, Laneth is Arthur's niece, and
poor: see p. 261.
The fastnachtspiel has points in common with the fabliau,
and the assumption of a source which combined features of
both lai arid fabliau is warrantable : Warnatsch, pp 66-68.
t This is a thoroughly dissolute piece, but not ambiguous.
It is also the most humorous of the whole series.
J Warnatsch shows that Heinrich cannot have derived
any part of his Trinkhomprobe from the Perceval of Chres-
tien, characteristic agreements with Perceval being entirely
wanting. There are agreements with the lai, many more
with the fabliau ; and Heinrich's poem, so far as it is not of
his own invention, he believes to be compounded from his
own version of the fabliau and some lost version of the Horn-
test : pp Ul-lU.
§ The principal variations of this name, of which the
Welsh Caradoc is assumed to be the original, are : Crad-
docke (English ballad) ; Carados, Caradox (Cort Mantel) ;
Karodes (Scalachronica) ; Caraduz (Cione, 2309, elsewhere)
Karadas; Carigras, Kaligras (Ri'mur) ; Karodeus, Cara-
duel (Perceval, 12,466, 12,457, 12,491, but generally), Cara-
dos, -ot, or; Caraduel (Messire Gauvain, 3943); Garadue
(Lai du Corn) ; Karadin (MiJttuls Saga). Garadue probably
= Caraduel, which, in Pcrcival twice, and once in Messire
Gauvain, is used for Carados, through confusion with Ar-
thur's residence, Carduel, Cardoil. So Karadas is twice
put in the Crone, 16,726, 16,743, for Karidol = Cardoil.
Might not Karadin have been written for Karadiu ?
29. THE BOY AND THE MANTLE
265
spills, and the king says she deserves to die.
But, fortunately or unfortunately, all the rest
of the ladies save four are found to be in
the same plight as the queen. The courtiers,
resolved to make the best of a bad matter,
declare that they have no confidence in the
probation, and the king consents to treat the
horn as a deception, and acquits his wife.*
Ariosto has introduced the magical vessel
made by Morgan the Fay for Arthur's be-
hoof f into Orlando Furioso. A gentleman
tries it on his guests for ten years, and they
all spill but Rinaldo, who declines il periglioso
saggio : canto XLH, 70-73, 97-104 ; xlhi,
6-44. Upon Ariosto's narrative La Fontaine
founded the tale and the comedy of ' La Coupe
Enchant^e,' Works ed. Moland, IV, 37, V,
361.
In a piece in the Wunderhom, I, 389, ed.
1819, called ' Die Ausgleichung,' and purport-
ing to be from oral tradition, but reading like
an imitation, or at most a reconstruction, of a
meistergesang, the cup and mantle are made
to operate conjointly : the former to convict
a king and his knights, the other a queen
and her ladies, of unfaithfulness in love. Only
the youngest of the ladies can wear the man-
tle, and only the oldest of the knights, to
whom she is espoused, can drink from the
cup. This knight, on being presented with
the cup, turns into a dwarf ; the lady, on
receiving the gift of the mantle, into a fay.
They pour a drop of wine from the cup upon
the mantle, and give the mantle to the queen,
and the cup, empty, to the king. After this,
the king and all the world can drink with-
out inconvenience, and the mantle fits every
woman. But the stain on the mantle grows
bigger every year, and the cup gives out a
hollow sound like tin ! An allegory, we may
suppose, and, so far as it is intelligible, of the
weakest sort.
Tegau Eurvron is spoken of in Welsh triads
as one of the three chaste ladies, and again
as one of the three fair ladies, of Arthur's
court.| She is called the wife of Caradawc
Vreichvras by various Welsh writers, and by
her surname of " Gold-breasted " she should be
so.§ If we may trust the author of The Welsh
Bards, Tegau was the possessor of three treas-
ures or rarities " which befitted none but her-
self," a mantle, a goblet, and a knife. The
mantle is mentioned in a triad, || and is re-
ferred to as having the variable hue attributed
to it in our ballad and elsewhere. There are
three things, says the triad, of which no man
knows the color ; the peacock's expanded tail,
the mantle of Tegau Eurvron, and the miser's
pence. Of this mantle, Jones, in whose list of
" Thirteen Rarities of Kingly Regalia " of the
Island of Britain it stands eleventh, says. No
one could put it on who had dishonored mar-
riage, nor a young damsel who had committed
incontinence ; but it would cover a chaste
* Tristan of Helie de Borron, I, 73 verso, in Rajna, Fonti
deir Orlando Furioso, p. 498 ff. So in Malory's King Ar-
thur, Southey, I, 297, Wright, H, 64. The Italian Tristan,
La Tavola Ritonda, ed. Polidori, xliii, pp 157-160, makes
686 try, of whom only 13 prove to be innocent, and those in
spite of themselves. Another account exempts 2 oat of 365 :
Nannucci, Manuale, II, 168-171.
t Dn vascUo fatto da her, qual gik, per fare accorto il sue
fratcllo del fallo di Ginevra, fe Morgana : xliii, 28 ; un hel
nappo d'or, di fuor di gemme, xlii, 98. The Orlando con-
curs with the prose Tristan as to the malice of Morgan, but
does not, with the Tristan, depart from prescription in mak-
ing the women drink. Warnatsch observes that the Orlando
agrees with the Horn Faslnachtspiel, and may with it follow
some lost version of the story : p. 69.
Before leaving these drinking-tests, mention may be made
of Oberon's gold cup, which, upon his passing his right hand
three times round it and making the sign of the cross, tills
with wine enough for all the living and tbe dead ; but no one
an drink s'il n'est preudom, et nes et purs et sans pecie
M
mortel : Huon de Bordeaux, ed. Gnessard et Grandmaison,
p. 109 f, vv 3652-69.
} The Myvyrian Archaeology of Wales, II, 13, triad 54 =
triad 103, p. 73 ; p. 17, triad 78 = triad 108, p. 73.
§ See the story in Le Li^'re de Carados, Perceval le Gal-
lois, Potvin, especially II, 214-16, vv 15,577-638. "The
Rev. Evan Evans," says Percy, Reliques, III, 349, ed. 1794,
"affirmed that the story of the Boy and the Mantle is taken
from what is related in some of the old Welsh MSS of Te-
gau Earfron, one of King Arthur's mistresses." This asper-
sion, which is even absurd, must have arisen from a misun-
derstanding on the part of the Bishop : no Welshman could
so err.
II Myvyrian Archteology, III, 247a, No 10, pointed out to
me by Professor Evans. The story of the ' Boy and the
Mantle,' says Warton, " is recorded in many manuscript
Welsh chronicles, as I learn from original letters of Llwyd,
in the Ashmolean Museum : " History of English Poetry, ed.
1871, I, 97, note 1.
266
29. THE BOY AND THE MANTLE
woman from top to toe : Welsh Bards, II, 49.
The mantle certainly seems to be identified
by what is said of its color in the (not very
ancient) triad, and so must have the property
attributed to it by Jones, but one would be
glad to have had Jones cite chapter and verse
for his description.
There is a drinking-horn among the Thir-
teen Precious Things of the Island of Britain,
which, like the conjurer's bottle of our day,
will furnish any liquor that is called for, and
a knife which will serve four-and-twenty men
at meat " all at once." How this horn and this
knife should befit none but the chaste and love-
ly Tegau, it is not easy to comprehend. Mean-
while the horn and the knife are not the prop-
erty of Cradock's wife, in the English ballad :
the horn falls to Cradock of right, and the
knife was his from the beginning. Instead of
Tegau's mantle we have in another account
a mantle of Arthur, which is the familiar
cloak that allows the wearer to see everything
without himself being seen. Not much light,
therefore, but rather considerable mist, comes
from these Welsh traditions, of very uncertain
date and significance. It may be that some-
body who had heard of the three Welsh rari-
ties, and of the mantle and horn as being two
of them, supposed that the knife must have
similar virtues with the horn and mantle,
whence its appearance in our ballad ; but no
proof has yet been given that the Welsh horn
and knife had ever a power of testing chas-
tity.*
Heinrich von dem Tiirlin, not satisfied with
testing Arthur's court first with the mantle,
and again with the horn, renews the experi-
ment with a Glove, in a couple of thousand
lines more of tedious imitation of ' Cort Man-
tel,' t Cr6ne, 22,990-24,719. This glove ren-
ders the right side of the body invisible, when
put on by man or woman free of blame, but
leaves in the other case some portion of that
side visible and bare. A great many ladies
and knights don the glove, and all have rea-
son to regret the trial except Arthur and Ga-
wain.J
There is another German imitation of the
fabliau of the mantle, in the form (1) of a
farce of the fifteenth century and (2) of a
meistergesang printed in the sixteenth. In
these there is substituted for the mantle a
Crown that exposes the infidelity of husbands.
1. " Das Vasnachtspil mit der Kron." § A
" master " has been sent to Arthur's court
with a rich crown, which the King of Abian
wishes to present to whichever king or lord it
shall fit, and it will fit only those who have
not " lost their honor." The King of Orient
begins the trial, very much against his will :
the crown turns to ram's horns. The King
of Cyprus is obliged to follow, though he says
the devil is in the crown : the crown hangs
about his neck. Appeals are made to Arthur
that the trial may now stop, so that the knights
may devote themselves to the object for which
they had come together, the service and honor
of the ladies. But here Lanet, Arthur's sister
(so she is styled), interposes, and expresses
a hope that no honors are intended the queen,
* The horn is No 4 in Jones's list, and No 3 in a manu-
scii])t of Justice Bosanquet ; the knife is 13th in Jones and
6th in the other; the mantle of invisibility is I3th in the Bo-
sanquet series, and, under the title of Arthur's veil or mask,
Ist in Jones. The mantle of Tegau Eurvron does not occur
in the Bosanquet MS. Jones sajs, " The original Welsh
account of the above regalia was transcribed from a tran-
script of Mr Edward Llwyd, the antiquary, who informs me
that he copied it from an old parchment MS. I have col-
lated this with two other MSS." Not a word of dates.
Jones's Welsh Bards, II, 47-49; Lady Charlotte Guest's
Mabinogion, II, 353-55.
Lady Charlotte Guest remarks that a boar's head in some
form appears as the armorial hearing of all ofCaradawc's
name. Thoiii;h most anxious to believe all that is i-aid of
Caradawc, I am compelled to doubt whether this goes far
to prove that he owned the knife celebrated in the ballad.
t Heinrich seeks to put his wearisome invention off on
Chrestien de Troyes. Wamatsch argues with force against
any authorship but Heinrich 's, pp 116 ff.
} Gawain had failed in the earlier trial, though he had no
fault in mind or body, except that he rated his favor with
women too high: 1996-2000.
In the first two probations a false heart is the corpus de-
licti ; something is said of carnal offences, but not very dis-
tinctly.
The scope of the glove is of the widest. It takes cogniz-
ance of rede und gedanc in maids, were und gedanc in wives,
ttigent und manheit, unztiht und zageheit, in men. One must
have known as little what one was convicted of as if one
had been in the hands of the Holy Office.
§ Fastnachtspiclc aus dem fiinfzehnten Jahrhundert,
Zweiter Theil, p. 654, No 80.
29. THE BOY AND THE MANTLE
267
for she is not worthy of them, having broken
her faith. Arthur is very angry, and says that
Lanet has by her injurious language forfeited
all her lands, and shall be expelled from
court. (Cf. Der Lanethen Mantel, p. 261.)
A knight begs the king to desist, for he who
heeds every tale that is told of his wife shall
never be easy.
2. The meistergesang ' Die Krone der Kbni-
gin von Afion.' * While his majesty of Afion
is holding a great feast, a youth enters the
hall bearing a splendid crown, which has such
chaste things in it that no king can wear it
who haunts false love. The crown had been
secretly made by order of the queen. The
king wishes to buy the crown at any price, but
the youth informs him that it is to be given
free to the man who can wear it. The king
asks the favor of being the fii'st to try the
crown : when put on his head it falls down to
his back. The King of Portugal is eager to
be next: the crown falls upon his shoulder.
The King of Holland at first refuses to put on
the crown, for there was magic in it, and it
was only meant to shame them : but he is
obliged to yield, and the crown goes to his
girdle. The King of Cyprus offers himself
to the adventure : the crown falls to his loins.
And so with eleven. But there was a " Young
Philips," King of England, who thought he
might carry off the prize. His wife was gray
and old and ugly, and quite willing, on this
account, to overlook e bisserle Falschheit, and
told him that he might spare himself. But
he would not be prevented ; so they put the
crown on him, and it fitted to a hair. This
makes an edifying pendant to ' Der Luneten
Mantel,' p. 261.
Still another imitation is the Magical Bridge
in the younger Titurel which Klingsor throws
over the Sibra. Knights and ladies assembled
at Arthur's court, if less than perfect,! on at-
tempting to ride over it are thrown off into
the water, or stumble and fall on the bridge :
ed. Hahn, p. 232 ff, st. 2337 ff. Hans Sachs
has told this story twice, with Virgil for the
magician : ed. Keller, Historia, Konig Artus
niit der ehbrecher-brugk, II, 262 ; Goedeke,
Dichtungen von Hans Sachs, I, 175. Kirchhof
follows Hans Sachs in a story in Wendun-
muth, ed. Osterley, II, 38.
Florimel's Girdle, in the fourth book of the
' Fairy Queen,' canto V, once more, is formed
on the same pattern. f
There might be further included in imitar
tions of the horn or mantle test several other
inventions which are clearly, as to form, mod-
elled on this original, but which have a dif-
ferent object : the valley from which no false
lover could escape till it had been entered by
one " qui de nulle chose auroit vers s'amie
faus^ ne mespris, ne d'euvre n^ de pens^e nS
de talent," the prose Lancelot in Jonckbloet,
II, Ixix (Warnatsch), Ferrario, Storia ed
Analisi, Lancilotto del Lago, III, 372, Le-
grand, Fabliaux, I, 166 ; the arch in Amadis,
which no man or woman can pass who has
been unfaithful to a first love, and again, the
sword which only the knight who loves his
lady best can draw, and the partly withered
garland which becomes completely fresh on
the head of the lady who best loves her hus-
band or lover, Amadis de Gaula, 1. ii, intro-
duccion, c. 1, c. 14, and ballad 1890 in Duran,
II, 665 ; the cup of congealed tears in Palmerin
of England, which liquefies in the hand of the
best knight and faithfulest lover, chapters 87-
89, II, 322 ff, ed. of London, 1807.
* From Vulpius'a Curiositiiten, II, 463, in Erlach, I, 132,
after a printed copy of the beginning of the 16th century :
WolflF, Halle der Volker, II, 243, from a Fliegendes Blatt of
the 16th century. Two copies are cited by title in Mone's
Anzeiger, VIII, 354b, No I; 378, No 165. Wolff prints
Asion.
t A man must be " clear as beryl." One of the knights
is tumbled into the water for having kissed a lady ; but this
is according to the code, for he had done it without leave.
We learn from Perceval that kissing is permissible ; marry,
not without the lady be willing. ' Die bruck zu Earidol ' is
alluded to in 'Der Spiegel,' Meister Alswert, ed. Holland u.
Keller, p. 179, tv 10-13. (Goedeke.) A man who has trans-
ferred his devotion from an earlier love to the image of a
lady shown Him in a mirror says the bridge would have
thrown him over.
t Florimel's girdle is a poor contrivance every way, and
most of all for practical purposes ; for we are told in stanza
3 that it gines the virtue of chaste love to all who wear it,
and then that whosoever contrary doth prove cannot keep it
on. But what could one expect from a cast-off girdle of
Venus 'i
268
39. THE BOY AND THE MANTLE
Besides those which have been spoken of,
not a few other criterions of chastity occur in
romantic tales.
Bed clothes and bed. ' Gil Brenton,' A, B ;
the corresponding Swedish ballad, A, B, E ;
Danish, Grundtvig, No 275 : * see pp 64, 65,
of this volume.
A stepping-stone by the bed-side. ' Vesle
Aase Gaasepige,' AsbJ0rnsen og Moe, No 29 :
see p. 66.
A chair in which no leal maiden can sit, or
will sit till bidden (?). ' Gil Brenton,' D, C.
Flowers [foliage]. 1. In the Sanskrit story
of Guhasena, the merchant's son, and Deva-
smitd, this married pair, who are to be sepa-
rated for a time, receive from Shfva each a
red lotus : if either should be unfaithful, the
lotus in the hand of the other would fade,
but not otherwise : Kathd Sarit Sdgara, ch. 13,
Tawney, I, 86, Brockhaus, I, 137. 2. In the
Tales of a Parrot, a soldier, going into ser-
vice, receives from his wife a rose [flower,
nosegay], which will keep fresh as long as
she remains true : Rosen, Tuti-nameh, from
the Turkish version, I, 109 ; Wickerhauser,
also from the Turkish, p. 57 ; Iken, p. 30,|
from the Persian of Kadiri. 3. So the knight
Margon in the French romance of Perceforest,
vol. IV, ch. 16 and 17. 4. In a Turkish tale
found in a manuscript collection called ' Joy
after ■ Sorrow,' an architect or housewright,
having to leave home for want of employment,
is presented by his wife with a bunch of ever-
green of the same property. 5. An English
stoi-y of a Wright reverts to the rose. A widow,
having nothing else to give with her daughter,
presents the bridegroom with a rose-garland,
which will hold its hue while his wife is " sta-
ble :" 'The Wright's Chaste Wife,' by Adam
of Cobsam, from a manuscript of about 1462,
ed. Fumivall.J
A shirt [mantle]. 1. In connection with
the same incidents there is substituted for the
unfading flower, in Gesta Roraanorum, 69, a
shirt. This a knight's wife gives to a car-
penter or housewright who has married her
daughter, ajid it will not need washing, will
not tear, wear, or change color, as long as both
husband and wife are faithful, but will lose all
its virtues if either is untrue. The shirt is
given by a wife to a husband in several ver-
sions of an otherwise different story. 2. In
the German meistei'gesang and the Flemish
tale Alexander of Metz : Korner, Historische
Volkslieder, p. 49, No 8 ; Goedeke, Deutsche
Dichtung im Mittelalter, 2d ed., p. 569 ff ;
' De Historia van Florentina,' etc.. Van den
Bergh, De nederlandsche Volksromans, p. 52 f .
3. In the story ' Von dem Kbnig von Spa-
nieu § und seiner Frau,' Miillenliofi:, Sagen, u.
s. w., p. 586, No 607, a wife gives the shirt to
her husband the morning after the wedding :
it will always be white until she dies, when it
will turn black, or unless she misbehaves, in
which case it will be spotted. 4. ' Die getreue
Frau,' Plonnies, in Wolf's Zeitschrift fiir
deutsche Mythologie,' II, 377. An English
princess gives her consort, a Spanish prince,
at parting, a white shirt which will not spot
as long as she is faithful. 5. ' Die treue
Frau,' Curtze, Volksiiberlieferungen aus Wal-
deck, p. 146. A merchant's son, married to a
princess, goes away for a voyage ; they change
rings and shirts, and neither shirt will soil
until one of the two shall be untrue. 6. ' Die
getreue Frau,' J. W. Wolf, Deutsche Haus-
niiirchen, at p. 102. A prince, going on a
voyage, gives his sword to his wife ; as long as
the blade is not spotted, he is faithful. He
receives from the princess a mantle ; as long
as it is white, her faith is inviolate.
A picture. For the rose, as in Perceforest,
* Nightingales in Grundtvig, No 274, A, B : see p.
64. See, also, Uhland, Zur Geschichte der Dichtung, III,
121 f.
t Neither the Sanskrit Shukasaptati nor Nakshabi's Per-
sian version, made early in the fourteenth century, has been
published. The Turkish version is said to have been made
in the second half of the next century, for Bajazet II. Ka-
diri's is probably of the seventeenth century. An English
and Persian version (Kadiri's), 1801, has the tale at p. 43;
Small's English, from a Hindustani version of Kadiri, 1875,
at p. 40.
t In the Contes k rire, p. 89, a sylph who loves a prince
gives him a flower and a vase which will blacken upon his
wife's proving unfaithful: Legrand, 1779, I, 78. I have
not seen this edition of the book, but presume that this tale
is entirely akin with the above.
§ Cf. the King of Spain, at pp. 261, 263. The agreement
may, or may not, be accidental.
29. THE BOY AND THE MANTLE
269
there is substituted, in a story otherwise es-
sentially the same, a picture. A knight, com-
pelled to leave his wife, receives from a ma-
gician a picture of her, small enough to carry
in a box about his person, which will turn
yellow if she is tempted, pale if she wavers,
black if she yields, but will otherwise pre-
serve its fresh hues : Bandello, Part I, nov.
21. This tale, translated in Painter's Pal-
ace of Pleasure, 1567 (ed. Haslewood, II, 471,
nov. 28), furnished the plot for Massinger's
' Picture,' 1630. The miniature will keep its
color as long as the woman is innocent and
unattempted, will grow yellow if she is solic-
ited but unconquered, and black if she sur-
renders : Act I, Scene 1. Bandello's story is
also the foundation of S^nec^'s tale, ' Filer le
parfait amour,' with a wax image taking the
place of the picture : Qi^uvres Choisies, ed.
Charles et Cap, p. 95.*
A ring. The picture is exchanged for a ring
in a French tale derived, and in parts almost
translated, from Bandello's : the sixth in ' Les
Faveurs et les Disgraces de 1' Amour,' etc., said
to have appeared in 1696. f A white stone
set in the ring may become yellow or black
under circumstances. Such a ring Rimnild
gave Horn Child : when the stone should grow
wan, her thoughts would have changed ; should
it grow red, she is no more a maid : see p. 192.
A father, being required to leave three daugh-
ters, gives them each such a ring in Basile,
Pentamerone, m, 4. The rings are changed
into glass distaffs in ' L'Adroite Princesse,' an
imitation of this story by Mile. Lh^ritier de
Villaudon, which has sometimes been printed
with Perrault's tales: Perrault, Contes des
Fdes, ed. Giraud, p. 239 ; Dunlop, ch. 13.
A mirror, in the History of Prince Zeyn
Alasnam, reflecting the image of a chaste
maid, wiU remain unblurred : Arabian Nights,
Scott, IV, 120, 124 ; 1001 Nacht, Habicht, VI,
146, 150 ; etc. Virgil made a mirror of like
property ; it exposed the woman that was
" new-fangle," wandelmiietic, by the ignition
of a " worm " in the glass : Meisterlieder der
Kolmarer Handschrift, Bartsch, p. 605 (War-
natsch). There is also one of these mirrors
in Primaleon, 1. ii, cap. 27 ; Rajna, Le Fonti
deir Orlando Furioso, p. 504, note 3. Alfred
de Musset, in ' Barberine,' substitutes a pocket-
mirror for the picture in Bandello, Part I, nov. f
21 : (Euvres Completes, III, 378 S.
A harp, in the hands of an image, upon
the approach of a despucellSe, plays out of
tune and breaks a string : Perceval le Gallois,
II, 149, vv 13,365-72 (Rajna, as above).
A crystal brook, in the amiral's garden in
Flor and Blancheflor, Vhen crossed by a vir-
gin remains pellucid, but in the other case be-
comes red, or turbid : ed. Du Mdril, p. 75, vv
1811-14; Bekker, Berlin Academy, XLIV,
26, vv 2069-72 ; Fleck, ed. Sommer, p. 148,
vv 4472-82 ; Swedish, ed. Kleraming, p. 38,
1122-25 ; Lower Rhine, Haupt's Zeitschrift,
XXI, 321, vv 67-62 ; Middle Greek, Bekker,
Berlin Academy, 1845, p. 165, Wagner, Me-
diaeval Greek Texts, p. 40 f, vv 1339-48 ; etc.
In the English poem, Hartshorne's Ancient
Metrical Tales, p. 93, ii a clean maid wash
her hands in the water, it remains quiet and
clear ; but if one who has lost her purity do
this, the water will yell like mad and become
red as blood.
The stone Aptor, in Wigamur, vv 1100-
21, is red to the sight of clean man or woman,
but misty to others : Von der Hagen und
Biisching, Deutsche Gedichte des Mittelalters,
p. 12 (Warnatsch).J
A statue, in an Italian ballad, moved its
eyes when young women who had sacrificed
their honor were presented to it : Ferraro,
• All these examples of the probation by flowers, shirt, or
picture are noticed in Loiseleur Deslongchamps, Essai sur
les Fables Indiennes, p. 107 S; or in Von der Hagen's G«-
sammtabenteuer, III, Ixxxivff; or in an article by Rein-
hold Kohler, of his usual excellence, in Jahrbuch fiir roman-
ische und englische Literatur, VIII, 44 fl.
t Kohler, as above, p. 60 f.
t There is a stone in the Danish Vigoleis with the Gold
Wheel which no one could approach " who was not as clean
as when he came from his mother's body." Gawain could
touch it with his hand, Arthur often sat upon it, and Vigo-
leis was found sitting on it. Nyerup, Almindelig Morskabs-
Isesning i Danmark og Norge, p. 129, a chap-book of 1732."
The stone is not quite so strict in the German Volksbuch,
Marbach, No 18, p. 13 f, Simrock, III, 432 f. In the Ger-
man romance no man less than immaculate in all respects
can touch it : Wigalois, ed. Benecke, p. 57, vv 1485-88.
270
29. THE BOY AND THE MANTLE
Canti popolari di Ferrara, Cento e Pontela-
goacuro, p. 84, ' II Conte Cagnolino.' There
was said to be a statue of Venus in Constan-
tinople which could not be approached by an
incontinent woman without a very shameful
exposure ; and again, a pillar surmounted by
four horns, which turned round three times if
any (cepara? Came up to it.* Virgil, ' Filius,'
made a brass statue which no misbehaving
woman might touch, and a vicious one re-
ceived violent blows from it : Meisterlieder
der Kolmarer Handschrift, Bartsch, p. 604,
14th century. This statue would bite off the
fingers of an adulteress if they were put in its
mouth, according to a poem of the same cen-
tury published by Bartsch in Germania, IV,
237 ; and a third version makes the statue do
this to all perjurers, agreeing in other I'espects
with the second : Kolmarer Meisterlieder, as
before, p. 338. In the two last the offence of
the wife causes a horn to grow out of the hus-
band's forehead. Much of the story in these
poems is derived from the fifteenth tale of the
Shukasaptati, where a woman offers to pass
between the legs of a statue of a Yaksha,
which only an innocent one can do : Benfey,
Pantschatantra, I, 457. f
According to a popular belief in Austria,
says J. Grimm, you jnay know a clean maid
by her being able to blow out a candle with
one puff and to light it again with another.
The phrase was known in Spain : " Matar un
candil con un sojjlo y encenderlo con otro."
Grimm adds that it is an article of popular
faith in India that a virgin can make a ball
of water, or carry water in a sieve : Rechtsal-
terthiimer, p. 932.^
An ordeal for chastity is a feature in several
of the Greek romances. In Heliodorus's ^thi-
opica, X, 8, 9, victims to be offered to the sun
and moon, who must be pure, are obliged to
mount a brazier covered with a golden grat-
ing. The soles of those who are less than
perfect are burned. Theagenes and Chariclea
experience no inconvenience. The Clitophon
and Leucippe of Achilles Tatius, Vlll, 6, 13,
14, has a cave in the grove of Diana of Ephe-
sus, in which they shut up a woman. If it is a
virgin, a delicious melody is presently heard
from a syrinx, the doors open of themselves,
and the woman comes out crowned with pine
leaves ; if not a virgin, a wail is heard, and
the woman is never seen again. There is also
a not perfectly convincing trial, by the Stygian
water, in § 12, which seems to be imitated in
the Hysmine and Hysminias of Eustathius
[Eumathius], viil, 7, xi, 17. In the temple
of Diana, at Artycomis, stands a statue of the
goddess, with bow in hand, and from about
her feet flows water like a roaring river. A
woman, crowned with laurel, being put in, she
will float quietly, if all is right; but should
she not have kept her allegiance to Dian, the
goddess bends her bow as if to shoot at her
head, which causes the culprit to duck, and
the water carries off her wreath.§
* Georgii Codini Excerpta de antiquitatibns Constantino-
politanis, in Corpus Scriptorum Historia; Byzantinse, XLV,
50 f, cited by Liebrecht, Germania, I, 264 ; De Originibus
Constantinopolitanis, cited by Liitclce, Von der Hagen's Ger-
mania, I, 252, referred to by Liebrecht : both anecdotes in
Banduri, Imperium Oricntale, Anonymus de Ant. Const, p.
35, 96, p. 57, 162. The statue again in a note of Nic. Ale-
mannus to Procopius, Arcana, 1623, p. 83: cited by Mr
Wright, ArchiEologia Cambrensis, as above, p. 17. Mr
Wright also malves mention, p. 16, of the blind dog that
quidam Andreas (evidently a merry one) was exhibiting in
the seventeenth year of Justinian, which, among other clever
performances, ostcndebat in utero habentes et foinicarios et
>adulteros et avaros et raagnanimos — omnes cum veritate :
Historia Miscella, Eyssenhardt, p. 377 f, 1. 18, c. 23; Cedre-
nus, in the Byzantine Corpus, XXXIII, 657, Theophanes, in
XXXVIII, 347 f.
t The Meisterlieder and the Indian tale are cited by War-
natsch. Yirgil's statue was circumvented by an artifice
which is employed in this tale of the Shukasaptati, and in
otlier oriental stories presumably derived from it; and so
was the well-known Bocca della Veritit, Kaiserchronik, Mass-
mann, pp 448 f. The Bocca della Verita bit off the fingers
of perjurers, but took no particular cognizance of the un-
chaste. A barley-corn [grain of wheat], again, which stood
on end when any false oath was sworn over it, Jiilg, Mon-
golische Marcheusammlung, Die Geschichte des Ardschi-
Bordschi Chan, pp 250-52, cited by Benfey, Pantschatantra,
I, 458, and referred to by Warnatsch, does not belong with
special tests of chastity.
} The phrase looks more malicious than naif, whether
Austrian or Spanish, and implies, I fear, an exsufflicate and
blown surmise about female virtue ; and so of the Indian
' Volksglaube.' The candle-test is said to be in use for men
in Silesia : Warnatsch, citing Weinhold, p. 58.
§ These are all noted in Liebrecht's Dunlop, pp 11, 16, 33.
The spring, says the author of Hysmine, served as good a
purpose for Artycomis as the Rhine did for the Celts ; refer-
39. THE BOY AND THE MANTLE
271
It is prescribed in Numbers v, 11-31, that
any man jealous of his wife may bring her to
the priest, who shall, with and after various
ceremonies, give her a bitter drink of holy
water in which dust from the floor of the tab-
ernacle has been infused. If she have tres-
passed, her body shall swell and rot. In the
Pseudo-Matthew's Gospel, ch. xii, Joseph and
Mary successively take this aquam potationis
domini. No pretender to innocence could taste
this and then make seven turns round the al-
tar, without some sign of sin appearing in the
face. The experiment shows both to be fault-
less. So, with some variation, the sixteenth
chapter of the Protevangelium of James. This
trial is the subject of one of the Coventry Mys-
teries, No 14, p. 137 ff, ed. Halliwell, and no
doubt of other scripture plays. It is naturally
introduced into Wernher's Maria, Hoffmann,
Fundgruben, II, 188, line 26 ff, and probably
into other lives of the Virgin.
Herodotus relates, n. 111, that Pheron, son
of Sesostris, after a blindness of ten years' du-
ration, received an intimation from an oracle
that he would recover his sight upon following
a certain prescription, such as we are assured
is still thought well of in Egypt in cases of
ophthalmia. For this the cooperation of a
chaste woman was indispensable. Repeatedly
balked, the king finally regained his vision,
and collecting in a town many women of whom
he had vainly hoped aid, in which number his
queen was included, he set fire to the place
and burned both it and them, and then mar-
ried the woman to whom he was so much in-
debted. (First cited in the Gentleman's Mag-
azine, 1795, vol. 65, I, 114.) The coincidence
with foregoing tales is certainly curious, but
to all appearance accidental.*
The 'Boy and the Mantle' was printed
" verbatim " from his manuscript by Percy in
the Reliques, III, 3, ed. 1765. The copy at
p. 314 is of course the same " revised and al-
tered " by Percy, but has been sometimes mis-
taken for an independent one.
Translated by Herder, I, 219 ; Bodmer, I,
18 ; Bothe, p. 59.
Percy MS., p. 284 : Hales and Furuivall, II, 304.
1 In the third day of May
to Carleile did come
A kind curteous child,
that cold much of wisdome.
2 A kirtle and a mantle
this child had vppon,
With branches and ringes
full richelye bedone.
3 He had a sate of silke,
about his middle drawne ;
Without he cold of curtesye,
he thought itt much shame.
4 ' God speed thee, King Arthur,
sitting att thy meate !
And the goodly Queene Gueneuer !
I canott her fforgett.
5 ' I teU you lords in this hall,
I hett you aU heede,
Except you be the more surer,
is you for to dread.'
6 He plucked out of his potewer,
and longer wold not dwell,
He puUed forth a pretty mantle,
betweene two nut-sheUs.
7 ' Haue thou here, King Arthure,
haue thou heere of mee ;
ring to a test of the legitimacy of children by swinging or dip-
ping them in the Rhine, which the " Celts" practiced, accord-
ing to a poem in the Anthology : Jacobs, II, 42 f, No 125 ;
Grimm, Deutsche Rechtsalterthiimer, p. 935 (Warnatsch).
* Besides sources specially referred to, there may be men-
tioned, as particularly useful for the history of these tests.
Legrand, Fabliaux, 1779, I, 60, 76-78 ; Dunlop's History of
Fiction, 1814, in many places, with Liebrecht's notes, 1851 ;
Grii:ise, Sagenkreise, 1842, pp 185-87 ; Von der Hagen's
Gesammtabenteuer, 1850, III, Ixxxiv-xc, cxxxvf.
272
29. THE BOY AND THE MANTLE
Giue itt to thy comely queene,
shapen as itt is alreadye.
8 ' Itt shall neuer become that wifEe
that hath once done amisse : '
Then euery 'knight in the 'kings court
began to care for liis.
9 Forth came dame Gueneuer,
to the mantle shee her bed ;
The ladye shee was new-fangle,
but yett shee was affrayd.
10 When shee had taken the mantle,
shee stoode as she had beene madd ;
It was from the top to the toe
as sheeres had itt shread.
11 One while was itt gaule,
another while was itt greene ;
Another while was itt wadded ;
ill itt did her beseeme.
12 Another while was it blacke,
and bore the worst hue ;
' By my troth,' qwoth 'King Arthur,
' I thinke thou be not true.*
13 Shee threw downe the mantle,
that bright was of blee,
Fast with a rudd redd
to her chamber can shee flee.
14 Shee curst the weauer and the walker
that clothe that had wrought,
And bade a vengeance on his crowne
that hither hath itt brought.
15 ' I had rather be in a wood,
vnder a greene tree,
Then in "King Arthurs court
shamed for to bee.'
16 Kay called forth his ladye,
and bade her come neere ;
Sales, ' Madam, and thou be guUtye,
I pray thee hold thee there.'
17 Forth came his ladye
shortlye and anon,
Boldlye to the mantle
then is shee gone.
18 When she had tane the mantle,
and cast it her about,
Then was shee bare
all aboue the buttocckes.
19 Then euery knight
that was in the kings court
Talked, laughed, and showted,
fuU oft att that sport.
20 Shee threw downe the mantle,
that bright was of blee,
Ffast wt'th a red rudd
to her chamber can shee flee.
21 Forth came an old knight,
pattering ore a creede.
And he preferred to this little boy
twenty markes to his meede,
22 And all the time of the Christmasse
willinglye to If eede ;
For why, this mantle might
doe his wifEe some need.
23 When shee had tane the mantle,
of cloth that was made,
Shee had no more left on her
but a tassell and a threed :
Then euery knight in the kings court
bade euill might shee speed.
24 Shee threw downe the mantle,
that bright was of blee.
And fast with a redd rudd
to her chamber can shee flee.
25 Craddocke called forth his ladye,
and bade her come in ;
Saith, ' Winne this mantle, ladye,
with a litle dinne.
26 ' Winne this mantle, ladye,
and it shalbe thine
If thou neuer did amisse
since thou wast mine.'
27 Forth came Craddockes lajlye
shortlye and anon.
But boldlye to the mantle
then is shee gone.
29. THE BOY AND THE MANTLE
273
28 When shee had tane the mantle,
and cast itt her about,
Vpp att her great toe
itt began to crinkle and erowt ;
Shee said, ' Bowe downe, mantle,
and shame me not for nought.
29 ' Once I did amisse,
I tell you certainlye.
When I kist Craddockes mouth
vnder a greene tree,
When I kist Craddockes mouth
before he marryed mee.'
30 When shee had her shreeuen,
and her sines shee had tolde,
The mantle stoode about her
right as shee wold ;
31 Seemelye of coulour,
glittering Uke gold ;
Then euery knight in Arthurs court
did her behold.
32 Then spake dame Gueneuer
to Arthur our king :
' She hath tane yonder mantle,
not with Wright but with wronge !
33 ' See you not yonder woman
that maketh her selfe soe clene ?
I haue seene tane out of her bedd
of men fiueteene ;
34 ' Preists, clarkes, and wedded men,
from her by-deene ;
Yett shee taketh tlie mantle,
and maketh her-selfe cleane ! '
35 Then spake the litle boy
that kept the mantle in hold ;
Sayes ' King, chasten thy wifEe ;
of her words shee is to bold.
36 ' Shee is a bitch and a witch,
and a whore bold ;
King, in thine owne hall
thou art a cuchold.'
37 The litle boy stoode
looking ouer a dore ;
35
He was ware of a wyld bore,
wold haue werryed a man.
38 He pulld forth a wood kniffe,
fast thither that he ran ;
He brought in the bores head,
and quitted him like a man.
39 He brought in the bores head,
and was wonderous bold ;
He said there was neuer a cucholds kniffe
came itt that cold.
40 Some rubbed their kniues
vppon a whetstone ;
Some threw them vnder the table,
and said they had none.
41 King Arthur and the child
stood looking them vpon ;
All their kniues edges
turned backe againe.
42 Craddoccke had a litle kniae
of iron and of Steele ;
He birtled the bores head
wonderous weele.
That euery knight in the kings court
had a morssell.
43 The litle boy had a home,
of red gold that ronge ;
He said, ' there was noe cuckolde
shall drinke of my home.
But he shold itt sheede,
either behind or beforne.'
44 Some shedd on their shoulder,
and some on their knee ;
He that cold not hitt his mouth
put it in his eye ;
And he that was a cuckold,
euery man might him see.
45 Craddoccke wan the home
and the bores head ;
His ladye wan the mantle
vnto her meede ;
Euerye such a louely ladye,
God send her well to speede !
274
30. KING ARTHUB AND KING CORNWALL
& is printed and, wherever it occurs.
2'. MS. might he read branches.
5". all heate. 6*. 2 nut-shells.
his wiffe.
bUed. " Query the le in the MS." Furnivall.
Perhaps the last ivord was originally tout, as
Mr T. Wright has suggested.
lauged. 21*. 20 markes.
wiUignglye.
8*.
18*
19«
22^,
33*. MS. perhaps has cleare altered to clene.
33*. fiueteeene.
371. A litle.
37". Perhaps, as Percy suggested, two lines have
dropped out after this, and the two which
follow belong with the next stanza.
40>, 41«. kiues.
41^ Arthus.
44". sone on.
30
KING ARTHUR AND KING CORNWALL
Percy MS., p. 24. Hales & Furnivall, I, 61; Madden's Syr Gawayne, p. 275.
The mutilation of the earlier pages of the
Percy manuscript leaves us in possession of
only one half of this ballad, and that half in
eight fragments, so that even the outline of the
story cannot be fully made out.* We have,
to be sure, the whole of a French poem which
must be regarded as the probable source of the
ballad, and, in view of the recklessness of the
destroyer Time, may take comfort ; for there
are few things in this kind that the Middle
Ages have bequeathed which we could not
better spare. But the losses fi'om the Eng-
lish ballad are still very i-egrettable, since
from what is in our hands we can see that the
story was treated in an original way, and so
much so that comparison does not stead us ma-
terially.
' King Arthur and King Cornwall ' is appar-
ently an imitation, or a traditional variation,
* Half a page is gone in the manuscript between ' Robin
Hood's Deatli ' and the beginning of this ballad, and again
between the end of this ballad and the beginning of ' Sir
Lionel.' 'Robin Hood's Death,' judging by another copy,
is complete within two or three stanzas, and ' Sir Lionel ' ap-
pears to lack nothing. We may suppose that quite half a
dozen stanzas are lost from both the beginning and the end
of King Arthur and King Cornwall.'
t British Museum (but now missing), King's Library, 16,
E, VIII, fol. 131, recto: " Ci comeuce le liuere cumraent
oharels de fraunce voiet in ierhtisa/em Et piir parols sa feme
a constantinnoble pur vere roy hugon." First published by
of Charlemagne's Journey to Jerusalem and
Constantinople, a chanson de geste of complete
individuality and of remarkable interest. This
all but incomparable relic exists in only a
single manuscript,! and that ill written and
not older than the end of the tiiirteenth cen-
tury, while the poem itself may be assigned to
the beginning of the twelfth, if not to the lat-
ter part of the eleventh. J Subsequently, the
story, with modifications, was introduced into
the romance of Galien, and in this setting it
occurs in three forms, two manuscript of the fif-
teenth century, and the third a printed edition
of the date 1500. These are all in prose, but
betray by metrical remains imbedded in them
their descent from a romance in verse, which
there are reasons for putting at least as early
as the beginning of the fourteenth century. §
A very little of the story, and this little
Michel, London, 1836, and lately reedited, with due care, by
Koscliwitz : Karls des Grossen Reise nach Jerusalem und
Constantinopel, Hcilbronn, 1880; 2d ed., 1883.
t See the iirgument of Gaston Paris, Romania, XI, 7 ff;
and of Koschwitz, Karl des Grossen Beise, 2te Auflage,
Einleitung, pp. xiv-xxxii.
§ Printed by Koschwitz in Sechs Bearbeitungen von Karls
des Grossen Reise, the last from a somewhat later edition,
pp. 40-133. The recovery of a metrical form of Galien is
looked for. In the view of Gaston Paris, the Pilgrimage
was made over (renouvele') at the end of the twelfth or the
beginning of the thirteenth century, and this rifacimento
30. KING ARTHUR AND KING CORNWALL
275
much changed, is found in Italian romances
of Charles's Journey to Spain and of Ogier the
Dane. The derivation from Galien is patent.*
The Journey of Charlemagne achieved great
popularity, as it needs must. It forms a sec-
tion of the Karlamagnus Saga, a prose trans-
lation into Norse of gestes of Charles and his
peers, made in the thirteenth century, and
probably for King Hdkon the Old, though
this is not expressly said, as in the case of the
' Mantle.' Through the Norwegian version
the story of Charles's journey passed into the
other Scandinavian dialects. There is a Swed-
ish version, slightly defective, existing in a
manuscript eai'lier than 1450, and known to
be older than the manusci-ipt, and a Danish
abridgment, thought to have been made from
the Swedish version, is preserved in a manu-
script dated 1480, which again is probably de-
rived from an elder. Like the ' Mantle,' the
Journey of Charlemagne is treated in Icelandic
Kimur, the oldest manuscript being put at
about 1500. These Rhymes (Geiplur, Gabs,
Japes), though their basis is the Noi'wegiau
saga, present variations from the existing man-
uscripts of this saga. There is also a Faroe
traditional ballad upon this theme, ' Geipa-t^t-
tur.' This ballad has much that is peculiar to
itself, t
Charlemagne's Journey was also turned
into Welsh in the thirteenth centnry. Three
versions are known, of which the best is in the
Red Book of Hergest. J
Let us now see what is narrated in the
French poem.
One day when Charlemagne was at St
Denis he had put on his crown and sword,
and his wife had on a most beautiful crown,
too. Charles took her by the hand, under an
olive-tree, and asked her if she had ever seen
a king to whom crown and sword were so be-
coming. The empress was so unwise as to
reply that possibly he thought too well of
himself: she knew of a king who appeared
to even better advantage when he wore his
crown. Charles angrily demanded where this
king was to be found : they would wear their
crowns together, and if the French sided with
her, well ; but if she had not spoken truth, he
would cut off her head. The empress en-
deavored to explain away what she had said :
the other king was simply richer, but not so
good a knight, etc. Cliarles bade her name
him, on her head. There being no escape, the
empress said she had heard much of Hugo, the
emperor of Greece and Constantinople. " By
my faith," said Charles, " you have made me
angry and lost my love, and are in a fair way
to lose your head, too. I will never rest till
I have seen this king."
intercalated in Galien by some rhymer of the fourteenth.
See his 'Galien,' in Hist. Litt. de la France, XXVIII, 221-
239, for all that concerns the subject.
* II Viaggio di Carlo Magno in Ispagna, pubblicato per
cure di Antonio Ceruti, c. li, II, 170: Rajna, Uggeri il
Danese nella letteratnra romanzesca degl' Italian!, Roma-
nia IV, 414 ff. A king of Portugal, of the faith of Apollo
and Alahound, takes the place of the king of Constantinople
in the former, and one Saracen or another in the several
versions of the second. G. Paris, in Romania, IX, 3, 10,
notes.
t The Norwegian version in Karlamagnas Saga ok Kappa
hans, ed. Unger, p. 466, the Seventh Fan. Both the Swed-
ish and Danish are given in Storm's Sagnkredsene om Karl
den Store, etc., Kristiania, 1874, pp. 228-245. For the
sources, see p. 160 ff. The whole of the Danish Chronicle
of Charlemagne is printed in Brandt's Romantisk Digtning
fra Middelalderen, Copenhagen, 1877, the Journey to the
Holy Land, p. 146 ff. Brandt does not admit that the Dan-
ish chronicle was translated from Swedish: p. 347. The
' Geiplur,' 968 vv, and one version of ' Geipa-tattur,' 340 vv,
are included in Koschwitz's Sechs Bearbeitungen, p. 139 ff.
p. 1 74 ff. For a discussion of them see Kolbing in Germania,
XX, 233-239, and as to the relations of the several versions,
etc., Koschwitz, in Romanische Studien, II, 1 ff, his Ueber-
lieferung und Sprache der Chanson du Voyage de Charle-
magne, and Sechs Bearbeitungen, Einleitung. The Faroe
ballad is thought to show traces in some places of Christiern
Pedersen's edition of the Danish chronicle, 1534 (Kolbing,
as above, 238, 239), or of stall prints founded on that. This
does not, however, necessarily put the ballad into the six-
teenth centnry. Might not Pedersen have had ballad au-
thority for such changes and additions as he made 1 It may
well be supposed that he had, and if what is peculiar to
Pedersen may have come from ballads, we must hesitate to
derive the ballads from Pedersen. It is, moreover, neither
strange nor unexampled that popular ballads should be af-
fected by tradition committed to print as well as by tradition
still floating in memory. The Faroe copies of 'GreveGen-
selin,' for example, as Grundtvig remarks, I, 223. note,
though undoubtedly original and independent of Danish,
evince acquaintance with Vedel's printed text.
X Given, with an English translation by Professor Rhys,
in Sechs Bearbeitungen, p. 1, p. 19.
276
30. KING ARTHUR AND KING CORNWALL
The emperor, having made his offering at St
Denis, returned to Paris, taking with liim his
twelve peers and some thousand of knights.
To these he announced that they were to ac-
company him to Jerusalem, to adore the cross
and the sepulchre, and that he would inciden-
tally look up a king that he had heard of.
They were to take with them seven hundred
camels, laden with gold and silver, and be pre-
pared for an absence of seven years.
Charlemagne gave his people a handsome
equipment, but not of arms. They left be-
hind them their lances and swords, and took
the pilgrim's staff and scrip. When they
came to a great plain it appeared that the
number was not less than eighty thousand :
but we do not have to drag this host through
the story, which concerns itself only with
Charles and his peers. They arrived at Jeru-
salem one fine day, selected their inns, and
went to the minster. Here Jesus and his
apostles had sung mass, and the chairs which
they had occupied were still there. Charles
seated himself in the middle one, his peers
on either side. A Jew came in, and, seeing
Charles, fell to trembling ; so fierce was the
countenance of the emperor that he dared
not look at it, but fled from the church to
the patriai'ch, and begged to be baptized, for
God himself and the twelve apostles were
come. The patriarch went to the church, in
procession, with his clergy. Charles rose and
made a profound salutation, the priest and
the monarch embraced, and the patriarch in-
quired who it was that had assumed to enter
that church as he had done. " Charles is my
name," was the answer. " Twelve kings have
I conquered, and I am seeking a thirteenth
whom I have heard of. I have come to Jeru-
salem to adore the cross and the sepulchre."
The patriarch proving gracious, Charles went
on to ask for relics to take home with him.
" A plentet en avrez," says the patriarch ; " St
Simeon's arm, St Lazarus's head, St Ste-
phen's— " " Thanks ! " " The sudarium, one
of the nails, the crown of thorns, the cup,
the dish, the knife, some of St Peter's beard,
some hairs from his head — " " Thanks ! "
" Some of Mary's milk, of the holy shift — "
And all these Charles received.* He stayed
four months in Jerusalem, and began the
church of St Mary. He presented the pa-
triarch with a hundred mule-loads of gold and
silver, and asked " his leave and pardon " to
return to France : but first he would find out
the king whom his wife had praised. They
take the way through Jericho to gather palms.
The relics are so strong that every stream
they come to divides before them, every blind
man receives sight, the crooked are made
straight, and the dumb speak. f On reaching
Constantinople they have ample reason to be
impressed with the magnificence of the place.
Passing twenty thousand knights, who are
playing at chess and tables, dressed in pall
and ermine, with fur cloaks training at their
feet, and three thousand damsels in equally
sumptuous attire, who are disporting with
their lovers, they come to the king, who is
at that moment taking his day at the plough,
not on foot, goad in hand, but seated most
splendidly in a chair drawn by mules, and
holding a gold wand, the plough all gold, too ;
none of this elegance, however, impairing the
straightness of his majesty's furrow. The
kings exchange greetings. Charles tells Hugo
that he is last from Jerusalem, and should be
glad to see him and his knights. Hugo makes
him free to stay a year, if he likes, unyokes
the oxen, and conducts his guests to the palace.
The palace is gorgeous in the extreme, and,
omitting other architectural details, it is cir-
cular, and so constructed as to turn like a
wheel when the wind strikes it from the west.
Charles thinks his own wealth not worth a
glove in comparison, and remembers how he
* There are some variations in the list of relics in the
other versions. The Rimur say " many," without specify-
ing.
t On the way from .Jerusalem to Constantinople the
French, according to Galien, were waylaid by several thou-
sand Saracens. Three or four of the peers prepared for a
fight, though armed only with swords (" which they never or
only most reluctantly put off," Arsenal MS.), but Charles
and the rest felt a better confidence in tlie relics, and through
the prayers of the more prudent and pious of the company
their foes were turned into rocks and stones.
30. KING ARTHUR AND KING CORNWALL
m
had threatened his wife. " Lordings," he says,
" many a palace have I seen, but none like this
had even Alexander, Constantine, or Caesar."
At that moment a strong wind arose which
set the palace in lively motion ; the emperor
was fain to sit down on the floor ; the twelve
peers were all upset, and as they lay on their
backs, with faces covered, said one to the
other, " This is a bad business : the doors are
open, and yet we can't get out!" But as
evening approached the wind subsided ; the
Franks recovered their legs, and went to sup-
per. At the table they saw the qneen and
the princess, a beautiful blonde, of whom Ol-
iver became at once enamored. After a most
royal repast, the king conducted Charles and
the twelve to a bed-chamber, in which there
were thirteen beds. It is doubtful whether
modern luxury can vie with the appointments
in any respect, and certain that we are hope-
lessly behind in one, for this room was lighted
by a carbuncle. But, again, there was one
luxury which Hugo did not allow them, and
this was privacy, even so much privacy as
thirteen can have. He had put a man in a
hollow place under a marble stair, to watch
them through a little hole.
The Franks, as it appears later, had drunk
heavily at supper, and this must be their ex-
cuse for giving themselves over, when in a
foreign country, to a usage or propensity
which they had no doubt indulged in at home,
and which is familiar in northern poetry and
saga, that of making bi'ags (gabs, Anglo-Saxon
be6t, gilp *). Chai'les began : Let Hugo arm
his best man in two hauberks and two helms,
and set him on a charger : then, if he will lend
me his sword, I will with a blow cut through
helms, hauberks, and saddle, and if I let it
have its course, the blade shall never be recov-
ered but by digging a spear's depth in the
ground. " Perdy," says the man in hiding,
" what a fool King Hugo was when he gave
you lodging ! "
Roland followed : Tell Hugo to lend me his
horn, and I will go into yon plain and blow
such a blast that not a gate or a door in all
the city shall be left standing, and a good
man Hugo will be, if he faces me, not to have
his beard burned from his face and his fur robe
carried away. Again said the man under the
stair, " What a fool was King Hugo ! "
The emperor next called upon Oliver, whose
gab was:
' Prenget li reis sa fille qui tant at blol le peil,
En sa chambre nos metet en un lit en requeit ;
Se jo n'ai testimoigne de li anuit cent feiz,
Demain perde la teste, par covent li otrei.'
" You will stop before that," said the spy ;
" great shame have you spoken."
Archbishop Turpin's brag was next in order :
it would have been more in keeping for Tur-
pin of Hounslow Heath, and we have all seen
it performed in the travelling circus. While
three of the king's best horses are running at
full speed on the plain, he will overtake and
mount the foremost, passing the others, and
will keep four big apples in constant motion
from one hand to the other ; if he lets one
fall, put out his eyes.f " A good brag this,"
is the comment of the simple scout (Vescolte'),
" and no shame to my lord."
William of Orange will take in one hand
a metal ball which thirty men have never been
able to stir, and will hurl it at the palace wall
and bring down more than forty toises of it.
" The king is a knave if he does not make
you try," says Vescolte.
The other eight gabs may be passed over,
* The lieir of a Scandinavian king, or earl, at the feast
which solemnized his accession, drank a bragnr-fuU, a chief's
cup or king's toast, to the men)ory of his father, and then
made some important vow. This he did before he took his
father's seat. The puests then made vows. The custom
seems not to have been confined to these funeral banquets.
See Vinfusson, at the word B r a g r . Charles and his peers
show their blood.
t Excepting the Welsh translation, which conforms to
the original, all other versions give Bernard's gab to Tur-
pin, and most others Turpin's to Bernard. The Danish
chronicle assigns the " grand three-horse act " to Gerard ;
the Faroe ballad omits it ; the two manuscript Galiens at-
tribute it to Bernard [Berart] de Mondidier, the printed Ga-
lien to Berenger. In these last the feat is, though enor-
mously weighted with armor, to leap over two horses and
come down on the back of the tnird so heavily as to break
his bones. There are, in one version or another, other dif-
ferences as to the feats.
278
30. KING ARTHUR AND KING CORNWALL
save one. Bernard de Brusban says, " You
see that roaring stream ? To-morrow I will
make it leave its bed, cover the fields, fill the
cellars of the city, drench the people, and drive
King Hugo into his highest tower, from which
he shall never come down without my leave."
" The man is mad," says the spy. " What a
fool King Hugo was ! As soon as morning
dawns they shall all pack."
The spy carries his report to his master
without a moment's delay. Hugo swears that
if the brags are not accomplished as made, his
guests shall lose their heads, and orders out a
hundred thousand men-at-arms to enforce his
resolution.
When the devout emperor of the west came
from mass the next morning (Hugo was evi-
dently not in a state of mind to go), he ad-
vanced to meet his brother of Constantinople,
olive branch in hand ; but Hugo called out
from far off, " Charles, why did you make me
the butt of your brags and your scorns ? " and
repeated that all must be done, or thirteen
heads would fall. Charles replied that they
had drunk a good deal of wine the night be-
fore, and that it was the custom for the French
when they had gone to bed to allow them-
selves in jesting. He desired to speak with
his knights. When they were together, the
emperor said that they had drunk too much,
and had uttered what they ought not. He
caused the relics to be brought, and they all
fell to praying and beating tiieir breasts, that
they might be saved from Hugo's wrath, when
lo, an angel appeared, who bade them not be
afraid ; they had committed a great folly yes-
terday, and must never brag again, but for
this time, " Go, begin, not one of them shall
fail." *
Ciiarles returned to Hugo master of the sit-
uation. He repeated that they had drunk too
much wine the night before, and went on to
say that it was an outrage on Hugo's part to
set a spy in the room, and that they knew a
land where such an act would be accounted
villainy : " but all shall be carried out ; choose
who shall begin." Hugo said, Oliver; and let
him not fall short of his boast, or I will cut off
his head, and the other twelve shall share his
fate. The next morning, in pursuance of an
arrangement made between Oliver and the
princess, the king was informed that what
had been undertaken had been precisely dis-
charged. " The first has saved himself," says
Hugo ; " by magic, I believe ; now I wish to
know about the rest." " What next ? " says
Charlemagne. William of Orange was called
for, threw off his furs, lifted the huge ball
with one hand, hurled it at the wall, and
threw down more than forty toises. " They
are enchanters," said the king to his men.
" Now I should like to see if the rest will do
as much. If one of them fails, I will hang
them all to-moiTow." " Do you want any
more of the gabs ? " asked Charles. Hugo
called upon Bernard to do what he had threat-
ened: Bernard asked the prayers of the em-
peror, ran down to the water, and made the
sign of the cross. All the water left its bed,
spread over the fields, came into the city, filled
the cellars, drenched the people, and drove
King Hugo into his highest tower ; Charles
and the peers being the while ensconced in an
old pine-tree, all praying for God's pity.
Charles in the tree heard Hugo in the tower
making his moan : he would give the emperor
all his treasure, would become his man and
hold his kingdom of him. The emperor was
moved, and prayed that the flood might stop,
and at once the water began to ebb. Hugo
was able to descend from his tower, and he
came to Charles, under an " ympe tree," and
repeated what he had uttered in the moment
of extremit3^ " Do you want the rest of the
gabs?" asked Charles. " Ne de ceste se-
maine," replied Hugo. " Then, since you are
my man," said the emperor, " we will make
a holiday and wear our crowns together."
* lu Galicn, Hugo is exceedingly frightened by Charle-
magne's fierce demeanor and by what he is told by a recreant
Frenchman who is living in exile at his court, and rouses the
city for an assault on his guests, in which he loses two thou-
sand of his people. A parley ensues. Hugo will hear of no
accommodation unless the gabs are performed. " Content,"
says Charles, angrily, " they shall be, if you wish ; " but he
feels how great the peril is, and goes to church to invoke the
aid of heaven, which is vouchsafed.
30. KING ARTHUR AND KING CORNWALL
279
When the French saw the two monarchs walk-
ing together, and Charles overtopping Hugo
by fifteen inches, they said the queen was a
fool to compare anybody with him.
After this promenade there was mass, at
which Turpin officiated, and then a grand
dinner. Hugo once more proffered all his
treasures to Charles, but Charles would not
take a denier. " We must be going," he said.
The French mounted their mules, and went
off in high spirits. Very happy was Charles
to have conquered such a king without a bat-
tle. Charles went directly to St Denis, and
performed his devotions. The nail and the
crown he deposited on the altar, distributed
the other relics over the kingdom, and for the
love of the sepulchre he gave up his anger
against the queen.
The storj'^ in the English ballad, so far as
it is to be collected from our eight fragments,
is that Arthur, represented as King of Lit-
tle Britain, while boasting to Gawain of his
round table, is told by Guenever that she
knows of one immeasurably finer; the very
trestle is worth his halls and his gold, and the
palace it stands in is worth all Little Britain
besides ; but not a word will she say as to
where this table and this goodly building may
be. Arthur makes a vow never to sleep two
nights in one place till he sees that round
table ; and, taking for companions Gawain,
Tristram, Sir Bredbeddle, and an otherwise un-
known Sir Marramiles, sets out on the quest.
The pilgrimage which, to save his dignity,
Charles makes a cover for his visit to the
rival king forms no part of Arthur's pro-
gramme.* The five assume a palmer's weed
simply for disguise, and travel east and west,
in many a strange country, only to arrive at
Cornwall, so very little a way from home.
The proud porter of Cornwall's gate, a min-
ion swain, befittingly clad in a suit of gold,
for his master is the richest king in Chris-
tendom, or yet in heathenness, is evidently
impressed with Arthur's bearing, as is quite
the rule in such cases : f he has been porter
thirty years and three, but [has never seen
the like]. Cornwall would naturally ask the
pilgrims some questions. From their mention-
ing some shrine of Our Lady he infers that
they have been in Britain, — Little Britain
we must suppose to be meant. Cornwall asks
if they ever knew King Arthur, and boasts
that he had lived seven years in Little Britain,
and had had a daughter by Arthur's wife,
now a lady of radiant beauty, and Arthur
has none such. J He then sends for his steed,
which he can ride three times as far in a day
as Arthur can any of his, and we may suppose
that he also exhibits to his guests a horn and
a swoi"d of remarkable properties, and a Bur-
low-Beanie, or Billy-Blin, a seven-headed,
fire-breathing fiend whom he has in his ser-
vice. Arthur is then conducted to bed, and
the Billy-Blin, shut up, as far as we can make
out, in some sort of barrel, or other vessel,§
* Arthur is said to have " socht to the ciete of Criste," in
'Golagros and Gawane,' Madden's ' Syr Gawayne,' p. 143,
T. 302. The author probably followed the soKsalled Nen-
nius, c. 63.
t Cf. ' young Beichan,' where the porter has also served
thirty years and three ; ' The Grene Knight,' Percy MS.,
Hales and Furnivall, II, 62; the porter in Kilhwch and
Olwen, Mabinogion, II, 255 f.
} In Heinrich vora Tiirlin's Crone we have the following
passage, vv 3313-4888, very possibly to be found in some
French predecessor, which recalls the relations of Cornwall
King and Guenever. The queen's demeanor may be an imi-
tation of Charlemagne's (Arthur's) wife's bluntness, but the
liaison of which Cornwall boasts appears to be vouched by
no other tradition, and must be regarded as the invention of
the author of this ballad.
Arthur and three comrades return half frozen from a bunt.
Arthur sits down at the fire to warm himself. The queen
taunts him : she knows a knight who rides, winter and sum-
mer alike, in a simple shirt, chanting love-songs the while.
Arthur resolves to go out with the three the next night to
overhaul this hardy chevalier. The three attendants of the
king have an encounter with him and fare hard at his hands,
but Arthur has the advantage of the stranger, who reveals
himself to the king as Guenevcr's first love, by name Gaso-
zein, and shows a token which he had received from her.
§ Under thrub chadler closed was hee. 29^.
The bunge of the trubchandler he burst in three. 43'^.
Being unable to make anything of thrub, trub, I am com-
pelled to conjecture the rub-chadler, that rub-chandler. The
fiend is certainly closed nnder a barrel or tub, and I suppose
a rubbish barrel or tub. Rubb, however derived, occurs in
Icelandic in the sense of rubbish, and chalder, however de-
rived, is a Scottish form of the familiar chaldron. Professor
Skeat, with great probability, sujigests that chadler ^ chau-
deler, chaudiere. Caldaria lignea are cited by Dncange.
Cad or kad is well known in the sense barrel, and cadiolus.
280
30. KING ARTHUK AND KING CORNWALL
is set by Arthur's bed-side to hear and report
the talk of the pilgrims. Now, it would seem,
the knights make each their vow or brag.
Arthur's is that he will be the death of Corn-
wall King before he sees Little Britain. Ga-
wain, who represents Oliver, will have Corn-
wall's daughter home with him. Here there is
an unlucky gap. Tristram should undertake
to carry off the horn, Marramiles the steed,
and Sir Bredbeddle the sword. But first it
would be necessary to subdue the loathly fiend.
Bredbeddle goes to work without dallying,
bursts open the rub-chadler with his sword, and
fights the fire-breathing monster in a style that
is a joy to see ; but sword, knife, and axe all
break, and he is left without a weapon. Yet
he had something better to fall back on, and
that was a little book which he had found by
the seaside, no doubt in the course of those
long travels which conducted the pilgrims from
Little Britain to Cornwall. It was probably
a book of Evangiles ; our Lord had written it
with his hands and sealed it with his blood.
With this little book, which in a manner takes
the place of the relics in the French tale, for
the safety of the pilgrims and the accom-
plishment of their vows are secured through
it, Bredbeddle conjures the Burlow-beanie,
and shuts him up till wanted in a " wall of
stone," which reminds us of the place in which
Hugo's spy is concealed. He then reports to
Arthur, who has a great desire to see the
fiend in all his terrors, and, upon the king's
promising to stand firm, Bredbeddle makes the
fiend start out again, with his seven heads and
the fire flying out of his mouth. The Billy-
Blin is now entirely amenable to command :
Bredbeddle has only to " conjure " him to do
a thing, and it is done. First he fetches down
the steed. Marramiles, who perhaps had
vowed to bring off the horse, considers that
he is the man to ride him, but finds he can do
cadulus, are found in Ducange. Cadler, chadler, however,
cannot be called a likely derivative from cad.
In stanza 48 the fiend, after he has been ousted from
the " trubchandler," is told to " lie still in that wall of stone,"
which is perhaps his ordinary lair. The spy is concealed
under a flight of stone steps iii the French poem ; in " a large
hollow stone in the door outside " in the Welsh story ; in a
hollow pillar in Galien and the Rimur; in a stone vault in
nothing with him, and has to call on Bredbed-
dle for help. The Billy-Blin is required to tell
how the steed is to be ridden, and reveals that
three strokes of a gold wand which stands in
Cornwall's study-window will make him spring
like spark from brand. And so it comes out
that Cornwall is a magician. Next the horn
has to be fetched, but, when brought, it can-
not be sounded. For this a" certain powder
is required. This the fiend procures, and
Tristram blows a blast which rends the horn
up to the midst.* Finally the Billy-Blin is
conjured to fetch the sword, and with this
sword Arthur goes and strikes off Cornwall's
head. So Arthur keeps his vow, and, so far
as we can see, all the rest are in a condition
to keep theirs.
The English ballad retains too little of the
French story to enable us to say what form of
it this little was derived from. The poem of
Galien would cover all that is borrowed as
well as the Journey of Charlemagne. It may
be regarded as an indication of late origin
that in this ballad Arthur is king of Little
Britain, that Bredbeddle and Marramiles are
made the fellows of Gawain and Tristram,
Bredbeddle carrying off all the honors, and
that Cornwall has had an intrigue with Ar-
thur's queen. The name Bredbeddle is found
elsewhere only in the late Percy version of
the romance of the Green Knight, Hales and
Furnivall, II, 56, which version alludes to a
custom of the Knights of the Bath, an order
said to have been instituted by Henry IV at
his coronation, in 1399.
The Faroe ballad, ' Geipa-td,ttur,' exists in
four versions : A, Svabo's manuscript collec-
tion, 1782, III, 1, 85 stanzas ; B, Sand0bog,
1822, p. 49, 140 stanzas; C, Fuglabog, c.
1840, p. 9, 120 stanzas; D, Sydero version, ob-
tained by Hammershaimb, 1848, 103 stanzas.f
It repeats the story of the Norse saga, with a
the Faroe ballad : Koschwitz, Karls Reise, p. 64 ; Sechs
Bearbeitungen, pp 29, 52, 85, 117, 153, 179.
* Roland's last blast splits his horn. See the citations by
G. Paris, in Romania, XI, 506 f.
t The first has been printed by Kolbing in Koschwitz's
Sechs Bearbeitungen, as already said. The four texts were
most kindly communicated to me by Professor Grundtvig, a
short time before his lamentable death, copied by his own
30. KING ARTHUR AND KING CORNWALL
281
moderate number of traditional accretions and
changes. The emperor, from his throne, asks
his champions where is his superior [equal] .
They all drop their heads ; no one ventures
to answer but the queen, who better had been
silent. " The emperor of Constantinople "
(Hdkin, D), she says, " is thy superior." " If
he is not," answers Karl, " thou shalt burn on
bale." In B, when they have already started
for Constantinople, Turpin persuades them to
go rather to Jerusalem : in the other versions
it must be assumed that the holy city was on
the route. As Karl enters the church the
bells ring and the candles light of themselves,
C, D. There are thirteen seats in the choir :
Karl takes the one that Jesus had occupied,
and the peers those of the apostles. A heathen
tells the patriarch * that the Lord is come
down from heaven, C, D. The patriarch pro-
ceeds to the church, with no attendance but
his altar-book [singing from liis altar-book] ;
he asks Karl what he has come foi-, and Karl
replies, to see the halidoms. A, C, D. In B
the patriarch presents himself to the emperor
at his lodging, and inquires his purpose ; and,
learning tliat he is on his way to Constanti-
nople, for glory, advises him first to go to the
church, where the ways and means of success
are to be , found. The patriarch gives Karl
some of the relics : the napkin on which Jesus
had wiped his hands, cups from which he had
drunk, etc. Karl, in A, C, now announces
that he is on his way to Constantinople ; the
patriarch begs him not to go, for he will have
much to suffer. At the exterior gate of the
palace will be twelve white bears, ready to go
at him ; the sight of his sword [of the holy
napkin, B] will cause them to fall stone-dead,
or at least harmless, B. At the gate next
within there will be twelve wolf-dogs f [and
further on twelve toads, B], which must be
disposed of in like wise : etc. The castle
stands on a hundred pillars. A, and is full of
ingenious contrivances : the floor goes up to
the sky, and the roof comes down to the
ground, B. Karl now sets out, with the pa-
triarch's blessing and escort. Before they
reach the palace they come upon three hun-
dred knights and ladies dancing, which also
had been foretold, and at the portals of the
palace they find and vanquish the formidable
beasts. The palace is to the full as splendid
and as artfully constructed as they had been
informed : the floor goes up and the roof comes
down, B ; there are monstrous figures (?),
with horns at their mouths, and upon a wind
rising the horns all sound, the building begins
to revolve, and the Frenchmen jump up, each
clinging to the other, B, C, D. Karl remem-
bers what his wife had said. A, D.
Of the reception by the monarch of Con-
stantinople nothing further is said. We are
immediately taken to the bedroom, in which
there are twelve beds, with a thirteenth in
the middle, and also a stone arch, or vault, in-
side of which is a man with a candle. Karl
proposes that they shall choose feats, make
boasts, rouses [skemtar, jests, C]. These
would inevitably be more or less deranged and
corrupted in the course of tradition. A and C
have lost many. Karl's boast, dropped in B,
C, is that he will smite King Hdkin, so that
the sword's point shall stick in the ground,
D ; hit the emperor on the neck and knock
him ofE his horse, A. Roland, in all, will blow
the emperor's hair off his head with the blast
of his horn. Oliver's remains as in the French
poem. William of Orange's ball is changed
to a bolt. The exploit with the horses and
apples is assigned to Bernard in D, the only
version which preserves it, as in the Norse
saga ; and, as in the saga again, it is Turpin,
hand in parallel columns, with a restoration of the order of
the stanzas, which is considerably disturbed in all, and a few
necessary emendations.
* Pol, A, C, Kortunatus, B, i. e. Koronatus (Gnindtvig).
Coronatus = clericus, tonsura sen corona clericali donatus :
Ducange.
t The white bears and the wolf-dogs are found in another
Faroe ballad, as yet unprinted, ' Asmundar skeiukjari,'
36
where they are subdued by an arm-ring and " rune-gold : "
the white bears in a kindred ballad, Gruudtvig, No 71, A
4, 5, 8, 9, C 6, 7, 13, quelled with a lily-twig ; E 12, 13,
with runes ; and in No 70, A 28, B 27, 30. The source
of this ballad is Fjiilsvinnsmal, which bis two watch-dogs
in 13, 14. ' Kilhwch and Olwen,' Mabiuogion, II, has
a similar story, and there are nine watch-dogs, at p. 277.
(Grundtvig.)
282
30. KING ARTHUR AND KING CORNWALL
and not Bernard, who brings in the river upon
the town, and forces the king to take refuge
in the tower.
Early in the morning the spy reports in writ-
ing, and King Hdkin, D, says that Karl and
his twelve peers shall burn on the bale, A, C,
D, if they cannot make good their boasts, B.
Karl's queen appears to him in his sleep. A,
and bids him think of last night's words. It
is the queen of Constantinople in B, C, D who
rouses Karl to a sense of his plight ; in B she
tells him that the brags have been reported,
and that burning will be the penalty unless
they be achieved. Karl then sees that his
wife knew what she was saying, and vows to
give her Hildarheim and a scarlet cloak if he
gets home alive. He hastens to church ; a
dove descends from heaven and sits on his
arm [in B a voice comes from heaven] ; he is
assured that the boasts shall all be performed,
but never let such a thing be done again. In
A three of the feats are executed, in D four,
in C seven, Oliver's in each case strictly, and
Turpin's, naturally, last. The king in C does
the feat which is proposed by Eimer in the
saga. A and C end abruptly with Turpin's
exploit. In D Karl falls on his knees and
prays, and the water retires ; Karl rides out
of Constantinople, followed three days on the
road by Koronatus, as Hdkin is now called,
stanza 103 : it is Karlamagnus that wears his
crown higher. B takes a turn of its own.
Roland, Olger and Oliver are called upon to
do their brags. Roland blows so that nobody
in Constantinople can keep his legs, and the
emperor falls into the mud, but he blows not
a hair off the emperor's head ; Olger slings
the gold-bolt over the wall, but breaks off
none ; Oliver gives a hundred kisses, as in the
saga. The emperor remarks each time, I hold
him no champion that performs his rouse that
way. But Turpin's brag is thoroughly done ;
the emperor is driven to the tower, and begs
Karl to turn off the water ; no more feats shall
be exacted. Now the two kaisers walk in the
hall, conferring about tribute, which Karl
takes and rides away. When he reaches
home his queen welcomes him, and asks what
happened at Constantinople : " Hvat gekk
af ? " » This," says Karl ; " I know the truth
now; you shall be queen as before, and shall
have a voice in the rule."
It is manifest that Charlemagne's pilgrim-
age to Jerusalem and the visit to the king of
Constantinople, though somewhat intimately
combined in the old French geste, were origi-
nally distinct narratives. As far as we can
judge, nothing of the pilgrimage was retained
by the English ballad. We are not certain,
even, that it is Charlemagne's visit to Hugo
upon which the ballad was formed, though
the great popularity of the French poem makes
this altogether likely. As M. Gaston Paris
has said and shown,* the visit to Hugo is one
of a cycle of tales of which the framework
is this : that a king who regards himself as
the richest or most magnificent in the world
is told that there is somebody that outstrips
him, and undertakes a visit to his rival to de-
termine which surpasses the other, threaten-
ing death to the person who has disturbed his
self-complacency, in case the rival should turn
out to be his inferior. A familiar example
is afforded by the tale of Aboulcassem, the
first of the Mille et un Jours. Haroun Alras-
chid was incessantly boasting that no prince
in the world was so generous as he.f The
vizier Giafar humbly exhorted the caliph not
to praise himself, but to leave that to others.
The caliph, much piqued, demanded. Do you
then know anybody who compares with me ?
Giafar felt compelled to reply that there was
• Romania, IX, 8 ff. The English ballad has also com-
bined two stories : that of the gabs with another in which
a magical horse, horn, and sword are made prize of by a
fayored hero.
t The particular for which superiority is claimed will nat-
urally vary. The author of Charlemagne's Journey has the
good taste not to give prominence to simple riches, but in
Galien riches is from the beginning the point. So none
hath so much gold as Cornwall King. Solomon's fame is to
exceed all the kings of the earth " for riches and for wis-
dom ; " and although the queen of Sheba came to prove him
with hard questions, she must have had the other matter also
in view, for she says, The half was not told me ; thy wisdom
and prosperity exceedeth the fame which I heard : I Kings,
X. Coming down to very late times, we observe that it is
the wealth of the Abbot of Canterbury which exposes him to
a visit from the king.
30. KING ARTHUB AND KING CORNWALL
283
a young man at Basra, who, though in a pri-
vate station, was not inferior even to the
caliph in point of generosity. Haroun was
very angry, and, on Giafar's persisting in
what he had said, had the vizier arrested, and
finally resolved to go to Basra to see with
his own eyes : if Giafar should have spoken
the truth, he should be rewarded, but in the
other event he should forfeit his life.*
This story, it is true, shows no trace of the
gabs which Charlemagne and the peers make,
and which Hugo requires to be accomplished
on pain of death. The gabs are a well-known
North-European custom, and need not be
sought for further ; but the requiring by one
king of certain feats to be executed by an-
other under a heavy penalty is a feature of a
large class of Eastern tales of which there has
already been occasion to speak : see ' The El-
fin Knight,' p. 11. The demand in these, how-
ever, is made not in person, but through an
ambassador. The combination of a personal
visit with a task to be performed under pen-
alty of death is seen in the VafJ^ruiSnismdl,
where Odin, disguised as a traveller, seeks a
contest in knowledge with the wisest of the
giants.f
The story of the gabs has been retold in
two modern imitations : very indifferently by
Nivelle de la Chaussee, ' Le Roi Hugon,'
CEuvres, t. V, supplement, p. 66, ed. 1778,
and well by M. J. Ch^nier, ' Les Miracles,'
III, 259, ed. 1824.} Uhland treated the sub-
ject dramatically in a composition which has
not been published : Keller, Altf ranzosische
Sagen, 1876, Inhalt (Koschwitz).
Percy MS., p. 24. Hales and Fnmivall, I, 61 ; Madden's
Syr Gawayne, p. 275.
' I know where a round table is, thou noble
king,
Is worth thy round table and other such
three.
1 [Saies, ' Come here, cuzen Guwaiiie so gay,]
My sisters sonne be yee ;
Ffor you shall see one of the fairest round ta-
bles
That euer you see with your eye.'
3 ' The trestle that stands vnder this round ta-
ble,' she said,
' Lowe downe to the mould,
It is worth thy round table, thou worthy king,
Thy haUs, and aU thy gold.
2 Then bespake Lady Quee?i Gueneuer,
And these were the words said shee :
4 ' The place where this roimd table stands in,
• The tale in the Mille et nn Jonrs is directly from the
Persian, but the Persian is in the preface said to be a ver-
sion from Indian, that is, Sanskrit. There are two Tatar
traditional versions in KadlofF, IV, 120, 310, which are cited
by G. Paris.
t Cited by G. Paris, who refers also to King Gylfl's expe-
dition to Asgard (an imitation of Odin's to VafpruSnir), and
sees some resemblance to the revolving palace of King Hugo
in the vanishing mansion in which Gylfi is received in Gylfa-
ginning ; and again to Thor's visit to the giant GeirroSr,
Skaldsliaparmal, 18, which terminates by the giant's flinging
a red-hot iron bar at Thor, who catches it and sends it back
through an iron pillar, through GeirriiSr skulking behind
the pillar, through the wall of the house, and into the
ground, a fair matching of Charlemagne's gab. (The giant
GeirroSr, like Cornwall King, is skilled in magic. ) The be-
ginning of Biterolf and Dietleib also recalls that of Charle-
magne's Journey. Biterolf, a Spanish king, bears from an
old palmer, who has seen many a hero among Christians
and heathens, that none is the equal of Attila. Biterolf had
thought that he himself had no superior, and sets out with
eleven chosen knights to see Etzel's court with his own eyes.
Romania, IX, 9 f.
Jatmnndr [HlotSver], a haughty emperor in Saxon-land,
sitting on his throne one day, in the best humor with him-
self, asks SigarJJr, his prime minister, where is the monarch
that is his match. SigurtJr demurs a little ; the emperor
specifies his hawk, horse, and sword as quite incomparable.
'That may be, says the counsellor, but his master's glory, to
be complete, requires a queen that is his peer. The sugges-
tion of a possible equal rouses the emperor's ire. " But
since you talk such folly, name one," he says. SigurSr
names the daughter of Hrolfr [Hugo] of Constantinople,
and is sent to demand her in marriage. Magus saga jarls,
ed. Cederschiiild, c. i : Wulff, Recherches sur les Sagas de
Magus et de Geirard, p. 14 f.
I G. Paris, Histoire Poetiqne de Charlemagne, p. 344.
284
30. KIKG ARTHUR AND KING CORNWALL
It is worth thy castle, thy gold, thy fee,
And all good Litle Britaine.'
5 ' Where may that table be, lady ? ' quoth lies,
* Or where may all that goodly building
be?'
' You shall it seeke,' shee says, 'till you it find,
For you shall neuer gett more of me.'
6 Then bespake him noble 'King Arthur,
These were the words said hee :
' He make mine avow to God,
And alsoe to the Trinity,
7 ' He never sleepe one night there as I doe an-
other,
Till that round table I see :
Sir Marramiles and Sir Tristeram,
Fellowes that ye shall bee.
' Weele be clad in palmers weede,
Fiue palmers we will bee ;
9 ' There is noe outlandish man will vs abide,
Nor wiU vs come nye.'
Then they riued east and the riued west.
In many a strange country.
10 Then they tranckled a litle further,
They saw a battle new sett :
' Now, by my faith,' sales noble King Arthur,
«... well .
14 ' I haue two poore rings of my finger.
The better of them He giue to thee ;
Tell who may be lord of this castle,' he
sayes,
' Or who is lord in this cuntry ? '
15 ' CornewaU TSLing,' the porter sayes,
' There is none soe rich as hee ;
Neither in christendome, nor yet in heathen-
nest.
None hath soe much gold as he.'
16 And then bespake him noble "King Arthur,
These were the words sayes hee :
' I haue two poore rings of my finger,
The better of them He giue thee.
If thou wilt greete him well, CornewaU 'King,
And greete him well from me.
17 ' Pray him for one nights lodging and two
meales meate.
For his love that dyed vppon a tree ;
Of one ghesting and two meales meate.
For his loue that dyed vppon a tree.
18 ' Of one ghesting, of two meales meate.
For his love that was of virgin borne.
And in the morning that we may scape away,
Either without scath or scorne.'
19 Then forth is gone this proud porter,
As fast as he cold bye.
And when he came befor CornewaU King,
He kneeled downe on his knee.
11 But when he cam to this . . c
And to the palace gate,
Soe ready was ther a proud porter,
And met him soone therat.
20 Sayes, ' I haue beene porter-man, at thy gate,
This thirty winter and three
12 Shooes of gold the porter had on.
And aU his other rayment was vnto the
same :
' Now, by my faith,' sales noble King Arthur,
' Yonder is a minion swaine.'
13 Then bespake noble King Arthur,
These were the words says hee :
' Come hither, thou proud porter,
I pray thee come hither to me.
21
Our Lady was borne ; then thought CornewaU
King
These palmers had beene in Brittaiwe.
22 Then bespake him Cornwall King,
These were the words he said there :
' Did you euer know a comely "king,
His name was King Arthur ? '
30. KING ARTHUR AND KING CORNWALL
285
23 And then bespake him noble Kmi/ Arthur,
These were the words said hee :
' I doe not know that comly liinff,
But once my selfe I did him see.'
Then bespake Cornwall Kinff againe,
These were the words said he :
24 Sayes, ' Seuen yeere I was clad and fed,
In Litle Brittaine, in a bower ;
I had a daughter by TLinff Arthurs wife,
That now is called my flower ;
For King Arthur, that kindly cockward.
Hath none such in his bower.
25 ' For I durst sweare, and saue my othe,
That same lady soe bright,
That a man that were laid on his death bed
Wold open his eyes on her to haue sight.'
' Now, by my faith,' sayes noble Kinff Arthur,
' And that 's a f uU f aire wight ! '
26 And then bespake Comewall [King] againe,
And these were the words he said :
' Come hither, fine or three of my knights,
And feitch me downe my steed ;
King Arthur, that foule cockeward,
Hath none such, if he had need.
27 ' For I can ryde him as far on a day
As King Arthur can doe any of his on
three ;
And is it not a pleasure for a kiwy
When he shall ryde forth on his iourney ?
28 ' For the eyes that beene in his head,
Th4 glister as doth the gleed.'
' Now, by my faith,' says noble King Arthur,
' That is a well faire steed.'
29
' Nobody say ....
But one that 's learned to speake.'
30 Then King Arthur to his bed was brought,
A greeiued man was hee ;
And soe were all his fellowes with, him,
From him the thought neuer to flee.
31 Then take they did that lodly g^oome,
And under the rub-chadler closed was hee,
And he was set by King Arthurs bed-side.
To heere theire talke and theire comureye ;
32 That he might come forth, and make procla-
mation,
Long before it was day ;
It was more for King Cornwalls pleasure,
Then it was for King Arthurs pay.
33 And when King Arthur in his bed was laid.
These were the words said hee :
' lie make mine avow to God,
And alsoe to the Trinity,
That He be the bane of Cornwall Kinge,
Litle Brittaine or euer I see ! '
34 ' It is an vnaduised vow,' sales Gawaine the
gay,
' As ever king hard make I ;
But wee that beene flue cliristian men,
Of the christen faith are wee.
And we shall fight against anoynted king
And all his armorie.'
35 And then bespake him noble Arthur,
And these were the words said he :
' Why, if thou be afraid. Sir Gawaine the
gay,
Goe home, and drinke wine in thine owne
country.'
36 And then bespake Str Gawaine the gay.
And these were the words said hee :
' Nay, seeing you have made such a hearty
vow,
Heere another vow make will I.
37 ' Be make mine avow to God,
And alsoe to the Trinity,
That I will haue yonder faire lady
To Litle Brittaine with mee.
38 ' Be hose her hourly to my heart.
And with her Be worke my wUl ; '
39
These were the words sayd hee :
' Befor I wold wrestle with yonder feend,
It is better be drowned in the sea.'
286
30. KING ARTHUR AND KING CORN WALL
40 And then bespoke Sir Bredbeddle,
And these were the words said he :
' Why, I will wrestle wtth yon lodly f eend,
God, my gouernor thou wilt bee ! '
41 Then bespake him noble Arthur,
And these were the words said he :
' What weapons wilt thou haue, thou gentle
knight ?
I pray thee tell to me.'
42 He sayes, ' Collen brand lie haue in my hand,
And a MUlaine knife fast by me knee,
And a Danish axe fast in my hands.
That a sure weapon I thinke wilbe.'
43 Then w^th his CoUen brand that he had in his
hand
The bunge of that rub-chandler he burst in
three ;
With that start out a lodly feend.
With seuen heads, and one body.
44 The fyer towards the element flew,
Out of his mouth, where was great plentie ;
The knight stoode in the middle and fought,
That it was great ioy to see.
49 And when he came to the Mnga chamber,
He cold of his curtesie :
Says, ' Sleepe you, wake you, noble King Ar-
thur ?
And euer lesus waken yee ! '
50 ' Nay, I am not sleeping, 1 am waking,'
These were the words said hee ;
' Ff or thee I haue card ; how hast thou fared ?
O gentle knight, let me see.'
61 The knight wrought the hing his booke.
Bad him behold, reede and see ;
And euer he found it on the backside of the
leafe
As noble Arthur wold wish it to be.
52 And then bespake him King Arthur,
' Alas ! thow gentle knight, how may this
be.
That I might see him in the same licknesse
That he stood vnto thee ? '
53 And then bespake him the Greene Knight,
These were the words said hee :
' If youle stand stifly in the battell stronge.
For I haue won all the victory.'
45 TiU his CoUaine brand brake in his hand.
And his Millaine knife burst on his knee,
And then the Danish axe burst in his hand first,
That a sur weapon he thought shold be.
46 But now is the knight left without any weap-
ons.
And alacke ! it was the more pitty ;
But a surer weapon then he had one.
Had neuer lord in Christentye ;
And all was but one litle booke.
He found it by the side of the sea.
47 He found it at the searside,
Wrucked upp in a floode ;
Our Jjord had written it with his hands,
And sealed it with his bloode.
54 Then bespake him the king againe,
And these were the words said hee :
' If wee stand not stifly in this battell strong.
Wee are worthy to be hanged all on a tree.'
55 Then bespake him the Greene Knight,
These were the words said he :
Sales, ' I doe coniui-e thee, thou f owle feend,
In the same licknesse thou stood vnto me.'
56 With that start out a lodly feend.
With seuen heads, and one body ;
The fier towards the element flaugh.
Out of his mouth, where was great plenty.
57 The knight stood in the middle p . • .
48 ' That thou doe not s . . . .
But ly stiU in that wall of stone.
Till I haue beene with noble Kin^' Arthur,
And told him what I haue done.'
58
30. KING ARTHUR AND KING CORNWALL
287
. . . they stood the space of an houre,
I know not what they did.
69 And then bespake him the Greene Knight,
And these were the words said he :
Saith, ' I coniure thee, thou fowle feend.
Thai thou feitch downs the steed that we
68 And then bespake him the Greene Knight,
69
60 And then forth is gone Burlow-beanie,
As fast as he cold hie,
And feitch he did that faire steed.
And came againe by and by.
61 Then bespake him Sir Marramiles,
And these were the words said hee :
' Riding of this steed, brother Bredbeddle,
The mastery belongs to me.'
62 Marramiles tooke the steed to his hand.
To ryd him he was full bold ;
He cold noe more make him goe
Then a child of three yeere old.
63 He laid vppon him with heele and hand,
With yard that was soe fell ;
' Helpe ! brother Bredbeddle,' says Manu-
mile,
' For I thinke he be the devill of hell.
64 ' Helpe ! brother Bredbeddle,' says Marrar
mile,
' Helpe ! for Christs pittye ;
Ffor without thy help, brother Bredbeddle,
He will neuer be rydden for me.'
65 Then bespake him Sir Bredbeddle,
These were the words said he :
' I coniure thee, thou Burlow-beane,
Thou teU me how this steed was riddin in
his country.'
66 He saith, ' there is a gold wand
Stands in 'King Cornwalls study windowe ;
67 ' Let him take that wand in that window,
And strike three strokes on that steed ;
And then he will spring forth of his hand
As sparke doth out of gleede.'
A lowd blast he may blow then.
70 And then bespake Sir Bredebeddle,
To the fEeend these words said hee :
Says, ' I coniure thee, thou Burlow-beanie,
The powder-box thou feitch me.'
71 Then forth is gone Burlow-beanie,
As fast as he cold hie,
And feich he did the powder-box,
And came againe by and by.
72 Then Sir Tristeram tooke powder forth of that
box,
And blent it with warme sweet milke.
And there put it vnto that home.
And swilled it about in that ilke.
73 Then he tooke the home in his hand,
And a lowd blast he blew ;
He rent the home vp to the midst,
AH his ffellowes this the knew.
74 Then bespake him the Greene Knight,
These were the words said he :
Sales, ' I coniure thee, thou Burlow-beanie,
That thou feitch me the sword that I see.'
75 Then forth is gone Burlow-beanie,
As fast as he cold hie.
And feitch he did that faire sword.
And came againe by and by.
76 Then bespake him Sir Bredbeddle,
To the \ing these words said he :
' Take this sword in thy hand, thou noble King
Arthur,
For the vowes sake that thou made lie giue
it th[ee,]
And goe strike off Kiw^' Cornewalls head,
In bed were he doth lye.'
288
77 Then forth is gone noble King Arthur,
As fast as he cold hye,
And strucken he hath off King Cornwalls
head,
And came againe by and by.
31. THE MAKRIAGE OF SIR GAWAIN
78 He put the head vpon a swords point,
1^. The tops of the letters of this line were cut off
in binding. Percy thought it had stood
previously,
come here Gxizen Gawaine so gay.
Furnivall says " the bottoms of the letters left
suit better those in the text " as given.
4 and 5, 8 and 9, are joined in the MS.
10*. Half a page is gone from the MS., or about
38 or 40 lines ; and so after 20*, 28*, 38^
47*, 57S 681, 781.
14'. they better.
17', 181. The first two words are hard to make out,
and look like A vne.
18^ boirne.
191. his gone.
20^^. The lower half of the letters is gone.
21. InMS.:
28*.
31''.
35.
381.
391.
41^.
43=.
46'.
64.
66.
69*.
76'-
our Lady was borne
then thought cornewall King these palmers had
beene in Brittanie.
? MS. Only the upper paH of the letters is
left.
under thrub chadler.
After this stanza is written, in the left margin
oftheMS.,TheZAV&vi.
homly to my hurt. Madden read hourly.
The top line is pared away.
they words.
of the trubchandler.
then had he.
p', i. e. pro or per, me. Madden.
Attached to 65 in MS.
, ?MS.
*. Joined with 77 in MS.
& and Arabic numerals have been frequently
written out.
31
THE MARRIAGE OF SIR GAWAIN
Percy MS., p. 46. Hales & Furnivall, 1, 105; Madden's Syr Gawayne, p. 288 ; Percy's Reliques, ed. 1794, III, 350.
We have bere again half a ballad, in seven
fragments, but the essentials of the story,
which is well known from other versions, hap-
pen to be preserved, or may be inferred
Arthur, apparently some day after Christ-
mas, had been encountered at Tarn Wadling,*
in the forest of Inglewood, by a bold baron
* Still 80 called : near Aiketgate, Hesket. Lysons, Cum-
berland, p. 112.
armed with a club, who offered him the choice
of fighting, or ransoming himself by coming
back on New Year's day and bringing word
what women most desire. Arthur puts this
question in all quarters, and having collected
many answers, in which, possibly, he had little
confidence, he rides to keep his day. On the
way he meets a frightfully ugly woman ; she
intimates that she could help him. Arthur
promises her Gawain in marriage, if she will,
31. THE MAKRIAGE OP SIR GAWAIN
289
and she imparts to him the right answer. Ar-
thur finds the baron waiting for him at the
tarn, and presents first the answers which he
had collected and written down. These are
contemptuously rejected. Arthur then says
that he had met a lady on a moor, who had
told him that a woman would have her will.
The baron says that the misshapen lady on
the moor was his sister, and he will burn her
if he can get hold of her. Upon Arthur's re-
turn he tells his knights that he has a wife for
one of them, and they ride with the king to
see her, or perhaps for her to make her choice.
When they see the bride, they decline the
match in vehement terms, all but Gawain,
who is somehow led to waive " a little foul
sight and misliking." She is bedded in all her
repulsiveness, and turns to a beautiful young
woman. To try Gawain's compliance further,
she asks him whether he will have her in this
likeness by night only or only by day. Putting
aside his own preference, Gawain leaves the
choice to her, and this is all that is needed to
keep her perpetually beautiful. For a step-
mother had witched her to go on the wild
moor in that fiendly shape until she should
meet some knight who would let her have all
her will. Her brother, under a like spell, was
to challenge men either to fight with him at
odds or to answer his hard question.
These incidents, with the variation that Ar-
thur (who does not show all his customary
chivalry in this ballad) waits for Gawain's
consent before he promises him in marriage,
are found in a romance, probably of the fif-
teenth century, printed in Madden's Syr Ga-
wayne, and somewhat hastily pronounced by
the editor to be " unquestionably the original
of the mutilated poem in the Percy folio." *
Arthur, while hunting in Ingleswood, stalked
and finally shot a great hart, which fell in a
fern-brake. While the king, alone and far
from his men, was engaged in making the
assay, there appeared a groom, bearing the
quaint name of Gromer Somer Joure,f who
grimly told him that he meant now to requite
him for having taken away his lands. Arthur
represented that it would be a shame to knight-
hood for an armed man to kill a man in green,
^nd offered him any satisfaction. The only
terms Gromer would grant were that Arthur
should come back alone to that place that day
twelvemonth, and then tell him what women
love best ; not bringing the right answer, he
was to lose his head. The king gave his oath,
and they parted. The knights, summoned by
the king's bugle, found him in heavy cheer,
and the reason he would at first tell no man,
but after a while took Gawain into confidence.
Gawain advised that they two should ride
into strange country in different directions,
put the question to every man and woman
they met, and write the answers in a book.
This they did, and each made a large collec-
tion. Gawain thought they could not fail, but
the king was anxious, and considered that it
would be prudent to spend the only month
that was left in prosecuting the inquiry in the
region of Ingleswood. Gawain agreed that it
was good to be speering, and bade the king
doubt not that some of his saws should help
at need.
Arthur rode to Ingleswood, and met a lady,
riding on a richly-caparisoned palfrey, but
herself of a hideousness which beggars words ;
nevertheless the items are not spared. She
came up to Arthur and told him that she
knew his counsel ; none of his answers would
help. If he would grant her one thing, she
would warrant his life ; otherwise, he must lose
his head. This one thing was that she should
be Gawain's wife. The king said this lay with
Gawain ; he would do what he could, but it
were a pity to make Gawain wed so foul a lady.
" No matter," she rejoined, " though I be foul:
choice for a mate hath an owl. When thou
* ' The Weddynge of S' Gawen and Dame Eagnell,'
Rawlinson MS., C 86, Bodleian Library, the portion con-
taining the poem being paper, and indicating the close of
Henry VII's reign. The poetn is in six-line stanzas, and,
with a leaf that is wanting, wonld amount to about 925
lines. Madden's Syr Gawayne, Ixiv, Ixvii, 26, 298«-298y.
37
t Sir Gromer occurs in " The Turke and Gowin," Percy
MS., Hales and Fumivall, I, 102; Sir Grummore Grum-
morsum, " a good knight of Scotland," in Morte d' Arthur ;
ed. Wright, I, 286 and elsewhere (Madden).
290
31. THE MARRIAGE OF SIR GAWAIN
comest.to thine answer, I shall meet thee;
else art thou lost."
The king returned to Carlisle with a heart
no lighter, and the first man he saw was Ga-
wain, who asked how he had sped. Never so
ill : he had met a lady who had offered to save
his life, but she was the foulest he had ever
seen, and the condition was that Gawain
should be her husband. "Is that all?" said
Gawain. " I will wed her once and again,
though she were the devil ; else were I no
friend." Well might the king exclaim, " Of
all knights thou bearest the flower ! "
After five or six days more the time came
for the answer. The king had hardly ridden
a mile into the forest when he met the lady,
by name Dame Ragnell. He told lier Gawain
should wed her, and demanded her answer.
" Some say this and some say that, but above
all things women desire to have the sover-
eignty ; tell this to the knight ; he will curse
her that told thee, for his labor is lost." Ar-
thur, thus equipped, rode on as fast as he could
go, through mire and fen. Gromer was wait-
ing, and sternly demanded the answer. Ar-
thur offered his two books, for Dame Ragnell
had told him to save himself by any of those
answers if he could. " Nay, nay, king," said
Gromer, " thou art but a dead man." " Abide,
Sir Gromer, I have an answer shall make
all sure. Women desire sovereignty." " She
that told thee that was my sister, Dame Rag-
nell ; I pray I may see her burn on a fire."
And so they parted.
Dame Ragnell was waiting for Arthur, too,
and would hear of nothing but immediate ful-
fillment of her bargain. She followed the king
to his court, and required him to produce Ga-
wain instantly, who came and plighted his
troth. The queen begged her to be married
privately, and early in the morning. Dame
Ragnell would consent to no such arrange-
ment. She would not go to church till high-
mass time, and she would dine in the open hall.
At her wedding she was dressed more splen-
didly than the queen, and she sat at the head
of the table at the dinner afterwards. There
her appetite was all but as horrible as her
person : she ate three capons, three curlews,
and gi-eat bake meats, all that was set before
her, less and more.*
A leaf is wanting now, but what followed
is easily imagined. She chided Gawain for
his ofSshness, and begged him to kiss her, at
least. " I will do more," said Gawain, and,
turning, beheld the fairest creature he ever
saw. But the transformed lady told him that
her beauty would not hold : he must choose
whether she should be fair by night and foul
by day, or fair by day and foul by night. f
Gawain said the choice was hard, and left all
to her. " Gramercy," said the lady, " thou
shalt have me fair both day and night." Then
she told him that her step-dame had turned
her into that monstrous shape by necromancy,
not to recover her own till the best knight
in England had wedded her and given her
sovereignty in all points. J A charming little
scene follows, vv 715-99, in which Arthur
visits Gawain in the morning, fearing lest
the fiend may have slain him. Sometliing
of this may very likely have been in that
• See ' King Henry,' the next ballad.
t The Gaelic tale of ' The Hoodie ' offers a similar choice.
The hoodie, a species of crow, having married the youngest
of a farmer's three daughters, says to her, " Whether
wouldst thou rather that I should be a hoodie by day and a
man at night, or bo a hoodie at night and a man by day ? "
The woman maintains her proper sovereignty, and does not
leave the decision to him : " ' I would rather that thou wert a
man by day and a hoodie at night,' says she. After this he
was a splendid fellow by day, and a hoodie at night." Camp-
bell, Po|)ular Tales of the West Highlands, I, 63.
The having one shape by day and another by night is a
common feature in popular tales : as, to be a bear by day and
a man by night, Hrolfr Kraki's Saga, c. 26, Asbjarnsen og
Moe, Norske Folkeeventyr, No 41 ; a lion by day and a man
by night, Grimms, K. u. II. m.. No 88; a crab by day and
a man by night, B. Schmidt, Griechische Marchen, u. s. w.,
No 10; a snake by day and a man by night, Karadshitch,
Volksmilrchen der Serben, Nos 9, 10; a pumpkin by day
and a man by night, A. & A. Schott, Walachische Mffirchen,
No 23 ; a ring by day, a man by night, Miillenhoff, No 27,
p. 466, Karadshitch, No 6, Afanasief, VI, 189. Throe
princes in ' Kung Lindorm,' Nicolovius, Folklifwet, p. 48 ff,
are cranes by day and men by night, the king himself being
man by day and worm by night. The double shape is some-
times implied though not mentioned.
X The brother, Gromer Somer Joure, was a victim of the
same necromancy; so the Carl of Carlile, Percy MS., Hales
& Furnivall, III, 291.
31. THE MARRIAGE OF SIR GAWAIN
291
half page of the ballad which is lost after
stanza 48.
Gower and Chancer both have this tale,
though with a different setting, and with the
variation, beyond donbt original in the story,
that the man whose life is saved by rightly
answering the question has himself to marry
the monstrous woman in return for her
prompting him.
Gower relates, Confessio Amantis, Book
First, I, 89-104, ed. Pauli, that Florent, nephew
of the emperor, as Gawain is of Arthur, slew
Branchus, a man of high rank. Branchus's
kin refrained from vengeance, out of fear
of the emperor ; but a shrewd lady, grand-
mother to Branchus, undertook to compass
Florent's death in a way that should bring
blame upon nobody. She sent for Florent,
and told him that she would engage that he
should not be molested by the family of
Branchus if he could answer a question she
would ask. He was to have a proper allow-
ance of time to find the answer, but he was
also to agree that his life should be forfeited
unless his answer were right. Florent made
oath to this agreement, and sought the opin-
ions of the wisest people upon the subject, but
their opinions were in no accord. Consider-
ing, therefore, that he must default, he took
leave of the emperor, adjuring him to allow
no revenge to be taken if he lost his life, and
went to meet his fate. But on his way through
a forest he saw an ugly old woman, who called
to him to stop. This woman told him that he
was going to certain death, and asked what he
would give her to save him. He said, any-
thing she should ask, and she required of him
a promise of marriage. That he would not
give. " Ride on to your death, then," said she.
Florent began to reflect that the woman was
very old, and might be hidden away some-
where till she died, and that there was no other
chance of deliverance, and at last pledged his
word that he would marry her if it should turn
out that his life could be saved only through
the answer that she should teach him. She
was perfectly willing that he should try all
other shifts first, but if they failed, then let
him say that women cared most to be sov-
ereign in love. Florent kept back this answer
as long as he could. None of his own replies
availed, and the lady who presided in judg-
ment at last told him that he could be allowed
but one more. Then he gave the old woman's
answer, and was discharged, with a curse on
her that told.*
The old woman was waiting for Florent,
and he now had full leisure to inspect all her
points ; but he was a knight, and would hold
his ti"oth. He set her on his horse before
him, rode by night and lay close by day, till he
came to his castle. There the ladies made an
attempt to attire her for the wedding, and she
was the fouler for their pains. They were
married that night. He turned away from the
bride ; she prayed him not to be so discour-
teous. He turned toward her, with a great
moral effort, and saw (for the chamber was
full of light) a lady of eighteen, of unequalled
beauty. As he would have drawn her to him
she forbade, and said he must make his choice,
to have her such by day or by night. " Choose
for us both," was his reply. " Thanks,"
quoth she, " for since you have made me sov-
ereign, I shall be both night and day as I am
now." She explained that, having been daugh-
ter of the king of Sicily, her stepmother had
forshapen her, the spell to hold till she had
won the love and the sovei-eignty of what
knight passed all others in good name.
The scene of Chaucer's tale, The Wife of
Bath, returns to Arthur's court. One of the
bachelors of the household, when returning
from hawking, commits a i-ape, for which he
is condemned to death. But the queen and
other ladies intercede for him, and the king
leaves his life at the disposal of the queen.
The queen, like the shrewd lady in Gower, but
with no intent to trapan the young man, says
that his lite shall depend upon his being able
• And whan that this matrone herde
The maner how this knight answerde,
She saide, Ha, treson, wo the be !
That hast thus told the privete
Which alle women most desire :
I wolde that thou were a-fire !
So Sir Gawen and Dame Ragnell, w 474 f, and our bal-
lad, stanzas 29, 30.
292
31. THE MARRIAGE OF SIR GAWAIN
to tell her what women most desire, and gives
him a year and a day to seek an answer. He
makes extensive inquiries, but there is no re-
gion in which two creatures can be found to
be of the same mind, and he turns homeward
very downcast.
On his way through a wood he saw a com-
pany of ladies dancing, and moved towards
them, in the hope that he might learn some-
thing. But ere he came the dancers had van-
ished, and all he found was the ugliest woman
conceivable sitting on the green. She asked
the knight what he wanted, and he told her
it was to know what women most desire.
" Plight me thy troth to do the next thing I
ask of thee, and I will tell thee." He gave his
word, and she whispered the secret in his ear.
The court assembled, the queen herself sit-
ting as justice, and the knight was commanded
to say what thing women love best. He made
his response triumphantly ; there was no dis-
senting voice. But as soon as he was declared
to have ransomed his life, up sprang the old
woman he had met in the wood. She had
taught the man his answer, he had plighted
his word to do the first thing she asked of
him, and now she asked him to make her his
wife. The promise was not disputed, but the
poor youth begged her to make some other
request ; to take all he had in the world, and
let him go. She would not yield, and they
were married the next day. When they have
gone to bed, the old wife, " smiling ever mo,"
rallies her husband for his indifference, and
lectures him for objecting to ugliness, age, and
vulgar birth, which things, she says, are a
great security for him, and then gives him his
election, to have her ugly and old as she is,
but true, or young and fair, with the possible
contingencies. The knight has the grace to
leave the decision to her. " Then I have the
sovereignty," she says, " and I will be both
fair and good; throw up the curtain and see."
Fair and young she was, and they lived to their
lives' end in perfect joy.
Chaucer has left out the step-mother and
her bewitchment, and saves, humbles, and re-
wards the young knight by the agency of a
good fairy ; for the ugly old woman is evi-
dently such by her own will and for her own
purposes. She is " smiling ever mo," and has
the power, as she says, to set "all right when-
ever she pleases. Her fate is not dependent
on the knight's compliance, though his is.
The Wife of Bath's Tale is made into a
ballad, or what is called a sonnet, ' Of a Knight
and a Fair Virgin,' in The Crown Garland of
Golden Roses, compiled by Richard Johnson,
not far from 1600 : see the Percy Society re-
print, edited bj' W. Chappell, vol. vi of the se-
ries, p. 68. Upon Chaucer's story is founded
Voltaire's tale, admirable in its way, of Ce qui
plait aux Dames, 1762 ; of which the author
writes, 1765, November 4, that it had had
great success at Fontainebleau in the form of
a comic opera, entitled La F6e Urgele.* The
amusing ballad of The Knight and Shep-
herd's Daughter has much in common with
the Wife of Bath's Tale, and might, if we
could trace its pedigree, go back to a common
original.!
Tales resembling the Marriage of Gawain
must have been widely spread during the
Middle Ages. The ballad of ' King Henry '
has much in common with the one now under
consideration, and Norse and Gaelic connec-
tions, and is probably much earlier. At pres-
ent I can add only one parallel out of Eng-
lish, and that from an Icelandic saga.
Grfmr was on the verge of marriage with
Lopthffina, but a week before the appointed
day the bride was gone, and nobody knew
what had become of her. Her father had
given her a step-mother five years before, and
the step-mother had been far from kind ; but
what then ? Grimr was restless and unhappy,
* This was a melodrama by Favart, in four acts : reduced
in 1821 to one act, at the Gymnase.
t Chaucer's tale is commonly said to be derived from
Gower's, but without sufficient reason. Vv 6507-14, ed.
Tyrwhitt, are close to Dame Ragnell, 409-420. Gower
may have got his from some Example-book. I have not
seen it remarked, and therefore will note, that Example-
books may have been known in England as early as 1000,
for Aelfric seems to speak slightingly of them in his treatise
on the Old Testament. The Proverbs, he says, is a " big-
spellbdc, nd swilce g^ secgatS, ac wisddmes bigspell and war-
nung wits dysig," etc.
31. THE MARRIAGE OF SIR GAWAIN
293
and got no tidings. A year of scarcity com-
ing, he left home with two of his people.
After an adventure with four trolls, he had a
fight with twelve men, in which, though they
were all slain, he lost his comrades and was very
badly wounded. As he lay on the ground,
looking only for death, a woman passed, if
so she might be called ; for she was not taller
than a child of seven years, so stout that
Grfmr's arms would not go I'ound her, mis-
shapen, bald, black, ugly, and disgusting in
every particular. She came up to Grimr, and
asked him if he would accept his life from
her. " Hardly," said he, " you are so loath-
some." But life was precious, and he pres-
ently consented. She took him up and ran
with him, as if he were a babe, till she came
to a large cave ; there she set him down, and
it seemed to Grfmr that she was uglier than
before. " Now pay me for saving your life,"
she said, " and kiss me." " I cannot," said
Grimr, " you look so diabolical." " Expect
no help, then, from me," said she, " and I see
that it will soon be all over with you."
" Since it must be, loath as I am," said Grfmr,
and went and kissed her ; she seemed not so
bad to kiss as to look at. When night came
she made up a bed, and asked Grfmr whether
he would lie alone or with her. " Alone," he
answered. " Then," said she, " I shall take
no pains about healing your wounds." Grfmr
said he would rather lie with her, if he had no
other chance, and she bound up his wounds,
so that he seemed to feel no more of them. No
sooner was Grfmr abed than he fell asleep, and
when he woke, he saw lying by him almost the
fairest woman he had ever laid eyes on, and
marvellously like his true-love, Lopthaena. At
the bedside he saw lying the troll-casing which
she had worn ; he jumped up and burned
this. The woman was very faint ; he sprin-
kled her with water, and she came to, and
said. It is well for both of us ; I saved thy
life first, and thou hast freed me from bon-
dage. It was indeed Lopthtena, whom the
step-mother had transformed into a horrible
shape, odious to men and trolls, which she
should never come out of till a man should
consent to three things, — which no man ever
would, — to accept his life at her hands, to
kiss her, and to share her bed. Grfms saga
loSinkinna, Rafn, Fornaldar Sogur, II, 143-
52.
Sir Fredei'ic Madden, in his annotations
upon this ballad, ' Syr Gawayne,' p. 359, re-
marks that Sir Steven, stanza 31, does not
occur in the Round Table romances ; that Sir
Banier, 32, is probably a mistake for Beduer,
the king's constable ; and that Sir Bore and
Sir Garrett, in the same stanza, are Sir Bors
de Gauves, brother of Lionel, and Gareth, or
Gaheriet, the younger brother of Gawain.
' The Marriage of Sir Gawaine,' as filled
out by Percy from the fragments in his man-
uscript, Reliques, 1765, III, 11, is translated
by Bodmer, I, 110; by Bothe, p. 75; by
Knortz, Lieder u. Romanzen Alt-Englands, p.
135.
1 KmGE Aethtjr Hues in merry CarleUe,
And seemely is to see,
And there he hath with him Queene Gene-
ver,
That bride soe bright of blee.
3 The kiwg kept a royall Christmasse,
Of mirth and great honor,
And when
2 And there he hath with [him] Queene Gene-
ver,
Thai bride soe bright in bower,
And all his barons about him stoode,
TAot were both stiffe and stowre.
4 ' And bring me word what thing it is
TAat a woman [will] most desire ;
This shalbe thy ransome, Arthur,' he sayes,
' For He haue noe other hier.'
294
31. THE MARRIAGE OF SIR GAWAIN
5 King Arthur then held vp his hand,
According thene as was the law ;
He tooke his leaue of the baron there,
And homward can he draw.
15 And as he rode over a more,
Hee see a lady where shee sate
Betwixt an oke and a greene hollen ;
She was cladd in red Scarlett.
6 And when he came to merry Carlile,
To his chamber he is gone,
And ther came to him his cozen Sir Gawaine,
As he did make his mone.
7 And there came to him his cozen Sir Ga-
waine,
That was a curteous knight ;
' Why sigh you soe sore, vnckle Arthur,' he
said,
' Or who hath done thee vnright ? '
8 ' 0 peace, O peace, thou gentle Gawaine,
That faire may thee befEall !
For if thou knew my sighing soe deepe,
Thou wold not meruaUe att all.
9 ' Ffor when I came to Tearne Wadling,
A bold barron there I fand.
With a great club vpon his backe.
Standing stifEe and strong.
10 ' And he asked me wether I wold fight
Or from him I shold begone,
0[r] else I must him a ransome pay.
And soe depart him from.
11 ' To fight wtth him I saw noe cause ;
Methought it was not meet ;
For he was stiffe and strong with-all.
His strokes were nothing sweete.
12 ' Therefor this is my ransome, Gawaine,
I ought to him to pay ;
I must come againe, as I am sworne,
Vpon the New Yeers day ;
13 ' And I must bring him word what thing it la
14 Then king Arthur drest him for to ryde.
In one soe rich array,
Toward the fore-said Tearne Wadling,
That he might keepe his day.
16 Then there as shold haue stood her mouth,
Then there was sett her eye ;
The other was in her forhead fast.
The way that she might see.
17 Her nose was crooked and turnd outward.
Her mouth stood f oule a-wry ;
A worse formed lady than shee was,
Neuer man saw •with, his eye.
18 To halch vpon him, King Arthur,
This lady was full faine,
But King Arthur had forgott his lesson.
What he shold say againe.
19 ' What knight art thou,' the lady sayd,
' That will not speak to me ?
Of me be thou notliing dismayd,
Tho I be vgly to see.
20 ' For I haue halched you curteouslye,
And you will not me againe ;
Yett I may happen Sir Knight,' shee said,
' To ease thee of thy paine.'
21 ' Giue thou ease me, lady,' he said,
' Or helpe me any thing.
Thou shalt have gentle Gawaine, my cozen,
And marry him with a ring.'
22 ' Why, if I help thee not, thou noble King Ar-
thur,
Of thy owne hearts desiringe,
Of gentle Gawaine
23 And when he came to the Tearne Wadling,
The baron there cold he finde.
With a great weapon on his backe.
Standing stifEe and stronge.
24 And then he tooke King Arthurs letters in his
hands.
And away he cold them fling.
And then he puld out a good browne sword,
And cryd himselfe a king.
31. THE MARRIAGE OF SIR GAWAIN
295
25 And he sayd, I have thee and thy land, Ar-
thur,
To doe as it pleaseth me,
For this is not thy ransoms sure,
Therfore yeeld thee to me.
26 And then bespoke him noble Arthur,
And bad him hold his hand :
' And giue me leaue to speake my mind
In defence of all my land.'
27 He said, As I came over a more,
I see a lady where shee sate
Betweene an oke and a green hoUen ;
Shee was clad in red Scarlett.
28 And she says a woman will haue her will,
And this is all her cheef desire :
Doe me right, as thou art a baron of sckUI,
This is thy ransome and all thy hyer.
29 He sayes, An early vengeance light on her !
She walkes on yonder more ;
It was my sister that told thee this, •
And she is a misshappen here.
30 But heer He make mine avow to God
To doe her an euill turne,
For an euer I may thate fowle theefe get,
In a fyer I wUl her burne.
31 Sii" Lancelott and Sir Steven bold.
They rode with them that day.
And the formost of the company
There rode the steward Kay.
32 Soe did Sir Banier and Sir Bore,
Sir Garrett with them soe gay,
Soe did Sir Tristeram that gentle kwi^At,
To the forrest fi-esh and gay.
33 And when he came to the greene forrest,
Vnderneath a greene hoUy tree.
Their sate that lady in red scarlet
That vnseemly was to see.
34 Sir Kay beheld this ladys face.
And looked vppon her swire ;
' Whosoeuer kisses this lady,' he sayes,
' Of his kisse he stands in feare.'
35 Sir Kay beheld the lady againe,
And looked vpon her snout ;
' Whosoeuer kisses this lady,' he saies,
' Of his kisse he stands in doubt.'
36 ' Peace, cozere Kay,' then said Sir Gawaine,
' Amend thee of thy life ;
For there is a knight amongst vs all
That must marry her to his wife.'
37 ' What ! wedd her to wiffe ! ' then said Sir Kay,
' In the diuells name anon !
Gett me a wiffe where-ere I may.
For I had rather be slaine ! '
38 Then some tooke vp their hawkes in hast,
And some tooke vp their hounds,
And some sware they wold not marry her
For citty nor for towne.
39 And then be-spake him noble 'King Arthur,
And sware there by this day,
' For a litle foule sight and misliking
40 Then shee said, Choose thee, gentle Gawaine,
Truth as I doe say,
Wether thou wilt haue me in this liknesse
In the night or else in the day.
41 And tlien bespake hina gentle Gawaine,
Was one soe mild of moode,
Sayes, Well I know what I wold say,
God grant it may be good !
42 To haue thee fowle in the night
When I with thee shold play —
Yet I had rather, if I might,
Haue thee fowle in the day.
43 ' What ! when lords goe with ther feires,' shee
said,
' Both to the ale and wine,
Alas ! then I must hyde my selfe,
I must not goe withinne.'
44 And then bespake him gentle Gawaine,
Said, Lady, that 's but skill ;
And because thou art my owne lady.
Thou shalt haue all thy wiU.
296
31. THE MARRIAGE OF SIR GAWAIN
45 Then she said, Biased be thou, gentle Gawain,
This day that I thee see.
For as thou seest me att this time,
From hencforth I wilbe.
46 My father was an old knight,
And yett it chanced soe
That he marryed a younge lady
That brought me tc this woe.
47 Shee witched me, being a faire young lady,
To the greene forrest to dwell,
And there I must walke in womans liknesse,
Most like a feend of heU.
48 She witched my brother to a carlish b . . .
49
' That looked soe fouls, and that was wont
On the wild more to goe.'
50 ' Come kisse her, brother Kay,' then said Sir
Gawaine,
' And amend thd of thy liffe ;
I sweare this is the same lady
That I marryed to my wifEe.'
51 Sir Kay kissed that lady bright,
Standing vpon his fEeete ;
He swore, as he was trew knight.
The spice was neuer soe sweete.
52 ' Well, cozen Gawaine,' sayes Sir Kay,
' Thy chance is fallen arright,
For thou hast gotten one of the fairest maids
1 euer saw with my sight.'
63 ' It is my fortune,' said Sir Gawaine ;
' For my vnckle Arthurs sake
I am glad as grasse wold be of raine,
Great ioy that I may take.'
54 Sir Gawaine tooke the lady by the one
arme,
Sir Kay tooke her by the tother.
They led her straight to 'King Arthur,
As they were brother and brother.
55 King Arthur welcomed them there all,
And soe did Lady Geneuer his queene.
With aU the knights of the Round Table,
Most seemly to be scene.
56 Kin^ Arthur beheld that lady faire
That was soe faire and bright.
He thanked Christ in Trinity
For Sir Gawaine that gentle knight.
57 Soe did the knights, both more and lesse,
Eeioyced all that day
For the good chance that hapened was
To Sir Gawaine and his lady gay.
1'. Qqueene.
3*. Half a page gone from the MS., about 9
stanzas ; and so after 13>, 22', 30*, 39',
48^
19^ Perhaps sayes.
23^. he fimde.
25^. Perhaps sayes. 26^. Perhaps hands.
27^ He altered from the in MS.
31. " The 2d Part " is written here in the left
margin of the MS. Furnivall.
34'. her smire.
shaine.
with one.
37^
41^,
43*. seires.
44^^.
481.
a skill. 45'. thou see
Carlist B . . .
& is printed and.
32. KING HENRY
297
32
KING HENRY
'King Henry.' a. The Jamieson-Brown MS., fol. 31. b. Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, 1802, II, 132.
Scott describes his copy of ' King Henry '
as " edited from the MS. of Mrs Brown, cor-
rected by a recited fragment." This MS. of
Mrs Brown was William Tytler's, in which,
as we learn from Anderson's communication
to Percy (see p. 62, above), this ballad was
No 11. Anderson notes that it extended to
twenty-two stanzas, the number in Scott's
copy. No account is given of the recited frag-
ment. As published by Jamieson, II, 194,
the ballad is increased by interpolation to
thirty-four stanzas. " The interpolations will
be found inclosed in brackets," but a painful
contrast of style of itself distinguishes them.
They were entered by Jamieson in his man-
uscript as well.
The fourteenth stanza, as now printed, the
eighteenth in Jamieson's copy, is not there
bracketed as an interpolation, and yet it is
not in the manuscript. This stanza, however,
with some verbal variation, is found in Scott's
version, and as it may have been obtained by
Jamieson in one of his visits to Mrs Brown, it
has been allowed to stand.
Lewis rewrote the William Tytler version
for his Tales of Wonder, ' Courteous King
Jamie,' II, 453, No 57, and it was in this
shape that the ballad first came out, 1801.
The story is a variety of that which is found
in ' The Marriage of Sir Gawain,' and has its
parallel, as Scott observed, in an episode in
Hr61fr Kraki's saga ; A, Torfa3us, Historia
Hrolfi Krakii, c. vii, Havnije, 1705 ; B, For-
naldar Sogur, Rafn, I, 30 f, c. 15.
King Helgi, father of Hr61fr Kraki, in con-
sequence of a lamentable misadventure, was
living in a solitary way in a retired lodge.
One stormy Yule-night there was a loud wail
at the door, after he had gone to bed. Helgi
bethought himself that it was unkingly of him
to leave anything to suffer outside, and got
up and unlocked the door. There he saw a
poor tattered ci-eature of a woman, hideously
misshapen, filthy, starved, and frozen (A), who
begged that she might come in. The king
took her in, and bade her get under straw and
bearskin to warm herself. She entreated him
to let her come into his bed, and said that her
life depended on his conceding this boon. " It
is not what I wish," replied Helgi, " but if it
is as thou sayest, lie here at the stock, in thy
clothes, and it will do me no harm." She got
into the bed, and the king turned to the wall.
A light was burning, and after a while the
king took a look over his shoulder ; never had
he seen a fairer woman than was lying there,
and not in rags, but in a silk kirtle. The king
turned towards her now, and she informed
him that his kindness had freed her from a
weird imposed by her stepmother, which she
was to be subject to till some king had ad-
mitted her to his bed, A. She had asked this
grace of many, but no one before had been
moved to grant it.
Every point of the Norse saga, except the
stepmother's weird, is found in the Gaelic tale
' Nighean Righ fo Thuinn,' ' The Daughter of
King Under-waves,' Campbell's Popular Tales
of the West Highlands, No Ixxxvi, III, 403 f.
The Finn were together one wild night,
when there was rain and snow. An uncouth
woman knocked at Fionn's door about mid-
night, and cried to him to let her in under
cover. " Thou strange, ugly creature, with
thy hair down to thy heels, how canst thou
ask me to let thee in ! " he answered. She
298
32. KING HENRY
went away, with a scream, and tlie whole
scene was repeated with Oisean. Then she
came to Diarmaid. " Thou art hideous," he
said, " and thy hair is down to thy heels, but
come in." When she had come in, she told
Diarmaid that she had been travelling over
ocean and sea for seven years, without being
housed, till he had admitted her. She asked
that she might come near the fire. " Come,"
said Diarmaid ; but when she approached
everybody retreated, because she was so hide-
ous. She had not been long at the fire, when
she wished to be under Diarmaid's blanket.
" Thou art growing too bold," said he, " but
come." She came under the blanket, and he
turned a fold of it between them. " She was
not long thus, when he gave a start, and he
gazed at her, and he saw the finest drop of
blood that ever was, from the beginning of
the universe till the end of the world, at his
side."
Mr Campbell has a fragment of a Gaelic
ballad upon this story, vol. xvii., p. 212 of his
manuscript collection, ' CoUun gun Cheann,' or
' The Headless Trunk,' twenty-two lines. In
this case, as the title imports, a body without
a head replaces the hideous, dirty, and un-
kempt draggle-tail who begs shelter of the
Finn successively and obtains her boon only
from Diarmaid. See Campbell's Gaelic Bal-
lads, p. ix.
The monstrous deformity of the woman is
a ti-ait in the ballad of ' The Marriage of Sir
Gawain,' and related stories, and is described
in these with revolting details. Her exagger-
ated appetite also is found in the romance of
The Wedding of Sir Gawen and Dame Rag-
nell, see p. 290. The occasion on which she
exhibits it is there the wedding feast, and the
scene consequently resembles, even more close-
ly there than here, what we meet with in the
Danish ballads of ' Greve Genselin,' Grundt-
vig. No 16, I, 222, and ' Tord af Havsgaard,'
Grundtvig, No 1, I, 1, IV, 580 (= Kristensen,
' Thors Hammer,' I, 85, No 35) the latter
founded on the ]?rymskvit5a, or Hamarsheimt,
of the older Edda. In a Norwegian version
of ' Greve Genselin,' Grundtvig, IV, 732, the
feats of eating and di-inking are performed not
by the bride, but by an old woman who acts
as bridesmaid, brurekvinne.*
A maid who submits, at a linden-worm's en-
treat j', to lie in the same bed with him, finds
a king's son by her side in the morning :
Grundtvig, ' Lindormen,' No 65, B, C, II, 213,
III, 839 ; Kristensen, I, 195, No 71 ; Afzelius,
III, 121, No 88 ; Arwidsson, II, 270, No 139 ;
Hazelius, Ur de nordiska Folkens Lif, p. 117,
and p. 149. In ' Ode und de Slang',' Miillen-
hoff, Sagen u. s. w., p. 383, a maid, without
much reluctance, lets a snake successively
come into the house, into her chamber, and
finally into her bed, upon which the snake
changes immediately into a prince.
Scott's copy is translated by Schubart, p.
127, and by Gerhard, p. 129 ; Jamieson's, with-
out the interpolations, after Aytoun, II, 22, by
Knortz, Schottische Balladen, No 36.
1 Lat never a man a wooing wend
That lacketh thingis three ;
A routh o gold, an open heart,
Ay fu o charity.
3 He chas'd the deer now him before,
An the roe down by the den,
TlU the fattest buck in a' the flock
King Henry he has slain.
2 As this I speak of King Henry,
For he lay burd-alone ;
An he 's doen him to a jelly hunt's ha,
Was seven miles frae a town.
4 0 he has doen him to his ha,
To make him beerly cheer ;
An in it came a griesly ghost,
Steed stappin i the fleer.
* The like by a carlin at a birth-feast, ' Kaellingen til Bar-
sel,' Kristensen, II, 341, No 100, Landstad, p. 666, No 96 ;
known also in Sweden. Again, by a fighting friar, ' Den
stridbare Munken,' Arwidsson, I, 417. ' Greve Genselin' is
translated by Prior, I, 173, and by Jainieson, Illustrations of
Northern Antiquities, p. 310 ; ' Tord af Havsgaard ' by Prior,
1,3.
33. KING HENRY
299
5 Her head hat the reef-tree o the house,
Her middle ye mot wel span ;
He 's thrown to her his gay mantle,
Says, ' Lady, hap your lingcan.'
6 Her teeth was a' like teather stakes,
Her nose like club or mail ;
An I ken naething she 'peard to he,
But the fiend that wons in hell.
7 ' Some meat, some meat, ye King Henry,
Some meat ye gie to me ! '
' An what meat 's in this house, lady.
An what ha I to gie ? '
' O ye do kill your berry-brown steed,
An you bring him here to me.'
8 0 whan he slew his berry-brown steed,
Wow but his heart was sair !
Shee eat him [a'] up, skin an bane.
Left na«thing but hide an hair.
9 ' Mair meat, mair meat, ye King Henry,
Mair meat ye gi to me ! '
' An what meat 's in this house, lady.
An what ha I to gi ? '
' O ye do kill your good gray-hounds.
An ye bring them a' to me.'
13 ' Some drink, some drink, now, King Henry,
Some drink ye bring to me ! '
' O what drink 's i this house, lady,
That you 're nae welcome ti ? '
' 0 ye sew up your horse's hide.
An bring in a drink to me.'
14 And he 's sewd up the bloody hide,
A puncheon o wine put in ;
She drank it a' up at a waught,
Left na ae drap ahin.
15 ' A bed, a bed, now. King Henry,
A bed you mak to me !
For ye maun pu the heather green,
An mak a bed to me.'
16 0 pu'd has he the heather green,
An made to her a bed.
An up has he taen his gay mantle.
An oer it has he spread.
17 ' Tak aff your claiths, now, King Henry,
An lye down by my side ! '
' O God forbid,' says King Henry,
' That ever the like betide ;
That ever the fiend that wons in hell
Shoud streak down by my side.'
10 O whan he slew his good gray-hounds,
Wow but his heart was sair !
She eat them a' up, skin an bane.
Left naething but hide an hair.
11 ' Mair meat, mair meat, ye King Henry,
Mair meat ye g^ to me ! '
' An what meat 's i this house, lady,
An what ha I to gi ? '
' O ye do kill your gay gos-hawks.
An ye bring them here to me.'
12 0 whan he slew his gay gos-hawks,
Wow but his heart was sair !
She eat them a' up, skin an bane.
Left naething but feathers bare.
18 Whan night was gane, and day was come,
An the sun shone throw the ha,
The fairest lady that ever was seen
Lay atween him an the wa.
19 ' O well is me ! ' says King Henry,
' How lang '11 this last wi me ? '
Then out it spake that fair lady,
' Even till the day you dee.
20 ' For I 've met wi mony a gentle knight
That 's gien me sic a fill.
But never before wi a courteous knight
That ga me a' my will.'
a. 13^ shew. 19'. wiU.
b. 1. The first stanza of the original of this copy,
as cited by Anderson, is :
Let never a man a wooing wend
That lacketh things three,
A routh of gold, and open heart,
An fu o charity.
1*. And fu o courtesey.
2\ And this was seen o.
2^ And he has taen him to a haunted hunt's ha.
300
33. KEMPY KAY
3^ He 's chaced the dun deer thro the wood.
3'. in a' the herd.
4. He 's taen him to his hunting ha,
For to make burly cheir ;
When loud the wind was heard to sound,
And an earthquake rocked the floor.
And darkness coverd a' the hall.
Where they sat at their meat ;
The gray dogs, youling, left their food.
And crept to Henrie's feet.
And louder houled the rising wind
And burst the fastned door ;
And in there came a griesly ghost,
Stood stamping on the floor.
The wind and darkness are not of Scoffs iiv-
vention, for nearly all that is not in b, is
found in Lewis, too.
5'' *. Each frighted huntsman fled the ha.
And left the king alone.
7*^. That ye 're nae weUcum tee ? '
' O ye 's gae kUl your berry brown steed,
And serve him up to me.'
9^ That ye 're na wellcum tee ?
10'. a' up, ane by ane.
IIH That I hae left to gie ? '
' 0 ye do fell your gay goss-hawks,
And bring them a' to me.'
121. ijg feiigfi 12^ bane by bane.
14^^. And put in a pipe of wine,
14°. up a' at ae draught. 14*. drap therein.
15. Between ^ and ' :
And what 's the bed i this house, ladye.
That ye 're nae weUcum tee ?
15*. 0 ye maun pu the green heather.
IT-"' ^. Now swear, now swear, ye king Henrie,
To take me for your bride.
18^. When day was come, and night was gane.
19'. And out and spak that ladye fair.
20. For I was witched to a ghastly shape.
All by my stepdame's skill,
Till I should meet wi a courteous knight
Wad gie me a' my will.
33
KEMPY KAY
A. 'KempyKay.' Pitcairn's MSS, II, 125. Scotish D. ' Kempy Kay,' Motherwell's MS., p. 192.
Ballads and Songs [James Maidment], Edinb. 1859,
p. 35; Sharpe's Ballad Book, p. 81. E. ' Drowsy Lane.' Campbell MSS, II, 122.
B. ' Kempy Kaye.' a. Kinloch MSS, I, 65. b. Kin- F. ' Bar aye your bower door weel.' Campbell MSS,
loch's Ballad Book, p. 41. II, 101.
C. ' Kempy Kay,' or ' Kempy Kane,' Motherwell's G. ' King Knapperty.' Buchan's MSS, I, 133.
MS., p. 193. The first stanza in Motherwell's Min-
strelsy, Appendix, p. xxiv, No XXX.
All these versions of ' Kempy Kay ' are into the last. The fourth stanza of A clearly
known, or may be presumed, to have been belongs to some other ballad. Both A and B
taken down within the first three decades of appear to have undergone some slight changes
this century ; A is traced as many years back when published by Sharpe and Kinloch re-
33. KEMPY KAY
301
spectively. Some verses from this ballad have
been adopted into one form of a still more
unpleasant piece in the Campbell collection,
concerning a wife who was " the qneen of all
sluts." *
Sharpe remarks : " This song my learned
readers will perceive to be of Scandinavian
origin, and that the wooer's name was probably
suggested by Sir Kaye's of the Round Table.
. . . The description of Bengoleer's daugh-
ter resembles that of the enchanted damsel
who appeared to courteous King Henrie." It
is among possibilities that the ballad was an
outgrowth from some form of the story of
The Marriage of Sir Gawain, in the Percy
version of which the " unseemly " lady is so
rudely commented on and rejected by Kay.
This unseemly lady, in The Wedding of
Gawen and Dame Ragnell, and her counter-
part in ' King Henry,' who is of superhu-
man height, show an extravagant voracity
which recalls the giantess in ' Greve Gense-
lin.' In ' Greve Genselin,' a burlesque form
of an heroic ballad which is preserved in a
pure shape in three Faroe versions (Grundt-
vig, IV, 737-42), there are many kemps in-
vited to the wedding, and in a little dance
which is had the smallest kemp is fifteen ells
to [below] the knee, Grundtvig, No 16, A 26,
B 29, C 29. Kempy Kay has gigantic dimen-
sions in A 7, C 9, B 7 : teeth like tether-
stakes, a nose three [nine, five] feet long,
three ells [nine yards] between his shoulders,
a span between his eyne.f Of the bride it
is said in A 12 that her finger nails wei'e like
the teeth of a rake and her teeth like tether-
stakes. This is not decisive ; it is her ugli-
ness, filthiness, and laziness that are made
most of. We may assume that she would be
in dimension and the shape of nature a match
for the kemp, but she does not comport herself
especially like a giantess.
If Kempy Kay be the original name of the
wooer, Knapperty and Chickmakin might
easily be derived from corrupt pronunciations
like Kampeky, Kimpaky.
Pitcairn's MSS, II, 125, as taken down by Mr Pitcairn
from the singing of his aunt, Mrs Gammell, who had learned
it in the neighborhood of Kincaid, Stirlingshire, when a
child, or about 1770. Scotish Ballads and Songs [James
Maidment], Edinburgh, 1859, p. 35; Sharpe's Ballad Book,
p. 81.
1 Kempy Kaye 's a wooing gane,
Far, far ayont the sea,
And he has met with an auld, auld man,
His gudefaythir to be.
2 ' It 's I 'm coming to court your daughter
dear,
And some part of your gear : '
' And by my sooth,' quoth Bengoleer,
' She '11 save a man a wear.
* MSS, II, 294, " What a bad luck had I " = The Queen
of all Sluts, the same, p. 297. Stanzas 2, 3, 4, of the former
are :
Then een in her head are like two rotten plumbs ;
Turn her about and see how she glooms.
The teeth in her head were like harrow-pins;
Turn her about, and see how she girns.
3 * My dochter she 's a thrifty lass,
She span seven year to me,
And if it were weel counted up,
Full three heire it would be.
4 ' What 's the matter wi you, my fair creature,
You look so pale and wan ?
I 'm sure you was once the fairest creature
That ever the sun shined on.
5 ' Gae scrape yoursel, and gae scart yoursel,
And mak your brucket face clean.
For the wooers are to be here to nighte,
And your body 's to be seen.'
6 Sae they scrapit her, and they scartit her,
Like the face of an aussy pan ;
The hair in her head w^as like heathercrows,
The 1 . . . s were in 't thick as linseed bows.
A comparatively inoffensive version, ' The Queen of Sluts,'
in Chambers' Scottish Songs, p. 454.
t The Carl of Carlile has the space of a large span be-
tween his brows, three yards over his shoulders, lingers like
tether-stakes, and fifty cubits of height. Percy MS., Hales
& Furnivall, III, 283 f, vv 179-187.
302
33. KBMPY KAY
Syne in cam Kempy Kay himself,
A clever and taU young man.
7 His teeth they were like tether-sticks,
His nose was tlrree fit lang,
Between his shouthers was ells three.
And tween his eyne a span.
8 He led his dochter by the hand,
His dochter ben brought he :
' O is she not the fairest lass
That 's in great Christendye ? '
9 nka hair intU her head
Was like a heather-cowe,
And Uka louse anunder it
Was like a bruckit ewe.
10 She had tauchy teeth and kaily lips,
And wide lugs, fou o hair;
Her pouches fou o peasemeal-daighe
A' hinging down her spare.
11 Ilka eye intil her head
Was like a rotten plumbe.
And down browed was the queyne.
And sairly did she gloom.
12 Ilka nail upon her hand
Was like an iron rake.
And nka tooth intil her head
Was like a tether-stake.
13 She gied to him a gravat,
0 the auld horse's sheet.
And he gied her a gay gold ring,
0 the auld couple-root.
B
a. Kinloch MSS, I, 65. b. Kinloch's Ballad Book, p.
41 . From the recitation of Mary Barr.
1 Kjimpy Kate is a wooing gane,
Far ayont the sea,
And there he met wi auld Goling,
His gudefather to be, be,
His gudefather to be.
2 ' Whar are ye gaun, O Kempy Kaye,
Whar are ye gaun sae sune ? '
' O I am gaun to court a wife.
And think na ye that 's weel dune ? '
3 ' An ye be gaun to court a wife.
As ye do teU to me,
'T is ye sail hae my Fusome Fug,
Your ae wife for to be.'
■ 4 Whan auld Goling cam to the house,
He lookit thro a hole.
And there he saw the dirty drab
Just whisking oure the coal.
5 ' Rise up, rise up my Fusome Fug,
And mak your foul face clean.
For the brawest wooer that ere ye saw
Is come develling doun the green.'
6 Up then rose the Fusome Fug,
To mak her foul face clean ;
And aye she cursed her mither
She had na water in.
7 She rampit out, and she rampit in.
She rampit but and ben ;
The tittles and tattles that hang frae her tail
Wad muck an acre o land.
8 She had a neis upon her face
Was like an auld pat-fit ;
Atween her neis hot an her mou
Was inch thick deep wi dirt.
9 She had twa een intil her head
War like twa rotten plums ;
The heavy brows hung doun her face.
And 0 I vow she glooms !
10 He gied to her a braw silk napkin,
Was made o' an auld horse-brat :
' I ne'er wore a silk napkin a' my life.
But weel I wat Ise wear that.'
11 He gied to her a braw gowd ring.
Was made frae an auld brass pan :
* I neer wore a gowd ring in a' my life.
But now I wat Ise wear ane.'
12 Whan thir twa lovers had met thegither,
O kissing to get their fill,
The slaver tliat hang atween their twa gabs
Wad hae tetherd a ten year auld bill.
33. KEMPY KAY
303
0
Motherwell's MS., p. 193. Motherwell's Minstrelsy, Ap-
pendix, p. xxiv, No XXX, the iirst stanza.
1 Kempt Kate 's a wooing gane,
And far beyond the sea, a wee
And there he met wi Dreaiylane,
His gay gudefather to be. a wee
2 ' Gude een, gude een,' quo Drearylane,
' Gude een, gude een,' quo he, a wee
' I Ve come your dochter's love to win,
I kenna how it will do.' a wee
3 ' My dochter she 's a thrifty lass,
She 's spun this gay seven year,
And if it come to gude guiding,
It will be half a heer.'
4 ' Rise up, rise up, ye dirty slut.
And wash your foul face clean ;
The wooers will be here the night
That suld been here yestreen.'
5 They took him ben to the fire en,
And set him on a chair ;
He looked on the lass that he loved best.
And thought she was wondrous fair.
6 The een that was in our bride's head
Was like twa rotten plooms ;
She was a chaunler-chaftit quean.
And 0 but she did gloom !
7 The skin that was on our bride's breast
Was like a saffron bag,
And aye her hand was at her neek.
And riving up the scabs.
8 The hair that was on our bride's head
Was like a heather-cow.
And every louse that lookit out
Was like a brockit ewe.
9 Betwixd Kempy's shouthers was three ells,
His nose was nine feet lang.
His teeth they were like tether sticks,
Between his eyne a span.
10 So aye they kissed, and aye they clapped,
I wat they kissed weel ;
The slaver that hang between their mouths
Wad hae tethered a twa year auld bill.
Motherwell's MS., p. 192.
* * # * #
1 The father came unto the door.
And keeked thro the key-hole, a wee
And there he saw his dochter Jean,
Sitting on a coal. a wee
2 They scartit her, and scrapit her,
Wi the hand o a rusty pan, a wee
Her father he did all his best
For to get her a man. a wee
3 She is to the stoups gane.
There la nae water in ;
She 's cursed the hands and ban'd the feet
That did na bring it in.
4 Out then spak her auld mither,
In her bed whare she lay :
' If there is nae water in the house,
Gae harl her thro the lin.'
5 0 she is to the taipy tapples gane,
That stood for seven year.
And there she washed her foul face clean,
And dried it wi a huggar.
6 He 's gien her a gay gold ring.
Just like a cable-rope.
And she 's gien him a gay gravat,
Made out o the tail o a sark.
E
Campbell MSS, II, 122.
1 ' GuD een, gud een,' says Chickmakin,
' Ye 're welcome here,' says Drowsy Lane ;
' I 'm comd to court your daughter Jean,
And marry her wi yer will, a wee.'
2 ' My daughter Jean 's a thrifty lass.
She 's spun these seven lang years to me.
304
33. KEMPY KAY
And gin she spin another seven,
She '11 munt a half an heir, a wee.'
3 Drowsy Lane, it 's he 's gane hame,
And keekit through the hole, a wee
And there he saw his daughter Jean
A reeking oer the coal. a wee
4 ' Get up, get up, ye dirty bitch.
And wash yer foul face clean.
For they are to be here the night
That should hae been here yestreen.'
5 Up she rose, pat on her clothes.
She 's washen her foul face clean ;
She cursd the hands, she ban'd the feet,
That wadna bring the water in.
6 She rubbit hersel, she scrubbit hersel,
Wi the side of a rustit pan, a wee,
And In a little came Chickmakin,
A braw young lad indeed was he.
7 His teeth they were like tether-steeks.
His nose was five feet lang ;
Between his shoulders was nine yards broad.
And between his een a span.
8 Uka hair into his head
Was like a heather-cowe,
And ilka louse that lookit out
Was like a brookit ewe.
9 Thae twa kissd and thae twa clapt,
And thae twa kissd their fill.
And aye the slaver between them hang
Wad tetherd a ten-pund bull.
10 They twa kissd and they twa clapt,
And they gaed to their bed, a wee,
And at their head a knocking stane
And at their feet a mell, a wee.
11 The auld wife she lay in her bed :
' And gin ye '11 do my bidding a wee,
And gin ye '11 do my bidding,' quoth she,
' Yees whirl her oer the lea, a wee.'
Campbell MSS, II, 101.
1 As I cam oer yon misty muir.
And oer yon grass-green lull.
There I saw a campy carle
Going to the mill.
And bar aye yer bower door weel weel,
And bar aye yer bower door weel.
2 I lookit in at her window.
And in at her hove hole.
And there I saw a fousome fag.
Cowering oer a coal.
3 ' Get up, get up, ye fousome fag.
And make yer face fou clean ;
For the wooers will be here the night,
And your body will be seen.'
4 He gave her a gay cravat,
'T was of an auld horse-sheet ;
He gave her a gay goud ring,
'T was of an auld tree root.
5 He laid his arms about her neck,
They were like kipple-roots ;
And aye he kissd her wi his lips,
They were like meller's hoops.
6 When they were laid in marriage bed.
And covered oer wi fail,
The knocking meU below their heads
Did serve them wondrous weel.
7 Ilka pap into her breasts
Was like a saffron bag,
And aye his hand at her a . . e
Was tearing up the scabs.
8 Ilka hair into her head
Was like a heather-cow,
And ilka louse that lookit out
Was like a brookit ewe.
33. KEMPy KAY
305
Buchan's MSS, I, 133.
1 King Knappertt he 's a hunting gane,
Oer hills and mountains high, high, high,
A gude pike-stafE intill his hand,
And dulgets anew forbye, I, I, I,
And dulgets anew forbye.
2 Then he met in wi an auld woman.
Was feeding her flocks near by, I, I, I :
* I 'm come a wooing to your daughter,
And a very gude bargain am I, I, I.'
3 And she 's awa to her wee hole house,
Lookd in a wee chip hole,
And there she saw her filthy wee flag.
Was sitting athort the coal.
4 ' Get up, get up, ye filthy foul flag,
And make your foul face clean ;
There are wooers coming to the town,
And your foul face mauna be seen.'
5 Then up she raise, an awa she gaes,
And in at the back o the door.
And there a pig o water she saw,
'T was seven years auld an mair.
6 Aye she rubbed, an aye she scrubbed,
To make her foul face clean,
And aye she bannd the auld wife, her mither,
For nae bringing clean water in.
7 King Knapperty he came in at the door.
Stood even up in the floor ;
Altho that she had neer seen him before,
She kent him to be her dear.
8 He has taen her in his arms twa.
And kissd her, cheek and chin :
' I neer was kissd afore in my life,
But this night got mony ane.'
9 He has put his hand in his pocket.
And he 's taen out a ring :
Says, ' Take ye tliat, my dearest dear,
It is made o the brazen pan.'
10 She thankd him ance, she thankd him twice,
She thankd him oer agiiin :
' I neer got a ring before in my life.
But this night hae gotten ane.'
11 These lovers bed it was well made.
And at their hearts' desire ;
These lovers bed it was well made.
At the side o the kitchen fixe.
12 The bolster that these lovers had
Was the mattock an the mell.
And the covring that these lovers had
Was the clouted cloak an pale.
13 The draps that fell frae her twa een
Woud have gard a froth-mUl gang,
An [the] clunkerts that hung at their heels
Woud hae muckd an acre o land.
14 An Uka hair that was in their head
Was like a heather-cow.
And ilka tenant that it containd
Was like a lintseed-bow.
A. S*"^. Var. For Kempy Kay will be here the
night
Or else the mom at een.
9*. Var. Was like a lintseed bow.
These variations are found in Sharpe's copy.
Tlie first seven stanzas are put in the order 1,
2\
3*.
41,
5-\
6, 7, 3, 2, 4, 5.
I 'm coming.
Full ten wobs it would be.
'. fair maiden, fairest maiden,
bruchty. 6*. And in.
39
7*. Between his een. 10^ tauchty is mis-
printed lauchty.
10*. War hinging.
11*. An down down.
12'. teeth, no doubt to indicate the pronun-
ciation.
a. 4^. Whan Kempy Kaye. Other copies
show that it must he the father, and
not tlie wooer.
6'. ae, with ay in the margin : qu. aye as ?
b. The variations of the Ballad Book are ap-
parently arbitrary.
V. Far far. 8*. o dirt
306
34. KEMP OWYNE
After 9 follows :
Ilka hair that was on her head
Was like a heather cow,
And ilka louse that lookit out
Was like a lintseed bow.
a* succeeds, with Kempy Kaye for auld
Goling. aTid is necessariltj transferred
if the reading Kempy Kaye is retaitied.
Tlie order of the first five stanzas in the MS
is 1, 2, 5, 4, 3.
A wee is the burden after every second and
fourth verse, and so with D.
1*' ^. In Motherwell's Minstrelsy, Appendix, p.
xxiv, No XXX,
Kempy Kane's a wooin gane,
And far ayont the sea awee.
3^. years. 5^. on a stool.
D. The first stanza is numbered 3 in the MS.,
the second 5, and there is space left, as if
for another, between 2 and 3.
E. A wee, originally a burden at the middle and
the end of the stanza, as. in C, D, has been
adopted into the verse in 1, 2, 6, 10(?), 11,
in which stanzas the eve7i lines are of four
accents instead of three. 2, 6 can be easily
restored, on the model of C 3, A. 6.
5*. in the water.
G. I, I, I is added as burden to every second and
fourth line j except 1% which adds high,
high, and 2*, only I, I.
34
KEMP OWYNE
A. ' Kemp Owyne.' Buchan's Ballads of the North
of Scotland, II, 78 ; Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. 373;
' Kemp Owayne,' Motherwell's MS., p. 448.
B. ' Kempion.' a. Jamieson-Brown MS., fol. 29.
b. Scott's Minstrelsy, 1802,11, 93, from William Tyt-
lor's Brown MS., No 9, " with corrections from a
recited frasment."
It is not, perhaps, material to explain how
Owain, " the king's son Urien," happens to
be awai'ded the adventure which here follows.
It is enough that his right is as good as that of
other knights to whom the same achievement
has been assigned, thougli the romance, or, as
the phrase used to be, " the book," saj's noth-
ing upon the subject. Owain's slaying the
fire-drake who was getting the better of the
lion may have led to his name becoming as-
sociated with the still more gallant exploit of
thrice kissing a fire-drake to effect a disen-
chantment. The ring in A 9 miglit more
plausibly be regarded as being a i-epetition of
that which Owain's lady gave him on leaving
her for a twelvemonth's outing, a ring which
would keep him from loss of blood, and also
from prison, sickness, and defeat in battle —
in short, preserve him against all the accidents
which the knight suggested might prevent
his holding his day — provided that he had it
by him and thought on her. Ritson, Ywaine
and Gawin, vv 1514-38.
But an Icelandic saga comes near enough to
the story of the ballad as given in A to show
where its connections lie. A\s6\ and a brother
and sister are all transformed by a stepmother,
a handsome woman, much younger than her
husband. Als6rs heavy weird is to be a
nondescript monster with a horse's tail, hoofs,
and mane, white eyes, big mouth, and huge
hands, and never to be released from the spell
till a king's son shall consent to kiss her.
One night when Hjdlmt^r had landed on a
woody island, and it had fallen to him to keep
watch, he heard a great din and crashing in
the woods, so that the oaks trembled. Pres-
ently this monster came out of the thicket
34. KEMP OWYNE
307
with a fine sword in her hand, such as he had
not seen the hke of. They had a colloquy,
and he asked her to let him have the sword.
She said he should not have it unless he
would kiss her. " I will not kiss thy snout,"
said Hjdlmt^r, " for mayhap I should stick to
it." But something came into his mind which
made him think better of her offer, and he
said he was ready. " You must leap upon my
neck, then," she said, " when I throw up the
sword, and if you then hesitate, it will be your
death." She threw up the sword, he leaped
on her neck and kissed her, and she gave him
the sword, with an augury of victory and good
luck for him all his days. The retransforma-
tion does not occur on the spot, but further
on Hjdlmter meets Als<51 as a young lady at
the court of her brother, who has also been re-
stored to his proper form and station ; every-
thing is explained ; HjdlmtSr marries her, and
his foster-brother her sister. Hjd,lmters ok
Olvers Saga, cc 10, 22, Rafn, Fornaldar Sogur,
III, 473 ff, .514 ff.
In many tales of the sort a single kiss suffices
to undo the spell and reverse the transforma-
tion ; in others, as in the ballad, three are
required. The triplication of the kiss has led
in A to a triplication of the talisman against
wounds. The popular genius was inventive
enough to vary the properties of the several
gifts, and we may believe that belt, ring, and
sword had originally each its peculiar quality.
The peril of touching fin or tail in A seems
to correspond to that in the saga of hesitating
when the sword is thrown up.
The Danish ballad, ' Jomfruen i Orme-
ham,' from MSS of the sixteenth and the sev-
enteenth century, Grundtvig, No 59, II, 177,
resembles both the first version of the Scottish
ballad and the Icelandic saga in the points
that the maid offers gifts and is rehabilitated
by a kiss. The maid in her proper shape,
which, it appears, she may resume for a por-
tion of the day, stands at Sir Jenus's bedside
and offers him gifts — five silver-bowls, all the
gold in her kist, twelve foals, twelve boats —
and ends with saying, " Were I a swain, as
you are, I would betroth a maid." It is now
close upon midnight, and she hints that he
must be quick. But Jenus is fast asleep the
while ; twelve strikes, and the maid instantly
turns into a little snake. The page, however,
has been awake, and he repeats to his master
all that has occurred.* Sir Jenus orders his
horse, rides along a hillside, and sees the lit-
tle snake in the grass. He bends over and
kisses it, and it turns to a courteous maid,
who thanks him, and offers him any boon he
may ask. He asks her to be his, and as she
has loved him before this, she has no difficulty
in plighting him her troth.
A maid ti'ansformed by a step-mother into
a tree is freed by being kissed by a man, in
' Jomfruen i Linden,' Grundtvig, II, 214, No
66, Kristensen, II, 90, No 31 ; ' Linden,' Afze-
lius. III, 114, 118, No 87. In 'Linden,'
Kristensen, I, 13, No 5, a combination of two
ballads, a prince cuts down the linden, which
changes to a linden- worm ; he kisses the worm,
and a young maid stands before him.
A knight bewitched into the shape of a troll
is restored by being kissed by a peasant's wife
thrice [once], ' Trolden og Bondens Hustru,'
Grundtvig, II, 142, No 52, A, B ; a prince by
a kiss from a maid, ' Lindormen,' Grundtvig,
D. g. F., II, 211, No 65 A, ' Slangen og den
lille Pige,' Danske Folkeminder, 1861, p. 15.
The removal of a spell which compels
man or woman to appear continuously or al-
ternately as a monster, commonly a snake, by
three kisses or by one, is a regular feature in
the numerous German tales of Schlangenjung-
frauen, Weissefrauen. Often the man is afraid
to venture the third kiss, or even a single
one. See Grimm, Deutsche Sagen, No 13, No
222 ; Dobeneck, Des deutschen Mittelalters
Volksglauben, 1, 18 = Grimm, No 13 ; Mone's
Anzeiger, III, 89, VII, 476 ; Panzer, Bayer-
* The incident of a woman trying to move a man who
all the while is in a deep sleep, and of his servant reporting
what has been going on, can hardly have belonged to this
ballad from the beginning. It is exceedingly common in
popular tales : see ' The Red Bull of Norroway,' in Cham-
bers's Popular Rhymes of Scotland, 3d ed., p. 99 ; Grimms,
• Das singende springende Loweneckerchen,' No 88, ' Der
Eisenhofen,' No 127, and the notes in vol. iii ; Leskien u.
Brugman, Litauische V. 1. n. Marchen, ' Vom weissen
Wolf,' No 23, p. 438, and WoUner's note, p. 571.
308
34. KEMP OWYNE
ische Sagen u. Brauclie, I, 196, No 214 ;
Schonliuth, Die Burgen u. s. w. Badens u. der
Pfalz, I, 105 ; Stober, Die Sagen des Elsasses,
p. 346, No 277, p. 248, No 190 ; Curtze, Volks-
iiberlieferungen aus Waldeck, p. 198 ; Som-
mer, Sagen, Miirehen u. Gebriiucbe aus Sach-
sen u. Tbiiringen, p. 21, No 16 ; Schambacb
u. Muller, p. 104, No 132 ; Miillenhoff, p. 680,
No 597 ; Wolf, Hessiscbe Sagen, No 46 ; etc.,
etc. : also, Kreutzwald, Ebstnische Marcben,
by Lowe, No 19, p. 270 f. So in some forms
of ' Beauty and the Beast : ' Toppen, Aber-
glauben aus Masuren, p. 142 ; Mikulicic, Nar-
odne Pripovietke, p. 1, No 1 ; Afanasief, VII,
153, No 15 ; Coelho, Contos populares portu-
guezes, p. 69, No 29.*
Rivals or peers of Owain among romantic
knights are, first, Lanzelet, in Ulrich von Zat-
zikhoven's poem, who kisses a serpent on the
mouth once, which, after bathing in a spring
(see ' Tarn Lin '), becomes the finest woman
ever seen : vv 7836-7939. Brandimarte, again,
in Orlando Innamorato, lib. n., c. XXVI,
stanzas 7-15 ; and Carduino, I Cantari di Car-
duino, Rajna, stanzas 49, 54 f, 61-64, pp 35-
41. Le Bel Inconnu is an involuntary in-
strument in such a disenchantment, for the
snake fascinates him first and kisses him with-
out his knowledge ; he afterwards goes to
sleep, and finds a beautiful woman standing
at his head when he wakes : ed. Hippeau, p.
110 ff, V. 3101 ff. The English Libius Dis-
conius is kist or he it wist, and the dragon
at once turns to a beautiful woman : Percy
MS., Hales & Furnivall, II, 493 f; Ritson,
Romances, II, 84 f. Espertius, in Tiran le
Blanc, is so overcome with fear that he cannot
kiss the dragon, — a daughter of Hippocrates,
transformed by Diana, in the island of Lango,
— but Espertius not running away, as two
men before him had done, the dragon kisses
him with equally good effect : Caylus, Tiran
* But not in Mrae Villeneuve's or in Mme de Beaumont's
' La Belle et la Bete.'
t Lanzelet is cited by J. Grimm ; Brandimarte by Walter
Scott; Carduino by G.Paris; Espertius by Dunlop ; Ama-
dis d'Astra by Valentin Schmidt. Dunlop refers to a simi-
lar story in the sixth tale of the Contcs Amoureux de Jean
Flore, written towards the end of the fifteenth century.
le Blanc, 11, 334-39. This particular disen-
chantment had not been accomplished down to
Sir John Mandeville's time, for he mentions
only the failures : Voyage and Ti-avel, c. iv,
pp 28-31, ed. 1725. Amadis d'Astra touches
two dragons on the face and breast, and re-
stores them to young-ladyhood : Historia del
Principe Sferamundi, the 13th book of Amadis
of Gaul, P. II, c. xcvii, pp 458-462, Venice,
1610, This feat is' shown by the details to be
only a variation of the story in Tiran le
Blancf
The Rev. Mr Lamb, of Norham, communi-
cated to Hutchinson, author of ' A View of
Northumberland,' a ballad entitled ' The Laid-
ley Worm of Spindleston Heughs,' with this
harmless preamble : " A song 500 years old,
made by the old Mountain Bard, Duncan Fra-
siei', living on Cheviot, A. D. 1270. From an
ancient manuscript." This composition of
Mr Lamb's — for nearly every line of it is his
— is not only based on popular tradition, but
evidently preserves some small fragments of a
popular ballad, and for this reason is given in
an Appendix. There is a copy deviating but
very little from the print in Kinloch's MSS, I,
187. It was obtained from the recitation of
an old woman in Berwickshire. J In this re-
cited version the Child of Wynd, or Childy
Wynd (Child 0-wyne), has become Child o
Wane (Child 0-wayn).
Mr R. H. Evans, in his preface to this bal-
lad. Old Ballads, 1810, IV, 241, says that Mr
Turner had informed him " that a lady up-
wards of seventy had heard her mother repeat
an older and nearly similar ballad."
A is translated by Rosa Warrens, Schot-
tische Volkslieder, p. 19 ; B b by Gerhard, p.
171, by Schubart, p. 110, by Knortz, Lieder
u. Romanzen Alt-Englands, p. 201. 'Jom-
fruen i Ormeham' by Prior, III, 135.
X " The Childe of Wane, as a protector of disconsolate
damsels, is still remembered by young girls at school in the
neighborhood of Bamborough, who apply the title to any
boy who protects them from the assaults of their school-fel-
lows." (Kinloch.)
34. KEMP OWYNE
309
Buchan, Ballads of the North of Scotland, II, 78, from
Mr Nicol of Strichen, as learned in his youth from old peo-
pje ; Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. 374; Motherwell's MS., p.
448.
1 Heb mother died when she was young,
Which gave her cause to make great moan ;
Her father married the warst woman
That ever lived in Christendom.
2 She served her with foot and hand,
In every thing that she could dee,
Tin once, in an unlucky time.
She threw her in ower Craigy's sea.
3 Says, ' Lie you there, dove Isabel,
And all my sorrows lie with thee ;
Tin Kemp Owyne come ower the sea,
And borrow you with kisses three.
Let all the warld do what they will,
Oh borrowed shall you never be ! '
4 Her breath grew Strang, her hair grew lang.
And twisted thrice about the tree,
And all the people, far and near.
Thought that a savage beast was she.
5 These news did come to Kemp Owyne,
Where he lived, far beyond the sea ;
He hasted him to Craigy's sea.
And on the savage beast lookd he.
6 Her breath was Strang, her hair was lang,
And twisted was about the tree,
And with a swing she came about :
' Come to Craigy's sea, and kiss with me.
7 ' Here is a royal belt,' she cried,
' That I have found in the green sea ;
And while your body it is on.
Drawn shall your blood never be ;
But if you touch me, tail or fin,
I vow my belt your death shall be.'
8 He stepped in, gave her a kiss,
The royal belt he brought him wi ;
Her breath was Strang, her hair was lang,
And twisted twice about the tree,
And with a swing she came about :
' Come to Craigy's sea, and kiss with me.
9 ' Here is a royal ring,' she said,
' That I have found in the green sea ;
And while your finger it is on,
Drawn shall your blood never be ;
But if you touch me, tail or fin,
I swear my ring your death shall be.'
10 He stepped in, gfave her a kiss,
The royal ring he brought him wi ;
Her breath was Strang, her hair was lang,
And twisted ance about the tree.
And with a swing she came about :
' Come to Craigy's sea, and kiss with me.
11 ' Here is a royal brand,' she said,
' That I have found in the green sea ;
And while your body it is on.
Drawn shall your blood never be ;
But if you touch me, tail or fin,
I swear my brand your death shall be.'
12 He stepped in, gave her a kiss.
The royal bi"and he brought him wi ;
Her breath was sweet, her hair grew short,
And twisted nane about the tree,
And smilingly she came about.
As fair a woman as fair could be.
a. Jamieson-Brown MS., fol. 29. b. Srott's Minstrelsy,
II, 93, 1802, from William Ty tier's Brown MS., No 9, " with
corrections from a recited fragment"
1 ' Come here, come here, you freely feed,
An lay your head low on my knee ;
The hardest weird I will you read
That eer war read to a lady.
2 ' O meikle dollour sail you dree.
An ay the sat seas oer ye ['s] swim ;
An far mair dollour sail ye dree
On EastmuLr craigs, or ye them dim.
3 ' I wot ye's be a weary wight,
An releived sail ye never be
Till Kempion, the kingis son.
Come to the craig and thrice kiss thee.'
310
34. KEMP OWYNE
4 O meickle dollour did she dree,
An ay the sat seas oer she swam ;
An far mair dollour did she dree
On Eastmuir craigs, or them she clam ;
An ay she cried for Kempion,
Gin he would come till her han.
5 Now word has gane to Kempion
That sich a beast was in his Ian,
An ay be sure she would gae mad
Gin she gat nae help frae his han.
6 ' Now by my sooth,' says Kempion,
' This fiery beast I ['U] gang to see ; '
' An by my sooth,' says Segi-amour,
' My ae brother, I 'U gang you wi.'
7 0 biggit ha they a bonny boat,
An they hae set her to the sea,
An Kempion an Segramour
The fiery beast ha gane to see :
A mile afore they reachd the shore,
I wot she gard the red fire flee.
8 ' 0 Segramour, keep my boat afloat.
An lat her no the Ian so near ;
For the wicked beast she '11 sure gae mad.
An set fire to the land an mair.'
9 * 0 out o my stye I winna rise —
An it is na for the fear o thee —
Till Kempion, the kingis son.
Come to the craig an thrice kiss me.'
10 He 's louted him oer the Eastmuir craig,
An he has gien her kisses ane ;
Awa she gid, an again she came.
The fieryest beast that ever was seen.
11 ' 0 out o my stye I winna rise —
An it is na for fear o thee —
Till Kempion, the kingis son.
Come to the craig an thrice kiss me.'
12 He louted him oer the Eastmuir craig.
An he has gien her kisses twa ;
Awa she gid, an again she came,
The fieryest beast that ever you saw.
13 ' 0 out o my stye I winna rise —
An it is na for fear o ye —
Till Kempion, the kingis son,
Come to the craig an thrice kiss me.'
14 He 's louted him oer the Eastmuir craig.
An he has gien her kisses three ;
Awa she gid, an again she came.
The fairest lady that ever coud be.
15 ' An by my sooth,' say[s] Kempion,
' My ain true love — for this is she —
0 was it wolf into the wood,
Or was it fish intill the sea.
Or was it man, or wile woman.
My true love, that misshajjit thee ? '
16 ' It was na wolf into the wood,
Nor was it fish into the sea.
But it was my stepmother,
An wae an weary mot she be.
17 ' 0 a heavier weird light her upon
Than ever fell on wile woman ;
Her hair 's g^row rough, an her teeth 's grow
lang.
An on her four feet sal she gang.
18 ' Nane sail tack pitty her upon,
But in Wormie's Wood she sail ay won.
An relieved sail she never be,
Tin St Mungo come oer the sea.'
Buchan gives 4-6 in two six-line stanzas.
There are a few trivial diversities between
Motherwell's manuscript, or my copy of it,
and his printed text, which conforms to
Buchan's.
a. Written in long or double lines in the man-
uscript.
2^ 4=. or.
5'. a besure.
8*. landy mair
11*. twice.
16'. wicked is inserted before stepmother,
seemingly by Jamieson.
The first stanza, as given by Anderson,
Nichols, Literary Illustrations, vii, 177, is :
' Come here, come here, ye freely feed.
And lay your head low on my knee ;
The heaviest weird I wiU you read
That ever was read till a lady.'
1*. heaviest. 1*. gaye ladye.
2'. ye'se. 2*. when ye.
34. KEMP OWYNE
311
2'. ye'se. 2*. when ye.
3^ I weird ye to a fiery beast,
i = a 4°' * -|- a 5^' '^ : a 5^ * omitted :
And aye she cried for Kempion,
Gin he would but cum to her hand ;
Now word has gane to Kempion
That sicken a beast was in his land.
6*. wi thee.
7 oviits a*- *. 7^ But a mUe before.
7*. Around them she.
8^. oer near. 8'. will sure.
8*. to a' the land and mair.
After 8 is inserted :
Syne has he bent an arblast bow,
And aimd an arrow at her head,
And swore it she didna quit the land,
Wi that same shaft to shoot her dead.
9'. stythe. 9^ awe o thee.
101.
111.
121.
131.
13".
141.
151-
lO''. gien the monster.
And not for a' thy bow
dizzy crag,
stythe. ll''
nor thee.
Estmere craigs.
my den. 13^. Nor flee it for the
feir o thee.
Kempion, that courteous knight,
lofty craig. 14*. loveliest lady eer.
'. After this is inserted :
They surely had a heart o stane,
Could put thee to such misery.
15*^ make a separate stanza.
15', 161. warwolf in the wood.
16^ mermaid in the sea.
my ain true.
weird shall light her ou.
Her hair shall grow . . . teeth grow.
In Wormeswood she aye shall won.
'. And sighing said that weary wight,
I doubt that day I '11 never see.
l5^
15«.
171.
17«.
18'.
18^
APPENDIX
THE LAIDLEY WORM OF SPINDLESTON
HEUGHS.
A View of Northnmberland, by W. Hutchinson, Anno
1776, Newcastle, 1778, II, 162-64. Communicated by the
Rev. Mr Lamb, of Norham.
Kinloch's account of the tradition in relation to
the queen, as it maintains itself in Berwickshire, is
quite in accord with German sagen about enchanted
ladies, innocent or guilty, and as such may be
worth giving: Kinloch MSS, I, 187.
" Though the ballad mentions that the queen was
transformed into ' a spiteful toad of monstrous
size,' and was doomed in that form to wend on the
earth until the end of the world, yet the tradition
of the country gives another account of the endur-
ance of her enchantment. It is said that in form of
a toad as big as a ' clockin hen ' she is doomed to
expiate her guilt by confinement in a cavern in
Bamborough castle, in which she is to remain in her
enchanted shape until some one shall have the har-
dihood to break the spell by penetrating the cavern,
whose ' invisible ' door only opens every seven years,
on Christmas eve. The adventurer, after entering
the cavern, must take the sword and horn of the
ChUde of Wane, which hang on the wall, and hav-
ing unsheathed and resheathed the sword thrice, and
wound three blasts on the horn, he must kiss the
toad three times ; upon which the enchantment wUl
be dissolved, and the queen wUl recover her human
form.
" Many adventurers, it is said, have attempted to
disenchant the queen, but have all failed, having
immediately fallen into a trance, something similar
to the princes in the Arabian tale who went in
search of the Talking Bird, Singing Tree, and Yel-
low Water. The last one, it is said, who made the
attempt was a countryman, about sixty years ago,
who, having watched on Christmas eve the opening
of the door, entered the cavern, took the sword and
horn from the wall, unsheathed and resheathed the
sword thrice, blew three blasts on the horn, and was
proceeding to the final disenchantment by kissing the
toad, which he had saluted twice, when, perceiving
the various strange sleepers to arise from the floor,
his courage failed, and he fled from the cavern, hav-
ing just attained the outside of the door when it
suddenly shut with a loud clap, catcliing hold of the
skirt of his coat, which was torn o£E and left in the
door.
And none since that time
To cater the cavern presume."
312
34. KEMP OWYNE
1 The king is gone from Bambrough castle,
Long may the princess mourn ;
Long may she stand on the castle wall,
Looking for his return.
2 She has knotted the keys upon a string,
And with her she has them taen,
She has cast them oer her left shoulder,
And to the gate she is gane.
3 She tripped out, she tripped in,
She tript into the yard;
But it was more for the king's sake.
Than for the queen's regard.
4 It fell out on a day the king
Brought the queen with him home,
And all the lords in our country
To welcome them did come.
5 ' O welcome, father,' the lady cries,
' Unto your halls and bowers;
And so are you, my stepmother.
For all that is here is yours.'
6 A lord said, wondering while she
This princess of the North
Surpasses all of female kind
In beauty and in worth.
7 The envious queen replied: At least.
You might have excepted me;
In a few hours I will her bring
Down to a low degree.
IS Word went east, and word went west.
And word is gone over the sea,
That a laidley worm in Spindleston Heughs
Would ruin the north country.
14 Word went east, and word went west,
And over the sea did go ;
The Child of Wynd got wit of it,
Which filled his heart with woe.
15 He called straight his merry men all,
They thirty were and three:
' I wish I were at Spindleston,
This desperate worm to see.
16 ' We have no time now here to waste.
Hence quickly let us sail ;
My only sister Margaret,
Something, I fear, doth ail.'
1 7 They built a ship without delay.
With masts of the rown tree.
With fluttering sails of silk so fine,
And set her on the sea.
18 They went aboard; the wind with speed
Blew them along the deep;
At length they spied an huge square tower.
On a rock high and steep.
19 The sea was smooth, the weather clear;
When they approached nigher,
King Ida's castle they well knew,
And the banks of Bambroughshire.
8 I will her liken to a laidley worm,
That warps about the stone.
And not till Childy Wynd comes back
Shall she again be won.
9 The princess stood at the bower door,
Laughing, who could her blame V
But eer the next day's sun went down,
A long worm she became.
10 For seven miles east, and seven miles west,
And seven miles north and south,
No blade of grass or corn could grow.
So venomous was her mouth.
20 The queen looked out at her bower-window,
To see what she could see ;
There she espied a gallant ship.
Sailing upon the sea.
21 When she beheld the silken sails.
Full glancing in the sun,
To sink the ship she sent away
Her witch-wives every one.
22 Their spells were vain ; the hags returned
To the queen in sorrowful mood,
Crying that witches have no power
Where there is rown-tree wood.
11 The milk of seven stately cows —
It was costly her to keep —
Was brought her daily, which she drank
Before she went to sleep.
1 2 At this day may be seen the cave
Which held her folded up,
And the stone trough, the very same
Out of which she did sup.
23 Her last effort, she sent a boat.
Which in the haven lay.
With armed men to board the ship,
But they were driven away.
24 The worm leapt up, the worm leapt down,
She plaited round the stane;
And ay as the ship came to the land
She banged it off again.
35. ALLISON GROSS
313
25 The Child then ran out of her reach
The ship on Budle sand,
And jumping into the shallow sea,
Securely got to land.
26 And now he drew his berry-brown sword,
And laid it on her head,
And swore, if she did harm to him,
That he would strike her dead.
27 ' O quit thy sword, and bend thy bow,
And give me kisses three ;
For though I am a poisonous worm,
No hurt I will do to thee.
28 ' O quit thy sword, and bend thy bow.
And give me kisses three;
If I am not won eer the sun go down.
Won I shall never be.'
29 He quitted his sword, he bent his bow,
He gave her kisses three;
She crept into a hole a worm,
But stept out a lady.
30 No cloathing had this lady fine.
To keep her from the cold ;
He took his mantle from him about,
And round her did it fold.
31 He has taken his mantle from him about,
And it he wrapt her in,
And they are up to Bambrongh castle,
As fast as they can win.
32 His absence and her serpent shape
The king had long deplored ;
He now rejoiced to see them both
Again to him restored.
33 The queen they wanted, whom they found
All pale, and sore afraid,
Because she knew her power must yield
To Childy Wynd's, who said :
34 ' Woe be to thee, thou wicked witch.
An ill death mayest thou dee ;
As thou my sister hast likened.
So likened shalt thou be.
35 ' I will turn you into a toad,
That on the ground doth wend.
And won, won shalt thou never be,
Till this world hath an end.'
36 Now on the sand near Ida's tower.
She crawls a loathsome toad.
And venom spits on every maid
She meets upon her road.
37 The virgins all of Bambrough town
Will swear that they have seen
This spiteful toad, of monstrous size,
Whilst walking they have been.
38 All folks believe within the shire
This story to be true.
And they all run to Spindleston,
The cave and trough to view.
39 This fact now Duncan Frasier,
Of Cheviot, sings in rhime,
Lest Bambroughshire men should forget
Some part of it in time.
28». son.
35
ALLISON GROSS
' Allison Gross,' Jamieson-Brown MS., fol. 40.
' AuLiisON Gkoss ' was printed by Jamie-
son, Popular Ballads, II, 187, without devia-
tion from the manuscript save in spelling.
In a Greek tale, a nereid, that is elf or fairy,
turns a youth who had refused to espouse her
40
into a snake, the curse to continue till he finds
another love who is as fair as she : ' Die
Schonste,' B. Schmidt, Griechische Marchen,
etc., No 10. This tale is a variety of ' Beauty
and the Beast,' one of the numerous wild
314
35. ALLISON GROSS
growths from that ever charming French
story.*
An elf, a hill-troll, a mermaid, make a young
man offers of splendid gifts, to obtain his love
or the promise of his faith, in ' Elveskud,'
Grundtvig, No 47, many of the Danish and
two of the Norwegian copies ; ' Hertig Magnus
och Elfvonia,' Afzelius, III, 172 ; ' Hr. Mag-
nus og BjiErgtrolden,' Grundtvig, No 48, Ar-
widsson, No 147 B ; ' Herr Magnus och Hafs-
troUet,' Afzelius, No 95, Bugge, No 11 ; a
lind-worm, similarly, to a young woman, ' Lin-
dormen,' Grundtvig, No 65. Magnus answers
the hill-troll that he should be glad to plight
faith with her were she like other women, but
she is the ugliest troll that could be found :
Grundtvig, II, 121, A 6, B 7 ; Arwidsson, II,
303, B 5 ; Afzelius, III, 169, st. 5, 173, st. 6.
This is like what we read in stanza 7 of our
ballad, but the answer is inevitable in any
such case. Magnus comes off scot-free.
The queen of the fairies undoing the spell
of the witch is a remarkable feature, not par-
alleled, so far as I know, in English or north-
ern tradition. The Greek nereids, however,
who do pretty much everything, good or bad,
that is ascribed to northern elves or fairies,
and even bear an appellation resembling that
by which fairies are spoken of in Scotland and
Ireland, " the good damsels," " the good la-
dies," have a queen who is described as taking
no part in the unfriendly acts of her subjects,
but as being kindly disposed towards mankind,
and even as repairing tlie mischief which sub-
ordinate sprites have done against her will.
If now the fairy queen might interpose in be-
half of men against her own- kith and kin,
much more likely would she be to exert her-
self to thwai-t the malignity of a witch. f
The object of the witch's blowing thrice on
a grass-green horn in 8^ is not clear, for noth-
ing comes of it. In the closely related ballad
which follows this, a witch uses a horn to
summon the sea-fishes, among whom there is
one who has been the victim of her spells.
The horn is appropriate. Witches were sup-
posed to blow horns when they joined the
wild hunt, and horn-blower, " hornblase," is
twice cited by Grimm as an equivalent to
witch : Deutsche Mythologie, p. 886.
Translated by Grundtvig, Engelske og
skotske Folkeviser, No 19 ; by Rosa Warrens,
Schottische Volkslieder, No 7 ; Knortz, Lieder
und Romanzen Alt-Englands, No 9; Loeve-
Veimars, Ballades de I'Angleterre, p. 353.
1 O Allison Gross, that lives in yon towr,
The ugliest witch i the north country,
Has trysted me ae day up till her bowr,
An morniy fair speech she made to me.
2 She streaked my head, an she kembed my hair,
An she set me down saftly on her knee ;
Says, Gin ye will be my lemman so true,
Sae monny braw things as I woud you gi.
3 She showd me a mantle o red scarlet,
Wi gouden flowrs an fringes fine ;
Says, Gin ye will be my lemman so true,
This goodly gift it sal be thine.
4 ' Awa, awa, ye ugly witch,
Hand far awa, an lat me be ;
I never will be your lemman sae true,
An I wish I were out o your company.'
5 She neist brought a sark o the saftest silk,
Well wrought wi pearles about the ban ;
Says, Gin you wiU be my ain true love,
This goodly gift you sal comman.
6 She showd me a cup of the good red gold.
Well set wi jewls sae fair to see ;
Says, Gin you will be my lemman sae true,
This goodly gift 1 wiU you gi.
* Of these Dr Relnhold Kohler has given me a note of
more than twenty. The French tale itself had, in all likeli-
hood, a popular foundation.
t B. Schmidt, Das Volksleben der Neugriechen, pp 100 f,
107, 123. Euphemistically the nereids are called rj KoAals
a.px6i'Tta'o'ats, p* Ka\als KvpdBfv, ^ Ka\6KapSais, rj KaXdrvx^ts ;
their sovereign is fi /j.eyd\ri Kvpd, rj irpiinr], etc.
36. THE LAILY WORM AND THE MACHBEL OF THE SEA
316
7 ' Awa, awa, ye ugly witch,
Had far awa, and lat me be ;
For I woudna ance kiss your ugly mouth
For a' the gifts that ye coud gi.'
8 She 's tumd her right and roun about,
An thrice she blaw on a grass-green horn,
An she sware by the meen and the stars abeen,
That she 'd gar me rue the day I was bom.
9 Then out has she taen a silver wand.
An she 's tumd her three times roun an
roun;
She 's mutterd sich words till my strength it
faild,
An I fell down senceless upon the groun.
10 She 's tumd me into an ugly woi-m,
And gard me toddle about the tree ;
An ay, on Uka Saturdays night,
My sister Maisry came to me,
11 Wi silver bason an sUver kemb,
To kemb my heady upon her knee;
But or I had kissd her ugly mouth,
I 'd rather a toddled about the tree.
12 But as it fell out on last HaUow-even,
When the seely court was ridin by.
The queen lighted down on a gowany bank,
Nae far frae the tree where I wont to lye.
13 She took me up in her mUk-white ban,
An she 's stroakd me three times oer her
knee ;
She chang'd me again to my ain proper shape.
An I nae mair maun toddle about the tree.
36
THE LAILY WORM AND THE MACHREL OF THE SEA
Skene MS., p. 30 : taken down from recitation in the north of Scotland, in 1802 or 1803.
Somewhat mutilated, and also defaced,
though it be, this ballad has certainly never
been retouched by a pen, but is pure tradition.
It has the first stanza in common with ' Kemp
Owyne,' and shares more than that with ' Al-
lison Gross.' But it is independent of ' Alli-
son Gross,' and has a far more original sound.
Maisry's services in washing and combing
are more conceivable when rendered by a maid
in her proper shape, as in ' Allison Gross,' than
when attributed to a machrel of the sea ; and
it is likely that the machrel returned to her
own figure every Saturday, and that this is one
of the points lost from the story. It is said,
here as in ' Allison Gross,' that Maisry kames
the laily head on her knee.* It would be a
• Dives, in one version of a well-known carol, has " a place
prepared in h^l, to sit upon a serpent's knee." The pious
chanson in question is a very difierent thing from an old
mere cavil to raise a difficulty about combing a
laily worm's head. The fiery beast in ' Kemp
Owyne,' A, has long hair, and the laily worm
may have had enough to be better for comb-
ing-t
It is only natural that the transformed maid
should not wish to trust herself again in the
hands of the stepmother, but it is not accord-
ing to poetical justice that she should remain
a machrel of the sea, and here again we may
suppose something to have dropped out.
We have had a double transformation, of
sister and brother, in the ' Marriage of Ga-
wain ' and in the ' Wedding of Gawen and
Dame Ragnell,' and again, with a second sis-
ter added, in the story of Als61. Brother and
ballad, which, it is hoped, no one will tliink capable of fa-
tuity.
t As, for example, a dragon has in Hahn's Griechische
Marchen, No 26, 1, 187, and elsewhere.
316
36. THE LAILY WORM AND THE MACHREL OF THE SEA
sister are transformed in the Danish ' Natter-
galen,' Grundtvig, No 67. It is an aggrava-
tion of stepmother malice that the victim of
enchantment, however amiable and inoffen-
sive before, should become truculent and de-
structive ; so with the brother of Gawain's
bride, and with the Carl of Carlile. The step-
mother is satisfactorily disposed of, as she is
in ' Kemp Owyne,' B, and the ' Laidly Worm
of Spindleston Heughs.'
1 ' I WAS but seven year auld
When my mither she did die ;
My father married the ae warst woman
The warld did ever see.
2 ' For she has made me the laily worm,
That lies at the fit o the tree,
An my sister Masery she 's made
The machrel of the sea.
3 ' An every Saturday at noon
The machrel comes to me,
An she takes my laily head
An lays it on her knee,
She kaims it wi a siUer kaim.
An washes 't in the sea.
4 ' Seven knights hae I slain,
Sin I lay at the fit of the tree,
An ye war na my aui father,
The eight ane ye should be.'
5 ' Sing on your song, ye laily worm,
That ye did sing to me : '
' I never sung that song but what
I would it sing to thee.
6 ' I was but seven year auld,
When my mither she did die ;
My father married the ae warst woman
The warld did ever see.
7 ' For she changed me to the laily worm.
That lies at the fit o the tree.
And my sister "Masery
To the machrel of the sea.
8 ' And every Saturday at noon
The machrel comes to me.
An she takes my laily head
An lays it on her knee,
An kames it wi a siller kamej
An washes it i the sea.
9 ' Seven knights hae I slain,
Sin I lay at the fit o the tree,
An ye war na my ain father,
The eighth ane ye shoud be.'
10 He sent for his lady,
As fast as send could he :
' Whar is my son that ye sent frae me.
And my daughter, Lady Masery ? '
11 ' Your son is at our king's court,
Serving for meat an fee,
An your daughter 's at our queen's court,
12 ' Ye lie, ye ill woman,
Sae loud as I hear ye lie ;
My son 's the laily worm.
That lies at the fit o the tree.
And my daughter. Lady Masery,
Is the machrel of the sea ! '
13 She has tane a siUer wan,
An gien him strokes three.
And he has started up the bravest knight
That ever your eyes did see.
14 She has taen a small horn,
An loud an shrill blew she,
An a' the fish came her untUl
But the proud machrel of the sea :
' Ye shapeit me ance an unseemly shape.
An ye's never mare shape me.'
15 He has sent to the wood
For whins and for hawthorn.
An he has taen that gay lady.
An there he did her burn.
2\ V. lays : but lies, 12*.
3'. ducks, hut compare 8'
37. THOMAS RYMEB
317
37
THOMAS RYMER
A. ' Thomas Rymer and Queen of Elfland,' Alexander
Fraser Ty tier's Brown MS., No 1.
B. ' Thomas the Rhymer,' Campbell MSS, 11, 83.
C. ' Thomas the Rhymer,' Minstrelsy of the Scottish
Border, II, 251, 1802, " from a copy obtained from a
lady residing not far from Erceldoune, corrected and
enlarged by one in Mrs Brown's MS."
A IS one of the nine ballads transmitted to
Alexander Fraser Tytler by Mrs Brown in
April, 1800, as written down from her recol-
lection.* This copy was printed by Jamie-
son, II, 7, in his preface to ' True Thomas and
the Queen of Elfland.' B, never published as
yet, has been corrupted here and there, but
only by tradition. C being compounded of
A and another version, that portion which is
found in A is put in smaller type.
Thomas of Erceldoune, otherwise Thomas
the Rhymer, and in the popular style True
Thomas, has had a fame as a seer, which,
though progressively narrowed, is, after the
lapse of nearly or quite six centuries, far from
being extinguished. The common people
throughout the whole of Scotland, according
to Mr Robert Chambers (1870), continue to
regard him with veneration, and to preserve
a great number of his prophetic sayings, which
they habitually seek to connect with " dear
years " and other notable public events.f A
prediction of Thomas of Erceldoune's is re-
corded in a manuscript which is put at a date
before 1320, and he is referred to with other
soothsayers in the Scalacronica, a French
chronicle of English history begun in 1355.
Erceldoune is spoken of as a poet in Robert
Mannyng's translation of Langtoft's chronicle,
finished in 1338 ; and in the Auchinleck copy
of ' Sir Tristrem,' said to have been made
about 1350, a Thomas is said to have been
consulted at Erfeldoun touching the history
* See the letter of Dr Anderson to Bishop Percy, Decem-
ber 29, 1800, in Nichols's DInstrations of the Literary His-
tory of the Eighteenth Century, VII, 178 f.
t Chambers' Popular Rhymes of Scotland, 1870, pp. 211-
of Tristrem. So that we seem safe in holding
that Thomas of Erceldoune had a reputation
both as prophet and poet in the earlier part of
the fourteenth century. The vaticinations of
Thomas are cited by various later chroniclers,
and had as much credit in England as in Scot-
land. " During the fourteenth, fifteenth, and
sixteenth centuries," says Chambers, "to fab-
ricate a prophecy in the name of Thomas the
Rhymer appears to have been found a good
stroke of policy on many occasions. Thus
was his authority employed to countenance
the views of Edward III against Scottish inde-
pendence, to favor the ambitious views of the
Duke of Albany in the minority of James V,
and to sustain the spirits of the nation under
the harassing invasions of Henry VIII." Dur-
ing the Jacobite rising of 1745 the accom-
plishment of Thomas's as then unfulfilled pre-
dictions was looked for by many. His prophe-
cies, and those of other Scotch soothsayers,
were consulted, says Lord Hailes, "with a
weak if not criminal curiosity." Even as late
as the French revolutionary war a rhyme of
Thomas's caused much distress and consterna-
tion in the border counties of Scotland, where
people were fearing an invasion. The ' Whole
Prophecie ' of Merlin, Thomas Rymour, and
others, collected and issued as early as 1603,
continued to be printed as a chap-book down
to the beginning of this century, when, says
Dr Murray, few farm-houses in Scotland were
without a copy of it.
224. See, also, Scott's Minstrelsy, IV, 110-116, 129-151,
ed. 1833. But, above all, Dr J. A. H. Murray's Introduc-
tion to The Romance and Prophecies of Thomas of Ercel-
doune, 1875.
318
37. THOMAS RYMER
All this might have been if Thomas of Er-
celdoune had been not more historical than
Merlin. But the name is known to have
belonged to a real person. Thomas Rymor
de Ei-cildune is witness to a deed whereby
one Petrus de Haga obliges himself to make
a certain payment to the Abbey of Melrose.
Petrus de Haga is, in turn, witness to a char-
ter made by Richard de Moreville. Unluckily,
neither of these deeds is dated. But Moreville
was constable of Scotland from 1162 to 1189.
If we suppose Moreville's charter to have
been given towards 1189, and Haga to have
been then about twenty years old, and so
bom about 1170, and further suppose Haga to
have made his grant to Melrose towards the
end of a life of threescore, or three score and
ten, the time of Thomas Rymer's signature
would be about 1230 or 1240. If Thomas
Rymer was then twenty years of age, his birth
would have been at 1210 or 1220. In the
year 1294 Thomas de Ercildoun, son and heir
of Thomas Rymour de Ei'cildoun, conveyed to
a I'eligious house his inheritance of lands in
Ercildoun. With Thomas Rhymer in mind,
one naturally interprets Thomas Rymour as
the prophet and Thomas de Ercildoun as his
son. If Rymour was the surname of this fam-
ily,* it would have been better, for us at
least, if the surname had been subjoined to the
first Thomas also. As the language stands,
we are left to choose among several possibil-
ities. Thomas the Rhymer may have been
dead in 1294 ; Thomas Rymour, meaning the
same person, may have made this cession of
lands in 1294, and have survived still some
years. Thomas, the father, may, as Dr Mur-
ray suggests, have retired from the world, but
still be living, and it may be his son who re-
signs the lands. Blind Harry's Life of Wal-
lace makes Thomas Rimour to be alive down
to 1296 or 1297. A story reported by Bower
in his continuation of Fordun, c. 1430, makes
Thomas to have predicted the death of Alex-
ander HI in 1286, when, according to the pre-
vious (necessarily very loose) calculation, the
seer would have been between sixty-six and
seventy-six. Neither of these last dates is es-
tablished by the strongest evidence, but there
is no reason for refusing to admit, at least, that
Thomas of Erceldoune may have been alive at
the latter epoch.
Thomas of Erceldoune's prophetic power
was a gift of the queen of the elves ; the mod-
ern elves, equally those of northern Europe
and of Greece, resembling in respect to this
attribute the nymphs of the ancient Hellenic
mythology. How Thomas attained this grace
is set forth in the first of three fits of a poem
which bears his name. This poem has come
down in four somewhat defective copies : the
earliest written a little before the middle of
the fifteenth centurj% two others about 1450,
the fourth later. There is a still later manu-
script copy of the second and third fits.f All
the manuscripts are English, but it is manifest
from the nature of the topics that the original
poem was the work of a Scotsman. All four of
the complete versions speak of an older story :
" gyff it be als the storye sayes, v. 83, ' als the
storye tellis full ryghte,' v. 123. The older
story, if any, must be the work of Thomas.
The circumstance that the poem, as we have
it, begins in the first person, and after a long
passage returns for a moment to the first per-
son, though most of the tale is told in the
third, is of no importance ; nor would it have
been important if the whole narrative had
been put into Thomas's mouth, since that is
the simplest of literary artifices.
Thomas, having found favor with the queen
of Elfland, was taken with her to that country,
and there he remained more than three [seven]
years. Then the time came round when a trib-
ute had to be paid to hell, and as Thomas was
too likely to be chosen by the fiend, the elf
queen conducted him back to the world of
men. At the moment of parting Thomas de-
sires some token which may authenticate his
having spoken with her. She gives him the
• Hector Boece (1527) says the surname was Leirmont,
but there is no evidence for this that is of value. See Mur-
ray, p. xiii.
t The five copies have been edited by Dr J. A. H. Mur-
ray, and printed by the Early English Text Society. A re-
constructed text by Dr Alois Brandl makes the second vol-
ume of a Sammlung englischer Denkmaler in kritischen
Ausgaben, Berlin, 1880.
37. THOMAS RYMEB
31
gift of soothsaying. He presses her to stay
and tell him some ferly. Upon this she be-
gins a train of predictions, wliich Thomas
more than once importunes her to continue.
The first two of these, the failure of Baliol's
party and the battle of Halidon Hill, 1333,
stand by themselves, but they are followed
by a series in chronological order, extending
from the battle of Falkirk to the battle of
Otterboum, 1298-1388. The third fit, ex-
cepting, perhaps, a reference to Henry IV's
invasion of Scotland in 1401, seems to consist,
not of predictions made after the event, but of
" adaptations of legendary propliecies, tradi-
tionally preserved from far earlier times, and
furbished up anew at each period of national
trouble and disti"ess, in expectation of their
fulfilment being at length at hand." *
The older " story," which is twice referred
to in the prologue to the prophecies of Thomas
of Erceldoune, was undoubtedly a romance
which narrated the adventure of Thomas with
the elf queen gimply, without specification of
his prophecies. In all probability it concluded,
in accordance with the ordinary popular tradi-
tion, with Thomas's return to fairy-land after
a certain time passed in this world.f For the
story of Thomas and the Elf-queen is but an-
other version of what is related of Ogier le
Danois and Morgan the Fay. Six fairies made
gifts to Ogier at his birth. By the favor of
five he was to be the strongest, the bravest,
the most successful, the handsomest, the most
susceptible, of knights : Morgan's gift was
that, after a long and fatiguing career of glory,
he should live with her at her castle of Avalon,
in the enjoyment of a still longer youth and
never wearying pleasures. When Ogier had
passed his hundredth year, Morgan took meas-
ures to carry out her promise. She had him
wrecked, while he was on a voyage to France,
on a loadstone rock conveniently near to Ava-
lon, which Avalon is a little way this side of the
terrestrial paradise. In due course he comes
to an orchard, and there he eats an apple, which
affects him so peculiarly that he looks for noth-
ing but death. He turns to the east, and sees
a beautiful lady, magnificently attired. He
takes her for the Virgin ; she corrects his error,
and announces herself as Morgan the Fay.
She puts a ring on his finger which restores
his youth, and then places a crown on his
head which makes him forget all the past.
For two hundred years Ogier lived in such de-
lights as no worldly being can imagine, and the
two hundred years seemed to him but twenty.
Christendom was then in danger, and even
Morgan thought his presence was required in
the world. The crown being taken from his
head, the memory of the past revived, and
with it the desire to return to France. He
was sent back by the fairy, properly provided,
vanquished the foes of Christianity in a short
space, and after a time was brought back by
Morgan the Fay to Avalon. J
The fairy adventures of Thomas and of Ogier
have the essential points in common, and even
the particular trait that the fairy is taken to
be the Virgin. The occurrence of this trait
again in the ballad, viewed in connection with
the general similarity, of the two, will leave
no doubt that the ballad had its source in the
* Murray, pp xxiv-xxvii. As might be expected, the
Latin texts corrupt the natnea of persons and of places, and
alter the results of battles. Dr Murray remarks : " The old-
est text makes the Scots win Halidon Hill, with the slaughter
of six thousand Englishmen, while the other texts, wise after
the fact, makes the Scots lose, as they actually did." This,
and the consideration that a question about the conflict be-
tween the families of Bruce and Baliol would not be put
after 1400, when the Baliol line was extinct, disposes Dr
Murray to think that verses 326-56 of the second fit, with
perhaps the first fit, the conclusion of the poem, and an
indefinite portion of fit third, may have been written on the
eve of Halidon Hill, with a view to encourage the Scots.
t The poem, vv 675-80, says only that Thomas and the
lady did not part for ever and aye, bnt that she was to visit
him at Huntley banks.
X The relations of Thomas Khymer and Ogier might, per-
haps, be cleared up by the poem of The Visions of Ogier
in Fairy Land. The book is thus described by Brunet, cd.
1863, IV, 173: Le premier (second et troisicme) livre des
visions d'Oger le Dannoys au royaulme de Fairie, Paris,
1542, pet. in-8, de 48 if. Brunet adds: A la suite de ce
poome, dans I'exemplaire de la Bildioth&que imp<?riale, se
trouve, Le liure des visions fantastiques, Paris, 1542, pet. in-8,
de 24 fl^ The National Library is not now in possession of
the volume; nor have all the in(|uiries I have been able to
make, though most courteously aided in France, resulted, as
I hoped, in the finding of a copy.
320
37. THOMAS BYMER
romance. Yefc it is an entirely popular ballad
as to style,* and must be of considerable age,
though the earliest version (A) can be traced
at furthest only into the first half of the last
century.
The scene of the meeting of Thomas with
the elf queen is Huntly Banks and the Eildon
Tree in versions B, C of the ballad, as in the
romance.! Neither of these is mentioned in
A, the reciter of which was an Aberdeen
woman. The elf-lady's costume and equip-
ment, minutely given in the romance (hence-
forth referred to as R), are reduced in the
ballad to a skirt of grass-green silk and a vel-
vet mantle. A, and a dapple-gray horse, B 2
(R 5), with nine and fifty bells on each tett of
its mane, A 2 (three bells on either side of the
bridle, R 9). J Thomas salutes the fairy as
queen of heaven, A 3, R 11. B 3 has suffered
a Protestant alteration which makes nonsense
of the following stanza. She corrects his mis-
take in all, and in B 4 tells him she is out
hunting, as in R 16. As C 5 stands, she chal-
lenges Thomas to kiss her, warning him at the
same time, unnaturally, and of course in con-
sequence of a corrupt reading, of the danger ;
which Thomas defies, C 6. These two stanzas
in C represent the passage in the romance,
17-21, in which Thomas embraces the fairy
queen, and are wanting in A, B, though not to
be spared. It is contact with the fairy that
gives her the power to carry her paramour off ;
for carry him off she does, and he is in great
fright at having to go. The ballad is no worse,
and the romance would have been much better,
for the omission of another passage, impressive
in itself, but incompatible with the proper
and original story. The elf-queen had told
Thomas that he would ruin her beauty, if he
had his will, and so it came to pass : her eyes
seemed out, her rich clothing was away, her
body was like the lead ; and it is while thus
disfigured that she bids Thomas take leave of
sun and moon, so that his alarm is not without
reason. § He must go with her for seven
years. A, B ; only for a twelvemonth, R. She
takes him up behind her, A ; she rides and he
runs, B ; she leads him in at Eldon hill, R ;
• Excepting the two satirical stanzas with which Scott's
version (C) concludes. " The repugnance of Thomas to be
debarred the use of falsehood when he should find it conve-
nient," may have, as Scott says, " a comic effect," but is,
for a ballad, a miserable conceit. Both ballad and romance
are serious.
t Eildon Tree, the site of which is supposed now to be
marked by the Eildon Tree Stone, stood, or should have
stood, on the slope of the eastern of the three Eildon Hills.
Huntly Banks are about half a mile to the west of the Eil-
don Stone, on the same hill-slope. Erceldoun, a village on
the Leader, two miles above its junction with the Tweed, is
all but visible from the Eildon Stone. Murray, pp l-]ii.
t In B 2, absurdly, the lady holds nine bells in her hand.
Ringing or jingling bridles are ascribed to fairies, Tam Lin,
A 37, Cromek's Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song,
p. 298 (" manes hung wi whustles that the win played on,"
p. 299). The fairy's saddle has a bordure of bells in the Eng-
lish Launfal, Ilalliwell's Illustrations of Fairy Mythology,
p. 31, but not in Marie's lai. The dwarf-king An tiloie, in
Ulrich Von Eschenbach's Alexander, has bells on his bridle :
Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, I, 385. These bells, how-
ever, are not at all distinctive of fairies, but are the ordinary
decoration of elegant " outriders " in the Middle Ages, es-
pecially of women. In the romance of Richard Coeur de
Lion, a messenger's trappings ring with five hundred bells.
Besides the bridle, bells were sometimes attached to the
horse's breastplate, to the saddle-bow, crupper, and stir-
rups. Conde Claros's steed has three hundred around his
breastplate. See Weber's Metrical Romances, R. C. de
Lion, vv 1514-17, 5712-14, cited by T. Wright, History of
Domestic Manners in England, 214 f; Liebrecht, Gervasius,
p. 122; Kolbing, Englische Studien, III, 105; Zupitza and
Varnhagcn, Anglia, III, 371, IV, 417 ; and particularly A.
Schultz, Das hufische Leben zur Zeit der Minnesinger, I,
235, 388-91.
§ The original I suppose to be the very cheerful tale of
Ogier, with which the author of Thomas of Erceldoune has
blended a very serious one, without any regard to the irrec-
oncilableness of the two. He is presently forced to undo
this melancholy transformation of the fairy, as we shall see.
Brandl, 'Thomas of Erceldoune,' p. 20, cites from Giraldus
Cambrensis, Itinerarium Cambria;, I, 5, a story about one
Meilyr, a Welshman, the like of which our poet had in
mind. This Meilyr was a great soothsayer, and " owed his
skill to the following adventure : " Being in company one
evening with a girl for whom he had long had a passion,
desiduratis amplexibus atque deliciis cum indulsisset, statim
loco puelliB formosse formam quamdam villosam, hispidara
et hirsutam, adeoqne enormiter deformem invenit, quod in
ipso ejusdem aspectu dementire coepit et insanire. Meilyr
recovered his reason after several years, through the merits
of the saints, but always kept up an intimacy with unclean
spirits, and by their help foretold the future. It is not said
that they gave him the tongue that never could lie, but no
other tongue could lie successfully in his presence : he al-
ways saw a little devil capering on it. He was able, by sim-
ilar indications, to point out the lies and errors of books.
The experiment being once tried of laying the Gospel of
John in his lap, every devil instantly decamped. Geoffrey
of Monmouth's history was substituted, and imps swarmed
all over the book and him, too.
3T. THOMAS RYMER
321
they cross a water, he wading up to the knee,
B, R. The water is subterranean in R, and
for three days naught is heard but the sough-
ing of the flood. Then they come to an or-
chard, A, B, R, and Thomas, like to tyne for
lack of food, is about to pull fruit, but is told
that the fruit is cursed, A 9, B 8 ; * if he
plucks it, his soul goes to the fire of hell, R 35.
The fairy has made a provision of safe bread
and wine for him in the ballad, A 10, B 9,
but he has still to fast a while in the ro-
mance. C, which lacks this passage, makes
them ride till they reach a wide desert, and
leave living land behind, 9 ; and here (but
in A, B, and R in the vicinity of the orchard)
the fairy bids Thomas lay his head on her
knee, and she will show him rare sights. These
are the way to heaven, A 12, B 11, R 38 ; the
way to hell, A 13, B 10, R 41 ; the road to
Elfland, whither they are going, A 14. R does
not point out the road to Elfland, but the elf-
queen's castle on a high hill ; and there are
two additional ferlies, the way to paradise and
the way to purgatory,f 39, 40. Thomas, in
A 15, is now admonished that he must hold
his tongue, for if he speaks a word he will
never get back to his own country ; in R 44
he is told to answer none but the elf-queen,
whatever may be said to him, and this course
he takes in B 12. But before they proceed to
the castle the lady resumes all the beautj' and
splendor which she had lost, and no explana-
tion is offered save the naive one in the Lans-
downe copy, that if she had not, the king, her
consort, would have known that she had been
in fault. Now follows in A 15 (as recited,
here 7), C 16, 16, the passage through the
subterranean water, which should come before
they reach the orchard, as in B 6, R 30, 31.
There is much exaggeration in the ballad :
they wade through rivers in darkness and hear
the sea roaring, O 15, A 7, as in R, but they
also wade through red blood to the knee, A 7,
C 16, and the crossing occupies not three days,
as in R 31, but forty days, A 7. In C they
now come to the garden. Stanzas 15, 16 are
out of place in C, as just remarked, and 17 is
entirely perverted. The cursed fruit which
Thomas is not to touch in A 9, B 8, R 35, is
offered him by the elf-queen as his wages, and
will give him the tongue that can never lie,
— a gift which is made him in the romance at
the beginning of the second fit, when the fairy
is preparing to part with him. Stanzas 18, 19
of C are certainly a modern, and .is certainly
an ill-devised, interpolation. B has lost the
conclusion. In A, C, Tiiomas gets a fairy cos-
tume, and is not seen on earth again for seven
years.
The romance, after some description of the
life at the elf-castle, informs us that Thomas
lived there more than three years [Cambridge
MS., seven], and thought the time but a space
of three days, an almost moderate illusion
compared with the experience of other mor-
tals under analogous circumstances.^ The
fairy queen then hurried him away, on the
eve of the day when the foul fiend was to
come to fetch his tribute. He was a mickle
man and hend, and there was every reason to
fear that he would be chosen. She brought
him again to Eldon Tree, and was bidding him
farewell. Thomas begged of her a token of
his conversation with her, and she gave him
the gift of true speaking. He urged her fur-
ther to tell him some ferly, and she made
him several predictions, but he would not let
her go without more and more. Finally, with
a promise to meet him on Huntly Banks when
she might, she left him under the tree.
» B 8 '' *- "It was a' that cnrsed fruit o thine beprgared
man and woman in your countrie : " the fruit of the Forbid-
den Tree.
t Pnrgatory is omitted in the Cotton MS. of the romance,
as in the ballad.
X Ogier le Danois hardly exceeded the proportion of the
ordinary hyperbole of lovers : two hundred years seemed but
twenty. The British king Herla lived with the king of the
dwarfs more than two hundred years, and thought the time
but three days : Walter Mapes, Nngse Carialium, ed. Wright,
41
p. 16f (Liebrecht). The strongest case, I believe, is the ex-
quisite legend, versified by Trench, of the monk, with whom
three hundred years passed, while he was listening to a bird's
song — as he thought, less than three hours. For some of
the countless repetitions of the idea, see Pauli's Schimpf und
Ernst, ed. Ocsterley, No 562, and notes, p. 537 ; Liebrecht's
Gervasius, p. 89; W. Hertz, Deutsche Sage im Elsass, pp
115-18, 263 ; A. Graf, La Leggenda del Paradiso Terrestre,
pp 26-29, 31-33, and notes ; J. Koch, Die Siebenschlaferle-
gende, kap. ii.
322
37. THOMAS RYMER
Popular tradition, as Sir Walter Scott rep-
resents, held that, though Thomas was allowed
to revisit the earth after a seven years' so-
journ in fairy-land, he was under an obliga-
tion to go back to the elf-queen whenever she
should summon him. One day while he " was
making merry with his friends in the town of
Erceldoune, a person came running in, and
told, with marks of fear and astonishment,
that a hart and hind had left the neighbor-
ing forest, and were composedly and slowly
parading the street of the village. The pro-
phet instantly arose, left his habitation, and
followed the wonderful animals to the forest,
whence he was never seen to return." He is,
however, expected to come back again at some
future time.
What we learn from the adventures of
Thomas concerning the perils of dealing with
fairies, and the precautions to be observed,
agrees with the general teaching of ti-adition
upon the subject. In this matter there is
pretty much one rule for all " unco" folk, be
they fairies, dwarfs, water-sprites, devils, or
departed spirits, and, in a limited way, for
witches, too. Thomas, having kissed the elf-
queen's lips, must go with her. When the
dead Willy comes to ask back his faith and
troth of Margaret, and she says he must first
kiss her, cheek and chin, he replies, " If I
should kiss your red, red lips, your days would
not be long." * When Thomas is about to
pull fruit in the subterranean garden, or par-
adise, the elf bids him let be : all the plagues
of hell light on the fruit of this country ;
" if thou pluck it, thy soul goes to the fire of
hell." f The queen had taken the precaution
of bringing some honest bread and wine with
her for Thomas's behoof. So when Burd El-
len's brother sets out to rescue his sister, who
had been carried off by the king of Elfland,
his sage adviser enjoins him to eat and drink
nothing in fairy-land, whatever his hunger
or thirst ; " for if he tasted or touched in
Elfland, he must remain in the power of the
elves, and never see middle-eard again." J Ab-
stinence from speech is equally advisable, ac-
cording to our ballad and to other authority :
Gin ae word you should chance to speak, you
will neer get back to your ain countrie, A 15.
They 've asked him questions, one and all, but
he answered none but that fair ladie, B 12.
What so any man to thee say, look thou an-
swer none but me, R 44.
That eating and drinking, personal contact,
exchange of speech, receiving of gifts, in any
abode of unearthly beings, including the dead,
will reduce a man to their fellowship and con-
dition might be enforced by a great number
of examples, and has already been abundantly
shown by Professor Wilhelm Miiller in his
beautiful essay, Zur Symbolik der deutschen
Volkssage.§ The popular belief of the north-
ern nations in this matter is more completely
* In an exquisite little ballad obtained by Toramaseo from
a peasaut-giil of Empoli, I, 26, a lover who had visited hell,
and there met and kissed his mistress, is told by her that he
must not hope ever to go thence. How the lover escaped in
this instance is not explained. Such things happen sometimes,
but not often enough to encourage one to take the risk.
Sono state all' inferno, e son tomato:
Misericordia, la gente che c'eral
Vera una stanza tutta illuminata,
E dentro v'era la speranza mia.
Quando mi vedde, gran festa mi fece,
E poi mi disse; Dolce aninia mia,
Non ti arricordi del tempo passato,
Quando tu mi dicevi, "animamia?"
Ora, mio caro ben, baciami in bocca,
liaciami tanto cli'io contenta sia.
h tanto saporita la fua bocca!
Di grazia saporisci anco la mia.
Ora, mio caro ben, che m'hai baciato,
Di qui non isperar d'andarne via.
t A 8, 9, R 34, 35. It was not that Thomas was about
to pluck fruit from the Forbidden Tree, though B under-
stands it so : cf. R 32, 33. The curse of this tree seems,
however, to have afiected all Paradise. In modern Greek
popular poetry Paradise occurs sometimes entirely in the
sense of Hades. See B. Schmidt, Volksleben der Neugrie-
chen, p. 249.
X Jamieson, in Illustrations of Northern Antiquities, p.
398 : ' Child Rowland and Burd Ellen.'
§ Niedersachsischc Sagen und Marchen, Scharabach nnd
Mullcr, p. 373. Shakspere has this : " They are fairies ; he
that speaks to them shall die ; " Falstaff, in Merry Wives
of Windsor, V, 5. Ancient Greek tradition is not without
traces of the same ideas. It was Persephone's eating of the
pomegranate kernel that consigned her to the lower world, in
spite of Zeus and Demeter's opposition. The drinking of
Circe's brewage and the eating of lotus had an effect on the
companions of Ul3-sses such as is sometimes .iscribed to the
food and drink of fairies, or other demons, that of producing
forgetfulncss of home : Odyssey, x, 236, ix, 97. But it would
not be safe to build much on this. A Hebrew tale makes
the human wife of a demon charge a man who has come to
37. THOMAS KYMEK
323
shown than anywhere else in Saxo's account
of King Gormo's visit to Guthmund, and it
will be enough to cite that. The Danish King
Gormo, having heard extraordinary things of
the riches of Geruth (the giant GeirroSr), de-
termines to verify the reports with his own
eyes, under the guidiince of Thorkill, from
whom he has received them. The land of
Geruth is far to the northeast, beyond the sun
and stars, and within the realm of Chaos and
Old Night. It is, in fact, a very dismal and
terrific sort of Hades. The way to it lies
through the dominion of Guthmund, Geruth's
brother, which is described as a paradise, but
a paradise of the same dubious attractions as
that in Thomas of Erceldoune. Guthmund,
himself a giant, receives the travellers, a band
of about three hundred, very graciously, and
conducts them to his palace. Thorkill takes
his comrades apart, and puts them on their
guard : they must eat and drink nothing that
is offered them, but live on the provisions
which they have brought, must keep off from
the people of the place and not touch them ;
if they partake of any of the food, they will
forget everything, and have to pass their lives
in this foul society. Guthmund complains
that they slight his hospitality, but Thorkill,
now and always, has an excuse ready. The
genial monarch offers Gormo one of his twelve
beautiful daughters in marriage, and their
choice of wives to all the rest of the train.
Most of the Danes like the proposition, but
Thorkill renews his warnings. Four take the
bait, and lose all recollection of the past.
Guthmund now commends the delicious fruits
of his garden, and tries every art to make the
king taste them. But he is again foiled by
Thorkill, and clearly perceiving that he has
met his match, transports the travellers over
the river which separates him and his brother,
and allows them to continue their journey.*
C is translated by Talvj, Versuch, etc., p,
552 ; by Doenniges, p. 64 ; by Arndt, Bliiten-
lese, p. 246 ; by Rosa Warrens, Schottische
Volkslieder, p. 14 ; by Knortz, Lieder u. Ro-
manzen, p. 1 ; by Edward Barry, Cycle popu-
laire de Robin Hood, p. 92 ; and by F. H.
Bothe, Janus, p. 122, after Barry.
Alexander Fraser Tytler's Brown MS., No 1 :
Popular Ballads, II, 7.
Jamiesou's
1 True Thomas lay oer yond grassy bank,
And he beheld a ladie gay,
A ladie that was brisk and bold,
Come riding oer the fernie brae.
' AU hail, thou mighty Queen of Heaven !
For your peer on earth I never did see.'
4 ' O no, O no, True Thomas,' she says,
' That name does not belong to me ;
I am but the queen of fair Elfland,
And I 'm come here for to visit thee.
2 Her skirt was of the g^ass-green silk,
Her mantel of the velvet fine,
At ilka tett of her horse's mane
Hung fifty silver bells and nine.
5 * But ye maun go wi me now, Thomas,
True Thomas, ye maun go wi me,
For ye maun serve me seven years,
Thro weel or wae as may chance to be.'
3 True Thomas he took off his hat.
And bowed him low down tiU his knee :
6 She turned about her milk-white steed,
And took True Thomas up behind.
perform a certain service for the family not to eat or drink in
the house, or to take any present of her husband, exactly re-
peating the precautions obser\-ed in Grimm, Deutsche Sagen,
Nos 41, 49: Tendlau, Das Buch der Sagen und Legenden
jiidischer Vorzeit, p. 141. The children of Shem may prob-
ably have derived thia trait in the story from the children
of Japhet. Aladdin, in the Arabian Nights, is to have a
care, above all things, that he does not touch the walls of
the subterranean chamber so much as with his clothes, or
he will die instantly. This again, by itself, is not very con-
clusive.
• Historia Danica, I. viii ; Miiller et Velachow, I, 420-25.
324
37. THOMAS RYMER
And aye wheneer her bridle rang,
The steed flew swifter than the wind.
7 For forty days and forty nights
He wade thro red blude to the knee,
And he saw neither sun nor moon.
But heard the roaring of the sea.
8 0 they rade on, and further on,
Until they came to a garden green :
' Light down, light down, ye ladie free,
Some of that fruit let me pull to thee.'
9 ' 0 no, O no. True Thomas,' she says,
' That fruit maun not be touched by thee.
For a' the plagues that are in heU
Light on the fruit of tliis countrie.
10 ' But I have a loaf here in my lap.
Likewise a bottle of claret wine.
And now ere we go farther on,
"We '11 rest a while, and ye may dine.'
11 When he had eaten and drunk his fiU,
' Lay down your head upon my knee,'
The lady sayd, ' ere we climb yon hiU,
And I wiU show you fairlies three.
12 ' O see not ye yon narrow road.
So thick beset wi thorns and briers ?
That is the path of righteousness,
Tho after it but few enquires.
13 ' And see not ye that braid braid road,
That lies across yon lUlie leven ?
That is the path of wickedness,
Tho some call it the road to heaven.
14 ' And see not ye that bonny road,
Which winds about the f ernie brae ?
That is the road to fair Elfland,
Whe[re] you and I this night maun gae.
15 ' But Thomas, ye maun hold your tongue,
Whatever you may hear or see,
For gin ae word you should chance to speak,
You win neer get back to your ain coun-
trie.'
16 He has gotten a coat of the even cloth.
And a pair of shoes of velvet green.
And till seven years were past and gone
True Thomas on earth was never seen.
B
Campbell MSS, II, 83.
1 As Thomas lay on Huntlie banks —
A wat a weel bred man was he —
And there he spied a lady fair.
Coming riding down by the Eildon tree.
2 The horse she rode on was dapple gray,
And in her hand she held hells nine ;
I thought I heard this fair lady say
These fair siller bells they should a'
mine.
3 It 's Thomas even forward went.
And lootit low down on his knee :
' Weel met thee save, my lady fair,
For thou 'rt the flower o this countrie.'
4 ' O no, O no, Thomas,' she says,
' 0 no, O no, that can never be.
For I 'm but a lady of an unco land,
Comd out a hunting, as ye may see.
6 ' O harp and carp, Thomas,' she says,
' 0 harp and carp, and go wi me ;
It 's be seven years, Thomas, and a day.
Or you see man or woman in your ain coun-
trie.'
6 It 's she has rode, and Thomas ran.
Until they cam to yon water clear ;
He 's coosten off his hose and shon.
And he 's wooden the water up to the knee.
be 7 It 's she has rode, and Thomas ran.
Until they cam to yon garden green ;
He 's put up his hand for to puU down ane.
For the lack o food he was like to tyne.
8 ' Hold your hand, Thomas,' she says,
' Hold your hand, that must not be ;
It was a' that cursed fruit o thine
Beggared man and woman in your countrie.
9 ' But I have a loaf and a soup o wine,
And ye shall go and dine wi me ;
37. THOMAS BYMER
325
And lay yer head down in my lap,
And I will teU ye farlies three.
10 ' It 's dont ye see yon broad broad way,
That leadeth down by yon skerry fell ?
It 's ill 's the man that dothe thereon gang,
For it leadeth him straight to the gates o
heU.
11 ' It 's dont ye see yon narrow way,
That leadeth down by yon lillie lea ?
It 's weel 's the man that doth therein gang,
For it leads him straight to the heaven hie.'
12 It 's when she cam into the hall —
I wat a weel bred man was he —
They Ve asked him f[uestion[s], one and all.
But he answered none but that fair ladie.
13 O they speerd at her where she did him get.
And she told them at the Eildon tree ;
o
Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, II, 251, ed. 1802.
1 True Thomas lay on Huntlie bank,
A ferUe he spied wi' his ee,
And there be saw a lady bright.
Come riding down by the Eildon Tree.
2 Her shirt was o the grass-green silk,
Her mantle o the velvet fyne,
At ilka tett of her horse's mane
Hang fifty siller bells and nine.
3 True Thomas, he pulld aff his cap.
And louted low down to his knee :
' All hail, thou mighty Queen of Heaven !
For thy peer on earth I never did see.'
4 ' O no, O no, Thomas,' she said,
' That name does not belang to me ;
I am but the queen of fair Elfland,
That am hither come to visit thee.
5 ' Harp and carp, Thomas,' she said,
' Harp and carp along wi me.
And if ye dare to kiss my lips,
Sure of your bodie I will be.'
6 ' Betide me weal, betide me woe.
That weird shaU never daunton me ; '
Syne he has kissed her rosy lips,
All underneath the Eildon Tree.
7 ' Now, ye maun go wi me,' she said,
' True Thomas, ye maun go wi me.
And ye maun serve me seven years,
Thro weal or woe, as may chance to be.'
8 She mounted on her milk-white steed.
She 's taen True Thomas up behind.
And aye wheneer her bridle rung.
The steed flew swifter than the wind.
9 O they rade on, and farther on —
The steed gaed smfter than the wind —
Untill they reached a desart wide.
And living land was left behind.
10 ' Light down, Ught down, now, True Thomas,
And lean your head upon my knee;
Abide and rest a little space.
And I will shew you ferlies three.
11 ' O see ye not yon narrow road,
So thick beset with thorns and briers ?
That is the path of righteousness,
Tho after it but few enquires.
12 ' And see not ye that braid braid road.
That lies across that lily leven ?
That is the path of wickedness,
Tho some call it the road to heaven.
13 ' And see not ye that bonny road,
That winds about the fernie brae?
That is the road to fair Elfland,
Where thou and I this night maun gae.
14 ' But, Thomas, ye maun hold your tongue,
Whatever ye may hear or see,
For, if you speak word in Elflyn land.
Ye 'U neer get back to your ain countrie.'
15 O they rade on, and farther on.
And they waded thro rivers aboon the knee.
326
37. THOMAS RYMER
And they saw neither sun nor moon,
But they heard the roaring of the sea.
16 It was mirk mirk night, and there was nae
stern light,
And they waded thro red blude to the knee ;
For a' the blude that 's shed on earth
Rins thro the springs o that countrie.
17 Syne they came on to a garden green,
And she pu'd an apple frae a tree :
' Take this for thy wages, True Thomas,
It wUl give the tongue that can never lie.'
18 ' My tongue is mine ain,' True Thomas said ;
' A gudely gift ye wad gie to me !
I neither dought to buy nor sell.
At fair or tryst where I may be.
19 ' I dought neither speak to prince or peer.
Nor ask of grace from fair ladye : '
' Now hold thy peace,' the lady said,
' For as I say, so must it be.'
20 He has gotten a coat of the even cloth,
And a pair of shoes of velvet green.
And till seven years were gane and past
True Thomas on earth was never seen.
7 stands 15 in the MS.
8\ golden green, if my copy is right.
11^' * are 11'' ^ in the MS. : the order of words
is still not simple enough for a ballad.
14*. goe.
Jamieson has a few variations, which I
suppose to be his own.
"!}. oer yonder bank. 3*. your like. 4''. And
I am come here to. 6*. Her steed. 8^.
121.
13>'
20\
garden, rightly. lO'^. clarry. 11^
your head. 12^. see you not.
there 's few. 13. see ye not yon.
see ye not. 14'''. Which winds,
her knee. 3'. thou save.
MS. perhaps unto.
^ foUow St. 12 without separation.
a cloth.
Lay
12*.
141.
APPENDIX.
THOMAS OFF ERSSELDOUNE.
Thornton MS., leaf 149, back, as printed by Dr. J. A. H.
Murray.
[A prologue of six stanzas, found only in the Thornton
MS., is omitted, as being, even if genuine, not to the present
purpose.]
1 Al8 I me wente J>is endres daye,
Ffull faste in mynd makand my mone,
In a mery mornynge of Maye,
By Huntle bankkes my selfe allone,
2 I herde fe jaye and J>e throstelle,
The mawys menyde of hir songe,
J>e wodewale beryde als a belle.
That alle fe wode a-bowte me ronge.
3 AUonne in longynge thus als I lave,
Vndyre-ncthe a semely tre,
[Saw] I wbare a lady gaye
[Came ridand] ouer a longe lee.
4 If I solde sytt to doracsdaye,
'With my tonge to wrobbe and wrye,
Certanely fat lady gaye
Neuer bese scho askryede for mee.
5 Hir palfraye was a dappill graye,
Swylke one ne sagbe I neuer none;
Als dose fe sonne on someres daye,
]?at faire lady hir selfe scho schone.
6 Hir selle it was of roelle bone,
Ffull semely was ]7at syghte to see;
Stefly sett witA precyous stones.
And compaste all with crapotee ;
7 Stones of oryente, grete plente.
Hir hare abowte hir hede it hange ;
Scho rade ouer fat lange lee ;
A whylle scho blewe, a-nofer scho sange.
8 Hir garthes of nobyll sylke pay were,
The bukylls were of berelle stone,
Hir steraps were of crystalle clere,
And all wit/4 perelle ouer-by-gone.
9 Hir payetrelle was of irale fyne,
Hir cropoure was of orphare,
37. THOMAS RYMER
327
And als clere golde hir brydill it schone;
One aythir syde hange bellys three.
10 [Scho led ihree grehoundis in a leesshe,]
And seuene raches by hir fay rone ;
Scho bare an home abowte hir halse,
And vndir hir belte full many a flone.
11 Thomas lays and sawe fat syghte,
Vndir-nethe ane semly tree ;
He sayd, jone es Marye, moste of myghte,
J>at bare fat childe fat dyede for mee.
12 Bot if I speke with jone lady bryghte,
I hope myne herte will bryste in three ;
Now sail I go witA all ray myghte,
Hir for to mete at Eldoune tree.
13 Thomas rathely vpe he rase,
And he rane ouer fat mountayne hye;
Gyff it be als the storye sayes,
He hir mette at Eldone tree.
And, als the storye tellis full ryghte,
Seuene sythis by hir he laye.
22 Scho sayd, Mane, the lykes thy playe:
Whate byrde in boure maye delle with the?
Thou merry s me all fis longe daye;
I pray the, Thomas, late me bee.
23 Thomas stode vpe in fat stede,
And he by-helde fat lady gaye;
Hir hare it hange all ouer hir hede,
Hir eghne semede owte, fat are were graye.
24 And alle fe riche clothynge was a-waye,
J>at he by-fore sawe in fat stede ;
Hir a schanke blake, hir ofer graye.
And all hir body lyke the lede.
25 Thomas laye, and sawe fat sj'ghte,
Vndir-nethe fat grenewod tree.
14 He knelyde downe appone his knee,
Vndir-nethe fat grenwode spraye.
And sayd, Lufly ladye, rewe one mee,
Qwene of heuene, als fou wele maye !
15 Then spake fat lady milde of thoghte:
Thomas, late swylke wordes bee;
Qwene of heuene ne am I noghte,
Ffor I tuke neuer so heghe degre.
16 Bote I ame of ane ofe;" countree,
If I be payrelde moste of pryse;
I ryde aftyre this wylde fee;
My raches rynnys at my devyse.'
1 7 ' If fou be parelde moste of pryse.
And here rydis thus in thy folye,
Of lufe, lady, als fou erte wyse,
JJou gyffe me leue to lye the bye.'
18 Scho sayde, pou mane, fat ware folye ;
I praye fe, Thomas, fou late me bee;
Ffor I saye fe full sekirlye,
Jjat synne will for-doo all my beaute.
19 'Now, lufly ladye, rewe one mee,
And I will euer more witA the duelle ;
Here my trouthe I will the plyghte,
Whethir fou will in heuene or helle.'
20 ' Mane of molde, fou will me marre.
But jitt fou sail hafe all thy will;
And trowe it wele, fou chewys fe werre,
Ffor alle my beaute will fou spylle. '
21 Downe fane lyghte fat lady bryghte,
Vndir-nethe fat grenewode spraye ;
26 pan said Thomas, Alias ! alias I
In fay the fis es a dullfuU syghte;
How arte fou fadyde f us in fe face,
J>at schane by-fore als f e sonne so bryght[e] I
27 Scho sayd, Thomas, take leue at sone and mon[e].
And als at lefe fat grewes on tree ;
This twelmoneth sail fou viith me gone,
And medill-erthe sail fou none see.'
28 He knelyd downe appone his knee,
Vndir-nethe f nt grenewod spraye.
And sayd, Lufly lady, rewe on mee,
Mylde qwene of heuene, als fou beste maye I
29 ' Alias I ' he sayd, ' and wa es mee I
I trowe my dedis wyll wirke me care;
My saulle, Jhesu, by-teche I the,
Whedir-some fat euer my banes sail fare.'
30 Scho ledde hym in at Eldone hill,
Vndir-nethe a derne lee,
Whare it was dirke as mydnyght myrke.
And euer f e water till his knee.
81 The montenans of dayes three,
He herd bot swoghynge of fe flode ;
At fe laste he sayde, Full wa es mee I
Almaste I dye, for fawte of f[ode.]
82 Scho lede hym in-till a faire herbere,
Whare frwte was g[ro]wan[d gret plentee] ;
Pere and appill, bothe ryppe fay were,
The date, and als the damasee.
33 J>e fygge, and alsso fe wyneberye.
The nyghtgales byggande on fair neste ;
328
37. THOMAS RYxMEE
pe papeioyes faste abowte gane flye,
And throstylls sange, wolde hafe no reste.
34 He pressede to pulle frowte -with his hande,
Als mane for fude fat was nere faynt;
Sclio sayd, Thomas, fou late fame stande,
Or ells J)e fende the will atteynt.
35 If Jjou it plokk, sothely to saye,
Thi saule gose to fe fyre of helle ;
It commes neuer owte or domesdaye,
Bot ]>er in payne ay for to duelle.
36 Thomas, sothely I the hyghte.
Come lygge thyne hede downe on my knee,
And [fou] sail se fe fayreste syghte
JJat euer sawe mane of thi contree.
87 He did in hyo als scho hym badde;
Appone hir knee his liede he layde,
Ffor hir to paye he was full glade ;
And Jiane J>at lady to hym sayde :
38 Seese fou nowe jone faire waye,
J'at lygges ouer jone heghe mountayne ?
Jone es )'e waye to heuene for aye,
Whene synfuU sawles are passed fer payne.
39 Seese ]>nu nowe jone ofer waye,
JJat lygges lawe by-nethe jone rysse ?
^one es J'e waye, ]>e sothe to saye,
Vn-to fe joye of paradyse.
40 Seese ]>ou jitt jone tliirde waye,
put ligges vndir jone grene playne ?
jone es }>e waye, viith tene and traye,
Whare synfuU saulis sufErris faire payne.
41 Bot seese ]>ou nowe jone ferthe waye,
J>at lygges ouer jone depe delle ?
lone es fe waye, so waylawaye I
Vn-to fe birnande fyre of helle.
42 Seese you jitt jone faire castelle,
[pat standis ouer] jonc heghe hill ?
Of towne and towre it beris fe belle;
In erthe es none lyke it vn-till.
43 Ffor sothe, Thomas, jone es myne awenne,
And ye kynges of this countree;
Bot me ware leuer be hanged and drawene,
Or fat he wyste fou laye by me.
44 When you commes to jone castelle gay,
I pray fe curtase mane to bee;
And whate so any mane to fe saye,
Luke fou answere none bott mee.
45 My lorde es seruede at ylk a mese
With thritty knyghttis faire and free;
I sail saye, syttande at the desse,
I tuke thi speche by-3onde the see
46 Thomas still als stane he stude.
And he by-helde fat lady gaye ;
Scho come agayne als faire and gude.
And also ryche one hir palfraye.
47 Hir grewehundis fillide ■with dere blode,
Hir raches couplede, by my faye;
Scho blewe hir home v/ith mayne and mode,
Vn-to fe castelle scho tuke fe waye.
48 In-to fe haulle sothely scho went,
Thomas foloued at hir hande;
Than ladyes come, bothe faire and gent.
With curtassye to hir knelande.
49 Harpe and fethill bothe fay fande,
Getterne, and als so f e sawtrye ;
Lutte and rybyoe bothe gangande.
And all manere of mynstralsye.
50 pe most mcruelle fat Thomas thoghte,
Whene fat he stode appone the flore ;
Ffor feftty hertis in were broghte,
J>at were bothe grete and store.
51 Raches laye lapande in f e blode.
Cokes come with dryssynge knyfe;
Thay brittcned fame als fay were wode ;
Reuelle amanges fame was full ryfe.
52 Knyghtis dawnesede by three and three.
There was revelle, gamene and playe;
Lufly ladyes, faire and free,
That satte and sange one riche araye.
63 Thomas duellide ire that solace
More fane I jowe saye, parde.
Till one a daye, so hafe I grace,
My lufly lady sayde to mee :
54 Do buske the, Thomas, f e buse agayne,
Ffor f ou may here no lengare be ;
Hye the faste, vfith myghte and mayne,
I sail the brynge till Eldoue tree.
55 Thomas sayde fane, wit/( heuy chere,
Lufly lady, nowe late me bee ;
Ffor certis, lady, I hafe bene here
Noghte bot f e space of dayes three.
56 ' Ffor sothe, Thomas, als I fe telle,
]5ou base bene here thre jere and more;
Bot langere here fou may noghte duelle;
The skylle I sail fe telle whare-fore.
57 ' To morne of helle fe foulle fende
Amange this folke will feche his fee;
38. THE WEE WEE MAN
329
And \>oa arte mekill mane and hende;
I trowe full wele he wolde chese the.
58 ' Ffor alle Jje gold J»ot euer may bee,
Ffro hethyne vn-to fe worldis ende,
Jjou bese neuer be-trayede for mee ;
J>erefore with rae I rede thou wende. '
59 Scho broghte hym agayne to Eldone tree,
Vndir-nethe ]>at grenewode spraye;
In Huntlee bannkes es mery to bee,
Whare fowles synges bothe nyght and daye.
60 ' Fferre owtt in jone mountane graye,
Thomas, my fawkone bygges a neste;
A fawconne es an erlis praye ;
Ffor-thi in na place may he reste.
61 ' Ffare well, Thomas, I wend my wave,
Ffor me by-houys ouer thir benttis browne ; '
Loo here a fytt: more es to saye,
All of Thomas of Erselldowne.
FYTT ir.
1 ' Fare wele, Thomas, I wend my waye,
I may no lengare stande with the: '
' Gyff me a tokynynge, lady gaye,
That I may saye I spake with the.'
2 ' To harpe or carpe, whare-so J>ou gose,
Thomas, ]>ou sail hafe ]»e chose sothely : '
And he saide, Harpynge kepe I none,
Ffor tonge es chefe of mynstralsye.
3 ♦ If J>ou will spelle, or tales telle,
Thomas, poa sail neuer lesynge lye;
Whare euer fou fare, by frythe or felle,
I praye the speke none euyll of me.
4 ' Ffare wele, Thomas, witA-owttyne gyle,
I may no lengare duelle with the: '
' Lufly lady, habyde a while,
And telle fou me of some ferly.'
5 ' Thomas, herkyne what I the saye : ' etc.
Here begin the prophecies.
& and j are replaced by and and I.
2^. throstyll cokke : throstell, Cambridge MS,
2*. menyde hir.
101. Wanting. Sheled, etc. , Cambridge.
12*, 13*. Lansdowne, elden ; Cambridge, eldryn, el-
dryne.
16*. prysse.
17*. prysee. 17". wysse.
43*. me by. Cambridge, be me.
46*. also.
Fytt 2.
2'. povi gose. Cambridge, je gon.
38
THE WEE WEE MAN
A. a. 'The Wee Wee Man,' Herd's MSS, I, 153;
Herd's Scottish Songs, 1776, I, 9.5.
B. Caw's Poetical Museum, p. 348.
C. ' The Wee Wee Man,' Scott's Minstrelsy, 11, 234,
ed. 1802.
D. ' The Wee Wee Man,' Kinloch MSS, VII, 253.
B. a. ' The Wee Wee Man,' Motherwell's Note- Book,
fol. 40; Motherwell's MS., p. 195. b. Motherwell's
Minstrelsy, p. 343.
P. ' The Wee Wee Man,' Motherwell's MS., p. 68.
G. ' The Little Man,' Buchan's Ballads of the North
of Scotland, I, 263.
This extremely airy and sparkling little
ballad varies but slightly in the half dozen
known copies. The one in the Musical Mu-
seum, No 370, p. 382, and that in Ritson's
Scotish Songs, II, 139, are reprinted from
Herd.
Singularly enough, there is a poem in eight-
line stanzas, in a fourteenth-centufy manu-
ii
330
38. THE WEB WEE MAN
script, which stands in somewhat the same
relation to this ballad as the poem of Thomas
of Erceldoune does to the ballad of Thomas
Rymer, but with the important difference
that there is no reason for deriving the ballad
from the poem in this instance. There seems
to have been an intention to make it, like
Thomas of Erceldoune, an introduction to a
string of prophecies which follows, but no
junction has been effected. This poem is
given in an appendix.
A is translated by Arndt, Bliitenlese, p.
210 ; B, with a few improvements from B b,
by Rosa Warrens, Schottische Volkslieder, p.
12.
Herd's MSS, 1, 153, Herd's Ancient and Modern Scottish
Songs, 1776, I, 95.
1 As I was wa'king all alone,
Between a water and a wa,
And there I spy'd a wee wee man.
And he was the least that ere I saw.
2 His legs were scarce a shathmont's length.
And thick and thimber was his thigh ;
Between his brows there was a span.
And between his shoulders there was three.
8 He took up a meikle stane.
And he flang 't as far as I could see ;
Though I had been a Wallace wight,
I couldna liften 't to my knee.
4 ' O wee wee man, but thou be Strang !
O tell me where thy dwelling be ? '
' My dwelling 's down at yon bonny bower ;
O wiU you go with me and see ? '
5 On we lap, and awa we rade.
Till we came to yon bonny green ;
We lighted down for to bait our horse.
And out there came a lady fine.
6 Four and twenty at her back.
And they were a' clad out in green ;
Though the King of Scotland had been there.
The warst o them might hae been his queen.
7 On we lap, and awa we rade,
TiU we came to yon bonny ha,
Whare the roof was o the beaten gould.
And the floor was o the cristal a'.
8 When we came to the stair-foot,
Ladies were dancing, jimp and sma.
But in the twinkling of an eye,
My wee wee man was clean awa.
Caw's Poetical Museum, p. 348.
1 As I was walking by my lane,
Atween a water and a wa,
Tliere sune I spied a wee wee man.
He was the least that eir I saw.
2 His legs were scant a shathmont's length,
And sma and limber was his tliie ;
Atween his shoulders was ae span.
About his middle war but three.
3 He has tane up a meikle stane.
And flang 't as far as I cold see ;
Ein thouch I had been Wallace wicht,
I dought na lift it to my knie.
4 ' O wee wee man, but ye be Strang !
TeU me whar may thy dweUing be ?
' I dwell beneth that bonnie bouir ;
O will ye gae wi me and see ? '
5 On we lap, and awa we rade,
Till we cam to a bonny green ;
We hchted syne to bait our steid,
And out there cam a lady sheen.
6 Wi four and twentie at her back,
A' comely cled in glistering green ;
Thouch there the King of Scots had stude.
The warst micht weil hae been his queen.
7 On syne we past wi wondering cheir.
Till we cam to a bonny ha ;
38. THE WEE WEE MAN
331
The roof was o the beaten gowd,
The flure was o the crystal a'.
8 When we cam there, wi wee wee knichts
War ladies dancing, jimp and sma,
But in the twinkling of an eie,
Baith green and ha war clein awa.
Seott's Minstrelsy, II, 234, ed. 1802, incorporated with
' The Young Tamlane.' From recitation.
1 'T WAS down by Carterhaugh, father,
I walked beside the wa.
And there I saw a wee wee man,
The least that eer I saw.
2 His legs were skant a shathmont lang,
Yet umber was his thie ;
Between his brows there was ae span.
And between his shoulders three.
3 He 's taen and flung a meikle stane,
As far as I could see ;
I could na, had I been Wallace wight,
Hae lifted it to my knee.
4 ' O wee wee man, but ye be Strang !
Where may thy dwelling be ? '
' It 's down beside yon bonny bower ;
Fair lady, come and see.'
5 On we lap, and away we rade,
Down to a bonny green ;
We lighted down to bait our steed,
And we saw the fairy queen.
6 With four and twenty at her back,
Of ladies clad Ln green ;
Tho the King of Scotland had been there.
The worst might hae been his queen.
7 On we lap, and away we rade,
Down to a bonny ha ;
The roof was o the beaten goud.
The floor was of chrystal a'.
8 And there were dancing on the floor,
Fair ladies jimp and sma ;
But in the twinkling o an eye,
They sainted clean awa.
Kinloch MSS, VII, 253. From Mrs Elder.
1 As I gaed out to tak a walk,
Atween the water and the wa,
There I met wi a wee wee man.
The weest man that ere I saw.
2 Thick and short was his legs,
And sma and thin was his thie.
And atween liis een a flee might gae.
And atween his shouthers were inches three.
3 And he has tane up a muckle stane.
And thrown it farther than I cotcd see ;
If I had been as strong as ere Wallace was,
I coud na lift it to my knie.
4 ' O,' quo I, ' but ye be strong !
And 0 where may your dwelling be ? '
' It 's down in to yon bonnie glen ;
Gin ye dinna believe, ye can come and
see.'
5 And we rade on, and we sped on,
TiU we cam to yon bonny glen.
And there we lichted and louted in,
And there we saw a dainty dame.
6 There was four and twenty wating on her.
And ilka ane was clad in green,
And he had been the king of fair Scotland,
The warst o them micht hae been his
queen.
7 There war pipers playing on ilka stair,
And ladies dancing in Uka ha,
But before ye cowd hae sadd what was that,
The house and wee manie was awa.
332
38. THE WEE WEE MAN
E
a. Motherwell's Note-Book, fol. 40, " from Agnes Lyle ; "
Motherwell's MS., p. 195, "from the recitation of Apnes
Laird, Kilbarchan." b. Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. 343.
1 As I was walking mine alone,
Betwext the water and the wa,
There I spied a wee wee man,
He was the least ane that eer I saw.
2 His leg was scarse a shaftmont lang.
Both thick and nimble was his knee ;
Between his eyes there was a span,
Betwixt his shoulders were ells three.
3 This wee wee man pulled up a stone,
He flang 't as far as I could see ;
Tho I had been like Wallace strong,
I wadna gotn 't up to my knee.
4 I said, Wee man, oh, but you 're strong !
Where is your dwelling, or where may 't be ?
' My dwelling 's at yon bonnie green ;
Fair lady, will ye go and see ? '
5 On we lap, and awa we rade.
Until we came to yonder green ;
We lichtit down to rest our steed,
And there cam out a lady soon.
6 Four and twenty at her back.
And every one of them was olad in green ;
Altho he had been the King of Scotland,
The warst o them a' micht hae been his
queen.
7 There were pipers playing in every neuk.
And ladies dancing, jimp and sma,
And aye the owre-turn o their tune
Was ' Our wee wee man has been lang awa.'
Motherwell's MS., p. 68, " from the recitation of Mrs Wil-
son, of the Renfrewshire Tontine ; now of the Caledonian
Hotel, Inverness."
1 As I was walking mine alane.
Between the water and the wa.
And oh there I spy'd a wee wee mannie,
The weeest mannie that ere I saw.
4 So we '11 awa, and on we rade.
Till we cam to yon bonnie green ;
We lichted down to bait our horse.
And up and started a lady syne.
5 Wi four and twenty at her back,
And they were a' weell clad in green ;
Tho I had been a crowned king,
The warst o them might ha been my queen.
2 His legs they were na a gude inch lang.
And thick and nimble was his thie ;
Between his een there was a span.
And between his shouthers there were ells
three.
3 I asked at this wee wee mannie
Whare his dwelling place might be ;
The answer that he gied to me
Was, Cum alang, and ye shall see.
6 So we '11 awa, and on we rade,
Till we cam to yon bonnie hall ;
The rafters were o the beaten gold.
And silver wire were the kebars all.
And there was mirth in every end,
And ladies dancing, ane and a.
And aye the owre-turn o their sang
Was ' The wee wee mannie 's
been lang
G
Buchan'g Ballads of the North of Scotland, I, 263.
1 As I gaed out to tak the air,
Between Midmar and bonny Craigha,
There I met a little wee man,
The less o him I never saw.
2 His legs were but a finger lang,
And thick and nimle was his knee ;
Between his brows there was a span.
Between his shoulders ells three.
3 He lifted a stane sax feet in hight.
He lifted it up till his right knee.
And fifty yards and mair, I 'm sure,
I wyte he made the stane to flee.
38. THE WEE WEE MAN
333
4 ' O little wee man, but ye be wight !
Tell me whar your dwelling be ; '
' I hae a bower, compactly built.
Madam, gin ye '11 cum and see.'
5 Sae on we lap, and awa we rade,
Till we come to yon little ha ;
The kipples ware o the gude red gowd,
The reef was o the proseyla.
6 Pipers were playing, ladies dancing.
The ladies dancing, jimp and sma ;
At ilka turning o the spring.
The little man was wearin 's wa.
7 Out gat the lights, on cam the mist.
Ladies nor mannie mair coud see
I tumd about, and gae a look,
Just at the foot o' Benachie.
2\
4',
The ■printed copy has thiglis.
dwelling down.
There is a copy of this hallad in Cunning-
ham's Songs of Scotland, 1, 303. Though
no confidence can he felt in the genuine-
ness of the " several variations from re-
citation and singing," with which Cun-
ningham says he sought to improve
Herd's version, the more considerable
ones are here noted.
O there I met. 2'^. a shathmont lang.
been a giant born. 4'. ye 're wonder strong.
4^ 0 ladie, gang wi me. 5'. away we flew.
6^. to a valley green.
down and he stamped his foot.
And up there rose.
Wi four. 6^ the glossy green.
stately ha.
1«.
3».
5»
6*.
n
8. And there were harpings loud and sweet,
And ladies dancing, jimp and sma ;
He clapped his hands, and ere I vrist.
He sank and saunted clean awa.
B. a. 4''. your.
Motherwell has made one or two slight
cha7iges in copying from his Note-Book
into his MS.
b. Besides some alterations of his own, Moth-
erwell has introduced readings from P.
2*. there were.
3^ as Wallace.
5*. lady sheen. 6^. Wi four.
G''. And they were a' weel clad.
After 6 is inserted F 6, with the first line
changed to
So on we lap, and awa we rade.
APPENDIX.
This piece is found in Cotton MS., Julius, A, V,
the ninth article in the manuscript, fol. 175, r°,
(otherwise 180, r°). It is here given nearly as
printed by Mr Thomas Wright in his edition of the
Chronicle of Pierre de Langtoft, H, 452. It had
been previously printed in Ritson's Ancient Songs,
ed. 1829, I, 40 ; Finlay's Scottish Ballads, II, 168 ;
the Retrospective Review, Second Series, II, 326.
The prophecies, omitted here, are given by all the
above.
1 Al8 y yod on ay Mounday
Bytwene Wyltinden and Walle,
Me ane aftere brade waye,
Ay litel man y mette withalle ;
The leste that ever I sathe, [sothe] to say,
Oithere in boure, oithere in halle;
His robe was noithere grene na gray,
Bot alle yt was of riche palle.
On me he cald, and bad me bide;
Well stille y stode ay litel space;
Fra Lanchestre the parke syde
Yeen he come, wel fair his pase.
He hailsed me with mikel pride;
Ic haved wel mykel ferly wat he was;
I saide, Wel mote the bityde I
That litel man with large face.
I biheld that litel man
Bi the stretes als we gon gae;
His herd was syde ay large span,
And glided als the fetbere of pae ;
His heved was wyte als any swan.
His hegehen ware gret and grai alsso;
334
38. THE WEE WEE MAN
Brues lange, wel I the can
Merke it to five inches and mae.
Stintid vs broke no becke;
Ferlicke me thouth hu so mouth bee.
Armes scort, for sothe I saye,
Ay span seemed thaem to bee;
Handes brade, vytouten nay,
And fiageres lange, he scheued me.
Ay Stan he toke op thare it lay.
And castid forth that I mothe see ;
Ay merke-soote of large way
Bifor me strides he castid three.
Wel stille I stod als did the stane,
To loke him on thouth me nouthe lange;
His robe was alle golde bigane,
Wel craftlike maked, I underestande;
Botones asurd, everlke ane,
Fra his elboutlie on til his hande ;
Eldelike man was he nane,
That in myn herte icke onderestande.
Til him I sayde f ul sone on ane,
For forthirmare I wald him fraine,
Glalli wild 1 wit thi name,
And I wist wat me mouthe gaine;
Thou ert so litel of flesse and bane,
And so mikel of mithe and mayne ;
Ware vones thou, litel man, at hame?
Wit of the I walde ful faine.
' Thoth I be litel and lith,
Am y nothe wytouten wane ;
Fferli frained thou wat I hith,
Yat thou salt noth with my name.
My wonige stede ful wel es dyth,
JSou sone thou salt se at hame.'
Til him I sayde, For Godes mith,
Lat me forth myn erand gane.
' The thar noth of thin errand lette,
Thouth thou come ay stonde wit me ;
Forthere salt thou noth bisette
Bi miles twa noythere hi three.'
Na linger durste I for him lette.
But forth ij fundid wyt that free;
9 He vent forth, als ij you say,
In at ay yate, ij underestande ;
Intil ay yate, wundouten nay;
It to se thouth me nouth lange.
The bankers on the binkes lay,
And fair lordes sette ij fonde ;
In ilka ay hirn ij herd ay lay.
And levedys south meloude sange.
The meeting with the little man was on Monday. We
are now invited to listen to a tale told on Wednesday by
" a moody barn," who is presently addressed, in language
which, to be sure, fits the elf well enough, as " merry man,
that is so wight : " but things do not fay at all here.
10 Lithe, bothe yonge and aide :
Of ay worde ij will you saye,
A litel tale that me was tald
Erli on ay Wedenesdaye.
A mody barn, that was ful bald,
My frend that ij frained aye,
Al my yerning he me tald.
And yatid me als we went bi waye.
H ' Miri man, that es so wythe.
Of ay thinge gif me answers :
For him that mensked man wyt mith,
Wat sal worth of this were ? ' &c.
The orthography of this piece, if rightly rendered, is
peculiar, and it is certainly not consistent.
1^. saith ybr saw occurs in 23^.
Wright, Y cen: Retrosp. Rev., Yeen.
W., Merkes: R. R., Merke. fize.
W., everlkes: R. R., euerelke.
W., of their: R. R., of ye (fe). i. wald.
W., That thou: R.R., yat.
dygh. 9*. south me.
me loude.
W., thering: J?. R., yering.
W., y atid : R. R., yatid.
2*.
38.
5'.
68.
7*.
75.
98.
10'.
108.
39. TAM LIN
335
39
TAM LIN
A. ' Tam Lin,' Johnson's Museum, p. 423, 1792. Com-
municated by Burns.
B. ' Young Tom Line,' Glenriddell MS., vol. xi, No
17, 1791.
C. ' Kertonha, or. The Fairy Court,' Herd, The An-
cient and Modern Scots Songs, 1769, p. 300.
D. ' Tom Linn.' a. Motherwell's MS., p. 532. b. Maid-
ment's New Book of Old Ballads, p. 54. c. ' Tom
o Linn,' Pitcairn's MSS, III, fol. 67.
B. • Young Tamlin,' Motherwell's Note-Book, fol. 13.
r. » Tomaline,' Motherwell's MS., p. 64.
G. ' Tam-a-line, the Elfin Knight,' Buchan's MSS, I,
8 ; ' Tam a-Lin, or The Knight of Faery lande,'
Motherwell's MS., p. 595. Dixon, Scottish Tra-
ditionary Versions of Ancient Ballads, Percy Society,
XVII, 11.
H. 'Young Tam Lane,' Campbell MSS, II, 129.
Z ' The Young Tamlane.' Minstrelsy of the Scottish
Border: a, II, 337, ed. 1833 ; b, 11, 228, ed. 1802.
The first twenty-two stanzas of B differ
from the corresponding ones in A, 1-23, omit-
ting 16, by only a few words, and there are
other agreements in the second half of these
versions. Burns's intimacy with Robert Rid-
dell would naturally lead to a communication
from one to the other ; but both may have
derived the verses that are common from the
same third party. Herd's fragment, C, was
the earliest printed. Scott's version, I, as he
himself states, was compounded of the Mu-
seum copy, Riddell's, Herd's, and " several
recitals from tradition." I b, the edition of
1802, contained fragments of ' The Bromfield
Hiir and of 'The Wee Wee Man,' which
were dropped from the later edition ; but un-
fortunately this later edition was corrupted
with eleven new stanzas, which are not simply
somewhat of a modern cast as to diction, as
Scott remarks, but of a grossly modern inven-
tion, and as unlike popular verse as anything
can be. I is given according to the later edi-
tion, with those stanzas omitted ; and all that
• These are the concluding verses, coming much nearer to
the language of this world than the rest. They may have a
basis of tradition :
is peculiar to this version, and not taken from
the Museum, Glenriddell, or Herd, is distin-
guished from the rest by the larger type.
This, it will be immediately seen, is very lit-
tle.
The copy in Tales of Wonder, II, 459, is
A, altered by Lewis. Mr Joseph Robertson
notes, Kinloch MSS, VI, 10, that his mother
had communicated to him some fragments of
this ballad slightly differing from Scott's ver-
sion, with a substitution of the name True
Tammas for Tam Lane.
The Scots Magazine for October, 1818,
LXXXII, 327-29, has a " fragment" of more
than sixty stanzas, composed in an abomina-
ble artificial lingo, on the subject of this bal-
lad, and alleged to have been taken from
the mouth of a good old peasant, who, not
having heard the ballad for thirty years, could
remember no more. Thomas the Rhymer
appears in the last lines with very great dis-
tinction, but it is not clear what part he has
in the story.*
Whar they war aware o the Fairy King,
A huntan wi his train.
336
39. TAM LIN
A copy printed in Aberdeen, 1862, and said
to have been edited by the Rev. John Bur-
nett Pratt, of Cruden, Aberdeenshire, is made
up from Aytoun and Scott, with a number of
slight changes.*
' The Tayl of the jong Tamlene ' is spoken
of as told among a company of shepherds, in
Vedderburn's Complaint of Scotland, 1549, p.
63 of Dr James A. H. Murray's edition for
the Early English Text Society. ' Thorn of
Lyn ' is mentioned as a dance of the same
party, a little further on, Murray, p. 66, and
' Young Thomlin ' is the name of an air in a
medley in " Wood's MS.," inserted, as David
Laing thought, between 1600 and 1620, and
printed in Forbes's Cantus, 1666 : Stenhouse's
ed. of The Scots Musical Museum, 1853, IV,
440. " A ballett of Thomalyn " is licensed
to Master John Wallye and Mistress Toye in
1558 : Arber, Transcript of the Registers of
the Company of Stationers, I, 22 ; cited by
Furnivall, Captain Cox, &c., Ballad Society,
p. clxiv.
Sir Walter Scott relates a tradition of an
attempt to rescue a woman from fairydom
which recalls the ill success of many of the ef-
forts to disenchant White Ladies in Germany :
" The wife of a farmer in Lothian had been
carried off by the fairies, and, during the year
of probation, repeatedly appeared on Sunday,
in the midst of her children, combing their
hair. On one of these occasions she was ac-
costed by her husband ; when she related to
him the unfortunate event which had sepa-
rated them, instructed him by what means he
might win her, and exhorted him to exert all
his courage, since her temporal and eternal
happiness depended on the success of his at-
tempt. The farmer, wlio ardently loved his
wife, set out at Halloween, and, in the midst
of a plot of furze, waited impatiently for the
procession of the fairies. At the ringing of
the fairy bridles, and the wild, unearthly
sound which accompanied the cavalcade, his
heart failed him, and he suffered the ghostly
train to pass by without interruption. When
the last had rode past, the whole ti'oop van-
ished, with loud shouts of laughter and exul-
tation, among which he plainly discovered the
voice of his wife, lamenting that he had lost
her forever." The same author proceeds to
recount a real incident, which took place at
the town of North Berwick, witliin memory, of
a man who was prevented from undertaking,
or at least meditating, a similar rescue only by
shrewd and prompt practical measures on the
part of his minister.f
This fine ballad stands by itself, and is not,
as might have been expected, found in posses-
sion of any people but the Scottish. Yet it has
connections, through the principal feature in the
story, the retransformation of Tam Lin, with
Greek popular tradition older than Homer.
Something of the successive changes of shape
is met with in a Scandinavian ballad : ' Nat-
tergalen,' Grundtvig, II, 168, No 57 ; ' Den
fortrollade Prinsessan,' Afzelius, II, 67, No 41,
Atterbom, Poetisk Kalender, 1816, p. 44 ; Dy-
beck, Rima, 1844, p. 94, No 2 ; Axelson, Van-
dring i Wermlands Elfdal, p. 21, No 3 ; Linde-
man, Norske Fjeldmelodier, Tekstbilag til Iste
Bind, p. 3, No 10.
Though many copies of this ballad have
been obtained from the mouth of the people,
all that are known are derived from flying
sheets, of which there is a Danish one dated
1721 and a Swedish of the year 1738. What
is of more account, the style of the piece, as we
have it, is not quite popular. Nevertheless,
the story is entirely of the popular stamp, and
so is the feature in it, which alone concerns us
materially. A nightingale relates to a knight
Four an twenty gentlemen
Cam by on steeds o brown ;
lu his hand ilk bore a siller wand,
On his head a siller crown.
Four an twenty beltit knichts
On daiplit grej-s cam by ;
Gowden their wands an crowns, whilk scanct
Like streamers in the sky.
Four an twenty noble kings
Cam by on steeds o snaw,
But True Thomas, the gude Rhymer,
Was king outower them a'.
* " Tamlane : an old Scottish Border Ballad. Aberdeen,
Lewis and James Smith, 1862." lam indebted for a sight
of this copy, and for the information as to the editor, to Mr
Macmath.
t Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, II, 221-24, ed. 1802.
39. TAM LIN
337
how she had once had a lover, but a step-
mother soon upset all that, and turned her
into a bird and her brother into a wolf. The
curse was not to be taken off the brother till
he drank of his step-dame's blood, and after
seven yeai-s he caught her, when she was tak-
ing a walk in a wood, tore out her heart, and
regained his human shape. The knight pro-
poses to the bird that she shall come and pass
the winter in his bower, and go back to the
wood in the summer : this, the nightingale
says, the step-mother had forbidden, as long
as she wore feathers. The knight seizes the
bird by the foot, takes her home to his bower,
and fastens the windows and doors. She
turns to all the marvellous beasts one ever
heard of, — to a lion, a bear, a variety of small
snakes, and at last to a loathsome lind-worm.
The knight makes a sufficient incision for blood
to come, and a maid stands on the floor as fair
as a flower. He now asks after her origin,
and she answers, Egypt's king was my fa-
ther, and its queen my mother; my brother
was doomed to rove the woods as a wolf. " If
Egypt's king," he rejoins, " was your father,
and its queen your mother, then for sure you
are my sister's daughter, who was doomed to
be a nightingale." *
We come much nearer, and indeed sur-
prisingly near, to the principal event of the
Scottish ballad in a Cretan fairy-tale, cited
from Chourmouzis by Bernhard Schmidt.f A
young peasant of the village Sgourokephdli,
who was a good plaj'er on the rote, used to be
taken by the nereids into their grotto for the
sake of his music. He fell in love with one
of them, and, not knowing how to help him-
self, had recourse to an old woman of his vil-
lage. She gave him this advice : that just
before cock-crow he should seize his beloved
by the hair, and hold on, unterrified, till the
cock crew, whatever forms she should assume.
The peasant gave good heed, and the next
time he was taken into the cave fell to play-
ing, as usual, and the nereids to dancing. But
• Restoration from enchantment is efiected by drinking
blood, in other ballads, as Grundtvig, No 55, II, 156, No 58,
II, 174 ; in No 56, II, 158, by a maid in falcon shape eating
of a bit of flesh which her lover had cut from his breast.
43
as cock-crow drew nigh, he put down his in-
strument, sprang upon the object of his pas-
sion, and grasped her by her locks. She in-
stantly changed shape ; became a dog, a snake,
a camel, fire. But he kept his courage and
held on, and presently the cock crew, and the
nereids vanished all but one. His love re-
turned to her proper beauty, and went with
him to his home. After the lapse of a year
she bore a son, but in all this time never ut-
tered a word. The young husband was fain
to ask counsel of the old woman again, who
told him to heat the oven hot, and say to his
wife that if she would not speak he would
throw the boy into the oven. He acted upon
this prescription ; the nereid cried out, Let go
my child, dog I tore the infant from his arms,
and vanished.
This Cretan tale, recovered from tradition
even later than our ballad, repeats all the im-
portant circumstances of the forced marriage
of Thetis with Peleus. Chiron, like the old
woman, suggested to his prot^g^ that he
should lay hands on the nereid, and keep his
hold through whatever metamorphosis she
might make. He looked out for his oppor-
tunity and seized her ; she turned to fire,
water, and a wild beast, but he did not let go
till she resumed her primitive shape. Thetis,
having borne a son, wished to make him im-
mortal ; to which end she buried him in fire
by night, to burn out his human elements, and
anointed him with ambrosia by day. Peleus
was not taken into counsel, but watched her,
and saw the boy gasping in the fire, which
made him call out ; and Thetis, thus thwarted,
abandoned the child and went back to the
nereids. Apollodorus, Bibliotheca, HI, 13,
5,6.
The Cretan tale does not differ from the
one repeated by Apollodorus from earlier writ-
ers a couple of thousand years ago more than
two versions of a story gathered from oral
tradition in these days are apt to do. Whether
it has come down to our time from mouth to
t Volksleben der Neugriechen, pp 115-17, "from Chour-
mouzis, KprjTiKci, p. 69 f, Athens, 1842." Chourmouzis heard
this story, about 1820 or 1830, from an old Cretan peasant,
who had heard it from his grandfather.
338
39. TAM LIN
mouth through twenty-five centuries or more,
or whether, having died out of the popular
memory, it was reintroduced through litera-
ture, is a question that cannot be decided with
certainty ; but there will be nothing unlikely
in the former supposition to those who bear
in mind the tenacity of tradition among peo-
ple who have never known books.*
B 34,
First dip me in a stand of milk,
And then in a stand of water ;
Hand me fast, let me na gae,
I '11 be your bairnie's father,
has an occult and very important significance
which has only very lately been pointed out,
and which modern reciters had completely lost
knowledge of, as appears by the disorder into
which the stanzas have fallen. f Immersion
in a liquid, generally water, but sometimes
milk, is a process requisite for passing from a
non-human shape, px'oduced by enchantment,
back into the human, and also for returning
from the human to a non-human state, whether
produced by enchantment or original. We
have seen that the serpent which Lanzelet
kisses, in Ulrich's romance, is not by that sim-
ple though essential act instantly turned into
a woman. It is still necessary that she should
bathe in a spring (p. 308). In an Albanian
tale, ' Taubenliebe,' Hahn, No 102, II, 130, a
dove flies into a princess's window, and, re-
ceiving her caresses, asks, Do you love me ?
The pi'incess answering Yes, the dove says,
Then have a dish of milk ready to-morrow,
and you shall see what a handsome man I am.
* The silence of the Cretan fairy, as B. Schmidt has re-
marked, even seems to explain Sophocles calling the nuptials
of Peleus and Thetis " speechless," a<pe6yyovs yd/xovs. Soph-
ocles gives the transformations as being lion, snake, fire,
water : Scholia in Pindari Nemea, III, 60 ; Schmidt, as be-
fore, p. 116, note. That a firm grip and a fearless one would
make any sea-god do your will would appear from the ad-
ditional instances of Menelaus and Proteus, in Odyssey, IV,
and of Hercules and Nereus, ApoUodorus, II, 5, 11, 4, Scho-
lia in ApoUonii Argonaut., IV, 1396. Proteus masks as lion,
snake, panther, boar, running water, tree ; Kerens as water,
fire, or, as ApoUodorus says, in all sorts of shapes. Bacchus
was accustomed to transform himself when violence was
done him, but it is not recorded that he was ever brought to
terms like the watery divinities. See Mannhardt, Wald-und
Feldkulte, II, 60-64, who also well rem.irks that the tales
A dish of milk is ready the next morning ; the
dove flies into the window, dips himself in the
milk, drops his feathers, and steps out a beau-
tiful youth. When it is time to go, the youth
dips in the milk, and flies o£E a dove. This
goes on every day for two years. A Greek
tale, ' Goldgerte,' Hahn, No 7, I, 97, has the
same transformation, with water for milk. Our
B 34 has well-water only.ij: Perhaps the bath
of milk occurred in one earlier version of our
ballad, the water-bath in another, and the two
accounts became blended in time.
The end of the mutations, in P 11, G 43,
is a naked man, and a mother-naked man in
B 33, under the presumed right arrangement ;
meaning by right arrangement, however, not
the original arrangement, but the most consis-
tent one for the actual form of the tradition.
Judging by analogy, the naked man should
issue from the bath of milk or of water ; into
which he should have gone in one of his non-
human shapes, a dove, swan, or snake (for
which, too, a " stand " of milk or of water is a
more practicable bath than for a man). The
fragment C adds some slight probability to
this supposition. The last change there is
into " a dove but and a swan ; " then Tam
Lin bids the maiden to let go, for he '11 " be
a perfect man : " this, nevertheless, he could
not well become without some further cere-
mony. A is the only version which has pre-
served an essentially correct process : Tam
Lin, when a burning gleed, is to be thrown
into well-water, from which he will step forth
a naked knight.§
At stated periods, which the ballads make
of the White Ladies, who, to be released from a ban, must
be kissed three times in various shapes, as toad, wolf, snake,
etc., have relation to these Greek traditions.
t The significance of the immersion in water is shown by
Mannhardt, Wald- u. Feldkulte, II, 64 ff. The disorder in
the stanzas of A at this place has of course been rectified.
In Scott's version, I, transformations are added at random
from C, q/ler the dipping in milk and in water, which seems
indeed to have been regarded by the reciters only as a meas-
ure for cooling red-hot iron or the burning gleed, and not as
the act essential for restoration to the human nature.
t Possibly the holy water in D 17, G 32, is a relic of the
water-bath.
§ In the MS. of B also the transformation into a het gad
of iron comes just before the direction to dip the object into
a stand of milk ; but we have the turning into a mother.
39. TAM LIK
339
to be seven years, the fiend of hell is entitled
to take his teind, tithe, or kane from the peo-
ple of fairy-land : A 24, B 23, C 5, D 15, G 28,
H 15. The fiend prefers those that are fair
and fa o flesh, according to A, G ; ane o flesh
and blood, D. H makes the queen fear for
herself ; " the koors they hae gane round about,
and I fear it will be mysel." H is not discord-
ant with popular tradition elsewhere, which
attributes to fairies the practice of abstracting
young children to serve as substitutes for
themselves in this tribute : Scott's Minstrelsy,
II, 220, 1802. D 15 says " the last here goes
to hell," which would certainly not be equita-
ble, and C " we 're a' dung down to hell,"
where " all " must be meant only of the nat-
uralized members of the community. Poor
Alison Pearson, who lost her life in 1586 for
believing these things, testified that the tribute
was annual. Mr William Sympson, who had
been taken away by the fairies, " bidd her sign
herself that she be not taken away, for the
teind of them are tane to hell everie year : "
Scott, as above, p. 208. The kindly queen
of the fairies * will not allow Thomas of Er-
celdoune to be exposed to this peril, and hur-
ries him back to earth the day before the
fiend comes for his due. Thomas is in pe-
culiar danger, for the reason given in A, Gr, R.
To mome of helle pe foulle fende
Amange this folke will feche his fee ;
And J>ou art mekill man and hende ;
I trowe full wele he wolde chese the.
The elf-queen, A 42, B 40, would have taken
out Tam's twa gray een, had she known he
was to be borrowed, and have put in twa een
of tree, B 41, D 34, E 21, H 14 ; she would
have taken out his heart of flesh, and have
put in, B, D, B, a heart of stane, H of tree.
The taking out of the eyes would probably be
to deprive Tam of the faculty of recognizing
fairy folk thereafter. Mortals whose eyes
have been touched with fairies' salve can see
them when they are to others invisible, and
such persons, upon distinguishing and saluting
fairies, have often had not simply this power
but their ordinary eyesight taken away : see
Cromek's Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway
Song, p. 304, Thiele, Danmarks Folkesagn,
1843, II, 202, rv, etc. Grimm has given in-
stances of witches, Slavic, German, Norse and
Italian, taking out the heart of man (which
they are wont to devour), and replacing it in
some instances with straw, wood, or something
of the kind ; nor do the Roman witches appear
to have been behind later ones in this dealing :
Deutsche Mythologie, 904 f, and the note III,
312.
The fairy in the Lai de Lauval, v. 547,
rides on a white palfrey, and also two dam-
sels, her harbingers, v. 471 ; so the fairy prin-
cess in the English Launfal, Halliwell, Fairy
Mythology, p. 30. The fairy king and all his
knights and ladies ride on white steeds in King
Orfeo, Halliwell, as above, p. 41. The queen
of Elfland rides a milk-white steed in Thomas
naked man several stanzas earlier. By reading, in 33', I '11
turn, and puttins 33 after 34, we should have the order of
events which we find in A.
That Tam Lin should go into water or milk as a dove or
snake, or in some other of his temporary forms, and come
out a man, is the only disposition which is consistent with the
order of the world to which he belongs. Mannhardt gives
ns a most curious and interesting insight into some of the
laws of that world in Wald- n. Feldknlte, II, 64-70. The
wife of a Cashmere king, in a story there cited from Benfey's
Pantschatantra, I, 254, § 92, is delivered of a serpent, but is
reported to have borne a son. Another king offers his
daughter in marriage, and the Cashmere king, to keep his
secret, accepts the proposal. In due time the princess claims
her bridegroom, and they give her the snake. Though
greatly distressed, she accepts her lot, and takes the snake
about to the holy places, at the last of which she receives a
command to put the snake into the water-tank. As soon as
this is done the snake takes the form of a man. A woman's
giving birth to a snake was by no means a rare thing in
Karst in the seventeenth century, and it was the rule in one
noble family that all the offspring should be in serpent form,
or at least have a serpent's head ; bnt a bath in water turned
them into human shape. For elves and water nymphs who
have entered into connections with men in the form of women,
bathing in water is equally necessary for resuming their
previous shape, as appears from an ancient version of the
story of Melusina : Gervasius, ed. Liebrecht, p. 4 f, and Vin-
centins Bellovacensis, Speculum Natnrale, 2,127 (from He-
linandus), cited by Liebrecht, at p. 66.
A lad who had been changed into an ass by a couple of
witches recovers his shape merely by jumping into water and
rolling about in it : William of Malmesbury's Kings of
England, c. 10, cited by Vincent of Beauvais, Specnlnm
Natnrale, iii, 109 ; Diintzer, Liebrecht's Dunlop, p. 538. Sim-
ple illusions of magic, such as clods and wisps made to
appear swine to our eyes, are inevitably dissolved when the
unrealities touch water. Liebrecht's Gervasius, p. 65.
• Cf. ' Allison Gross.'
340
39. TAM LIN
Rymer, A, C ; in B, and all copies of Thomas
of Erceldoune, her palfrey is dapple gray.
Tam Lin, A 28, B 27, etc., is distinguished
from all the rest of his " court " by being thus
mounted ; all the other horses are black or
brown.
Tam Lane was taken by the fairies, accord-
ing to G 26, 27, while sleeping under an apple-
tree. In Sir Orfeo (ed. Zielke, v. 68) it was
the queen's sleeping under an ympe-tree that
led to her being carried off by the fairy king,
and the ympe-tree we may suppose to be some
kind of fruit tree, if not exclusiyely the apple.
Thomas of Erceldoune is lying under a semely
[derne, cumly] tree, when he sees the fairy
queen. The derivation of that poem from
Ogier le Danois shows that this must have
been an apple-tree. Special trees are consid-
ered in Greece dangerous to lie under in sum-
mer and at noon, as exposing one to be
taken by the nereids or fairies, especially
plane, poplar, fig, nut, and St John's bread :
Schmidt, Volksleben der Neugriechen, p. 119.
The elder and the linden are favorites of the
elves in Denmark.
The rencounter at the beginning between
Tam Lin and Janet (in the wood, D, P, G)
is repeated between Hind Etin [Young Akin]
and Margaret in ' Hind Etin,' further on.
Some Slavic ballads open in a similar way,
but there is nothing noteworthy in that: see
p. 41. " First they did call me Jack," etc.,
D 9, is a commonplace of frequent occur-
rence : see, e. g., ' The Knight and Shepherd's
Daughter.'
Some humorous verses, excellent in their
way, about one Tam o Lin are very well
known : as Tam o the Linn, Chambers, Scot-
tish Songs, p. 455, Popular Rhymes of Scot-
land, p. 33, ed. 1870 ; Sharpe's Ballads, new
ed., p. 44, p. 187, No XVI ; Tommy Linn,
North Country Chorister, ed. Ritson, p. 3 ;
Halliwell's Popular Rhymes and Nursery
Tales, p. 271, ed. 1849 ; Thomas o Linn, Kin-
loch MSS, III, 45, V, 81; Tam o Lin, Camp-
bell MSS., IL 107. (Miss Joanna Baillie tried
her hand at an imitation, but the jocosity of
the real thing is not feminine.) A fool sings
this stanza from such a song in Wager's com-
edy, ' The longer thou livest, the more fool
thou art,' put at about 1568 ; see Furnivall,
Captain Cox, his Ballads and Bopks, p. cxxvii :
Tom a Lin and his wife, and his wiues mother,
They went ouer a bridge all three together ;
The bridge was broken, and they fell in :
' The deuil go with all ! ' quoth Tom a Lin.
Mr Halliwell-Phillips (as above) says that
" an immense variety of songs and catches re-
lating to Tommy Linn are known throughout
the country." Brian o Lynn seems to be pop-
ular in Ireland : Lover's Legends and Stories
of Ireland, p. 260 f. There is no connection
between the song and the ballad beyond the
name : the song is no parody, no burlesque, of
the ballad, as it has been called.
" Carterhaugh is a plain at the confluence of
the Ettrick with the Yarrow, scarcely an Eng-
lish mile above the town of Selkirk, and on
this plain they show two or three rings on the
ground, where, they say, the stands of milk
and water stood, and upon which grass never
grows." Glenriddell MS.
Translated, after Scott, by Schubart, p. 189,
and Biisc'hing's Wochentliche Nachrichten, I,
247 ; by Arndt, Blutenlese, p. 212 ; after Ay-
toun, I, 7, by Rosa Warrens, Schottische
Volkslieder, No 8 ; by Knortz, Schottische
Balladen, No 17, apparently after Aytoun and
Allingham. The Danish ' Nattergalen ' is
translated by Prior, III, 118, No 116.
Johnson's Museum, p. 423, No 4U. Communicated by
Bobert Burns.
101 FORBID you, maidens a',
That wear gowd on your hair,
To come or gae by Carterhaugh,
For young Tam Lin is there.
2 There 's nane that gaes by Carterhaugh
But they leave him a wad,
Either their rings, or green mantles,
Or else their maidenliead.
39. TAM LIN
341
3 Janet has kilted her green kirtle
A little aboon her knee,
And she has broded her yellow hair
A little aboon her bree,
And she 's awa to Carterhaugh,
As fast as she can hie.
4 When she came to Carterhaugh
Tam Lin was at the well,
And there she fand his steed standing.
But away was himsel.
6 She had na pu'd a double rose,
A rose but only twa,
Till up then started young Tam Lin,
Says, Lady, thou 's pu nae mae.
6 Why pu's thou the rose, Janet,
And why breaks thou the wand ?
Or why comes thou to Carterhaugh
Withoutten my command ?
7 ' Carterhaugh, it is my ain.
My daddie gave it me ;
I '11 come and gang by Carterhaugh,
And ask nae leave at thee.'
8 Janet has kilted her green kirtle
A little aboon her knee.
And she has snooded her yellow hair
A little aboon her bree.
And she is to her father's ha,
As fast as she can hie.
9 Four and twenty ladies fair
Were playing at the ba,
And out then cam the fair Janet,
Ance the flower amang them a'.
10 Four and twenty ladies fair
Were playing at the chess.
And out then cam the fair Janet,
As green as onie glass.
11 Out then spak an auld grey knight,
Lay oer the castle wa.
And says, Alas, fair Janet, for thee
But we 'U be blamed a'.
12 ' Haud your tongue, ye auld fac'd knight.
Some ill death may ye die !
Father my bairn on whom I will,
I 'U father nane on thee.'
13 Out then spak her father dear.
And he spak meek and mild ;
' And ever alas, sweet Janet,' he says,
' I think thou gaes wi child.'
14 ' If that I gae wi child, father,
Mysel maun bear the blame ;
There 's neer a laird about your ha
Shall get the bairn's name.
15 ' If my love were an earthly knight,
As he 's an elfin grey,
I wad na gie my ain true-love
For nae lord that ye hae.
16 ' The steed that my true-love rides on
Is lighter than the wind ;
Wi siller he is shod before,
Wi burning gowd behind.'
17 Janet has kilted her green kirtle
A little aboon her knee.
And she has snooded her yellow hair
A little aboon her bree.
And she 's awa to Carterhaugh,
As fast as she can hie.
18 When she cam to Carterhaugh,
Tam Lin was at the well.
And there she fand his steed standing,
But away was himsel.
19 She had na pu'd a double rose,
A rose but only twa,
Till up then started young Tam Lin,
Says Lady, thou pu's nae mae.
20 Why pu's thou the rose, Janet,
Amang the groves sae green,
And a' to kill the bonie babe
That we gat us between ?
21 ' 0 tell me, tell me, Tam Lin,' she says,
' For 's sake that died on tree.
If eer ye was in holy chapel.
Or Christendom did see ? '
22 ' Roxbrugh he was my grandfather,
Took me with him to bide.
342
39. TAM LIN
And ance it fell upon a day
That wae did me betide.
23 ' And ance it fell upon a day,
A cauld day and a snell,
"When we were frae the hunting come,
That frae my horse I fell ;
The Queen o Fairies she caught me,
In yon green hUl to dwell.
24 ' And pleasant is the fairy land,
But, an eerie tale to tell,
Ay at the end of seven years
We pay a tiend to hell ;
I am sae fair and fu o flesh,
I 'm feard it be mysel.
25 ' But the night is Halloween, lady,
The morn is HaUowday ;
Then win me, win me, an ye will.
For weel I wat ye may.
26 ' Just at the mirk and midnight hour
The fairy folk will ride,
And they that wad their true-love win,
At Miles Cross they maun bide.'
27 ' But how shall I thee ken, Tam Lin,
Or how my true-love know,
Araang sae mony unco knights
The like I never saw ? '
28 ' O first let pass the black, lady,
And syne let pass the brown,
But quickly run to the milk-white steed,
Pu ye his rider down.
29 ' For 1 11 ride on the milk-white steed,
And ay nearest the town ;
Because I was an eartlily knight
They gie me that renown.
30 ' My right hand will be glovd, lady,
My left hand wUl be bare,
Cockt up shall my bonnet be,
And kaimd down shall my hair,
And thae 's the takens I gie thee,
Nae doubt I wUl be there.
31 ' They '11 turn me in your arms, lady,
Into an esk and adder ;
But hold me fast, and fear me not,
I am your bairn's father.
32 ' They '11 turn me to a bear sae grim.
And then a lion bold ;
But hold me fast, and fear me not.
As ye shall love your chUd.
33 ' Again they '11 turn me in your arms
To a red het gaud of aim ;
But hold me fast, and fear me not,
I 'U do to you nae harm.
34 ' And last they '11 turn me in your arms
Into the burning gleed ;
Then throw me into well water,
0 throw me in wi speed.
35 ' And then I '11 be your ain true-love,
1 '11 turn a naked knight ;
Then cover me wi your green mantle,
And cover me out o sight.'
36 Gloomy, gloomy was the night.
And eerie was the way,
As fair Jenny in her green mantle
To MUes Cross she did gae.
37 About the middle o the night
She heard the bridles ring ;
This lady was as glad at that
As any earthly thing.
38 First she let the black pass by,
And syne she let the brown ;
But quickly she ran to the milk-white steed,
And pu'd the rider down.
39 Sae weel she minded whae he did say,
And young Tam Lin did win ;
Syne coverd him wi her green mantle,
As blythe 's a bird in spring.
40 Out then spak the Queen o Fairies,
Out of a bush o broom :
' Them that has gotten young Tam Lin
Has gotten a stately groom.'
41 Out then spak the Queen o Fairies,
And an angry woman was she :
' Shame betide her ill-far'd face.
And an ill death may she die.
For she 's taen awa the boniest knight
In a' my companie.
39 TAM LIN
343
42 ' But bad I kend, Tam Lin,' she
' What now this night I see,
I wad hae taen out thy twa grey een,
And put in twa een o tree.'
Glenriddell's MSS, vol. xi, No 17.
1 I FOKBtD ye, maidens a'.
That wear goud on your gear,
To come and gae by Carterbaugh,
For young Tom Line is there.
2 There 's nane that gaes by Carterbaugh
But they leave him a wad.
Either their things or green mantles,
Or else their maidenhead.
3- But Janet has kilted her green kirtle
A little above her knee.
And she has broded her yellow hair
A little above her bree.
And she has gaen for Carterbaugh,
As fast as she can hie.
4 When she came to Carterbaugh
Tom' Line was at the well.
And there she fand his steed standing,
But away was himseU.
6 She badna pu'd a double rose,
A rose but only twae,
TUl up then started young Tom Line,
Says, Lady, thou 's pu nae mae.
6 Why pu's thou the rose, Janet ?
Why breaks thou the wand ?
Why comest thou to Carterbaugh
Withouthen my command ?
7 ' Fair Carterbaugh it is my ain.
My daddy gave it me ;
I '11 come and gae by Carterliaugb,
And ask nae leave at thee.'
9 Four and twenty ladies fair
Were playing at the ba.
And out then came fair Janet,
The flowr amang them a'.
10 Four and twenty ladies fair
Were playing at the chess.
Out then came fair Janet,
As green as ony glass.
11 Out spak an auld grey-headed knight,
Lay owre the castle wa,
And says, Alas, fair Janet,
For thee we '11 be blam'd a'.
12 * Had your tongue, you auld grey knight,
Some iU dead may ye die !
Father my bairn on whom I will,
I '11 father nane on thee.'
13 Out then spak her father dear.
He spak baith thick and milde ;
' And ever alas, sweet Janet,' he says,
' I think ye gae wi childe.'
14 * If that I gae wi cluld, father,
Mysell bears a' the blame ;
There 's not a laird about your ha
Shall get the baimie's name.
15 ' If my lord were an earthly knight.
As he 's an elfish grey,
I wad na gie my ain true-love
For nae lord that ye hae.'
16 Janet has kilted her green kirtle
A little aboon her knee.
And she has snooded her yellow hair
A little aboon her bree.
And she 's away to Carterbaugh,
As fast as she can hie.
8 Janet has kilted her green kirtle
A little aboon her knee.
And she has snooded her yellow hair
A little aboon her bree.
And she is on to her father's ha.
As fast as she can hie.
17 When she came to Carterbaugh,
Tom Line was at the well.
And there she faund his steed standing.
But away was himseU.
18 She hadna pu'd a double rose,
A rose but only twae.
344
39. TAM LIN
Till up then started young Tom Line,
Says, Lady, thou 's pu na mae.
19 Why pu's thou the rose, Janet,
' Out owr yon groves sae green.
And a' to kUl your bonny babe.
That we gat us between ?
20 ' O teU me, tell me, Tom,' she says,
' For 's sake who died on tree.
If eer ye were in holy chapel.
Or Christendom did see.'
21 ' Roxburgh he was my grandfather.
Took me with him to bide.
And ance it fell upon a day
That wae did me betide.
22 ' Ance it fell upon a day,
A cauld day and a snell.
When we were frae the hunting come.
That from my horse I fell.
23 ' The Queen of Fairies she came by.
Took me wi her to dwell,
Evn where she has a pleasant land
For those that in it dwell,
But at the end o seven years,
They pay their teind to hell.
24 ' The night it is gude Halloween,
The fairie folk do ride.
And they that wad their true-love wui.
At MUes Cross they maun bide.'
25 ' But how shall I thee ken, Thomas,
Or how shall I thee knaw,
Amang a pack o uncouth knights
The like I never saw ? '
26 ' The first company that passes by.
Say na, and let them gae ;
The next company that passes by.
Say na, and do right sae ;
The third company that passes by.
Then I '11 be ane o thae.
27 ' Some ride upon a black, lady.
And some ride on a brown,
But I ride on a milk-white steed.
And ay nearest the town :
Because I was an earthly knight
They gae me that renown.
28 ' My right hand will be glovd, lady,
My left hand wiU be bare,
And thae 's the tokens I gie thee,
Nae doubt I will be there.
29 ' Then hie thee to the milk-white steed,
And pu me quickly down,
Cast thy green kirtle owr me.
And keep me frae the rain.
30 ' They '11 turn me in thy arms, lady,
An adder and a snake ;
But hold me fast, let me na gae.
To be your warldly mate.
31 ' They '11 turn me in your arms, lady,
A grey greyhound to girn ;
But hald me fast, let me na gae.
The father o your bairn.
32 ' They '11 turn me in your arms, lady,
A red het gad o iron ;
Then hand me fast, and be na feard,
I '11 do to you nae harm.
33 ' They '11 turn me in your arms, lady,
A mother-naked man ;
Cast your green kirtle owr me,
To keep me frae the rain.
34 ' First dip me in a stand o milk.
And then a stand o water ;
Hand me fast, let me na gae,
I '11 be your bairnie's father.'
35 Janet has kilted her green kirtle
A little aboon her knee.
And she has snooded her yellow hair
A little aboon her bree.
And she is on to MUes Cross,
As fast as she can hie.
36 The first company that passd by.
She said na, and let them gae ;
The next company that passed by.
She said na, and did right sae ;
The third company that passed by.
Then he was ane o thae.
37 She hied her to the milk-white steed.
And pu'd him quickly down ;
She cast her green kirtle owr him.
To keep him frae the rain ;
39. TAM LIN
345
Then she did all was orderd her,
And sae recoverd him.
38 Then out then spak the Queen o Fairies,
Out o a bush o broom :
* They that hae gotten young Tom Line
Hae got a stately g^oom.'
39 Out than spak the Queen o Fairies,
Out o a bush of rye :
' Them that has gotten young Tom Line
Has the best knight in my company.
Herd, The Ancient and Modem Scots Songs, 1769, p. 300.
*****
1 She 's prickt hersell and prind hersell,
By the ae light o the moon,
And she 's awa to Kertonha,
As fast as she can gang.
2 ' What gars ye pu the rose, Jennet ?
What gars ye break the tree ?
What gars you gang to Kertonha
Without the leave of me ? '
3 * Yes, I will pu the rose, Thomas,
And I will break the tree ;
For Kertonha shoud be my ain,
Nor ask I leave of thee.'
4 ' Full pleasant is the fairy land.
And happy there to dwell ;
I am a fairy, lyth and limb.
Fair maiden, view me well.
5 ' O pleasant is the fairy land.
How happy there to dwell !
But ay at every seven years end
We 're a' dung down to hell.
40 ' Had I kend, Thomas,' she says,
' A lady wad hae borrowd thee,
I wad hae taen out thy twa grey een,
Put in twa een o tree.
41 ' Had I but kend, Thomas,' she says,
'Before I came frae hame,
I had taen out that heart o flesh,
Pat in a heart o stane.'
6 'The mom is good Halloween,
And our court a' will ride ;
If ony maiden wins her man,
Then she may be his biide.
7 ' But first ye '11 let the black gae by,
And then ye '11 let the brown ;
Then I '11 ride on a milk-white steed,
You 'U pu me to the ground.
8 ' And first, 1 11 grow into your arms
An esk but and an edder ;
Had me fast, let me not gang,
I '11 be your bairn's father.
9 ' Next, I '11 grow into your arms
A toad but and an eel ;
Had me fast, let me not gang,
K you do love me leel.
10 ' Last, I '11 grow into your arms
A dove but and a swan ;
Then, maiden fair, you 'U let me go,
I 'U be a perfect man.'
a. Motherwell's MS., p. 532, a North Conntry version.
b. Maidment's New Book of Old Ballads, 1844, p. 54, from
the recitation of an old woman, c. Pitcaim's MSS, 1817-
25, III, p. 67 : " procared by David Webster, Bookseller,
from tradition."
1 O ALL you ladies yovmg and gay,
Who are so sweet and fair,
Do not go into Chaster's wood,
For Tomlin will be there.
2 Fair Margret sat in her bonny bower,
Sewing her silken seam,
And wished to be in Chaster's wood,
Among the leaves so green.
346
39. TAM LIN
3 She let her seam fall to her foot,
The needle to her toe,
And she has gone to Cliaster's wood,
As fast as she could go.
4 Wlien she began to pull the flowers,
She puUd both red and green ;
Then by did come, and by did go.
Said, Fair maid, let aleene.
5 ' 0 why pluck you the flowers, lady,
Ch- why climb you the tree ?
Or why come ye to Chaster's wood
Without the leave of me ? '
6 ' 0 I will puU the flowers,' she said,
' Or I wUl break the tree.
For Chaster's wood it is my own,
I '11 no ask leave at thee.'
7 He took her by the milk-white hand.
And by the grass green sleeve.
And laid her low down on the flowers.
At her he asked no leave.
8 The lady blushed, and sourly frowned,
And she did think great shame ;
Says, ' If you are a gentleman.
You will tell me your name.'
9 ' First they did call me Jack,' he said,
' And then they called me John,
But since I lived in the fairy court
Tomlin has always been my name.
10 ' So do not pluck that flower, lady,
That has these pimples gray ;
They would destroy the bonny babe
That we 've got in our i)lay.'
11 ' 0 teU me, Tomlin,' she said,
' And tell it to me soon.
Was you ever at good church-door,
Or got you christendoom ? '
12 '01 have been at good church-door,
And a£E her yetts within ;
I was the Laird of Foulis's son,
The heir of all this land.
13 ' But it fell once upon a day,
As hunting I did ride.
As I rode east and west yon hill
There woe did me betide.
14 ' 0 drowsy, drowsy as I was !
Dead sleep upon me fell ;
The Queen of Fairies she was there.
And took me to herseU.
15 ' The Elfins is a pretty place,
In which I love to dwell.
But yet at every seven years' end
The last here goes to hell ; -
And as I am ane o flesh and blood,
I fear the next be myseU.
16 ' The morn at even is Halloween ;
Our fairy court will ride,
Throw England and Scotland both.
Throw al the world wide ;
And if ye would me borrow.
At Rides Cross ye may bide.
17 ' You may go into the Miles Moss,
Between twelve hours and one ;
Take holy water in your hand,
And cast a compass round.
18 ' The first court that comes along.
You '11 let them all pass by ;
The next court that comes along,
Salute them reverently.
19 ' The next court that comes along
Is clad in robes of green.
And it 's the head court of them all,
For in it rides the queen.
20 ' And I upon a milk-white steed,
With a gold star in my crown ;
Because I am an earthly man
I 'm next to the queen in renown.
21 ' Then seize upon me with a spring.
Then to the ground I '11 fa.
And then you '11 hear a rueful cry
That Tomlin is awa.
22 ' Then I 'U grow in your arms two
Like to a savage wild ;
But hold me fast, let me not go,
I 'm fatlier of your child.
39. TAM LIK
347
23 ' 1 11 grow into your arms two
Like an adder or a snake ;
But hold me fast, let me not go,
I 'U be your earthly maick.
24 ' I '11 grow into your arms two
Like iron in strong fire ;
But hold me fast, let me not go.
Then you '11 have your desire.'
25 She rid down to Miles Cross,
Between twelve hours and one.
Took holy water in her hand.
And cast a compass round.
26 The first court that came along.
She let them all pass by ;
The next court that came along
Saluted reverently.
27 The next court that came along
Were clad in robes of green.
When Tomlin, on a milk-white steed.
She saw ride with the queen.
28 She seized him in her arms two.
He to the ground did fa.
And then she heard a ruefull cry
' Tomlin is now awa.'
29 He grew into her arms two
Like to a savage wild ;
She held him fast, let him not go,
The father of her child.
30 He grew into her arms two
Like an adder or a snake ;
She held him fast, let him not go,
He was her earthly maick.
31 He grew into her arms two
Like iron in hot fire ;
She held him fast, let him not go,
He was her heart's desire.
32 Then sounded out throw elphin court,
With a loud shout and a cry,
That the pretty maid of Chaster's wood
That day had caught her prey.
33 ' 0 stay, Tomlin,' cried Elphin Queen,
' Till I pay you your fee ; '
* His father has lands and rents enough,
He wants no fee from thee.'
34 ' 0 had I known at early mom
Tomlin would from me gone,
I would have taken out his heart of flesh
Put in a heart of stone.'
E
Motherwell's Note-book, p. 13.
1 Lady Mabgabet is over gravel green,
And over gravel grey.
And she 's awa to Charteris ha,
Lang lang three hour or day.
2 She hadna pu'd a flower, a flower,
A flower but only ane.
Till up and started young Tamlin,
Says, Lady, let alane.
3 She hadna pu'd a flower, a flower,
A flower but only twa.
Till up and started young Tamlene,
Atween her and the wa.
4 ' How daur you pu my flower, madam ?
How daur ye break my tree ?
How daur ye come to Charter's ha,
Without the leave of me ? '
6 ' Weel I may pu the rose,' she said,
' But I daurna break the tree ;
And Charter's ha is my father's.
And I 'm his heir to be.'
6 ' If Charteris ha be thy father's,
I was ance as gude mysell ;
But as I came in by Lady Birk,
And in by Lady Well,
7 ' Deep and drowsy was the sleep
On my poor body fell ;
By came the Queen of Faery,
Made me with her to dwell.
8 ' But the morn at een is Halloween,
Our fairy foks a" do ride ;
And she that will her true-love win,
At Blackstock she must bide.
9 ' First let by the black,' he said,
' And syne let by the brown ;
348
39. TAM LIN
But when you see the milk-white steed,
You '11 pull his rider down.
10 ' You 11 pull him into thy arms,
Let his bricht bridle fa,
And he '11 fa low into your arms
Like stone in castle's wa.
11 ' They '11 first shape him into your arms
An adder or a snake ;
But hold him fast, let him not go.
He 'U be your world's make.
12 ' They '11 next shape him into yonr arms
Like a wood black dog to bite ;
Hold him fast, let him not go,
For he 'U be your heart's delight.
13 ' They '11 next shape [him] into your arms
Like a red-het gaud o airn ;
But hold him fast, let him not go.
He 's the father o your bairn.
14 ' They '11 next shape him into your arms
Like the laidliest worm of Ind ;
But hold him fast, let him not go.
And cry aye " Young Tamlin." '
15 Lady Margaret first let by the black,
And syne let by the brown.
But when she saw the milk-white steed
She puUed the rider down.
16 She pulled him into her arms,
Let his bright bridle fa'.
And he fell low into her arms.
Like stone in castle's wa.
17 They first shaped him into arms
An adder or a snake ;
But she held him fast, let him not go.
For he 'd be her warld's make.
18 They next shaped him into her arms
Like a wood black dog to bite ;
But she held him fast, let him not go.
For he 'd be her heart's delight.
19 They next shaped him into her arms
Like a red-het gaud o aim ;
But she held him fast, let him not go.
He 'd be father o her bairn.
20 They next shaped him into her arms
Like the laidliest worm of Ind ;
But she held him fast, let him not go.
And cried aye ' Young Tamlin.'
21 The Queen of Faery turned her horse about.
Says, Adieu to thee, Tamlene!
For if I had kent what I ken this night,
If I had kent it yestreen,
I wad hae taen out thy heart o flesh.
And put in a heart o stane.
Motherwell's MS., p. 64, from the recitation of widow
McCormick, February, 1825.
3 She 's taen her petticoat by the band,
Her mantle owre her arm.
And Lady Margaret's gane hame agen,
As fast as she could run.
1 She 's taen her petticoat by the band,
Her mantle owre. her arm,
And she 's awa to Chester wood.
As fast as she could run.
2 She scarsely pulled a rose, a rose.
She scarse pulled two or three,
TUl up there starts Thomas
On the Lady Margaret's knee.
4 Up starts Lady Margaret's sister.
An angi-y woman was she :
' If there ever was a woman wi child,
Margaret, you are wi ! '
6 Up starts Lady Margaret's mother.
An angry woman was she :
' There grows ane herb in yon kirk-yard
That will scathe the babe away.'
39. TIM LIK
349
6 She took her petticoats by the band,
Her mantle owre her arm,
And she's gane to yon kirk-yard
As fast as she could run.
7 She scarcely pulled an herb, an herb,
She scarse pulled two or three,
Till up starts there Thomas
Upon this Lady Margret's' knee.
8 ' How dare ye pull a rose ? ' he says,
' How dare ye break the tree ?
How dare ye pull this herb,' he says,
' To scathe my babe away ?
9 ' This night is Halloweve,' he said,
' Our court is going to waste.
And them that loves their true-love best
At Chester bridge they '11 meet.
10 ' First let pass the black,' he says,
' And then let pass the brown.
But when ye meet the milk-white steed.
Pull ye the rider down.
11 ' They '11 turn me to an eagle,' he says,
' And then into an ass ;
Come, hold me fast, and fear me not,
The man that you love best.
12 ' They "11 turn me to a flash of fire,
And then to a naked man ;
Come, wrap you your mantle me about.
And then you '11 have me won.'
13 She took her petticoats by the band.
Her mantle owre her arm.
And she 's awa to Chester bridge,
As fast as she could run.
14 And first she did let pass the black,
And then let pass the brown.
But when she met the milk-white steed.
She pulled the rider down.
15 They turned him in her arms an eagle,
And then into an ass ;
But she held him fast, and feared him not,
The man that she loved best.
16 They turned him into a flash of fire.
And then into a naked man ;
But she wrapped her mantle him about.
And then she had him won.
17 ' O wae be to ye, Lady Margaret,
And an ill death may you die.
For you 've robbed me of the bravest knight
That eer rode in our company.'
Bnchan's MSS, I, 8 ; Motherwell's MS., p. 695.
1 Take warning, a' ye ladies fair.
That wear gowd on your hair.
Come never unto Charter's woods.
For Tam-a-line he 's there.
2 Even about that knight's middle
O' siller bells are nine ;
Nae ane comes to Charter wood,
And a maid returns again.
3 Lady Margaret sits in her bower door.
Serving at her sUken seam ;
And she langd to gang to Charter woods.
To pou the roses green.
4 She hadna poud a rose, a rose.
Nor broken a branch but ane,
Till by it came him true Tam-a-line,
Says, Ladye, lat alane.
6 O why pou ye the rose, the rose ?
Or why brake ye the tree ?
Or why come ye to Charter woods.
Without leave askd of me ?
6 ' I will pou the rose, the rose,
And I will brake the tree ;
Charter woods are a' my ain,
I '11 ask nae leave o thee.'
7 He 'a taen her by the milk-white hand,
And by the grass-gfreen sleeve,
And laid her low on gude green wood,
At her he spierd nae leave.
8 When he had got his wills of her,
His wills as he had taen,
He 's taen her by the middle sma.
Set her to feet again,
9 She turnd her right and round about.
To spier her true-love's name,
350
39. TAM LIN
But naething heard she, nor naething saw,
As a' the woods grew dim.
10 Seven days she tarried there.
Saw neither sun nor meen ;
At length, by a sma glimmering light.
Came thro the wood her lane.
11 When she came to her father's court,
As fine as ony queen ;
But when eight months were past and gane,
Got on the gown o' green.
12 Then out it speaks an eldren knight.
As he stood at the yett :
' Our king's daughter, she gaes wi halm,
And we '11 get a' the wyte.'
13 ' O had your tongue, ye eldren man,
And bring me not to shame ;
Although that I do gang wi bairn,
Yese naeways get the blame.
14 ' Were my love but an earthly man,
As he 's an elfin knight,
I woudna gie my ain true love
For a' that 's in my sight.'
15 Then out it speaks her brither dear.
He meant to do her harm :
' There is an herb in Charter wood
WiU twine you an the bairn.'
16 She 's taen her mantle her about.
Her coffer by the band.
And she is on to Charter wood.
As fast as she coud gang.
17 She hadna poud a rose, a rose.
Nor braken a branch but ane.
Till by it came him Tam-a-Line,
Says, Ladye, lat alane.
18 0 why pou ye the pile, Margaret,
The pile o the gravil green.
For to destroy the bonny bairn
That we got us between ?
19 0 why pou ye the pile, Margaret,
The pile o the gravil gray.
For to destroy the bonny bairn
That we got in our play ?
20 For if it be a knave-bairn,
He 's heir o a' my land ;
But if it be a lass-bairn,
In red gowd she shall gang.
21 ' If my luve were an earthly man,
As he 's an elfin rae,
I coud gang bound, love, for your sake,
A twalmon'th and a day.'
22 * Indeed your love 's an earthly, man.
The same as well as thee,
And lang I 've haunted Charter woods,
A' for your fair bodie.'
23 ' 0 tell me, tell me, Tam-a-Line,
0 tell, an tell me true,
Tell me this night, an mak nae lie.
What pedigree are you ? '
24 ' 0 I hae been at gude church-door,
An I 've got Christendom ;
I 'm the Earl o' Forbes' eldest son.
An heir ower a' his land.
25 ' Wlien I was young, o three years old,
Muckle was made o me ;
My step-mother put on my claithes.
An ill, ill sained she me.
26 ' Ae fatal morning I went out,
Dreading nae injury,
And thinking lang, fell soun asleep,
Beneath an apple tree.
27 ' Then by it came the Elfin Queen,
And laid her hand on me ;
And from that time since ever I mind,
1 've been in her companie.
28 ' O Elfin it 's a bonny place,
In it fain woud I dwell ;
But ay at ilka seven years' end
They pay a tiend to hell.
And I 'm sae f ou o flesh an blude,
I 'm sair feard for myseU.'
29 ' 0 tell me, tell me, Tam-arLine,
0 tell, an tell me true ;
Tell me this night, an mak nae lie,
What way I 'U borrow you ? '
39. TAM LIN
351
30 ' The morn is Halloweven night,
The elfin court will ride,
Through England, and thro a' Scotland,
And through the world wide.
31 ' O they begin at sky setting.
Rides a' the evening tide ;
And she that will her true-love borrow,
[At] Miles-corse will him bide.
32 ' Ye '11 do you down to MUes-corse,
Between twaU hours and ane,
And full your hands o holy water,
And cast your compass roun.
33 ' Then the first an court that comes you till
Is published king and queen ;
The next an court that comes you till,
It is maidens mony ane.
34 * The next an court that comes you till
Is footmen, grooms and squires ;
The next an court that comes you till
Is knights, and I '11 be there.
35 ' I Tam-a-Line, on milk-white steed,
A goud star on my crown ;
Because I was an earthly knight,
Got that for a renown.
36 ' And out at my steed's right nostril.
He '11 breathe a fiery flame ;
Ye '11 loot you low, and sain yoursel,
And ye '11 be busy then.
37 ' Ye 'U take my horse then by the head,
And lat the bridal fa ;
The Queen o' Elfin she 'U cry out,
True Tam-a-Line 's awa.
38 ' Then I 'U appear in your arms
Like the wolf that neer woud tame ;
Ye '11 had me fast, lat me not go,
Case we neer meet again.
39 ' Then I 'U appear in your arms
Like the fire that burns sae bauld ;
Ye '11 had me fast, lat me not go,
I 'U be as iron cauld.
40 ' Then I '11 appear in your arms
Like the adder an the snake ;
Ye '11 had me fast, lat me not go,
I am your warld's make.
41 ' Then I 'U appear in your arms
Like to the deer sae wild ;
Ye '11 had me fast, lat me not go.
And I '11 father your child.
42 ' And I 'U appear in your arms
Like to a silken string ;
Ye '11 had me fast, lat me not go.
Till ye see the fair morning.
43 ' And I 'U appear in your arms
Like to a naked man ;
Ye '11 had me fast, lat me not go,
And wi you I '11 gae hame.'
44 Then she has done her to MUes-corse,
Between twall hours an ane.
And filled her hands o holy water,
And kiest her compass roun.
45 The first an court that came her till
Was published king and queen ;
The niest an court that came her tUl
Was maidens mony ane.
46 The niest an court that came her tUl
Was footmen, grooms and squires ;
The niest an court that came her tiU
Was knights, and he was there.
47 True Tam-arLine, on milk-white steed,
A gowd star on his crown ;
Because he was an earthly man,
Got that for a renown.
48 And out at the steed's right nostril,
He breathd a fiery flame ;
She loots her low, an sains hersell.
And she was busy then.
49 She 's taen the horse then by the head,
And loot the bridle fa ;
The Queen o Elfin she cried out,
' True Tam-a-Line 's awa.'
50 ' Stay still, true Tam-a-Line,' she says,
' Till I pay you your fee : '
' His father wants not lands nor rents.
He '11 ask nae fee frae thee.'
352
39. TAM LIN
61 ' Gin I had kent yestreen, yestreen,
What I ken weel the day,
I shoud taen your fu faiise heart,
Gien you a heart o clay.'
52 Then he appeared in her arms
Like the wolf that neer woud tame ;
She held him fast, let him not go,
Case they neer meet again.
53 Then he appeared in her arms
Like the fire burning bauld ;
She held him fast, let liim not go.
He was as iron cauld.
54 And he appeared in her arms
Like the adder an the snake ;
She held him fast, let him not go,
He was her warld's make.
55 And he appeared in her arms
Like to the deer sae wild ;
She held him fast, let him not go,
He 's father o her child.
56 And he appeared in her arms
Like to a sUken string ;
She held him fast, let him not go,
TiU she saw fair morning.
67 And he appeared in her arms
Like to a naked man ;
She held him fast, let him not go,
And wi her he 's gane hame.
68 These news hae reachd thro a' Scotland,
And far ayont the Tay,
That Lady Margaret, our king's daughter.
That night had gaind her prey.
59 She borrowed her love at mirk midnight.
Bare her young son ere day.
And though ye 'd search the warld wide,
Ye 'U nae find sic a may.
Campbell MSS, II, 129.
1 I FORBID ye, maidens a'.
That wears gowd in your hair,
To come or gang by Carterhaugh,
For young Tam Lane is there.
2 I forbid ye, maidens a'.
That wears gowd in your green.
To come or gang by Carterhaugh,
For fear of young Tam Lane.
3 ' Go saddle for me the black,' says Janet,
' Go saddle for me the brown.
And I '11 away to Carterhaugh,
And flower myseU the gown.
, 4 ' Go saddle for me the brown,' says Janet,
' Go saddle for me the black.
And I 'U away to Carterhaugh,
And flower mysel a hat'
Till up there startit young Tam Lane,
Just at bird Janet's knee.
6 ' Why pullst thou the herb, Janet,
And why breaks thou the tree ?
Why put you back the bonny babe
That 's between you and me ? '
7 'If my child was to an earthly man.
As it is to a wild buck rae,
I would wake him the length of the winter's
night.
And the lea lang simmer's day.'
8 ' The night is Halloween, Janet,
When our gude neighbours will ride,
And them that would their true-love won
At Blackning Cross maun bide.
9 ' Many will the black ride by,
And many will the brown.
But I ride on a milk-white steed,
And ride nearest the town :
Because I was a christened knight
They gie me that renown.
5 She had not pulld a flowr, a flowr,
A flower but only three,
10 ' Many will the black ride by,
But far mae will the brown ;
39. TAM LIN
353
But when ye see the milk-white stead,
Grip fast and pull me down.
11 • Take me in yer arms, Janet,
An ask, an adder lang ;
The grip ye get ye maun haud fast,
I 'U be father to your bairn.
12 ' Take me in your arms, Janet,
An adder and a snake ;
The grip ye get ye maun haud fast,
I 'U be your warld's make.'
13 Up bespak the Queen of Fairies,
She spak baith loud and high :
' Had I kend the day at noon
Tam Lane had been won from me,
14 ' I wad hae taen out his heart o flesh.
Put in a heart o tree,
That a' the maids o Middle Middle Mist
Should neer hae taen Tam Lane frae me.'
15 Up bespack the Queen of Fairies,
And she spak wi a loud yeU :
' Aye at every seven year's end
We pay the kane to heU,
And the koors they hae gane round about.
And I fear it wiU be mysel.'
a. Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, II, 337, ed. 1833.
b. II, 228, ed. 1802.
1 ' O I FORBID ye, maidens a',
That wear gowd on your hair,
To come or gae by Carterbaugh,
For young Tamlane is there.
2 ' There 's nane that gaes by Carterhaugh
But maun leave him a wad,
Either gowd rings, or green mantles,
Or elee their maidenheid.
3 ' Now gowd rings ye may buy, maidens,
Green mantles ye may spin,
But, gin ye lose your maidenlieid.
Ye '11 neer get that agen.'
4 But up then spak her, fair Janet,
The fairest o a' her kin :
' I 'U cum and gang to Carterhaugh,
And ask nae leave o him.'
7 She hadna pu'd a red red rose,
A rose but barely three.
Till up and starts a wee wee man.
At lady Janet's knee.
8 Says, 'Why pu ye the rose, Janet ?
What gars ye break the tree ?
Or why come ye to Carterhaugh,
Withouten leave o me ?
9 Says, Carterhaugh it is mine ain.
My daddie gave it me ;
I '11 come and gang to Carterhaugh,
And ask nae leave o thee.
10 He 's taen her by the mUk-white hand.
Among the leaves sae green.
And what they did I cannot tell.
The g^een leaves were between.
11 He 's taen her by the mUk-white hand,
Among the roses red,
And what they did I cannot say,
She neer retumd a maid.
5 Janet has kilted her green kirtle
A little abune her knee.
And she has braided her yellow hair
A little abune her bree.
12 When she cam to her father's ha.
She looked pale and wan ;
They thought she 'd dreed some sair sickness,
Or been with some leman.
6 And when she came to Carterhaugh,
She gaed beside the well,
And there she fand his steed standing,
But away was himseU.
45
13 She didna comb her yellow hair
Nor make meikle o her head,
And ilka thing that lady took
Was like to be her deid.
364
39. TAM LIN
14 It 's four and twenty ladies fair
Were playing at the ba ;
Janet, the wightest of them anes,
Was faintest o them a'.
15 Four and twenty ladies fair
Were playing at the chess ;
And out there came the fair Janet,
As green as any grass.
16 Out and spak an auld grey-headed knight,
Lay oer the castle wa :
' And ever, alas 1 for thee, Janet,
But we '11 be blamed a' ! '
17 ' Now haud your tongue, ye auld grey knight,
And an ill deid may ye die I
Father my bairn on whom I will,
I '11 father nane on thee.'
18 Out then spak her father dear.
And he epak meik and mild :
' And ever, alas ! my sweet Janet,
I fear ye gae with child.'
19 ' And if I be with child, father,
Mysell maun bear the blame ;
There 's neer a knight about your ha
Shall hae the bairnie's name.
20 ' And if I be with child, father,
'T will prove a wondrous birth,
For weel I swear I 'm not wi bairn
To any man on earth.
21 ' If my love were an earthly knight,
As he 's an elfin grey,
I wadna gie my ain true love
For nae lord that ye hae.'
22 She prinkd hersell and prinnd hersell.
By the ae light of the moon,
And she 's away to Carterhaugh,
To speak wi young Tamlane.
When up and started young Tamlane,
Says, Lady, thou pu's nae mae.
25 Why pu ye the rose, Janet,
Within this garden grene.
And a' to kill the bonny babe
That we got us between ?
26 ' The truth ye '11 tell to me, Tamlane,
A word ye mauna lie ;
Gin eer ye was in haly chapel.
Or sained in Christentie ? '
27 ' The truth I '11 tell to thee, Janet,
A word I winna lie ;
A knight me got, and a lady me bore,
As "well as they did thee.
28 ' Randolph, Earl Murray, was my sire,
Dunbar, Earl March, is thine ;
We loved when we were children small,
Which yet you well may mind.
29 ' When I was a boy just turnd of nine.
My uncle sent for me,
To hunt and hawk, and ride with him,
And keep him companie.
30 ' There came a wind out of the north,
A sharp wind and a snell.
And a deep sleep came over me,
And frae my horse I felL
31 ' The Queen of Fairies keppit me
In yon green hill to dwell.
And I 'm a fairy, lyth and limb.
Fair ladye, view me well.
32 ' Then would I never tire, Janet,
In Elfish land to dwell,
But aye, at every seven years,
They pay the teind to hell ;
And I am sae fat and fair of flesh,
I fear 't will be mysell.
23 And when she cam to Carterhaugh,
She gaed beside the well,
And there she saw the steed standing,
But away was himsell.
24 She hadna pu'd a double rose,
A rose but only twae,
33 ' This night is Halloween, Janet,
The morn is Hallowday,
And gin ye dare your true love win,
Ye hae nae time to stay.
34 ' The night it is good Halloween,
When fairy folk will ride,
39. TAM LIN
355
And they that wad their true-love win,
At Miles Cross they maun bide.'
35 ' But how shall I thee ken, Tamlane ?
Or how shall I thee knaw,
Amang so many unearthly knights,
The like I never saw ? '
36 ' The first company that passes by.
Say na, and let them gae ;
The next company that passes by,
Say na, and do right sae ;
The third company that passes by.
Then I '11 be ane o thae.
37 ' First let pass the black, Janet,
And syne let pass the brown.
But grip ye to the milk-white steed.
And pu the rider down.
38 ' For I ride on the milk-white steed,
And aye nearest the town;
Because I was a chi-istend knight,
They gave me that renown.
39 ' My right hand will be gloved, Janet,
My left hand will be bare ;
And these the tokens I gie thee,
Nae doubt I will be there.
40 ' They '11 turn me in your arms, Janet,
An adder and a snake ;
But had me fast, let me not pass.
Gin ye wad be my maik.
41 ' They '11 turn me in your arms, Janet,
An adder and an ask ;
They '11 turn me in your arms, Janet,
A bale that burns fast.
But had me fast, nor let me gang.
As you do love me weel.
45 ' They 'II shape me in your arms, Janet,
A dove but and a swan,
And last they '11 shape me in your arms
A mother-naked man ;
Cast your green mantle over me,
I '11 be myself again.'
46 Gloomy, gloomy, was the night.
And eiry was the way.
As fair Janet, in her green mantle,
To Miles Cross she did gae.
47 About the dead hour o the night
She heard the bridles ring,
And Janet was as glad o that
As any earthly thing.
48 And first gaed by the black black steed,
And then gaed by the brown ;
But fast she gript the milk-white steed,
And pu'd the rider down.
49 She pu'd him frae the milk-white steed.
And loot the bridle fa,
And up there raise an erlish cry,
' He 's won amang us a' ! '
50 They shaped him in fair Janet's arms
An esk but and an adder ;
She held him fast in every shape.
To be her bairn's father.
51 They shaped him in her arms at last
A mother-naked man,
She wrapt him in her green mantle,
And sae her true love wan.
42 ' They '11 turn me in your arms, Janet,
A red-hot gad o airn ;
But baud me fast, let me not pass,
For I '11 do you no harm.
43 ' First dip me in a stand o milk.
And then in a stand o water ;
But had me fast, let me not pass,
I '11 be your bairn's father.
44 ' And next they 'U shape me in your anna
A tod but and an eel ;
62 Up then spake the Queen o Fairies,
Out o a bush o broom :
• She that has borrowd young Tamlane
Has gotten a stately groom.'
53 Up then spake the Queen o Fairies,
Out o a bush o rye :
' She 's taen awa the bonniest knight
In a' my cumpanie.
64 ' But had I kennd, Tamlane,' she says,
' A lady wad borrowd thee
356
39. TAM LIN
I wad taen out thy twa grey een,
Put in twa een o tree.
56 ' Had I but kennd, Tamlane,' she says,
' Before ye came frae hame,
I wad taen out your heart o flesh,
Put in a heart o stane.
56 ' Had I but had the wit yestreen
That I hae coft the day,
I 'd paid my kane seven times to hell
Ere you 'd been won away.'
A.
D. b
Divided in the Miiseum into 45J four4ine
stanzas, ivithout heed to rhyme or reason,
3^' ° making a stanza with 4*' ^, etc.
3*. has belted. 4^. Tom, elsewhere Tam.
17^. brie. 34^^. burning lead.
•' An Old Song called Young Tom Line."
Written in twenty-six stanzas of four [three,
two'] long, or double, lines.
19'. yon bonny babes.
26^. and do right sae.
26''. and let them g<-ie. See 36.
26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33 stand in MS.
31, 26, 27, 32, 28, 29, 33, 30.
has 26 stanzas, c lias 12. The first 12
stanzas of a and b and the 12 of o, and
again the first 22 stanzas of a. and b, are
almost verhally the same, and a 23 =
b 24. b lias hut 26 stanzas.
15 stands 24 in MS.
17^ Miles Cross : b, Moss.
17«. the holy.
19^ So(?) clad: b, is clad.
221. t^a. 25'. ride.
4^. let abeene. 6*. I 'II ask no.
7''. her down. 10*. gotten in.
11^. to me. 11'. at a.
12*. his land. 15'. and through.
16^. if that. 16'. Rides Cross, as in &.
17'. Take holy. 20*. next the.
After 23 :
' I '11 grow into your arms two
Like ice on frozen lake ;
But hold me fast, let me not go,
Or from your goupen break.'
25. And it 's next night into Miles Moss
Fair Margaret has gone.
When lo she stands beside Rides
Cross,
Between twelve hours and one.
26. There 'a holy water in her hand.
She casts a compass round,
b.
And presently a fairy band
Comes riding oer the mound.
c. 1', and always, Chester's wood.
31. the seam.
4*. let alane.
6'. wUl pluck. 6*. ask no.
9*. has been.
11'. me, Tom o Lin.
12*. his land.
E, 18, 19, 20 are not written out. We are di-
rected to understand them to he " as in pre-
ceding stanzas, making the necessary gram-
matical changes."
P. ll'^, 15^. ass, somehody's blunder for ask.
G. 21^. elfin gray, Motherwell, hut see H, 7'.
26'. Ay. 31'. began.
58^^. Mothe7'well : far 's the river Tay.
58*. Motherwell: she gained.
Motherwell, as usual, seems to have made
some slight changes in copying.
I. Scott's co23y having heen " prepared from a col-
lation of the printed copies," namely, those
in Johnson's Museum and Herd's Scottish
Songs, " with a very accurate one in Glen-
riddeU's MS., and with several recitals from
tradition," what was not derived from tra-
dition, hut from the Museum, Glenriddell,
and Herd, is printed in smaller type.
a. 3, 20, not in b.
After 31 are omitted five stanzas of the copy
obtained by Scott " from a gentleman re-
siding near Langholm," and others, of the
same origin, after 46 a7ul 47.
32 ' But we that live in F'airy-land
No sickness know nor pain ;
I quit my body when I will,
And take to it again.
33 ' I quit my body when T please,
Or unto it repair ;
We can inhabit at our ease
In either earth or air.
39. TAM UN
357
34 ' Our shapes and size we can convert
To either large or small ;
An old nut-shell 's the same to us
As is the lofty hall.
35 ' We sleep in rose-buds soft and sweet,
We revel in the stream ;
We wanton lightly on the wind
Or glide on a sunbeam.
36 ' And all our wants are well supplied
From every rich man's store,
Who thankless sins the gifts he gets.
And vainly grasps for more.'
40*. buy me maik, a plain misprint for the
be my maik of b 57.
46. After this stanza are omitted :
52 The heavens were black, the night was
dark.
And dreary was the place.
But Janet stood with eager wish
Her lover to embrace.
53 Betwixt the houi-s of twelve and one
A north wind tore the bent,
And straight she heard strange elritch
sounds
Upon that wind which went.
47. After this stanza are omitted :
55 Their oaten pipes blew wondrous shrill,
The hemlock small blew clear,
And louder notes from hemlock large,
And bog-reed, struck the ear ;
But solemn sounds, or sober thoughts,
The fairies cannot bear.
56 They sing, inspired >vith love and joy.
Like skylarks in the air ;
Of solid sense, or thought that 's grave.
You '11 find no traces there.
57 Fair Janet stood, with mind unmoved.
The dreary heath upon,
And louder, louder waxd the sound
As they came riding on.
58 Will o Wisp before them went,
Sent forth a twinkling light.
And soon she saw the fairy bands
All riding in her sight.
b 6-12 is a fragment of ' The Broomfield-
Hill,' introduced by a stanza formed on
the sixth, as here given :
5. And she 's away to Carterhaugh,
And gaed beside the wood.
And there was sleeping young Tam-
lane.
And his steed beside him stood.
After the fragment of ' The Broomfield-Hill '
follows :
13. Fair Janet, in her green cleiding,
Returned upon the morn.
And she met her father's ae brother,
The laird of Abercom.
And then these two stanzas, the first altered
from. Herd's fragment of ' The Broomfield
Hill,' ' I 'U wager, I'll wager,' p. 310, ed.
1769, and the second from Herd's frag-
ment, ' Kertonha.' or version C of this
ballad :
14. I '11 wager, I '11 wager, I 'U wager wi
you
Five bunder merk and ten,
I '11 maiden gang to Carterhaugh,
And maiden come again.
15. She princked hersell, and prin'd her-
sell,
By the ae light of the moon,
And she 's away to Carterhaugh
As fast as she could win.
Instead of a 10, 11, b has :
He 's taen her by the milk-white hand,
And by the grass-green sleeve,
He 's led her to the fairy ground.
And spierd at her nae leave.
Instead of 14 q/" a, b has something nearer
<o A, B 9 :
23. It 's four and twenty ladies fair
Were in her father's ha.
358
40. THE QUEEN OF ELFAN'S NOURICB
Whan in there came the fah- Janet,
The flower amang them a'.
After 21 of a follows in b a copy of ' The
Wee Wee Man,' 32-39, attached hy these
tioo stanzas, which had bee7i " introduced
in one recital only : "
30. ' Is it to a man of might, Janet,
Or is it to a man o mean ?
Or is it unto young Tamlane,
That 's wi the fairies gane ? '
31. ' 'T was down by Carterhaugh, fa-
ther,
I walked beside the wa.
And there I saw a wee, wee man,
The least that eer I saw.'
Instead of 22, which had been used before,
we have in b :
40. Janet 's put on her green cleiding.
Whan near nine months were gane,
And she 's awa to Carterhaugh,
To speak wi young Tamlane.
b has in place of a 28-30 :
46. Roxburgh was my grandfather.
Took me with him to bide.
And as we frae the hunting came
This harm did me betide.
47. Roxburgh was a hunting knight,
And loved hunting well.
And on a cauld and frosty day
Down frae my horse I fell.
b 49 Aas A 24 instead of a 37, I 32.
b ei'' = a 49^* = I 44^ has toad, and so has
C 9^, from which the stanza is taken.
Tod is an imp>rovement, but probably an
editorial improvement.
40
THE QUEEN OF ELFAN'S NOURICE
Skene MSS, No 8, p. 25. Sharpe's Ballad Book, ed. Laing, p. 169.
We see from this pretty fragment, which,
after the nature of the best popular ballad,
forces you to chant and will not be read, that
a woman had been carried off, four days after
bearing a son, to serve as nurse in the elf-
queen's family. She is promised that she
shall be permitted to return home if she will
tend the fairy's bairn till he has got the use
of his legs. We could well have spared stanzas
10-12, which belong to ' Thomas Rymer,' to
know a little more of the proper story.
That elves and water-spirits have frequently
solicited the help of mortal women at lying-in
* Many of these instances are cited by Grimm, Deutsche
Mythologie, 1875, I, 378. In Thiele's first example the ne-
cessity of having Christian aid comes from the lying-in
woman being a Christian who had been carried off by an elf.
time is well known : see Stewart's Popular
Supei-stitions of the Highlands, p. 104 ; Grimm,
Deutsche Sagen, Nos 41,49, 68, 69, 304; Mul-
lenhoff, Nos 443, 444 ; Thiele, Danmarks Folke-
sagen, 1848, II, 200, Nos 1-4 ; AsbJ0rnsen,
Norske Huldre-Eventyr, 2d ed., I, 16 ; Mau-
rer, Islandische Volkssagen, p. 6 f ; Keight-
ley's Fairy Mythology, pp 122, 261, 275, 301,
311, 388, 488.* They also like to have their
offspring suckled by earthly women. It is
said, writes Gervase of Tilbury, that nobody
is more exposed to being carried off by water-
sprites than a woman in milk, and that they
In AsbJ0rnsen'3 tale, the woman who is sent for to act as
midwife finds that her own serving-maid is forced, without
being aware of it, to work all night in the elfin establishment,
and is very tired with double duty.
40. THE QUEEN OF ELFAN'S NOUBIOE
359
sometimes restore such a woman, with pay for
her services, after she has nursed their wretched
fry seven years. He had himself seen a woman
who had been abducted for this purpose, while
washing clothes on the bank of the Rhone.
She had to nurse the nix's son under the water
for that term, and then was sent back unhurt.
Otia Imperialia, III, 85, Liebrecht, p. 38.
Choice is natui-ally made of the healthiest and
handsomest mothers for this office. " A fine
young woman of Nithsdale, when first made a
mother, was sitting singing and rocking her
child, when a pretty lady came into her cot-
tage, covered with a fairy mantle. She car-
ried a beautiful child in her arms, swaddled in
green silk. ' Gie my bonnie thing a suck,'
said the fairy. The young woman, conscious
to whom the child belonged, took it kindly in
her arms, and laid it to her breast. The lady
instantly disappeared, saying, ' Nurse kin', an
ne'er want.' The young mother nurtured the
two babes, and was astonished, whenever she
awoke, at finding the richest suits of apparel
for both children, with meat of most delicious
flavor. This food tasted, says tradition, like
loaf mixed with wine and honey," etc. Cro-
mek. Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway
Song, p. 302.
1 I HEAKD a cow low, a'^bonnie cow low,
An a cow low down in yon glen ;
Lang, lang will my young son greet
Or his mither bid him come ben.
7 ' I moan na for my meat,
Nor yet for my fee,
But I mourn for Christen land,
It 's there I fain would be.'
2 I heard a cow low, a bonnie cow low.
An a cow low down in yon fauld ;
Lang, lang will my young son greet
Or his mither take him frae cauld.
Waken, Queen of Elfan,
An hear your nourice moan.'
4 ' O moan ye for your meat,
Or moan ye for your fee.
Or moan ye for the ither bounties
That ladies are wont to gie ? '
8 ' 0 nurse my bairn, nourice,' she says,
' Tin he Stan at your knee.
An ye 's win hame to Chi-isten land,
Whar fain it 's ye wad be.
9 ' O keep my bairn, nourice.
Till he gang by the hauld,
An ye 's win hame to your young son
Ye left in four nights auld.'
10 ' O nourice lay your head
Upo my knee :
See ye na that narrow road
Up by yon tree ?
5 * I moan na for my meat,
Nor moan I for my fee,
Nor moan I for the ither bounties
Tliat ladies are wont to gie.
11
That 's the road the righteous goes,
And that 's the road to heaven.
But I moan for my young son
I left in four nights auld.
12 ' An see na ye that braid road,
Down by yon sunny fell ?
Yon 's the road the wicked gae.
An that 's the road to hell.'
360
41. HIND ETIN
1^. an a bonnie cow low, with an crossed out.
2^. yon fall : fauld in margin.
&*. auld not in MS., supplied from 9*.
7». Christend.
8*. she says is probably the comment of the singer
or reciter.
41
HIND ETIN
A. ' Young Akin,' Buchan's Ballads of the North of
Scotland, I, 6. Motherwell's MS., p. 554.
B. ' Hynde Etin,' Kinloch's Ancient Scottish Ballads,
p. 228.
C. ' Young Hastings,' Buchan, Ballads of the North of
Scotland, II, 67. 'Young Hastings the Groom,'
Motherwell's MS., p. 450 ; Motherwell's Minstrelsy,
p. 287.
It is scarcely necessary to remark that this
ballad, like too many others, has suffered se-
verely by the accidents of tradition. A has
been not simply damaged by passing through
low mouths, but has been worked over by low
hands. Something considerable has been lost
from the story, and fine romantic features,
preserved in Norse and German ballads, have
been quite effaced.
Margaret, a king's daughter. A, an earl's
daughter, B, a lady of noble birth, C, as she
sits sewing in her bower door, hears a note in
Elmond's wood and wishes herself there, A.
The wood is Amon-shaw in C, Mulberry in
B : the Elmond (Amond, Elfman ?) is proba-
bly significant. So far the heroine resembles
Lady Isabel in No 4, who, sewing in her bower,
hears an elf-horn, and cannot resist the en-
chanted tone. Margaret makes for the wood
as fast as she can go. The note that is heard
in A is mistaken in B for nuts : Margaret,
as siie stands in her bower door, spies some
nuts growing in the wood, and wishes her-
self there. Arrived at the wood, Margaret, in
A as well as B, immediately takes to pulling
nuts.* The lady is carried off in C under
• This reading, nuts, may have subsequently made its way
into A instead of rose, which it would be more ballad-like
for Margaret to be plucking, as the maid does in ' Tarn Lin,'
where also the passage A 3-6, B 2-4 occurs. Grimm sug-
gests a parallel to Tam Liu in the dwarf Laurin, who does
not allow trespassing in his rose-garden : Deutsche My Iholo-
cover of a magical mist, and the hero in all
is no ordinary hind.
Margaret has hardly pulled a nut, when she
is confronted by young Akin, A, otherwise,
and correctly, called Etin in B, a hind of giant
strength in both, who accuses her of trespass-
ing, and stops her. Akin pulls up the highest
tree in the wood and builds a bower, invisible
to passers-by, for their habitation. B, which
recognizes no influence of enchantment upon
the lady's will, as foimd in A, and no prepos-
session on her part, as in C, makes Hind Etin
pull up the biggest tree in the forest as well,
but it is to scoop out a cave many fathoms
deep, in which he confines Margaret till she
comes to terms, and consents to go home with
him, wherever that may be. Hastings, an-
other corruption of Etin, carries off the lady
on his horse to the wood, " where again their
loves are sworn," and there they take up
their abode in a cave of stone, C 9. Lady
Margaret lives with the etin seven years, and
bears him seven sons, A 9 ; many years, and
bears seven sons, B; ten years, and bears
seven bairns, C 6, 8, 9.f
Once upon a time the etin goes hunting,
gie, III, 130. But the resemblance seems not material, there
being no woman in the case. The pretence of trespass in
Tam Liu and Hind Etin is a simple commonplace, aud we
have it in some Slavic forms of No 4, as at p. 41.
t B is defective iu the middle and the end. "The re-
citer, unfortunately, could not remember more of the ballad
41. HIND ETIN
861
and takes his eldest boy with him. The boy
asks his father why his mother is so often in
tears, and the father says it is because she was
born of high degree, but had been stolen by
him ; " is wife of Hynde Etin, wha ne'er got
christendame," B 15. The etin, who could
pull the highest tree in the wood up by the
roots, adds in A 15 that when he stole his
wife he was her father's cup-bearer ! and that
he caught her " on a misty night," which re-
minds us of the mist which Young Hiistings,
" the groom," cast before the lady's attendants
when he carried her off.
The next time Akin goes hunting he leaves
his young comrade behind, and the boy tells
his mother that he heard " fine music ring "
when he was coming home, on the other oc-
casion. She wishes she had been there. He
takes his mother and six brothers, and they
make their way through the wood at their
best speed, not knowing in what direction
they are going. But luckily they come to the
gate of the king, the father and grandfather
of the band. The mother sends her eldest
boy in with three rings, to propitiate the
porter, the butler-boy, who acts as usher in
this particular palace, and the minstrel who
plays before the king. His majesty is so
struck with the resemblance of the boj' to his
daughter that he is blinded with tears. The
boy informs his grandfather that his mother
is standing at the gates, with six more broth-
ers, and the king orders that she be admitted.
He asks her to dine, but she can touch noth-
ing till she has seen her mother and sister.
Admitted to her mother, the queen in turn
says. You will dine with me ; but she can touch
nothing till she has seen her sister. Her sis-
ter, again, invites her to dine, but now she can
touch nothing till she has seen her " dear hus-
band." Rangers are sent into the wood to
fetch Young Akin, under promise of a full
pardon. He is found tearing his yellow hair.
The king now asks Akin to dine with him,
and there appears to have been a family din-
ner. While this is going on the boy expi-esses
a wish to be christened, " to get christen-
doun ; " in all his eight years he had never
been in a church. The king promises that he
shall go that very day with his mother, and
all seven of the boys seem to have got their
christendoun ; and so, we may hope, did Hind
Etin, who was, if possible, more in want of it
than they ; B 15, 19.
In this story A and B pretty nearly agree.
C has nothing of the restoration of the lady to
her parents and home. The mother, in this
version, having harped her seven bairns asleep,
sits down and weeps bitterly. She wishes,
like Fair Annie, that they were rats, and she
a cat, to eat them one and all. She has lived
ten years in a stone cave, and has never
had a churching. The eldest boy suggests
that they shall all go to some church: they
be christened and she be churched. This is
accomplished without any difficulty, and, as
the tale stands, we can only wonder that it
had not been attempted before.
The etin of the Scottish stoi-y is in Norse
and German a dwarf-king, elf-king, hill-king,
or even a merman. The ballad is still sung in
Scandinavia and Germany, but only the Danes
have versions taken down before the present
century.
Danish. ' Jomfruen og Dvsergekongen,'
Grundtvig, No 37, A-C from manuscripts of
the sixteenth century. A-Q-, Grundtvig, II,
39-46 ; H, I, III, 806-808 ; K-T, IV, 795-
800, P-S being short fragments. K previously
in " Fylla," a weekly newspaper, 1870, Nos
23, 30 ; L-O, Q, R, ' Agnete i Bjaerget,' in
Kristensen's Jyske Folkeviser, II, 72, 77, 349,
although the story was strongly impressed on her memory.
She related that the lady, after having been taken home by
Hynde Etin, lived with him many years, and bore him seven
sons, the eldest of whom, after the inquiries at his parents
detailed in the ballad, determines to go in search of the earl,
his grandfather. At his departure his mother instructs him
how to proceed, giving him a ring to bribe the porter at her
father's gate, and a silken vest, wrought by her own hand,
to be worn in presence of her father. The son sets out, and
46
arrives at the castle, where, by bribing the porter, he gets
admission to the earl, who, struck with the resemblance of
the youth to his lost daughter, and the similarity of the vest
to one she had wrought for himself, examines the young
man, from whom he discovers the fate of his daughter. He
gladly receives his grandson, and goes to his daughter's resi-
dence, where he meets her and Hynde Etin, who is pardoned
by the earl, through the intercession of his daughter." Kin-
locb, Ancient Scottish Ballads, p. 226 f.
362
41. HIND ETIN
74, I, xxxi, II, 79 ; U, a short fragment,
Danske Viser, V, x, xi.
Swedish. ' Den Bergtagna,' A, B, Afze-
lius, I, 1, No 1, II, 201. C, 'Bergkonun-
gen,' Afzelius, II, 22, No 35. D, B, ' Herr
Elver, Bergakonungen,' Arwidsson, II, 277,
No 141 B, II, 275, No 141 A. F, ' Jungfrun
och Bergakonungen,' Arwidsson, II, 280, No
142. G, ' Agneta och Bergamannen,' Wig-
strom, Folkdiktning, p. 13. H, ' Jungfrun och
Bergamannen,' the same, p. 21. I, K, L, in
Cavallius and Stephens' manuscript collection
(K, L, fragments), given by Grundtvig, IV,
803. M, F. L. Borgstroms Folkvisor, No 11,
described by Grundtvig, IV, 802. N, Wer-
ner's Westergotlands Fornminnen, p. 93 f, two
stanzas.
Norwegian. A, B,* C, ' Liti Kersti,
som vart inkvervd,' Landstad, p. 431, No
42, p. 442, No 44, p. 446, No 45. D, ' Mar-
git Hjuxe, som vart inkvervd,' the same, p.
451, No 46. B, F, 'M&lfri,' ' Antonetta,'
Grundtvig, IV, 801 f, the last evidently de-
rived from Denmark. Gr-P, nine versions com-
municated to Grundtvig by Professor Sophus
Bugge, and partially described in Danmarks
gamle Folkeviser, III, 808-10. Lindeman
gives the first stanza of A with airs No 214,
No 262 of his Fjeldmelodier, and perhaps
had different copies. Nos 323, 320 may also
have been versions of this ballad. C, rewrit-
ten, occurs in J. M. Moe og Ivar Morten-
sen's Norske Fornkvaede og Folkevisur, p. 16.
Mixed forms, in which the ballad proper is
blended with another, Landstad, No 43 =
Swedish, Arwidsson, No 145 ; eight, commu-
nicated by Bugge, Grundtvig, III, 810-13 ;
two others, IV, 483 f.f
Faroe. A, B, Grundtvig, IV, 803 f.
Icelandic. ' Rika dlfs kv8ec5i,' Islenzk
fornkvseSi, No 4.
Danish A, one of the three sixteenth-cen-
tury versions, tells how a knight, expressing a
* B, Landstad 44 (which has only this in common with
the Scottish ballad, that a hill-man carries a maid to his cave),
has much resemblance at the beginning to ' Kvindemorde-
ren,' Grundtvig, No 183, our No 4. See Grundtvig's note **
at III, 810. This is only what might be looked for, since
both ballads deal with abductions.
strong desire to obtain a king's daughter, is
overheard by a dwarf, who says this shall
never be. The dwarf pretends to bargain
with the knight for his services in forward-
ing the knight's object, but consults mean-
while with his mother how he may get the
lady for himself.^ The mother tells him that
the princess will go to even-song, and the
dwarf writes runes on the way she must go
by, which compel her to come to the hill.
The dwarf holds out his hand and asks. How
came ye to this strange land ? to which the
lady answers mournfully, I wot never how.
The dwarf says. You have pledged yourself to
a knight, and he has betrayed you with runes :
this eve you shall be the dwarf's guest. She
stayed thei'e the night, and was taken back
to her mother in the morning. Eight years
went by ; her hand was sought by five kings,
nine counts, but no one of them could get a
good answer. One day her mother asked,
Why are thy cheeks so faded ? Why can
no one get thee ? She then revealed that she
had been beguiled by the dwarf, and had
seven sons and a daughter in the hill, none of
whom she ever saw. She thought she was
alone, but the dwarf-king was listening. He
strikes her with an elf-rod, and bids her hie to
the hill after him. Late in the evening the
poor thing dons her cloak, knocks at her fa-
ther's door, and says good-night to the friends
that never will see her again, then sadly turns
to the hill. Her seven sons advance to meet
her, and ask why she told of their father.
Her tears run sore ; she gives no answer ; she
is dead ere midnight.
With A agrees another of the three old
Danish copies, B, and three modern ones, D,
M, N, have something of the opening scene
which characterizes A. So also Swedish C, I,
and the Icelandic ballad. In Swedish C, Proud
Margaret, who is daughter of a king of seven
kingdoms, will have none of her suitors (this
t It is not necessary, for purposes of the English ballad,
to notice these mixed forms.
J In ' Nekkens Svig,' C, Grundtvig, No 39, the merman
consults with his mother, and then, as also in olher copies of
the ballad, transforms himself into a knight. See the trans-
lation by Prior, III, 269 ; Jamieson, Popular Ballads, I, 210 ;
Lewis, Tales of Wonder, I, 60.
41. HIND ETIN
363
circumstance comes too soon). A hill-king
asks his mother how he may get her. She
asks in return, What will you give me to
make her come of herself to the hill? He
promises red gold and chestf uls of pence ; and
one Sunday morning Margaret, who has set
out to go to church, is made — by magical
operations, of course — to take the way to the
hill.
A second form begins a stage later : Danish
C, G, K, Swedish D, E, K, Norwegian A, C,
E, G, H, I (?), K, L, M (?) N (?), Faroe A,
B. We learn nothing of the device by which
the maid has been entrapped. Mother and
daughter are sitting in their bower, and the
mother asks her child why her cheeks are pale,
why milk is running from her breasts. She
answers that she has been working too hard ;
that what is taken for milk is mead. The
mother retorts that other women do not suffer
from their industry ; tliat mead is brown, and
milk is white. Hei"eupon the daughter re-
veals that she has been beguiled by an elf,
and, though living under her mother's roof,
has had eight or nine children (seven or eight
sons and a daughter ; fifteen children, Faroe
A, B), none of whom she ever saw, since after
birth they were always transferred to the hill
(see, especially, Danish C, G, also A ; Nor-
wegian H, I ; Faroe A, B). The mother (who
disowns her, Danish C, G, Swedish D, E, Nor-
wegian K), in several versions, asks what gifts
she got for her honor. Among these was a
harp [horn, Norwegian L], which she was to
play when she was unhappy. The mother
asks for a piece, and the first tones bring the
elf, who reproaches the daughter for betraying
him : had she concealed their connection she
might still have lived at home, C ; but now
she must go with him. She is kindly received
by her children. They give her a drink which
makes her forget father and mother, heaven
and earth, moon and sun, and even makes her
think she was born in the hill, Danish C, Q,
Swedish D, Norwegian A, C*
Danish G, K, Faroe A, B, take a tragic
turn : the woman dies in the first two the
night she comes to the hill. Danish C, one
of the sixteenth-century versions, goes as far
as possible in the other direction. The elf-
king pats Maldfred's cheek, takes her in his
arms, gives her a queen's crown and name.
And this he did for the lUy-wand,
He had himself christened and all his land !
A third series of versions offers the probable
type of the much-corrupted Scottish ballads,
and under this head come Danish E, F, H, I,
L-R, T ; Swedish A, B, F-I, and also C, after
an introduction which belongs to the first
class ; Norwegian D, P. The characteristic
feature is that the woman has been living
eight or nine j'ears in the hill, and has there
borne her children, commonly seven sons and
a daughter. She sets out to go to matins,
and whether under the influence of runes, or
accidentally, or purposely, takes the way to
the hill. In a few cases it is clear that she
does not seek the hill-man or put herself in his
way, e. g., Danish N, Swedish G, but Swed-
ish A, H, N make her apply for admission at
the hill-door. In Danish I, N-R, T, Norwe-
gian P, it is not said that she was on her way
to church ; she is in a field or in the hill. In
Swedish P she has been two years in the cave,
and it seems to her as if she had come yester-
day. After her eight or nine years with the
hill-man the woman longs to go home, Danish
E, P, I, Swedish A, P, I, Norwegian D ; to go
to church, Danish L, M, N, P, T, Norwegian
P ; for she had heard Denmark's bells, church
bells, Danish L-P, T, Swedish G, Norwegian
» The beauty of the Norse ballads shoald make an Eng-
lishman's heart wrii)g for his loss. They arc panicnlarly
pretty here, where the forgetful draught is administered ; as
Norwegian C, A :
Forth came her daughter, as jimp as a wand,
She dances a dance, with silver can in hand.
' O where wast thou bred, and wliere wast thou born ?
And where were thy maiden-garments shorn ? '
'In Norway was I bred, in Norway was I bom,
And in Norway were my njaiden-garments shorn.'
The ae first drink from the silver can she drank,
What stock slie was come of she clean forgat.
' O where wast thou bred, and where wast thou bom?
And w^here were thy maiden-garments shorn'? '
' In the hill was I bred, and there was I born,
In the hill were my maiden-garments shorn.'
364
41. HIND ETIN
D, P. She had heard these bells as she
watched the cradle, Danish T, P, Swedish G ;
sat by the cradle and sang, T 4 ; compare
English C 7. She asks the hill-man's per-
mission, and it is granted on certain terms :
she is not to talk of him and her life in the
hill, Danish B, I, Swedish A, F, I, is to come
back, Danish F, must not stay longer tlian an
hour or two, Norwegian D ; she is not to wear
her gold, her best clothes, not to let out her
hair, not to go into her mother's pew at the
church, not to bow when the priest pronounces
the holy name, or make an ol?ering, or go home
after service, etc., Danish I, L-P, T, Noi'wegian
F. All these last conditions she violates, nor
does she in the least heed the injunction not to
speak of the hill-man. The consequence is
that he summarily presents himself, whether
at the church or the paternal mansion, and or-
ders her back to the hill, sometimes striking
her on the ear or cheek so that blood runs, or
beating her with a rod, Danish E, I, L, M, S,
T, Swedish A, B, C, H, I, Norwegian F. In
a few versions, tlie hill-man tells her that her
children are crying for her, and she replies.
Let them cry ; I will never go back to the
hill ; Danish M, N, O, Norwegian F. In Dan-
ish B, Swedish Gr, a gold apple thrown into
her lap seems to compel her to return ; more
commonly main force is used. She is carried
dead into the hill, or dies immediately on her
arrival, in Norwegian F, Danish T ; she dies
of grief, according to traditional comment, in
Norwegian D. They give her a drink, and
her heart breaks, Swedish A, G, H, M ; but
elsewhere the drink only induces forgetfulness,
Danish L, M, Swedish B, C, F.
Much of the story of ' Jomfruen og Dvajr-
gekongen ' recurs in the ballad of ' Agnete og
Havmanden,' which, for our purposes, may be
treated as a simple variation of the other.
The Norse forms are again numerous, but
all from broadsides dating, at most, a century
back, or from recent tradition.
Danish. ' Agnete og Havmanden,' Grundt-
vig. No 88, A-D, II, 51 if, 656 ff. III, 813 if.
Copies of A are numerous, and two had been
previously printed ; in Danske Viser, I, 313,
No 50, and " in Barfod's Brage og Idun, II,
264." B, Rask's Morskabslassning, III, 81,
Grundtvig, II, 659. F, one stanza, Grundtvig,
p. 660. G, H, the same, III, 816. I, Kris-
tensen, II, 75, No 28 C, Grundtvig, IV, 807.
K, Grundtvig, IV, 808.*
Swedish. A, B, 0, in Cavallius and
Stephens' unprinted collection, described by
Grundtvig, II, 661. D, ' Agneta och Hafsman-
nen,' Eva Wigstrom's F'olkdiktning, p. 9. B,
Bergstrom's Afzelius, II, 308. F, ' Skein
Anna och Hafskungen,' Aminson, Bidrag till
Sddermanlands jildre Kulturhistoria, ni, 43.
G, ' Helena och Hafsmannen,' the same, p. 46.
Norwegian. A, Grundtvig, III, 817, prop-
erly Danish rather than Norwegian. B, a ver-
sion partly described at p. 818. C, Grundt-
vig, IV, 809, also more Danish than Norwe-
gian. All these communicated by Bugge.
Danish C, G, Norwegian A, have a hill-
man instead of a merman, and might as well
have been put with the other ballad. On the
other hand, the Danish versions M, N, O of
' The Maid and the Dwarf-King' call tlie maid
Agenet, and give the hill-man a name. Nek,
Netmand, Mekmand, which implies a watery
origin for him, and the fragments P, Q, R have
similar names, Nekmand, Negen, Laikkemand,
as also Agenete, and might as well have been
ranked with ' Agnes and the Merman.' In
' The Maid and the Dwarf-King,' Swedish L
(one stanza) the maid is taken by " Pel Elf-
ven " to the sea.
Agnes goes willingly with the merman to
the sea-bottom, Danish A, D, E, K, Swedish
A, D, E, Norwegian A, C. She lives there,
according to many versions, eight years, and
has seven children. As she is sitting and sing-
ing by the cradle one day, she hears the bells
of England, Danish A, C, D, E, H, I, K
Swedish D [church bells, bells, F, G], Nor-
wegian A, C. She asks if she may go to
» For reasons, doubtless sufficient, but to me unknown, other versions, nnd may be a niade-np copy ; the otlier, ' Ag-
Grundtvig has not noticed two copies in Boisen's Nye og nete og 15ja:iginauden,ira Sanderjyiland,' consists of stanzas
gamle Viser, 10th edition, p. 192, p. 194. The former of 1-5 of C.
these is like A, with more resemblance here and there to
41. HIND ETIN
365
church, go home, and receives permission on
the same terms as in the other ballad. Her
mother asks her what gifts she had received,
Danish A, D, E, H, I, Swedish B, P, Nor-
wegian C. Wlien the merman comes into the
church all the images turn their backs, Dan-
ish A, D, K, Swedish D, P, G, Norwegian A,
C ; and, in some cases, for Agnes, too. He
tells her that the children are crying for her ;
she refuses to go back, Danish A, C, D, I, K,
Swedish D, P, G (and apparently A. B, C),
Norwegian C. In Norwegian A the merman
strikes her on the cheek, and she returns ; in
Danish I she is taken back quietly ; in Danish
C he gives her so sore an ail that she dies
presently ; in Danish H she is taken away by
force, and poisoned by her children ; in Danish
K the merman says that if she stays with her
mother they must divide the children (five).
He takes two, she two, and each has to take
half of the odd one.
The Norse forms of 'Agnes and the Mer-
man' are conceded to have been derived from
Germany : see Grundtvig, IV, 812. Of the
German ballad, which is somewhat nearer to
the English, the following versions have been
noted :
A. ' Die schone Agniese,' Fiedler, Volks-
reime und Volkslieder in Anhalt-Dessau, p.
140, No 1 = Mittler, No 653. B. ' Die schone
Agnese,' Parisius, Deutsche Volkslieder in der
Altmark und im Magdeburgischen gesammelt,
p. 29, No 8 B, from nearly tlie same region
as A. C. Parisius, p. 28, No 8 A, Peehau on
the Elbe. D. ' Die schone Angnina,' Erk's
Neue Sammlung, ii, 40, No 26 = Mittler, No
552, from the neighborhood of Magdeburg.
E. ' Die Schone Agnete,' Erk's Liederhort,
No 16% p. 47, Erk's Wunderhorn, IV, 91,
from the neighborhood of Guben. P. ' Die
schone Dorothea,' Liederhort, No 16^ p. 48,
Gramzow in der Ukermark. G. ' Die schone
Hannale,' Liederhort, No 16, p. 44, Erk's
Wunderhorn, IV, 87, Silesia. H. ' Die schone
Hannele,' Hoffmann u. Richter, Schlesische
Volkslieder, p. 3, No 1 = Mittler, No 551,
Bohme, No 90 A, Breslau. ' Der Wasser-
mann,' Simrock, No 1, is a compounded copy.
A wild merman has become enamored of
the King of England's daughter. A, B, C, D.
He plates a bridge with gold ; she often walks
over the bridge ; it sinks with lier into the
water [the merman drags her down into the
water, H]. She stays below seven years, and
bears seven sons. One day [by the cradle,
C, G] she hears the bells of England, A 6, B,
C, D, P [bells, B, G, H], and longs to go to
church. She expresses this wish to the mer-
man, C, D, G, H. The merman says she must
take her seven sons with her, B, C, D ; she
must come back, G, H. She takes her seven
sons by the hand, and goes with them to Eng-
land, A 5, B 7 ; cf. Scottish C 13, 14, A 22,
50. When she enters the church everything
in it bows, A, B, P. Her parents are there,
C, D ; her father opens the pew, her mother
lays a cushion for her, G, H. As she goes
out of the church, there stands the merman,
A, B, B, P. Her parents take her home in
D, G, H. They seat her at the table, and
while she is eating, a gold apple falls into her
lap (cf. ' The Maid and the Dwarf-King,' Dan-
ish B, Swedish G), which she begs her mother
to throw into the fire ; the merman appears,
and asks if she wislies him burnt, G, H. The
merman, when he presents himself at the
church, asks whether the woman will go back
witii him, or die where she is, and she prefers
death on the spot. A, B, B. In the other
case, he says that if she will not return, the
children must be divided, — three and three,
and lialf of the seventh to each ; the mother
prefers the water to this. D has a peculiar
and not very happy trait. The merman fas-
tens a chain to his wife's foot before she goes
up, and, having been kept long waiting, draws
it in. But the people at the church have
taken off the chain, and he finds nothing at
the end of it. He asks whether she does not
wish to live with him ; she replies, I will no
longer torment you, or fret myself to death.
The story of Agnes and the Merman occurs
in a VVendish ballad, with an introductory
scene found in the beautiful German ballad,
' Wassermanns Braut : ' * Haupt und Schma-
• See five ver.-iong in Mittler, Nos 546-550. As Grundt-
vig remarks, what is one ballad in Wendish is two in Ger-
man and tliree in Norse: D. g. F., IV, 810.
366
41. HIND ETIN
ler, I, 62, No 34. A maid begs that she may
be left to herself for a year, but her father
says it is time for her to be married. She
goes to her chamber, weeps and wrings her
hands. The merman comes and asks, Where
is my bride? They tell him that she is in
her chamber, weeping and wringing her hands.
The merman asks her the reason, and she an-
swers. They all say that you are the mer-
woman's son. He says he will build her a
bridge of pure silver and gold, and have her
driven over it with thirty carriages and forty
horses ; but ere she has half passed the bridge
it goes down to the bottom. She is seven
years below, has seven sons in as many years,
and is going with the eighth. She implores
her husband to permit her to go to church in
the upper world, and he consents, with the
proviso that she shall not stay for the bene-
diction. At church she sees her brother and
sister, who receive her kindly. She tells them
that she cannot stay till the benediction ; * they
beg her to come home to dine with them. She
does wait till the benediction ; the merman
rushes frantically about. As she leaves the
church and is saying good-by to her sister,
she meets the merman, who snatches the
youngest child from her (she appears to have
all seven with her), tears it in pieces, strangles
the rest, scatters their limbs on the road, and
hangs himself, asking, Does not your heart
grieve for your children ? She answers, I grieve
for none but the youngest.f
A Slovenian ballad has the story with mod-
ifications, Achacel and Korytko, Slov<3n|ke
Pdsmi krajnskiga Nardda, I, 30, J ' Povodnji
m6sh ; ' given in abstract by Haupt and Schma-
ler, I, 339, note to No. 84. Mizika goes to a
dance, in spite of her mother's forbidding.
Her mother, in a rage, wishes that the mer-
man may fetch her. A young man who dances
with her whirls her round so furiously that
she complains, but he becomes still more vio-
* This trait, correspondiug to the prohibition in the Norse
balUids of l)owing when the holy name is pronounced, occurs
frequently in tradition, as might be expected. In a Swedish
mernian-halliid, ' Necken,' Afzelius, III, 133, the nix, who
has attended to church the lady whom he is about to kidnap,
makes off with his best speed when the priest reads the ben-
ediction. See, further, Arnason'a Islenzkar f|jd5^6gur, I,
lent. Mizika sees how it is, and exclaims.
The merman has come for me ! The mer-
man flies out of the window with her, and
plunges into the water. She bears a son,
and asks leave to pay a visit to her mother ;
and this is allowed on conditions, one of which
is that she shall not expose herself to a bene-
diction. She does not conform, and the mer-
man comes and says that her son is crying for
her. She refuses to go with himj and he teai's
the boy in two, that each may have a half.
Two or tliree of the minuter correspond-
ences between the Scottish and the Norse or
German ballads, which have not been referred
to, may be indicated in conclusion. The hill-
man, in several Norwegian copies, as B, M,
carries off the lady on liorseback, and so Has-
tings in C. In A 34-39, the returned sister,
being invited to dine, cannot eat a bit or drink
a drop. So, in 'The Maid and the Dwarf-
King,' Swedish G 15, 16, they set before
Agnes dishes four and five, dishes eight and
nine, but she can take nothing :
Agneta ej smakte en endaste bit.
Young Akin, in A 43, is found in the wood,
" tearing his yellow hair." The merman has
golden hair in Danish A 16, Swedish D 2, 19,
Norwegian A 17 (nothing very remarkable,
certainly), and in Danish D 31 wrings his
hands and is very unhappy, because Agnes re-
fuses to return. It is much more important
that in one of the Swedish copies of the mer-
man ballad, Grundtvig, II, 661 a, we find a
trace of the ' Christendom ' which is made
such an object in the Scottish ballads :
' Nay,' said the mother, ' now thou art mine,'
And christened her with water and with wine.
' The Maid and the Dwarf-King,' Danish
E, is translated by Prior, III, 338 ; Swedish A
by Stephens, Foreign Quarterly Review,
XXV, 35; Swedish C by Keightley, Fairy
73 f ; Maurer's Islandische Volksagen, 19 f ; Liebrecht, Ger-
vasius, p. 26, LVII, and p. 125, note (Grundtvig).
t The merfolk are apt to be ferocious, as compared with
hill-jieople, elves, etc. See Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie,
I, 409 f.
t I 79, of a second edition, which, says Vraz, has an ob-
jectionable fantastic spelling due to the publisher.
41. HIND ETIN
367
Mythology, p. 103. ' Agnes and the Mer-
man,' Danish A, C, by Prior, III, 332, 385 ;
some copy of A by Borrow, p. 120 ; 0hlen-
schteger's ballad by Buchanan, p. 76.
Knortz, Lieder u. Romanzen, No 30 ; A 1-8,
C 6-14, by Rosa Warrens, Schottische Volks-
lieder. No 2 ; a compounded version by Roberts
into German by Podhorszki, Acta Compara-
Scottish B is translated, after Allingham, by tionis, etc., VIII, 69-73
Bnchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, I, 6 ; Mother-
well's MS., p. 554.
1 Lady Maegaret sits in her bower door,
Sewing at her silken seam ;
She heard a note in Ehnond's wood,
And wishd she there had been.
2 She loot the seam fa frae her side,
And the needle to her tae,
And she is on to Ehnond's wood
As fast as she coud gae.
3 She hadna pu'd a nut, a nut,
Nor broken a branch but ane.
Till by it came a young hind chiel,
Says, Lady, lat alane.
4 O why pu ye the nut, the nut,
Or why brake ye the tree ?
For I am forester o this wood :
Ye shoud spier leave at me.
5 ' I 'U ask leave at no Uving man,
Nor yet will I at thee ;
My father is king oer a' this realm,
This wood belongs to me.'
6 She hadna pu'd a nut, a nut,
Nor broken a branch but three,
Till by it came him Young Akin,
And gard her lat them be.
7 The highest tree in Ehnond's wood.
He 's pu'd it by the reet,
And he has built for her a bower,
Near by a hallow seat.
8 He 's built a bower, made it secure
Wi carbuncle and stane ;
Tho travellers were never sae nigh,
Appearance it had nane.
9 He 's kept her there in Elmond's wood.
For six lang years and one,
Till six pretty sons to him she bear,
And the seventh she 's brought home.
10 It feU ance upon a day,
This guid lord went from home,
And he is to the hunting gane,
Took wi him his eldest son.
11 And when they were on a guid way,
Wi slowly pace did walk,
The boy's heart being something wae.
He thus began to talk :
12 ' A question I woud ask, father,
Gin ye woudna angry be : '
' Say on, say on, my bonny boy.
Ye 'se nae be quarrelld by me.'
13 ' I see my mither's cheeks aye weet,
I never can see them dry ;
And I wonder what aUeth my mither,
To mourn continually.'
14 'Your mither was a king's daughter,
Sprung frae a high degree.
And she might hae wed some worthy prince,
Had she nae been stown by me.
15 ' I was her father's cup-bearer,
Just at that fatal time ;
I catchd her on a misty night.
Whan smnmer was in prime.
16 ' My luve to her was most sincere,
Her luve was great for me,
But when she hardships doth endure.
Her folly she does see.'
17 ' I '11 shoot the buntin o the bush,
The linnet o the tree,
And bring them to my dear mither,
See if she 'U merrier be.'
368
41. HIND ETIN
18 It fell upo another day,
This guid lord he thought lang,
And he is to the hunting gane,
Took wi him his dog and gun.
19 Wi how and arrow by his side,
He 's atf, single, alane,
And left his seven children to stay
Wi their mither at hame.
20 ' 0 I will tell to you, mither,
Gin ye wadna angry be : '
' Speak on, speak on, my little wee boy,
Ye 'se nae be quarrelld by me.'
21 ' As we came frae the hynd-hunting.
We heard fine music ring : '
' My blessings on you, my bonny boy,
I wish I 'd been there my lane.'
22 He 's taen his mither by the hand.
His six brithers also,
And they are on thro Elmond's wood,
As fast as they coud go.
23 They wistna weel where they were gaen,
Wi the stratlins o their feet ;
They wistna weel where they were gaen,
TiU at her father's yate.
24 ' I hae nae money in my pocket,
But royal rings hae three ;
I 'U gie them you, my little young son,
And ye 'U walk there for me.
25 ' Ye '11 gie the first to the proud porter.
And he will lat you in ;
Ye 'U gie the next to the butler-boy,
And he wUl show you ben ;
26 ' Ye '11 gie the third to the minstrel
That plays before the king ;
He '11 play success to the bonny boy
Came thro the wood him lane.'
27 He gae the first to the proud porter,
And he opend an let him in ;
He gae the next to the butler-boy.
And he has shown him ben ;
28 He gae the third to the minstrel
That playd before the king ;
And he playd success to the bonny boy
Came thro the wood him lane.
29 Now when he came before the king,
Fell low down on his knee ;
The king he turned round about.
And the saut tear blinded his ee.
30 ' Win up, win up, my bonny boy.
Gang frae my companie ;
Ye look sae like my dear daughter.
My heart wUl birst in three.'
31 ' If I look like your dear daughter,
A wonder it is none ;
If I look like your dear daughter,
I am her eldest son.'
32 ' Will ye tell me, ye little wee boy.
Where may my Margaret be ? '
' She 's just now standing at your yates,
And my six brithers her wi.'
33 ' O where are all my porter-boys
That I pay meat and fee,
To open my yates baith wide and braid ?
Let her come in to me.'
34 When she came in before the king.
Fell low down on her knee ;
' Win up, win up, my daughter dear.
This day ye '11 dine wi me.'
35 ' Ae bit I canno eat, father.
Nor ae drop can I drink.
Till I see my mither and sister dear,
For lang for them I think.'
36 When she came before the queen,
Fell low down on her knee ;
' Win up, win up, my daughter dear
This day ye 'se dine wi me.'
37 ' Ae bit I canno eat, mither.
Nor ae drop can I drink.
Until I see my dear sister.
For lang for her I think.'
38 When that these two sisters met.
She haild her courteouslie ;
' Come ben, come ben, my sister dear,
This day ye 'se dine wi me.'
41. HIND ETIN
369
39 ' Ae bit I canno eat, sister,
Nor ae drop can I drink,
Until I see my dear husband,
For lang for him I think.'
40 ' 0 where are all my rangers bold
That I pay meat and fee,
To search the forest far an wide,
And bring Akin to me ? '
41 Out it speaks the little wee boy :
Na, na, this maunna be ;
Without 3'e grant a free pardon,
I hope ye 'U nae him see.
42 ' O here I grant a free pardon,
Well seald by my own ban ;
Ye may make search for Young Akin,
As soon as ever you can.'
43 They searchd the country wide and braid.
The forests far and near,
And found him into Elmond's wood,
Tearing his yellow hair.
44 ' Win up, win np now, Yoimg Akin,
Win up, and bovm wi me ;
We 're messengers come from the court,
The king wants you to see.'
45 ' O lat him take frae me my head,
Or hang me on a tree ;
For since I 've lost my dear lady.
Life 's no pleasure to me.'
46 ' Your head will nae be touchd. Akin,
Nor hangd upon a tree ;
Your lady 's in her father's court.
And all he wants is thee.'
47 When he came in before the king.
Fell low down on his knee ;
' Win up, win up now. Young Akin,
This day ye 'se dine wi me.'
48 But as they were at dinner set.
The boy asked a boun :
' I wish we were in the good churcli,
For to get christendoun.
49 ' We hae lived in guid green wood
This seven years and ane ;
But a' this time, since eer I mind.
Was never a church within.'
50 ' Your asking 's nae sae great, my boy.
But granted it shall be ;
This day to guid church ye shall gang.
And your mither shall gang you wi.'
51 When unto the guid church she came,
She at the door did stan ;
She was sae sair sunk down wi shame.
She coudna come farer ben.
62 Then out it speaks the parish priest,
And a sweet smile gae he :
' Come ben, come ben, my lily flower,
Present your babes to me.'
63 Charles, Vincent, Sam and Dick,
And likewise James and John ;
They calld the eldest Young Akin,
Which was his father's name.
54 Then they staid in the royal court,
And livd wi mirth and glee,
And when her father was deceasd,
Heir of the crown was she.
Kinloch's Ancient Scottish Ballads, p. 228.
1 May Margeet stood in her bouer door,
Kaiming doun her yellow hair ;
She spied some nuts growin in the wud,
And wishd that she was there.
2 She has plaited her yellow locks
A little abime her bree,
47
And she has kilted her petticoats
A little below her knee.
And she 's aff to Mulberry wud,
As fast as she could gae.
3 She had na pu'd a nut, a nut,
A nut but barely ane.
Till up started the Hynde Etin,
Says, Lady, let thae alane !
370
41. HIND BTIN
4 ' Mulberry wuds are a' my ain ;
My father gied them me,
To sport and play when I thought lang ;
And they saU na be tane by thee.'
6 And ae she pu'd the tither berrie,
Na thinking o' the skaith,
And said, To wrang ye, Hynde Etin,
I wad be unco laith.
6 But he has tane her by the yellow locks,
And tied her till a tree,
And said. For slichting my commands,
An ill death sail ye dree.
7 He pu'd a tree out o the wud.
The biggest that was there.
And he howkit a cave monie fathoms deep.
And put May Margret there.
8 ' Now rest ye there, ye saucie may ;
My wuds are free for thee ;
And gif I tak ye to myseU,
The better ye '11 like me.'
9 Na rest, na rest May Margret took.
Sleep she got never nane ;
Her back lay on the cauld, cauld floor.
Her head upon a stane.
10 ' 0 tak me out,' May Margret cried,
' O tak me hame to thee.
And I sail be your bounden page
Until the day I dee.'
11 He took her out o the dungeon deep,
And awa wi him she 's gane ;
But sad was the day an earl's dochter
Gaed hame wi Hynde Etin.
12 It fell out ance upon a day
Hynde Etin 's to the hunting gane.
And he has tane wi him his eldest son,
For to carry his game.
13 ' O I wad ask ye something, father.
An ye wadna angry be ; '
* Ask on, ask on, my eldest son,
Ask onie thing at me.'
14 ' My mother's cheeks are aft times weet,
Alas ! they are seldom dry ; '
' Na wonder, na wonder, my eldest son,
Tho she should brast and die.
15 ' For your mother was an earl's dochter.
Of noble birth and fame.
And now she 's wife o Hynde Etin,
Wha neer got christendame.
16 ' But we 'U shoot the laverock in the lift.
The buntlin on the tree.
And ye '11 tak them hame to your mother.
And see if she 'U comforted be.'
17 ' I wad ask ye something, mother,
An ye wadna angry be ; '
' Ask on, ask on, my eldest son.
Ask onie thing at me.'
18 ' Your cheeks they are aft times weet,
Alas ! they 're seldom dry ; '
' Na wonder, na wonder, my eldest son,
Tho I should brast and die.
19 ' For I was ance an earl's dochter,
Of noble birth and fame.
And now I am the wife of Hynde Etin,
Wha neer got christendame.'
Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, II, 67, com-
municated by Mr James Nicol, of Strichen ; Motherwell's
Minstrelsy, p. 287 ; Motherwell's MS., p. 450.
1 ' O WELL like I to ride in a mist.
And shoot in a northern win.
And far better a lady to steal.
That 's come of a noble kin.'
2 Four an twenty fair ladies
Put on this lady's sheen.
And as mony young gentlemen
Did lead her ower the green.
42. CLERK COLVILL
371
3 Yet she preferred before them all
Him, young Hastings the Groom ;
He 's coosten a mist before them all,
And away this lady has taen.
4 He 's taken the lady on him behind,
Spared neither grass nor corn,
Till they came to the wood o Amonshaw,
Where again their loves were sworn.
5 And they hae lived in that wood
Full mony a year and day.
And were supported from time to time
By what he made of prey.
6 And seven bairns, fair and fine,
There she has bom to him,
And never was in gude church-door.
Nor ever got gude kirking.
7 Ance she took harp into her hand,
And harped them a' asleep.
Then she sat down at their couch-side,
And bitterly did weep.
8 Said, Seven bairns hae I bom now
To my lord in the ha ;
T wish they were seven greedy rats,
To run upon the wa,
And I mysel a great grey cat,
To eat them ane and a'.
9 For ten lang years now I hae lived
Within this cave of stane,
And never was at gude church-door,
Nor got no gude churching.
10 O then out spake her eldest child.
And a fine boy was he :
0 hold your tongue, my mother dear ;
I '11 tell you what to dee.
11 Take you the youngest in your lap,
The next youngest by the hand,
Put all the rest of us you before.
As you learnt us to gang.
12 And go with us unto some kirk —
You say they are built of stane —
And let us all be christened.
And you get gude kirking.
13 She took the youngest in her lap.
The next youngest by the hand,
Set all the rest of them her before,
As she learnt them to gang.
14 And she has left the wood with them,
And to the kirk has gane.
Where the gude priest them christened.
And gave her gude kirking.
O. Motherwell's copies exhibit Jive or six slight variations from Buchan.
42
CLERK COLYILL
A. ' Clark Colven,' from a transcript of No 13 of Wil- C. W. F. in Notes and Queries, Fourth Series, VIII,
liam Tytler's Brown MS. 510, from the recitation of a lady in Forfarshire.
B. ' Clerk Colvill, or, The Mermaid,' Herd's Ancient
and Modem Scots Songs, 1 769, p. 302.
Although, as has been already said, Wil- be found, a copy of two of its fifteen ballads
liam Tytler's Brown manuscript is now not to has been preserved in the Fraser Tytler family,
372
42. CLERK COLVILL
and 'Clerk Colvill,' A ('Clark Colven ') is
one of the two.* This ballad is not in Jamie-
son's Brown manuscript. Rewritten by Lewis,
A was published in Tales of Wonder, 1801,
II, 445, No 66. B, 1769, is the earliest printed
English copy, but a corresponding Danish bal-
lad antedates its publication by seventy-five
years. Of C, W. F., who communicated it to
Notes and Queries, says : " I have reason to
believe that it is originally from the same
source as that from which Scott, and es-
pecially Jamieson, derived many of their best
ballads." This source should be no other than
Mrs Brown, who certainly may have known
two versions of Clerk Colvill ; but C is mark-
edly different from A. An Abbotsford man-
uscript, entitled " Scottish Songs," has, at fol.
3, a version which appears to have been made
up from Lewis's copy, its original. A, and
Herd's, B.
All the English versions are deplorably im-
perfect, and C is corrupted, besides. The story
which they afford is this. Clerk Colvill, newly
married as we may infer, is solemnly entreated
by his gay lady never to go near a well-fared
may who haunts a certain spring or water.
It is clear that before his marriage he had
been in the habit of resorting to this mer-
maid, as she is afterwards called, and equally
clear, from tlie impatient answer which he ren-
ders his dame, that he means to visit her again.
His coming is hailed with pleasure by the
mermaid, who, in the course of their interview,
does something which gives him a strange
pain in the head, — a pain only increased by
a prescription which she pretends will cure
• " From a MS. in my grandfather's writing, with the
following note : Copied from an old MS. in the possession of
Alexander Fraser Tytlcr." Note of Miss Mary Fraser Tyt-
ler. The first stanza agrees with that which is cited from
the original by Dr Anderson in Nichols's Illustrations, "VII,
177, and the number of stanzas is the same.
Colvill, which has become familiar from Herd's copy, is
the correct form, and Colven, Colvin, a vulgarized one, which
in C lapses into Colin.
t Still, though these particular verses appear to have come
from ' The Drowned Lovers,' they may represent other
original ones which were to the same effect. See, further
on, the beginning of some Faroe versions.
X Hoc equidem a viris omni exceptione majoribus quotidie
scimus probatum, quod quosdam hujusmodi larvarum quas
fadas nominant amatores audivimus, et cum ad aliarum foe-
it, and, as she then exultingly tells him, sure
to grow worse until he is dead. He draws
his sword on her, but she merrily springs into
the water. He mounts his horse, rides home
tristful, alights heavily, and bids his mother
make his bed, for all is over with him.
C is at the beginning blended with verses
which belong to ' Willie and May Margaret,'
Jamieson, I, 135 (from Mrs Brown's recita-
tion), or ' The Drowned Lovers,' Buchan, I,
140. In this ballad a mother adjures her son
not to go wooing, under pain of her curse. He
goes, nevertheless, and is drowned. It is obvi-
ous, without remark, that the band and belt in
C 1 do not suit the mother ; neither does the
phrase ' love Colin ' in the second stanza.f C
9-11 afford an important variation from the
other versions. The mermaid appears at the
foot of the young man's bed, and offers him
a choice between dying then and living with
her in the water. (See the Norwegian bal-
lads at p. 377.)
Clei"k Colvill is not, as his representative
is or may be in other ballads, the guiltless and
guileless object of the love or envy of a water-
sprite or elf. His relations with the mermaid
began before his marriage with his gay lady,
and his death is the natural penalty of his
desertion of the water-nymph ; for no point is
better established than the fatal consequences
of inconstancy in such connections. J His his- i
tory, were it fully told, would closely resemble '
that of the Knight of Staufenberg, as narrated 1 /
in a German poem of about the year 1300.§
The already very distinguished chevalier,
Peter Diemringer, of Staufenberg (in the Or-
minarum matrimonia se transtulerunt, ante mortuos quam
cum superinductis cainali se copula immiscuerunt. Ues
Gervasius von Tilbury Otia Imperialia (of about 1211), Lieb-
recht, p. 41.
§ ])er Ritter von Stauffenberg, from a MS. of perhaps
1437, C. M. Engelhardt, Strassburg, 1823. Edited by Oskar
Janicke, in Altdeutsche Studien von O. Janicke, E. Stein-
meyer, W. Wilmanns, Berlin, 1871. Die Legende vom Rit-
ter Herrn Peter Diemringer von Staufenberg in der Orteuau,
reprint by F. Culemann of the Strassburg edition of Mar-
tin Schott, 1480-82. The old printed copy was made over
by Fischart in 1588 (Jobin, Strassburg, in that year), and
this ' ernewerte Beschreibung der alten Geschicht' is re-
hashed in seven ' Romanzen ' iu Wunderhorn, I, 407-1 8, ed.
1806, 401-12, ed. 1853. Simrock, Die deutschen Volks-
bucher. III, 1-48.
42. CLERK COLVILL
373
tenau, Baden, four leagues from Strassburg),
when riding to mass one Whitsunday, saw a
lady of surpassing beauty, di'essed with equal
magnificence, sitting on a rock by the wayside.
He became instantaneously enamored, and,
greeting the lady in terms expressive of his
admiration, received no discouraging reply.
The lady rose ; the knight sprang from his
horse, took a hand which she offered, helped
her from the rock, and they sat down on the
grass. The knight asked how she came to be
there alone. The lady replied that she had
been waiting for him : ever since he could be-
stride a horse she had been devoted to him ;
she had been his help and protection in tour-
neys and fights, in all climes and regions,
though he had never seen her. The knight
wished he might ever be hers. He could have
his wish, she said, and never know trouble or
sickness, on one condition, and that was that
he never should marry : if he did this, he would
die in three days. He vowed to be hers as
long as he lived ; they exchanged kisses, and
then she bade him mount his horse and go to
mass. After the benediction he was to return
home, and when he was alone in his chamber,
and wished for her, she would come, and so
always ; that privilege God had given her :
"swSi ich wil, dfi, bin ich." They had their
meeting when he returned from church : he
redoubled his vows, she promised him all good
things, and the bounties which he received
from her overflowed upon all his friends and
comrades.
The knight now undertook a chivalrous
tour, to see such parts of the world as he liad
not visited before. Wherever he went, the fair
lady had only to be wished for and she was by
him : there was no bound to her love or her
gifts. Upon his return he was beset by rela-
tives and friends, and urged to marry. He
put them off with excuses : he was too young
to sacrifice his freedom, and what not. They
returned to the charge before long, and set a
wise man of his kindred at him to beg a boon
of him. " Anything," he said, " but mar-
rying: rather cut me into strips than that."
Having silenced his advisers by this reply, he
went to his closet and wished for his lady.
She was full of sympathy, and thought it
might make his position a little easier if he
should tell his officious friends something of
the real case, how he had a wife who attended
him wherever he went and was the source of
all his prosperity ; but he must not let them
persuade him, or what she had predicted would
surely come to pass.
At this time a king was to be chosen at
Frankfurt, and all the nobility flocked thither,
and among them Staufenberg, with a splendid
train. He, as usual, was first in all tourneys,
and made himself remarked for his liberal
gifts and his generous consideration of youth-
ful antagonists: his praise was in everybody's
mouth. The king sent for him, and offered
him an orphan niece of eighteen, with a rich
dowry. The knight excused himself as un-
worthy of such a match. The king said his
niece must accept such a husband as he pleased
to give, and many swore that Staufenberg was
a fool. Bishops, who were there in plenty,
asked him if he had a wife already. Staufen-
berg availed himself of the leave which had
been given him, and told his whole story, not
omitting that he was sure to die in three days
if he married. " Let me see the woman," said
one of the bishops. " She lets nobody see her
but me," answered Staufenberg. " Then it is
a devil," said another of the clergy, " and your
soul is lost forever." Staufenberg yielded, and
said he would do the king's will. He was
betrothed that very hour, and set out for Or-
tenau, where he had appointed the celebration
of the nuptials. When night came he wished
for the invisible lady. She appeared, and told
him with all gentleness that he must prepare
for the fate of which she had forewarned him,
a fate seemingly inevitable, and not the con-
sequence of her resentment. At the wedding
feast she would display her foot in sight of all
the guests : when he saw that, let him send
for the priest. The knight thought of what
the clergy had said, and that this might be a
cheat of the devil. The bride was brought
to Staufenberg, the feast was held, but at the
very beginning of it a foot whiter than ivory
was seen through the ceiling. ' Staufenberg
tore his hair and cried, Friends, ye have ruined
874
42. CLERK COLVILL
yourselves and me ! He begged his bride and
all who had come with her to the wedding to
stay for his funeral, ordered a bed to be pre-
pared for him and a priest to be sent for. He
asked his brothers to give his bride all that he
had promised her. But she said no ; his friends
should rather have all that she had brought ;
she would have no other husband, and since
she had been the cause of his death she would
go into a cloister, where no eye should see
her : which she did after she had returned to
her own country.
A superscription to the old poem denomi-
nates Staufenberg's amphibious consort a mer-
fey, sea-fairy; but that description is not to
be strictly interpreted, no more than mer-fey,
or fata morgana, is in some other romantic
' tales. There is nothing of the water-sprite in
her, nor is she spoken of by any such name
in the poem itself. The local legends of sixty
years ago,* and perhaps still, make her to have
been a proper water-nymph. She is first met
with by the young knight near a spring or a
brook, and it is in a piece of water that he
finds his death, and that on the evening of his
wedding day.
Clei"k Colvill and the mermaid are repre-
sented by Sir Oluf and an elf in Scandinavian
ballads to the number of about seventy. The
oldest of these is derived from a Danish man-
uscript of 1550, two centuries and a half later
than the Staufenbei'g poem, but two earlier
than Clerk Colvill, the oldest ballad outside
of the Scandinavian series. Five other ver-
sions are of the date 1700, or earlier, the rest
from tradition of this century. No ballad
has received more attention from the heroic
Danish editor, whose study of ' Elveskud '
presents an admirably ordered synoptic view
of all the versions known up to 1881 : Grundt-
vig, No 47, II, 109-19, 663-66 ; III, 824-26 ;
IV, 835-74.1
The Scandinavian versions are :
Faroe, four: A, 39 sts, B, 24 sts, C, 18 sts,
D, 23 sts, Grundtvig, IV, 849-52.
Icelandic, twelve, differing slightly except
at the very end: A, ' KvgeSi af 6lafi Li]jur6s,'
24 sts, MS. of 1665 ; B, C, MS. of about 1700,
20 sts, 1 St. ; D, 18 sts ; E, 17 sts ; P, G, 16 sts ;
H, ' (5lafs kvajSi,' 22 sts ; la, 18 sts ; I b,
20 sts ; K, 22 sts ; L, 24 sts ; M, 25 sts.
These in Islenzk fornkvseSi, pp 4-10, A a
in full, but only the variations of the other
versions. I b, previously, ' 6lafur og dlfa-
mger,' Berggreen, Danske Folke-Sange og Me-
lodier, 2d ed., pp 56, 57, No 20 d ; and M,
» Sn6t, p. 200."
Danish, twenty-six : ' Elveskud ' A, 54 sts,
MS. of 1550, Grundtvig, II, 112 ; B, 25 sts,
Syv No 87 (1695), Danske Viser, I, 237,
Grundtvig, II, 114 ; C, 29 sts, the same, II,
115; D a, D b, 31, 15 sts, II, 116, 665;
E-G, 20, 16, 8 sts, II, 117-19; H, I, 32, 25
sts, II, 663-64 ; K, 29 sts, L, 15 sts, M, 27
sts, N, 16 sts, O, 33 sts, P, 22 sts, Q, 7 sts,
R, 22 sts, S, 32 sts, T, 27 sts, U, 25 sts,
V, 18 sts, X, 11 sts, Y, 11 sts, Z, 8 sts, ^,
23 sts, IV, 835-47 ; 0, 10 sts, Boisen, Nye og
gamle Viser, 1875, p. 191, No 98.
Swedish, eight: A, 15 sts, ' Elf-Qvinnan och
Herr Olof,' MS. of seventeenth century, Af-
zelius, III, 165 ; B, 12 sts, ' Herr Olof i Elf-
vornas dans,' Afzelius, III, 160 ; C, 18 sts,
Afzelius, III, 162 ; D, 21 sts, ' Herr Olof och
Elfvorna,' Arwidsson, II, 304 ; E, 20 sts, Ar-
widsson, II, 307 ; P, 19 sts, Grundtvig, IV,
848; G, 12 sts, 'Herr Olof och Elffrun,'
Djurklou, p. 94 ; H, 8 sts, Afzelius, Sago-Haf-
der, ed. 1844, ii, 157.
Norwegian, eighteen : A, 39 sts, ' Olaf
Liljukrans,' Landstad, p. 355 ; B, 15 sts,
Landstad, p. 843 ; C-S, collections of Professor
Bugge, used in manuscript by Grundtvig ; C,
36 sts, partly printed in Grundtvig, HI, 824 ;
D, 23 sts, Grundtvig, HI, 824-25, partly ; B,
22 sts ; F, 11 sts ; G, 27 sts ; H, 13 sts ; I,
7 sts ; K, 4 sts, two printed, ib., p. 824.|
Of these the Fiirbe versions are nearest to
the English. Olaf's mother asks him whither
he means to ride ; his corselet is hanging in
/
■y
* Engelhardt, pp 6, 13 f: Sagen aus Baden und der Um-
gegend, Carlsruhe, 1834, pp 107-122.
t Separately printed, under the title, Elveskud, dansk,
8ven8k, norsk, fseresk, islandsk, skotsk, vendisk, bamisk.
tysk, fransk, italiensk, katalonsk, spansk, bretonsk Folke-
vise, i overblik ved Svend Grundtvig. Kjabenhavn, 1881.
X All the Norse versions are in two-line stanzas.
42. CLERK OOLVILL
375
the loft ; A, C, D. "I am going to the heath,
to course the hind," he says. " You are not
going to course the hind ; you are going to your
leman. White is your shirt, well is it washed,
but bloody shall it be when it is taken off,"
A, D. " God grant it be not as she bodes ! "
exclaims Olaf, as he turns from his mother,
A. He rides to the hills and comes to an elf-
house. An elf comes out, braiding her hair,
and invites him to dance. " You need not
braid your hair for me ; I have not come a-woo-
ing," he says. " I must quit the company of
elves, for to-morrow is my bridal." " If you
will have no more to do with elves, a sick
bridegroom shall you be ! Would you rather
lie seven years in a sick-bed, or go to the
mould to-morrow ? " He would rather go to
the mould to-morrow. The elf brought him
a drink, with an atter-corn, a poison grain,
floating in it : at the first draught his belt
burst A, B*. " Kiss me," she said, " before
you ride." He leaned over and kissed her,
though little mind had he to it : she was be-
guiling him, him so sick a man. His mother
came out to meet liim : " Why are you so pale,
as if you had been in an elf-dance?" "I have
been in an elf-dance," he said,* went to bed,
turned his face to the wall, and was dead be-
fore midnight. His mother and his love (moy,
vfv) died thereupon.
Distinct evidence of previous converse with
elves is lacking in the Icelandic versions.
Olaf rides along the cliffs, and comes upon an
elf-house. One elf comes out with her hair
twined with gold, another with a silver tank-
ard, a third in a silver belt, and a fourth wel-
comes him by name. " Come into the booth
and drink with us." " I will not live with
elves," says Olaf ; " rather will I believe in
God." The elf answers that he might do
both, excuses herself for a moment, and comes
back in a cloak, which hides a sword. " You
shall not go without giving us a kiss," she
* In 'Jomfruen og Dvsergekongen/ C 25, 26, Grundt-
vig, No 37, the woman who has been carried off to the hill,
wishing to die, asks that atter-corns may be put into her
drink. She evidently gets, however, only the villar-konn,
elvar-konn, of Landstad, Nos 42-45, which are of lethean
property. But iu J. og D. F, we may infer an atter-corn,
though none is mentioned, from the effect of the draughts,
says. Olaf leans over his saddle-bow and
kisses her, with but half a heart, and she
thrusts the sword under his shoulder-blade
into the roots of his heart. He sees his heart's
blood under his horse's feet, and spurs home
to his mother. " Whence comest thou, my
son, and why so pale, as if thou hadst been in
an elf-dance (leik) ? " " It boots not to hide
it from thee : an elf has beguiled me. Make
my bed, mother ; bandage my side, sister."
He dies presently : there was more mourning
than mirth ; three were borne to the grave
together.
Nearly all the Danish and Swedish ver-
sions, and a good number of the Norwegian,
interpose an affecting scene between the death
of the hero and that of his bride and his
mother. The bride, on her way to Olaf's
house, and on her arrival, is disconcerted and
alarmed by several ominous proceedings or
circumstances. She hears bells tolling; sees
people weeping ; sees men come and go, but
not the bridegroom. She is put off for a time
with false explanations, but in the end dis-
covers the awful fact. Such a passage occurs
in the oldest Danish copy, which is also the
oldest known copy of the ballad. The im-
portance of this version is such that the story
requires to be given with some detail.
Oluf rode out before dawn, but it seemed to
him bright as day.f He rode to a hill where
dwarfs were dancing. A maid stepped out
from the dance, put her arm round his neck,
and asked him whither he would ride. " To
talk with my true-love," said he. " But first,"
said she, " you must dance with us." She then
went on to make him great offers if he would
plight himself to her : a horse that would
go to Rome and back in an hour, and a gold
saddle for it; a new corselet, having which
he never need fly from man ; a sword such
as never was used in war. Such were all her
benches as if gold were laid in links, and such
which is that belt, stays, and sark successively burst. See
p. 363 f.
t So, also, Swedish A, F, Norwegian A, C. This is a
cantrip sleight of the elves. The Icelandic bnrden supposes
this illumination, " The low was burning red ; " and when
Olaf seeks to escape, in Norwegian A, C, E, G, I, K, he has
to make his way through the clf-damc, elvelogL
376
42. CLERK COLVILL
r
were all her drawbridges as the gold on his
hands. " Keep your gold," he answered ; " I
will go home to my true-love." She struck
him on the cheek, so that the blood spattered
his coat ; she struck him midshoulders, so
that he fell to the ground : " Stand up, Oluf,
and ride home ; you shall not live more than a
day." He turned his horse, and rode home
a shattei'ed man. His mother was at the gate :
" Why comest thou home so sad ? " " Dear
mother, take my horse ; dear brother, fetch a
priest." " Say not so, Oluf ; many a sick man
does not die. To whom do you give your
betrothed ? " " Rise, my seven brothers, and
ride to meet my young bride."
As the bride's train came near the town,
they heard the bells going. " Why is this ? "
slie asked, her heart already heavy with pain ;
" I know of no one having been sick." They
told her it was a custom there to receive a
bride so. But when she entered the house, all
the women were weeping. " Why are these
ladies weeping?" No one durst answer a
woi-d. The bride went on into the hall, and
took her place on the bride-bench. "I see,"
she said, "knights go and come, but I see not
my lord Oluf." The mother answered, Oluf
is gone to the wood with hawk and hound.
" Does he care more for hawk and hound than
for his young bride ? "
At evening they lighted the torches as if to
conduct the bride to the bride-bed ; but Oluf's
page, who followed his lady, revealed the truth
on the way. " My lord," he said, "lies on his
bier above, and you are to give your troth to
his brother." " Never shalt thou see that day
that I shall give my troth to two brothers."
She begged the ladies that she might see the
dead. They opened the door ; she ran to the
bier, threw back the cloth, kissed the body
precipitately ; her heart broke in pieces ; griev-
l^ ous was it to see.
Danish B, printed by Syv in 1695, is the
copy by which the ballad of the Elf-shot has
* Grundtvig remarks that Herder's translation, ' Erlko-
nigs Tochter,' Volkslieder, II, 158, took so well with the
Germans that at last it came to pass for an original German
ballad. The Wunderhorn, I, a61, ed. 1806, gives it with the
title, ' Herr Olof,' as from a flying sheet {= Schcrer's
Deutsche Volkslieder, I85I, p. 371). It appears, with some
become so extensively known since Herder's
time, through his translation and others.*
The principal variations of the Scandinavian
ballads, so far as they have not been given,
now remain to be noted.
The hero's name is mostly Oluf, Ole, or a
modification of this, Wolle, Rolig, Voider ;
sometimes witli an appendage, as Faroe (3la-
vur Riddarards, Ri^sinkrans, Icelandic dlafur
Liljur6s, Norwegian Olaf Liljukrans, etc. It
is Peder in Danish H, I, O, P, Q, R, ^.
Excepting the Faroe ballads, Oluf is not
distinctly represented as having had previous
acquaintance with the elves. In Swedish A 5 '
he says, I cannot dance with you, my betrothed
has forbidden me ; in Danish C, I should be
very glad if I could ; to-morrow is my wed-
ding-day.
The object of his riding out is to hunt, or
the like, in Danish D b, E, F, I, R, T, X, Y ;
to bid guests to his wedding, Danish B, C,
D a, a, H, K-N, P, S, U, V, 0, Norwegian
A, B.
He falls in with dwarfs, Danish A, H, Nor-
wegian A ; trolds, Danish I ; elves and dwarfs,
Norwegian B, and a variation of A : elsewhere
it is elves.
There is naturally some diversity in the gifts
which the elf offers Oluf in order to induce him
to dance with her. He more commonly replies
that the offer is a handsome one, 'kan jeg vel
f&,' but dance with her he cannot ; sometimes
that his true-love has already given him that,
or two, three, seven such, Danish D a, I, T,
X, Y.
If he will not dance with her, the elf threat-
ens him with sore sickness, Danish B, E, H, Z,
0, Norwegian A, Swedish E, P ; a great mis-
fortune, Danish P, Swedish A ; sharp knives,
Danish P ; it shall cost him his young life,
Danish D a, b, T, Y.
Oluf dances with the elves, obviously under
compulsion, in Danish C, D, G-N, S, T, U, X, Y,
Swedish P, and only in these. He dances till
little changes, iu Zarnack's Deutsche Volkslieder, 1819,1,
29, whence it passed into Erlach, IV, 6, and Richter und
Marschuer, p. 60. Kretzschmer has the translation, again,
with a variation here and there, set to a " North German "
and to a " Westphalian " air, p. 8, p. 9.
42. CLEBK COLVILL
377
both bis boots are full of blood, D a 15, D b 4,
G 5, I 11, K 5, L 5, M 6, N 7, S 6 [shoes],
T 10, U 5, X 8, Y 7 ; he dances so long that
he is nigh dead, I 12.
Tiie hard choice between dying at once or
lying sick seven years is found, out of the
Faroe ballads, only in Danish H 8, M 8, O 4,
Q 2, S 8. Norwegian ballads, like English
C, present an option between living with elves
and dying, essentially a repetition of the terms
under which Peter of Staufenberg weds the
fairy, that he shall forfeit his life if he takes a
mortal wife. So Norwegian
A 12 Whether wilt thou rather live with the
elves,
Or leave the elves, a sick man ?
13 Whether wilt thou be with the elves,
Or bid thy guests and be sick ?
B 9 Whether wilt thou stay with the elves.
Or, a sick man, flit [bring home] thy true-
love?
10 Wliether wilt thou be with elves,
Or, a sick man, flit thy bride ?
There is no answer.
Norwegian C, B, Q-, I resemble A. H is
more definite.
-^ . . ^
/ 6 Whether wilt thou go oflE sick, " under isle,"
Or wilt thou marry an elf-maid ?
7 Whether wilt thou go off sick, under hill,
Or wUt thou marry an elf-wife ?
l^
To which Olaf answers that he lists not to go
off a sick man, and he cannot marry an elf.
The two last stanzas of English C, which
correspond to these,
'WUl ye he there an die, Clerk CoUn,
Will ye lie there an die ?
Or will ye gang to Clyde's water,
To fish in flood wi me ? '
' I win lie here an die,' he said,
' I will lie here an die ; .
In spite o a' the deils in hell,
I will lie here an die,'
48
may originally have come in before the mer-
maid and the clerk parted ; but her visit to
him as he lies in bed is paralleled by that of
the fairy to Staufenberg after he has been
persuaded to give up what he had been
brought to regard as an infernal liaison; and
certainly Clerk Colin's language might lead
us to think that some priest had been with
him, too.
Upon Oluf's now seeking to make his escape
through the elves' flame, ring, dance, etc.,
Norwegian A, B, C, B, G, I, H, K, the elf-
woman strikes at him with a gold band, her
wand, hand, a branch or twig ; gives him a
blow on the cheek, between the shoulders,
over his white neck ; stabs him in the heart,
gives him knife-strokes five, nine ; sickness fol-
lows the stroke, or blood : Danish A, B, F, N,
O, R, V, Z, -ffi, 0, Swedish D, G, Norwegian
A-E, H, I, Icelandic. The knife-stabs are de-
layed till the elves have put him on his horse
in Danish D, G, X ; as he sprang to his horse
the knives rang after him, H. "Ride home,"
they say, "you shall not live more than a day"
[five hours, two hours], Danish A, C, K-N, S,
U, V. His hair fades, Danish E ; his cheek
pales, Danish B, Norwegian A ; sickness fol-
lows him home, Swedish A, C, D, B ; the blood
is running out of the wound in his heart,
Swedish G; when he reaches his father's house
both his boots are full of blood, Danish R, ^.
His mother [father] is standing without,
and asks, Why so pale ? Why runs the blood
from thy saddle ? Oluf, in some instances,
pretends that his horse, not being sure-footed,
had stumbled, and thrown him against a tree,
but is told, or of himself adds, that he has
been among the elves. He asks one or the
other of his family to take his horse, bring a
priest, make his bed, put on a bandage. He
says he shall never rise from his bed, Swedish
C, Danish F ; fears he shall not live till the
priest comes, Danish O, P.
The important passage which relates the
arrival of the bride, the ominous circumstances A
at the bridegroom's house, the attempts to keep
the bride in ignorance of his death, and her
final discovery that she is widowed before
marriage, occupies some thirty stanzas in Dan-
378
42. CLERK COLVILL
ish A, the oldest of all copies ; in Danish B
it is reduced to six ; in other Danish versions
it has a range of fi'om fifteen to two; but,
shorter or longer, it is found in all versions
but R, 0, and the fragments G, L, Q, X, Z.
All the Swedish versions have a similar scene,
extending from three to nine stanzas, with the
exception of G and of A, which latter should
perhaps be treated as a fragment. In Nor-
wegian A, again, this part of the story fills
ten stanzas ; B lacks it, but C-H (which have
not been published in full) have it, and prob-
ably other unpublished copies.
The bride is expected the next day, Danish
D, P, I, K, N, O, S, T, U, Swedish A, D.
In Danish A Okif begs his brothers, shortly
after his reaching home, to set out to meet Iier;
he fears she may arrive that very night, Dan-
ish ^. " What shall I answer your young
bride ? " asks the mothei-, Danish B, C, D, etc.,
Swedish H. " Tell her that I have gone to
the wood, to hunt and shoot, to try my horse
and my dogs," Danish B, C, I>, F, H, I, K, O,
S, T, U, Swedish D, H, Norwegian A, L ;
in Danish N only, " Say I died in the night."
Oluf now makes his will ; he wishes to assign
his bride to his brother, Danish L, O, R, Nor-
wegian C, F ; he dies before the bride can
come to him. (Norwegian F seems to have
gone wrong here.)
The bride, with her train, comes in the morn-
ing, Danish B, D, E, I, M, T, Swedish D,
Norwegian D ; Swedish C makes her wait for
her bridegroom several days. As she passes
through the town the bells are tolling, and
she anxiously asks why, Danish A, K, O, S,
U ; she is told that it is a custom there to
ring when the bride comes, Danish A, Swed-
ish B. In Danish H, though it is day, she
sees a light burning in Oluf's chambei', and
this alarms her. When she comes to the
house, Oluf's mother is weeping, all the ladies
are weeping, or there are other signs of grief,
Danish A, C, H, U, M. When she asks the
reason, no one can answer, or slie is told that
a woman, a fair knight, is dead. A, C, H.
Now she asks. Where is Oluf, who should
have come to meet me, should have been hei-e
to receive me ? Danish K, O, S, U, D, E, I, T,
etc. They conduct the bride into the hall
and seat her on the bride bench ; knights
come and go ; they pour out mead and wine.
" Where is Oluf," she asks again ; the mother
replies, as best she can, that Oluf is gone
to the wood, Danish B, H, Norwegian A, D,
Swedish H, etc. " Does he then care more
for that than for his bride ? " Danish A, D, I,
M, etc., Swedish C, D, Norwegian A, E, G.
The truth is now avowed that Oluf is dead,
Danish A, D, I, T, Y, ^, Swedish B, Norwe-
gian G. The bride begs that she may see the
dead, Danish A, C, P, ^, Swedish F, Nor-
wegian D, B, and makes her way to the room
where Oluf is lying. She puts aside the
cloths that cover him, or the curtains, or the
flowers, Danish A, B, K, V, etc., Swedish C,
D, Norwegian C, D, E, G ; says a word or two
to her lover, Danish A, C, E, H, Swedish E,
F, Norwegian G; kisses him, Danish A, C, H;
her heart breaks, Danish A, C ; she swoons
dead at his feet, Danish K, M, S, U. In Nor-
wegian A, G, D, she kills herself with Olaf's
sword ; in Swedish E, with her own knife. In
Danish R she dies in Oluf's mother's arms.
On the morrow, when it was day, in Oluf's
house three corpses lay : the first was Oluf, the
second his maid, the third his mother, of grief
was she dead : Danish, Swedish, Norwegian,
passim*
Breton ballads preserve the story in a form
closely akin to the Scandinavian, and partic-
ularly to the oldest Danish version. I have
seen the following, all from recent tradition :
A, C, ' Ann Aotro ar C'hont,' ' Le Seigneur
* Owing to a close resemblance of circumstances in ' The
Elf-shot,' in 'Fiillens Hievn ' ('The Leman's Wreak'),
Grundtvig, No 208, and in ' Hibold og Guldborg,' Grundtvig,
No 82, these ballads naturally have details in common. The
pretence that the horse was not sure-footed and hurtled his
rider agaiust a tree ; the request to mother, father, etc., to
make the bed, take care of the horse, ajjply a bandage, send
for a priest, etc.; the testament, the assignment of the bride
by the dying man to his brother, and her declaration that she
will never give her troth to two brothers ; and the nearly
simultaneous death of hero, bride, and mother, occur in
many versions of both Elveskud and Ribold, and most of
them in Frillens HiEvn. A little Danish ballad, ' Hr. Olufs
])0d,' cited by Grundtvig, IV, 847, seems to be Elveskud
with the elf-shot omitted.
42 CLERK COLVILL
379
Comte,' Luzel, I, J, |f, fifty-seven and fifty-
nine two-line stanzas. B, ' Ann Aotro Nann,'
'Le Seignenr Nann,' Luzel, I, if, fifty-seven
stanzas.* D, ' Aotrou Nann hag ar Gorrigan,'
' Le Seigneur Nann et la F^e,' Villemarqu^,
p. 25, ed. 1867, thirty-nine stanzas. E, ' Mon-
sieur Nann,' Podsies populaires de la France,
MS.,V, fol. 381, fifty-three verses. F, 'Sonen
Gertrud guet hi Vam,' ' Chant de Gertrude et
de sa M6re,' L. Kdrardven [=Dufilhol], Gui-
onvac'h. Etudes sur la Bretagne, 2d ed., Paris,
1835, p. 362, p. 13, eleven four-line stanzas.
G, Rolland in Romania, XIL 117, a somewhat
abridged literal translation, in French.
The count [Nann] and his wife were mar-
ried at the respective ages of thirteen and
twelve. The next year a son was born [a
boy and girl, D]. The young husband asked
the countess if she had a fancy for anytliing.
She owned that she should like a bit of game,
and he took his gun [lance] and went to the
wood. At the entrance of the wood he met
' a fairy [a dwarf, E ; a hind, G ; saw a white
hind, which he pursued hotly till evening,
when lie dismounted near a grotto to drink,
and there was a korrigan, sitting by the spring,
combing her hair with a gold comb, D]. The
fairy [dwarf, hind] said that she had long
been looking for him. A, B, C, E, G. " Now
that I have met you, you must marry me." f
" Marry you ? Not I. I am married already."
" Choose either to die in three days or to lie
sick in bed seven [three] years " [and then
die, C]. He would rather die in three days,
for his wife is very young, and would suffer
greatly [he would rather die that instant than
wed a korrigan, D].
On reaching home the young man called
to his mother to make his bed ; he should
never get up again. [His mother, in C 21,
says. Do not weep so : it is not every sick
man that dies, as in Danish A 22.] He re-
counted his meeting with the fairy, and begged
that his wife might not be informed of his
death.
The countess asked, What has happened to
my husband, that he does not come to see
me ? She was told that he liad gone to the
wood to get her something, A [to Paris, C ; to
the city, D]. Why were the men-servants
weeping ? The best horse had been drowned
in bathing him. A, B ; had been eaten by the
wolves, B ; had broken his neck, C ; had died,
P. They were not to weep ; others should be
bought. And why were the maids weeping ?
Linen had been lost in washing, A, C, E, P ;
the best silver cover had been stolen, P. They
must not weep ; the loss would be supplied.
Why were the priests chanting ? [the bells
tolling, E, P]. A poor person whom they
had lodged had died in the night, A-E [a
young prince had died, P]. What dress should
she wear for her churching, — red or blue ?
D, P.J The custom had come in of wearing
black [she asks for red, they give her black,
P]. On arriving at the church, or cemetery,
she saw that the earth had been disturbed ;
her pew was hung with black, B ; why was
this? "I can no longer conceal it," said her
mother-in-law : " your husband is dead." She
died upon the spot. A, D. " Take my keys,
take care of my son ; I will stay with his fa-
ther," B, C. " Your son is dead, your daughter
is dead," P. §
This ballad has spread, apparently from /
Brittany, over all France. No distinct trace I
of the fairy remains, however, except in a sin- ,
gle case. The versions that have been made I
* Luzel was in possession of other versions, but he assures
us that every detail is contained in one or the other of these
three.
t B 13, " You must marry me straightway, or give me
my weight in silver ; " then, " or die in three days," etc. It
is not impossible that this stanza, entirely out of place in this
ballad, was derived from ' Le Comte dcs Chapelles,' Luzel,
p. 457, from which certain French versions have taken a part
of their story. See Luzel, the eighth and ninth stanzas, on
p. 461.
J B 50, " A white gown, or broget, or my violet petti-
coat 1" Luzel says he does not understand iro^ef, and in
his Observations, prefixed to the volume, expresses a conjec-
ture that it must have been altered from droged, robe d'en-
fant, robe de femme, but we evidently want a color. Grundt-
vig remarks that broget would make sense in Danish, where
it means party-colored. Scotch broakit is black and white.
Icelandic brdk, tartan, party-colored cloth, is said to be from
Gaelic breac, versicolor (Vigfusson). This points to a soita-
ble meaning for Breton broget.
§ D adds : " It was a marvel to see, the night after hus-
band and wife had been buried, two oaks rise from the com-
mon tomb, and on their branches two white doves, which [
sang there at daybreak, and then took flight for the sl^ies."
380
42. CLERK COLVILL
public, so far as they have come to my knowl-
edge, are as follows, resemblance to the Bre-
ton ballad principally directing the arrange-
ment.
A. ' Le fils Louis,' Vendee, pays de Retz,
Poesies populaires de la France, MS., Ill, fol.
118, printed in Romania, XI, 100, 44 verses.
B. Normandy, 1876, communicated by Le-
grand to Romania, X, 372, 61 verses. C.
" Forez, Frdd^ric Noelas, Annales de la Soci-
6t6 imperiale d'agriculture, Industrie, sciences,
arts et belles-lettres du d^jpartement de la Loire,
Ann^e 1865, p. 210, 64 verses," Grundtvig, IV,
867-70. D. Victor Smith, Chants populaires
du Velay et du Forez, Romania, X, 583, 68
verses. E. The same, p. 581, 64 verses. P.
Saint-Denis, Poes. pop. de la France, III, fol.
103, Romania, XI, 98, 74 verses, as sung by
a young girl, her mother and grandmother.
G. Poitou et Vendue, Etudes historiques et
artistiques par B. Fillon et O. De Rochbrune,
7*-10* livraisons, Fontenay-le-Comte, 1865,
article Nalliers, pp 17, 18, nineteen four-line
stanzas and a couplet ; before by B. Fillon in
" L'Histoire v^ridique des fraudes et ex^crables
voleries et subtilitds de Guillery, depuis sa nais-
sance jusqu'a la juste punition de ses crimes,
Fontenay, 1848," extracted in Po^js. pop.. Ill,
fol. 112 ; other copies at fol. 108 and at fol. 116 ;
Romania, XI, 101, 78 verses. H. Bourbonnais,
Po^s. pop. Ill, fol. 91, Romania, XI, 108, 38
verses, sung by a woman seventy-two years old.
I. Bretagne, Loudeac, Pods, pop.. Ill, fol. 121,
Romania, XI, 103 f, 64 verses. J. Pods, pop..
Ill, fol. 285, Romania, XH, 115 (I), 50 verses.
K. Bretagne (?), Romania, XII, 115 f, 36
verses. L. V. Smith, Chants pop. du Velay
et du Foi-ez, Romania, X, 582. 57 verses.
M. ' Le roi Renaud,' Fldvy, Puyraaigre, I,
39, 78 verses. N. Touraine, Bldrd, Brachet
in Revue Critique, II, 125, 60 verses. O. The
same, variations of a later version. P. ' L'Ar-
naud ITnfant,' Limoges, Laforest, Limoges
au XVII« siecle, 1862, p. 300, Pods, pop., Ill,
fol. 95, Romania, XI, 104, 82 verses. Q. Clia-
rente, Pods, pop.. Ill, fol. 107, Romania, XI,
99, 60 verses. R. Cambes, Lot-et-Garonne,
Romania, XII, 116, 46 verses. S. Jura, Revue
des Deux Mondes, 1854, Aout, p. 486, 50
verses. T. Rouen, Pods. pop. Ill, fol. 100,
Romania, XI, 102, 60 verses, communicated
bv a gentleman who at the berrinning of the
century had learned the ballad from an aunt,
who had received it from an aged nun. U. a,
Buchon, Noels et Chants populaires de la
Franche-Comtd, p. 85, 34 verses ; b, Tarbd,
Romancero de Cliampagne, Vol. II, Chants
Populaires, p. 125, 32 verses; c, G. de Ner-
val, La Boheme Galante, ed. 1866, p. 77, Les
Filles du Feu, ed. 1868, p. 130, 30 verses ;
d, ' Jean Renaud,' Bujeaud, Chants et Chan-
sons populaires des Provinces de I'Ouest, II,
213, 32 verses. V. Pods, pop.. Ill, fol. 122,
Romania, XI, 100 f, 32 verses. W. Le Bld-
sois. Ampere, Instructions, etc., p. 37, 36
verses. X. Provence, Pods, pop., Ill, fol. 114,
Romania, XI, 105, 44 verses. Y. ' Lou Counte
Arnaud,' Bives, Gers, Bladd, Pods. pop. de
la Gascogne, II, ^§f, 48 verses. Z. Vagney,
Vosges, Mdlusine, p. 75, 44 verses. AA.
Cambes, Lot-et-Gai-onne, Romania, XII, 116 f,
40 verses. BB. Quercy, Sdrignac, Pods, pop.,
Romania, XI, 106, 34 verses. CO. Quercy,
Pods, pop., Romania, XI, 107, 26 verses. DD.
Bretagne, Villemarqud, Barzaz-Breiz, ed. 1846,
I, 46, 12 verses. EE. Orldans, Pods, pop.. Ill,
fol. 102, Romania, XI, 107, 10 verses. FP.
Auvergne, Pods, pop.. Ill, fol. 89, Romania,
XI, 107 f, 6 verses. GG. Boulonnais, 'La Bal-
lade du Roi Renaud,' E. Hamy, in Almanach
de Boulogne-sur-Mer pour 1863, p. 110 (com-
pounded from several versions), 16 four-line
stanzas.*
The name of the hero in the French ballad
is mostly Renaud, or some modification of
Renaud : Jean Renaud, G, H, U ; Renom,
AA; Arnaud, C, B, L, Y, BB ; L'Arnaud
rinfant, P; Louis Renaud, brother of Jean, P.
* It will be observed that some of the Renaad ballads in
the Poesies populaires de la France were derived from ear-
lier publications : such as were communicated by collectors
appear to have been sent in in 1852 or X853. The versions
cited by Rathery, Revue Critique, II, 287 ff, are all from the
MS. Poesies populaires. BB, CC have either been over-
looked by me in turning over the first five volumes, or occur
in vol. vi, which has not yet been received. GG came to
hand too late to be ranked at its proper place.
42. CLERK COLVILL
381
It is Louis in A, I, J, V. He is king, or of the
royal family, F, M, N, O, Q, "W, BB, CC, GG ;
count, Y ; Renaud le grand, H, Z. In A,
while he is walking in his meadows, he meets
Death, who asks him, peremptorily, Would
you rather die this very night, or languish
seven years ? and he answers that he prefers
to die at once. Here there is a very plain
trace of the older fairy. He is mortally hurt,
while hunting, by a wolf, B ; by a boar, DD.
But in more than twenty versions he returns
from war, often with a horrible wound, " ap-
portant son cceur dans sa main," C ; " tenant
ses tripes dans ses mains," N ; " oque ses
tripes on sa main, sen estoumac on sen chapea,
sen cur covert de sen mentea," G- ; etc. In F,
I, J he comes home in a dying state from
prison (to which he was consigned, according
to I, for robbing a church !). In these ver-
sions the story is confused with that of an-
other ballad, existing in Breton, and very
likely in French, ' Komt ar Chapel,' ' Le
Comte des Chapelles,' Luzel, I, |ff, or 'Le
Page de Louis XIII,' Villemarqud, Barzaz-
Breiz, p. 301. A fragment of a corresponding
Italian ballad is given by Nigra, Romania,
XI, 397, No 9.
Renaud, as it will be convenient to call the
hero, coming home triste et chagrin, F, P, U b,
o, triste et bien malau, Y, receives on his ar-
riving felicitations from his mother on account
of the birth of a son. He has no heart to
respond to these : " Ni de ma femme, ni de
mon fils, je ne saurais me r^joui." He asks
that his bed may be made, with precautions
against his wife's hearing. At midnight he
is dead.
The wife, hearing the men-servants weep-
ing, asks her mother-in-law the cause. The
best horse [horses] has been found dead in
the stable, has strayed away, etc., B, D-S, GG.
" No matter for that," says the wife ; " wlien
Renaud comes he will bring better," B, D-G,
L-Q, GG. The maids are heard weeping; why
is that? They have lost, or injured, sheets
in the washing, B, D, B, G, J. When Renaud
comes we shall have better, B, D, B, G. Or
a piece of plate has been lost or broken, A,
P, H, I, K, O. [It is children with the tooth-
ache, F, U a, b, c, d]. "What is this chant-
ing which I hear ? " It is a procession, mak-
ing the tour of the house : B, D-F, L, P-X,
GG. " What gown shall I wear when I go to
church ? " Black is the color for women at
their churching, B, P, I, L, M, O, P, V, Y ;
black is more becoming, plus joli, jilus con-
venant, plus cons(?quent, A, D, H, K, N, R,
X, BB, DD, GG ; " quittez le ros', quitt(-z le
gris, prenez le noir, pour mieux choisir," etc.,
Q, W, U, B, S, T.
Besides these four questions, all of which
occur in Breton ballads, there are two which
are met with in many versions, always coming
before the last. " What is this pounding
(frapper, cogner, taper) which I hear ? " It is
carpenters, or masons, repairing some part of
the house, D, B, K, L, N, P-U, W; A, V, X,
AA; GG. "Why are the bells ringing?" For
a procession, or because a distinguished person-
age has come, has died, etc.. A, B, F-L, Q, R,
W, Y, AA, DD, GG. On the way to church [or
cemetery] herdboys or others say to one an-
other, as the lady goes by. That is the wife
of the king, the seigneur, that was buried last
night, or the like ; and the mother-in-law has
again to put aside the lady's question as to
what they were saying, D, B, G, H, L-P, S,
T, X, Y, FF, GG.
Flambeaux or candles are burning at the
church, B, V; a taper is presented to the
widow, M, or holy water, N, T, Z, GG;
the church is hung, with black, D, O, FF ;
the funeral is going on, AA, CC. " Whose is
this new monument?" " What a fine tomb!"
M, N, R, T, Z, GG. The scene in other cases
is transferred to the cemetery. "Why has
the earth been disturbed ? " " What new mon-
ument is this ? " A, DD ; C, F, I, J, P. In B
the tomb is in the garden ; in L, S, X, BB the
place is not defined.
The young wife utters a piercing shriek,
C, D, K, L, N. Open earth, split tomb, split
tiles ! A, B, Q, R, V, W, X, Y ; I will stay
with my husband, will die with my husband,
will not go back. A, C, D, M, N, Q, R, S, X,
Y, Z, BB, CC, GG. She bids her mother
take her keys, B, C, G, L, M, P, Y, BB, CC,
GG, and commits her son [children] to her
382
42. CLEKK COLVILL
kinsfolk, to bring up piously, B, G, I, J, L,
M, O, Z, BB, CO. In H, P, Q, W, X, Y the
earth opens, and in the last four it encloses
her. In K heaven is rent by her shriek, and
she sees her husband in light (who says,
strangely, that his mouth smacks of rot) ; he
bids her bring up the children as Cliristians.
Heaven opens to her prayer in AA, and a
voice cries. Wife, come up hither ! In GG the
voice from heaven says, Go to your child : I
will keep your husband safe. There are other
variations.*
G, T, I say expressly that Renaud's wife
died the next day, or after hearing three
masses, or soon after. M, O, by a feeble
modern perversion, make her go into a con-
vent.
Italian ballads cover very much the same
ground as the French. The versions hitherto
published are :
A. ' La Lavandaia,' Cento, Ferraro, Canti
popolari di Ferrara, Cento e Pontelagoscuro,
p. 52, 16 verses, Romania, XI, 397, amended.
B. ' II Cavaliere della bella Spada,' Pontelago-
scuro, Ferraro, p. 107, previously in Rivista di
Filologia romanza, II, 205, 28 verses, Roma-
nia, XI, 398. C. Piedmont, communicated by
Nigra, with other versions, to Romania, XI,
894, No 4, 48 verses. D. Romania, XI, 393 f.
No 8, 84 verses. E. Ih. p. 395, No 6, 42 verses.
P. lb. p. 392 f. No 2, 46 verses. G. ' Conte
Anzolin,' Wolf, Volkslieder aus Venetien, p.
61, 57 verses. H. Romania, XI, 396, No 7,
38 verses. I. Ih. p. 394 f. No 5, 26 verses. J.
' II re Carlino,' Ferraro, Canti popolari mon-
ferrini, p. 34, 42 verses. K. Romania, XI,
392, No 1, 20 verses. L. ' II Conte Angio-
lino,' Rovigno, Ive, Canti popolari istriani,
p. 844, 34 verses. M. ' II Conte Cagnolino,'
• In C the mother-in-law tells her daughter, austerely :
Vous aurez plutot trouvt! un mari
Que moi je n'aurai trouvcj un fils.
So E, nearly. A mother makes a like remark to the be-
trothed of a dead son in the Danish ballad of ' Ebbe Tyge-
sen,' Grundtvig, Danske Ksempeviser og Folkesange, for-
nyede i gammel Stil, 1867, p. 122, st. U. F and T conclude
with these words of the wife :
'Ma m6re, dites au fossoyenr
Qu'il creuse une fosse pour deux ;
Pontelagoscuro, Ferraro, as above, p. 84, Ri-
vista di Filologia romanza, II, 196, 36 verses.
All these are from recent tradition.
The name Rinaldo, Rinald, is found only in
I, C, and the latter has also Liiis. Liiis is the
name in E ; Carlino, Carlin, in J, H ; Angi-
olino, Anzolin, L, G ; Cagnolino, M. The
rank is king in C, B, H-K ; prince, D ; count,
G, L, M.
A and B, coiTupted fragments though they
be, retain clear traces of the ancient form of
the story, and of the English variety of that
form. Under the bridge of the Rella [Dia-
mantina] a woman is washing clothes, gh' ^
'na lavandera. A knight passes, B, and ap-
parently accosts the laundress. She moves
into the water, and the knight after her ; the
knight embraces her, A. Dowy rade he ''
hame, el va a ca tiito moja, A. In B (pass-
ing over some verses which have intruded) he
has many knife-stabs, and his horse many also.f
He asks his mother to put him to bed and his
horse into the stable, and gives directions
about his funeral.
All of the story which precedes the hero's f
return home is either omitted, D, P, J, K, L,
or abridged to a single stanza : ven da la cassa ,
lo re Rinald, ven da la cassa, 1'^ tiit feri, C ;
ven da la guerra re Rinaldo, ven da la guerra,
I'e tiit feri, I, E, H ; save that G, which like C
makes him to have been hunting (and to
have been bitten by a mad dog), adds that,
while he was hunting, his wife had given birth
to a boy. M has an entirely false beginning :
Count Cagnolino was disposed to marry, but
wished to be secure about his wife's previous
life. He had a marble statue in his garden
which moved its eyes when any girl that had
gone astray presented herself before it. The
' Et que I'espace y soil si grand
Que I'on y mette aussi I'enfant.'
The burial of father, mother, and child in a common
grave is found elsewhere in ballads, as in ' Redselille og
Medelvold,' Grundtvig, No 271, A 37, G 20, M 26, X 27.
t Shutting our eyes to other Romance versions, or, we
may say, opening them to Scandinavian ones, we might
see in these stabs the wounds made by the elf-knives in Dan-
ish D, G, H, N, O, R, X, Swedish G, Norwegian H, I.
See ' Don Joan y Don Ramon,' further on.
42. CLERK COLVILL
383
daughter of Captain Tartaglia having been
declined, for reason, and another young woman
espoused, Tartaglia killed the count while they
were hunting.
The wounded man, already feeling the ap-
proach of death, F, G, L, asks that his bed
may be made ; he shall die before the morrow,
D, F, J ; let not his wife know, F, G. The
wife asks why the men-servants, coachmen,
are weeping, and is told that they have
drowned [lost] some of the horses, C-J, M
[have burned the king's carriage, K]. We
will get others when the king comes, she an-
swers, C, D, H [when I get up, F, as in Bre-
ton A]. Why are the maids weeping ? The
maids have lost sheets or towels in washing,
F, I. K ; have scorched the shirts in ironing,
C, D, H. When the king comes, he will buy
or bring better, C, D, H [when I get up, F, as
in Breton A]. Why are the priests chant-
ing? For a great feast to-morrow, F. Why
are the carpenters at work ? They are mak-
ing a cradle for your boy, C-E, H-K. Why
do the bells ring ? A great lord is dead ; in
honor of somebody or something ; C, E-L.
Why does not Anzolin come to see me ? He
has gone a-hunting, G, L. What dress shall
I put on to go to church ? [When I get up
I shall put on red, F, I.] You in black and
I in gray, as in our country is the way, C-F,
H, I [H moda a Paris, by corruption of del
pais] ; I white, you gray, J ; you will look well
in black, M ; put on red, or put on white, or
put on black for custom's sake, G.
The children in the street say, That is the
wife of the lord who was buried, or the peo-
ple look at the lady in a marked way, C, J, G,
M ; and why is this ? For the last time the
mother-in-law puts off the question. At the
church, under the family bench, there is a
grave new made, and no%v it has to be said
that the husband is buried there, C-K, M.
A conclusion is wanting in half of the bal-
lads, and what there is is corrupted in others.
The widow commends her boy to her hus-
band's mother, G, M, and says she will die
\(nth her dear one, D, E, J, M. In C, as in
French V, she wishes to speak to her hus-
band. If the dead ever spake to the quick,
she would speak once to her dear Liiis ; if the
quick ever spake to the dead, she would speak
once to her dear husband. In G she bids the
grave unlock, that she may come into the
arms of her beloved, and then bids it close,
tliat in his anns she may stay : cf. French T,
Q, X. R, AA.
Tlie story of the Italian ballad, under the
title of 'II Conte Angiolino,' was given in
epitome by Luigi Carrer, in his Prose e Poe-
sie, Venice, 1838, IV, 81 f, before any copy
had been published (omitted in later editions).
According to Carrer's version, the lady, hear-
ing bells, and seeing from her windows the
church lighted up as for some ofiBce, extracts
the fact from her mother-in-law on the spot,
and then, going to the church and seeing her
husband's tomb, prays that it would open and
receive her.
A fragment of an Italian ballad given by
Nigra, Romania, XI, 396, No 8, describes
three card players, quarrelling over their game,
as passing from words to knives, and from
knives to pistols, and one of the party, the
king of Spain, as being wounded in the fi'ay.
He rides home with a depressed air, and asks
his mother to make his bed, for he shall be
dead at midnight and his horse at dawn.
There is a confusion of two stories here, as
will be seen from Spanish ballads which are
to be spoken of. Both .stories are mixed with
the original adventure of the mermaid in ' II
Cavaliere della bella spada,' already referred
to as B. In this last the knight has a hundred
and fifty stabs, and his horee ninety.*
Nigra has added to the valuable and beau-
tiful ballads furnished to Romania, XI, a tale
(p. 398) from the province of Turin, which
preserves the earlier portion of the Breton
story. A hunter comes upon a beautiful
woman under a rock. She requires him to
* The ballad of ' Liifrgieri,' published by Salvatori in the to me not to belong with ' Renaud,' but with the class of \/
Rasscgna Settimanale, Rome, June 22, 1879, and reprinted 'The Cruel Brother,' as already remarked of the Venetian
by Nigra In Romania, XI, 391 (a variety of ' Rizzardo ballad at p. 142.
bello,' Wolf, Volkslieder aus Venetien, p. 62, No 83), appears
384
42. CLERK OOLVILL
marry her, and is told by the hunter that he
is already married. The beautiful woman,
who is of course a fairy, presents the hunter
with a box for his wife, which he is not to
open. This box contains an explosive girdle,
intended to be her death ; and the hunter's
curiosity impelling him to examine the gift,
he is so much injured by a detonation which
follows that he can just drag himself home to
die.
Spanish. This ballad is very common in
Catalonia, and has been found in Asturias.
Since it is also known in Portugal, we may
presume that it might be recovered in other
parts of the peninsula. A. ' La bona viuda,'
Briz, Cansons de la Terra, III, 155, 32 verses.
B. ' La Viuda,' 33 verses. Mild y Fontanals, Ro-
mancerillo Catalan, 2d ed., p. 155, No 204.
C-I. lb. p. 156 f. J. lb. p. 157 f, No 204,, 36
verses. K. ' Romance de Dofia Ana,' Astu-
rias, the argument only, Amador de los Rios,
Histoi'ia Critica de la Literatura Espanola,
Vn, 446, being No 30 of that author's unpub-
lished collection.
The name of the husband is Don Joan de
Sevilla, D, Don Joan, F, Don Olalbo, I, Don
Francisco, J, Don Pedro, K. His wife, a prin-
cess, A, Q-, has given birth to a child, or is on
the eve of so doing. The gentleman is away
from home, or is about to leave home on a pil-
grimage of a year and a day. A, G ; has gone
to war, D; to a hunt, I, K. He dies just as he
returns home or is leaving home, or away from
home, in other versions, but in K comes back
in a dying condition, and begs that his state
may be concealed from his wife. The lady,
hearing a commotion in the house, and asking
the cause, is told that it is the noisy mirth of
the servants, A-D. There is music, chanting,
tolling of bells ; and this is said to be for a
great person who has died, B, D, A. In B, D,
the wife asks. Can it be for my husband ? In
J the mother-in-law explains her own sorrow-
ful demeanor as occasioned by the death of an
uncle, and we are informed that the burial
was without bells, in order that the new mother
* The version in the Recnerdos was obtained in Majorca
by Don J. M. Quadrado. The editor remarks that the em-
ployment of the articles 11 and La instead of Es and Sa
might not hear. In J only do we have the
question. Where is my husband ? He has been
summoned to court, says the mother-in-law,
where, as a favorite, he will stay a year and
ten days. When should the young mother go
to mass ? Peasants go after a fortnight,
tradesfolk after forty days, etc. ; slie, as a great
lady, will wait a year and a day, A, D, I, a
year, B, a year and ten days, J. What dress
should she wear, silk, gold tissue, silver ? etc.
Black would become her best, A, J, K. [Doiia
Ana, in K, like the lady in Italian G, resists
the suggestion of mourning, as proper only for
a widow, and appears in a costume de Pascua
florida : in some other copies also she seems to
wear a gay dress.] The people, the children,
point to her, and say, There is the widow,
and her mother-in-law parries the inquiry why
she is the object of remark ; but the truth is
avowed when they see a grave digging, and
the wife asks for whom it is, A. In J the lady
sees a monument in the church, hung with
black, reads her husband's name, and swoons.
B, C make the mother's explanation follow
upon the children's talk. In K the announce-
ment is made first by a shepherd, then con-
firmed by gaping spectators and by a rejected
lover. The widow commends her child to its
grandmothei', and says she will go to her hus-
band in heaven, A-D ; dies on the spot, K ; Don
Francisco dies in March, Dona Ana in May, J.
' Don Joan y Don Ramon ' is a ballad in
which a young man returns to his mother mor-
tally wounded, and therefore would be likely
to blend in the memory of reciters with any
other ballad in which the same incident oc-
curred. A version from the Balearic Islands
may be put first, which has not yet taken
up any characteristic part of the story of Re-
naud : Recuerdos y Bellezas de Espana, Mal-
lorca, p. 336, 1842 = Mild, 1858, p. 114, No
15, Briz, III, 172 ; Die Balearen in Wort und
Bild geschildert, by the Archduke Ludwig
Salvator, Leipzig, 1871, II, 556.*
Don Joan and Don Ramon are returning from
the chase. Don Ramon falls from his horse ;
proves it to be as old as the sixteenth century. Die Balearen,
etc., is cited after Gruudtvig.
43. CLEEK COLVILIi
385
Don Joan rides off. Don Ramon's mother sees
her son coming through a field, gathering
plants to heal his wounds. " What is the mat-
ter?" she asks; "you are pale." "I have been
bled, and they made a mistake." " III luck
to the barber ! " " Curse him not ; it is the
last time. Between me and my horse we have
nine and twenty lance thrusts ; the horse has
nine and I tlie rest. The horse will die to-
night and I in the morning. Bury him in the
best place in the stable, and me in St Eulalia ;
lay a sword crosswise over my grave, and if
it is asked who killed me, let the answer be,
Don Joan de la cassada."
There are numerous Catalan versions, and
most of them add something to this story :
Mild, 2d ed., ' El guerrero mal herido,' p. 171,
No 210, A-P, A,-Gi, A„ ; Briz, III, 171 f, two
copies. These disagree considerably as to the
cause of the hero's death, and the names are
not constant. In A, of Mild, as in the Bal-
earic ballad, Don Joan and Don Ramon are
coming from the chase, and have a passage at
lances ; Don Joan is left dead, and Don Ra-
mon is little short of it. A, B, of Mild, tell
US that Don Pedro died on the field of battle
and Don Joan came home mortally wounded.
E says that Don Joan and Don Ramon come
from the chase, but Don Joan immediately
says that he comes from a great battle. It is
battle in F„ in Ei (with Gast6 returning), and
in both the Catalan copies of Briz, the hero
being Don Joan in the first of these last, and
in the other nameless. The wounded man
says he has been badly bled. Mild, A, B, A,,
Ci, Briz 2; he and his horse have lance wounds
fifty-nine, thirty-nine, twenty-nine, etc., the
horse nine and he the rest. Mild, A, B, E, A„
Briz 1. His mother informs him that his wife
has borne a child, " a boy like the morning
star," Briz 1, and says that if he will go to
the best chamber he will find her surrounded
by dames and ladies. This gives him no pleas-
ure ; he does not care for wife, nor dames, nor
ladies, nor boys, nor morning stars : Briz 1,
Mild, A,-Gi. He asks to have his bed made,
Mild, A-D, Bi, Ci, Briz 1, 2, for he shall die at
* I do not entirely understand Professor Mila's arranf,'6-
ment of those texts which he has not printed in fall, and it
48
midnight and his horse at dawn, A-D, A„ Briz
2, and gives directions for his burial and that
of his horse. Let the bells toll when he is
dead, and when people ask for whom it is, the
answer will be. For Don Joan, Briz 1, Gast6,
Mild, Bj, who was killed in battle. Let his
arms be put over the place where his horse is
buried, and when people ask whose arms they
are his mother will say, My son's, who died
in battle, Mild A, Bi. Let a drawn sword be
laid across his grave, and let those that ask
who killed him be told, Don Joan, at the chase,
Mild, A,.*
We have, probably, to do with two different
ballads here, versions A-F of Mild's ' Guerrero
mal herido,' and Briz's second, belonging with
' Don Joan y Don Ramon,' while ApG, of
Mild, and Briz's first, represent a ballad of the
Renaud class. It is, however, possible that
the first series may be imperfect copies of the
second.
' Don Joan y Don Ramon ' has agreements
with Italian B, A : in B, particularly, we note
the hundred and fifty stabs of the knight and
the ninety of his horse.
Portuguese. A good Portuguese version,
' D. Pedro e D. Leonarda,' in fifty short
verses, unfortunately lacking the conclusion,
has been lately communicated to Romania
(XI, 585) by Leite de Vasconcellos. Dom
Pedro went hunting, to be gone a year and a
day, but was compelled to return home owing
to a malady which seized him. His mother
greets him with the information that his wife
has given birth to a son. " Comfort and
cheer her," he says, " and for me make a bed,
which I shall never rise from." The wife
asks. Where is my husband, that he does not
come to see me ? " He has gone a-hunting
for a year and a day," replies the mother.
What is this commotion in the house ? " Only
visitors." But the bells are tolling! Could
it be for my husband ? " No, no ; it is for
a feast-day." When do women go to mass
after child-birth ? " Some in three weeks and
some in two, but a lady of your rank after
a year and a day." And what color do they
is very likely that more of his copies than I have cited exhibit
some of the traits specified.
386
42 CLERK COLVILL
wear ? " Some light blue and some a thou-
sand wonders, but you, as a lady of rank, will
go in mourning." The ballad stops abruptly
with a half-pettish, half-humorous imprecation
from the daughter-in-law against the mother
for keeping her shut up so long.
There is a Shivic ballad, which, like the ver-
sions that are so popular with the Romance
nations, abridges the first part of the story,
and makes the interest turn upon the gradual
discovery of the hero's death, but in other re-
spects agrees with northern tradition.
Bohemian. A a. Erben, p. 473, No 9,
Herman a Dornicka =: Waldau, Bohmische
Granaten, I, 73, No 100; b. Celakowsky, I,
26 = Haupt u. Schmaler, I, 327. B. Erben,
p. 475. C. Moravian, Susil, p. 82, No 89 a,
' Nest'astnd svatba,' ' The Doleful Wedding.'
D. Susil, p. 83, No 89 b. E. Slovak, tela-
kowsk}', I, 80.
Wendish. A. Haupt und Schmaler, I, 31,
No 3, ' Zrudny kwas,' ' The Doleful Wed-
ding.' B. n, 131, No 182, ' Plakajuen iiew-
esta,' ' The Weeping Bride ' (the last eight
stanzas, the ten before being in no connec-
tion).
The hero on his wedding day is making
ready his horse to fetch the bride ; for he is,
as in the Scandinavian ballads, not yet a mar-
ried man. His mother, Bohemian A, ascer-
taining his intention, begs him not to go him-
self with the bridal escort. Obviously she has
a premonition of misfortune. Herman will
never invite guests, and not go for them. The
mother, in an access of passion, exclaims, If
you go, may you break your neck, and never
come back ! Here we are reminded of the
Faroe ballad. Bohemian C, D make the fore-
bodings to rise in Herman's mind, not in his
mother's. The mother opposes the match in
Bohemian B, and the sister wishes that he
may break his neck. Wendish A has nothing
of opposition or bodement before the start,
but the crows go winging about the young men
who are going for the bride, and caw a hor-
rible song, how the bridegroom shall fall from
his horse and break his neck. The train sets
off with a band of trumpets, drums, and
stringed instruments, or, Bohemian D, with a
discharge of a hundred muskets, and when
they come to a linden in a meadow Herman's
horse " breaks his foot," and the rider his
neck ; Bohemian D, when they come to a copse
in a meadow the hundred pieces are again
discharged, and Herman is mortally wounded.
His friends stand debating what they shall do.
The dying man bids them keep on : since the
bride cannot be his, she shall be his youngest
brother's, Bohemian A, C ; cf. Danish L, O,
R, Norwegian C, F. The train- arrives at the
bride's house ; the bride comes out to greet
them, but, not seeing the bridegroom, inquires
affrightedly what has become of him. They
pretend that he has remained nt home to see
to the tables. The mother is reluctant to give
them the bride, but finally yields. When the
train comes again to the linden in the mead,
Dorothy sees blood. It is Herman's ! she
cries ; but they assure her that it is the blood
of a deer that Herman had killed for the
feast. They reach Herman's house, where the
bride has an appalling reception, which need
not be particularized.
In Bohemian A, while they are at supper
(or at half-eve =: three in the afternoon), a
death-bell is heard. Dorothy turns pale.
For whom are they tolling? Surely it is for
Herman. They tell her that Herman is lying
in his room with a bad headache, and that the
bell is ringing for a child. But she guesses
the truth, sinks down and dies, a. She wears
two knives in her hair, and thrusts one of
them into her heart, b. The two are buried
in one grave. In Bohemian B the bell sounds
for the first time as the first course is brought
on, and a second time when the second course
comes. The bride is told in each case that
the knell is for a child. Upon the third sound-
ing, when the third course is brought in, they
tell her that it is for Herman. She seizes
two knives and runs to the graveyard : with
one she digs herself a grave, and with the
other stabs herself. In the Wendish fragment
B, at the first and second course Cthere is no
bell) the bride asks where the bridegroom is,
and at the third repeats the question with
tears. She is told that he is ranging the
woods, killing game for his wedding. In-
42. CLERK COLVILL
387
Bohemian C the bell tolls while they are get-
ting the table ready. The bride asks if it is
for Herman, and is told that it is for a child.
When they sit down to table, the bells toll
again. For whom should this be? For
whom but Herman ? She springs out of the
window, and the catastrophe is the same as in
Bohemian B. In D the bride hears the bell
as the train is approaching the house, and they
say it is for a child. On entering the court
she asks where Heiman is. He is in the cel-
lar drawing wine for his guests. She asks
again for Herman as the company sits down
to table, and the answer is. In the chamber,
lying in a coiBn. She springs from the table
and rushes to the chamber, seizing two golden
knives, one of which she plunges into her
heart. In Bohemian E, when the bride arrives
at John the bridegroom's house, and asks where
he is, they tell her she had better go to bed
till midnight. The moment she touches John
she springs out of bed, and cries, Dear people,
why have ye laid a living woman with a dead
man ? They stand, saying. What shall we
give her, a white cap or a green chaplet ?
" I have not deserved the white (widow's)
cap," she says ; " I have deserved a green
chaplet." In Wendish A, when the bell first
knolls, the bride asks. Where is the bride-
groom ? and they answer. In the new cham-
ber, putting on his fine clotlies. A second
toll evokes a second inquiry ; and they say he
is in the new room, putting on his sword.
The third time they conceal nothing : He fell
off his horse and broke his neck. " Then tear
off my fine clothes and dress me in white, that
I may mourn a year and a day, and go to
church in a green chaplet, and never forget
him that loved me ! " It will be remembered
that the bride takes her own life in Norwe-
gian A, C, D, and in Swedish B, as she does
in Bohemian A b, B, C, D.
B is translated by Grundtvig, Engelske og
skotske Folkeviser, p. 305, No 48 ; by Doen-
niges, p. 25.
' Der Ritter von Staufenberg ' is translated
by Jamieson, from the " Romanzen " in the
Wunderhorn, in Illustrations of Northern
Antiquities, p. 257. Danish A by Prior, II,
301 ; B by Jamieson, Popular Ballads, I, 219,
and by Prior, II, 306, Buchanan, p. 52. ' The
Erl-King's Daughter,' " Danish," in Lewis's
Tales of Wonder, I, 53, No 10, is rendered
from Herder. Swedish A by Keightley, Fairy
Mythology, p. 84 ; B by Keightley, p. 82, and
by William and Mary Howitt, Literature and
Romance of Northern Europe, I, 269. There
is a version from Swedish by J. H. Dixon, in
Notes and Queries, 4th Series, I, 168. Bre-
ton D by Keightley, as above, p. 433, and by
Tom Taylor, Ballads and Songs of Brittany,
'Lord Nann and the Fairy,' p. 9. Bohemian
A b by Bowi-ing, Cheskian Anthology, p. 69.
From a transcript from William Tytler's Brown MS.
1 Clark Colven and his gay ladie.
As they walked to yon garden green,
A belt about her middle gimp,
Which cost Clark Colven crowns fifteen :
For I nae saw a fair woman
I like so well as thee.'
4 He mounted on his beny-brown steed,
And merry, merry i-ade he on,
Till he came to the wall o Stream,
And there he saw the mermaiden.
2 ' 0 hearken weel now, my good lord,
O hearken weel to what I say ;
When ye gang to the wall o Stream,
0 gang nae neer the well-fared may.'
3 ' O hand your tongue, my gay ladie,
Tak nae sic care o me ;
5 ' Ye wash, ye wash, ye bonny may.
And ay 's ye wash your sark o silk : '
' It 's a' for you, ye gentle knight,
My skin is whiter than the milk.'
6 He 's taen her by the milk-white hand,
He 's taen lier by the sleeve sae green,
388
42. CLERK COLVILL
And he 's forgotten his gay ladie,
And away with the fair maiden.
7 ' Ohon, alas ! ' says Clark Colven,
' And aye sae sair 's I mean my head ! '
And merrily leugh the mermaiden,
' O win on tUl you be dead.
8 ' But out ye tak your little pen-knife,
And frae my sark ye shear a gare ;
Row that about your lovely head,
And the pain ye '11 never feel nae mair.'
9 Out he has taen his little pen-knife,
And frae her sark he 's shorn a gare.
Rowed that about his lovely head.
But the pain increased mair and mair.
10 ' Ohon, alas ! ' says Clark Colven,
' An aye sae sair 'a I mean my head ! '
And merrily laughd the mermaiden,
' It wiU ay be war tUl ye be dead.'
11 Then out he drew his trusty blade.
And thought wi it to be her dead.
But she 's become a fish again.
And merrily sprang into the fleed.
12 He 's mounted on his berry-brown steed,
And dowy, dowy rade he home,
And heavily, heavily lighted down
When to his ladle's bower-door he came.
13 ' Oh, mither, mither, mak my bed.
And, gentle ladie, lay me down ;
Oh, brither, brither, unbend my bow,
'T will never be bent by me again.'
14 His mither she has made his bed.
His gentle ladie laid him down,
His brither he has unbent his bow,
'T was never bent by him again.
B
Herd's Ancient and Modern Scots Songs, 1769, p. 302 ;
ed. 1776,1, 161.
1 Clerk Colvill and his lusty dame
Were walking in the garden green ;
The belt around her stately waist
Cost Clerk Colvill of pounds fifteen.
2 ' 0 promise me now. Clerk Colvill,
Or it will cost ye muckle strife.
Ride never by the wells of Slane,
If ye wad live and brook your life.'
3 * Now speak nae mair, my lusty dame,
Now speak nae mair of that to me ;
Did*I neer see a fair woman,
But_I wad sin with her body ?'
4 He 's taen leave o his gay lady.
Nought minding what his lady said,
And he 's rode by the wells of Slane,
Where washing was a bonny maid.
5 ' Wash on, wash on, my bonny maid,
That wash sae clean your sark of silk ; '
' And weel fa you, fair gentleman.
Your body whiter than the milk.'
6 Then loud, loud cry'd the Clerk Colvill,
' 0 my head it pains me sair ; '
' Then take, then take,' the maiden said,
' And frae my sark you '11 cut a gare.'
7 Then she 's gied him a little bane-knife.
And frae her sark he cut a share ;
She 's ty'd it round his whey-white face.
But ay his head it aked mair.
8 Then louder cry'd the Clerk Colvill,
' 0 sairer, sairer akes my head ; '
* And sairer, sairer ever will,'
The maiden crys, ' till you be dead.'
9 Out then he drew his shining blade.
Thinking to stick her where she stood.
But she was vanishd to a fish.
And swam far off, a fair mermaid.
10 ' O mother, mother, braid my hair ;
My lusty lady, make my bed ;
0 brother, take my sword and spear.
For I have seen the false mermaid.'
43. CLERK COLVILL
389
Notes and Queries, 4th Series, VIII, 510, from the recita-
tion of a lady in Forfarshire.
1 Clerk Colin and his mother dear
Were in the garden green ;
The hand that was about her neck
Cost Colin pounds fifteen ;
The belt about her middle sae sma
Cost twice as much again.
6 An when he cam to the Clyde's water
He lichted lowly down,
An there he saw the mermaiden,
Wasliin silk upon a stane.
7 ' Come down, come down, now, Clerk Colin,
Come down an [fish] wi me ;
I 'U row ye in my arms twa,
An a foot I sanna jee.'
2 ' Forbidden gin ye wad be, love Colin,
Forbidden gin ye wad be.
And gang nae mair to Clyde's water,
To court yon gay ladie.'
3 ' Forbid me frae your ha, mother,
Forbid me frae your hour,
But forbid me not frae yon ladie ;
She 's fair as ony flour.
4 ' Forbidden I winna be, mother,
Forbidden I winna be,
For I maun gang to Clyde's water,
To court yon gay ladie.'
5 An he is on his saddle set,
As fast as he could win.
An he is on to Clyde's water,
By the lee licht o the moon.
8 ' 0 mother, mother, mak my bed,
And, sister, lay me doun.
An brother, tak my bow an shoot,
For my shooting is done.'
9 He wasna weel laid in his bed.
Nor yet weel fa'en asleep,
When up an started the mermaiden, ,
Just at Clerk Colin's feet.
10 ' Will ye lie there an die, Clerk Colin,
WLU ye lie there an die ?
Or will ye gang to Clyde's water.
To fish in flood wi me ? '
11 ' I will lie here an die,' he said,
' I wiU lie here an die ;
In spite o a' the deUs in heU
I will lie here an die.'
B.
C.
7^. laugh ; hut we have laughd in 10*.
9*. Bowed seems to he written Boimd, possibly
Rowad.
14*. brother.
5*. The edition of VIIQ has hoAy's.
7. When tliey part he returns home, and on the
way his head becomes " wondrous sair : "
seemingly a comment of the reciter.
The Ahhotsford copy in " Scottish Songs,"
fol. 3, fias these readings, not found in
Lewis, the Brown MS., or Herd.
3^ And dinna deave me wi your din : Lewis,
And haud, my Lady gay, your din.
6'. He 's laid her on the flowery green.
390
43. THE BROOMFIELD HILL
43
THE BROOMFIELD HILL
A. ' The Broomfield Hill.' a. Scott's Minstrelsy, III, D. ' Lord John,' Kinloch's Ancient Scottish Ballads,
271, 1803. b. The same, II, 229, 1802. p. 195.
B. ' I 'II wager, I 'II wager,' etc., Herd's Ancient and E. Joseph Robertson's Note-Book, January, 1830, p. 7.
Modern Scots Songs, 1769, p. 310.
F. ' The Merry Broomfield, or The West Country
C. ' Broomfield Hills,' Buchan's Ballads of the North Wager.' a. Douce Ballads, III, fol. 64''. b. The
of Scotland, II, 291. same, IV, fol. 10.
A SONG of ' Brume, brume on bil ' is one
of those named In The Complaint of Scotland,
1549, p. 64 of Dr J. A. H. Murray's edition.
" The foot of the song " is sung, with others,
by Moros in Wager's "very merry and pithy
Comedy called The longer thou livest tbe
more fool thou art," c. 1568. ' Broom, broom
on hil ' is also one of Captain Cox's " bunch
of ballets and songs, all auncient," No 53 of
the collection, 1575.* The lines that Moros
sings are :
Brome, brome on hill.
The gentle brome on hill, hill,
Brome, brome on Hive hill.
The gentle brome on Hive hill,
The brome stands on Hive hill a.
" A more sanguine antiquary than the ed-
itor," says Scott, " might perhaps endeavor to
identify this poem, which is of undoubted an-
tiquity, with the ' Broom, broom on hill ' men-
tioned ... as forming part of Captain Cox's
collection." Assuredly " Broom, broom on
hill," if that were all, would justify no such
• Fumivall, Captain Cox, his Ballads and Books, pp
cxxvii f. KitBon cited the comedy in the dissertation prefixed
to his Ancient Songs, 1790, p. Ix.
t Motherwell remarks, at page 42 of his Introduction,
" The song is popular still, and is often to be met with." It
was printed in a cheap American song-book, which I have
not been able to recover, under the title of ' The Green
Broomfield,' and with some cis-atlantic variations. Graham's
Illustrated Magazine, September, 1858, gives these stanzas:
" Then when she went to the green broom field,
Where her love was fast asleep,
identification, but the occurrence of Hive hill,
both in the burden which Moros sings and in
the eighth stanza of Scott's ballad, is a circum-
stance that would embolden even a very cau-
tious antiquary, if he had received Hive hill
from tradition, and was therefore unaffected
by a suspicion that this locality had been in-
troduced by an editor from the old song.f
Most of the versions give no explicit account
of the knight's prolonged sleep. He must
needs be asleep when the lady comes to him,
else there would be no story ; but his heavy
slumber, not broken by all the efforts of his
horse and his hawk, is as a matter of course
not natural ; es geht nicht zu mit rechten
dingen ; the witch-wife of A 4 is at the bot-
tom of that. And yet the broom-flowers
strewed on his hals-bane in A 8, B 3, and the
roses in D 6, are only to be a sign that the
maid had been there and was gone. Consid-
ering the character of many of Buchan's ver-
sions, we cannot feel sure that C has not bor-
rowed the second and third stanzas from B,
and the witch- wife, in the sixth, from A ; but
With a gray ^oosc-hawk and a green laurel bough,
And a green broom under his feet.
" And when he awoke from out his sleep,
An angry man was he ;
He looked to the East, and he looked to the West,
And he wept for his sweetheart to see.
" Oh ! where was you, my gray ^oose-hawk,
Tlie hawk that I loved so dear.
That you did not awake me from out my sleep,
When my sweetheart was so near? "
43. THE BROOMFIELD HILL
391
it would be extravagant to call in question the
genuineness of C as a -whole. The eighth
stanza gives us the light which we require.
' Ye '11 pu the bloom frae aff the broom,
Strew 't at his head and feet,
And aye the thicker that ye do strew,
The sounder he wiU sleep.'
The silver belt about the knight's head in
A 5 can hardly have to do with his sleeping,
and to me seems meaningless. It is possible
that roses are not used at random in D 6,
though, like the posie of pleasant perfume in
F 9, they serve only to prove that the lady
had been there. An excrescence on the dog-
rose, rosenschwamm, schlafkunz, kunz, schlaf-
apfel, it is believed in Germany, if laid under
a man's pillow, will make him sleep till it is
taken away. Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie,
p. 1008, and Deutsches Worterbuch (Hilde-
brand), V, 2753 e.
C makes the lady hide in the broom to hear
what the knight will say when he wakes, and
in this point agrees with the broadside F, as
also in the comment made by the men on
their master in stanza 24 ; cf. F 16.
Mr J. W. Dixon has reprinted an Alder-
mary Churchyard copy of the broadside, dif-
fering as to four or five words only from F,
in Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs of the
Peasantry of England, p. 116, Percy Society,
Volume XVII. The editor remarks that A
is evidently taken from F ; from which it is
clear that the pungent buckishness of the
broadside does not necessarily make an im-
pression. A smells of the broom ; F suggests
the groom.*
The sleep which is produced in A by strew-
ing the flower of the broom on a man's head
and feet, according to a witch's advice, is
brought about in two Norse ballads by means
not simply occult, but altogether preternatu-
ral ; that is, by the power of runes. One of
these, ' Somn-runorna,' Arwidsson, II, 249,
No 133, is preserved in a manuscript of the
end of the seventeenth, or the beginning of the
eighteenth, century. The other, ' Sovnerun-
crne,' Grundtvig, II, 337, No 81, was taken
down in 1847 from the singing of a woman
seventy-five years of age.
The Swedish ballad runs thus. There is a
damsel in our land who every night will sleep
with a man, and dance a maid in the morning.
The fame of this comes to the ears of the son
of the king of England, who orders his horse,
thinking to catch this damsel. When he ar-
rives at the castle gate, there stands the lady,
and asks him what is his haste. He frankly
answers that he expects to get a fair maid's
honor for his pains, and she bids him follow
her to the upper room. She lays sheets on
the bed, and writes strong runes on them.
The youth sits down on the bed, and is asleep
before he can stretch himself out. He sleeps
through that day, and the next, and into the
third. Then the lady rouses him. " Wake
up ; you are sleeping your two eyes out." He
is still so heavy that he can hardly stir. He
offers her his horse and saddle to report the
matter as he wishes. " Keep your horse," she
says ; " shame fa such liars."
The Danish story is much the same. One
of a king's fivp sons goes to make trial of the
maid. She tells him to fasten his horse while
she goes before and unlocks; calls to her maid
to bring five feather-beds, feather-beds nine,
and write a sleep on each of them. He sleeps
through three days, and is roused the fourth,
with " Wake up, wake up ; you have slept
away your pluck." He offers her a bribe, as
before, which she scornfully rejects, assuring
him that he will not be spared when she
comes among maids and knights.
A sleep produced by runes or gramarye is
one of the two main incidents of a tale in the
Gesta Romanorum, better known through the
other, which is the forfeit of flesh for money
not forthcoming at the day set, as in the Mer-
chant of Venice : Latin, Oesterley, No 195,
p. 603 ;t English, Harleian MS. 7333, No
40, printed by Douce, Illustrations of Shak-
spere, I, 281, Madden, p. 130, Herrtage, p.
158 ; German, No 68, of the printed edition
of 1489 (which I have not seen). A knight.
• The broadside is also copied into Buchan's MSS, II, 197. t The Anglo-Latin text in Harleian MS. 2270, No 48.
392
43. THE BROOMFIELD HILL
■who Ilis a passion for an emperor's daughter,
engages to give a thousand [hundred] marks
for being once admitted to her bed. He in-
stantly falls asleep, and has to be roused in
the morning. Like terms are made for a sec-
ond night, and the man's lands have to be
pledged to raise the money. He sleeps as be-
fore, but stipulates for a third night at the
same price. A merchant lends him the thou-
sand marks, on condition that, if he breaks his
day, his creditor may take the money's weight
of flesh from his body. Feeling what a risk
he is now running, the knight consults a phi-
losopher, Virgil, in the English version. The
philosopher (who in the Latin version says he
ought to know, for he had helped the lady to
her trick) tells the knight that between the
sheet and coverlet of the bed there is a letter,
which causes the sleep ; this he must find,
and, when found, cast far from the bed. The
knight follows tliese directions, and gets the
better of tlie lady, who conceives a reciprocal
passion for him, and delivers him, in the sequel,
from the fearful penalty of his bond by plead-
ing that the flesh must be taken without shed-
ding of blood.
The romance of Dolopathos, a variety of the
Seven Wise Masters, written about 1185, con-
siderably before the earliest date which has
hitherto been proposed for the compilation of
the Gesta, has this story, with variations, of
which only these require to be noted. The
lady has herself been a student in magic. She
is wooed of many ; all comers are received,
and pay a hundred marks ; any one who ac-
complishes his will may wed her the next day.
An enchanted feather of a screech-owl, laid
under the pillow, makes all who enter the bed
fall asleep at once, and many have been baf-
fled by this charm. At last a youth of high
birth, but small means, tries his fortune, and,
failing at the first essay, tries once more.
Thinking that the softness of his couch was
the cause of his falling asleep, he puts away
the pillow, and in this process the feather Is
thrown out : lohannis de Alta Silva Dolopa-
thos, ed. esterley, pp 57-59; Herbers, Li
Romans de Dolopathos, Brunei et Montaiglon,
vv 7096-7498, pp 244-59 ; Le Roux de Lincy,
in a sequel to Loiseleur-Deslongchamps's Es-
sai sur les Fables indiennes, pp 211 if. This
form of the tale is found In German, in a fif-
teenth-century manuscript, from which It was
printed by Haupt in Altdeutsche Blatter, I,
143—49 ; but here the sleep is produced by the
use of both the means employed in the Gesta
and in Dolopathos, letter (runes) and feather,
" the wild man's feather." *
Magic is di'opped, and a sleeping draught
administered, just as the man Is going to bed,
in a version of the story In the Pecorone of
Ser Giovanni Fiorentino, Giornata, IV", Nov.
la (last quarter of the fourteenth century).
Upon the third trial the man, warned by a
friendly chambermaid not to drink, pours the
medicated wine into his bosom. The account
of Ser Giovanni is adopted in Les Adventures
d'Abdalla fils d'Hanif, etc.. La Haye, 1713,
Bibliotheque de Romans, 1778, Janvier, I,
112-14, 143 f.
Ellin writes sleep-runes on the cushions on
which her husband is to sleep, in the Danish
ballad ' FrsendehiBvn,' Grundtvig, No 4, A 33
[C45].
In Icelandic tales a sleep-thorn f is em-
ployed, probably a thorn inscribed with runes.
The thorn is stuck into the clothes or into
the head (the ears, according to the popular
notion, Vigfusson), and the sleep lasts till the
thorn is taken out. Odin stuck such a thorn
into Brynhlld's garments : Fdfnismdl, 43 ;
Sigrdrffumdl, 7 ; Volsunga Saga, Fornaldar
Sogur, I, 166. The thorn is put into the
clothes also In the Icelandic fairy-tale, Mser-
poU, Maurer, Isliindische Volkssagen, p. 286.
(jlof, to save herself from Helgi's violence,
and to punish his insolence, sticks him with a
sleep-thorn after he is dead drunk : Hr(')lfs
* Sy . . . bereytte keyn abende das bette met der czobeiye
met der schryft und met des wylden mannea veddere, p. 145,
linc3 8, 10-12; das quam alles von der czoyberye, das die
juugfrowe dy knaben alle beczobert hatte met schryft und
met bryven, dy sy en under dy hobt leyte under dy kussen,
und met den veddern von den wylden ruchen liiten, lines 1-5.
Only one letter and one feather is employed in each case.
t Svefnjjorn, Danish S0vntorn, or sevnpreen : blundstafir,
sleep-staves, rods (if not letters, runes) in Siyrdrifumal, 2.
43. THE BBOOMFIELD HILL
393
Saga Kraka, Forn. S. I, 18 f, Torfffius, p. 32.
Vilhjdlmr sticks a sleep-thorn into Hr6lfr, and
lie lies as if dead so long as the thorn is in him :
Gaungu-Hr61fs Saga, Forn. S., Ill, 303, 306.
A pillow of soporific quality, which Kamele,
by Isot's direction, puts under Kaedin's head,
assures her safety though she lies all night by
his side : Ulrich's continuation of Gottfried's
Tristan, vv 1668-99, 1744-85; and Heinrich's
continuation, omitting the last circumstance,
vv 4861-4960 (J. Grimm).
The witch-woman, in the English ballad,
A 4, represents the philosopher in the Gesta,
and the wager in the other versions the fee
or fine exacted by the lady in the Gesta and
elsewhere.
An Italian ballad, a slight and unmei'itable
thing, follows the story of Ser Giovanni, or
agrees with it, in respect to the sleeping-
draught. A man falls in with a girl at a
spring, and offers her a hundred ducats, or
scudi, per una nottina. The girl says that
she must consult her mother. The mother
advises her to accept the offer : she will give
the man a drug, and the money will serve for
a dowry. The man, roused in the morning,
counts out the money with one hand and
wipes his eyes with the other. When asked
why he is crying, he replies that the money
is not the loss he weeps for, and makes a sec-
ond offer of the same amount. The girl
wishes to refer the matter to her mother again,
but the gallant says the mother shall not
take him in a second time. One version (A)
ends somewhat more respectably: the girl de-
clares that, having come off with her honor
once, she will not again expose herself to
shame. A. Ferraro, Canti popolari monfer-
rini, ' La Ragazza onesta,' p. 66, No 47. B.
Ferraro, C. p. di Ferrara, Cento e Pontela-
goscuro, p. 53 (Cento) No 4, ' La Ragazza
onesta.' C. The same, p. 94 (Pontelagoscuro)
No 8, ' La Brunetta,' previously in Rivista di
Filologia Romanza, II, 200. D. Wolf, Volks-
lieder aus Venetien, p. 74, ' La Contadina
alia Fonte.' E. Bernoni, C. p. veneziani,
Puntata V, No 4, p. 6, ' La bella Brunetta.'
P. Bolza, Canzoni p. comasche, p. 677, No
50
57, ' L'Amante deluso.' Or. Ive, C. p. istriani,
p. 324, No 4, 'La Contadina alia Fonte.'
H. Ginandrea, C. p. marchigiani, p. 277, No
12, » La Madre indegna.' I. Ferraro, C. p.
della Bassa Romagna, Rivista di Letteratura
popolare, p. 57, ' La Ragazza onesta.' J. Ca-
setti e Imbriani, C. p. della Provincie meridi-
onali, p. 1, No 1 (Chieti), the first sixteen
verses. K. Archivio per Tradizioni popolari,
I, 89, No 4, ' La Fand(;ll e lu Caval(5re,' the
first thirteen lines.
' The Sleepy Merchant,' a modern ballad,
in Kinloch's MSS, V, 26, was perhaps fash-
ioned on some traditional report of the story
in II Pecorone. The girl gives the merchant
a drink, and when the sun is up starts to her
feet, crying, " I 'm a leal maiden yet ! " The
merchant comes back, and gets another di'am,
but " tooms it a' between the bolster and the
wa," and then sits up and sings.
A ballad found everywhere in Germany,
but always in what appears to be an extremely
defective form, must originally, one would
think, have had some connection with those
which we ai'e considering. A hunter meets
a girl on the heath, and takes her with him to
his hut, where they pass the night. She rouses
him in the morning, and proclaims herself
still a maid. The hunter is so chagrined that
he is of a mind to kill her, but spares her life.
' Der Jager,' ' Der ernsthafte Jager,' ' Des
Jagers Verdruss,' ' Der Jager und die reine
Jungfrau,' ' Der verschlafene Jager : ' Mein-
ert, p. 203 ; Wunderhorn, 1857, I, 274, Bir-
linger u. Crecelius, I, 190 ; Biisching u. von
der Hagen, p. 134, No 61 ; Nicolai, Alma-
nach, I, 77 (fragment) ; Erk u. Irmer, ii, 12,
No 15 ; Meier, p. 305, No 170 ; Prohle, No
54, p. 81 ; Fiedler, p. 175 ; Erk, Liederhort,
pp 377 f, Nos 174, 174* ; Hoffmann u. Rich-
ter, p. 202, No 176; Ditfurth, Frankische
Volkslieder, II, 26 f, Nos 30, 31 ; Norrenberg,
Des diilkener Fiedlers Liederbuch, No 16, p.
20 ; J. A. E. Kohler, Volksbrauch im Voigt-
lande, p. 307 ; Jeitteles, Volkslied in Steier-
mark, Archiv fiir Lit. gesch., IX, 361, etc. ;
Uhland, No 104, Niederdeutsches Liederbuch,
No 59, ' vermuthlich voin Eingang des 17.
394
43. THE BROOMFIELD HILL
Jhd.' Cf. Die M&eget, Flemish, Biisching u.
von der Hagen, p. 311 ; Willems, p. 160, No
61.*
A a is translated by Doenniges, p. 3 ; by
Gerhard, p. 146 ; by Arndt, Bliitenlese, p.
226.
a. Scott's Minstrelsy, III, 271, ed. 1803. b. Sts. 8-14 ;
the same, 11, 229, ed. 1802.
1 There was a knight and a lady bright,
Had a tnie tryste at the broom ;
The ane gaed early in the morning.
The other in the afternoon.
2 And ay she sat in her mother's bower door,
And ay she made her mane :
' O whether should I gang to the Broomfield
HUl,
Or should I stay at hame ?
3 ' For if I gang to the Broomfield Hill,
My maidenhead is gone ;
And if I chance to stay at hame,
My love wiU ca me manswom.'
4 Up then spake a witch-woman,
Ay from the room aboon :
' 0 ye may gang to the Broomfield HiU,
And yet come maiden hame.
5 ' For when ye gang to the Broomfield Hill,
Ye '11 find your love asleep,
With a sUver belt about his head.
And a broom-cow at his feet.
6 ' Take ye the blossom of the broom.
The blossom it smells sweet.
And strew it at your true-love's head,
And likewise at his feet.
7 ' Take ye the rings off your fingers,
Put them on his right hand.
B
Herd, Ancient and Modern Scots Songs, 1769, p. 310.
1 ' I 'll wager, I '11 wager, I 'U wager with you
Five hundred merks and ten,
• The first stanza of the German ballad occurs in a music-
book of 1622 : Hoffmann u. Richter, p. 202, who add that the
ballad is extant in Dutch and Flemish.
To let him know, when he doth awake,
His love was at his command.'
8 She pu'd the broom flower on Hive HiU,
And strewd on 's white hals-bane,
And that was to be wittering true
That maiden she had gane.
9 ' 0 where were ye, my milk-white steed.
That I hae coft sae dear.
That wadna watch and waken me
When there was maiden here ? '
10 ' I stamped wi my foot, master,
And gard my bridle ring,
But na kin thing wald waken ye,
TUl she was past and gane.'
11 ' And wae betide ye, my gay goss-hawk,
That I did love sae dear.
That wadna watch and waken me
When there was maiden here.'
12 * I clapped wi my wings, master,
And aye my bells I rang,
And aye cry'd, Waken, waken, master.
Before the ladye gang.'
13 ' But haste and haste, my gude white steed,
To come the maiden till.
Or a' the birds of gude green wood
Of your flesh shall have their fill.'
14 ' Ye need na burst your gude white steed
Wi racing oer the howm ;
Nae bird flies faster through the wood.
Than she fled through the broom.'
That a maid shanae go to yon bonny green
wood.
And a maiden return agen.'
2 'I '11 wager, I '11 wager, I '11 wager with you
Five hundred merks and ten.
That a maid shall go to yon bonny green wood,
And a maiden return agen.'
43. THE BROOMFIELD HILL
395
3 She 's pu'd the blooms aff the broom-bush,
And strewd them on 's white hass-bane :
' This is a sign whereby you may know
That a maiden was here, but she 's gane.'
4 ' O where was you, my good gray steed,
That I hae Iced sae dear ?
O why did you not awaken me
When my true love was here ? '
5 ' I stamped with my foot, master,
And gard my bridle ring,
But you wadnae waken from your sleep
TiU your love was past and gane.'
6 ' Now I may sing as dreary a sang
As the bird sung on the brier,
For my true love is far removd.
And I 'U neer see her mair.'
Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, II, 291.
1 Theke was a knight and lady bright
Set trysts amo the broom.
The one to come at morning ear,
The other at afternoon.
2 ' I '11 wager a wager wi you,' he said,
' An hundred merks and ten.
That ye shall not go to Broomfield HUls,
Return a maiden again.'
3 ' I 'U wager a wager wi you,' she said,
' A hundred pounds and ten.
That I will gang to Broomfield Hills,
A maiden return again.'
4 The lady stands in her bower door.
And thus she made her mane :
' O shall I gang to Broomfield HUls,
Or shall I stay at hame ?
5 ' If I do gang to Broomfield Hills,
A maid I '11 not return ;
But if I stay from Broomfield HUls,
I '11 be a maid mis-sworn.'
6 Then out it speaks an auld witch- wife.
Sat in the bower aboon :
' O ye shaU gang to Broomfield HUls,
Ye shaU not stay at hame.
7 ' But when ye gang to Broomfield Hilk,
Walk nine times round and roimd ;
Down below a bonny burn bank.
Ye 'U find your love sleeping sound.
8 ' Ye 'U pu the bloom f rae a£E the broom,
Strew 't at his head and feet.
And aye the thicker that ye do strew.
The sounder he wiU sleep.
9 ' The broach that is on your napkin.
Put it on his breast bane.
To let him know, when he does wake,
That 's true love 's come and gane.
10 ' The rings that are on your fingers,
Lay them down on a stane.
To let him know, when he does wake.
That 's true love 's come and gane.
11 ' And when ye hae your work aU done.
Ye 'U gang to a bush o' broom.
And then you '11 hear what he wiU say.
When he sees ye are gane.'
12 When she came to Broomfield HUls,
She walkd it nine times round,
And down below yon burn bank.
She found him sleeping sound.
13 She pu'd the bloom frae aff the broom,
Strew'd it at 's head and feet.
And aye the thicker that she strewd,
The sounder he did sleep.
14 The broach that was on her napkin,
She put on his breast bane.
To let him know, when he did wake,
His love was come and gane.
15 The rings that were on her fingers,
She laid upon a stane.
To let him know, when he did wake.
His love was come and gane.
16 Now when she had her work aU dune,
She went to a bush o broom.
396
43. THE BROOMFIELD HILL
That she might hear what he did say,
When he saw she was gane.
17 ' O where were ye, my guid grey hound.
That I paid for sae dear.
Ye didna waken me frae my sleep
When my true love was sae near ? '
18 ' I scraped wi my foot, master,
Till a' my collars rang,
But still the mair that I did scrape,
Waken woud ye nane.'
19 ' Where were ye, my berry-brown steed,
That I paid for sae dear.
That ye woudna waken me out o my sleep
When my love was sae near ? '
20 ' I patted wi my foot, master.
Till a' my bridles rang,
But still the mair that I did patt,
Waken woud ye nane.'
21 ' 0 where were ye, my gay goss-hawk.
That I paid for sae dear.
That ye woudna waken me out o my sleep
When ye saw my love near ? '
22 ' I flapped wi my wings, master,
Till a' my bells they rang,
But stiU the mair that I did flap.
Waken woud ye nane.'
23 ' 0 where were ye, my merry young men.
That I pay meat and fee.
Ye woudna waken me out o' my sleep
When my love ye did see ? '
24 ' Ye '11 sleep mair on the night, master,
And wake mair on the day ;
Gae sooner down to Broomfield HiUs
When ye 've sic pranks to play.
25 ' If I had seen any armed men
Come riding over the hill —
But I saw but a fair lady
Come quietly you until.'
26 ' O wae mat worth you, my young men,
That I pay meat and fee.
That ye woudna waken me frae sleep
When ye my love did see.
27 ' 0 had I waked when she was nigh.
And o her got my wiU,
I shoudna cared upon the morn
Tho sma birds o her were fill.'
28 When she went out, right bitter wept,
But singing came she hame ;
Says, I hae been at Broomfield Hills,
And maid returnd again.
Einloch's Ancient Scottish Ballads, p. 195.
1 ' I 'll wager, I 'U wager,' says Lord John,
' A hundred merks and ten.
That ye winna gae to the bonnie broom-fields,
And a maid return again.'
2 ' But I '11 lay a wager wi you. Lord John,
A' your merks oure again.
That I 'U gae alane to the bonnie broom-fields,
And a maid return again.'
3 Then Lord John mounted his grey steed,
And his hound wi his bells sae bricht,
And swiftly he rade to the bonny broom-
fields,
Wi his hawks, like a lord or knicht.
4 ' Now rest, now rest, my bonnie grey steed,
My lady will soon be here,
And I '11 lay my head aneath this rose sae red,
And the bonnie burn sae near.'
5 But sound, sound was the sleep he took,
For he slept till it was noon.
And his lady cam at day, left a taiken and
away,
Gaed as licht as a glint o the moon.
6 She strawed the roses on the ground,
Threw her mantle on the brier.
And the belt around her middle sae jimp,
As a taiken that she 'd been there.
7 The rustling leaves flew round his head,
And rousd him frae his dream ;
43. THE BKOOMFIELD HILL
397
He saw by the roses, and mantle sae green,
That his love had been there and was gane.
8 ' O whare was ye, my gude grey steed,
That I coft ye sae dear.
That ye didna waken your master.
Whan ye kend that his love was here ? '
9 ' I pautit wi my foot, master,
Garrd a' my bridles ring,
And still I cried, "Waken, g^de master,
For now is the hour and time.'
And still I cried, Waken, gude master,
For now is the hour and time.'
12 ' But whare was ye, my hawks, my hawks.
That I coft ye sae dear.
That ye didna waken your master.
Whan ye kend that his love was here ? '
13 ' O wyte na me, now, my master dear,
I garrd a' my young hawks sing.
And still I cried. Waken, gude master.
For now is the hour and time.'
10 ' Then whare was ye, my bonnie grey hound, 14 ' Then be it sae, my wager gane.
11
That I coft ye sae dear,
That ye didna waken your master.
Whan ye kend that his love was here ? '
* I pautit wi my foot, master,
Garrd a' my bells to ring.
'Twin skaith frae meikle ill.
For gif I had found her in bonnie broom-
fields,
O her heart's blude ye 'd drunken your
fill.'
E
Joseph Robertson's Note-Book, January 1, 1830, p. 7.
1 ' I 'll wager, I 'U wager wi you, fair maid,
Five hunder punds and ten.
That a maid winna gae to the bonnie green
bower,
An a maid return back agen.'
2 ' I 'U wager, I '11 wager wi you, kin' sir,
Five hunder punds and ten,
That a maid I'U gang to the bonnie green
bower.
An a maid return again.'
3 But when she cam to the bonnie green bower.
Her true-love was fast asleep ;
Sumtimes she kist his rosie, rosie lips.
An his breath was wondrous sweet.
4 Sometimes she went to the crown o his head,
Sometimes to the soles o his feet.
Sometimes she kist bis rosie, rosie lips.
An his breath was wondrous sweet.
5 She 's taen a ring frae her finger.
Laid it upon his breast-bane ;
It was for a token that she had been there,
That she had been there, but was gane.
6 ' Where was you, where was ye, my merry-
men a'.
That I do luve sae dear.
That ye didna waken me out o my sleep
When my true love was here ?
7 ' Where was ye, where was ye, my gay gos-
hawk,
Tliat I do luve sae dear.
That ye didna waken me out o my sleep
Whan my true love was here ? '
8 ' Wi my wings I flaw, kin' sir.
An wi my bill I sang,
But ye woudna waken out o yer sleep
Till your true love was gane.'
9 ' Where was ye, my bonnie grey steed.
That I do luve sae dear.
That ye didna waken me out o my sleep
When my true love was here ? '
10 ' I stampit wi my fit, maister,
And made my bridle ring.
But ye wadna waken out o yer sleep.
Till your true love was gane.'
398
43. THE BROOMFIELD HILL
P
a. Donee Ballads, III, fol. 64b : Newcastle, printed and
sold by John White, in Pilgrim Street, b. Douce Ballads,
IV, fo'l. 10.
1 A NOBLE young squire that livd in the west,
He courted a young lady gay,
And as he was merry, he put forth a jest,
A wager with her he would lay.
2 ' A wager with me ? ' the young lady reply 'd,
' I pray, about what must it be ?
If I like the humour you shan't be deny'd ;
I love to be merry and free.'
3 Quoth he, ' I wiU lay you an hundred pounds,
A hundred pounds, aye, and ten.
That a maid if you go to the merry broom-
field.
That a maid you return not again.'
4 ' I 'U lay you that wager,' the lady she said.
Then the money she flung down amain ;
' To the merry broomfield I '11 go a pure maid,
The same I 'U return home again.'
5 He coverd her bett in the midst of the hall
With an hundred and ten jolly pounds.
And then to his servant straightway he did
call,
For to bring forth his hawk and his hoimds.
6 A ready obedience the servant did yield,
And all was made ready oer night ;
Next morning he went to the merry broom-
field,
To meet with his love and delight.
7 Now when he came there, having waited a
whUe,
Among the gi'een broom down he lies ;
The lady came to him, and coud not but
smile,
For sleep then had closed his eyes.
8 Upon his right hand a gold ring she secur'd,
Down from her own finger so fair.
That when he awaked he might be assur'd
His lady and love had been there.
9 She left him a posie of pleasant perfume.
Then stept from the place where he lay ;
Then hid herself close in the besom of the
broom,
To hear what her true-love would say.
10 He wakend and found the gold ring on his
hand,
Then sorrow of heart he was in :
' My love has been here, I do well understand,
And this wager I now shall not win.
11 ' 0 where was you, my goodly gawshawk.
The which I have purchasd so dear ?
Why did you not waken me out of my sleep
When the lady, my lover, was here ? '
12 ' O with my bells did I ring, master,
And eke with my feet did I run ;
And stiU did I cry. Pray awake, master.
She 's here now, and soon will be gone.'
13 ' 0 where was you, my gallant greyhound,
Whose collar is flourishd with gold ?
Why hadst thou not wakend me out of my
sleep
When thou didst my lady behold ? '
14 ' Dear master, I barkd with my mouth when
she came.
And likewise my coller I shook,
And told you that here was the beautiful dame.
But no notice of me then you took.'
15 ' 0 where was thou, my serving-man.
Whom I have cloathed so fine ?
If you had wak'd me when she was here.
The wager then had been mine.'
16 ' In the night ye should have slept, master.
And kept awake in the day ;
Had you not been sleeping when hither she
came.
Then a maid she had not gone away.'
17 Then home he returnd, when the wager was
lost.
With sorrow of heart, I may say ;
The lady she laughd to find her love crost, —
This was upon midsummer-day.
18 '0 squire, I laid in the bushes conceald.
And heard you when you did complain ;
And thus I have been to the merry broomfield,
And a maid returnd back again.
44. THE TWA MAGICIANS
39 9
19 ' Be chearful, be chearful, and do not repine,
For now 't is as clear as the sun,
The money, the money, the money is mine.
The wager I fairly have won.'
A. b. 8*. flower frae the bush. 8'. a witter true.
9=. I did love.
11^. gray goshawk. 11". sae well.
11*. When my love was here hersell.
12*. Afore your true love gang.
13'. in good.
14H By running oer the howm ;
Nae hare runs swifter oer the lea
Nor your love ran thro the broom.
B concludes with these stanzas, which do not belong
to this ballad :
11 ' Rise up, rise up, my bonnie grey cock,
And craw when it is day,
An your neck sail be o the beaten gowd,
And your wings o the silver lay.'
12 But the cock provd fauss, and untrue he was.
And he crew three hour ower seen,
The lassie thocht it day, and sent her love
away,
An it was but a blink o the meen.
13 ' If I had him but agen,' she says,
' O if I but had him agen,
The best grey cock that ever crew at morn
Should never bereave me o 's charms.'
P.
a.
b.
8^
2\
3^
4«.
fingers. US 13^ Oh. 15^. I am.
I pray you now, what.
Said he. 3*. omiis That.
omits pure. 4*. And the . . . back
again,
ten good. 5'. he strait. 6*. oviits For.
his servants. 6^ omits made,
his joy.
sleep had fast. 8^. finger,
in the midst. 9*. what her lover.
Awaking he found. 10^. of bearst.
omits do. 11'. wake. ll*. and lover.
I did. 12'. wake. 12*. here and she.
5^.
6>.
6*
7*.
9'.
101.
10'.
12'-2.
13'. Why did you not wake.
14*. I barked aloud when. 14'. that there
was my.
IS''. I have. 15'. when she had been here.
15*. had been surely mine.
16'. omits should. 17'. to see.
18*. lay. 18'. so I. 18*. have retumd.
b has no imprint.
44
THE TWA MAGICIANS
Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, I, 24 ; Motherwell's MS., p. 570.
A BASE-BORN cousin of a pretty ballad
known over all Southern Europe, and else-
where, and in especially graceful forms in
France.
The French ballad generally begins with
a young man's announcing that he has won a
mistress, and intends to pay her a visit on
Sunday, or to give her an aubade. She de-
clines his visit, or his music. To avoid him
she will turn, e. g., into a rose ; then he will
turn bee, and kiss her. She will turn quail ;
he sportsman, and bag her. She will turn
carp; he angler, and catch her. She will
turn hare ; and he hound. She will turn nun ;
400
44. THE TWA MAGICIANS
he priest, and confess her day and night. She
will fall sick ; he will watch with her, or be
her doctor. She will become a star ; he a
cloud, and muffle her. She will die ; he will
turn earth, into which they will put her, or
St Peter, and receive her into Paradise. In
the end she says, Since you are inevitable, you
may as well have me as another ; or more
complaisantly, Je me donnerai a toi, puisque
tu m'aimes tant.
This ballad might probably be found any-
where in France, but most of the known ver-
sions are from south of the Loire. A. Ro-
mania, X, 390, E. Legrand, from Normandy ;
also known in Champagne. B. ' Les Trans-
formations,' V. Smith, Vielles Chansons du
Velay et du Forez, Eomania, VII, 61 if. C.
Poesies populaires de la France, MS., Ill, fol.
233, Vienne. D. The same, II, fol. 39, Gu^-
ret, Creuse. E, P. The same volume, fol. 41,
fol. 42. G. ' La maitresse gagnde,' the same
volume, fol. 38: "on chante cette chanson sur
les confines du ddpartement de I'Ain qui le
sdparent de la Savoie." * H. ' J'ai fait une
maitresse,' Champfleury, Chansons populaires
des Provinces, p. 90, Bourbonnais. I. ' Adiu,
Margaridoto,' Blade, Poesies pop. de la Gas-
cogne, II, 861. J. M(;iusine, col. 338 f, Car-
casonne. K. Montel et Lambert, Chansons
pop. du Languedoc, p. 544-51, and Revue des
Langues romanes, XII, 261-67, four copies.
L. ' Les Transfourmatiens,' Arbaud, II, 128.
The Provencal ballad is introduced by Mis-
tral into Mireio, Chant III, as the song of
Magali. M. 'La Poursuite d' Amour,' Ma-
relle, in Archiv fiir das Studium der neueren
Sprachen, LVI, 191. N. ' J'ai fait une mai-
tresse,' Gagnon, Chansons populaires du Can-
ada, p. 137, and Lovell, Recueil de Chansons
canadiennes, ' Chanson de Voyageur,' p. 68.
0. Gagnon, p. 78.
Catalan. Closely resembling the French :
A. ' La Esquerpa,' Briz, Cansons de la Terra,
1, 125. B, C, D. ' Las Transformaciones,'
Mild, Romancerillo Catalan, p. 393, No 513.
Italian. Reduced to a rispetto, Tigri, Canti
popolari toscani, ed. 1860, p. 241, No 861.
* There are two other versions in this great collection be-
sides the five cited, but either I have overlooked these, or
they are in Volume VI, not yet received.
Roumanian. ' Cucul si Turturica,' Alec-
sandri, PoesiS populare ale Romanilor, p. 7,
No 3 ; French version, by the same, Ballades
et Chants populaires, p. 85, No 7 ; Schuller,
Romiinische Volkslieder, p. 47. The cuckoo,
or the lover under that style, asks the dove
to be his mistress till Sunday. The dove, for
his sake, would not say No, but because of
his mother, who is a witch, if not let alone
will change into a roll, and hide under the
ashes. Then he will turn into a shovel, and
get her out. She will turn into a reed, and
hide in the pond. He will come as shepherd
to find a reed for a flute, put her to his lips,
and cover her with kisses. She will change to
an image, and hide in the depths of the church.
He will come every day in the week, as deacon
or chorister, to kiss the images (a pious usage
in those parts), and she will not thus escape
him. Schuller refers to another version, in
Schuster's unprinted collection, in which youth
and maid carry on this contest in their proper
persons, and not under figure.
Ladin. Flugi, Die Volkslieder des Engadin,
p. 83, No 12. " Who is the younker that goes
a-field ere dawn ? Who is his love ? " "A
maid all too fair, with dowry small enough."
" Maid, wilt give me a rose ? " " No ; my
father has forbidden." "Wilt be my love?"
" Rather a seed, and hide in the earth."
" Then I will be a bird, and pick thee out,"
etc.
Greek. Tommaseo, III, 61, Passow, p. 431,
No 574 a. A girl tells her mother she will
kill herself rather than accept the Turk : she
will turn swallow, and take to the woods. The
mother replies. Turn what you will, he will
turn hunter, and take you from me. The same
kernel of tliis ballad of transformations in
Comparetti, Saggi dei Dialetti greci dell' Italia
meridionale, p. 88, No 86, as M. Paul Meyer
has remarked, Revue Critique, II, 302.
The ballad is well known to the Slavic na-
tions.
Moravian. Celakovsky, p. 75, No 6, Wen-
zig, Slawische Volkslieder, p. 72, Bibliothek
slavischer Poesien, p. 92. A youth threatens
to carry off a maid for his wife. She will fly
to the wood as a dove. He has a rifle that
will bring her down. She will jump into the
44. THE TWA MAGICIANS
401
water as a fish. He has a net that will take
the fish. She will turn to a hare ; he to a
dog ; she cannot escape him.
Polish. Very common. A a. Waclaw z
Oleska, p. 417, No 287 ; Konopka, p. 124. A
young man says, though he should ride night
and day for it, ride his horse's eyes out, the
maid must be his. She will turn to a bird,
and take to the thicket. But carpenters have
axes which can fell a wood. Then she will be
a fish, and take to the water. But fishermen
have nets which will find her. Then she will
become a wild duck, and swim on the lake.
Sportsmen have rifles to shoot ducks. Then
she will be a star in the sky, and give light
to the people. He has a feeling for the poor,
and will bring the star down to the earth by
his prayers. "I see," she says, "it's God's
ordinance ; whithersoever I betake myself, you
are up with me ; I will be yours after all."
Nearly the same mutations in other versions,
with some variety of introduction and ar-
rangement. A b. Kolberg, Lud, VI, 129, No
257. A o. " Przyjaciel ludu, 1836, rok 2,
No 34 ; " Lipidski, p. 135 ; Kolberg, Lud XII,
98, No 193. B. Pauli, Piesni ludu polskiego,
I, 135. C. The same, p. 133. D. Kolberg,
Lud, XII, 99, No 194. B. Lud, IV, 19, No
137. P. Lud, XII, 97, No 192. G. Lud, II,
134, No 161. H. Lud, VI, 130, No 258.
I. Woicicki, I, 141, Waldbriihl, Slawische
Balalaika, p. 433. J. a, b. Roger, p. 147,
No 285, p. 148, No 286.
Servian. Karadshitch, I, 434, No 602;
Talvj, II, 100 ; Kapper, II, 208 ; Pellegrini,
p. 37. Rather than be her lover's, the maid
will turn into a gold-jug in a drinking-house ;
he will be mine host. She will change into
a cup in a coffee-house ; he will be cafetier.
She will become a quail, he a sportsman ; a
fish, he a net. Pellegrini has still another
form, ' La fanciulla assediata,' p. 98. An old
man desires a maid. She will rather turn into
a lamb ; he will turn into a wolf. She will
become a quail ; he a hawk.' She will change
into a rose ; he into a goat, and tear off the
rose from the tree.
There can be little doubt that these ballads
are derived, or take their hint, from popular
tales, in which (1) a youth and maid, pursued
by a sorcerer, fiend, giant, ogre, are trans-
formed by the magical powers of one or the
other into such shapes as enable them to
elude, and finally to escape, apprehension ;
or (2) a young fellow, who has been appren-
ticed to a sorcerer, fiend, etc., and has acquired
the black art by surreptitious reading in his
master's books, being pursued, as before, as-
sumes a variety of forms, and his master
others, adapted to the destruction of his in-
tended victim, until the tables are turned by
the fugitive's taking on the stronger figure and
despatching his adversary.
Specimens of the first kind are afforded by
Gonzenbach, Sicilianische Marchen,Nos 14,
15, 54, 55 ; Grimms, Nos 51, 66, 113; Schnel-
ler. No 27 ; Pitre, Fiabe, Novelle e Racconti
siciliani. No 15 ; Imbriani, Novellaja mila-
nese, No 27, N. fiorentana. No 29 ; Maspons y
Labr6s, Rondallayre, I, 85, II, 80 ; Cosquiu,
Contes lorrains, in Romania, V, 354; Ral-
ston's Russian Folk-Tales, p. 129 f, from Afa-
nasief V, No 23 ; Bechstein, Marchenbuch, p.
75, ed. 1879, which combines both. Others
in Kohler's note to Gonzenbach, No 14, at II,
214.
Of the second kind, among very many, are
Straparola, viii, 5, see Grimms, III, 288, Lou-
veau et Larivey, II, 152 ; Grimms, Nos 68,
117 ; Miillenhoff, No 27, p. 466 ; Prohle,
Marchen fiir die Jugend, No 26 ; AsbJ0msen
og Moe, No 57 ; Grundtvig, Gamle danske
Minder, 1854, Nos 255, 256; Hahn, Grie-
chische Marchen, No 68; the Breton tale
Koadalan, Luzel, in Revue Celtique, I, |of ;
the Schotts, Walachische Maerchen, No 18 ; *
Woicicki, Klechdy, II, 26, No 4; Karad-
shitch, No 6 ; Afanasief, V, 95 f, No 22, VI,
• The Schotts are reminded by their story that Wade puts
his son Weland in apprenticeship to Mimir Smith, and to
the dwarfs. They might have noted that the devil, in the
Wallachian tale, wishes to keep his prentice a second year,
as the dwarfs wish to do in the case of Weland. That little
5l
trait comes, no doubt, from Weland's story; but we will not,
therefore, conclude that our smith is Weland Smith, and
his adventure with the lady founded upon that of Weland
with Nidung's daughter.
402
44. THE TWA MAGICIANS
189 ff, No 45 a, b, and other Russian and
Little Russian versions, VIII, 340. Koliler
adds several examples of one kind or the
other in a note to Koadalan, Revue Celtique,
I, 132, and WoUner Slavic parallels in a note
to Leskien und Brugman, Litauische Volks-
lieder und Marchen, p. 537 f.
The usual course of events in these last is
that the prentice takes refuge in one of many
pomegranate kernels, barley-corns, poppy-
seeds, millet-grains, pearls ; the master be-
comes a cock, hen, sparrow, and picks up all
of these but one, which turns into a fox, dog,
weasel, crow, cat, hawk, vulture, that kills the
bird.
The same story occurs in the Turkish Forty
Viziers, Behmauer, p. 195 ff, the last trans-
formations being millet, cock, man, who teai's
off the cock's head. Also in the introduction
to Siddhi-Kiir, Jiilg, pp 1-3, where there are
seven masters instead of one, and the final
changes are worms, instead of seeds, seven
hens, a man with a cane who kills the hens.*
The pomegranate and cock (found in Stra-
parola) are among the metamorphoses in the
contest between the afrite and the princess in
the tale of the Second Calender in the Arabian
Nights.
Entirely similar is the pursuit of Gwion
the pigmy by the goddess Koridgwen, cited
by Villemarqu^, Barzaz Breiz, p. Ivi, ed. 1867,
from the Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales,
I, 17. Gwion having, by an accident, come
to the knowledge of superhuman mysteries,
Koridgwen wishes to take his life. He flees,
and turns successively into a hare, fish, bird ;
she follows, in the form of hound, otter,
hawk ; finally he becomes a wheaten grain, she
a hen, and swallows the grain.
The ordinary tale has found its way into
rhyme in a German broadside ballad, Lon-
gard, Altrheinliindische Miihrlein und Lied-
lein, p. 76, No 40, ' Von einem gottlosen Zau-
berer und seiner unschuldigen Kindlein wun-
derbarer Erlosung.' The two children of an
ungodly magician, a boy and a girl, are devoted
by him to the devil. The boy had read in his
father's books while his father was away.
They fiee, and are pursued : the girl becomes
a pond, the boy a fish. The wicked wizard
goes for a net. The boy pronounces a spell,
by which the girl is turned into a chapel, and
he into an image on the altar. The wizard,
unable to get at the image, goes for fire. The
boy changes the girl into a threshing-floor,
himself into a barley-corn. The wizard be-
comes a hen, and is about to swallow the grain
of barley. By another spell the boy changes
himself into a fox, and then twists the hen's
neck.
Translated by Gerhard, p. 18.
1 The lady stands in her bower door,
As straight as willow wand ;
The blacksmith stood a little forebye,
Wi hammer in his hand.
4 Then she has hadden up her hand,
And she sware by the mold,
' I wudna be a blacksmith's wife
For the full o a chest o gold.
2 ' Weel may ye dress ye, lady fair,
Into your robes o red ;
Before the morn at this same time,
I '11 gain your maidenhead.'
3 ' Awa, awa, ye coal-black smith,
Woud ye do me the wrang
To think to gain my maidenhead,
That I hae kept sae lang ! '
* See Benfey, Pantschatantra, I, 410 f, who maintains the
Mongol tale to be of Indian origin, and thinks the story to
have been derived from the contests in magic between
5 ' I 'd rather I were dead and gone,
And my body laid in grave,
Ere a rusty stock o coal-black smith
My maidenhead shoud have.'
6 But he has hadden up his hand,
And he sware by the mass,
' I 'U cause ye be my light leman
For the hauf o that and less.'
Buddhist and Brahman saints, of which many are related in
Buddhist legends.
45. KING JOHN AND THE BISHOP
403
O bide, lady, bide.
And aye he bade her bide ;
The rusty smith your leman shall be,
For a' your muckle pride.
7 Then she became a turtle dow,
To flj' up in the air,
And he became another dow.
And they flew pair and pair.
O bide, lady, bide, &c.
8 She turnd hersell into an eel,
To swim into yon bum,
And he became a speckled trout,
To gie the eel a turn.
O bide, lady, bide, &c.
9 Then she became a duck, a duck.
To puddle in a peel.
And he became a rose-kaimd drake,
To gie the duck a dreel.
O bide, lady, bide, &c.
10 She turnd hersell into a hare.
To rin upon yon hill,
And he became a gude grey-hound.
And boldly he did fill.
O bide, lady, bide, &c.
11 Then she became a gay grey mare,
And stood in yonder slack.
And he became a gilt saddle.
And sat upon her back.
Was she wae, he held her sae.
And still he bade her bide ;
The rusty smith her leman was.
For a' her muckle pride.
12 Then she became a het girdle,
And he became a cake.
And a' the ways she turnd hersell,
The blacksmith was her make.
Was she wae, &c.
13 She turnd hersell into a ship.
To sail out ower the flood ;
He ca'ed a nail intill her tail.
And syne the ship she stood.
Was she wae, &c.
14 Then she became a silken plaid,
And stretchd upon a bed.
And he became a gi-een covering.
And gaind her maidenhead.
Was she wae, &c.
45
KING JOHN AND THE BISHOP
A. ' Kinge John and Bishoppe,' Percy MS., p.
Hales and Furnivall, I, 508.
184; B. ' King John and the Abbot of Canterbury,' broad-
side printed for P. Brooksby.
The broadside B was printed, with trifling
variations, or corrections, in Pills to purge
Melancholy, IV, 29 (1719), and in Old Bal-
lads, II, 49 (1723). It is found in several of
the collections : Pepys, II, 128, No 112 ; Rox-
burghe, III, 883 ; Ouvry, No 47 ; the Bag-
ford ; and it was among Heber's ballads.
Brooksby published from 1672 to 1695, and
* A New Ballad of King John and the Abbot of Canter-
bury. To the Tune of The King and the Lord Abbot. With
B was " allowed " by Roger I'Estrange, who
was licenser from 1663 to 1685: Chappell,
The Roxburghe Ballads, I, xviii, xxiii. The
title of B is A neto ballad of King John and
the Abbot of Canterbury, to the tune of ' The
King and the Lord Abbot.' * This older bal-
lad seems not to have come down.
There are at least two other broadsides ex-
allowance. Ro. L'Estrange. Printed for P. Brooksby at the
Golden Ball in Pye^omer.
404
45. KING JOHN AND THE BISHOP
tant upon the same subject, both mentioned
by Percy, and both inferior even to B, and in
a far less popular style : ' The King and the
Bishop,' Pepys, I, 472, No 243, Roxburghe,
III, 170, Douce, fol. 110 ; and ' The Old Ab-
bot and King Olfrey,' Douce, II, fol. 169,
Pepys, II, 127, No 111, printed in Old Bal-
lads, II, 55.* In both of these the Shepherd
is the Bishop's brother, which he is not in B ;
in A he is half-brother. Pepys's Penny Mer-
riments contain, I, 14, ' The pleasant History
of King Henry the Eighth and the Abbot of
Reading.' f This last may, without rashness,
be assumed to be a variation of ' King John
and the Abbot.'
Percy admitted ' King John and the Ab-
bot ' to his Reliques, II, 302, introducing many
lines from A " worth reviving," and many
improvements of his own, J and thus making
undeniably a very good ballad out of a very
poor one.
The story of this ballad was told in Scot-
land, some fifty years ago, of the Gudeman of
Ballengeigh, James the V, the hero of not a
few other tales. Once on a time, falling in
with the priest of Markinch (near Falkland),
and finding him a dullard, he gave the poor
man four questions to think of till they next
met, with an intimation that his benefice would
be lost were they not rightly answered. The
questions were those of our ballad, preceded
by Where is the middle of the earth ? The
pai'son could make nothing of them, and was
forced to resort to a miller of the neighbor-
hood, who was reputed a clever fellow. When
• called to answer the first question, the miller
put out his staff, and said. There, as your
majesty will find by measuring. The others
were dealt with as in the ballad. The king
said that the miller should have the parson's
place, but the miller begged off from this in
favor of the incumbent. Small, Interesting
Roman Antiquities recently discovered in
Fife, p. 289 ff.
Riddle stories in which a forfeit is to be
paid by a vanquished party have incidentally
been referred to under No 1 and No 2. They
are a very extensive class. The oldest exam-
ple is that of Samson's riddle, with a stake of
thirty sheets (or shirts) and thirty change of
garments: Judges, xiv, 12ff. Another from
Semitic tradition is what is related of Solomon
and Hiram of Tyre, in Josephus against
Apion, i, 17, 18, and Antiquities, viii, 5. Af-
ter the manner of Amasis and the Ethio-
pian king in Plutarcli (see p. 13), they send
one another riddles, with a heavy fine for fail-
ure, — in this case a pecuniary one. Solomon
at first poses Hiram ; then Hiram guesses
Solomon's riddles, by the aid of Abdemon (or
the son of Abdemon), and in turn poses Solo-
mon with riddles devised by Abdemon. §
' P4 gronaliSheiSi,' Landstad, p. 3G9, is a
contest in riddles between two brothers (re-
fresliingly original in some parts), introduced
by three stanzas, in which it is agi'eed that
the defeated party shall forfeit his share of
their iniieritance : and this the editor seems
to take quite seriously.
Death is the penalty attending defeat in
many of these wit-contests. Odin (VafpruS-
nismdl), jealous of the giant VafpruSnir's
wisdom, wishes to put it to test. He enters
the giant's hall, assuming the name of Gagn-
* The King and the Bishop, or,
Unlearned Men bard matters out can find
When Learned Bishops Princes eyes do blind.
To tlie Tune of Chievy Chase. Printed for F. Coles, T.
Vere, and" J. Wright (1655-80). Printed for J. Wright,
Clarke, W. Thackeraj', and T. Passenver.
The Old Abbot and King Olfrey. To the tmie_of_the
Shaking of the Sheets. Printed by and for A. M., and sold
by the booksellers of London.
J. Wright's date is 1650-82, T. Passinger's, 1670-82.
ChapptU.
t Printed by J. M. for C. D., at the Stationers Annes
within Aldgate. C. D.is, no doubt, C. Dennison, who pub-
lished 1685-89. See Chappell, The Roxburghe Ballads, I,
xix.
t Among these, St Bittel for St Andrew of A 26, with
the note, " meaning probably St Botolph : " why " proba-
bly " 1
§ This story serves as a gloss on 2 Chronicles, ii, 1.3, 14,
where Hiram sends Solomon a cunning Tyrian, skilful to
find out every device which shall be put to him by the cun-
ning men of Jerusalem. The Queen of Sheba's hard ques-
tions to Solomon, not specified in 1 Kings, x, 1-13, were,
according to tradition, of the same general character as the
Indian ones sjioken of at p. 12. See Hertz, Die Hiit.sel der
Konigin von Saba, Zeitschrift fiir deutschos Altertum,
XXVII, 1 ff.
45. KING JOHN AND THE BISHOP
405
r5,Sr, and announces the object of his visit.
The giant tells him he shall never go out
again unless he prove the wiser, asks a few
questions to see whether he be worth contend-
ing with, and, finding him so, proposes a de-
cisive trial, with their heads for the stake.
Odin now propounds, first, twelve questions,
mostly in cosmogony, and then five I'elating
to the future of the universe ; and all these
the giant is perfectly competent to answer.
The very unfair question is then put, What
did Odin say in his son's ear ere Balder
mounted the funeral pile? Upon this Vaf-
pruSnir owns himself vanquished, and we may
be sure he was not spared by his antagonist.
The Hervarar saga contains a story which,
in its outlines, approximates to that of our
ballad until we come to the conclusion, where
there is no likeness. King HeiSrekr, after a
long career of blood, gave up war and took to
law-making. He chose his twelve wisest men
for judges, and swore, with one hand on the
head and the other on the bristles of a huge
hog which he had reared, that no man should
do such things that he should not get justice
from these twelve, while any one who pre-
ferred might clear himself by giving the king
riddles which he could not guess. There was
a man named Gestr, and surnamed the Blind,
a very bad and troublesome fellow, who had
withheld from HeiSrekr tribute that was due.
The king sent him word to come to him and
submit to the judgment of the twelve : if he
did not, the case would be tried with arms.
Neither of these courses pleased Gestr, who
was conscious of being very guilty : he took
the resolution of making offerings to Odin for
help. One night there was a knock. Gestr
went to the door, and saw a man, who an-
nounced his name as Gestr. After mutual
inquiries about the news, the stranger asked
whether Gestr the Blind was not in trouble
about something. Gestr the Blind explained
his plight fully, and the stranger said, " I
will go to the king and try what I can effect :
we will exchange looks and clothes." The
• These are proper riddles, and of a kind still current in
popular tradition. See, e. g., Svend Vonved, Grundtvig, I,
237 f. There are thirty-five, before the last, in the oldest
stranger, in the guise of Gestr, entered the
king's hall, and said. Sire, I am come to make
my peace. " Will you abide by the judgment
of my men of law ? " asked the king. " Are
there not other ways ? " inquired Gestr.
" Yes : you shall give me riddles which I can-
not guess, and so purchase your peace." Gestr
assented, with feigned hesitation ; chairs were
brought, and everybody looked to hear some-
thing fine. Gestr gave, and HeiSrekr promptly
answered, some thirty riddles.* Then said
Gestr : Tell thou me this only, since thou
thinkest to be wiser than all kings : What
said Odin in Balder's ear before he was borne
to the pile ? " Shame and cowardice," ex-
claimed HeiSrekr, " and all manner of pol-
troonery, jugglery, goblinry ! no one knows
those words of thine save thou thyself, evil
and wretched wight ! " So saying, HeiSrekr
drew Tyrfing, that never was bared but some-
body must fall, to cut down Gestr. The dis-
guised Odin changed to a hawk, and made for
the window, but did not escape before Hei-
Srekr's sword had docked the bird's tail. For
breaking his own truce Odin said HeiSrekr
should die by the hand of a slave, which came
to pass. Fornaldar Sogur, Rafn, I, 462 ff.
The same story has come down in a Faroe "^
ballad, ' G4tu rfma,' Hammershaimb, Fasro-
iske Kvaeder, No 4, p. 26 (and previously pub-
lished in the Antiquarisk Tidsskrift, 1849-
51, pp 75-78), translated by Dr Prior, I,
336 ff. Gest promises Odin twelve gold
marks to take his place. The riddles are an-
nounced as thirteen in number, but the ballad
is slightly defective, and among others the
last question. What were Odin's words to
Balder ? is lost. Odin flies off in the shape of
a falcon ; Hejdrek and all his men are burned
up.
A tale presenting the essential traits of our
ballad is cited in Vincent of Beauvais's Spec-
ulum Morale, i, 4, 10, at the end. We read,
he says, of a king, who, seeking a handle
for wrenching money out of a wealthy and
wise man, put him three questions, apparently
text, given, with a translation, by Vigfusson and Powell,
Corpus Poeticum Boreale, ' King Ueidruk's Biddies ' I
86 ff.
406
45. KING JOHK AND THE BISHOP
insoluble, intending to make him pay a large
sum for not answering them : 1, Where is the
middle point of the earth ? 2, How much
water is there in the sea ? 3, H ow great is
the mercy of God ? On the appointed day,
having been brought from prison into the
presence to ransom himself if he could, the
respondent, bj' the advice of a certain philos-
opher, proceeded thus. He planted his staff
where he stood, and said, Here is the centre ;
disprove it if you can. If you wish me to
measure the sea, stop the rivers, so that noth-
ing may flow in till I have done ; then I will
give you the contents. To answer your third
question, I must borrow your robes and your
throne. Then mounting the throne, clothed
■with the royal insignia, " Behold," said he,
" the height of the mercy of God : but now I
was a slave, now I am a king ; but now poor,
and now rich; but now in prison and in
chains, and now at liberty," etc.
Of the same stamp is a story in the English
Gesta Romanorum, Madden, p. 55, No 19.
A knight was accused to the emperor by his
enemies, but not so as to give a plausible
ground for steps against him. The emperor
could hit upon no way but to put him ques-
tions, on pain of life and death. The ques-
tions were seven ; the third and the sixth will
suffice : How many gallons of salt water been
in the sea ? Answer : Let all the outpassings
of fresh water be stopped, and I shall tell
thee. How many days' journey beth in the
circle of the world ? Answer : Only the space
of one day.
Much nearer to the ballad, and earlier than
either of the preceding, is the Strieker's tale
of Amis and the Bishop, in the Pfaffe Amis,
dated at about 1236. Ami's, a learned and
bountiful priest in England, excited the envy
of his bishop, who sent for him, told him that
he lived in better style than his superior, and
demanded a subvention. The priest flatly
refused to give the bishop anything but a
good dinner. " Then you shall lose your
church," said the bishop in wrath. But the
priest, strong in a good conscience, felt small
concern about that : he said the bishop might
test his fitness with any examination he pleased.
That I will do, said the bishop, and gave
him five questions. " How much is there in
the sea ? " " One tun," answered Amis ; " and
if you think I am not right, stop all the rivers
that flow in, and I will measure it and con-
vince you." " Let the rivers run," said the
bishop. " How many days from Adam to our
time?" "Seven," said the parson; " for as
soon as seven are gone, they begin again."
The bishop, fast losing his temper, next
demanded " What is the exact middle of
the earth ? Tell me, or lose your church."
" Why, my church stands on it," replied
Amis. " Let your men measure, and take the
church if it pi-ove not so." The bishop de-
clined the task, and asked once more : How
far is it from earth to sky ? and then : What
is the width of the sky ? to which Amis re-
plied after the same fashion.
In this tale of the Strieker the parson an-
swers for himself, and not by deputy, and
none of the questions are those of our ballad.
But in a tale of Franco Sacchetti,* given in
two forms. Novella iv% we have both the abbot
and his humble representative, and an agree-
ment as to one of the questions. Bernabo Vis-
conti (t 1385) was offended with a rich abbot,
who had neglected some dogs that had been
entrusted to his care, and was minded to make
the abbot pay him a fine ; but so far yielded
to the abbot's protest as to promise to release
him from all penalties if he could answer four
questions : How far is it from here to heaven ?
How much water is there in the sea ? What
is going on in hell ? What is the value of my
person ? A day was given to get up the an-
swers. The abbot went home, in the depths
of melancholy, and met on the way one of
his millers, who inquired what was the matter,
and, after receiving an explanation, offered to
take the abbot's place, disguising himself as
well as he could. The answers to the two
first questions are not the usual ones : huge
numbers are given, and the seigneur is told to
measure for himself, if not willing to accept
them. The answer to the fourth is twenty-
nine deniers ; for our Lord was sold for thirty,
* Sacehetti's life extended beyond 1400, or perhaps be
yond 1410.
45. KING JOHN AND THE BISHOP
407
and you must be worth one less than he. Mes-
ser Bemabo said the miller should be abbot,
and the abbot miller, from that time forth.
Sacchetti says that others tell the story of a
pope and an abbot, adding one question. The
gardener of the monastery presents the abbot,
makes the usual answer to the second ques-
tion as to the water in the sea, and prizes
Christ's vicar at twenty-eight deniers.
The excellent old farce, " Ein Spil von
einem Kaiser und eim Apt," Fastnachtspiele
aus dem 15° Jalirhundert, 1, 199, No 22, obliges
the abbot to answer three questions, or pay for
all the damages done in the course of a calam-
itous invasion. The abbot has a week's grace
allowed him. The questions are three : How
much water in the sea ? How much is the
emperor worth ? Whose luck came quickest ?
The miller answers for the abbot : Three tubs,
if they are big enough; eight and twenty
pence ; and he is the man whose luck came
quickest, for just before he was a miller, now
he is an abbot. The emperor says that, since
the miller has acted for the abbot, abbot he
shall be.
Very like this, as to the form of the story,
is the anecdote in Pauli's Schimpf und Ernst,
LV, p. 46, ed. Oesterley (c. 1522). A noble-
man, who is seeking an occasion to quarrel
with an abbot, tells him that he must answer
these questions in three days, or be deposed :
What do you value me at ? Where is the
middle of the world? How far apart are
good and bad luck ? A swineherd answers for
him : Since Christ was sold for thirty pence,
I rate the emperor at twenty-nine and you at
twenty-eight; my church is the mid-point of
the world, and, if you will not believe me,
measure for yourself ; good and bad luck are
but one night apart, for yesterday I was
a swineherd, to-day I am an abbot. Then,
says the nobleman, an abbot shall you stay.
With this agrees, say the Grimms, the tale
in Eyring's Proverbiorum Copia (1601), I,
165-168, in, 23-25.
Waldis, Esopus (1548), B. 3, Fabel 92,
Kurz, I, 382, agrees in general with Pauli :
but in place of the first two questions has
these three : How far is to heaven ? How
deep is the sea ? How many tubs will hold
all the sea-water ? The answers are : A short
day's journey, for Christ ascended in the morn-
ing and was in heaven before night ; a stone's
cast ; one tub, if large enough.
Teofilo Folengo (1491-1544), as pointed
out by Kohler, has the story in the 8th canto
of his Orlandino ; and here we find the third
question of our ballad. There are three be-
sides : How far from earth to heaven ? From
the east to the west ? — a modification of the
second question in the ballad ; How many
drops of water in the seas about Italy ? The
abbot's cook, Marcolf, answers to the first, One
leap, as proved by Satan's fall ; to the second.
One day's journey, if the sun is to be trusted ;
and insists that, for a correct count under the
third, all the rivers shall first be stopped. To
the fourth he makes the never-stale reply.
You think I am the abbot, but I am the cook.
Rainero says he shall remain abbot, and the
abbot the cook. (Stanzas 38, 39, 64-69, pp
186 f, 195 ff, London edition of 1775.)
A capital Spanish story, ' Gramatica Parda,
Trueba, Cuentos Populares, p. 287, has all
three of the questions asked and answered as
in our ballad. There is a curate who sets up
to know everything, and the king, " el rey
que rabi6," has found him out, and gives him
a month to make his three answers, with a
premium and a penalty. The curate is forced
to call in a despised goatherd, who also had
all along seen through the shallowness of the
priest. The king makes the goatherd " archi-
pdmpano " of Seville, and condemns the cu-
rate to wear the herdsman's garb and tend his
goats for a month.*
The first and third questions of the ballad
are found in the thirty-eighth tale of Le Grand
Parangon des Nouvelles Nouvelles of Nicolas
de Troyes, 1536 (ed. Mabille, p. 155 ff) ; in
* The form of the third qneation ia slightly varied at
first i, Cual es el error en que yo estoy pensando ? But when
put to the herdsman the question is simply i En que estoy
yo pensando ? I was pointed to this story by Seidemann, ia
Archiv fur Litteratnrgeschichte, IX, 423. Trueba's C. P.
forms vol. 19 of Brockhaus's Coleccion de Autores Espa-
noles.
408
45. KING JOHN AND THE BISHOP
the Patrafiuelo of Juan de Timoneda, 1576,
Pat. 14, Novelistas anteriores 4 Cervantes, in
the Rivadeneyra Biblioteca, p. 164 f ; and in the
Herzog Heinrich Julius von Braunschweig's
comedy. Von einem Edelman welcher einein
Abt drey Fragen auffgegeben, 1594, ed. Hol-
land, p. 500 ff. The other question is as to
the centre of the earth, and the usual answers
are given by the abbot's miller, cook, servant,
except that in Timoneda the cook is so rational
as to say that the centre must be under the
king's feet, seeing that the world is as round
as a ball.* The question Where is the mid-
dle of the earth ? is replaced by How many
stars are there in the sky ? the other two re-
maining, in Balthasar Schupp, Schriften,
Franckfurt, 1701, I, 91 f (Kohler), and in
Gottlieb Cober (f 1717), Cabinet-prediger, 2"^
Theil, No 65, p. 823 (GrHter, Idunna u. Her-
mode, 1814, No 83, p. 131, and p. 87). The
abbot's miller gives a nuge number,' and bids
the king (of France) verify it, if he wishes.
This last is no doubt the version of the story
referred to by the Grimms in their note to
K. u. H. marchen. No 152.
We encounter a slight variation, not for
the better, in L'felite des Contes du Sieur
d'Ouville (t 1656 or 1657), Rouen, 1699, I,
241 ; h la Haye, 1703, I, 296 ; ed. Ristelhuber,
1876, p. 46 (Kohler) ; Nouveaux Contes h,
Rire, Cologne, 1709, p. 266 ; Contes a Rire,
Paris, 1781, I, 184. An ignorant and violent
nobleman threatens a parson, who plumes him-
self on a little astrology, that he will expose
him as an impostor if he does not answer four
questions : Whei-e is the middle of the world ?
What am I worth ? What am I thinking ?
What do I believe ? The village miller an-
* The editor of the Grand Parangon, at p. xiii, cites from
an older source an anecdote of a king insisting upon being
told how much he ought to bring if offered for sale. While
his courtiers are giving flattering replies, a fool leaps forward
and says, Twenty-nine deniers, and no more ; for if you were
worth thirty, that would be autant que le tout-puissant Dieu
valut, quant il fut vendu. The king took this answer to
heart, and repented of his vanities. So an emperor is con-
verted by this reply from a man-at-arms. Van den verwen-
den Keyser, Jan van HoUant, c. 1400, Willeras, Belgisch
Museum, X, 57 ; Thijm, p. 145. The like question and an-
swer, as a riddle, in a German MS. of the fifteenth century,
and in Questions ^nigmatiques, Lyon, 1619; Kohler, in
Weimarisches Jahrbuch, V, 354 fF.
swers for the curd. The reply to the third
question is. You are thinking more of your
own interest than of mine ; the others as be-
fore. This story is retold, after tradition, by
C6nac Moncaut, Contes populaires de la Gas-
cogne, p. 50, of a marquis, archipretre, and
miller. The query. What am I thinking of ?
with the answer, More of your interest than
of mine (which is not exactly in the popular
manner), is replaced by a logical puzzle, not
found elsewhere : Quel est le nombre qui se
trouve renfermd dans deux oeufs ?
The King and the Abbot is preserved, in
modern German tradition, in this form. An
emperor, riding by a cloister, reads the in-
scription, We are two farthings poorer than
the emperor, and live free of cares. Wait
a bit, says the emperor, and I will give you
some cares. He sends for the abbot, and
says. Answer these three questions in three
days, or I will depose you. The questions are.
How deep is the sea ? How many stars in the
sky ? How far from good luck to bad ? The
shepherd of the monastery gives the answers,
and is told, as in several cases before. If you
are the abbot, abbot you shall be. J. W.
, Wolf, Hessische Sagen, p. 166, No 262, II.
'Gustav Adolf und der Abt von Benedikt-
beuern,' in Sepp's Altbayerischer Sagenschatz,
p. 554, No 153, is another form of the same
story, with a substitution of How far is it to
heaven ? for the first question, and the an-
swers are given by a kitchie-boy.f In ' Hans
ohne Sorgen,' Meier, Deutsche Volksmarchen
aus Schwaben, p. 805, the questions are.
How far is it to heaven ? How deep is the
sea ? How many leaves has a linden ? and
the shepherd again undertakes the answers.^
t In Prussia Frederick the Great plays the part of Gus-
tavus. Sepp, p. 558.
X Another Swabian story, in Meier, No 28, p. 99, is a
mixed form. The Duke of Swabia reads " Hans sans cares "
over a miller's house-door, and says, " Bide a wee : if you have
no cares, I will give you some." The duke, to give the miller
a taste of what care is, says he must solve this riddle or lose
his mill: Come to me neither by day nor by night, neither
naked nor clothed, neither on foot nor on horseback. The
miller promises his man his daughter in marriage and the
mill in succession, if he will help him out of his dilemma.
The man at once says. Go on Mid-week, for Mid-week
is no day (Mitt-woch ist ja gar kein Tag, wie Sonn-tag,
Mon-tag), neither is it night; and if you are to be neither
45. KING JOHN AND THE BISHOP
409
'Der Miiller ohne Sorgen,' Miillenhoff, p. 153,
208, is a mutilated variation of these. Tlie
abbot disappears, and the questions are put
to the miller, who answers for himself. The
second question is How much does the moon
weigh ? and the answer, Four quarters ; if you
don't believe it, you must weigh for yourself.
We meet the miller sans souci again in a
Danish tale, which otherwise agrees entirely
with our ballad. The questions are answered
by the rich miller's herdsman: Grundtvig,
Gamle danske Minder, 1854, p. 112, No 111.
,A Croatian version of the story is given by
Valyavets, ' Frater i turski car,' p. 262. The
Turkish tsar is disposed to expel all monks
from his dominions, but determines first to
send for an abbot to try his calibre. The
abbot is too much friglitened to go, and his
cook, as in Foligno and Timoneda, takes his
place. The questions are. Where is the cen-
tre of the world ? What is God doing now ?
What am I thinking ? The first and third
are disposed of in the usual way. When
called to answer the second, the cook said,
You can't see through the ceiling: we must
go out into the field. When they came to
the field, the cook said again. How can I see
when I am on such a small ass ? Let me have
your horse. The sultan consented to exchange
beasts, and then the cook said, God is won-
dering that a sultan should be sitting on an
ass and a monk on a horse. The sultan was
pleased with the answers, and reasoning. If
the cook is so clever, what must the abbot be,
decided to let the monks alone. Afanasief,
who cites this story from Valyavets (Narod-
nuiya russkiya Skazki, VIH, 460), says that
he heard in the government of Voroneje a
story of a soldier who dressed himself as a
monk and presented himself before a tsar who
was in the habit of puzzling people with rid-
dles. The questions are, How many drops
in the sea? How many stars in the sky ?
What do I think ? And the answer to the last
is, Thou thinkest, gosudar, that I am a monk,
but I am merely a soldier.*
A few tales, out of many remaining, may
be now briefly mentioned, on account of varia-
tions in the setting.
A prisoner is to be released if he can tell a
queen how much she is worth, the centre of
the world, and what she thinks. A peasant
changes clothes with the prisoner, and answers
pro more. Kurtzweiliger Zeitvertreiber durch
C. A. M. von W., 1668, p. 70 f, in Kohler,
Orient u. Occident, I, 43.
A scholar has done learning. His master
says he must now answer three questions, or
have his head taken off. The master's broth-
er, a miller, comes to his aid. The questions
are. How many ladders would reach to the
sky? Where is the middle of the world?
What is the world worth ? Or, according to
another tradition, the two last are. How long
will it take to go round the world ? What is
my thought ? Campbell, Popular Tales of the
West Highlands, II, 391 f.
Eulenspiegel went to Prague, and adver-
tised himself on the doors of the churches and
lecture-rooms as a great master, capable of
answering questions that nobody else could
solve. To put him down, the rector and his
colleagues summoned Eulenspiegel to an ex-
amination before the university. Five ques-
tions were given him : How much water is
there in the sea ? How many days from Adam
to now ? Where is the middle of the world ?
How far from earth to heaven ? What is the
breadth of the sky ? Lappenberg, Dr Thomas
Murners Ulenspiegel, p. 38, No 28 ; Howle-
glas, ed. Ouvry, p. 28.
A herdboy had a great fame for his shrewd
answers. The king did not believe in him,
but sent for him, and said. If you can an-
swer three questions that I shall put, I will
regard you as my own child, and you shall live
clothed nor bare, pnt on a fishing-net ; and if you are to go
neither on foot nor on horseback, ride to him on an ass. All
but the beginning of this is derived from the cycle of ' The
Clever Wench : ' see No 2. Haltrich, Deutsche Volksmarchen
in Siebenbiirgen, No 45, which is also of this cycle, has taken
up a little of ' Hans ohne Sorgen.' A church has an iuscrip-
S2
tion, Wir leben ohne Sorgen. This vexes the king, who
says as before, Just wait, and I will give you reason for
cares, p. 244, ed. 1856.
* These two stories were communicated to me by Mr
Ralston.
410
45. KING JOHN AND THE BISHOP
in my palace. The questions are, How many-
drops of water are there in the ocean? How
many stars in the sky ? How many seconds
in eternity ? The Grimms, K. u. H. raiirchen,
No 152, ' Das Hirtenbiiblein.'
Three questions are put to a counsellor of
the king's, of which the first two are. Where
does the sun rise ? How far from heaven to
earth ? The answers, by a shepherd, are ex-
traordinarily feeble. Jiidisches Maasiibuch,
cap. 126, cited from Helwigs Jiidische His-
torien, No 39, in the Gi-imms' note to Das
Hirtenbiiblein.
Three monks, who know everything, in the
course of their travels come to a sultan's do-
minions, and he invites them to turn Mussul-
mans. This they agree to do if he will an-
swer their questions. All the sultan's doctors
are convened, but can do nothing with the
monks' questions. The hodja (the court-fool)
is sent for. The first question, Whei'e is the
middle of the earth ? is answered as usual.
The second monk asks, How many stars are
there in the sky ? The answer is. As many as
there are hairs on my ass. Have you counted ?
ask the monks. Have you counted ? rejoins
the fool. Answer me this, says the same
monk, and we shall see if your number is
right : How many hairs are there in my
beard ? " As many as in my ass's tail."
" Prove it." " My dear man, if you don't be-
lieve me, count yourself ; or we will pull all
the hairs out of both, count them, and settle
the matter." The monks submit, and become
Mussulmans. Les plaisanteries de Nasr-eddin
Hodja, traduites du turc par J. A. Decourde-
manche, No 70, p. 59 ff.
The Turkish emperor sends word to Kaiser
Leopold that unless the emperor can answer
three questions he shall come down upon him
with all his Turks. The counsellors are sum-
moned, but there is no help in them. The
court-fool offers to get his master out of the
difficulty, if he may have the loan of crown
and scepti'e. When the fool comes to Con-
stantinople, there lies the sultan in the win-
dow, and calls out. Are you the emperor, and
will you answer my questions ? Where does
the world end ? " Here, where my horse is
standing." How far is it to heaven ? " One
day's journey, and no inn on the road." What
is God thinking of now ? " He is thinking
that I am one fool and you another." J. W.
Wolf, Hessische Sagen, p. 165, No 262 1.*
For the literature, see especially the Grimms'
Kinder und HausmJirchen, notes to No 152 ;
R. Kohler in Orient und Occident, I, 409-41 ;
Oesterley's note to Pauli's Schimpf und Ernst,
No 55, p. 479.
Translated, after Percy's Reliques, II, 302,
1765, by Bodmer, II, 111 ; by Doenniges,
p. 152 ; by Ritter, Archiv fiir das Stadium
der neueren Sprachen, XXII, 222. Retold
by Biirger, 'Der Kaiser und der Abt,' G()t-
tinger Musenalmanach fiir 1785, p. 177.
Percy MS., p. 184. Hales and Fumivall, I, 508.
1 Off an ancient story He tell you anon,
Of a notable prince thai was called Ktwg John,
In England was borne, with maine and with
might ;
Hee did much wrong and mainteined litle
right.
2 This noble prince was vexed in veretye,
For he was angry with the Bishopp of Can-
terbury ;
Ffor his house-keeping and his good cheere,
The rode post for him, as you shall heare.
3 They rode post for him verry hastilye ;
The Ving sayd the bishopp kept a better house
then hee :
A hundred men euen, as I [have heard] say,
The bishopp kept in his house euerye day,
And fifty gold chaines, without any doubt,
In veluett coates waited the bishopp about.
* In the beginning there is a clear trace of the Oriental
tales of ' The Clever Lass ' cycle.
45. KING JOHN AND THE BISHOP
411
4 The bishopp, he came to the court anon,
Before his prince tJiat was called 'King lohn.
As soone as the bishopp the \ing did see,
* O,' q/foth the ktVtjr, ' bishopp, thow art wel-
come to mee.
There is noe man soe welcome to towne
As thou that workes treason against my
crowne.'
5 ' My leege,' quoth the bishopp, ' I wold it were
knowne
I spend, yowr grace, nothing but that that 's
my owne ;
I trust yowr grace will doe me noe deare
For spending my owne trew gotten geeve.'
6 ' Yes,' quoth the 'king, ' bishopp, thou must
needs dye,
Eccept thou can answere mee questions three ;
Thy head shalbe smitten quite from thy bodye,
And all thy lining remayne vnto mee.
7 ' First,' qtwth the king, ' tell me in this steade,
With this crowne of gold heere vpon my head,
Amongst my nobUitye, with ioy and much
mirth,
Lett me know within one pennye what I am
worth.
8 ' Secondlye, tell me without any dowbt
How soone I may goe the whole world about ;
And thirdly, teU mee or euer I stinte,
What is the thing, bishopp, tliat I doe thinke.
Twenty dayes pardon thoust haue trulye,
And come againe and answere mee.'
9 The bishopp bade the 'king god night att a
word ;
He rode betwixt Cambridge and Oxenford,
But neuer a doctor there was soe wise
Cold shew him these questions or enterprise.
10 Wherewith the bishopp was nothing gladd,
But in his hart was heauy and sadd.
And hyed him home to a house in the coun-
trye.
To ease some part of his melanchollye.
11 His halfe-brother dwelt there, was feirce and
fell,
Noe better but a shepard to the bishoppe him-
sell;
The shepard came to the bishopp anon,
Saying, My Lord, you are welcome home !
12 ' What ayles you,' qjtoth the shepard, ' that you
are soe sadd,
And had wonte to haue beene soe merry and
gladd?'
' Nothing,' qztoth the bishopp, ' I ayle att tliis
time ;
Will not thee availe to know, brother mine.'
13 'Brother,' q?«oth the shepeard, 'you haue
heard itt.
That a ffoole may teach a wisemane witt ;
Say me therfore whatsoeuer you will.
And if I doe you noe good, He doe you noe Ul.'
14 Qtwth the bishop : I haue beene att the court
anon.
Before my prince is called 'King lohn,
And there he hath charged mee
Against his crowne with traitorye.
15 If I cannott answer his misterye.
Three questions hee hath propounded to mee,
He will haue my land soe faire and free.
And alsoe the head from my bodye.
16 The first question was, to tell him in that stead,
With the crowne of gold vpon his head.
Amongst his nobilitye, with ioy and much
mirth.
To lett him know within one penye what hee
is worth.
17 And secondlye, to tell him with-out any doubt
How soone he may goe the whole world about ;
And thirdlye, to tell him, or ere I stint,
What is the thinge that he does thinke.
18 ' Brother,' quoth the shepard, ' you are a man
of learninge ;
What neede you stand in doubt of soe small a
thinge?
Lend me,' qwoth the shepard, ' yowr ministers
apparreU,
He ryde to the court and answere yowr quar-
reU.
19 ' Lend me your serving men, say me not nay,
With all yoMr best horsses that ryd on the
way;
412
45. KING JOHN AND THE BISHOP
He to the court, this matter to stay ;
He speake with Kinff lohn and heare what
heele say.'
20 The hishopp with speed prepared then
To sett forth the shepard with horsse and
man ;
The shepard was liuely without any doubt ;
I wott a royall companye came to the court.
21 The shepard hee came to the court anon
Before [his] prince tliat was called Kiwgr lohn.
As soone as the hint/ the shepard did see,
' 0,' qwoth the king, ' hishopp, thou art wel-
come to me.'
The shepard was soe like the hishopp his
brother,
The km;/ cold not know the one from the
other.
22 Qwoth the ^inff, Bishopp, thou art welcome to
me
If thou can answer me my questions three.
Said the shepeard, If it please your grace,
Show mee what the first quest[i]on was.
23 ' First,' qwoth the king, ' tell mee in this stead,
With the crowne of gold vpon my head.
Amongst my nobilitye, with ioy and much
mirth.
Within one pennye what I am worth.' 5
24 Qwoth the shepard, To make your grace noe
offence,
I thinke you are worth nine and twenty pence ;
For our ILord lesus, that bought vs all,
For thirty pence was sold into thrall
Amongst the cursed lewes, as I to you doe
showe ;
But I know Christ was one penye better then
you.
25 Then the king laught, and swore by St An-
drew
He was not thought to bee of such a small
value.
' Secondly e, tell mee with-out any doubt
How soone I may goe the world round about.'
26 Sales the shepard, It is noe time with yoMr
grace to scorne,
But rise betime with the sun in the morne.
And follow his course till his vprising.
And then you may know without any leasing.
27 And this [to] jour grace shall prone the same,
You are come to the same jilace from whence
you came ;
[In] twenty-four houres, with-out any doubt,
Youv grace may the world goe round about ;
The world round about, euen as I doe say,
If with the sun you can goe the next way. *
28 ' And thirdlye tell me or ener I stint,
What is the thing, bishoppe, that I doe
thinke.'
' That shall I doe,' qwoth the shepeard ; ' for
veretye.
You thinke I am the bishopp of Canterburye.'
29 ' Why, art not thou ? the truth tell to me ;
For I doe thinke see,' quoth the king, ' by St
Marye.'
' Not soe,' qwoth the shepeard ; ' the truth
shalbe knowne,
I am his poore shepeard ; my brother is att
home.'
30 ' Why,' qiwth the king, ' if itt soe bee,
He make thee bishopp here to mee.'
' Noe, Sir,' qMoth the shepard, ' I pray you be
still.
For He not bee bishop but against my will ;
For I am not fitt for any such deede,
For I can neither write nor reede.'
31 * Why then,' qMoth the king, ' He giue thee
cleere
A pattent of three hundred pound a yeere ;
That I will giue thee franke and free ;
Take thee that, shepard, for coming to me.
32 ' Free pardon He giue,' the kings grace said,
' To sane the bishopp, his land and his head ;
With him nor thee He be nothing wrath ;
Here is the jsardon for him and thee both.'
33 Then the shepard he had noe more to say.
But tooke the pardon and rode his way :
When he came to the bishopps place.
The bishopp asket anon how all things was.
34 ' Brother,' qitoth the shepard, ' I haue well
sped.
For I haue saued both yoMr land and yowr
head ;
The king with you is nothing wrath.
For heere is the pardon for you and mee
both.'
45. KING JOHN AND THE BISHOP
413
35 Then the bishopes hart was of a merry
cheere :
' Brother, thy paines He quitt them cleare ;
For I will giue thee a patent to thee and to
thine
Of fifty pound a yeere, land good and fine.'
36
' I will to thee noe longer croche nor creepe,
Nor He seme thee noe more to keepe thy
sheepe.'
37 "Whereeuer wist you shepard before,
That had in his head witt such store
To pleasure a bishopp in such a like case,
To answer three questions to the V.ings grace ?
Whereeuer wist you shepard gett cleare
Three hundred and fifty pound a yeere ?
38 I neuer hard of his fellow before.
Nor I neuer shall: now I need to say noe
more.
I neuer knew shepeard thai gott such a liuinge
But David, the shepeard, that was a 'king.
B
Broadside, printed for F. Brooksby, at the Golden Ball in
Pye-comer (1672-95).
1 I 'liL tell you a story, a story anon.
Of a noble prince, and his name was King
John ;
For he was a prince, and a prince of great
might,
He held up great wrongs, he put down great
right.
Deny down, down hey, deny down
2 I '11 tell you a story, a story so merry.
Concerning the Abbot of Canterbury,
And of his house-keeping and high renown,
Which made Bim resort to fair London town.
7 ' O these are hard questions for my shallow wit,
For I cannot answer your grace as yet ;
But if you will give me but three days space,
I '11 do my endeavor to answer your grace.'
8 ' O three days space I will thee give,
For that is the longest day thou hast to live.
And if thou dost not answer these questions
right.
Thy head shall be taken from thy body quite.'
9 And as the shepherd was going to his fold.
He spy'd the old abbot come riding along :
' How now, master abbot ? You 'r welcome
home ;
What news have you brought from good King
John?'
3 ' How now, father abbot ? 'T is told unto me
That thou keepest a far better house than I ;
And for [thy] house-keeping and high renown,
I fear thou has treason against my crown.'
4 ' I hope, my liege, that you owe me no grudge
For spending of my true-gotten goods : '
' If thou dost not answer me questions three.
Thy head shall be taken from thy body.
6 ' When I am set so high on my steed.
With my crown of gold upon my head,
Amongst aU my nubility, with joy and much
mirth.
Thou must tell me to one penny what I am
worth.
6 ' And the next question you must not float,
How long I shall be riding the world about ;
And the third question thou must not shrink,
But teU to me truly what I do think.'
10 ' Sad news, sad news I have thee to gfive.
For I have but three days space for to live ;
If I do not answer him questions three,
My head wiU be taken from my body.
11 ' When he is set so high on his steed,
With his crown of gold upon his head,
Amongst all his nobility, with joy and much
mirth,
I must tell him to one penny what he is worth.
12 ' And the next question I must not flout.
How long he shall be riding the world about ;
And the third question I must not shrink,
But tell him truly what he does think.'
13 ' 0 master, did you never hear it yet.
That a fool may learn a wiseman wit ?
Lend me but your horse and your apparel,
I '11 ride to fair London and answer the quar-
rel.'
414
46. CAPTAIN WEDDERBURN'S COURTSHIP
14 ' Now I am set so high on my steed,
With my crown of gold upon my head,
Amongst all my nobility, with joy and much
mirth.
Now tell me to one penny what I am worth.'
15 ' For thirty pence our Saviour was sold.
Amongst the false Jews, as you have been
told.
And nine and twenty 's the worth of thee,
For I think thou are one penny worser than
he.'
16 ' And the next question thou mayst not flout ;
How long 1 shall be riding the world about.'
' You must rise with the sun, and ride with the
same,
Until the next morning he rises again.
And then I am sure you will make no doubt
But in twenty-four hours you '1 ride it about.'
17 ' And the third question you must not shrink.
But tell me truly what I do think.'
' All that I can do, and 't v.'ill make you
merry ;
For you think I 'm the Abbot of Canterbury,
But I 'm his poor shepherd, as you may see.
And am come to beg pardon for he and for
18 The king he turned him about and did smile.
Saying, Thou shalt be the abbot the other
wliile :
' 0 no, my grace, there is no such need.
For I can neither write nor read.'
19 ' Then four pounds a week will I give unto thee
For this merry jest thou hast told unto me ;
And tell the old abbot, wlien thou comest home.
Thou hast brought him a pardon from good
King John.'
Not divided into stanzas in the MS.
3', 3^ 6^ 8«, 15\ 22^ 24*, 27», 31^ 37*.
hie numerals are expressed in letters.
14^ thy court.
24^^. worth 29 pence.
SI'', patten. 31*. earning.
Ara- 35*. 50!'. 37«. 350'/.
B. 5*, 11^, 14'. on my [his] steed so high.
7^ my sh ow.
111. sat. 12». thou must. 19*. K. John.
46
CAPTAIN WEDDERBURN'S COURTSHIP
A. a. 'I'll no ly neist the wa,' Herd's MS., I, IGl. burn's Courtship,' Jamieson's Popular Ballads, II,
b. ' She '11 no ly neist [the] wa,' the same, II, 100. 159. e. Harris MS., fol. 19 b, No 14. f. Notes and
Queries, 2d S., IV, 170.
B. a. ' The Earl of Kosslyn's Daughter,' Kinloch MSS,
I, 83. b. ' Lord Roslin's Daughter,' Lord Roslin's C. ' The Laird of Roslin's Daughter,' Sheldon's Min-
Daughter's Garland, p. 4. c. ' Lord Roslin's Daugh- strelsy of the English Border, p. 232.
ter,' Buchan's MSS, II, 34. d. 'Captain Wedder-
A COPY of this ballad was printed in The Motherwell, p. Ixxiv.* Few were more pop-
New British Songster, a Collection of Songs, ular, says Motherwell, and Jamieson remarks
Scots and English, with Toasts and Senti- » ^his book has been pursued by me for years, with the
ments for the Bottle, Falkirk, 1785 : see cooperation of many friends and agents, but in vain.
46. OAPTAIK WEDDERBURN'S COURTSHIP
415
that 'Captain Wedderburn' was equally in
vogue in the north and the south of Scot-
land.
Jamieson writes to the Scots Magazine,
1803, p. 701 : " Of this ballad I have got one
whole copy and part of another, and I re-
member a good deal of it as I have heard it
sung in Morayshire when I was a child." In
his Popular Ballads, II, 154, 1806, he says
that the copy wliicli he prints was furnished
him from Mr Herd's MS. by the editor of the
Border Minstrelsy, and that he had himself
supplied a few readings of small importance
from his own recollection. There is some in-
accuracy here. The version given by Jamie-
son is rather B, with readings from A.
We have had of the questions six, A 11, 12,
What is greener than the grass? in No 1, A 15,
C 13, D 5 ; What 's higher than the tree? in
C 9, D 1 ; What 's war than a woman's wiss ?
(" than a woman was ") A 15, C 13, D 5 ;
What 's deeper than the sea ? A 13, B 8, C 9,
D 1. Of the three dishes, A 8, 9, we have
the bird without a gall in Ein Spil von den
Freiheit, Fastnachtspiele aus dem 15° Jhdt,
II, 558, v. 23,* and the two others in the fol-
lowing song, from a manuscript assigned to
^ the fifteenth century, and also preserved in
several forms by oral tradition : f Sloane MS.,
No 2593, British Museum ; Wright's Songs
and Carols, 1836, No 8 ; as printed for the
Warton Club, No xxix, p. 33.
I have a ^ong suster fer bejondyn the se,
Many be the drowryis that che sente me.
Che sente me the cherye, withoutyn ony ston,
And so che dede [the] dowe, withoutyn ony hon.
Sche sente me the brere, withoutyn ony rynde,
Sche bad me love my lemman withoute longgyng.
How xuld ony cherye be withoute ston ?
And how xuld ony dowe ben withoute bon ?
How xuld any brere ben withoute rynde ?
How xuld y love myn lenunan without longyng ?
Quan the cherye was a flour, than hadde it non
ston ;
Quan the dowe was an ey, than hadde It non bon.
Quan the brere was onbred, than hadde it non
rynd ;
Quan the mayden hajt that che lovit, che is without
longyng.
' Captain Wedderbum's Courtship,' or
' Lord Roslin's Daughter,' J is a counterpart
of the ballad in which a maid wins a husband
by guessing riddles. (See Nos 1 and 2, and
also the following ballad, for a lady who gives
» Followed by Virgil's riddle, Eel. iii, 104-5, Where is
he sky but three spans broad ?
t Halliwell's Popular Rhymes and Nursery Talcs, p. 150 ;
Halliwell's Nursery Rhymes, No 375 ; Notes and Queries, 3d
Ser., IX, 401 ; 4th Ser., Ill, 501, 604 ; Macmillan's Maga-
zine, V, 248, by T. Hughes. The first of these mns :
I have four sisters beyond the sea,
Para-mara, dictum, domine
And they did send four presents to me.
Partum, quartum, paradise, tempum,
Para-mara, dictum, domine
The first it was a bird without eer a bone,
The second was a cherry without eer a stone.
The third it was a blanket without eer a thread,
The fourth it was a book which no man could read.
How can there be a bird without eer a bone ?
How can there be a cherry without eer a stone ?
How can there be a blanket without eer a thread ?
How can there be a book which no man can read?
When the bird 's in the shell, there is no bone ;
When the cherry 's in the bud, there is no stone.
When the blanket 's in the fleece, there is no thread ;
When the book 's in the press, no man can read.
The Minnesinger dames went far beyond our laird's
daughter in the way of requiring " ferlies " from their lov-
ers. Der Tanhuser and Boppe represent that their ladies
would be satisfied with nothing short of their turning the
course of rivers ; bringing them the salamander, the basilisk,
the graal, Paris's apple ; giving them a sight of Enoch and
Elijah in the body, a hearing of the sirens, etc. Von der
Hagen, Minnesinger, II, 91 f, 385 f.
} There were, no doubt, Gri.ssels enough in the very dis-
tinguished family of the Sinclairs of Roslin to furnish one
for this ballad. I see two mentioned among the Sinclairs
of Herdmanstonn. Even a Wedderburn connection, as I am
informed, is not absolutely lacking. George Home of Wed-
derburn (t 1497), married the eldest daughter of John Sin-
clair of Herdmanstonn : Douglas's Peerage of Scotland, ed.
Wood, 1813, II, 174.
416
46. CAPTAIN WEDDEEBURN'S COtTBTSHIP
riddles.) The ingenious suitor, though not so
favorite a subject as the clever maid, may
boast that he is of an old and celebrated fam-
ily. We find him in the Gesta Romanorum,
No 70 ; Oesterley, p. 383, Madden's English
Versions, No 35, p. 884. A king had a beau-
tiful daughter, whom he wished to dispose of
in marriage ; but she had made a vow that
she would accept no husband who had not
achieved tliree tasks : to tell her how many
feet long, broad, and deep were the four ele-
ments ; to change the wind from the north ;
to take fire into his bosom, next the flesh,
without harm. The king issued a proclama-
tion in accordance with these terms. Many
tried and failed, but at last there came a sol-
dier who succeeded. To answer the first ques-
tion he made his servant lie down, and meas-
ured him from head to foot. Every living
being is composed of the four elements, he
said, and I find not more than seven feet in
them. A very easy way was hit on for per-
forming the second task : the soldier simply
turned his horse's head to the east, and, since
wind is the life of every animal, maintained
that he had changed the wind. The king
was evidently not inclined to be strict, and
said. Clear enough. Let us go on to the third.
Then, by the aid of a stone which he always
carried about him, the soldier put handfuls of
burning coals into his bosom without injury.
The king gave his daughter to the soldier.
An extraordinary ballad in Sakellarios's
KvwpiaKd, III, 15, No 6, ' The Hundred Say-
ings,' subjects a lover to a severe probation of
riddles. (Liebrecht has given a full abstract
of the story in Gosche's Archiv, II, 29.) A
youth is madly enamored of a king's daughter,
but, though his devotion knows no bound,
cannot for a long time get a word from her
mouth, and then only disdain. She shuts her-
self up in a tower. He prays for a heat that
may force her to come to the window, and
that she may drop her spindle, and he be the
only one to bring it to her. The heavens are
kind : all this comes to pass, and she is fain
to beg him to bring her the spindle. She
asks, Can you do what I say? Shoulder a
tower? make a stack of eggs? trim a date-
tree, standing in a great river ? * All this he
can do. She sends him away once and again
to learn various things ; last of all, the hundred
sayings that lovers use. He presents himself
for examination. " One ? " " There is one
only God : may he help me ! " " Two ? "
" Two doves with silver wings are sporting
together : I saw how they kissed," etc.
"Three?" " Holy Trinity, help me to love
the maid ! " " Four ? " " There is a four-
pointed cross on thy smock, and it implores
God I may be thy mate : " and so he is cate-
chised through all the units and tens.f Then
the lady suddenly turns about, concedes every-
thing, and proposes that they shall go to
church : but the man says. If I am to marry
all my loves, I have one in every town, and
wife and children in Constantinople. They
part with reciprocal scurrilities.
Usually when the hand of a princess is to
be won by the performance of tasks, whether
requiring wit, courage, the overcoming of
magic arts, or what not, the loss of your head
is the penalty of failure. (See the preface to
the following ballad.) ApoUonius of Tyre,
of Greek original, but first found in a Latin
form, is perhaps the oldest riddle-story of this
description. Though its age has not been
determined, the tale has been carried back
even to the end of the third or the beginning
of the fourth century, was a great favorite
with the Middle Ages, and is kept only too
familiar by the play of Pericles.
* The difficulty here is the want oi a wov arS>, from which
to climb the tree.
t These number-riddles or songs are known to every nation
of Europe. E. g., Chambers' Popular Rhymes of Scotland,
p. 44, ed. 1870, from Buchan's MSS, I, 280:
O what will be our ane, boys?
O what will be our ane, boys?
My only ane, she walks alane,
And evermair has dune, boys, etc.
See Kohler in Orient n. Occident, II, 558-9. A dragon, in
Hahn's Griechische u. Albanesische Marchen, II, 210, gives
Penteklimas ten of these number-riddles : if he auswers
them he is to have a fine castle ; if not, he is to be eaten.
An old woman answers for him : " One is God, two are the
righteous, etc. ; ten is your own word, and now burst,
dragon ! " The dragon bursts, and Penteklimas inherits his
possessions.
46. CAPTAIN WEDDEEBURN'S COURTSHIP
417
More deserving of perpetuation is the charm-
ing Persian story of Prince Calaf, in P^tis de
La Croix's 1001 Days (45*-82« jour), upon
which Carlo Gozzi founded his play of " La
Turandot," now best known through Schiller's
translation. Tourandocte's riddles are such as
we should call legitimate, and are three in
number. " What is the being that is found
in every land, is dear to all the world, and
cannot endure a fellow?" Calaf answers.
The sun. " What mother swallows the chil-
dren she has given birth to, as soon as they
have attained their growth ? " The sea, says
Calaf, for the rivers that flow into it all came
from it. " What is the tree that has all its
leaves white on one side and black on the
other ? " This tree, Calaf answers, is the year,
which is made up of days and nights.*
A third example of this hazardous wooing
is the story of The Fair One of the Castle,
the fourth in the Persian poem of The Seven
Figures (or Beauties), by Nisami of Gendsch
(t 1180). A Russian princess is shut up in
a castle made inaccessible by a talisman, and
every suitor must satisfy four conditions : he
must be a man of honor, vanquish the en-
chanted guards, take away the talisman, and
obtain the consent of her father. Many had es-
sayed their fortune, and their heads were now
arrayed on the pinnacles of the castle.f A
young prince had fulfilled the first three con-
ditions, but the father would not approve his
suit until he had solved the princess's riddles.
These are expressed symbolically, and an-
swered in the same way. The princess sends
the prince two pearls from her earring : he
at once takes her meaning, — life is like two
drops of water, — and returns the pearls with
three diamonds, to signify that joy — faith,
hope, and love — can prolong life. The prin-
cess now sends him three jewels in a box,
with sugar. The prince seizes the idea, — life
is blended with sensuous desire, — and pours
milk on the sugar, to intimate that as milk
dissolves sugar, so sensuous desire is quenched
by true love. After four such interchanges,
the princess seals her consent with a device
not less elegant than the others.:}:
A popular tale of this class is current in
Russia, with this variation : that the hard-
hearted princess requites her lovers to give
her riddles, and those who cannot pose her
lose their heads. Foolish Ivdn, the youngest
of three brothers, adventures after many have
failed. On his way to the trial he sees a
horse in a cornfield and drives it out with a
whip, and further on kills a snake with a
lance, saying in each case. Here 's a riddle !
Confronted with the pi'incess, he says to her,
As I came to you, I saw by the roadside what
was good ; and in the good was good ; so I set
to work, and with what was good I drove the
good from the good. The good fled from the
good out of the good. The princess pleads a
headache, and puts off her answer till the next
day, when Iv4n gives her his second enigma :
As I came to you, I saw on the way what
was bad, and I struck the bad with a bad
thing, and of what was bad the bad died.
The princess, unable to solve these puzzles, is
obliged to accept foolish Iv4n. (Afanasief,
Skazki, II, 225 ff. No 20, in Ralston's Songs
of the Russian People, p. 354 f.) Closely
related to this tale, and still nearer to one
another, are the Grimms' No 22, ' Das Rath-
sel ' (see, also, the note in their third vol-
ume), and the West Highland story, ' The
Ridere (Knight) of Riddles,' Campbell, No
22, II, 27. In the former, as in the Russian
tale, it is the princess that must be puzzled
before she will yield her hand ; in the latter,
an unmatchable beauty is to be had by no man
who does not put a question which her father
cannot solve.
* Gozzi retains the first and third riddles, Schiller only the
third. By a happy idea, new riddles were intrudaced at the
successive performances of Schiller's play. Turandot ap-
pears as a traditional tale in Schneller's Marchen u. Sagen
aus Walschtirol, No 49, p. 132, " I tre Indoviuelli."
t The castle with walla and gate thus equipped, or a pal-
isade of stakes each crowned with a bead, is all but a com-
monplace in such adventures. This grim stroke of fancy is
53
best in ' La mule sanz frain,' where there are four hundred
stakes, a// but one surmounted with a bloody head: Meon,
Nouveau Kecueil, I, 15, w 429-37. For these parlous prin-
cesses, of all sorts, see Grundtvig, ' Den farlige Jomfru,' IV,
43ff, No 184.
X Von Hammer, Geschichte der schonen Bedekunste Per-
giens, p. 116, previously cited by von der Hagen, Gesammt-
abenteuer, III, Ixii.
418
46. CAPTAIN WEDDERBURN'S COURTSHIP
Here may be put three drolleries, all clearly
of the same origin, in which a fool wins a
princess by nonplussing her: 'The Three
Questions,' Halliwell's Popular Rhymes and
Nursery Tales, p. 32 ; a " schwank " of the
fourteenth century, by Heinz der Kellner,
von der Hagen's Gesaramtabenteuer, No 63,
III, 179 (there very improperly called Turan-
dot) ; ' Spurningen,' Asbjornson og Moe,
Norske Folkeeventyr, No 4, Dasent, Popular
Tales from the Norse, p. 148. According to
the first of these, the king of the East Angles
promises his clever daughter to any one who
can answer three of her questions (in the
other versions, more correctly, silence her).
Three brothers, one of them a natural, set out
for the court, and, on the way. Jack finds suc-
cessively an egg, a crooked hazel-stick, and
a nut, and each time explodes with laughter.
When they are ushered into tlie presence,
Jack bawls out. What a troop of fair ladies I
" Yes," says the pi'incess, " we are fair ladies,
for we carry fire in our bosoms." " Then
roast me an egg," says Jack, pulling out the
egg from his pocket. " How will j^ou get it
out again ? " asks the princess ? " With a
crooked stick," says Jack, producing the same.
" Where did that come from? " says the prin-
cess. " From a nut," answers Jack, pulling
out the nut. And so, as the princess is
silenced, the fool gets her in marriage.*
Even nowadays riddles play a noteworthy
part in the marriages of Russian peasants. In
the government Pskof, as we are informed by
Khudyakof, the bridegroom's party is not ad-
mitted into the bride's house until all the rid-
dles given by the party of the bride have been
answered ; whence the saying or proverb, to
the behoof of bridegrooms, Choose comrades
that can guess riddles. In the village of Dav-
shina, in the Yaroslav government, the bride-
groom's best man presents himself at the
bride's house on the wedding-day, and finding
a man, called the bride-seller, sitting by the
bride, asks him to surrender the bride and va-
cate his place. " Fair and softly," answers the
seller ; " you will not get the bride for noth-
ing ; make us a bid, if you will. And how will
you trade? will you pay in riddles or in gold?"
If the best man is prepared for the emergency,
as we must suppose he always would be, he
answers, I will pay in riddles. Half a dozen
or more riddles are now put by the seller, of
which these are favoi-able specimens : Give me
the sea, full to the brim, and with a bottom
of silver. The best man makes no answer in
words, but fills a bowl with beer and lays a
coin at the bottom. Tell me the thing, naked
itself, which has a shift over its bosom. The
best man hands the seller a candle. Finally
the seller says. Give me something which the
master of this house lacks. The best man then
brings in the bridecjroom. The seller gives
up his seat, and hands the best man a plate,
saying. Put in this what all pretty girls like.
The best man puts in what money he thinks
proper, the bridesmaids take it and quit the
house, and the bridegroom's friends carry off
the bride.
So, apparently in some ballad, a maid gives
riddles, and will marry only the man who will
guess them.
By day like a hoop,
By night like a snake ;
Who reads my riddle,
I take him for mate. (A belt.)
No 1103 of Khudyakof.t
In RadlofE's Songs and Tales of the Turk-
ish tribes in East Siberia, I, 60, a father, want-
ing a wife for his son, applies to another man,
who has a marriageable daughter. The latter
will not make a match unless the young man's
father will come to him with pelt and sans
pelt, by the road and not by the road, on a
horse and yet not on a horse : see 8 ff of this
volume. The young man gives his father
proper instructions, and wins his wife.
A Lithuanian mother sends her daughter
to the wood to fetch " winter May and sum-
* The German schwank affixes the forfeit of the head to
failure. In the Norwegian the unsuccessful brothers get off
with a thrashing. The fire in the English, found also in the
German, recalls the third task in the Gesta Romanorum.
t Khudyakof, in the Ethnograi)hical Collection of the Rus-
sian Geographical Society, Etnografitcheskiy Sbornik, etc.,
VI, 9, 10,8. Ralston, The Songs of the Russian People,
p. 353.
46. CAPTAIN WEDDERBURN'S COURTSHIP
419
mer snow." She meets a herdsman, and asks
where she can find these. The herdsman
offers to teach her these riddles in return for
her love, and she complying with these terms,
gives her the answers : The evergreen tree is
winter May, and sea-foam is summer snow.
Beitrage zur Kunde Prenssens, I, 515 (Rhesa),
and Ausland, 1839, p. 1230.
The European tales, excepting the three
drolleries (and even they are perhaps to be re-
garded only as parodies of the others), must
be of Oriental derivation ; but the far north
presents us with a similar story in the lay of
Alvfss, in the elder Edda. The dwarf Alvfss
comes to claim Freya for his bride by virtue
of a promise from the gods. Thor * says that
the bride is in his charge, and that he was
from home when the promise was made : at
any rate, Alviss shall not have the maid unless
he can answer all the questions that shall be
put him. Thor then requires Alviss to give
him the names of earth, heaven, moon, sun,
etc., ending with barley and the poor creature
small beer, in all the worlds ; that is, in the
dialect of the gods, of mankind, giants, elves,
dwarfs, etc. Alviss does this with such com-
pleteness as to extort Thor's admiration, but
is craftily detained in so doing till after sun-
rise, when Thor cries. You are taken in !
Above ground at dawn ! and the dwarf turns
to stone.
Translated, in part, after Aytoun, by
Knortz, Schottische Balladen, p. 107.
a. Herd's MS., I, 161. b. The same, II, 100.
1 The laird of Bristoll's daughter was in the
woods walking,
And by came Captain Wetberboum, a servant
to tbe king ;
And he said to his livery man, Wer 't not
against the law,
I would tak her to mine ain bed, and lay her
neist the wa.
2 ' I 'm into my father's woods, amongst my fa-
ther's trees,
O kind sir, let mee walk alane, O kind sir, if
you please ;
The butler's bell it will be rung, and I 'U be
mist awa ;
I'U lye into mine ain bed, neither at stock
nor wa.'
3 ' 0 my bonny lady, the bed it 's not be mine.
For I 'U command my servants for to call it
thine ;
The hangings are silk satin, the sheets are hol-
land sma,
And we 's baith lye in ae bed, but you 's lye
neist the wa.
4 ' And so, my bonny lady, — I do not know
your name, —
But my name 's Captain Wetherburn, and I 'm
a man of fame ;
Tho your father and a' his men were here, I
would na stand in awe
To tak you to mine ain bed, and lay you neist
the wa.
5 ' Oh my bonny, bonny lady, if you 11 gie me
your hard,
You shall hae drums and trumpets to sound at
your command ;
Wi fifty men to guard you, sae weel their
swords can dra,
And wee 's baith lye in ae bed, but you 's lye
neist the wa.'
6 He 's mounted her upon a steid, behind his
gentleman.
And he himself did walk afoot, to had his lady
on.
With his hand about her midle sae jimp, for
fear that she should fa ;
She man lye in his bed, but she '11 not lye
neist the wa.
* Vigfusson objects to Thor being the interlocutor, though
that is the name in the MS., because cunning does not snit
Thor's blunt character, and proposes Odin instead. " May
be the dwarf first met Thor (Wiugthor), whereupon Woden
( Wingi) came up." Corpus Poeticum Boreale, I, 81.
420
46. CAPTAIN WEDDERBURN'S COURTSHIP
7 He 's taen her into Edinburgh, his landlady-
cam ben :
' And monny bonny ladys in Edinburgh has I
seen,
But the like of this fine creature my eyes they
never sa ; '
' O dame bring ben a down-bed, for she 's lye
neist the wa.'
13 ' Virgus is greener than the grass, heaven 's
higher than the tree ;
The dell 's war than a woman's wish, hell 's
deeper than the sea ;
The cock sings first, on the Sugar Loaf the dew
down first does fa ;
And ye man lye in my bed, betweest me and
the wa.'
8 ' Hold your tongue, young man,' she said, ' and
dinna trouble me.
Unless you get to my supper, and that is dishes
three ;
Dishes three to my supper, tho I eat nane
SLlt 3/ y
Before I lye in your bed, but I winna lye neist
the wa.
14 ' Hold your tongue, young man,' she said, ' I
pray you give it oer.
Unless you tell me questions, and that is ques-
tions four ;
Tell me them as I shall ask them, and that is
twa by twa,
Before I lye in your bed, but I winna lye neist
the wa.
9 ' You maun get to my supper a cherry but a
stane,
And you man get to my supper a capon but a
bane.
And you man get a gentle bird that flies want-
ing the ga.
Before I lye in your bed, but I '11 not lye neist
the wa.'
15 ' You man get to me a plumb that does in win-
ter grow ;
And likewise a silk mantle that never waft
gaed thro ;
A sparrow's horn, a priest unborn, this night
to join us twa,
Before I lye in your bed, but I winna lye neist
the wa.'
10 ' A cherry whan in blossom is a cherry but a
stane ;
A capon when he 's in the egg canna hae a
bane ;
The dow it is a gentle bird that flies wanting
the ga ;
And ye man lye in my bed, between me and
the wa.'
11 ' Hold your tongue, young man,' she said, ' and
dinna me perplex.
Unless you tell me questions, and that is ques-
tions six ;
TeU me them as I shall ask them, and that is
twa by twa.
Before I lye in your bed, but I '11 not lye neist
the wa.
16 ' There is a plumb in my father's yeard that
does in winter grow ;
Likewise he has a silk mantle that never waft
gaed thro ;
A sparrow's horn, it may be found, there 's ane
in every tae,
Tliere 's ane upo the mouth of him, perhaps
there may be twa.
17 ' The priest is standing at the door, just ready
to come in ;
Nae man could sae that he was born, to lie it
is a sin ;
For a wild boar bored his mother's side, he out
of it did fa ;
And you man lye in my bed, between me and
the wa.'
12 ' What is greener than the grass, what 's higher
than the tree ?
What 's war than a woman's wiss, what 's deeper
than the sea?
What bird sings first, and whereupon the dew
down first does fa ?
Before I lye in your bed, but I '11 not lye neist
the wa.'
18 Little kent Grizey Sinclair, that morning when
she raise,
'T was to be the hindermost of a' her single
days;
For now she 's Captain Wetherburn's wife, a
man she never saw,
And she man lye in his bed, but she '11 not lye
neist the wa.
46. CAPTAIN WEDDEBBURN'S COURTSHIP
421
a. Kinloch MSS, I, 83, from Marj- Barr's recitation.
b. Lord Roslin's Daughter's Garland, c. Buchan's MSS,
11,34. d. Jamieson's Popular Ballads, II, 159. e. Harris
MS., fol. 19 b, No 14, from Mrs Harris's recitation, f.
Notes and Queries, 2d S., IV, 170, " as sung among the peas-
antry of the Meams," 1857.
1 The Lord of Rosslyn's daughter gaed through
the wud her lane,
And there she met Captain Wedderburn, a ser-
vant to the king.
He said unto his livery-man, "Were 't na agen
the law,
I wad tak her to my ain bed, and lay her at
the wa.
6 Then he lap a£E his milk-white steed, and set
the lady on,
And a' the way he walkd on foot, he held her
by the hand ;
He held her by the middle jimp, for fear that
she should fa ;
Saying, I '11 tak ye to my ain bed, and lay thee
at the wa.
7 He took her to his quartering-house, his land-
lady looked ben,
Saying, Monie a pretty ladie in Eduibruch
I 've seen ;
But sic 'na pretty ladie is not into it a' :
Gae, mak for her a fine down-bed, and lay her
at the wa.
2 ' I 'm walking here my lane,' she says, ' amang
my father's trees ;•
And ye may lat me walk my lane, kind sir, now
gin ye please.
The supper-bell it will be rung, and I '11 be
missd awa ;
Sae 1 11 na lie in your bed, at neither stock
nor wa.'
8 ' 0 baud awa frae me, kind sir, I pray ye lat
me be,
For I 'U na lie in your bed till I get dishes
three;
Dishes three maun be dressd for me, gif I
should eat them a',
Before I lie in your bed, at either stock or
wa.
3 He said, My pretty lady, I pray lend me your
hand.
And ye '11 hae drums and trumpets always at
your command ;
And fifty men to guard ye wi, that weel their
swords can draw ;
Sae we '11 baith lie in ae bed, and ye '11 lie at
the wa.
9 ' 'T is I maun hae to my supper a chicken
without a bane ;
And I maun hae to my supper a cherry with-
out a stane ;
And I maun hae to my supper a bird without
a gaw.
Before I lie in your bed, at either stock or
wa.'
4 * Haud awa frae me, kind sir, I pray let go my
hand ;
The supper-bell it will be rung, nae langer
maun I stand.
My father he '11 na supper tak, gif I be missd
awa ;
Sae I 'U na lie in your bed, at neither stock
nor wa.'
10 ' Whan the chicken 's in the shell, I am sure it
has na bane ;
And whan the cherry 's in the bloom, I wat it
has na stane ;
The dove she is a genty bird, she flees without
a gaw ;
Sae we 'U baith lie in ae bed, and ye '11 be at
the wa.'
5 ' O my name is Captain Wedderburn, my name
I 'U neer deny.
And I command ten thousand men, upo yon
mountains high.
Tho your father and his men were here, of
them I 'd stand na awe,
But should tak ye to my ain bed, and lay ye
neist the wa.'
11 ' O haud awa frae me, kind sir, I pray ye give
me owre,
For I 'U na lie in your bed, till I get presents
four ;
Presents four ye maun gie me, and that is twa
and twa.
Before I lie in your bed, at either stock or
wa.
422
46. CAPTAIN WEDDERBUKN'S COUBTSHIP
12 ' 'T is I maun hae some winter fruit that in
December grew ;
And I maun hae a sUk mantil that waft gaed
never through ;
A sparrow's horn, a priest unborn, this nicht
to join us twa,
Before I lie in your bed, at either stock or wa. '
13 ' My father has some winter fruit that in De-
cember grew ;
My mither has a silk mantil the waft gaed
never through ;
A sparrow's horn ye soon may find, there 's
ane on evry claw,
And twa upo the gab o it, and ye shall get
them a".
14 ' The priest he stands without the yett, just
ready to come in ;
Nae man can say he eer was born, nae man
without he sin ;
He was haill cut frae his mither's side, and
frae the same let fa ;
Sae we '11 baith lie in ae bed, and ye 'se lie at
the wa.'
15 ' 0 haud awa frae me, kind sir, I pray don't
me perplex.
For I 'U na lie in your bed till ye answer ques-
tions six :
Questions six ye maun answer me, and that is
four and twa.
Before I lie in your bed, at either stock or wa.
16 ' O what is greener than the gress, what 's
higher than thae trees ?
O what is worse than women's wish, what 's
deeper than the seas ?
What bird craws first, what tree buds first,
what first does on them fa ?
Before I lie in your bed, at either stock or
wa.'
17 ' Death is greener than the gress, heaven higher
than thae trees ;
The devil 's waur than women's wish, hell 's
deeper than the seas ;
The cock craws first, the cedar buds first, dew
first on them does fa ;
Sae we 'U baith lie in ae bed, and ye 'se lie at
the wa.'
18 Little did this lady think, that morning whan
she raise.
That this was for to be the last o a' her maiden
days.
But there's na into the king's realm to be
found a blither twa.
And now she 's Mrs. Wedderburn, and she lies
at the wa.
0
Sheldon's Minstrelsy of the English Border, p. 232, as re-
cited " by a lady of Berwick on Tweed, who used to sing it
in her childhood, and had learnt it from her nurse."
1 The laird of Roslin's daughter walked thro the
wood her lane,
And by came Captain Wedderburn, a servant
to the Queen ;
He said unto his serving man, Wer' t not
agaynst the law,
I would tak her to my ain house as lady o my ha.
2 He said. My pretty ladye, I pray give me your
hand ;
You shall have drums and trumpets always at
your command ;
With fifty men to guard you, that well their
swords can draw.
And I '11 tak ye to my ain bed, and lay you
next the wa.
3 ' I 'm walking in my feyther's shaws : ' quo he,
My charming maid,
I am much better than I look, so be you not
afraid ;
For I serve the queen of a' Scotland, and a
gentil dame is she ;
So we 'se be married ere the morn, gin ye can
fancy me.
' The sparrow shall toot on his horn, gif nae-
thing us befa.
And I '11 mak you up a down-bed, and lay you
next the wa.
5 ' Now hold away from me, kind sir, I pray you
let me be ;
I wont be lady of your ha tiU you answer
questions three ;
46. CAPTAIN WEDDERBUBN'S COURTSHIP
423
Questions three you must answer me, and that
is one and twa,
Before I gae to Woodland's house, and be lady
o your ha.
6 ' You must get me to my supper a chicken
without a bone ;
You must get me to my supper a cherry with-
out a stone ;
You must get me to my supper a bird without
aga.
Before I go to Woodland's house and be lady
of your ha.'
7 ' When the cherry is in the bloom, I 'm sure it
has no stone ;
When the cliicken 's in the shell, I 'm sure it
has nae bone ;
The dove she is a gentU bird, and flies without
a ga;
So I 've answered you your questions three,
and you 're lady of my ha.'
9 He answered then so readily : Heaven 's higher
than the trees ;
The devil 's worse than woman's voice ; hell 's
deeper than the seas ;
10 ' One question still you must answer me, or you
I laugh to scorn ;
Go seek me out an English priest, of woman
never bora ; '
11 ' Oh then,' quo he, ' my young brother from
mother's side was torn.
And he 's a gentU English priest, of woman
never bom ; '
8 * Questions three you must answer me : What 'a
higher than the trees ?
And what is worse than woman's voice ? What 's
deeper than the seas? '
12 Little did his lady think, that morning when
she raise.
It was to be the very last of all her mayden
days;
a. 2*. I lye. 4'''' and 5''* have been inter-
changed. 5*. lye you. b. lay. 7^.
teen. 17^ priest was. 17^. it was.
17'. boned (?) b has bored,
b is a copy of a, Imt with the long lines
broken up into two, and some slight
variations.
b. 3*. And we '11.
5^. Omits if. 6'. Omits sae jimp.
11^. and they are questions. 12^ wish.
13*. betwixt.
In stanzas of four short lines.
a. 16^ 17*. Var. women's vice. 17*. Var. Poi-
son is greener.
17^ Var. There 's nathing waur.
b. Lord Roslin's Daughter's Garland. Con-
taining three excellent new songs.
I. The Drunkard Reformed.
n. The Devil and the Grinder.
in. Lord Roslin's Daughter.
Licensed and entered according to order.
1'. walks throw. I''. And by came.
1». servant man. IS 3*, 6*, 7*, 10*, 14*,
18*. next the wa. 17*. neist.
2', 4'. missd you know. 3*. And we '11
. . . and thou 's ly next.
4«. wUl I. 4*. So I not.
5*' ^. Then said the pretty lady, I pray tell
me your name.
My name is Captain Wedderburn, a
servant to the king.
6*. of him I 'd not stand in aw.
6». He lighted off.
6^ And held her by the milk-white hand
even as they rode along.
6». so jimp. 6*. So I '11 take. 7». lodg-
ing house.
7*. But such a pretty face as thine in it
I never saw.
7*. make her up a down-bed.
424
4C. CAPTAIX WEDDERBURN'S COURTSHIP
8". will not go to your bed till you dress
me.
8^ three you must do to me.
9'. O I must have ... a cherry without
a stone.
9'. a chicken without a bone.
10*' '. When the cherry is into the bloom I
am sure it hath no stone,
And when tlie chicken 's in the shell
I 'm sure it hath no bone.
10'. it is a gentle.
ll''. I will not go till . . . till you answer
me questions.
11°. Questions four you must tell me.
12*. You must get to me. 12^. That the
wraft was near ca'd.
12'' * and 16'' * (and consequently 13'* *,
17*' *) are wrongly interchanged in
b, mixing up ferlies and questions.
a 12'' «, 13'' «, 14, 15, 16'- ^ 16='*, IV- \
W-*— b 15'' *, 16»' *, 17, 14, 151- \
128. 4^ igi, 2^ 133, 4_
13". the wraft was neer ca'd throw.
13'' *. A sparrow's horn you well may get,
there's one on ilka pa.
14^. standing at the door.
14'. A hole cut in his mother's side, he
from the same did fa.
IB'^. And what . . . women's voice.
16'. What bird sings best, and wood buds
first, that dew does on them fa.
17^. sky is higher. 17". worse than wo-
men's voice.
17'. the dew does on them fa.
18". the last night. 18'. now they both lie
in one bed.
o closely resembling b, the variations from
b are given.
o. 1. came omitted, v. 2 ; unto, v. 3.
2. into your bed, v. 4.
3. guard you . . . who well, v. 3 ; into
. . . thou 'It, V. 4.
5^" ". Then says, v. 1.
6. lighted from . . . this lady, v. 1 ; mid-
dle jimp, V. 3.
7. pretty fair, v. 2 ; as this, v. 3.
. 8. dress me, v. 3.
9. unto, vv 1,2 ; 0 1 must, v. 2.
10. in the bloom, v.l; we both shall ly in,
V. 4.
11. will give oer, v. 1 ; to your . . . you
tell me, v. 2.
12. You must get to me . . . that waft, v.
2 ; bird sings first ... on them
does, V. 3.
13. sings first, v. 3.
14. in your . . . you tell me, v.2 ; I 'U ly
in, V. 4.
15. What is . . . woman's, v. 2 ; I '11 ly in,
V. 4.
16. Death 's greener than the grass, hell 's
deeper than the seas.
The devil 's worse than woman's voice,
sky 's higher than the trees, vv 1,2 ;
every paw, v. 3 ; thou shalt, v. 4.
18. the lady . • . rose, v. 1 ; It was to be
the very last, v. 2 ; they ly in ae, v. 4.
d. Follows the broadside (b, c) through the
first nine stanzas, with changes from
JamiesorC s " own recollection," or inven-
tion, and one from A, 10 7ias certainly
arbitrary alterations. The remaining
eight stanzas are the corresponding ones
of A treated freely. The comparison
here is with b, readings from A in 11-18
not being noticed.
1'. serving men.
2'. mist awa, from A ; so in 4', a stanza
not in A.
6'. I 'd have nae awe.
6\ He lighted afE . . . this lady. 6».
middle jimp. 6*. To tak her to his
ain.
7*. sic a lovely face as thine. 1*. Gae
mak her down.
8'. maun dress to me.
9^. It 's ye maun get. 9-' '. And ye maun
get.
10^. It 's whan the cherry is in the flirry.
10". in the egg.
10'. And sin the flood o Noah the dow she
had nae ga.
A, B d, 11, 121' ", 131' ", 14, 151- ", 16'' " =
B b, c, 14, 151' ", 161- ", 11, 12'- ", 13'- ".
11^. and gie your fleechin oer.
11". Unless you '11 find me ferlies, and that
is ferlies four.
11'. Ferlies four ye maun find me.
11*. Or I '11 never lie.
12". And get to me. 12'. doth first down.
12*. Ye sail tell afore I lay me down be-
tween you and the wa.
13". has an Indian gown that waft.
13'. on cedar top the dew.
14". that gait me perplex. 14'. three times
twa.
47. PROUD LADY MARGABET
425
16^
17",
18».
IS'', the greenest grass. 15^ war jior an
ill woman's wish.
16'. horn is quickly found ... on every
claw.
There 's ane upon the neb of him.
A wild bore tore his raither's side,
now there 's nae within the realm, I
think.
e has stanzas 1, 5 (?), 9, 12, 10, 13, 14 of
a, the first two imperfect. The last
line of each stanza is changed, no
doubt for delicacy's sake, to I will
tak you wi me, I tell you, aye or na,
or tlie like.
1. The Earl o Roslin's dochter gaed out to
tak the air ;
She met a gallant gentleman, as hame
she did repair ;
I wiU tak you wi me, I tell you, aye or
no.
5(?). I am Captain "Wedderburn, a ser-
vant to the king. C.
I will tak you wi me, I tell you, aye or
no.
9^. I maun hae to my supper a bird with-
out a bone.
9'. An I maun hae a gentle bird that
flies.
9*. Before that I gae with you, I tell you,
aye or na.
10^. When the bird is in the egg. 10^ in
the bud . . . I 'm sure.
10*. it is a gentle bird.
12'^, 13-. a gey mantle . . . neer ca'ed.
13*. sune saU get.
14^. is standing at. 14^ say that he was
... a sin.
f. Stanzas 9, 10 only.
9*. 'T is I maun hae to my supper a bird
without a bone.
9^. withouten stone. 9*. withouten ga.
10^. When the bird is in the shell, 1 'm sure.
10*. I 'm sure.
10*. a gentle . . . withouten ga.
Printed in stanzas of four short lines.
47
PROUD LADY MARGARET
A. ' Proud Lady Margaret,* Scott's Minstrelsy, III, C. ' The Jolly Hind Squire,' Buchan's MSS, II, 95.
275, ed. 1803.
D. ' The Knicht o Archerdale,' Harris MS., fol. 7, No 3.
B. a. ' The Courteous Knight,' Buchan's Ballads of
the North of Scotland, I, 91 ; Jlotherwell's MS., E. ' Fair Margret,' A. Laing, Ancient Ballads and
p. 591. b. Motherwell's Minstrelsy, Introduction, Songs, MS., 1829, p. 6.
p. Izxxi.
A "WAS communicated to Scott "by Mr
Hamilton, music-seller, Edinburgh, with whose
mother it had been a favorite." Two stanzas
and one line were wanting, and were supplied
by Scott " from a different ballad, having a
plot somewhat similar." The stanzas were 6
and 9. C was printed from the MS., with a
few changes, under the title of ' The Bonny
Hind Squire,' by Dixon, in Scottish Tradi-
54
tional Versions of Ancient Ballads, p. 42, and
from Dixon in Bell's Early Ballads, p. 183.
Christie, Traditional Ballad Airs, I, 28, says
the ballad was caUed ' Jolly Janet ' by the
old people in Aberdeenshire.
A-D are plainly compounded of two ballads,
the conclusion being derived from B. The
lady's looking oer her castle wa, her putting
riddles, and her having gard so mony die.
426
47. PROUD LADY MAEGARKT
make the supposition far from incredible that
the Proud Lady Margaret of the first part of
the ballad may originally have been one of
the cruel princesses spoken of in the preface
to ' Captain Wedderburn's Courtship,' p. 417.
But the corrupt condition of the texts of A-D
forbids any confident opinion.
A dead mistress similarly admonishes her
lover, in a ballad from Brittany, given in
Ampdre, Instructions relatives aux Poesies
populaires de la France, p. 36.
" Non, je ne dors ni ne soumeille,
Je sis dans I'enfer k bruler.
" Aupres de moi reste une place,
C'est pour vous, Piar', qu'on I'a gardee."
" Ha ! dites-moi plustot, ma Jeanne,
Comment fair' pour n'y point aller ? "
" II faut aller k la grand-messe,
Et aux vepres, sans y manquer.
" Faut point aller aux fileries,
Coram' vous aviez d'accoutume.
" Ne faut point embrasser lea fiUes
Sur r bout du coffre au pied du lect."
So Beaurepaire, Etude, p. 53 ; Puymaigre,
' La Damage,' Chants populaires, I, 115 ; V.
Smith, Chants du Velay et du Forez, Romania,
IV, 449 f, ' La Concubine ; ' and Luzel, " Celui
qui alia voir sa maitresse en enfer," I, 44, 45.
In this last, a lover, whose mistress has died,
goes into a monastery, vrhere he prays contin-
ually that he may see her again. The devil
presents himself in the likeness of a young
man, and on condition of being something
gently considered takes him to hell. He sees
his mistress sitting in a fiery chair (cf. B, 30,
31), devoured by serpents night and day, and
is informed that fasts and masses on his part
will only make things worse. Like Dives, she
sends word to her sister not to do as she has
done. Some of these traits are found also in
one or another of the French versions.
Translated bj'^ Doenniges, p. 6, after Scott,
and by Knortz, Schottische Balladen, No 1,
after Aytoun, II, 62.
Scott's Minstrelsy, III, 275, ed. 1803. Communicated
" by Mr Hamilton, music-seller, Edinburgh, with whose
mother it had been a favorite."
1 'T WAS on a night, an evening bright,
When the dew began to fa,
Lady Margaret w!is walking up and down,
Looking oer her castle wa.
2 She looked east and she looked west,
To see what she could spy,
"When a gallant knight came in her sight,
And to the gate drew nigh.
3 ' You seem to be no gentleman,
You wear your boots so wide ;
But you seem to be some cunning hunter,
You wear the horn so syde.'
4 ' I am no cunning hunter,' he said,
' Nor neer intend to be ;
But I am come to this castle
To seek the love of thee.
And if you do not grant me love.
This night for thee I 'II die.'
5 ' If you should die for me, sir knight,
There 's few for you will meane ;
For mony a better has died for me.
Whose graves are growing green.
6 [' But ye maun read my riddle,' she said,
' And answer my questions three ;
And but ye read them right,' she said,
' Gae stretch ye out and die.]
7 ' Now what is the flower, the ae first flower,
Springs either on moor or dale ?
And what is the bird, the bonnie bonnie bird,
Sings on the evening gale ? '
8 ' The primrose is the ae first flower
Springs either on moor or dale.
47. PKOUD LADY MARGARET
427
And the thristlecock is the bonniest bird
Sings on the evening gale.'
9 [' But what 's the little coin,' she said,
' Wald buy my castle bound ?
And what 's the little boat,' she said,
' Can sail the world all round ? ']
10 ' O hey, how mony small pennies
Make thrice three thousand pound ?
Or hey, how mony salt fishes
Swim a' the salt sea round ? '
11 ' I think you maun be my match,' she said,
' My match and something luair ;
You are the first eer got the grant
Of love frae my father's heir.
12 ' My father was lord of nine castles,
My mother lady of three ;
My father was lord of nine castles,
And there 's nane to heir but me.
13 ' And round about a' thae castles
You may baith plow and saw,
And on the fifteenth day of May
The meadows they wiU maw.'
14 ' O hald your tongue. Lady Margaret,' he said,
' For loud I hear you lie ;
Your father was lord of nine castles.
Your mother was lady of tliree ;
Your father was lord of nine castles,
But ye fa heir to but three.
15 ' And round about a' thae castles
You may baith plow and saw,
But on the fifteenth day of May
The meadows will not maw.
16 'I am your brother WUlie,' he said,
' I trow ye ken na me ;
I came to humble your haughty heart,
Has gard sae mony die.'
17 ' If ye be my brother WUlie,' she said,
' As I trow weel ye be,
This night I 'U neither eat nor drink.
But gae alang wi thee.'
18 ' 0 hold your tongue, Lady Margaret,' he said,
' Again I hear you lie ;
For ye 've unwashen hands and ye 've un-
washen feet,
To gae to clay wi me.
19 ' For the wee worms are my bedfellows,
And cauld clay is my sheets,
And when the stormy winds do blow.
My body lies and sleeps.'
B
a. Bachan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, I, 91 ;
Motherwell's MS., p. 591. b. Motherwell's Minstrelsy, In-
troduction, p. Ixxxi.
1 There was a knight, in a summer's night,
Appeard in a lady's hall.
As she was walking up and down.
Looking oer her castle wall.
2 ' God make you safe and free, fair maid,
God make you safe and free ! '
' O sae fa you, ye courteous knight,
What are your wills wi me ? '
3 ' My wills wi you are not sma, lady.
My wills wi you nae sma,
And since there 's nane your bower within.
Ye 'se hae my secrets a'.
4 ' For here am I a courtier,
A courtier come to thee,
And if ye winna grant your love,
All for your sake I 'U dee.'
5 ' If that ye dee for me, sir knight.
Few for you will make meen ;
For mony gude lord 's done the same.
Their graves are growing green.'
6 ' 0 winna ye pity me, fair maid,
O winna ye pity me ?
0 winna ye pity a courteous knight.
Whose love is laid on thee ? '
7 * Ye say ye are a courteous knight,
But I think ye are nane ;
1 think ye 're but a miliar bred.
By the colour o your claithing.
428
47. PROUD LADY MARGARET
8 ' You seem to be some false young man,
You wear your hat sae wide ;
You seem to be some false young man,
You wear your boots sae side.'
9 ' Indeed I am a courteous knight,
And of great pedigree ;
Nae knight did mair for a lady bright
Than I will do for thee.
10 ' O I '11 put smiths in your smithy,
To shoe for you a steed,
And I 'U put tailors in your bower,
To make for you a weed.
11 ' I will put cooks in your kitchen.
And butlers in your ha.
And on the tap o your father's castle
I 'U big gude com and saw.'
12 ' If ye be a courteous knight,
As I trust not ye be,
Ye 'U answer some o the sma questions
That I will ask at thee.
13 ' What is the fairest flower, tell me,
That grows in mire or dale ?
Likewise, which is the sweetest bird
Sings next the nightingale ?
Or what 's the finest thing,' she says,
' That king or queen can wile ? '
14 ' The primrose is the fairest flower
That grows in mire or dale ;
The mavis is the sweetest bird
Next to the nightingale ;
And yellow gowd 's the finest thing
That king or queen can wale.
15 ' Ye hae asked many questions, lady,
I 've you as many told ; '
' But how many pennies round
Make a hundred pounds in gold ?
16 ' How many of the small fishes
Do swim the salt seas round ?
Or what 's the seemliest sight you '11 see
Into a May morning ? '
17 ' Berry-brown ale and a birken speal,
And wine in a horn green ;
A milk-white lace in a fair maid's dress
Looks gay in a May morning.'
18 ' Mony 's the questions I 've askd at thee.
And ye 've answerd them a' ;
Ye are mine, and I am thine,
Amo the sheets sae sma.
19 ' You may be my match, kind sir.
You may be my match and more ;
There neer was ane came sic a lensth
Wi my father's heir before.
20 * My father 's lord o nine castles.
My mother she 's lady ower three.
And there is nane to heir them all.
No never a ane but me ;
Unless it be Willie, my ae brother.
But he 's far ayont the sea.'
21 ' If your father 's laird o nine castles,
Your mother lady ower three,
I am Willie your ae brother,
Was far beyond the sea.'
22 ' If ye be Willie, my ae brother.
As I doubt sair ye be.
But if it 's true ye tell me now.
This night I '11 gang wi thee.'
23 ' Ye 've ower ill washen feet, Janet,
And ower ill washen hands.
And ower coarse robes on your body,
Alang wi me to gang.
24 ' The worms they are my bed-fellows.
And the cauld clay my sheet.
And the higher that the wind does blaw,
The sounder I do sleep.
25 ' My body 's buried in Dumfermline,
And far beyond the sea,
But day nor night nae rest coud get.
All for the pride o thee.
26 ' Leave aff your pride, jelly Janet,' he says,
' Use it not ony mair ;
Or when ye come where I hae been
You will repent it sair.
27 ' Cast aff, cast aff, sister,' he says,
' The gowd lace frae your crown ;
For if ye gang where I hae been.
Ye '11 wear it laigher down.
47. PROUD LADY MARGARET
429
28 ' When ye 're in the gude church set,
The gowd pins in your hair,
Ye take mair delight in your feckless dress
Than ye do in your morning prayer.
29 ' And when ye walk in the church-yard,
And in your dress are seen,
Tliere is nae lady that sees your face
But wishes your grave were green.
30 ' You 're straight and taU, handsome withall,
But your pride owergoes your wit,
But if ye do not your ways refrain,
In Pirie's chair ye '11 sit.
31 ' In Pirie's chair you '11 sit, I say,
The lowest seat o hell ;
If ye do not amend your ways,
It 's there that ye must dweU.'
32 Wi that he vanishd frae her sight,
Wi the twinkling o an eye ;
Naething mair the lady saw
But the gloomy clouds and sky.
Buchan's MSS, II, 95.
1 Once there was a jolly hind squire
Appeard in a lady's ha.
And aye she walked up and down,
Looking oer her castle wa.
2 ' What is your wills wi me, kind sir ?
What is your wiUs wi me ? '
* My wills are [not] sma wi thee, lady,
My wills are [not] sma wi thee.
3 ' For here I stand a courtier,
And a corn-tier come to thee.
And if ye will not grant me your love,
For your sake I wiU die.'
4 ' If you die for my sake,' she says,
' Few for you will make moan ;
Many better 's died for my sake,
Their graves are growing green.
6 ' You appear to be some false young man,
You wear your hat so wide ;
You appear to be some false young man,
You wear your boots so side.
6 ' An asking, asking, sir,' she said,
' An asking ye '11 grant me : '
' Ask on, ask on, lady,' he said,
' What may your asking be ? '
7 * What 's the first thing in flower,' she said,
' That springs in mire or dale ?
What 's the next bird that sings,' she says,
' Unto the nightingale ?
Or what is the finest thing,' she says,
* That king or queen can wile ? *
8 ' The primrose is the first in flower
That springs in mire or dale ;
The thristle-throat is the next that sings
Unto the nightingale ;
And yellow gold is the finest thing
That king or queen can wUe.
9 ' You have asked many questions, lady,
I 've you as many told ; '
' But how many pennies round
Make a hundred pounds in gold ?
10 ' How many small fishes
Do swim the salt seas round ?
Or what 's the seemliest sight you 'U see
Into a May morning ?
11 ' There 's ale into the birken scale.
Wine in the horn green ;
There 's gold in the king's banner
When he is fighting keen.'
12 ' Yon may be my match, kind sir,' she said,
' You may be my match and more ;
There neer was one came such a length
With my father's heir before.
13 ' My father 's lord of nine castles.
No body heir but me.'
' Your father 's lord of nine castles,
Your mother 's lady of three ;
14 ' Your father 's heir of nine castles.
And you are heir to three ;
For I am William, thy ae brother,
That died beyond the sea.'
430
47. PROUD LADY MARGAKET
15 ' If ye be William, ray ae brother,
This night, 0 well is me !
If ye be William, my ae brother,
This night I '11 go with thee.'
16 ' For no, for no, jelly Janet,' he says,
' For no, that cannot be ;
You 've oer foul feet and Ul washen hands
To be in my company.
17 ' For the wee wee worms are my bedfellows,
And the cold clay is my sheet.
And the higher that the winds do blow.
The sounder I do sleep.
18 ' Leave off your pride, jelly Janet,' he says,
' Use it not any more ;
Or when you come where I have been
You will repent it sore.
19 ' When you go in at yon church door.
The red gold on your hair.
More will look at your yellow locks
Than look on the Lord's prayer.
20 ' When you go in at yon church door,
The red gold on your crown ;
When you come where I have been,
You '11 wear it laigher down.'
21 The jolly hind squire, he went away
In the twinkling of an eye,
Left the lady sorrowful behind,
With many bitter cry.
Harris's MS., fol. 7, No 3. From Mrs Harris's recitation.
1 Theke cam a knicht to Archerdale,
His steed was winder sma,
An there he spied a lady bricht,
Luikin owre her castle wa.
2 ' Ye dinnaseem a gentle knicht,
Though on horseback ye do ride ;
Ye seem to be some sutor's son.
Your butes they are sae wide.'
3 ' Ye dinna seem a lady gay,
Though ye be bound wi pride ;
Else I 'd gane bye your father's gate
But either taunt or gibe.'
4 He turned aboot his hie horse head.
An awa he was boun to ride,
But neatly wi her mouth she spak :
Oh bide, fine squire, oh bide.
5 ' Bide, oh bide, ye hindy squire.
Tell me mair o your tale ;
Tell me some o that wondrous lied
Ye 've learnt in Archerdale.
6 ' What gaes in a speal ? ' she said,
' What in a horn green ?
An what gaes on a lady's head.
Whan it is washen clean ? '
7 ' Ale gaes in a speal,' he said,
' Wine in a horn green ;
An silk gaes on a lady's head,
Whan it is washen clean.'
8 Aboot he turned his hie horse head.
An awa he was boun to ride.
When neatly wi her mouth she spak :
Oh bide, fine squire, oh bide.
9 ' Bide, oh bide, ye hindy squire,
Tell me mair o your tale ;
Tell me some o that unco lied
You 've learnt in Archerdale.
10 ' Ye are as like my ae brither
As ever I did see ;
But he 's been buried in yon kirkyaird
It 's mair than years is three.'
11 'I am as like your ae brither
As ever ye did see ;
But I canna get peace into my grave,
A' for the pride o thee.
12 ' Leave pride, Janet, leave pride, Janet,
Leave pride an vanitie ;
If ye come the roads that I hae come,
Sair warned will ye be.
13 ' Ye come in by yonder kirk
Wi the goud preens in your sleeve ;
4T. PROUD LADY MARGARET
431
When you 're bracht hame to yon kirkyaird,
You '11 gie them a' thier leave.
14 ' Ye come in to yonder kirk
Wi the goud plaits in your hair ;
When you 're bracht hame to yon kirkyaird,
You will them a' forbear.'
15 He got her in her mither's hour,
Puttin goud plaits in her hair ;
He left her in her father's gairden,
Mournin her sins sae sair.
E
Alex. Laing, Ancient Ballads and Songa, etc., etc., from
the recitation of old people. Never published. 1829. P. 6.
1 Fair Mabgret was a young ladye,
An come of high degree ;
Fair Margret was a young ladye,
An proud as proud coud be.
2 Fair Margret was a rich ladye,
The king's cousin was she ;
Fair Margaret was a rich ladye.
An vain as vain coud be.
3 She war'd her wealth on the gay cleedin
That comes frae yont the sea.
She spent her time frae morning till night
Adorning her fair bodye.
4 Ae night she sate in her stately ha,
Kaimin her yellow hair,
When in there cum like a gentle knight.
An a white scarf he did wear.
5 ' 0 what 's your will wi me, sir knight,
O what 's your will wi me ?
You 're the likest to my ae brother
That ever I did see.
6 ' You 're the likest to my ae brother
That ever I hae seen,
But he 's buried in Dunfermline kirk,
A month an mair bygane.'
7 * I 'm the likest to your ae brother
That ever ye did see.
But I canna get rest into my grave,
A' for the pride of thee.
8 ' Leave pride, Margret, leave pride, Margret,
Leave pride an vanity ;
Ere ye see the sights that I hae seen,
Sair altered ye maun be.
9 ' O ye come in at the kirk-door
Wi the gowd plaits in your hair ;
But wud ye see what I hae seen,
Ye maun them a' forbear.
10 ' 0 ye come in at the kirk-door
Wi the gowd prins i your sleeve ;
But wad ye see what I hae seen.
Ye maun gie them a' their leave.
11 ' Leave pride, Margret, leave pride, Margret,
Leave pride an vanity ;
Ere ye see the sights that I hae seen,
Sair altered ye maun be.'
12 He got her in her stately ha,
Kaimin her yellow hair.
He left her on her sick sick bed,
Sheding the saut saut tear.
B 15'-*, 16*' ^ C 9«'*, 10'- 2 are rightlij ansivers, not
questions : cf. A 9, 10. D 6 furnishes the ques-
tion answered in B 17.
B. b. Motherwell begins at st. 25.
2V. gowd band.
28S 291. kirk. 301 owergangs.
E.
32''. In the. 32«. And naething.
Kind Squire in the title, and kind in 1*,
21-' ; I stippose by mistake of my copyist.
16'. You 're (?).
17'. the clay cold.
8», 11«. E'er.
432
48. "XOUUa ANDBEW
48
YOUNG ANDREW
Percy MS., p. 292. Hales and Furnivall, II, 328.
' Young Andrew ' is known only from the
Percy manuscript. The story recalls both
' Lady Isabel and the Elf-Knight,' No 4, and
' The Fair Flower of Northumberland,' No 9.
The lady, Helen, 25^ is bidden to take, and
does take, gold with her in stanzas 5-7, as in
No 4, English E 2, 3, D 7, Danish A 12, E 7,
9, 1 5, L 5, 6, and nearly all the Polish copies,
and again in No 9, A 14. She is stripped of
her clothes and head-gear in 8-17, as in No 4,
English C-E, German G, H, and many of the
Polish versions. These are destined by Young
Andrew for his lady (" that dwells so far in a
strange country") in 10, 12, 14, as by Ulinger
for his sister, and by Adelger for his mother,
in German G 18, H 15. In 15 the lady en-
treats Young Andrew to leave her her smock ;
80 in No 4, Polish L 8, " You brought me
from home in a green gown ; take me back in a
shift of tow," and R 13, " You took me away
in red satin ; let me go back at least in a
smock." 18 has the choice between dying
and going home again which is presented in
' Lady Isabel,' Polish AA 4, H 10, R 11, and
implied in ' The Fair Flower of Northumber-
land,' D 2-5 ; in A 25 of this last the choice is
between dying and being a paramour. In 20,
21, the lady says, " If my father ever catches
you, you 're sure to flower a gallows-tree,"
etc. ; in No 4, Polish J 5, " If God would
grant me to reach the other bank, you know,
wretch, what death you would die." The
father is unrelenting in this ballad, v. 26, and
receives his daughter with severity in ' The
Fair Flower of Northumberland,' B 13, C 13.
The conclusion of ' Young Andrew ' is muti-
lated and hard to make out. He seems to
have been pursued and caught, as John is
in the Polish ballads, O, P, T, etc., of No 4.
Why he was not promptly disposed of, and
how the wolf comes into the story, will proba-
bly never be known.
1 As I was cast in my £Brst sleepe,
A dreadffull draught in my mind I drew,
Ffor I was dreamed of a yong man,
Some men called him yonge Andrew.
2 The moone shone bright, and itt cast a ffayre
light,
Sayes shee, Welcome, my honey, my hart,
and my sweete !
For I haue loued thee this seuen long yeere.
And our chance itt was wee cold neuer meete.
4 Saies, Now, good sir, you haue had yowr
wiU,
You can demand no more of mee ;
Good sir, remember what you said before,
And goe to the church and marry mee.
5 ' Ff aire maid, I cannott doe as I wold ; ■
Goe home and fett thy fathers redd gold.
And I'le goe to the church and marry
thee.
3 Then he tooke her in his armes two,
And kissed her both cheeke and chin,
And twise or thrise he pleased this may
Before they tow did part in twinn.
6 This ladye is gone to her ffathers haU,
And well she knew where his red gold lay,
And counted fforth five hundred pound,
Besides all other iuells and chaines :
48. YOUNG ANDREW
433
7 And brought itt all to younge Andrew,
Itt was well counted vpon his knee ;
Then he tooke her by the lillye white hand,
And led her vp to an hill soe hye.
8 Shee had vpon a gowne of blacke veluett,
(A pittyffull sight after yee shall see :)
' Put of thy clothes, bonny wenche,' he sayes,
' For noe fEoote further thoust gang with
mee.'
9 But then shee put of her gowne of veluett.
With many a salt teare from her eye,
And in a kirtle of ffine breaden silke
Shee stood beffore young Andrews eye.
10 Sais, 0 put off thy kirtle of silke,
Ffor some and all shall goe with mee ;
And to my owne lady I must itt beare,
Who I must needs loue better then thee.
11 Then shee put of her kirtle of silke,
With many a salt teare still ffrom her
eye;
In a peticoate of Scarlett redd
Shee stood before young Andrewes eye.
12 Sales, 0 put of thy peticoate.
For some and all of itt shall goe with mee ;
And to my owne lady I will itt beare,
WAich dwells soe ffarr in a strange coun-
trye
13 But then shee put of her peticoate.
With many a salt teare still from her eye,
And in a smocke of braue white silke
Shee stood before young Andrews eye.
14 Sales, 0 put of thy smocke of silke.
For some and all shall goe with mee ;
Vnto my owne ladye I will itt beare,
That dwells soe ffarr in a strange coun-
trye.
15 Sayes, 0 remember, young Andrew,
Once of a woman you were borne ;
And ffor that birth that Marye bore,
I pray you let my smocke be vpon !
17 But then shee put of her head-geere ffine ;
Shee hadd billaments worth a hundred pound ;
The hayre t}iat was vpon this bony wench
head
Couered her bodye downe to the ground.
18 Then he pulled forth a Scottish brand.
And held itt there in his owne right hand ;
Sales, Whether wilt thou dye vpon my swords
point, ladye.
Or thow wilt goe naked home againe ?
19 ' Liffe is sweet,' then, ' sir,' said shee,
' Therfore I pray you leaue mee with mine ;
Before I wold dye on yowr swords point,
I had rather goe naked home againe.
20 ' My ffather,' shee sayes, ' is a right good
erle
As any remaines in his countrye ;
If euer he doe yottr body take,
YoM 'r sure to Slower a gallow tree.
21 ' And I haue seuen brethren,' shee sayes,
' And they are all hardy men and bold ;
Giff euer th(5 doe your body take,
You must neuer gang quicke ouer the mold.'
22 * If yoMr ffather be a right good erle
As any remaines in his owne countrye.
Tush ! he shall neuer ray body take,
I'le gang soe ffast ouer the sea.
23 ' If you haue seuen brethren,' he sayes,
' If they be neuer soe hardy or bold,
Tush ! they shall neuer my body take,
I'le gang soe ffast into the Scottish mold.'
24 Now this ladye is gone to her fathers hall.
When euery body their rest did take ;
But the Erie wAich was her ffather
Lay waken for his deere daughters sake.
25 * But who is that,' her ffather can say,
' That soe priuilye knowes the pinn ? '
' It 's HeUen , yowr owne deere daughter, ffar
ther,
I pray you rise and lett me in.'
16 ' Yes, ffayre ladye, I know itt well, 26
Once of a woman I was borne ;
Yett ffor noe birth that Mary bore.
Thy smocke shall not be left here vpon.'
55
' Noe, by my hood ! ' qwoth her ffather then,
' My [house] thoust neuer come within.
Without I had my red gold againe.'
434
48. YOUNG ANDKEW
27 ' Nay, joiir gold is gone, ffather ! ' said shee,
' Then naked thou came into this world,
And naked thou shalt returne againe.'
28 ' Nay ! God fforgaue his death, father,' shee
sayes,
' And see I hope you will doe mee ; '
' Away, away, thou cursed woman,
I pray God an ill death thou may dye ! '
29 Shee stood soe long quacking on the ground
Till her hart itt hurst in three ;
And then shee ffell dead downe in a swoond,
And this was the end of this bonny ladye.
30 Ithe morning, when her ffather gott vpp,
A pittyffull sight there he might see ;
His owne deere daughter was dead, \^ithout
clothes.
The teares they trickeled fast ffrom his eye.
31
Sais, Fye of gold, and ffye of ffee !
For I sett soe much by my red gold
That now itt hath lost both my daughter
and mee ! '
32
But after tliis time he neere dought good
day,
But as flowers doth fade in the frost,
Soe he did wast and weare away.
33 But let vs leaue talking of this ladye.
And talke some more of young Andrew ;
Ffor ffalse he was to this bonny ladye.
More pitty tliat he had not beene true.
34 He was not gone a mile into the wild forrest.
Or halfe a mile into the hart of Wales,
But there they cought him by such a braue
wyle
That bee must come to tell noe more tales.
oO • • • > •
Ffull soone a wolfe did of him smell.
And shee came roaring like a beare,
And gaping like a ffeend of hell.
36 Soe they ffought together like two lyons.
And fire betweene them two glashet out ;
The raught eche other such a great rappe,
That there young Andrew was slaine, well I
wott.
37 But now young Andrew he is dead.
But he was neuer buryed vnder mold,
For ther as the wolfe devoured him.
There lyes aU this great erles gold.
1'. of one. 3'.
7\ to one. 17'
191. My liffe.
25^ that pinn.
2»f, 3'.°.
, 100".
30'. any follows without, but is crossed out.
30*. they teares. 33*. itt had.
Arabic numbers are in several cases ex-
pressed in letters.
49. THE TWA BROTHERS
435
49
THE TWA BROTHERS
A. Sharpe's Ballad Book, p. 56, No 19.
B. 'The Cruel Brother,' Motherwell's MS., p. 259.
From the recitation of Mrs McCormick.
C. ' The Twa Brithers,' Motherwell's MS., p. 649.
From the recitation of Mrs Cunningham.
D. ' The Twa Brothers, or, The Wood o Warslin,'
Jamieson's Popular Ballads, I, 59. From the recita-
tion of Mrs Arrott.
E. ' The Twa Brothers,' Motherwell's Minstrelsy,
p. 60.
F. ' The Two Brothers,' Buchan's MSS, I, 57; Moth-
erwell's MS., p. 662.
G. a. ' John and William,' taken down from the sing-
ing of little girls in South Boston, b. From a child
in New York. Both communicated by Mr W. W.
Newell.
All the Scottish versions were obtained
within the first third of this century, and
since then no others have been heard of. It
is interesting to find tlie ballad still in the
mouths of children in American cities, — in
the mouths of the poorest, whose heritage
these old things are.* The American versions,
though greatly damaged, preserve the names
John and William, which all the other copies
have.
B and C are considerably corrupted. It
need hardly be mentioned that the age of the
boys in the first two stanzas of B does not suit
the story. According to C 8, 15, the mother
had cursed John, before he left home, with a
wish that he might never return ; and in C 9,
John sends word to his true-love that he is in
his grave for her dear sake alone. These points
seem to have been taken from some copy of
' Willie and May Margaret,' or ' The Drowned
Lovers.' The conclusion of both B and C be-
longs to ' Sweet William's Ghost.' C 18 may
be corrected by B 10, though there is an ab-
surd jumble of pipes and harp in the latter.
The harp, in a deft hand, effects like wonders
in many a ballad : e. g., ' Harpens Kraft,'
Grundtvig, II, 65, No 40 ; even a pipe in C
14-16 of the same.
* Mr Newell says : " I have heard it sung at a picnic, by
a whole earful of little girls. The melody is pretty. These
children were of the poorest class."
D, E, P, G supplement the story with more
or less of the ballad of ' Edward : ' see p. 168.
Jamieson inquires for this ballad in the
Scots Magazine for October, 1803, p. 701, at
which time he had only the first stanza and
the first half of the third. He fills out the im-
perfect stanza nearly as in the copy which he
afterwards printed :
But out an Willie 's taen his knife,
And did his brother slay.
Of the five other Scottish versions, all ex-
cept B make the deadly wound to be the re-
sult of accident, and this is, in Motherwell's
view, a point essential. The other reading,
he says, is at variance with the rest of the
story, and " sweeps away the deep impression
this simple ballad would otherwise have made
upon the feelings : for it is almost unnecessary
to mention that its touching interest is made
to centre in the boundless sorrow and cure-
less remorse of him who had been the uninten-
tional cause of his brother's death, and in the
solicitude which that high-minded and gen-
erous spirit expresses, even in the last agonies
of nature, for the safety and fortunes of the
truly wretched and unhappy survivor." But
the generosity of the dying man is plainly
greater if his brother has killed him in an out-
burst of passion ; and what is gained this way
^
436
49. THE TWA BROTHERS
V
will fully offset the loss, if any, which comes
from the fratricide having cause for " cureless
remorse " as well as boundless sorrow. Moth-
erwell's criticism, in fact, is not quite intel-
ligible. (Minstrelsy, p. 61.)
The variation in the story is the same as
that between the English ' Cruel Brother ' and
the German ' Graf Friedrich : ' in the former
the bride is killed by her offended brother;
in the latter it is the bridegroom's sword slip-
ping from its sheath that inflicts the mortal
hurt.
Motherwell was inclined to believe, and
Kirkpatrick Sharpe was convinced, that this
ballad was founded upon an event that hap-
pened near Edinburgh as late as 1689, that
of one of the Somervilles having been killed
by his brother's pistol accidentally going off.
Sharpe afterward found a case of a boy of
thirteen killing a young brother in anger at
having his hair pulled. This most melancholy
story, the particulars of which are given in the
last edition of the Ballad Book, p. 130, note
xix, dates nearly a hundred years later, 1682.
Only the briefest mention need be made of
these unusually gratuitous surmises.
Kirkland, in D, was probably suggested by
the kirkyard of other versions, assisted, pos-
sibly, by a reminiscence of the Kirkley in
' Robin Hood's Death and Burial ; ' for it will
be observed that stanzas 8, 9 of D come pretty
near to those in which Robin Hood gives direc-
tion for his grave ; F 9, 10, B 6, 6 less near.*
Cunningham has entitled a romance of his,
upon the theme of ' The Two Brothers' (which,
once more, he ventures to print nearly in the
state in which he once had the pleasure of
hearing it sung), ' Fair Annie of Kirkland : '
Songs of Scotland, H, 16.
The very pathetic passage in which the
dying youth directs that father, mother, and
sister shall be kept in ignorance of his death,
and then, feeling how vain the attempt to
conceal the fact from his true-love will be,
bids that she be informed that he is in his
grave and will never come back, is too truly
* " The house of Inchmurry, formerly called Kirkland,
was built of old by the abbot of Holyrood-house for his ac-
commodation when he came to that country, and was for-
a touch of nature to be found only here.
Something similar occurs in ' Mary Hamil-
ton,' where, however, the circumstances are
very different :
' And here 's to the jolly sailor lad
That sails upon the faeme !
And let not my father nor mother get wit
But that I shall come again.
' And here 's to the jolly sailor lad
That sails upon the sea !
But let not my father nor mother get wit
O the death that I maun dee.'
In a fine Norse ballad (see ' Brown Robyn's
Confession,' further on) a man who is to be
thrown overboard to save a ship takes his
leave of the world with these words :
' If any of you should get back to land,
And my foster-mother ask for me,
Tell her I 'm serving in the king's court,
And living right merrily.
' If any of you should get back to land,
And my true-love ask for me,
Bid her to marry another man,
For I am under the sea.'
A baron, who has been mortally wounded
in a duel, gives this charge to his servant :
' Faites mes compliments h ma femme,
Mais ne lui dites pas que j'ai ete tue ;
Mais dites lui que je serai aU6 a Paris,
Pour saluer le roi Louis.
' Dites que je serai alle h. Paris,
Pour saluer le roi Louis,
Et que j'ai achet6 un nouveau cheval,
Le petit coeur de mon cheval etait trop gai.'
(Le Seigneur de Rosmadec, Luzel, I,
Mh m-)
In like manner a dying klepht : " If our
comrades ask about me, tell them not that I
have died : say only that I have married in
strange lands ; have taken the flat stone for
mother-in-law, the black earth for my wife,
the black worms for brothers-in-law." Zam-
merly the minister's manse." Statistical Account of Scot-
land, XIII, 506, cited by Jamieson, I, 62. There are still
three or four Kirklands in Scotland and the north of England.
49. THE TWA BROTHERS
437
(
belios, p. 606, No 11, Faurlel, I, 51, Passow,
p. 118, No 152 ; and again, Zarabelios, p. 672,
No 94, Passow, p. 113, No 146. In the Dan-
ish ' Elveskud,' Grundtvig, II, 116, No 47, B
18, Ole would simply have the tragic truth
kept from his bride :
' Hearken, Sir Ole, of mickle pride.
How shall I answer thy young bride ? '
' You must say I am gone to the wood,
To prove horse and hounds, if tliey be good.'
Such questions and answers as we have in
D 20, E 17, P 24, are of the commonest oc-
currence in popular poetry, and not unknown
to the poetry of art. Ballads of the ' Ed-
ward ' class end generally or always in this
way : see p. 168. We have again the partic-
ular question and answer which occur here in
' Lizie Wan ' and in one version of ' The
Trooper and Fair Maid,' Jamieson's Popular
Ballads, II, 158. The question may be : When
will you come back? When shall you cease to
love me ? When shall we be married ? etc. ;
and the answer : When apple-trees grow in the
seas ; when fishes fly and seas gang dry ; when
all streams run together; when all swift
streams are still ; when it snows roses and
rains wine ; when all grass is rue ; when the
nightingale sings on the sea and the cuckoo is
heard in winter ; when poplars bear cherries
and oaks roses ; when feathers sink and stones
swim ; when sand sown on a stone gei'mi-
nates, etc., etc. See Virgil, Eel. i, 59-63 ; Ovid,
Met. xiii, 324-27 ; Wolf, Ueber die Lais, p.
433 ; ' Svend Vonved,' Grundtvig, I, 240, No
18, A, D ; Buehan's Ballads of the North of
Scotland, ' Lord Jamie Douglas,' I, 232 f,
Motherwell's Minstrelsy, Appendix, p. vii,
Kinloch, Finlay, etc. ; Pills to Purge Melan-
choly, V, 37 ; ' Der verwundete Knabe,' ' Die
verwundete Dame,' Mittler, Nos 49-53, Erk's
Liederhort, pp 111-115, Wunderhorn, IV,
858-63, Longard, p. 39, No 18, Prohle, Welt.
u. geist. Volkslieder, p. 12, No 6 ; Meinert,
pp 28, 60, 73; Uhland, p. 127, No 65; Wun-
derhorn (1857), II, 223, Reifferscheid, p. 23,
Liederhort, p. 345, Erk, Neue Sammlung, ii,
39, Kretzschmer, I, 143 ; Zuccalmaglio, pp
103, 153, 595 ; Peter, Volksthumliches aus
Ost.-schlesien, I, 274 ; Ditfurth, II, 9, No 10 ;
Fiedler, p. 187 ; Des Turcken Vassnacbtspiel,
Tieck's Deutsches Theater, I, 8 ; Uhland, Zur
Geschichte der Dichtung, III, 216 ff ; Tigri,
Canti popolari toscani (I860), pp 230-242,
Nos 820, 822, 823, 832, 836-40, 857, 858,
862, 868 ; Visconti, Saggio dei Canti p. della
Provincia di Marritima e Campagna, p. 21,
No 18 ; Nino, Saggio di Canti p. sabinesi, p.
28 f, p. 30 f ; Pitrg, Saggi di Critica lettera-
ria, p. 25 ; Braga, Cantos p. do Archipelago
a^oriano, p. 220 ; Mockesch, Romanische Dich-
tungen, p. 6 f, No 2 ; Passow, p. 273 f, Nos
387, 388; B. Schmidt, Griechische Miirchen,
etc., p. 154, No 10, and note, p. 253 ; Morosi,
Studi sui Dialetti greci della Terra d'Otranto,
p. 30, Ixxv, p. 32, Ixxix ; Pellegrini, Canti p.
dei Greci di Cargese, p. 21 ; De Rada, Rap-
sodie d'un Poema albanese, p. 29 ; Haupt u.
Schmaler, Volkslieder der Wenden, I, 76, No
47, I, 182, No 158, I, 299, No 300 ; Altmann,
Balalaika, Russische Volkslieder, p. 233, No
184 ; Golovatsky, Narodnyya Piesni galitzskoy
i ugorskoy Rusi, II, 585, No 18, III, i, 12, No
9 ; Maximovitch, Sbornik ukrainskikh Pyesen,
p. 7, No 1, p. 107, No 30 ; Dozon, Chansons
p. bulgares, p. 283, No 57 ; Bodenstedt, Die
poetische Ukraine, p. 46, No 14 ; Jordan,
Ueber kleinrussische Volkspoesie, Blatter fiir
lit. Unterhaltung, 1840, No 252, p. 1014
(Uhland) ; Rhesa, Ueber litthauische Volks-
poesie, in Beitrage zur Kunde Preussens, I,
523 ; Aigner, Ungarische Volksdichtungen,
pp 147, 149 : etc.
A is trsfnslated by Grundtvig, Engelske og
skotske Folkeviser, p. 168 ; Afzelius, III, 7 ;
Grimm, Drei altschottische Lieder, p. 5 ;
Talvi, Charakteristik, p. 567 ; Rosa Warrens,
Schottische V. L. der Vorzeit, p. 91. Knortz,
Schottische Balladen, No 4, translates Ay-
toun, I, 193.
438
49. THE TWA BROTHERS
Sharpe's Biillad Book, p. 56, No 19.
1 There were twa brethren in the north,
They went to the school thegither ;
The one unto the other said,
Will you try a warsle afore ?
2 They warsled up, they warsled down.
Till Sir John fell to the ground.
And there was a knife in Sir WUlie's pouch,
Gied him a deadlie wound.
3 ' Oh brither dear, take me on your back.
Carry me to yon burn clear,
And wasli the blood from off my wound.
And it will bleed nae mair.'
4 He took him up upon his back,
Carried him to yon burn clear.
And washd the blood from off his wound,
But aye it bled the mair.
6 ' Oh brither dear, take me on your back,
Carry me to yon kirk-yard.
And dig a grave baith wide and deep.
And lay my body there.'
6 He 's taen him up upon his back.
Carried him to yon kirk-yard,
And dug a grave baith deep and wide,
And laid his body there.
7 ' But what will I say to my father dear,
Gin he chance to say, Willie, whar 's Jolm ? '
' Oh say that he 's to England gone.
To buy him a cask of wine.'
8 ' And what wiU I say to my mother dear,
Gin she chance to say, WiUie,"whar 's John ? '
' Oh say that he 's to England gone.
To buy her a new silk gown.'
9 ' And what will I say to my sister dear,
Gin she chance to say, Willie, whar 's John ? '
' Oh say that he 's to England gone.
To buy her a wedding ring.'
10
' But what will I say to her you loe dear,
Gin she cry. Why tarries my John ? '
* Oh tell her I lie in Kirk-land fair,
And home again will never come.'
B
Motherwell's MS., p. 259. From Widow McCormick,
January 19, 1825.
1 There was two little boys going to the school.
And twa little boys they be,
They met three brothers playing at the ba,
And ladies dansing hey.
2 ' It 's whether will ye play at the ba, brither.
Or else throw at the stone ? '
' I am too little, I am too young,
0 brother let me alone.'
3 He pulled out a little penknife.
That was baith sharp and sma,
He gave his brother a deadly wound
That was deep, long and sair.
4 He took the holland sark off his back,
He tore it frae breast to gare.
He laid it to the bloody wound.
That stiU bled mair and mair.
5 ' It 's take me on your back, brother,' he says,
' And carry me to yon kirk-yard.
And make me there a very fine grave.
That wUl be long and large.
6 ' Lay my bible at my head,' he says,
' My chaiinter at my feet.
My bow and arrows by my side.
And soimdly I will sleep.
7 ' When you go home, brother,' he says,
' My father wiU ask for me ;
You may tell him I am in Sausslf town,
Learning my lesson free.
8 'When you go home, brother,' he says,
' My mother will ask for me ;
You may tell her I am in Sausaf town.
And I '11 come home merrily.
9 ' When you go home, brother,' he says,
' Lady Margaret will ask for me ;
You may tell her I 'm dead and in grave laid,
And buried in Sausaff toun.'
49. THE TWA BROTHERS
439
10 She put the small pipes to her mouth,
And she harped both far and near,
Till she harped the small birds off the briers,
And her true love out of the grave.
11 ' What 's this ? what 's this, lady Margaret ? '
he says,
' What 's this you want of me ? '
' One sweet kiss of your ruby lips,
That 's all I want of thee.'
12 ' My lips they are so bitter,' he says,
' My breath it is so strong,
If you get one kiss of my ruby lips,
Your days will not be long.'
Motherwell's MS., p. 649.
Cunningham, Ayr.
From the recitation of Mrs
1 There were twa brithers at ae scale ;
As they were coming haine,
Then said the ane imtil the other
' John, will ye throw the stane ? '
2 ' I will not throw the stane, brither,
I will not play at the ba ;
But gin ye come to yonder wood
I '11 warsle you a fa.'
3 The firsten fa young Johnie got.
It brought him to the ground ;
The wee pen-knife in Willie's pocket
Gied him a deadly wound.
4 ' Tak aff, tak aff my hoUand sark,
And rive it frae gore to gore.
And stap it in my bleeding wounds.
They 'U aiblins bleed noe more.'
6 He pouit aff his holland sark.
And rave it frae gore to gore.
And stapt it in hi.s bleeding wounds.
But ay they bled the more.
6 ' O brither, tak me on your back.
And bear me hence away.
And carry me to Chester kirk,
And lay me in the clay.'
7 ' What will I say to your father,
This night when I return ? '
' Tell him I 'm gane to Chester sculc,
And tell him no to murn.'
8 ' What will I say to your mother.
This niclit whan I gae hame ? '
' She wishd afore I cam awa
That I might neer gae hame.'
9 ' What will I say to your true-love.
This nicht when I gae hame ? '
' Tell her I 'm dead and in my grave.
For her dear sake alane.'
10 He took him upon his back
And bore him hence away.
And carried him to Chester kirk.
And laid him in the clay.
11 He laid him in the cauld cauld clay,
And he cuirt him wi a stane.
And he 's awa to his fathers ha,
Sae dowilie alane.
12 ' You 're welcome, dear son,' he said,
' You 're welcome hame to me ;
But what 's come o your brither John,
That gade awa wi thee .'' '
13 ' Oh he 's awa to Chester scule,
A scholar he '11 return ;
He bade me tell his father dear
About him no to mum.'
14 ' You 're welcome hame, dear son,' she said,
' You 're welcome hame to me ;
But what 's come o your brither John,
That gade awa wi thee ? '
15 ' He bade me tell his mother dear,
This nicht when I cam hame,
Ye wisht before he gade awa.
That he might neer return.'
16 Then next came up his true-love dear.
And heavy was her moan ;
' You 're welcome hame, dear Will,' she said,
' But whare 's your brither John ? '
17 ' O lady, cease your trouble now,
0 cease your heavy moan ;
He 's dead and in the cauld cauld clay.
For your dear sake alone.'
440
49. THE TWA BROTHERS
18 She ran distraught, she wept, she sicht,
She wept the sma hrids frae the tree,
She wept the starns adoun frae the lift,
She wept the fish out o the sea.
19 ' O cease your weeping, my ain true-love,
Ye hut disturb my rest ; '
' Is that my ain true lover John,
The man that I loe best ? '
20 ' 'T is naething but my ghaist,' he said,
' That 's sent to comfort thee ;
O cease your weeping, my true-love,
And 't will gie peace to me.'
Jamieson's Popular Ballads, I, 59. rrom the recitation
of Mrs W. Arrott, of Aberbrothick.
1 ' 0 WILL ye gae to tl-.e school, brother?
Or win ye gae to the ba ?
Or will ye gae to the wood a-warslin,
To see whilk o 's maun fa ? '
2 ' It 's I winna gae to the school, brother,
Nor wiU I gae to the ba ;
But I will gae to the wood a-warslin,
And it is you maun fa.'
3 They warstled up, they warstled down.
The lee-lang simmer's day ;
4 ' O lift me up upon your back,
Tak me to yon wall fair ;
You '11 wash my bluidy wounds oer and oer,
And syne they 'U bleed nae mair.
6 ' And ye '11 tak aff my hoUin sark,
And riv 't frae gair to gair ;
Ye 'U stap it in my bluidy wounds,
.; And syne they '11 bleed nae mair.'
6 He 's liftit liis brother upon his back,
Taen him to yon wall fair ;
He 's washed his bluidy wounds oer and oer,
But ay they bled mair and mair.
7 And he 's taen afE his hoUin sark,
And riven 't frae gair to gair ;
He 's stappit it in his bluidy wounds.
But ay they bled mair and mair.
8 ' Ye '11 lift me up upon your back,
Tak me to Kirkland fair ;
Ye '11 mak my greaf baith braid and lang.
And lay my body there.
9 ' Ye '11 lay my arrows at my head, j
My bent bow at my feet.
My sword and buckler at my side.
As I was wont to sleep.
10 ' Whan ye gae hame to your father,
He 'U speer for his son John :
Say, ye left him into Kirkland fair,
Learning the school alone.
11 ' When ye gae hame to my sister.
She '11 speer for her brother John :
Ye 'U say, ye left him in Kirkland fair,
The green grass growin aboon.
12 ' Whan ye gae hame to my true-love.
She 'U speer for her lord John :
Ye '11 say, ye left him in Kirkland fair.
But hame ye fear he '11 never come.'
13 He 's gane hame to his father ;
He speered for his son John :
' It 's I left him into Kirkland fair,
Learning the school alone.'
14 And whan he gaed hame to his sister,
She speered for her brother John :
' It 's I left him into Kirkland fair.
The green grass growin aboon.'
15 And whan he gaed home to liis true-love.
She speerd for her lord John :
' It 's I left him into Kirkland fair,
And hame I fear he '11 never come.'
16 ' But whaten bluid 's that on your sword, Wil-
lie ?
Sweet Willie, tell to me ; '
' O it is the bluid o my grey hounds.
They wadna rin for me.'
17 ' It 's nae the bluid o your hounds, WLUie,
Their bluid was never so red ;
49. THE TWA BROTHERS
441
But it is the bluid o my true-love,
That ye hae slain indeed.'
18 That fair may wept, that fair may moumd,
That fair may mournd and pin'd :
' When every lady looks for her love,
I neer need look for mine.'
' Ye '11 put me in a bottomless boat,
And I '11 gae sail the sea.'
20 ' Whan will ye come hame again, Willie ?
Now, Willie, tell to me ; '
' Whan the sun and moon dances on the green,
And that will never be.'
19 ' 0 whaten a death wiU ye die, WiUie ?
Now, Willie, tell to me ; '
E
Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. 60.
1 Theke were twa brothers at the scule.
And when they got awa,
' It 's wUl ye play at the stane-chucking,
Or win ye play at the ba.
Or will ye gae up to yon hUl head.
And there we '11 warsel a f a ? '
2 ' I winna play at the stane-chucking,
Nor will I play at the ba ;
But I '11 gae up to yon bonnie green hill.
And there we 'U warsel a fa-'
3 They warsled up, they warsled down.
Till John fell to the ground ;
A dirk fell out of William's pouch,
And gave John a deadly wound.
4 ' 0 lift me upon your back.
Take me to yon well fair,
And wash my bluidy wounds oer and oer.
And they 'U neer bleed nae mair.'
6 He 's lifted his brother upon his back,
Taen him to yon well fair ;
He 's wash'd his bluidy wounds oer and oer.
But they bleed ay mair and mair.
6 ' Tak ye a£B my holland sark.
And rive it gair by gair.
And row it in my bluidy wounds.
And they 'U neer bleed nae mair.'
7 He 's taken aff his holland sark.
And torn it gair by gair ;
He 's rowit it in his bluidy wounds,
But they bleed ay mair and mair.
8 ' Tak now aff my green cleiding,
And row me saf tly in.
And tak me up to yon kirk-style,
Whare the grass grows fair and green.'
9 He 's taken aff the green cleiding.
And rowed him saftly in ;
He 's laid him down by yon kirk-style,
Whare the grass grows fair and green.
10 ' What will ye say to your father dear,
Wlien ye gae hame at een ? '
' I '11 say ye 're lying at yon kirk-style,
Whare the grass grows fair and green.'
11 ' O no, 0 no, my brother dear,
O you must not say so ;
But say that I 'm gane to a foreign land,
Whare nae man does me know.'
12 When he sat in his father's chair,
He grew baith pale and wan :
' O what blude 's that upon your brow ?
O dear son, tell to me ; '
* It is the blude o my gude gray steed.
He wadna ride wi me.'
13 ' O thy steed's blude was neer sae red,
Nor eer sae dear to me :
O what blude 's this upon your cheek ?
0 dear son, tell to me ; '
* It is the blude of my greyhound.
He wadna hunt for me."
14 ' O thy hound's blude was neer sae i-ed.
Nor eer sae dear to me :
O what blude 's this upon your hand ?
O dear son, tell to me ; '
* It is the blude of my gay goss-hawk.
He wadna flee for me.'
442
49. THE TWA BROTHERS
15 * O thy hawk's hlude was neer sae red,
Nor eer sae dear to me :
O what blude 's this upon your dirk ?
Dear Willie, tell to me ; '
''It is the blude of my ae brother,
0 dule and wae is me ! '
16 ' O what will ye say to your father ?
Dear WUlie, tell to me ; '
' I '11 saddle my steed, and awa I '11 ride.
To dwell in some far countrie.'
17 ' 0 when will ye come hame again ?
Dear Willie, tell to me ; '
' When sun and mune leap on yon hill,
And that will never be.'
18 She turnd hersel right round about,
And her heart burst into three :
' My ae best son is deid and gane.
And my tother ane I '11 neer see.'
F
Buchan's MSS, I, 57 ; Motherwell's MS., p. 662.
1 There were twa brothers in the east,
Went to the school o Ayr ;
The one unto the other did say,
Come let us wrestle here.
2 They wrestled up and wrestled down,
Till John fell to the ground ;
There being a knife in Willie's pocket,
Gae John his deadly wound.
3 ' O is it for my gold, brother ?
Or for my white monie ?
Or is it for my lands sae braid.
That ye hae kUled me ? '
4 ' It is not for your gold,' he said,
' Nor for your white monie ;
It is by the hand o accident
That I hae killed thee.'
5 ' Ye '11 take the shirt that 's on my back.
Rive it frae gair to gair.
And try to stop my bloody wounds,
For they bleed wonderous sair.'
6 He 's taen the shirt was on his back,
Reave it frae gare to gare.
And tried to stop his bleeding wounds,
But still they bled the mair.
7 ' Ye 'U take me up upon your back,
Carry me to yon water clear.
And try to stop my bloody wounds.
For they run wonderous sair.'
8 He 's taen him up upon his back,
Carried him to yon water clear.
And tried to stop his bleeding wounds,
But still they bled the mair.
9 ' Ye '11 take me up upon your back.
Carry me to yon church-yard ;
Ye '11 dig a grave baith wide and deep,
And then ye '11 lay me there.
10 ' Ye '11 put a head-stane at my head,
Another at my feet,
Likewise a sod on my breast-bane,
The souner I may sleep.
11 ' Whenever my father asks of thee.
Saying, What 's become of John ?
Ye '11 tell frae me, I 'm ower the sea.
For a cargo of good wine.
12 ' And when my sweetheart asks of thee.
Saying, What 's become of John ?
Ye '11 tell frae me, I 'm ower the sea.
To buy a wedding gown.
13 ' And when my sister asks of thee,
Saying, William, where is John ?
Ye '11 tell frae me, I 'm ower the sea,
To learn some merry sang.
14 * And when my mother asks of thee.
Saying, William, where is John ?
Tell her I 'm buried in green Fordland,
The grass growing ower my tomb.'
15 He 's taen him up upon his back.
Carried him to yon church-yard.
And dug a grave baith wide and deep.
And he was buried there.
16 He laid a head-stane at his head,
Another at his feet.
49. THE TWA BROTHERS
443
And laid a green sod on his breast,
The souner he might sleep.
17 His father asked when he came hame,
Saying, ' William, where is John ? '
Then John said, ' He is ower the sea,
To bring you hame some wine.'
18 ' What blood is this upon you, William,
And looks sae red on thee ? '
' It is the blood o my grey-hound.
He woudna run for me.'
19 ' O that 's nae like your grey-hound's blude,
William, that I do see ;
I fear it is your own brother's blood
That looks sae red on thee.'
It is the blood o your brother John,
That looks sae red on thee.'
22 ' It 's nae the blood o my brother John,
Father, that ye do see ;
It is the blude o my good grey hawk.
Because he woudna flee.'
23 ' O that is nae your grey hawk's blood,
William, that I do see : '
' Well, it 's the blude o my brother.
This country I maun flee.'
24 ' O when will ye come back again.
My dear son, tell to me ? '
' When sun and moon gae three times round,
And this will never be.'
20 ' That is not my own brother's blude.
Father, that ye do see ;
It is the blood o my good grey steed.
He woudna carry me.'
21 ' O that is nae your grey steed's blude,
William, that I do see ;
25 ' Ohon, alas ! now William, my son,
This is bad news to me ;
Your brother's death I 'U aye bewail.
And the absence o thee.'
G
a. Taken down lately from the singing of little girls in
South Boston, b. Two stanzas, from a child in New York,
1880. Communicated by Mr W. W. Newell.
1 As John and William were coming home one
day,
One Saturday afternoon.
Says John to William, Come and try a fight,
Or will you throw a stone ?
Or will you come down to yonder, yonder
town
Where the maids are all playing ball, ball,
baU,
Where the maids are all playing ball ?
2 Says WiUiam to John, I will not try a fight,
Nor will I throw a stone.
Nor will I come down to yonder town.
Where the maids are all playing ball.
)^
3 So John took out of his pocket
A knife both long and sharp.
And stuck it through his brother's heart,
And the blood came pouring down.
4 Says .John to William, Take o£B thy shirt,
And tear it from gore to gore.
And wrap it round your bleeding heart.
And the blood will pour no more.'
5 So John took off his shirt,
And tore it from gore to gore.
And wrapped it round his bleeding heart,
And the blood came pouring more.
6 ' What shall I teU your dear father.
When I go home to-night ? '
' You 'U tell him I 'm dead and in my grave,
For the truth must be told.'
7 ' What shall I teU your dear mother,
When I go home to-night ? '
' You 'U tell her I 'm dead and in my grave,
For the truth must be told.'
8 ' How came this blood upon your knife ?
My son, come tell to me ; '
' It is the blood of a rabbit I have killed,
0 mother, pardon me.'
444
50. THE BONNY HIND
■ The blood of a rabbit couklnt be so pure,
My son, come tell to me : '
' It is the blood of a squirrel I have killed,
O mother, pardon me.'
10 ' The blood of a squirrel couldnt be so pure.
My son, come tell to me : '
' It is the blood of a brother I have killed,
O mother, pardon me.'
A. 1^. Var. to the chase.
10'. " As to Kirk-land, my copy has only kirk-
yard, till the last verse, where land
has been added from conjecture."
Sharpe's Ballad-Book, p. 56.
D. 1«, 2». o WarsUn.
F. 13». tell me free.
Motherwell has Scotticised the spelling.
9*. Motherwell has leave.
11^ 12^, 13S 14'. Motherwell, speirs at thee.
23'. Motherwell has my ae brother.
G. b. 1. Jack and "WiUiam was gone to school,
One fine afternoon ;
Jack says to William, WUl you try a
fight?
Do not throw no stones.
2. Jack took out his little penknife,
The end of it was sharp,
He stuck it through his brother's heart,
And the blood was teeming down.
50
THE BONNY HIND
' The Bonny Hyn,' Herd's MSS, I, 224 ; II, fol. G5, fol. 83.
This piece is transcribed three times in
Herd's manuscripts, with a note prefixed in
each instance that it was copied from the
mouth of a milkmaid in 1771. An endorse-
ment to the same effect on the last transcript
gives the date as 1787, no doubt by mistake.
Scott had only MS. I in his hands, which
accidentally omits two stanzas (13, 14), and
he printed this defective copy with the omis-
sion of still another (4) : Minstrelsy, II, 298,
ed. 1802 ; III, 309, ed. 1833. Motherwell sup-
plies these omitted stanzas, almost in Herd's
very words, in tlie Introduction to his collec-
tion, p. Ixxxiv, note 99. He remarks, p. 189,
that tales of this kind abound in the tra-
ditionary poetry of Scotland. The two bal-
lads which follow, Nos 51, 62, are of the same
general description.
In the first half of the. story ' The Bonny
Hind ' comes very near to the fine Scandina-
vian ballad of ' Margaret,' as yet known to be
preserved only in Faroe and Icelandic. The
conclusions differ altogether. Margaret in the
Faroe ballad, ' Margretu kvse?Si,' Fasroiske
Kvaeder, Hammersliaimb, No 18, is the only
daughter of the Norwegian king Magnus, and
has been put in a convent. After two or three
months she longs to see her father's house
again. On her way thither she is assaulted
by a young noble with extreme violence : to
whom she says,
Now you have torn off all my clothes, and done
me sin and shame,
I beg you, before God most high, teU me what is
your name.
Magnus, he answers, is his father, and Ger-
trude his mother, and he himself is Olaf, and
was brought up in the woods. By this she
recognizes that he is her own brother. Olaf
50. THE BONNY HIND
445
begs her to go back to the convent, and say
nothing, bearing her sorrow as she may. This
she does. But every autumn the king makes
a feast, and invites to it all the nuns in the
cloister. Margaret is missed, and asked for.
Is she sick or dead? Why does she not come
to the feast, like other merry dames ? The
wicked abbess answers, Your daughter is
neither sick nor dead ; she goes with child,
like other merry dames. The king rides off
to the cloister, encounters his daughter, and
demands who is the father of her child. She
replies that she will sooner die than tell. The
king leaves her in wrath, but returns present-
ly, resolved to burn the convent, and Margaret
in it. Olaf comes from the wood, tired and
weary, sees the cloister burning, and quenches
the flames with his heart's blood.
The Icelandic ballad, ' Margr^tar kvaeSi,'
Islenzk Fornkvse?5i, Grundtvig and SigurSsson,
No 14, has the same story. It is, however,
the man who brings on the discovery by ask-
ing the woman's parentage. The editors in-
form us that the same subject is treated in
an unprinted Icelandic ballad, less popular as
to style and stanza, in the Arne Magnussen
collection, 154.
The story of Kullervo, incorporated in what
is called the national epic of the Finns, the
Kalevala, has striking resemblances with the
ballads of the Bonny Hind class. While re-
turning home in his sledge from a somewhat
distant errand, Kullervo met three times a girl
who was travelling on snow-shoes, and invited
her to get in with him. She rejected his in-
vitation with fierceness, and the third time
he pulled her into the sledge by force. She
angrily bade him let her go, or she would dash
the sledge to pieces ; but he won her over by
showing her rich things. The next morning
she asked what was his race and family ; for
it seemed to her that he must come of a great
line. " No," he said, " neither of great nor
small. I am Kalervo's unhappy son. Tell
me of what stock art thou." " Of neither
great nor small," she answered. " I am Kal-
ervo's unhappy daughter." She was, in fact,
a long-lost sister of KuUervo's, who, when a
child, had gone to the wood for berries, and
had never found her way home. She had
wept the first day and the second ; the third
and fourth, the fifth and sixth, she had tried
every way to kill herself. She broke out in
heart-piercing lamentations :
' 0 that I had died then, wretched !
O tliat I had perished, weak one !
Had not lived to hear these horrors,
Had not lived this shame to suffer ! '
So saying she sprang from the sledge into the
river, and found relief under the waters.
Kullei'vo, mad with anguish, went home to
his mother, and told her what had happened.
He asked only how he might die, — by wolf
or bear, by whale or sea-pike. His mother
vainly sought to soothe him. He consented
to live only till the wrongs of his parents had
been revenged. His mother tried to dissuade
him even from seeking a hero's death in fight.
' If thou die in battle, tell me.
What protection shall remain then
For the old age of thy father ? '
' Let him die in any alley,
Lay his life down in the house-yard.'
' What protection shall remain then
For the old age of thy mother ? '
' Let her die on any straw-truss ;
Let her stifle in the stable.'
' Who shall then be left tliy brother,
Who stand by him in mischances ? '
' Let him pine away in the forest,
Let him drop down on the common.'
' Who shall then be left thy sister,
Who stand by her in mischances ? '
' When she goes to the well for water,
Or to the washing, let her stumble.'
Kullervo had his fill of revenge. Meanwhile
fathec, brother, sister, and mother died, and
he came back to his home to find it empty
and cold. A voice from his mother's grave
seemed to direct him to go to the wood for
food : obeying it, he came again to the pol-
luted spot, where grass or flowers would not
grow any more. He asked his sword would it
like to feed on guilty flesh and drink wicked
blood. The sword said. Why should I not
like to feed on guilty flesh and drink wicked
blood, I that feed on the flesh of the good
446
50. THE BONNY HIND
and drink the blood of the sinless ? Kullervo
set the sword hilt in the earth, and threw
himself on the point. (Kalewala, iibertragen
von Schiefner, runes 35, 36.)
The dialogue between Kullervo and his
mother is very like a passage in another Fin-
nish rune, ' Werinen Pojka,' ' The Bloody
Son,' Schroter, Finnische Runen, 124, ed.
1819 ; 150, ed. 1834. This last is a form of
the ballad known in Scottish as ' Edward,' No
13, or of 'The Twa Brothers,' No 49. Some-
thing similar is found in ' Lizie Wan,' No 51.
The passage 5—7 is a commonplace that may
be expected to recur under the same or analo-
gous circumstances, as it does in ' Tam Lin,'
D, ' The Knight and Shepherd's Daughter,'
' The Maid and the Magpie,' and in one ver-
sion of ' The Broom of Cowdenknows.' These
are much less serious ballads, and the tone
of stanza 5, which so 111 befits the distressful
situation, is perhaps owing to that stanza's
having been ti'ansferred from some copy of
one of these. It might well change places
with this, from ' The Knight and Shepherd's
Daughter,' A :
Sith you have had your will of me,
And put me to open shame,
Now, if you are a courteous knight,
Tell me what is your name.
Much better with the solemn adjuration in
the Faroe ' Margaret,' or even this in ' Ebbe
Gait,' Danske Viser, No 63, 8 :
Now you have had your will of me,
To both of us small gain,
By the God that is above aU things,
I beg you tell your name.
Herd's MSS, II, fol. 65. " Copied from tlie mouth of a
milkmaid, by W. L , in 1771."
I am nae courtier, fair maid.
But when I court 'ith thee.
1 0 MAT she comes, and may she goes,
Down by yon gardens green,
And there she spied a gallant squire
As squire had ever been.
7 ' They call me Jack when I 'm abroad.
Sometimes they call me John ;
But when I 'm in my father's bower
Jock Randal is my name.'
2 And may she comes, and may she goes,
Down by yon hollin tree,
And there she spied a brisk young squire,
And a brisk young squire was he.
8 ' Ye lee, ye lee, ye bonny lad,
Sae loud 's I hear ye lee !
Ffor I 'm Lord Randal's yae daughter,
He has nae mair nor me.'
3 ' Give me your green manteel, fair maid.
Give me your maidenhead ;
Gif ye winna gie me your green manteel,
Gi me your maidenhead.'
9 ' Ye lee, ye lee, ye bonny may,
Sae loud 's I hear ye lee !
For I 'm Lord Randal's yae yae son.
Just now come oer the sea.'
4 He has taen her by the milk-white hand,
And softly laid her down,
And when he 's lifted her up again
Given her a silver kaim.
10 She 's putten her hand down by her spare,
And out she 's taen a knife.
And she has putn 't in her heart's bluid,
And taen away her life.
5 ' Perhaps there may be bairns, kind sir.
Perhaps there may be nane ;
But if you be a courtier.
You '11 tell to me your name.'
11 And he 's taen up his bonny sister,
With the big tear in his een.
And he has buried his bonny sister
Amang the hollins green.
6 ' I am nae courtier, fair maid.
But new come frae the sea ;
12 And syne he 's hyed him oer the dale,
His father dear to see :
51. LIZIB WAN
447
' Sing O and O for my bonny hind,
Beneath yon hollin tree ! '
13 ' What needs you care for yoar bonny hyn ?
For it you needna care ;
There 's aught score hyns in yonder park,
And five score hyns to spare.
14 ' Four score of them are siller-shod,
Of thae ye may get three ; '
' But O and 0 for my bonny hyn,
Beneath yon hollin tree ! '
15 ' What needs you care for your bonny hyn ?
For it you need na care ;
Take you the best, gi me the warst.
Since plenty is to spare.'
16 ' I care na for your hyns, my lord,
I care na for your fee ;
But O and O for my bonny hyn,
Beneath the hollin tree ! '
17 ' O were ye at your sister's bower.
Your sister fair to see,
Ye '11 think na mair o your bonny hyn
Beneath the hollin tree.'
' The Bonny Heyn,' I, 224.
3'. Should be It 's not for you a weed. Mother-
well.
4*. The third copy omits when.
4°'*. he lifted, He gae her. Mothenoell.
5*' ^ The second copy has they.
6*. All have courteth. Scott prints wi' thee, with
thee.
7'. The third copy has tower.
10'' *. She 's soakt it in her red heart's blood,
And twin'd herself of life. Motheinvell.
13, 14. The first copy omits these stanzas.
51
LIZIE WAN
A. a. ' Lizie Wan,' Herd's MSS, I, 151; II, 78.^ b. B. ' Rosie Ann,' Motherwell's MS., p. 398.
Herd's Scottish Songs, 1776, I, 91.
A, FIEST printed in Herd's Scottish Songs,
ed. 1776, is here given from his manuscript
copy. B is now printed for the first time.
A is translated by Grundtvig, Engelske og
Skotske Folkeviser, No 60, who subjoins a
Danish ballad, ' Liden Ellen og hendes Broder,'
of similar character. Of this the editor had
three versions, differing but little, and all of
slight poetical value, and he prints one which
was committed to writing some sixty or sev-
enty years ago, with some readings from the
others. Liden Jensen, having killed Liden
Ellen in a wood, pretends to his mother that
she has gone off with some knights. He is
betrayed by blood on his clothes, confesses the
truth, and is condemned to be burned. ' Herr
Axel,' Arwidsson's Swedish collection, No 46,
I, 308, under similar circumstances, kills Stolts
Kirstin's two children, is asked by his mother
why his hands are bloody, pretends to have
slain a hind in the wood, and has his head
struck off by order of his father.
' Herr Peder og bans Sbster,' an unpublished
Danish ballad, of which Grundtvig obtained
a single traditional version, has also a slight
resemblance to ' Lizie Wan.' Kirsten invites
448
51. LIZIE WAN
Sir Peter to her bed. He declines for various
reasons, which she refutes. She discovers him
to be her brother by her needle-work in his
shirt. He draws his knife and stabs her.
" This was also a pitiful sight, the twin chil-
dren playing in the mother's bosom." Com-
pare Kristensen, II, No 74 A, D, B, at the end.
The conclusion, A 11-12, B 10-17, resem-
bles that of ' The Twa Brothers,' No 49, but
is poetically much inferior.
Herd's MSS, I, 151 ; stanzas 1-6, II, p. 78. Herd's Scot-
tish Songs, 1776, I, 91.
1 LiziE Wan sits at her father's bower-door,
Weeijing and making a mane,
And by there came her father dear :
' What ails thee, Lizie Wan ? '
2 ' I aU, and I ail, dear father,' she said,
' And I '11 tell you a reason for why ;
There is a child between my twa sides,
Between my dear biUy and I.'
3 Now Lizie Wan sits at her father's bower -
door.
Sighing and making a mane,
And by there came her brother dear :
' What ails thee, Lizie Wan ? '
4 ' I ail, I ail, dear brither,' she said,
' And I '11 tell you a reason for why ;
There is a child between my twa sides.
Between you, dear biUy, and I.'
6 ' And hast thou tald father and mother o that ?
And hast thou tald sae o me ? '
And he has drawn his gude braid sword,
That hang down by his knee.
6 And he has cutted aff Lizie Wan's head,
And her fair body in three.
And he 's awa to his mothers bower,
And sair aghast was he.
7 ' What ails thee, what ails thee, Geordy Wan ?
What ails thee sae fast to rin ?
For I see by thy ill colour
Some fallow's deed thou hast done.'
8 ' Some fallow's deed I have done, mother,
And I pray you pardon me ;
For I 've cutted aff my greyhound's head ;
He wadna rin for me.'
9 ' Thy greyhound's bluid was never sae red,
O my son Geordy Wan !
For I see by thy ill colour
Some fallow's deed thou hast done.'
10 ' Some fallow's deed I hae done, mother.
And I pray you pardon me ;
For I hae cutted aff Lizie Wan's head
And her fair body in three.'
11 ' 0 what wilt thou do when thy father comes
hame,
O my son Geordy Wan ? '
' I '11 set my foot in a bottomless boat,
I And swim to the sea-ground.'
12 ' And when will thou come hame again,
O my son Geordy Wan ? '
' The sun and the moon shall dance on the
green
That night when I come hame.'
B
Motherwell's MS., p. 398.
Storie, Lochwinnich.
From the recitation of Mrs
1 RosiE she sat in her simmer bower,
Greitin and making grit mane.
When down by cam her father, saying.
What ails thee Rosie Ann ?
2 ' A deal, a deal, dear father,' she said,
' Great reason hae I to mane.
For there lyes a little babe in my side,
Between me and my brither John.'
3 Rosie she sat in her simmer bower.
Weeping and making great mane.
And wha cam doun but her mither dear.
Saying, What ails thee, Rosie Ann ?
51. LIZIE WAN
449
4 ' A deal, a deal, dear mither,' she said,
' Great reason hae I to mane,
For there lyes a little babe in my side.
Between me and my brither John.'
5 Rosie she sat in her simmer bower,
Greiting and making great mane,
And wha came doun but her sister dear.
Saying, What ails thee, Rosie Ann ?
6 ' A deal, a deal, dear sister,' she said,
' Great reason hae I to mane.
For there lyes a little babe in my side.
Between me and my brither John.'
7 Rosie she sat in her simmer bower,
"Weeping and making great mane.
And wha cam doun but her fause, fause
brither.
Saying, What ails thee, Rosie Ann ? ,
8 ' A deal, a deal, dear brither,' she said,
' Great reason hae I to cry.
For there lyes a little babe in my side,
Between yoursell and I.'
9 ' Weel ye hae tauld father, and ye hae tauld
mither,
And ye hae tauld sister, a' three ; '
Syne he pulled out his wee penknife,
And he cut her fair bodie in three.
10 ' O what blude is that on the point o your
knife,
Dear son, come tell to me ? '
' It is my horse's, that I did kill.
Dear mother and fair ladie.'
11 ' The blude o your horse was neer sae red.
Dear son, come tell to me : '
' It is my grandfather's, that I hae killed,
Dear mother and fair ladie.'
12 ' The blude o your grandfather was neer sae
fresh.
Dear son, come teU to me : '
' It is my sister's, that I did kill.
Dear mother and fair ladie.'
13 ' What wiU ye do when your father comes
hame.
Dear son, come tell to me ? '
' I 'U set my foot on yon shipboard.
And I hope she '11 sail wi me.'
14 ' What will ye do wi your bonny bonny young
wife.
Dear son, come tell to me ? '
' I 'U set her foot on some other ship,
And I hope she '11 foUow me.'
15 ' And what will ye do wi your wee son,
Dear son, come tell to me ? '
' I '11 leave him wi you, my dear mother,
To keep in remembrance of me.'
16 ' What will ye do wi your houses and lands,
Dear son, come tell to me ? '
' I '11 leave them wi you, my dear mother,
To keep my own babie.'
17 ' And whan will you return again,
Dear son, come tell to me ? '
* When the sun and the mune meet on yon
hill.
And I hope that '11 neer be.'
B. Written without division into stanzas.
57
450
52. THE KING'S DOCHTER LADY JEAN
52
THE KING'S DOCHTER LADY JEAN
A. a. ' The King's Dochter Lady Jean,' Motherwell's C. ' Castle Ha's Daughter,' Buchan's Ballads of the
MS., p. 657. b. ' Lady Jean,' Motherwell's Min- North of Scotland, I, 241.
strelsy, Appendix, p. xxi.
D. 'Bold Burnet's Daughter.' a. Buchan's MSS, I,
B. Motherwell's MS., p. 275 ; the first six lines in 120. b. The same, II, 141.
Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. 189 f.
B IS the ballad referred to, and pai-tly cited,
in Motherwell's preface to ' The Broom blooms
bonnie and says it is fair,' Minstrelsy, p. 189.
This copy has been extremely injured by tra-
dition ; so much so as not to be intelligible in
places except by comparison with A. The
act described in stanza 9 should be done by
the king's daughter's own hand; stanza 12
should be addressed by her to her sister;
stanza 13 is composed of fragments of two.
C and D have suffered worse, for they have
been corrupted and vulgarized.
At the beginning there is resemblance to
' Tarn Lin ' and to ' Hind Etin.'
a. Motherwell's MS., p. 657. From the recitation of
Mrs Stoiie, Lochwinnich. b. Motherwell's Miastrclsy, Ap-
pendix, p. xxi, No XXIII, one stanza.
1 The king's young 'dochter was sitting in her
window,
Sewing at her silken seam ;
She lookt out o the bow-window,
And she saw the leaves growing green, my
luve,
And she saw the leaves growing green.
2 She stuck her needle into her sleeve,
Her seam down by her tae.
And she is awa to the merrie green-wood,
To pu the nit and slae.
d 3 She hadna pu't a nit at a',
A nit but scarcely three.
Till out and spak a braw young man.
Saying, How daur ye bow the tree ?
4 ' It 's I win pu the nit,' she said,
' And I will bow the tree.
And I wiU come to the merrie green wud.
And na ax leive o thee.'
5 He took her by the middle sae sma.
And laid her on the gerss sae green.
And he has taen his will o her,
And he loot her up agen.
6 ' Now syn ye hae got your will o me.
Pray tell to me your name ;
For I am the king's young dochter,' she said,
' And this nicht I dauma gang hame.'
7 ' Gif ye be the king's young dochter,' he said,
' I am his auldest son ;
I wish I had died on some frem isle.
And never had come hame !
8 ' The first time I came hame, Jeanie,
Thou was na here nor born ;
I wish my pretty ship had sunk.
And I had been forlorn !
9 ' The neist time I came hame, Jeanie,
Thou was sittin on the nourice knee ;
And I wish my pretty ship had sunk,
And I had never seen thee !
10 ' And the neist time I came hame, Jeanie,
I met thee here alane ;
52. THE KING'S DOCHTEB LADY JEAN
451
I wish my pretty ship had sunk,
And I had neer come hame ! '
11 She put her hand down by her side,
And doun into her spare,
And she pou't out a wee pen-knife,
And she wounded hersell fu sair.
12 Hooly, hooly rase she up,
And hooly she gade hame,
Until she came to her father's parlour,
And there she did sick and mane.
13 ' O sister, sister, mak my bed,
O the clean sheets and strae,
0 sister, sister, mak my bed,
Down in the parlour below.'
14 Her father he came tripping down the stair.
His steps they were fu slow ;
' I think, I think, Lady Jean,' he said,
' Ye 're lying far ower low.'
15 ' O late yestreen, as I came hame,
Down by yon castU wa,
O heavy, heavy was the stane
That on my briest did fa ! '
16 Her mother she came tripping doun the stair.
Her steps they were fu slow ;
' I think, I think. Lady Jean,' she said,
' Ye 're lying far ower low.'
17 ' O late yestreen, as I cam hame,
Down by yon castU wa,
O heavy, heavy was the stane
That on my breast did fa ! '
18 Her sister came tripping doun the stair,
Her steps they were fu slow ;
' I think, I think. Lady Jean,' she said,
' Ye 're lying far ower low.'
18 ' 0 late yestreen, as I cam hame,
Doim by yon castU wa,
0 heavy, heavy was the stane
That on my breast did fa ! '
19 Her brither he cam trippin doun the stair,
His steps they were f u slow ;
He sank into liis sister's arms.
And they died as white as snaw.
B
Motherwell's MS., p. 275 ; the first six lines in Mother-
well's Minstrelsy, p. 189. Froin Margery Johnston.
1 Lady Makgabet sits in her bow-window.
Sewing her silken seam ;
2 She 's drapt the thimble at her tae.
And her scissars at her heel.
And she 's awa to the merry green-wood,
To see the leaves grow green.
3 She had scarsely bowed a branch,
Or plucked a nut f rae the tree,
Till up and starts a fair young man.
And a fair young man was he.
4 ' How dare ye shake the leaves ? ' he said,
' How dare ye break the tree ?
How dare ye pluck the nuts,' he said,
' Without the leave of me ? '
' Oh I know the merry green wood 's my
ain,
And I '11 ask the leave of nane.'
6 He gript her by the middle sae sma.
He gently sat her down,
While the grass grew up on every side,
And the apple trees hang down.
7 She says. Young man, what is your name ?
For ye 've brought me to meikle shame ;
For I am the king's youngest daughter.
And how shaU I gae hame ?
8 ' If you 're the king's youngest daughter.
It 's I 'm his auldest son,
And heavy heavy is the deed, sister.
That you and I have done.'
9 He had a penknife in his hand,
Hang low down by his gair.
452
52. THE KING'S DOCHTEB LADY JEAN
And between the long rib and the short one
He woundit her deep and sair.
10
12 ' 0 sister dear, when tliou gaes hame
Unto thy father's ha,
It 's make my bed baith braid and lang,
Wi the sheets as white as snaw.'
And fast and fast her ruddy bright blood
Fell drapping on the ground.
11 She took the glove off her right hand,
And slowly slipt it in the wound.
And slowly has she risen up,
And slowly slipped home.
13 ' When I came by the high church-yard
Heavy was the stain that bruised my heel,
. that bruised my heart,
I 'm afraid it shall neer heal.'
0
Buchan's Ballads and Songs of the North of Scotland, I,
241.
1 As Annie sat into her bower,
A thought came in her head,
That she would gang to gude greenwood,
Across the flowery mead.
2 She hadna pu'd a flower, a flower,
Nor broken a branch but twa,
Till by it came a gentle squire.
Says, Lady, come awa.
3 There 's nane that comes to g^de greenwood
But pays to me a tein.
And I maun hae your maidenhead.
Or than your mantle green.
4 ' My mantle 's o the finest silk,
Anither I can spin ;
But gin you take my maidenhead.
The like I '11 never fin.'
5 He 's taen her by the milk-white hand.
And by the grass-green sleeve,
There laid her low in gude greenwood.
And at her spierd nae leave.
6 "When he had got his wills o her,
His wills as he had taen,
She said, If you rightly knew my birth,
Ye 'd better letten alane.
7 ' Is your father a lord o might ?
Or baron o high degree ?
Or what race are ye sprung frae.
That I should lat ye be ? '
8 ' 0 I am Castle Ha's daughter,
0 birth and high degree.
And if he knows what ye hae done.
He '11 hang you on a tree.'
9 ' If ye be Castle Ha's daughter.
This day I am undone ;
If ye be Castle Ha's daughter,
1 am his only son.'
10 ' Ye lie, ye lie, ye jeUy hind squire,
Sae loud as I hear you lie.
Castle Ha, he has but ae dear son,
And he is far beyond the sea.'
11 ' 0 I am Castle Ha's dear son,
A word I dinna lie ;
Yes, I am Castle Ha's dear son,
And new come oer the sea.
12 ' 'T was yesterday, that fatal day,
That I did cross the faem ;
I wish my bonny ship had sunk,
And I had neer come hame.'
13 Then dowie, dowie, raise she up.
And dowie came she hame.
And stripped aff her silk mantle.
And then to bed she 's gane.
14 Then in it came her mother dear,
And she steps in the fleer :
52. THE KIXG'S DOCHTER LADY JEAN
453
' Win up, win up, now fair Annie,
What makes your lying here ? '
15 ' This morning fair, as I went out.
Near by yon castle wa.
Great and heavy was the stane
That on my foot did fa.'
16 ' Hae I nae ha's, hae I nae bowers.
Towers, or mony a town ?
Will not these cure your bonny foot.
Gar you gae hale and soun ? '
17 ' Ye hae ha's, and ye hae bowers,
And towers, and mony a town,
But nought will cure my bonny foot.
Gar me gang hale and soun.'
18 Then in it came her father dear.
And he trips in the fleer :
' Win up, win up, now fair Annie,
What makes your lying here ? '
19 * This morning fair, as I went out,
Near by yon castle wa.
Great and heavy was the stane
That on my foot did fa.'
20 ' Hae I nae ha's, hae I nae bowers.
And towers, and mony a town ?
Will not these cui-e your bonny foot.
Gar you gang hale and soun ? '
21 ' O ye hae ha's, and ye hae bowers,
And towers, and mony a town.
But nought wiU cure my bonny foot.
Gar me gang hale and soun.'
22 Then in it came her sister Grace ;
As she steps in the fleer,
' Win up, win up, now fair Annie,
What makes your lying here ?
23 ' Win up, and see your ae brother.
That 's new come ower the sea ; '
' Ohon, alas ! ' says fair Annie,
' He spake ower soon wi me.'
24 To her room her brother 's gane.
Stroked back her yellow hair,
To her lips his ain did press.
But words spake never mair.
D
a. Buchan's MSS, I, 120. b. The same, II, 141.
1 The lady 's taen her mantle her middle about.
Into the woods she 's gane,
2 She hadna poud a flower o gude green-wood,
O never a flower but ane,
Till by he comes, an by he gangs,
Says, Lady, lat alane.
3 For I am forester o this wood,
And I hae power to pine
Your mantle or your maidenhead,
Which o the twa ye '11 twine.
4 ' My mantle is o gude green silk.
Another I can card an spin ;
But gin ye tak my maidenhead,
The like I 'U never fin.'
5 He 's taen her by the milk-white hand,
And by the grass-green sleeve,
And laid her low at the foot o a tree,
At her high kin spierd nae leave.
6 ' I am bold Burnet's ae daughter.
You might hae lat me be : '
' And I 'm bold Burnet's ae dear son.
Then dear ! how can this dee ? '
7 ' Ye lie, ye lie, ye jolly hind squire,
So loud 's I hear you lie !
Bold Burnet has but ae dear son.
He 's sailing on the sea.'
8 ' Yesterday, about this same time.
My bonny ship came to land ;
I wish she 'd sunken in the sea,
And never seen the strand !
9 ' Heal well tliis deed on me, lady.
Heal well this deed on me I '
' Although I would heal it neer sae well,
Our God above does see.'
454
53. "SOUNG BEICHAN
10 She 's taen her mantle her miclcUe ahout,
And mourning went she hame,
And a' the way she sighd full sair,
Crying, Am I to hlame !
11 Ben it came her father dear,
Stout stepping on the flear :
' Win up, win up, my daughter Janet,
And welcome your brother here.'
12 Up she 's taen her milk-white hand,
Streakd by his yellow hair,
Then turnd about her bonny face,
And word spake never mair.
A. b. 1\ fine silken.
B.
1'. She luikit out at her braw bower win-
dow.
1^' ^ and 2 are joined in the MS.
6'' * joined with 4. 5*. no leave of thee, an
emendation hy Motherwell, for rhytne.
9*. He struck : an emendation.
10^' * are joined with 9.
13*. That bruised by heart.
After 13 is written A stanza wanting.
D. The first three stanzas are not properly divided
in a, and in b the first fourteen lines not
divided at all.
a. 11^ An stepping. 7^ kind squire in both
copies.
b. 5*. kin's. .
9*. Heal well, heal well on me, Lady Janet.
11^. Stout stepping.
12'. She turned.
53
YOUNG BEICHAN
A. ' Young Bicham,' Jamieson-Brown MS., fol. 13, c.
1783.
B. ' Young Brechin,' Glenriddell MSS, XI, 80, 1791.
C. ' Young Bekie.' a. Jamieson-Brown MS., fol. 11,
0. 1783. b. Jamieson's Popular Ballads, 11, 127.
D. ' Young Beachen,' Skene MSS, p. 70, 1802-1803.
E. ' Young Beichan and Susie Pye,' Jamieson's Popu-
lar Ballads, II, 117.
F. ' Susan Pye and Lord Beichan,' Pitcairn's MSS,
III, 159.
G. Communicated by Mr Alex. Laing, of Newburgh-
on-Tay.
H. ' Lord Beichan and Susie Pye,' Kinloch's Ancient
Scottish Ballads, p. 260.
I. Communicated by Mr David Loudon, Morham, Had-
dington.
J. Dr Joseph Robertson's Note-Book, ' Adversaria,' p.
85.
K. Communicated by Mr David Loudon.
Ii. The Loving Ballad of Lord Bateman. Illustrated
by George Cruikshank, 1839.
M. ' Young Bondwell,' Buchan's MSS, I, 18. J. H.
Dixon, Scottish Traditional Versions of Ancient Bal-
lads, p. 1.
N. ' Susan Py, or Young Bichen's Garland.' a. Fal-
kirk, printed by T. Johnston, 1815. b. Stirling, M.
Randall.
A, B, D, F, and the fragment G now ap-
pear for the first time in print, and the same
is true of I, J, K, which are of less account.
C a is here given according to the manuscript,
without Jamieson's " collations." Of E and
C b Jamieson says : This ballad and that
454
10
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1
LORD BEICHAN.
^oxtftv mim.
EDITED
BY JAMES HENRY DIXON, ESQ.
FROM THE lOCAL HISTORIAN'S TABLE BOOK.
^ etota'Stlf =upon;=Csne:
M. A. RICHARDSON, 44, GREY STREET.
MDCCCXLIII.
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LORD BEICHAN.
a 33orifer JSaHalf.
N Jamieson"'s " Popular Ballads and Songs,"
vol. II. p. 117. and 127, are two ballads,
the one called " Young Beichan and Susie
Pye," and the other called " Young
Bekie." They are both given as "From
Tradition," and are versions of the well-
known Northumbrian Ballad, " Lord Bate-
man." Jamieson says that the two ballads
"are given from copies taken from Mrs.
Brown's recitation, collated with two other copies procured from
Scotland, one in MS ; another very good one printed for the stalls ;
a third in the possession of the late Rev. Jonathan Boucher, of
Epsom, taken from recitation in the north of England ; and a
fourth, about one third as long as the others, which the Editor
picked off an old wall [query stall ?] in Piccadilly." The Scottish copy
" printed for the stalls," would probably be either the Berwick or
Stirling broad sheet ballad of Lord Bateman, both of which vary but
slightly from the English broad sheets with the same title, printed
by Hoggett, Durham ; and Pitts, Catnach, and others in London.
Jamieson remarks, that " it has been suggested that the names should
not be Beichan, &c., but Buchan ; but as he found them as here given
in all the copies," [MS. I presume, for I never met in print with
the name otherwise than Bateman, except in Jamieson''8 book and
copies from it.] " and as they appeared to him to be English Ballads
slightly tinctured with the Scottish dialect," [all Border Ballads are
so] "he has chosen to leave the titles as he found them." Had
Jamieson enquired of any of the border peasantry, the English origin
of the ballads, would have soon been put beyond a doubt, and he
might have been informed, as I have, that the hero's name should
be neither Beichan, Bekie nor Bateman, but Bertram, one of that
ancient Northiunbrian line, of whom it might at one time have been
said, with very little hyperbole, " that half Northumberland belonged
to them." In a collection of Scottish Ballads, edited by Robert Cham-
bers, esq., and published by Tait, Edinburgh, 1 829, is a version under
the name of " Young Bekie ;" it is from a collation of Jamieson's two
ballads, and Mr. Chambers does not appear to have examined the
broadsheets. The following version is formed from a collation of
several broad sheets, with the two ballads in Jamieson's book, and I
have endeavoured to make it as correct as possible, by carefully
expunging everything which looked like modem interpolation, and
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wherever I could avoid it, abstaining from conjectural emendations.
Whenever I had any doubt about the true reading, from there being
a variation in the copies before me, I have adopted that which seemed
to be most in character with the ordinary style and language of an-
tient English Ballads, of which old printed copies have been handed
down to our times. Although convinced that Bertram is the proper
name of the Hero, I have adopted " Beichan " from Jamieson's copy,
not having met with the name of Bertram in any printed copy. All
the broadsheets read " Bateman," but it is so thoroughly un-Norih-
umbrian that I could not think of perpetuating the name in the
Table Book, and have therefore chosen the more euphonious one of
Beichan. While, however, I have in one instance rejected the
authority of the broadsheets, I have in another chosen to abide by
it, for the name of the Turk's daughter is certainly more likely to
have been Saphia or Sophia than Susie Pye, as given by Jamieson !
It might be curious to enquire, supposing the hero's name to have
been Bertram, how it got corrupted to Beichan, Bateman and Bekie.
In the word Bertram, the letter II occurs twice, a letter which many
of the Northumbrian peasantry have great difficulty to pronounce in
conversation, and which they have still greater difficulty to articulate
when singing— this circumstance might have induced the itinerant
minstrels of the North, to select a name to which they could give
freer utterance. The ballad of Lord Bateman has given birth to
two modern specimens of literary waggery, viz: " tE^t tLofttng;
JUnUalr of ^ortr JUatftltan," with plates and annotations, by George
Cruikshank* [being a copy of the common English Broadsheets, but
turned into the vernacular dialect of Cockaigne], and the Burlesque
Drama of Lord Bateman^ produced at the Strand theatre, London,
C. and in which, a series of tableaux vivans after Cruikshank, never fails
to convulse the audience with laughter. The Editor of Tait's Mag-
azine, took to task the authors of the above productions, and
thought their wit might have been expended in a more becoming
B. I manner, than in ridicule of a ballad, which, notwithstanding the
la| corruptions of its worst copies, and the absurdities contained in those,
which we may consider to be the best, has ever delighted, and will
continue to delight, the lovers of the simple unadorned strains of our
country's ancient " minstrelsie." The proper air to which the ballad is
G. » sung, is given by Cruikshank, though with one or two burlesque cadenzas.
A,
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B.
F. '
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ToUington Park, Middlesex. Dec. 3, 1842. J. H. Dixon.
^'^ * I'ublished by Tilt, London. Cruikshank in this work conjectures that the name of
thf heroine was suggested to the author, by the mosque of SmUa Sophia at Constantino-
ple—no doubt of it.
1
Horlf miOfm.
-^ — -*.
ORD Beichan he was a noble lord,
A noble lord of high degree ;
He shipped himself on board a ship.
He longed strange countries for to see. ^
He sailed east, and he sailed west.
Until he came to proud Turkey ;
Where he was ta'en by a savage moor,
Who handled him right crueUie.
For he viewed the fashions of that land ;
Their way of worship viewed he ;
But to Mahound, or Termagant, ^
Would Beichan never bend a knee.
1 Var. "Some foreign country he would go see.' Common English Broad Sheet
Ballad of Lord Bateman.
2 TermagauTit was a Saracenic deity worshipped by the Turks, before, and for some
time after, the introduction of Mahomedanism. In an old Norman MS. romance pre-
served in the Bodleian library, but of which the title is destroyed, the names of Tervagan
(i. e. TermagantJ and Mahun (i. e. MahometJ are placed in juxtaposition. The same
thing occurs in Ze Roman de Roncevaux. The old English writers frequently make their
monsters swear by Termagaunt, as Chaucer does in his " rime of Sire Thopas "
" ther came a gret geaunt,
Hia name was Sire OUphaunt
A perloua man of de«d ;
He sayde, childe, by Termaffauvi, 4c., &c."
In the British islands, long after the Gods of Scandinavia had ceased to be worshipped,
the inhabitants, though they were converted to Christianity, believed the old deities to
exist as evil spirits; and so it was in the east — for many years after the introduction of the
Mahometan faith, its professors firmly believed, that the old gods of their country, (of
whom Termagaunt was one of the chief,) had an existence as evil spirits. This super-
stitious notion was embraced by the Crusaders, who added to it the belief, that such evil
spirits were worshipped by the Mahometans, and aided them in the battle field ! Ignorant,
also, that the religion of Mahomet was strictly Unitarian, and forbade the worship of any
but the true God, they believed that the Mahometans not only worshiped evil spirits, but
that they paid divine honours to their ^ount/er.' Such appears to have been the general
opinion of the authors of the old romances above alluded to, and such, we may presume,
was the idea entertained by the author of 'Lord Beichar),' when he represents his hero
as refusing to "bend a hne" either to '^Mahound or Termagant.'" The origin of the
word Termagant as applied now to a scoldmg woman, may be easily deduced from the
above remarks.
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So on each shoulder they've putten a hore;
In each bore they've putten a tye;
And they have made him trail the wine
And spices on his fair bodie. ^
They've casten him in a donjon deep,
Where he could neither hear nor see;
For seven long years they've kept him there.
Till he for hunger's like to dee.
And in his prison a tree there grew,
So stout and strong there grew a tree,
And unto it was Beichan chained
Until his life was most weary. *
This Turk he had one only daughter —
Fairer creature did eyes ne'er see ;
And every day, as she took the air.
Near Beichan's prison passed she. '
[And bonny, meek, and mild was she,
Tho' she was come of an ill kin ;
And oft she sighed, she knew not why,
For him that lay the donjon in. *]
O so it fell upon a day,
^- She heard young Beichan sadly sing,
[And aye and ever in her ears,
The tones of hapless sorrow ring. *]
1 Jamieson's copy reads — In eveiy shoulder they've putten a bore ;
In even/ bore they've putten a tree ,-
1 have substituted each for every, and ti/e for tree — the meaning I take to be, that a bore
(i. e. a ring formed from the perforated trunk of a tree) was placed on each shoulder, to
jj which were affixed tyes or ropes. In fact he was harnessed, and made to do the work of
a horse.
^ C. Eng. B, S. Lord Bateman — This verse is sadly mutilated heie, and the rhythm
wholly destroyed.
3 Jamieson's copy — This Moor he had but ae daughter,
Her name was called Susie Pye.
c. In "Young Bekie," France is the scene of the captivity, and the heroine is called
' Burd Mel"
■i This verse was added by Jamieson.
A, •■' Added by Jamieson.
1)5
" My hounds they all go masterless ;
My hawks they flee from tree to tree ;
My younger brother will heir my land,
Fair England again I'll never see,"
And all night long no rest she got
Young Beichan's song for thinking on ;
She's stown the keys from her father's head
And to the prison strong is gone. ^
And she has ope'd the prison doors,
I wot she opened two or three,
Ere she could come young Beichan at.
He was locked up so curiouslie.
But when she came young Beichan before.
Sore wondered he that maid to see —
He took her for some fair captive —
" Fair Ladye I pray of what countrie ? "
" Have you got houses ? have you got lands ?
Or does Northumberland 'long to thee ?
What could ye give to the fair young ladye
That out of prison would set you free "?'
" I have got houses, I have got lands,
And half Northumberland 'longs to me —
I'll give them all to the ladye fair,
That out of prison will set me free.
Near London town I have a hall,
With other castles, two or three ;
I'll give them all to the ladye fair.
That out of prison will set me free."
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59,
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to
to
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to
bbe
N,
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A,
P,
ess,
ian,
1 Lord Bateman's song for thinking on.
All night long no rest got she.
She stole the keys of her's father prison
And swore Lord Bateman she would set free. Scotch B. S,
2 O have ye any lands she said
Or castles in your own countrie? Jamieson'scopy.
the
1-9}
urni-
•wrie,
wont
18 in
13 the
note
rfar-
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J
45
i(
" Give me the troth of your right hand,
The troth of it give unto me ; i
That for seven years ye'll no ladye wed,
11 ■ Unless it be along with me."
" I'll give thee the troth of my right hand,
The troth of it I'll freely gie ;
A. f That for seven years I'll stay unwed.
For kindness thou dost shew to me." ^
B- And she has brib'd the proud warder.
With golden store and white monie ;
She's gotten the keys of the prison strong,
And she has set young Beichan free.
She's gi'en him to eat the good spice cake;
She gi'en him to drink the blood red wine ; ^
And every health she drank unto him—
" I wish Lord Beichan that you were mine,"
And she's bidden him sometimes think on her
That so kindly freed him out of pine.
She's broken a ring from her finger,
And to Beichan half of it gave she —
" Keep it to mind you of that love
The lady bore that set you free."
A.
1
B. O she took him to her father's harbour
And a ship of fame to him gave she ;
" Farewell, farewell to you lord Beichan,
Shall I e'er again you see ? *
C.
c
D.
E.
li
F.
I
G.
c
H.
pe
is
Set your foot on the good ship board.
And haste ye back to your own countrie;
' Truth. Jamieson's copy.
- This, and the verse preceding it, are complete nonsense in both the English and
Scotch Broad Sheets. I follow .Jamieson's copy.
S " And gave to him the best of wine." C Eng. B. S.
^ " O she took him to her father's harbour,
And gave to him a ship of fame ;
Farewell, farewell to you Lord Bateman,
I'm afraid I ne'er shall see you again." C. Eng, B. S.
And before seven years have an end,
Come back again love and marry me."
Now seven long years are gone and past,
And sore she long'd her love to see ;
For ever a voice, within her breast,
Said " Beichan has broken his vow to thee."
So she's set her foot on the good ship board,
And turned her back on her own countrio. '
She sailed east, she sailed west,
Till to fair England's shore came she;
Where a bonnie shepherd she espied
Feeding his sheep upon the lea.
" What news, what news, thou bonnie shepherd ?
What news hast thou to tell to me ? "
" Such news I hear ladye," he said —
The like was never in this countrie."
There is a wedding in yonder hall,
[I hear the sound of the minstrelsie,]
But young Lord Beichan slights his bride.
For love of one that's ayond the sea." ^
She's putten her hand in her pocket,
Gi'en him the gold and white monie ;
" Here take ye that my bonnie boy,
For the good news thou tell'st to me."
When she came to Lord Beichan's gate.
She tirled softly at the pin ;
And ready was the proud warder
To open and let this ladye in.
When she came to Lord Beichan's castle.
So boldly she rang the bell —
1 She pack'd up all her gay cloathing.
And swore Lord Bateraan she would go see." Ibid.
- In Jamieson's copy, we are told that the wedding " Has lasted thirty days and three.'
But this does not agree with the porter's saying in a subsequent verse, "This is the day
of his weddin." 1 have therefore inserted the passage in brackets to make the story
more consistent.
t^
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ly
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10
" Who's there, who's there, cried the proud porter,
" Who's there, unto me come tell."
II " O is this lord Beichan's castle,
f^ Or is that noble lord within?"
" Yea he is in the hall among them all,
^ And this is the day of his weddin."
"And has he wed anither love —
And has he clean forgotten me?"
And sighing said that ladje gay,
" I wish I was in my own countrie."
And she has ta'en her gay gold ring,
That with her love she brake so free;
" Gie him that ye proud porter.
And bid the bridegroom speak to me.
Tell him to send me a slice of bread.
And a cup of blood red wine,
And not to forget the fair young lady
That did release him out of pine." ^
Away, and away went the proud porter.
Away, and away, and away went he,
Until he came to Lord Beichan's presence —
J Down he fell on his bended knee.
" What aileth thee, my proud porter,
< Thou art so full of courtesie."
, I've been porter at your gates —
I ts thirty long years now and three.
But there stands a ladye at them now,
The like of her I ne'er did see."
For on every finger she has a ring.
', And on lier mid-finger she has three;
1 J iiie — i^u\0:,yiief.
" V\'ell 1 wotc that in this world gret pine is."
Chaucer. The Kiiighte's Tale, liiit i;i2ti.
" who coude siij)po8e
The wo that in niin herte was and the pine?
Chaucer, Wif of Bathe, Ifne 63C9.
ys.
II
And as much gay gold above her brow
As would an earldom buy to me :
And as much gay cloathing round about her
As would buy all Northumberlea." ^
Its out then spak the bride's mother —
Aye and an angry woman was she —
" Ye might have excepted the bonnie bride.
And two or three of our companie."
" O hold your tongue ye silly frow,
Of all your folly let me be ;
She's ten times fairer than the bride,
And all that's in your companie.
She asks one sheave of my lord's white bread,
And a cup of his red, red wine ;
And to remember the ladye'slove,
I'hat kindly freed him out of pine."
Lord Beichan then in a passion flew,
And broke his sword in splinters three ;
" O well a day " did Beichan say,
" That 1 so soon have married thee —
For it can be none but dear Saphia,
That's cross'd the deep for love of me." *
And quickly hied he down the stair.
Of fifteen steps he made but three ;
He's ta'en his bonnie love in his arms,
And kist, and kist her tenderly.
" O have ye taken another bride,
And have ye quite forgotten me ?
And have ye quite forgotten one
That gave you life and liberty."
1 Northumber&a— this is for the sake of the rhyme In the ballad as originaUy written
1 think it probable that all the verses terminated in such syllables Si&lea,ie,ee, &c. &c.
This verse was a particular favourite with the late Allan Cunningham, who would often
quote It to his friends; he has introduced it in his beautiful prose tale of "Gowden
Gibbie."
- " 1 will give all my father's riches,
That if Sophia has cross'd the sea." C. Lng. B. S. Lord Bateman.
\ '•
155
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12
She looked o'er her left shoulder,
To hide the tears stood in her ee;
" Now fare-thee-well young Beichan," she says,
" I'll try to think no more on thee,"
"O never, never my Saphia,
For surely this can never be ;
Nor ever shall I wed but her
That's done and dreed so much for me."
Then out and spake the forenoon bride,
" My Lord your love it changeth soon ;
This morning I was made your bride,
And another's chose, ere it be noon."
" O sorrow not, thou forenoon bride.
Our hearts could ne'er united be ;
Ye must return to your own countrie,
A double dower I'll send with thee."
And up and spake the young bride's mother.
Who never was heard to speak so free —
" And so you treat my only daughter.
Because Saphia has cross'd the sea."
" I own I made a bride of your daughter.
She ne'er a whit the worse can be.
She came to me with her horse and saddle.
She may go back in her coach and three."
He's ta'en Saphia by the white hand.
And gently led her up and down ;
And aye as he kist her rosy lips,
" Ye're welcome dear one to your own."
He's ta'en her by the milk white hand
And led her to yon fountain stane ; ^
' By '^fountain stane " is meant one of thoso natural rocky basins, which the early
British christians consecrated as baptisteries, and dedicated to the Virgin, or some of the
saints. Converts from heathenism were not allowed to enter the churches, unless the
rite of baptism by immersion had been previously submitted to at these sacred wells.
The "Ladye wells" mentioned in the first volume of the Table Book, were of the same
description.
<,
13
Her name he's changed from Saphia,
And he's called his bonnie love Lady Jane.
Lord Beichan prepared another marriage,
And sang with heart, so full of glee,
" I'll range no more in foreign countrieSj
Now since my love has cross'd the sea."
155
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^^1
53, YOUKG BEICHAN
455
which succeeds it are given from copies taken
from Mrs Brown's recitation,* collated with
two other copies procured from Scotland ; one
in MS. ; another, very good, one printed for
the stalls ; a third, in the possession of the
late Reverend Jonathan Boucher, of Epsom,
taken from recitation in the north of England ;
and a fourth, about one third as long as the
others, which the editor picked off an old wall
in Piccadilly. L, the only English copy, was
derived from the singing of a London vagrant.
It is, says Dixon, the common English broad-
sheet " turned into the dialect of Cockaigne." f
M was probably a broadside or stall copy, and
is certainly of that quality, but preserves a
very ancient traditional feature.
D and M, besides the name Linne, have in
common a repetition of the song, a trait which
we also find in one version of ' The Heir of
Linne ; ' J see Dixon's Scottish Traditional
Versions of Ancient Ballads, p. 30, stanzas
2-6, Percy Society, vol. xvii.
In Bell's Ancient Poems, Ballads, and
Songs of the Peasantry of England, p. 68, it is
remarked that L, " the only ancient form in
which the ballad has existed in print," is one
of the publications mentioned in one of Thack-
eray's catalogues of broadsides. The ' Bate-
man,' in Thackeray's list, is the title of an
entirely different ballad, ' A "Warning for
Maidens, or Young Bateman,' reprinted from
the Roxburghe collection by W. Chappell, III,
193.
" Young Beichan " is a favorite ballad, and
most deservedly. There are beautiful repeti-
tions of the story in the ballads of other na-
tions, and it has secondary affinities with the
extensive cycle of ' Hind Horn,' the parts of
the principal actoi"s in the one being inverted
in the other.
The hero's name is mostly Beichan, with
slight modifications like Bekie, C, Bicham, A,
Brechin, B ; in L, Bateman ; in M, Bondwell.
The heroine is Susan Pye in ten of the four-
teen versions ; Isbel in C ; Essels, evidently
a variety of Isbel, in M, which has peculiar
relations with C ; Sophia in K, L.
Beichan is London born in A, D, [B], H, I, ^
N, English born in B ; London city is his own,
A 6, B 7, F 7, or he has a hall there, I 7, N
27 f . ; half Northumberland belongs to him, L ;
he is lord of the towers of Line, D 9, C 5, M 5,
which are in London, D 15 f, but are trans-
ferred by reciters to the water of Tay, M 29,
and to Glasgow, or the vicinity, H 20. H,
though it starts with calling him London born,
speaks of him thereafter as a Scottish lord, 12,
18, 31.§
Beichan has an Englishman's desire strange
countries for to see. A, D, [E], I, L, N. In
C, M he goes abroad, Quentiu Durward fash-
ion, not to gratify his taste for travel, but to
serve for meat and fee. P makes him go to
the Holy Land, without specifying his motive,
but we may fairly suppose it religious. C
sends him no further than France, and M to
an unnamed foreign land. He becomes the
slave of a Moor or Turk, A, B, D, H, I, L, N, -
or a " Prudent," P, who treats him cruelly.
They bore his shoulders and put in a " tree,"
and make him draw carts, like horse or ox, A,
B, D, [E], H ; draw plough and harrow, P,
plough and cart, N ; or tread the wine-press,
I. This is because he is a staunch Chi'istian, ^
• Mr Macmath has ascertained that Mrs Brown was bom
in 1747. She learned most of her ballads before she was
twelve years old, or before 1759. 1783, or a litlle earlier, is
the date when these copies were taken down from lier sing-
\ ing or recitation.
t The Borderer's Table Book, Vll, 21. Dixon says, a
little before, that the Stirling broadside of ' Lord Bateman '
varies but slightly from the English printed by Hoggett,
Durham, and Pitts, Catnach, and others, London. This is
not true of the Stirling broadside of ' Young Bichen : ' see
N b. I did not notice, until too late, that I had not fur-
nished myself with the broadside ' Lord Bateman,' and have
been obliged to turn back the Craikshank copy into ordi-
nary orthography.
% We have this repetition in two other ballads of the
Skene MSS besides D ; see p. 316 of this volume, sts 1-9 ;
also in ' The Lord of Leame,' Percy MS., Hales and Fumi-
vall, I, 192f,vv 269-304.
§ " An old woman who died in Errol, Carse of Gowric,
about twenty years ago, aged nearly ninety years, was wont
invariably to sing this ballad : ' Young Lundie was in
Brechin born.' Lundie is an estate now belonging to the
Earl of Caraperdoun, north from Dundee." A. Laing, note
to G. That is to say, the old woman's world was Forfar-
shire.
Mr Logan had heard in Scotland a version in which the
hero was called Lord Bangol : A Pedlar's Pack, p. 15.
456
53. YOUNG BEICHAN
^
(
h-'
and would never bend a knee to Mahound or
Termagant, B, or onie of their stocks, H,
or gods, I. They cast him into a dungeon,
where he can neither hear nor see, and he
is nigh perishing with hunger. This, also, is
done in H 5, on account of his perseverance
.'""i * /Th*^ ^^ Christianity; but in C, M he is imprisoned
' for falling in love with the king's daughter, or
other lovely may.
From his prison Beichan makes his moan
(not to a stock or a stone, but to the Queen
of Heaven, D 4). His hounds go masterless,
his hawks flee from tree to tree, his younger
brother will heir his lands, and he shall never
see home again, B, H. If a lady [earl] would
borrow him, he would run at her stirrup [foot,
bridle] ; if a widow [auld wife] would borrow
him, he would become her son ; and if a maid
would borrow him, he would wed her with a
ring, C, D, M, B.* The only daughter of the
Moor, Turk, or king (of a ' Savoyen,' B 5,
perhaps a corruption of Saracen), already in-
terested in the captive, or immediately be-
coming so upon hearing Beichan's song, asks
him if he has lauds and means at home to
maintain a lady that should set him free, and
is told that he has ample estates, all of which
he would bestow on such a lady, A, B, B, F,
H, L, N. She steals the keys and delivers
the prisoner, C, D, B, I, J, L, M, N ; refreshes
him with bread and wine [wine], A, D, E, P,
J 4, K 3, B, H, L ; supplies him with money,
C 9, H 15, M 12, N 14, and with a ship, F 9,
H 18, L 9 ; to which C, M add a horse and
hounds [and hawks, M]. She bids him mind
on the lady's love that freed him out of pine,
A 8, D 12, [B 13], M 14, N 15, and in E 16
breaks a ring from her finger, and gives half
of it to Beichan to assist his memory. There
is a solemn vow, or at least a clear understand-
ing, that they are to marry within seven years,
A 9, B 9, E 12 f., H 17, 19, L 8, N 11 [three
years, C 11].
When seven years are at an end, or even
before, Susan Pye feels a longing, or a mis-
giving, which impels her to go in search of the
object of her affections, and she sets her foot
on good shipboard, and turns her back on her
own country, A 10, B 10, D 15, L 10, N 23.t
C and M preserve here a highly important fea-
ture which is wanting in the other versions.
Isbel, or Essels, is roused from her sleep by
the Billy Blin, C 14, by a woman in green,
a fairy, M 15, who makes kno^vn to her that
that very day, or the morn, is Bekie's [Bond-
well's] wedding day. She is directed to attire
herself and her maids very splendidly, and go
to the strand ; a vessel will come sailing to
her, and they are to go on board. The Billy
Blin will row her over the sea, C 19 ; she will
stroke the ship with a wand, and take God to
be her pilot, M 19. Thus, by miraculous in-
tervention, she arrives at the nick of time.
Beichan's fickleness is not accounted for in
most of the versions. He soon forgot his de-
liverer and courted another, he was young,
and thought not upon Susan Pye, say H, N.
C, on the contrary, tells us that Beichan had
not been a twelvemonth in his own country,
when he was forced to marry a duke's daugh-
ter or lose all his land. E and K intimate that
he acts under constraint ; the wedding has
lasted three and thirty days, and he will not
bed with his bride for love of one beyond the
sea, B 21, K l.J
On landing, Susan Pye falls in with a shep-
herd feeding his flock, E, K [a boy watering
his steeds, M]. She asks. Whose are these
sheep, these kye, these castles ? and is told they
are Lord Beichan's, G. She asks the news,
and is informed that there is a wedding in
yonder hall that has lasted thirty days and
three, B, K, or that there is to be a wedding
on the morn, M ; it seems to be a matter gen-
erally known, N. In other versions she comes
directly to Young Beichan's hall, and is first
informed by the porter. A, B, F, H, L, or the
fact is confirmed by the porter, E, M, N ; she
hears the music within, and divines, C. She
bribes the porter to bid the bridegroom come
* Cf. ' The Fair Flower of Northumberland,' B 2, E 2, or wrath of her father, P, M, J, N, and in the first two hag
pp 115 f. to use artifice.
t She does not get away without exciting the solicitude t A point borrowed, it well may be, from ' Hind Horn,' V
E 5 f, A 10.
53. YOUNG BEICHAN
45";
N
and speak to lier, A, B, C, D, J, N ; send her
down bread and wine, and not forget the lady
who brought him out of prison, B, F, H, J,
K, L. In E 26 she sends up her half ring to
the bridegroom [a ring in N 40, but not till
Beichan has declined to come down].
The porter falls on his knee and informs
his master that the fairest and richest lady
that eyes ever saw is at the gate [ladies, C,
M]. Tlie bride, or the bride's mother more
commonly, reproves the porter for his graceless
speech ; he might have excepted the bride, or
her mother, or both : " Gin she be braw with-
out, we's be as braw within." But the porter
is compelled by truth to persist in his alle-
gation ; fair as they maj' be, they were never
to compare with yon lady, B, D, B, H, M.
Beichan takes the table with his foot and
makes the cups and cans to flee, B 18, D 23,
F 28, G 3, H 47, J 5, N 42 ; * he exclaims
that it can be none but Susie Pye, A, B, D,
G, H, I [Burd Isbel, C], and clears the stair,
fifteen steps, thirty steps, in three bounds,
A 19, D 24, N 43. His old love reproaches
him for his forgetfuliiess. A, C, D, M, N ; f
she asks back her faith and troth, B 21.
Beichan bids the forenoon bride's mother take
back her daughter : he will double her dowry,
A 22, D 27, B 39 ; she came on horseback,
she shall go back in chariots, coaches, three,
B 22, D 27$ [H 49, in chariot free]. He
• So Torello's wife upsets the table, in Boccaccio's storr :
seep. 198. One of her Slavic kinswomeD jumps over four
tables and lights on a fifth.
t In C 34, M 49, she is recognized by one of the hounds
which she had given him. So Bos, seigneur de Benac, who
breaks a ring with his wife, goes to the East, and is prisoner
among the Saracens seven years, on coming back is recog-
nized only by his greyhound: Magasin Pittoresqiie, VI,
56 b. It is scarcely necessary to scent the Odyssey here.
I Ridiculously changed in J 6, E 6, L 20, to a coach and
three, reminding us of that master-stroke in Thacker.iy's
ballad of 'Little Billee,' "a captain of a seventy-three."
• Little Billee,' by the way, is really like an old ballad, fallen
on evil days and evil tongues; whereas the serious imitations
of traditional ballads are not the least like, and yet, in their
way, are often not less ludicrous.
§ In M, to make everything pleasant, Bondwell offers the
bride five hundred pounds to marry his cousin John. She
says, Keep your money ; John was my first love. So Bond-
well is married at early morn, and John in the afternoon.
II Harleian MS. 2277, from which the life of Beket, in
long couplets, was printed by Mr W. U. Black for the
Percy Society, In 1845. The story of Gilbert Beket is con-
S8
marries Susie Pye, having her baptized by the
name of Lady jean, A, B, D, [B], P, I, J.§
This story of Beichan, or Bekie, agrees in
the general outline, and also in some details,
with a well-known legend about Gilbert Beket,
father of St Thomas. The earlier and more
authentic biogi'apliies lack this particular bit
of romance, but the legend nevertheless goes
back to a date not much later tlian a century
after the death of the saint, being found in a
poetical narrative preserved in a manuscript
of about 1300. |]
We learn from this legend that Gilbert
Beket, in his youth, assumed the cross and
went to the Holy Land, accompanied only by
one Richard, his servant. They "did their pil-
grimage" in holy places, and at last, with other
Christians, were made captive by the Saracens
and put in strong prison. They suffered great
hardship and ignominy in the service of the
Saracen prince Admiraud. But Gilbert found
more grace than the rest ; he was promoted
to serve the prince at meat (in his chains), and
the prince often would ask him about England
and the English faith. Admiraud's only daugh-
ter fell in love with Gilbert, and when she
saw her time, in turn asked him the like ques-
tions. Gilbert told her that he was born in
London ; told her of the belief of Christians,
and of the endless bliss that should be their
meed. The maid asked him if he was ready
tained in the first 150 vv. The style of this composition en- /
tirely resembles that of Robert of Gloucester, and portions '
of the life of Beket are identical with the Chronicle ;
whence Mr Black plausibly argues that both are by the l
same hand. The account of Beket's parentage is intcrpo- /
lated into Edward Grim's Life, in Cotton MS. Vitellius,
C, XII, from which it is printed by Robertson, Materials for
the History of Thomas Becket, II, 453 fF. It is found in
Bromton's Chronicle, Twysden, Scriptores X, columns 1052-
55, and in the First Quadrilogus, Paris, 1495, from which
it is reprinted by Migne, Patrologioe Cursus Completus,
CXC, cols 346 ff. The tale has been accepted by many writ- ^
ers who would have been better historians for a little reading
of romances. Augustin Thierry sees in Thomas Beket a
Saxon contending in high place, for the interests and with
the natural hatred of his race, against Norman Henry, just
as he finds in the yeoman Robin Hood a leader of Sitxon
serfs engaged in irregular war with Norman Richard. But
both of St Thomas's parents were Norman ; the father of
Rouen, the mother of Caen. The legend was introduced by
Lawrence Wade, following John of Exeter, into a metrical
life of Beket of about the year 1500 : see the poem in Eng-
lische Studien, III, 417, edited by Horstmann. ,
458
53. YOUNG BEICHAN
to die. for his Lord's love, and Gilbert de-
clared that he would, joyfully. When the
maid saw that he was so steadfast, she stood
long in thought, and then said, I will quit all
for love of thee, and become Christian, if tliou
wilt marry me. Gilbert feared that this might
be a wile ; he replied that he was at lier dis-
position, but he must bethink himself. She
went on loving him, the longer the more.
After this Gilbert and the rest broke prison
and made their way to the Christians. The
prince's daughter, reduced to desperation by
love and grief, left her heritage and her kin,
sparing for no sorrow, peril, or contempt that
might come to her, not knowing whither to go
or whether he would marry lier when found,
and went in quest of Gilbert. She asked tiie
•way to England, and when she had come there
had no word but London to assist her further.
She roamed through the streets, followed by
a noisy and jeering crowd of wild boys and
what not, until one day by chance she stopped
by the house in which Gilbert lived. The man
Richard, hearing a tumult, came out to see
what was the matter, recognized the princess,
and ran to tell his master.* Gilbert bade
Richard take the lady to the house of a re-
spectable woman near by, and presently went
to see her. She swooned when she saw him.
Gilbert was nothing if not discreet : he " held
him still," as if he had nothing in mind. But
there was a conference of six bishops just then
at St. Paul's, and he went and told them his
story and asked advice. One of the six pro-
phetically saw a divine indication that the two
were meant to be married, and all finally rec-
ommended this if the lady would become
Christian. Brought before the bishops, she
said. Most gladly, if he will espouse me ; else
I had not left my kin. She was baptized ^
with great ceremony, and the marriage fol-
lowed.
The very day after the wedding Gilbert
was seized with such an overmastering desire
to go back to the Holy Land that he wist not
what to do. But his wife was thoroughly
converted, and after a struggle with hei'self
she consented, on condition that Beket should
leave with her the man Richard, who knew
her language. Gilbert was gone three years
and a half, and when he came back Thomas
Avas a fine boy.
That our ballad has been affected by the
legend of Gilbert Beket is altogether likely. /
The name Bekie is very close to Beket, and
several versions, A, D, H, I, N, set out rather
formally with the announcement that Bekie
was London born, like the Latin biographies
and the versified one of Garnier de Pont Sainte
Maxence. Our ballad, also, in some versions,
has the Moor's daughter baptized, a point
which of course could not fail in the legend.
More important still is it that the hero of the
English ballad goes home and forgets the
woman he has left in a foreign land, instead
of going away from home and forgetting the
love he has left there. But the ballad, for all ^
that, is not derived from the legend. Stories
and ballads of the general cast of 'Young
Beichau' are extremely frequent.| The leg-
* Kichard, the proud porter of the ballads, is perhaps
most like himself in M 32 ff.
t Neither her old name nor her Christian name is told us
in this legend. Gilbert Beket's wife was Matilda, according
to most authorities, but Roesa according to one: see Robert-
son, as above, IV, 81 ; Migne, cols 278 f. ¥ox has made
Roeaa into Rose, Acts and Monuments, I, 267, ed. 1641.
Gill)ert and Rose (but Roesa is not Rose) recall to Hip-
peau. Vie de St Thomas par Garnier de Pont Sainte Max-
ence, p. xxiii, Elie de Saint Gille and Rosamonde, whose
adventures have thus much resemblance with those of Beket
and of Bekie. Elie de Saint Gille, after performing astound-
ing feats of valor in fight with a horde of Saracens who
have made a descent on Brittany, is carried off to their land.
The amiral Macabre' requires Elie to adore Mahomet ; Elie
refuses in the most insolent terms, and is condemned to the
gallows. He effects his escape, and finds himself before
Macabre's castle. Here, in another fight, he is desperately
wounded, but is restored by the skill of Rosamonde, the ami-
ral's daugliter, who is Christian at heart, and loves the
Frank. To save her from beiug forced to marry the king
of Bagdad, Elie fights as her champion. In the end she is
baptized, as a preparation for her union with Elie, but he,
having been present at the ceremony, is adjudged by the
archbishop to be gossip to her, and Elie and Rosamonde are
otherwise disposed of. So the French romance, but in the
Norse, which, as Kolbiiig maintains, is likely to preserve the
original story here, there is no such s])litlitig of cumin, and
hero and heroine are united.
t There is one in the Gesta Romanorum, cap. 5, Osterley,
p. 278, of about the same age as tlie Beket legend. It is
not particularly important. A young man is captured by a
pirate, and his father will not send his ransom. The pirate's
daughter often visits the captive, who appeals to her to e,\crt
53. YOUNG BEICHAN
459
end lacks some of the main points of these
stories, and the ballad, in one version or an-
other, has them, as will be seen by referring
to what has been said under ' Hind Horn,' pp
194 ff. Bekie and Beket go to the East, like
Heniy and Reinfrit of Brunswick, the Noble
Moringer, the good Gerhard, Messer Torello,
the Sire de Cr^qui, Alexander of Metz, and
others. Like the larger part of these, they are
made prisoners by the Saracens. He will not
bow the knee to Mahound ; neither will the
Sire de Cr«^qui, though he die for it.* Beichan
is made to draw cart, plough, harrow, like a
beast. So Henry of Brunswick in a Swedish
and a Danish ballad, f and Alexander von
Metz, or the Graf von Rom, in his most beau-
tiful and touching story.:f Henry of Bruns-
wick is set free by a " heathen " lady in the
Danish ballad. In one version of Beichan, E,
the lady on parting with her love breaks her
ring and gives him one half, as Henry, or his
wife, Reinfrit, Gerhard, Cr^qui, and others do.
At this point in the story the woman pursues
the man, and parts ai'e inverted. Susan Pye is
warned that Beichan is to be married the next
day, in C by a Billy-Blin, in M by a woman in
green, or fairj^, and is conveyed to Beichan's
castle or hall with miraculous despatch, just as
Henry and others are warned, and are trans-
ported to their homes by devil, angel, or nec-
romancer. In E and N the old love is identi-
fied by a half ring or ring, as in so many of
the stories of the class of Henry the Lion.
Norse, Spanish, and Italian ballads preserve
a story essentially the same as that of ' Young
Beichan.'
Scandinavian.
Danish. ' Stolt Ellensborg,' Grundtvig, IV,
238, No 218, nine versions, A-G, from man-
uscripts of the sixteenth and seventeenth '•^
centuries, H, I, from recent tradition. B is
previously printed (with alterations) in Lev-
ninger, ' Jomfrue Ellensborg,' I, 66, No 12,
Danske Viser, III, 268, No 213 ; I, ' Stalt El-
len henter sin Fsestemand ' is in Kristensen,
I, 89, No 36. Of the older texts, A, B, C ai-e
absolutely pure and true to tradition, D-G re-
touched or made over.
Icelandic, of the seventeenth century, v^
Grundtvig, as above, p. 259, M.
Swedish, from Cavallius and Stephens'
collection, Grundtvig, p. 255, K.
Faroe, taken down in 1827, Grundtvig, p.
256, L.
Norwegian, ' Herre Per i Riki,' Landstad,
p. 596, No 76, N.
The variations of these twelve versions are
insignificant. The names Herr Peder den
Rige and Ellensborg [Ellen] are found in
nearly all. It comes into Sir Peter's mind
that he ought to go to Jerusalem to expiate
his sins, and he asks his betrothed, Ellens-
borg, how long she will wait for him. She
will wait eight j'ears, and marry no other,
though the king should woo her [seven, L ;
nine, M, " If I do not come then, break the
engagement;" eight, and not more, N]. The
time passes and Peter does not come back.
Ellensborg goes to the strand. Traders come
steering in, and she is asked to buy of their
ware, — sendal, linen, and silk green as leek.
She cares not for these things ; have they not
seen her sister's son [brother], for whom she
is grieving to death ? They know nothing of
her sister's son, but well they know Sir Peter
the rich : he has betrothed a lady in the 0s-
benelf for his liberation. She promises to effect his free-
dom if he will marry her. This he agrees to. She releases
him from his chaius without her father's knowledge, and
flies with him to his native land.
• Nor Guarinos in the Spanish ballad, Duran, No 402, I,
265; Wolf and Hofm.inn, Primavcra, II, 321. Guarinos is
very cruelly treated, but it is his horse, not he, that has to
draw ciirts. For the Sire de Creqiii see also Dinaux, Trou-
veres, III, 161 ff (Kohler).
t And in ' Der Herr von Falkcnstein,' a variety of the
story, Meier, Deutsche Sagen aiis Schwaben, p. 319, No 362.
A Christian undergoes the same hardship in Schoppner, Sa-
genbuch, III, 127, No 1076. For other cases of the won-
derfal deliverance of captive knights, not previonsly men-
tioned by me, see Hocker, in Wolf's Zeitschrift fiir dentsche
Mythologie, I, 306.
% A meisterlied of Alexander von Metz, of the second half I
of the fifteenth century, Komer, Historische Volkslieder, p. '
49 ; the ballad ' Der Graf von Rom,' or ' Der Graf im
Pfluge,' Uhland, p. 784, No 299, printed as early as 1493; j
De Historic van Florenlina, Huysvrouwe van Alexander van
Mets, 1621, van den Bergh, De nederlandsche Volksro-
man>i, p. 52. And see Goedeke, Deutsche Dichtung ira Mit-
telalter, pp 569, 574 ; Uhland, Schriftcn ziir Geschichte der
Dichtung, IV, 297-309 ; Danske Viser, V, 67.
460
53. YOUNG BEICHAN
ter-king's realm;* a heathen womiin, " and
you never came into his mind," E 13 ; he is
to be married to-morrow, K 6. A wee swain
tells her, M 14, 16, that he sits in Austurrfki
drinking the ale of foi-getfulness, and will
never come home ; he shall not drink long,
says she. Ellensborg asks her brother to un-
dertake a voyage for her ; he will go with
her if she will wait till summer ; rather than
wait till summer she will go alone, A, D, G.
She asks fraternal advice about going in search
of her lover, A, B, the advice of her uncles,
I ; asks the loan of a ship, B, C, P, H, N. She
is told that such a thing would be a shame;
she had better take another lover; the ob-
ject is not worth the trouble ; the voyage is
bad for a man and worse for a woman. Her
maids give her advice that is more to her
mind, E, but are as prudent as the rest in the
later I. She attires herself like a knight,
clips her maids' hair, B, H, I, L, M, and puts
them into men's clothes, D, L ; sets herself to
steer and the maids to row, A-G, L.f
The voyage is less than two months, B, C, E ;
less than three months, I ; quite three months,
L. It is the first day of the bridal when she
lands, B 22, E 24, N 14; in B Ellensborg
learns this from a boy who is walking on the
sand. Sword at side, she enters the hall where
Peter is drinking his bridal. Peter, can in
band, rises and says, Bless your eyes, my sis-
ter's son ; welcome to this strange land. In B
he asks. How are my father and mother? and
she tells him that his father lies dead on his
bier, his mother in sick-bed. In L, waiting for
no greeting, she says. Well you sit at the board
with your wife ! Are all lords wont thus to
keep their faith ? The bride's mother, D, G,
the heathen bride, B, an unnamed person,
probably the bride. A, B, P, N, says. That is
not your sister's son, but much more like a
woman ; her hair is like spun gold, and braided
up under a silk cap.
A tells us, and so P, G, that it was two
months before Ellensborg could speak to Peter
privately. Then, on a Yule day, when he was
going to church, she said. It does not occur to
you that you gave me your troth. Sir Peter
stood as if women had shorn his haii', and
recollected all as if it had been yesterday. In
B-E, H, I, L, M, N, this incident has, perhaps,
dropped out. In these immediately, as in A,
P, G, after this interview, Sir Peter, recalled
to his senses or to his fidelity, conceives the
purpose of flying with Ellensborg. Good peo-
ple, he says, knights and swains, ladies and
maids, follow my bride to bed, while I take
my sister's son over the meads, through the
wood, B-E, H, I, N. In A, P, Sir Peter asks
tlie bride how long she will bide while he
takes his nephew across the kingdom ; in G
begs the boon that, since his sister's son is
going, he may ride with him, just accompany
him to the strand and take leave of him ; in
L, M, hopes she will not be angi-y if he con-
voys his nephew three days on his way. (It is
at this point in C, H, I, L, that the bride says
it is no sister's son, but a woman.) The bride
remarks that there are knights and swains enow
to escort his sister's son, and that he might
more fitly stay where he is, but Sir Peter
persists that he will see his nephew off in per-
son.
Sir Peter and Ellensborg go aboard the
ship, he crying. You will see me no more I
When they are at sea Ellensborg lets out her
hair. A, B, C, H ; she wishes that the aban-
doned bride may now feel the grief which she
herself had borne for years. The proceeding
is less covert in I, L, M than in the other
versions.
As Ellensborg and Peter are making for the
ship in D 30, 31 (and G 36, 37, borrowed from
D), she says. Tell me. Sir Peter, why would
you deceive me so? Sir Peter answers that
he never meant to deceive her; it was the
lady of 0sterland that did it ; she had changed
his mind. A magical change is meant. This
* 0ster-kongcns rige, 0sterige, 0sterland, Austin'ki, un-
derstood by Grundtvig as GaiSariki, the Scandinavian-Rus-
sian kingdom of the tenth and eleventh centuries. Austrn'ki
is used vaguely, but especially of the east of Europe, Russia,
Austria, sometimes including Turkey (Vigfusson).
t In Swedish K, as she pushes off from land, she ex-
claims :
' Gud Fader i Himmelens rike
Skall vara min styresmau ! '
Cf. M 28 :
And she 's taen God her pilot to be.
53. YOUNG BEICHAN
461
agrees with what is said in A 24, 25 (also P,
G), that when EUensborg got Peter alone to
herself, and said, You do not remember that
you plighted your troth to me, everything
came back to him as if it had happened yes-
terday. And again in the Faroe copy, L 49,
EUensborg, from the prow, cries to Ingibjorg
on the strand. Farewell to thee with thy elf-
ways, vitS titt elvargangi! I have taken to
myself my true love that I lent thee so long ;
implying that Sir Peter had been detained
by Circean arts, by a sleepy drench of 6inin-
nis 61, or ale of forgetfulness, Icelandic M 14,
which, in the light of the otlier ballads, is to
be understood literally, and not figuratively.
The feature of a man being made, by magical
or other means, to forget a first love who had
done and suffered much for him, and being
suddenly restored to consciousness and his
original predilection, is of the commonest oc-
currence in traditional tales.*
Our English ballad affords no other positive
trace of external interference with the hero's
will than the far-fetched allegation in C that
the choice before him was to accept a duke's
daughter or forfeit his lands. The explana-
tion of his inconstancy in H, N, that young
men ever were fickle found, is vulgar, and also
insufficient, for Beichan returns to his old love
per saltum, like one from whose eyes §cales
have fallen and from whose back a weight lias
been taken, not tamely, like a facile youth
that has swerved, E and K, as already said,
distinctly recognize that Beichan was not act-
ing with free mind, and, for myself, I have
little doubt that, if we could go back far
enough, we should find that he had all along
been faithful at heart.
Spanish. A. ' El Conde Sol,' Duran, Ro-
• See ' The Red Bull of Norroway,' Chambers, Popular
Rhymes of Scotland, 1870, p. 99 ; ' Mesterrae,' Asbjernsen
eg Moe, No 46 ; ' Hass-Fru,' Cavalliiis och Stephens, No
14; Powell, Icelandic Legends, Second Series, p. 377 ; the
Grimms, Nos 56, 113, 186, 193; Pentamerone, ii, 7, iii, 9;
Gonzenbach, Nos 14, 54, 55, and Kohler's note ; Hahn, Grie-
chische u. Albanesische Marchen, No 54 ; Carleton, Traits
and Stories of the Irish Peasantry, 10th ed., I, 23 ; Camp-
bell, West Highland Tales, I, 25, No 2, and Koliler's notes
in Orient u. Occident, II, 103-114, etc., etc.
t This passage leads the editors of Primavera to remark,
mancero, I, 180, No 327, from tradition in An- ^
dalusia, by the editor ; Wolf and Hofmann,
Primavera, II, 48, No 135. In this most beau-
tiful romance the County Sol, named general
in great wars between Spain and Portugal,
and leaving a young wife dissolved in tears,
tells her that she is free to marry if he does
not come back in six years. Six pass, and
eight, and more than ten, yet the county does
not return, nor does thei-e come news of him.
His wife implores and obtains leave of her
father to go in search of her husband. She
traverses France and Italy, land and sea, and
is on the point of giving up hope, when one
day she sees a herdsman pasturing cows.
Whose are these cows? slie asks. The County
Sol's, is the answer. And whose these wheat-
fields, these ewes, these gardens, and that pal-
ace ? whose the horses I hear neigh ? The
County Sol's, is the answer in each case.f
And who that lady that a man folds in his
arms ? The lady is betrothed to him and the
county is to marry her. The countess changes
her silken robe for the herdsman's sackcloth,
and goes to ask an alms at the county's gate-
Beyond all hope, the county comes out him-
self to bring it. " Whence comest thou, pil-
grim?" he asks. She was born in Spain.
"How didst thou make thy way hither?"
She came to seek her husband, footing the
thorns by land, risking the perils of the sea ;
and when she found him he was about to
marry, he had forgotten his faithful wife.
" Pilgrim, thou art surely the devil, come to
try me." " No devil," she said, " but thy
wife indeed, and therefore come to seek thee."
Upon this, without a moment's tarrying, the
county ordered his horse, took up his wife,
and made his best speed to his native castle.
II, 52, that ' El Conde Sol ' shows distinct traits of ' Le Chat
Botte." Similar questions arc asked in English G, the other
Spanish versions, and the Italian, and in nearly all the
Greek ballads referred to on pp 1 99, 200 ; always under the
same circumstances, and to bring about the discovery which
gives the turn to the story. The questions in ' Le Chat
Botte'' are introduced for an entirely different purpose, and
cannot rationally suggest a borrowing on either side. The
hasty note would certainly have been erased by the very dis-
tinguished editors upon a moment's consideration.
462
53. YOUNG BEICHAN
The bride he would have taken remained un-
married, for tliose tliat put on others' robes are
sure to be stripped nailed.
B. ' Gerineldo,' taken down in Asturias by
Amador de los Rios, Jahrbuch fiir i-omanische
u. englische Literatur, III, 290, 1861, and the
same year (Nigra) in Revista Iberica, I, 51 ;
a version far inferior to A, and differing in no
important respect as to the story.
C. ' La boda interrumpida,' Mild,, Roman-
cerillo Catalan, p, 221, No 244, seven copies,
A-G, none good. A, which is about one tliird
Castilian, relates that war is declared between
France and Portugal, and the son of Conde
Burgos made general. The countess his wife
does nothing but weep. The husband tells
her to marry again if he does not come back
in seven years. More than seven years are
gone, and the lady's father asks why slie does
not marry. " How can I," -she replies, " if the
count is living ? Give me your blessing, and
let me go in search of him." She goes a hun-
dred leagues on foot, in the disguise of a pil-
grim. Arrived at a palace she sees pages pass,
and asks them for whom a horse is intended.
It is for Count Burgos's son, who marries that
night. She asks to be directed to the young
count, is told that she will find him in the
hall, enters, and begs an alms, as coming from
Italy and without a penny. The young man
says, If you come from Italy, what is the
news? Is Conde Bueso's wife living? The
pilgrim desires some description of the lady.
It seems that she wore a very costly petticoat
on her wedding-day. The pilgrim takes off
her glove and shows her ring ; she also takes
off and shows the expensive petticoat. There
is great weeping in that palace, for first wives
never can be forgotten. Don Bueso and the
pilgrim clap hands and go home.
Italian : Piedmontese. A. ' Moran d'ln-
ghilterra,' communicated to Rivista Contempo-
ranea, XXXI, 3, 1862, by Nigra, who gives the
variations of four other versions. The daugh-
ter of the sultan is so handsome that they
know not whom to give her to, but decide
upon Moran of England. The first day of
his marriage he did nothing but kiss hei-,
the second he wished to leave her, and the
third he went off to the war. " When shall
you return ? " asked his wife. " If not in
seven years, mai-ry." She waited seven years,
but Moran did not come. His wife went all
over England on horseback, and came upon
a cowherd. " Whose cows are these ? " she
asked. They were Moran's. " Has Moran
a wife?" This is the day when he is to
marry, and if she makes haste she will be in
time for the wedding. She spurs her horse,
and arrives in season. They offer her to
drink in a gold cup. She will drink from no
cup that is not her own ; she will not drink
while another woman is there ; she will not
drink till she is mistress. Moran throws his
arms round her neck, saying, Mistress you
ever have been and still shall be.
B. ' Morando,' Ferraro, Canti popolari mon-
ferrini, p. 42, No 32, from Alessandria. Mu-
rando d'Inghilterra, of the king's household,
fell in love with the princess, for which the
king sent him off. The lady knocked at his
dooi', and asked when he would come back.
In seven years, was the answer, and if not
she was to many. The princess stole a hun-
dred scudi from her father, frizzled her hair
French fashion, bought a fashionable suit, and
rode three days a;nd nights without touching
ground, eating, or drinking. She came upon
a laundryman, and asked who was in com-
mand there. Murando. She knocked at the
door, and Murando asked, Have you come to
our wedding ? She would come to the dance.
At the dance she was recognized by the ser-
vants. Murando asked, How came you here ?
" I rode three days and three nights without
touching ground, eating, or drinking." This
is my wife, said Murando ; and the other lady
he bade return to her fatliei'.
It is possible that this ballad may formerly
have been known in France. Nothing is left
and known that shows this conclusively, but
there is an approach to the Norse form in a
fragment which occurs in several widely sep-
arated localities. A lover goes off in Novem-
ber, promising his love to retui'n in December,
but does not. A messenger comes to bid the
lady, in his name, seek another lover, for he
has another love. " Is she fairer than I, or
53, YOUNG BEICHAN
463
more powerful ? " She is not fairer, but moi-e
powerful : she makes rosemary flower on the
edge of her sleeve, changes the sea into wine
and fish into flesh. Bujeaud, I, 203. In ' La
Femme Abandonnde,' Puymaigre, I, 72, the
lover is married to a Fleming :
Elle fait venir le soleil
A minuit dans sa chambre,
Elle fait bouiUer la marmite
Sans feu et sbjis rente.
In a Canadian version, ' Entre Paris et Saint-
Denis,' Gagnon, p. 303, the deserted woman
is a king's daughter, and the new love,
Ell' fait neiger, ell' fait greler,
EU' fait le vent qui vente.
ELL' fait reluire le soleil
A minuit dans sa chambre.
Ell' fait pousser le romarin
Sur le bord de la manche.
Puymaigre notes that there is a version very
near to the Canadian in the sixth volume of
Poesies populaires de la France, cinquieme re-
cueil, Ardennes, No 2.*
A broadside ballad, ' The Turkish Lady,'
' The Turkish Lady and the English Slave,'
printed in Logan's Pedlar's Pack, p. 16, Chris-
tie, I, 247, from singing, and preserved also in
the Kinloch MSS, V, 53', I, 263, from Eliza-
beth Beattie's recitation, simply relates how
a Turkish pirate's daughter fell in love witli
an Englishman, her slave, offered to release
him if he would turn Turk, but chose the bet-
ter part of flying with him to Bristol, and
becoming herself a Christian brave.
Sir "William Stanley, passing through Con-
stantinople, is condemned to die for his re-
ligion. A lady, walking under the prison
walls, liears his lament, and begs his life of
the Turk. She would make him her husband,
and bring him to adore Mahomet. She offers
to set the prisoner free if he will marry lier,
but he has a wife and childreii on English
ground. The lady is sorry, but generously
gives Stanley five hundred pounds to carry
him to his own country. Sir William Stan-
ley's Garland, Halliwell's Palatine Anthology,
pp 277 f.
Two Magyars have been shut up in a dun-
geon by the sultan, and have not seen sun,
moon, or stars for seven years. The sultan's
daughter hears their moan, and offers to free
them if they will take her to Hungary. This
they promise to do. She gets the keys, takes
money, opens the doors, and the three make
off. They are followed ; one of the Magyars
kills all the pursuers but one, who is left to
carry back the news. It is now proposed that
there shall be a duel to determine who shall
have the lady. She begs them rather to cut
off her head than to fight about her. Szildgyi
Niklas says he has a love at home, and leaves
the sultan's daughter to his comrade, Hagy-
mdsi L4szl6. Aigner, Ungarische Volksdich-
tungen, p. 93 : see p. 107 of this volume.
C b is translated by Loeve-Veimars, p. 330 ;
E by Cesare Cantu, Documenti alia Storia
Universale, Torino, 1858, Tomo V°, Parte
IIP, p. 796 ; E, as retouched by AUingham,
by Knortz, L. u. R. Alt-Englands, p. 18.
Jamieson-Brown MS., fol. 13.
1 In London city was Bicham bom,
He longd strange countries for to see,
But he was taen by a savage Moor,
Who handld him right cruely.
2 For thro his shoulder he put a bore,
An thro the bore has pitten a tree,
* Puymaigre finds also some resemblance in his 'Petite
Rosalie,' I, 74 : see his note.
An he 's gard him draw the carts o wine,
Where horse and oxen had wont to be.
3 He 's casten [him] in a dungeon deep,
Where he coud neither hear nor see ;
He 's shut him up in a prison strong,
An he 's handld him right cruely.
4 0 this Moor he had but ae daughter,
I wot her name was Shusy Pye ;
She 's doen her to the prison-house,
And she 's caUd Young Bicham one word by.
464
53. YOUNG BBICHAN
5 ' 0 liae ye ony lands or rents,
Or citys in your ain country,
Coud free you out of prison strong.
An coud mantain a lady free ? '
6 ' 0 London city is my own,
An other citys twa or tliree,
Coud loose me out o prison strong.
An coud mantain a lady free.'
7 O she has bribed her father's men
Wi meikle goud and white money,
She 's gotten the key o the prison doors,
An she has set Young Bicham free.
8 She 's gi'n him a loaf o good white bread.
But an a flask o Spanish wine.
An she bad him mind on the ladie's love
That sae kindly freed him out o pine.
9 ' Go set your foot on good ship-board.
An haste you back to your ain country,
An before that seven years has an end.
Come back again, love, and marry me.'
10 It was long or seven years had an end
She longd fu sair her love to see ;
She 's set her foot on good ship-board,
An turnd her back on her ain country.
11 She 's saild up, so has she doun.
Till she came to the other side ;
She 's landed at Young Bicham's gates,
An I hop this day she sal be his bride.
12 ' Is this Young Bicham's gates ? ' says she,
' Or is that noble prince within ? '
' He 's up the stairs wi his bonny bride,
An monny a lord and lady wi him.'
13 ' O has he taen a bonny bride.
An lias he clean forgotten me ! '
An sighing said that gay lady,
I wish I were in my ain country !
14 But she 's pitten her han in her pocket,
An gin the porter guineas three ;
Says, Take ye that, ye proud porter.
An bid the bridegroom speak to me.
15 O whan the porter came up the stair,"
He 's fa'n low down upon his knee :
' Won up, won up, ye proud porter.
An what makes a' this courtesy ? '
16 ' 0 I 've been porter at your gates
This mair nor seven years an three.
But there is a lady at them now
The like of whom I never did see.
17 ' For on every finger she has a ring.
An on the mid-finger she has three.
An there 's as meilde goud aboon her brow
As woud buy an earldome o Ian to me.'
18 Then up it started Young Bicham,
An sware so loud by Our Lady,
' It can be nane but Shusy Pye,
That has come oer the sea to me.'
19 O quickly ran he down the stair,
O fifteen steps he has made but three ;
He 's tane his bonny love in his arms,
An a wot he kissd her tenderly.
20 ' O hae you tane a bonny bride ?
An hae you quite forsaken me ?
An hae ye quite forgotten her
That gae you life an liberty ? '
21 She 's lookit oer her left shoulder
To hide the tears stood in her ee ;
' Now fare thee well, Young Bicham,' she says,
' I '11 strive to think nae mair on thee.'
22 ' Take back your daughter, madam,' he says,
' An a double dowry I '11 gi her wi ;
For I maun marry my first true love.
That 's done and suffered so much for me.'
23 He 's take his bonny love by the han.
And led her to yon fountain stane ;
He 's changd her name frae Shusy Pye,
An he 's cald her his bonny love, Lady Jane.
53. YOUNG BEICHAN
465
B
GleniiddeU MSS, XI, 80.
1 In England was Young Brechin born,
Of parents of a high degree ;
Tlie selld him to the savage Moor,
Where they abused him maist cruellie.
2 Thro evry slioulder they bord a bore,
And thro evry bore they pat a tree ; *
They made him draw the carts o wine,
Which horse and owsn were wont to drie.
3 The pat him into prison strong,
Where he could neither hear nor see ;
They pat him in a dark dungeon.
Where he was sick and like to die.
4 ' Is there neer an auld wife in this town
Tliat '11 borrow me to be her son ?
Is there neer a young maid in this town
Will take me for her chiefest one ? '
5 A Savoyen has an only daughter,
I wat she 's called Young Briehen by ;
' 0 sleepst thou, wakest thou, Briehen ? ' she
says,
' Or who is 't that does on me cry ?
6 ' O hast thou any house or lands.
Or hast thou any castles free.
That thou wadst gi to a lady fair
That out o prison wad bring thee ? '
7 ' 0 lady, Lundin it is mine.
And other castles twa or three ;
These I wad gie to a lady fair
That out of prison wad set me free.'
8 She 's taen him by the milk-white hand.
And led him to a towr sae hie,
She 's made him drink the wine sae reid,
And sung to him like a mavosie.
9 O these two luvers made a bond.
For seven years, and that is lang,
That he was to marry no other wife,
And she 's to marry no otlier man.
10 When seven years were past and gane.
This young lady began to lang.
And she 's awa to Lundin gane,
To see if Brechin 's got safe to land.
59
11 When she came to Young Brechin's yett,
She chappit gently at the gin ;
' Is this Young Brechin's yett ? ' she says,
' Or is this lusty lord within ? '
' 0 yes, this is Lord Brechin's yett.
And I wat this be his bridal een.'
12 She 's put her hand in her pocket,
And thrawin the porter guineas three ;
' Gang up the stair, young man,' she says,
' And bid your master come down to me.
13 ' Bid him bring a bite o his ae best bread.
And a bottle o his ae best wine.
And neer forget that lady fair
That did him out o prison bring.'
14 The porter tripped up the stair.
And fell low down upon his knee :
' Rise up, rise up, ye proud porter,
Wliat mean you by this courtesie ? '
15 ' 0 I hae been porter at your yett
This thirty years and a' but three ;
There stands the fairest lady thereat
That ever my twa een did see.
16 ' On evry finger she has a ring,
On her mid-finger she has three ;
She 's as much gold on her horse's neck
As wad by a earldom o land to me.
17 ' She bids you send o your ae best bread,
And a bottle o your ae best wine.
And neer forget the lady fair
That out o prison did you bring.'
18 He 's taen the table wi his foot.
And made the cups and cans to flee :
' I '11 wager a' the lands I hae
That Susan Pye 's come oer the sea.'
19 Then up and spak the bride's mother :
' And O an ill deid may ye die !
If ye didna except the bonny bride.
Ye might hae ay excepted me.'
20 ' O ye are fair, and fair, madam.
And ay the fairer may ye be !
But the fairest day tliat eer ye saw.
Ye were neer sae fair as yon lady.'
466
53. YOUNG BEICHAN
21 0 when these lovers two did meet,
The tear it blinded baith their ee ;
' Gie me my faith and troth,' she says,
' For now fain hame wad I be.'
22 ' Tak hame your daughter, madam,' he says,
' She 's neer a bit the war o me ;
Except a kiss o her bonny lips.
Of her body I am free ;
She came to me on a single horse,
Now I '11 send her hame in chariots three.'
23 He 's taen her by the milk-white hand.
And he 's led her to a yard o stane ;
He 's changed her name frae Susan Pye,
And calld her lusty Lady Jane.
0
a. Jamieson-Brown MS., fol. 11. b. Jamieson's Popular
Ballads, II, 127.
1 Young Bekie was as brave a knight
As ever saUd the sea ;
An he 's doen him to the court of France,
To serve for meat and fee.
2 He had nae been i the court of France
A twelvemonth nor sae long.
Til he fell in love with the king's daughter.
An was thrown in prison strong.
3 The king he had but ae daughter,
Burd Isbel was her name ;
An she has to the prison-house gane,
To hear the prisoner's mane.
4 ' 0 gin a lady woud borrow me.
At her stirrup-foot I woud rin ;
Or gin a widow wad borrow me,
I woud swear to be her son.
5 ' Or gin a virgin woud borrow me,
I woud wed her wi a ring ;
I 'd gi her ha's, I 'd gie her bowers,
The bonny towrs o Linne.'
6 0 barefoot, barefoot gaed she but.
An barefoot came she ben ;
It was no for want o hose an shoone,
Nor time to put them on.
7 But a' for fear that her father dear
Had heard her making din :
She 'b stown the keys o the prison-house dor
An latten the prisoner gang.
8 O whan she saw him, Young Bekie,
Her heart was wondrous sair !
For the mice but an the bold rottons
Had eaten his yaUow hair.
9 She 's gien him a shaver for his beard,
A comber tiU his hair.
Five hunder pound in his pocket.
To spen, an nae to spair.
10 She 's gien him a steed was good in need,
An a saddle o royal bone,
A leash o hounds o ae litter.
An Hector called one.
11 Atween this twa a vow was made,
'T was made full solemnly,
That or three years was come an gane.
Well married they shoud be.
12 He had nae been in 's ain country
A twelvemonth till an end.
Till he 's forcd to marry a duke's daughter.
Or than lose a' his land.
13 ' Ohon, alas ! ' says Young Beckie,
' I know not what to dee ;
For I canno win to Burd Isbel,
And she kensnae to come to me.'
14 0 it fell once upon a day
Burd Isbel fell asleep.
An up it starts the Belly Blin,
An stood at her bed-feet.
15 ' O waken, waken, Burd Isbel,
How [can] you sleep so soun,
Whan this is Bekie's wedding day.
An the marriage gain on ?
53. YOUNG BEICHAN
467
16 ' Ye do ye to your mitlier's bowr,
Think neither sin nor shame ;
An ye tak twa o your mither's marys,
To keep ye frae thinking lang.
17 ' Ye dress yoursel in the red scarlet,
An your marys in dainty green,
An ye pit girdles about your middles
Woud buy an earldome.
18 ' O ye gang down by yon sea-side,
An down by yon searstran ;
Sae bonny will the HoUans boats
Come rowin till your han.
19 ' Ye set your milk-white foot abord,
Cry, Hail ye, Domine !
An I shal be the steerer o 't,
To row you oer the sea.'
20 She 's tane her tUl her mither's bowr.
Thought neither sin nor shame.
An she took twa o her mither's marys,
To keep her frae thinking lang.
21 She dressd hersel i the red scarlet.
Her marys i dainty green.
And they pat girdles about their middles
Woud buy an earldome.
22 An they gid down by yon searside,
An down by yon sea-stran ;
Sae bonny did the HoUan boats
Come rowin to their han.
23 She set her milk-white foot on board,
Cried, Hail ye, Domine !
An the Belly Blin was the steerer o 't,
To row her oer the sea.
24 Whan she came to Young Bekie's gate,
She heard the music play ;
Sae well she kent frae a' she heard,
It was his wedding day.
25 She 's pitten her han in her pocket,
Gin the porter guineas three ;
' Hae, tak ye that, ye proud porter.
Bid the bride-groom speake to me.'
26 0 whan that he cam up the stair.
He fell low down on his knee :
He haild the king, an he haild the queen,
An he haild him. Young Bekie.
27 ' O I 've been porter at your gates
Tliis thirty years an three ;
But there 's three ladies at them now,
Their like I never did see.
28 ' There 's ane o them dressd in red scarlet,
And twa in dainty green,
An they hae girdles about their middles
Woud buy an earldome.'
29 Tlien out it spake the bierly bride.
Was a' goud to the chin ;
' Gin she be braw without,' she says,
' We 's be as braw within.'
30 Then up it starts him, Young Bekie,
An the tears was in his ee :
' I '11 lay my life it 's Burd Isbel,
Come oer the sea to me.'
31 O quickly ran he down the stair.
An whan he saw 't was shee.
He kindly took her in his arms.
And kissd her tenderly.
32 ' 0 hae ye forgotten. Young Bekie,
The vow ye made to me,
Whan I took you out o the prison strong,
Whan ye was condemnd to die ?
33 ' I gae you a steed was good in need;
An a saddle o royal bone,
A leash o hounds o ae litter.
An Hector called one.'
34 It was well kent what the lady said,
That it wasnae a lee.
For at ilka word the lady spake.
The hound fell at her knee.
36 ' Tak hame, tak hame your daughter dear,
A blessing gae her wi.
For I maun marry my Burd Isbel,
That 's come oer the sea to me.'
36 ' Is this the custom o your house.
Or the fashion o your Ian,
To marry a maid in a May moi-nin.
An send her back at even ? '
468
53. YOUNG BEICHAN
Skene MSS, p. 70. North of Scotland, 1802-3.
1 Young Beachen was born in fair London,
And foreign lands he langed to see ;
He was taen by the savage Moor,
An the used him most cruellie.
2 Through his showlder they pat a bore.
And through the bore the pat a tree ;
They made him trail their ousen carts,
And they used him most cruellie.
3 The savage Moor had ae daughter,
I wat her name was Susan Pay ;
An she is to the prison house,
To hear the prisoner's moan.
4 He made na his moan to a stocke.
He made na it to a stone,
But it was to the Queen of Heaven
That he made his moan.
5 ' Gin a lady wad borrow me,
I at her foot wad run ;
An a widdow wad borrow me,
I wad become her son.
6 ' But an a maid wad borrow me,
I wad wed her wi a ring ;
I wad make her lady of baas and bowers,
An of the high towers of Line.'
7 ' Sing oer yer sang. Young Beachen,' she says,
' Sing oer yer sang to me ; '
' I never sang that sang, lady.
But I wad sing to thee.
8 ' Gin a lady wad borrow me,
I at her foot wad run ;
An a widdow wad borrow me,
I wad become her son.
9 ' But an a maid wad borrow me,
I wad wed her wi a ring ;
I wad make her lady of haas and bowers,
An of the high towers of Line.'
10 Saftly, [saftly] gaed she but,
An saftlly gaed she ben,
It was na for want of hose nor shoon,
Nor time to pet them on.
11
An she has staen the keys of the prison,
An latten Young Beachen gang.
12 She gae him a leaf of her white bread.
An a bottle of her wine.
She bad him mind on the lady's love
That freed him out of jiine.
13 She gae him a steed was guid in need,
A saddle of the bane.
Five hundred pown in his pocket,
Bad him gae sj)eeding hame.
14 An a leash of guid grayhounds,
15 Whan seven lang years were come and gane,
Shusie Pay tliought lang.
An she is on to fair London,
As fast as she could gang.
16 Whan she cam to Young Beachen's gate,
' Is Young Beachan at hame.
Or is he in this countrie ? '
17 ' He is at hame, is hear,' they said,
An sighan says her Susie Pay,
Has he quite forgotten me ?
18 On every finger she had a ring.
On the middle finger three ;
She gae the porter ane of them :
' Get a word o your lord to me.'
19 He gaed up the stair.
Fell low down on his knee :
' Win up, my proud porter,
What is your will wi me ? '
20 ' I hae been porter at yer gate
This thirty year and three ;
The fairst lady is at yer gate
Mine eyes did ever see.'
21 Out spak the bride's mither,
An a haglity woman was she :
53. YOUNG BEICHAN
469
' If ye had na eccepted tlie bonny bride,
Ye might well ha eccepted me.'
22 ' No disparagement to you, madam,
Nor none unto her Grace ;
The sole of yonr lady's foot
Is fairer than her face.'
23 He 's gaen the table wi his foot,
And couped it wi his knee :
' I wad my head and a' my land
'T is Susie Pay, come oer the sea.'
24 The stair was thirty steps,
I wat he made them three ;
He took her in his arms twa :
' Susie Pay, ye'r welcome to me.'
25 ' Gie me a shive of your white bread,
An a bottle of your wine ;
Dinna ye mind on the lady's love
That freed ye out of pine ? '
26 He took her ....
Down to yon garden green,
An changed her name fra Susie Pay,
An called her bonny Lady Jean.
27 ' Yer daughter came here on high horse-back,
She sal gae hame in coaches three.
An I sail double her tocher our,
She 's nane the war o me.'
28 ' It 's na the fashion o our countrie,
Nor yet o yer nane.
To wed a maid in the morning,
An send her hame at een.'
29 ' It 's na the fashion o my countrie,
Nor is it of my nane.
But I man mind on the lady's love
That freed me out of pine.'
E
Jamieson's Popular Ballads, II, 117, compounded from A,
a manuscript and a stall copy from Scotland, a recited copy
from the north of England, and a short version picked off a
wall in London. (The parts which repeat A arc in smaller
type.)
1 In London was Young; Beichan bom,
He longed strange countries for to see,
But he was taen by a savage Moor,
Who handled him right crueUie.
2 For he viewed the fashions of that land,
Their way of worship viewed he.
But to Mahonnd or Termagant
Would Beichan never bend a knee.
3 So in every shoulder they 've pntten a bore.
In every bore they 've putten a tree.
And they have made him trail the wine
And spices on his fair bodie.
4 They 've casten him in a dungeon deep,
Where he could neither hear nor see,
For seven years they kept him there.
Till he for hunger 's like to die.
5 This Moor he had but ae daughter,
Her name was called Susie Pje,
And every day as she took the air,
Near Beichan's prison she passed by.
6 O so it fell opon a day
She heard Young Beichan sadly sing :
'My hounds they all go mnslerless.
My hawks they flee from tree to tree,
My younger brother will heir my land,
Fair England again I '11 never see ! '
7 All night long no rest she got.
Young Beichan's song for thinking on ;
She 's stown the keys from her father's head.
And to the prison strong is gone.
8 And she has opend the prison doors,
I wot she opend two or three.
Ere she could come Young Beichan at.
He was locked up so curiouslie.
9 But when she came Young Beichan before.
Sore wonderd he that may to see ;
He took her for some fair captive : ,
' Fair Lady, I pray, of what countrie ? '
10 ' 0 have ye any lands,' she said,
• Or castles in your own countrie,
That ye could give to a lady fair.
From prison strong to set you free ? '
1 1 ' Near London town I have a ball.
With other castles two or three;
1 11 give them all to the lady fair
That out of prison will set me free.'
12 ' Give me the truth of your right hand.
The truth of it give unto me,
That for seven years ye '11 no lady wed.
Unless it be along with me.'
470
53. YOUNG BEICHAN
13 ' I '11 give thee the trnth of my right hand.
The truth of it I 'U freely gie,
That for seven years I'll stay unwed,
For the kindness thou dost show to me.'
14 And she has brib'd the proud warder
Wi mickle gold and white monie,
She 's gotten the keys of the prison strong,
And she has set Young Beichan free.
15 She' 8 gien him to eat the good spice-cake,
She 's gien him to drink the blood-red wine,
She's bidden him sometimes think on her.
That sae kindly freed him out of pine.
16 She's broken a ring from her finger,
And to Beichnn half of it gave she :
' Keep it, to mind you of that love
The lady bore that set you free.
1 7 ' And set your foot on good ship-board,
And haste ye back to your own countrie,
And before that seven years have an end,
Come back again, love, and marry me.'
18 But long ere seven years had an end.
She longd full sore her love to see,
For ever a voice within her breast
Said, ' Beiclian has broke liis vow to thee : '
So she 's set her foot on good ship-board,
And turnd her back on her own countrie.
1 9 She sailed east, she sailed west.
Till to fair England's shore she came,
Where a bonny sliepherd she espied.
Feeding his sheep upon the plain.
20 ' What news, what news, thou bonny shepherd f
What news hast thou to tell to me f '
' Such news I hear, ladie,' he says,
' The like was never in this countrie.
21 ' There is a wedding in yonder hall,
Has lasted these thirty days and three ;
Young Beichan will not bed with his bride,
For love of one that 's yond the sea.'
22 She 's put her hand in her pocket,
Gien him the gold and white monie :
' Hae, take ye that, my bonny boy.
For the good news thou tellst to me.'
23 When she came to Young Beichan's gate.
She tirled softly at the pin ;
So ready was the proud porter
To open and let this lady in.
24 'Is this Young Beichan's hall,' she said,
' Or is that noble lord withhi ? '
' Yea, he 's in the hall among them all.
And this is the day o his weddin.'
2.5 ' And has lie wed anither love ^
And has he clean forgotten me V '
And sighin said that gay ladie,
I wish I were in my own countrie !
26 And she has taen her gay gold ring,
That with her love she brake so free;
Says, Gie him that, ye proud porter.
And bid the bridegroom speak to me.
27 When the porter came his lord before,
He kneeled down low on his knee:
' What aileth thee, my proud porter,
Thou art so full of courtesie? '
28 ' I 've been porter at your gates.
It 's thirty long years now and three;
But there stands a lady at them now.
The hke o her did I never see.
29 ' For on every finger she has a ring.
And on her mid-finger she has three.
And as meickle gold aboon her brow
As would buy an earldom to me.'
30 It 's out then spak the bride's mother.
Aye and an angry woman was shee :
' Ye might have excepted our bonny bride,
And twa or three of our companie.'
31 ' O hold your tongue, thou bride's mother.
Of all your folly let me be ;
She 's ten times fairer nor tiie bride.
And all that 's in your companie.
32 ' She begs one sheave of your white bread,
But and a cup of your red wine,
And to remember the lady's love
That last relievd you out of pine.'
33 ' O wcU-a-day ! ' said Beichan then,
' That I so soon have married thee !
For it can be none but Susie Pye,
That sailed the sea for love of me.'
34 And quickly hied he down the stair;
Of fifteen steps he made but tlu'ee ;
He 's taen his bonny love in his arms,
And kist and kist her teuderlie.
35 ' 0 hae ye taen anither bride?
And hae ye quite forgotten me?
And hae ye quite forgotten her
That gave you life and Ubertie? '
36 She looked oer her left shoulder.
To hide the tears stood in her ee :
' Now fare thee well. Young Beichan,' she says,
' I '11 try to think no more on thee.'
37 ' O never, never, Susie Pye, .
For surely this can never be.
Nor ever shall I wed but her
That 's done and dreed so much for me.'
53. YOUNG BEICHAN
471
38 Then out and spak the forenoon bride :
' My lord, jour love it changcth soon ;
This morning I was made your bride,
And another chose ere it be noon.'
39 0 hold thy tongne, thou forenoon bride.
Ye 're neer a whit the worse for me,
And whan ye return to your own conntrie,
A double dower I '11 send with thee.'
40 He 's taen Susie Pye by the white hand,
And gently led her up and down.
And ay as he kist her red rosy lips,
' Ye 're welcome, jewel, to your own.'
41 He 's taen her by the milk-white hand,
And led her to yon fountain stane;
He 's changed her name from Susie Pye,
And he 's call'd her big bonny love, Lady Jane,
Pitcaim's MSS, III, 159, 1817-25. From the recitation of
Widow Stevenson, aged seventy-three : " East Country."
1 In the lands where Lord Beichan was bom,
Amang the stately steps of stane.
He wore the goud at his left shoulder,
But to the Holy Land he 's gane.
2 He was na lang in the Holy Land,
Amang the Prudents that was black,
He was na lang in the Holy Land,
Till the Prudent did Lord Beichan talc.
3 The gard him draw baith pleugh and harrow,
And horse and oxen twa or three ;
They cast him in a dark dungeon,
Whare he coud neither hear nor see.
4 The Prudent had a fair daughter,
I wot they ca'd her Susy Pye,
And aU the keys in that city
Hang at that lady by and bye.
6 It once fell out upon a day
That into the prison she did gae.
And whan she cam to the prison door,
She kneeled low down on her knee.
6 ' O hae ye ony lands, Beichan,
Or hae ye ony castles hie,
Whar ye wad tak a young thing to.
If out of prison I wad let thee ? '
7 ' Fair London 's mine, dear lady,' he said,
' And other places twa or three,
Whar I wad tak a young thing to,
If out of prison ye wad let me.'
8 0 she has opened the prison door,
And other places twa or three,
And gien him bread,- and wine to drink,
In her own chamber privately.
9 O then she buUt a bonny ship,
And she has set it on the main,
And she has built a bonny ship.
It 's for to tak Lord Beichan hame.
10 0 she 's gaen murning up and down.
And she 's gaen murnin to the sea.
Then to her father she has gane in,
Wha spak to her right angrily.
11 ' 0 do ye mourn for the goud, daughter,
Or do ye mourn for the whyte monie ?
Or do ye mourn for the English squire ?
I wat I will gar hang him hie.'
12 ' I neither mourn for the goud, father,
Nor do I for the whyte monie.
Nor do I for the English squire ;
And I care na tho ye hang him hie.
13 ' But I hae promised an errand to go.
Seven lang miles ayont the sea,
And blythe and merry I never will be
UntiU that errand you let me.'
14 ' That errand, daughter, you may gang.
Seven long miles beyond the sea.
Since blythe and merry you '11 neer be
UntiU that errand I '11 let thee.'
15 0 she has buUt a bonny ship.
And she has set it in the sea,
And she has built a bonny ship.
It 's all for to tak her a long journie.
16 And she 's saUed a' the summer day,
I wat the wind blew wondrous fair ;
In sight of fair London she has come.
And tUl Lord Beichan's yett she walked.
472
53. YOUKG BEICHAN
17 Whan she cam till Lord Beichan's yett,
She rappit loudly at the pin :
' Is Beichan lord of this bonny place ?
I pray ye open and let me in.
18 ' And O is this Lord Beichan's yett,
And is the noble lord within ? '
' 0 yes, it is Lord Beichan's yett,
He 's wi his bride and mony a ane.'
19 'If you '11 gang up to Lord Beichan,
Tell him the words that I tell thee ;
It will put him in mind of Susy Pye,
And the Holy Land, whareer he be.
20 ' Tell him to send one bite of bread,
It 's and a glass of his gude red wine.
Nor to forget the lady's love
That loosed him out of prison strong.'
21 ' I hae been porter at your yett,
I 'm sure this therty lang years and three.
But the fairest lady stands thereat
That evir my twa eyes did see.
22 ' On ilka finger she has a ring.
And on the foremost she has three ;
As muckle goud is on her head
As wad buy an earldom of land to thee.
23 ' She bids you send a bite of bread.
It 's and a glass of your gude red wine,
Nor to forget the lady's love
That let you out of prison strong.'
24 It 's up and spak the bride's mother,
A weight of goud hung at her chin :
' There is no one so fair without
But there are, I wat, as fair witliin.'
25 It 's up and spak the bride hersel.
As she sat by the gude lord's knee :
' Awa, awa, ye proud porter.
This day ye might hae excepted me.'
26 ' Tak hence, tak hence your fair daughter,
Tak hame your daughter fair frae me ;
For saving one kiss of her bonny lips,
I 'm sure of her body I am free.
27 ' Awa, awa. ye proud mither,
It 's tak your daughter fair frae me ;
For I brought her home with chariots six.
And I '11 send her back wi coaches three.'
28 It 's he 's taen the table wi his fit.
And syne he took it wi his knee ;
He gard the glasses and wine so red.
He gard them all in flinders flee.
29 0 he 's gane down the steps of stairs.
And a' the stately steps of stane.
Until he cam to Susy Pye ;
I wat the tears blinded baith their eyne.
30 He led her up the steps of stairs,
And a' the stately steps of stane.
And changed her name from Susy Pye,
And ca'd her lusty Lady Jane.
31 ' O fye, gar cooks mak ready meat,
0 fye, gar cooks the pots supply,
That it may be talked of in fair London,
1 've been twice married in ae day.'
Communicated by Mr Alexander Laing, of Newburg-on-
Tay, as derived from the recitation of Miss Walker.
' They 're a' Lord Beekin's sheep.
They 're a' Lord Beekin's kye ;
They 're a' Lord Beekin's castles.
That you sae often do pass bye.'
1 ' 0 WHA 's aught a' yon flock o sheep.
An wha 's aught a' yon flock o kye ?
An wha 's aught a' yon pretty castles.
That you sae often do pass bye ? '
3 He 's tane [the] table wi his feet.
Made cups an candlesticks to flee ;
' I '11 lay my life 't is Susy Pie,
Come owr the seas to marry me.'
53. YOUNG BEICHAN
473
Kinloch's Ancient Scottish Ballads, p. 260.
1 Young Beichax was in London bom,
He was a man of hie degree ;
He past thro monie kingdoms great,
Until he cam unto Grand Turkic.
2 He viewd the fashions of that land,
Their way of worship viewed he,
But unto onie of their stocks
He wadna sae much as bow a knee :
3 Which made him to be taken straight,
And brought afore their hie jurie ;
The savage Moor did speak upvicht.
And made him meikle ill to dree.
4 In ilka shoulder they 've bord a hole,
And in ilka hole they 've put a tree ;
They 've made him to draw carts and wains,
TiU he was sick and like to dee.
5 But Young Beichan was a Christian born.
And still a Christian was he ;
Which made them put him in prison Strang,
And cauld and hunger sair to dree,
And fed on nocht but bread and water,
UntU the day that he mot dee.
6 In this prison there grew a tree,
And it was unco stout and Strang,
Where he was chained by the middle,
UntU his life was almaist gane.
7 The savage Moor had but ae dochter,
And her name it was Susie Pye,
And Uka day as she took the air.
The prison door she passed bye.
8 But it fell ance upon a day.
As she was walking, she heard him sing ;
She listend to his tale of woe,
A happy day for Young Beichan !
9 ' My hounds they all go masterless.
My hawks they flee frae tree to tree.
My youngest brother wiU heir my lands,
My native land I 'U never see.'
I soon wad set this youth at large.
And send him to his ain countrie.'
11 She went away into her chamber.
All nicht she never closd her ee ;
And when the morning begoud to dawn.
At the prison door alane was she.
12 She gied the keeper a piece of gowd,
And monie pieces o wliite monie.
To tak her thro the bolts and bars.
The lord frae Scotland she langd to see ;
She saw young Beichan at the stake.
Which made her weep maist bitterlie.
13 ' O hae ye got onie lands,' she says,
' Or castles in your ain countrie ?
It 's what wad ye gie to the ladie fair
Wha out o prison wad set you free ? '
14 ' It 's I hae houses, and I hae lands,
Wi monie castles fair to see.
And I wad gie a' to that ladie gay,
Wha out o prison wad set me free.'
15 The keeper syne brak aff his chains.
And set Lord Beichan at libertie ;
She filld his pockets baith wi gowd.
To tak him tiU his ain countrie.
16 She took him frae her father's prison.
And gied to him the best o wine.
And a brave health she drank to him :
' I wish, Lord Beichan, ye were mine !
17 ' It 's seven lang years I '11 mak a vow.
And seven lang years I 'U keep it true ;
If ye '11 wed wi na ither woman,
It 's I will wed na man but you.'
18 She 's tane him to her father's port.
And gien to him a ship o fame :
' Farewell, farewell, my Scottish lord,
I fear I '11 neer see you again.'
19 Lord Beichan turnd him round about.
And lowly, lowly loutit he :
' Ere seven lang years come to an end,
I '11 tak you to mine ain countjrie,'
10 ' 0 were I but the prison-keeper,
As I 'm a ladie o hie degree,
60
474
53. YOUNG BEICHAN
20 Then whan he cam to Glasgow town,
A happy, happy man was he ;
The ladies a' around him thrangd,
To see him come frae slaverie.
21 His mother she had died o sorrow,
And a' his brothers were dead but he ;
His lands they a' were lying waste.
In ruins were his castles free.
22 Na porter there stood at his yett,
Na human creature he could see,
Except the screeching owls and bats,
Had he to bear him companie.
23 But gowd will gar the castles grow.
And he had gowd and jewels free,
And soon the pages around him thrangd,
To serve him on their bended knee.
24 His hall was hung wi silk and satin.
His table rung wi mirth and glee.
He soon forgot the lady fair
That lowsd him out o slaverie.
25 Lord Beichan courted a lady gay.
To heir wi him his lands sae free,
Neer thinking that a lady fair
Was on her way frae Grand Turkie.
26 For Susie Pye could get na rest.
Nor day nor nicht could happy be,
Still thinking on the Scottish lord,
Till she was sick and like to dee.
27 But she has builded a bonnie ship,
Weel mannd wi seamen o hie degree.
And secretly she stept on board,
And bid adieu to her ain countrie.
28 But whan she cam to the Scottish shore.
The bells were ringing sae merrilie ;
It was Lord Beichan's wedding day,
Wi a lady fair o hie degree.
29 But sic a vessel was never seen ;
The very masts were tappd wi gold.
Her sails were made o the satin fine,
Maist beautiful for to behold.
30 But whan the lady cam on shore.
Attended wi her pages three,
Her shoon were of the beaten gowd,
And she a lady of great beautie.
31 Then to the skipper she did say,
' Can ye this answer gie to me ?
Where are Lord Beichan's lands sae braid ?
He surely lives in this countrie.'
32 Then up bespak the skipper bold,
For he could speak the Turkish tongue :
' Lord Beichan lives not far away ;
This is the day of his wedding.'
33 ' If ye wUl guide me to Beichan's yetts,
I will ye well reward,' said she ;
Then she and all her pages went,
A very gallant companie.
34 When she cam to Lord Beichan's yetts.
She tirld gently at the pin ;
Sae ready was the proud porter
To let the wedding guests come in.
35 ' Is this Lord Beichan's house,' she says,
' Or is that noble lord within ? '
' Yes, he is gane into the haU,
With his brave bride and monie ane.'
36 ' Ye '11 bid him send me a piece of bread,
Bot and a cup of his best wine ;
And bid him mind the lady's love
That ance did lowse him out o pyne.'
37 Then in and cam the porter bold,
I wat he gae three shouts and three :
' The fairest lady stands at your yetts
That ever my twa een did see.'
38 Then up bespak the bride's mither,
I wat an angry woman was she :
* You micht hae excepted our bonnie bride,
Tho she 'd been three times as fair as she.'
39 ' My dame, your daughter 's fair enough.
And aye the fairer mot she be !
But the fairest time that eer she was.
She '11 na compare wi this ladie.
40 ' She has a gowd ring on ilka finger.
And on her mid-finger she has three ;
She has as meikle gowd upon her head
As wad buy an earldom o land to thee.
53. YOUNG BEICHAN
475
41 ' My lord, she begs some o your bread,
Bot and a cup o your best wine,
And bids you mind the lady's love
That ance did lowse ye out o pyne.'
42 Then up and stai-ted Lord Beichan,
I wat he made the table flee :
' I wad gie a' my yearlie rent
'T were Susie Pye come owre the sea.'
43 Syne up bespak the bride's mother,
She was never heard to speak sae free :
' Ye '11 no forsake my ae dochter,
Tho Susie Pye has crossd the sea ? '
44 ' Tak hame, tak hame, your dochter, madam.
For she is neer the waur o me ;
She cam to me on horseback riding,
And she sail gang hame in chariot free.'
45 He 's tane Susie Pye by the milk-white hand.
And led her thro his halls sae hie :
' Ye 're now Lord Beichan's lawful wife.
And thrice ye 're welcome unto me.'
46 Lord Beichan prepard for another wedding,
Wi baith their hearts sae f u o glee ;
Says, ' I '11 range na mair in foreign lands,
Sin Susie Pye has crossd the sea.
47 ' Fy ! gar a' our cooks mak ready.
And fy ! gar a' our pipers play,
And fy ! gar trumpets gae thro the toun,
That Lord Beichan 's wedded twice in i
day!'
Communicated by Mr David Louden, as recited by Mrs
Dodds, Morham, Haddington, the reciter being above sev-
enty in 1873.
1 In London was Young Bechin born.
Foreign nations he longed to see ;
He passed through many kingdoms great.
At length he came unto Turkic.
2 He viewed the fashions of that land.
The ways of worship viewed he,
But unto any of their gods
He would not so much as bow the knee.
No rest she got till she came to him,
All in his lonely prison cell.
7 ' I have a hall in London town.
With other buildings two or three.
And I '11 give them all to the ladye fair
That from this dungeon shall set me free.'
8 She stole the keys from her dad's head.
And if she oped one door ay she opened
three,
Till she Young Bechin could find out.
He was locked up so curiouslie.
3 On every shoulder they made a bore.
In every bore they put a tree,
Then they made him the winepress tread.
And all in spite of his fair bodie.
4 They put him into a deep dungeon,
Where he could neither hear nor see,
And for seven years they kept him there.
Till for hunger he was like to die.
5 Stephen, their king, had a daughter fair,
Yet never a man to her came nigh ;
And every day she took the air,
Near to his prison she passed by.
6 One day she heard Young Bechin sing
A song that pleased her so well.
9 ' I 've been a porter at your gate
This thirty years now, ay and three ;
There stands a ladye at your gate,
The like of her I neer did see.
10 ' On every finger she has a ring.
On the mid-finger she has three ;
She 's as much gold about her brow
As would an earldom buy to me.'
11 He 's taen her by the milk-white hand.
He gently led her through the green ;
He changed her name from Susie Pie,
An he 's called her lovely Ladye Jean.
476
53. YOUNG BEICHAN
Dr Joseph Robertson's Note-Book, " Adversaria," p. 85.
From tradition.
1 She 's taen the keys frae her fadder's coffer,
Tho he keeps them most sacredlie,
And she has opend the prison strong,
And set Young Beichan at lihertie.
3 She 's put her han intill her purse,
And gave the porter guineas three ;
Says, ' Tak ye that, ye proud porter.
And tell your master to speak wi me.
4 ' Ye '11 bid him bring a shower o his best love,
But and a bottle o his wine,
And do to me as I did to him in time past,
And brought him out o muckle pine.'
5 He 's taen the table wi his foot.
And he has keppit it wi his knee :
' I '11 wager my life and a' my Ian,
It 's Susan Pie come ower the sea.
Gae up the countrie, my chile,' she says,
' Till your fadder's wrath be turned from
thee.'
6 ' Rise up, rise up, my bonnie bride.
Ye 're neither better nor waur for me ;
Ye cam to me on a horse and saddle,
But ye may gang back in a coach and three.'
K
Communicated by Mr David Louden, as obtained from
Mrs Dicljson, Rentonhall.
' A slice of bread to her get ready.
And a bottle of the best of wine ;
Not to forget that fair young ladye
Who did release thee out of close confine.'
1 ' There is a marriage in yonder hall,
Has lasted thirty days and three ;
The bridegroom winna bed the bride.
For the sake of one that 's owre the sea.'
2 ' What news, what news, my brave young por-
ter ?
What news, what news have ye for me ? '
' As beautiful a ladye stands at your gate
As eer my two eyes yet did see.'
4 Lord Bechin in a passion flew.
And rent himself like a sword in three.
Saying, ' I would give all my father's riches
If my Sophia was 'cross the sea.'
5 Up spoke the young bride's mother.
Who never was heard to speak so free.
Saying, ' I hope you 'U not forget my only
daughter.
Though your Sophia be 'cross the sea.'
6 ' I own a bride I 've wed your daughter.
She 's nothing else the worse of me ;
She came to me on a horse and saddle,
She may go back in a coach and three.'
The Loving Ballad of Lord Bateman. Illustrated by
George Cruiksliank. 1839.
1 LoBD Bateman was a noble lord,
A noble lord of high degree ;
He sliipped himself all aboard of a ship,
Some foreign country for to see.
2 He saUed east, he sailed west,
Until he came to famed Turkey,
Where he was taken and put to prison.
Until his life was quite weary.
3 All in this prison there grew a tree,
0 there it grew so stout and strong !
Where he was chained all by the middle.
Until his life was almost gone.
53. YOTJNG BEICHAN
477
4 This Turk he had one only daughter,
The fairest my two eyes eer see ;
She steel the keys of her father's prison,
And swore Lord Bateman she would let go
free.
6 O she took him to her father's cellar,
And gave to him the best of wine ;
And every health she drank unto him
Was, ' I wish. Lord Bateman, as you was
mine.'
6 ' O have you got houses, have you got land.
And does Northumberland belong to thee ?
And what would you give to the fair young
lady
As out of prison would let you go free ? '
7 ' O I 've got houses and I 've got land.
And half Northumberland belongs to me ;
And I will give it all to the fair young lady
As out of prison would let me go free.'
8 ' O in seven long years, I 'U make a vow
For seven long yeai"s, and keep it strong,
That if you '11 wed no other woman,
0 I will wed no other man.'
9 0 she took him to her father's harbor.
And gave to him a ship of fame.
Saying, Farewell, farewell to you. Lord Bate-
man,
1 fear I never shall see you again.
10 Now seven long years is gone and past.
And fourteen days, weU known to me ;
She packed up all her gay clothing,
And swore Lord Bateman she would go see.
11 O when she arrived at Lord Bateman's castle.
How boldly then she rang the bell I
' Who 's there ? who 's there ? ' cries the proud
young porter,
' O come unto me pray quickly tell.'
12 ' O is this here Lord Bateman's castle,
And is liis lordship here within ? '
' 0 yes, O yes,' cries the proud young porter,
' He 's just now taking his young bride in.'
13 ' 0 bid him to send me a slice of bread,
And a bottle of the very best wine.
And not forgetting the fair young lady
As did release him when close confine.'
14 O away and away went this proud young por-
ter,
0 away and away and away went he,
Until he come to Lord Bateman's chamber.
When he went down on his bended knee.
15 ' What news, what news, my proud young por-
ter?
What news, what news ? Come tell to me : '
' O there is the fairest young lady
As ever my two eyes did see.
16 ' She has got rings on every finger.
And on one finger she has got thi-ee ;
With as much gay gold about her middle
As would buy half Northumberlee.
17 ' 0 she bids you to send her a slice of bread,
And a bottle of the very best wine,
And not forgetting the fair young lady
As did release you when close confine.'
18 Lord Bateman then in passion flew,
And broke his sword in splinters three,
Saying, I will give half of my father's land,
If so be as Sophia has crossed the sea.
19 Then up and spoke this young bride's mother.
Who never was heard to speak so free ;
Saying, You 'U not forget my only daughter.
If so be as Sophia has crossed the sea.
20 ' O it 's true I made a bride of your daughter.
But she 's neither the better nor the worse
for me ;
She came to me with a horse and saddle.
But she may go home in a coach and three.'
21 Lord Bateman then prepared another mar-
riage,
With both their hearts so full of glee,
Saying, I will roam no more to foreign coun-
tries,
Now that Sophia has crossed the sea.
478
53. YOUNG BEICHAN
M
Buchan's MSS, I, 18. J. H.
Versions of Ancient Ballads, p.
Dixon, Scottish Traditional
1 Young Bonwell was a squire's ae son.
And a squire's ae son was he ;
He went abroad to a foreign land.
To serve for meat and fee.
2 He hadna been in that country
A twalmonth and a day,
Till he was cast in prison strong,
For the sake of a lovely may.
3 ' O if my father get word of this.
At hame in his ain country.
He '11 send red gowd for my relief.
And a bag o white money.
4 ' O gin an earl woud borrow me,
At his bridle I woud rin ;
Or gin a widow woud borrow me,
I 'd swear to be her son.
5 ' Or gin a may woud borrow me,
I 'd wed her wi a ring,
Infef t her wi the ha's and bowers
0 the bonny towers o Linne.'
6 But it fell ance upon a day
Dame Essels she thought lang.
And she is to the jail-house door.
To hear Young Bondwell's sang.
7 ' Sing on, sing on, my bonny Bondwell,
The sang ye sang just now : '
' I never sang the sang, lady,
But I woud war 't on you.
8 ' O gin my father get word o this.
At hame in his ain country,
He '11 send red gowd for my relief.
And a bag o white money.
9 ' 0 gin an earl woud borrow me,
At his bridle I woud rin ;
Or gin a widow would borrow me,
1 'd swear to be her son.
10 ' Or gin a may woud borrow me,
I woud wed her wi a ring,
Infef t her wi the ha's and bowers
O the bonny towers o Linne.'
11 She 's stole the keys o the jail-house door.
Where uuder the bed they lay ;
She 's opend to him the jail-house door.
And set Young Bondwell free.
12 She gae 'm a steed was swift in need,
A saddle o royal ben,
A hunder pund o pennies round,
Bade him gae roav an spend.
13 A couple o hounds o ae litter,
And Cain they ca'd the one ;
Twa gay gos-hawks she gae likeways.
To keep him onthought lang.
14 When mony days were past and gane.
Dame Essels thought fell lang.
And she is to her lonely bower,
To shorten her wi a sang.
(15 The sang had such a melody,
^ — -^ It lulld her fast asleep ;
Up starts a woman, clad in green.
And stood at her bed-feet.
16 ' Win up, win up. Dame Es.sels,' she says,
' This day ye sleep ower lang ;
The morn is the squire's wedding day.
In the bonny towers o Linne.
17 ' Ye '11 dress yonrsell in the robes o green.
Your maids in robes sae fair,
And ye '11 put girdles about their middles,
Sae costly, rich and rare.
18 ' Ye '11 take your maries alang wi you,
Till ye come to yon strand ;
There ye '11 see a ship, wi sails all up.
Come sailing to dry land.
19 ' Ye '11 take a wand into your hand.
Ye '11 stroke her round about.
And ye '11 take God your pilot to be,
To drown ye '11 take nae doubt.'
20 Then up it raise her Dame Essels,
Sought water to wash her hands,
But aye the faster that she washd.
The tears they trickling ran.
21 Then in it came her father dear.
And in the floor steps he :
' What ails Dame Essels, my daughter dear.
Ye weep sae bitterlie ?
22 ' Want ye a small fish frae the flood.
Or turtle frae the sea 1
Or is there man in a' my realm
This day has offended thee t '
23 ' I want nae small fish frae the flood,
Nor turtle frae the sea;
But Young Bondwell, your ain prisoner,
This day has offended me.'
24 Her father turnd him round about,
A solemn oath sware he :
' If this be true ye tell me now
High hanged he shall be.
25 ' To-morrow morning he shall be
Hung high upon a tree : '
Dame Essels whispord to heisel,
• Father, ye 've made a lie.'
53. YOTTNG BEICHAK
479
26 She dressd hersel in robes o green.
Her maids in robes sae fair,
Wi gowden girdles round their middles,
Sae costly, rich and rare.
27 She 's taen her mantle her about,
A maiden in every hand ;
They saw a ship, wi sails a' up,
Come sailing to dry land.
28 She 's taen a wand in till her hand,
And stroked her round about.
And she 's taen God her pilot to be.
To drown she took nae doubt.
29 So they saild on, and further on,
Till to the water o Tay ;
There they spied a bonny little boy.
Was watering his steeds sae gay.
30 ' What news, what news, my little boy.
What news hae ye to me ?
Are there any weddings in this place.
Or any gaun to be ? '
39 Then out it speaks Bondwell's own bride.
Was a' gowd to the chin ;
' They canno be fairer thereout,' she says,
' Than we that are therein.'
40 ' There is a difference, my dame,' he said,
' 'Tweeu that ladye's colour and yours ;
As much difference as you were a stock.
She o the lily flowers.'
41 Then out it speaks him Young Bondwell,
An angry man was he :
' Cast up the yetts baith wide an braid.
These ladies I may see.'
42 Quickly up stairs Dame Essel 's gane,
Her maidens next her wi ;
Then said the bride. This lady's face
Shows the porter 's tanld nae lie.
43 The lady unto Bondwell spake,
These words prononnced she :
O hearken, hearken, fause Bondwell,
These words that I tell thee.
31 ' There is a wedding in this place,
A wedding very soon ;
The mom 's the young squire's wedding day,
In the bonny towers of Linne.'
32 O then she walked alang the way
To see what coud be seen.
And there she saw the proud porter,
Drest in a mantle green.
33 ' What news, what news, porter? ' she said,
' What news hae ye to me ?
Are there any weddings in this place,
Or any gaun to be ? '
34 ' There is a wedding in this place,
A wedding very soon ;
The mom is Youngr Bondwell's wedding day.
The bonny squire o Linne.'
35 ' Gae to your master, porter,' she said,
' Gae ye right speedilie ;
Bid him come and speak wi a maid
That wishes his face to see.'
36 The porter 's np to his master gane,
Fell low down on his knee ;
' Win up, win up, my porter,' he said,
' Why bow ye low to me ? '
37 ' I hae been porter at your yetts
These thirty years and three.
But fairer maids than 's at them now
My eyes did never see.
38 ' The foremost she is drest in green.
The rest in fine attire,
Wi gowden girdles round their middles.
Well worth a sheriff's hire.'
44 Is this the way ye keep your vows
That ye did make to me,
When your feet were in iron fetters,
Ae foot ye coadna flee f
45 I stole the keys o the jail-house door
Frae under the bed they lay.
And opeud up the jail-house door.
Set you at libertj-.
46 Gae you a steed was swift in need,
A saddle o royal ben,
A hunder pund o pennies round.
Bade you gae rove an spend.
47 A couple o hounds o ae litter,
Cain they ca'ed the ane,
Twa gay gos-hawks as swift 's eer flew.
To keep you on thought lang.
48 But since this day ye 'ye broke your vow,
For which ye 're sair to blame.
And since nae mair I '11 get o you,
O Cain, will ye gae hame ?
49 ' O Cain ! O Cain! ' the lady cried.
And Cain did her ken ;
They baith flappd round the lady's knee.
Like a couple o armed men.
50 He 's to his bride wi hat in hand.
And haild her courteouslie :
' Sit down by me, my bonny Bondwell,
What makes this courtesie ? '
51 ' An asking, asking, fair lady.
An asking ye '11 grant me ; '
'Ask on, ask on, my bonny Bondwell,
What may your askings be ? '
480
53. YOUNG BEICHAN
52 ' Five hundred pounds to you I 'Jl gie.
Of gowd an white monie,
If ye '11 wed John, my ain cousin ;
He looks as fair as me.'
53 ' Keep well your monie, Bondwell,' she said,
' Nae monie I ask o thee ;
Your cousin John was my first love,
My husband now he 's be.'
54 Bondwell was married at morning ear,
John in the afternoon ;
Dame Essels is lady ower a' the bowers
And the high towers o Linne.
N
a. Falkirk, printed by T. Johnston, 1815. b. Stirling,
M. Randall.
1 In London was Young Bichen born,
He longd strange lands to see ;
He set his foot on good ship-board,
And he sailed over the sea.
2 He had not been in a foreign land
A day but only three,
Till he was taken by a savage Moor,
And they used him most cruelly.
3 In every shoulder they put a' pin,
To every pin they put a tree ;
Tliey made him draw the plow and cart,
Like horse and oxen in his country.
4 He had not servd the savage Moor
A week, nay scarcely but only three.
Till he has casten him in prison strong.
Till he with hunger was like to die.
5 It fell out once upon a day
That Young Bichen he made his moan,
As he lay bound in irons strong.
In a dark and deep dungeon.
6 ' An I were again in fair England,
As many merry day I have been,
Then I would curb my roving youth
No more to see a strange land.
7 ' 0 an I were free again now.
And my feet well set on the sea,
I would live in peace in my own country.
And a foreign land I no more would see.'
8 The savage Moor had but one daughter,
I wot lier name was Susan Py ;
She heard Young Bichen make his moan ,
At the prison-door as she past by.
9 ' O have ye any lands,' she said,
' Or have you any money free,
Or have you any revenues.
To maintain a lady like me f '
10 ' 0 I hare land in fair England,
And I have estates two or three.
And likewise I have revenues,
To maintain a lady like thee.'
11 '0 will you promise, Young Bichen,' she says,
' And keep your vow faithful to me,
Thiit at the end of seven years
In fair Engl.ind you '11 marry me t
12 ' I 'I! steal the keys from my father dear,
Tho lie keens them most secretly ;
I '11 risk my life for to save thine.
And set thee safe upon the sea.'
13 She 's stolen the keys from her father.
From under the bed where they lay;
She opened the prison strong
And set Young Bichen at liberty.
14 She 's gone to her father's coffer,
Wliere the gold was red and fair to see ;
She filled his pockets with good red gold.
And she set him far upon the sea.
15 ' O mind you well, Young Bichen,' she says,
' The vows and oaths you made to me ;
When you are come to your native land,
O then remember Susan Py ! '
16 But when her father he came home
He niissd the keys there where they lay ;
He went into the prison strong.
But he saw Young Bichen was awsiy.
17 ' Go bring your daughter, madam,' he says,
' And bring her here unto me ;
Altho I have no more but her,
Tomorrow I '11 gar hang her high.'
18 The lady calld on the maiden fair
To come to her most speedily ;
' Go up the country, my child,' slie says,
' Stay with my brother two years or three.
19 ' I have a brother, he lives in the isles.
He will keep thee most courteously
And stay with him, my child,' she says,
' Till thy father's wrath be turnd from thee.'
20 Now will we leave young Susan Py
A while in her own country.
And will return to Young Bichen,
Who is safe arrived in fair England.
21 He had not been in fair England
Above years scarcely three.
Till he has courted another maid.
And so forgot his Susan Py.
53. YOUNG BEICHAN
481
22 The youth being young and in his prime,
Of Susan Py thought not upon,
But his love was laid on another maid,
And the marriage-day it did draw on.
23 But eer the seven years were run,
Susan Py she thought full long ;
She set her foot on good ship-board.
And she has saild for fair England.
24 On every 6nger she put a ring,
On her mid-finger she put three ;
She filld her pockets with good red gold,
And she has sailed oer the sea.
25 She had not been in fair England
A day, a day, but only three.
Till she heard Young Bichen was a bridegroom.
And the morrow to be the wedding-day.
26 ' Since it is so,' said yonng Susan,
' That he has provd so false to me,
I '11 hie me to Young Bichen's gates.
And see if he minds Susan Py.'
27 She has gone np thro London tomi.
Where many a lady she there did spy ;
There was not a lady in all London
Young Snsan that could outvie.
28 She has calld npon a waiting-man,
A waiting-man who stood near by :
' Convey me to Young Bichen's gates.
And well rewarded shals thou be.'
29 When she came to Young Bichen's gate
She chapped loudly at the pin,
Till down there came the proud porter ;
' Who 's there,' he says, ' that would be in '! '
30 ' Open the gates, porter,' she says,
' Open them to a lady gay.
And tell your master, porter,' she says,
' To speak a word or two with me.'
31 The porter he has opend the gates ;
His eyes were dazzled to see
A lady dressd in gold and jewels ;
No page nor waiting-man had she.
32 • O pardon me, madam,' he cried,
' This day it is his wedding-day ;
He 's up the stairs with his lovely bride,
And a sight of him you cannot see.'
33 She put her hand in her pocket,
And therefrom took out guineas three,
And gave to him, saying. Please, kind sir.
Bring down your master straight to me.
3-1 The porter up again has gone.
And he fell low down on his knee.
Saying, Master, you will please come down
To a lady who wants you to see.
61
35 A lady gay stands at your gates.
The like of her I ncer did see ;
She has more gold above her eye
Nor would buy a baron's land to me.
36 Ont then spake the bride's mother,
I 'm sure an angry woman was she :
' You're impudent and insolent.
For ye might excepted the bride and me.'
37 ' Ye lie, ye lie, ye proud woman,
I 'm sure sae loud as I hear you lie ;
She has more gold on her body
Than would buy the lands, the bride, and thee ! '
38 ' Go down, go down, porter,' he says,
' And tell the lady gay from me
That I 'm up-stairs wi my lovely bride,
And a sight of her I cannot see.'
39 The porter he goes down again.
The lady waited patiently :
' My master 's with his lovely bride.
And he '11 not win down my dame to see.'
40 From off her finger she 's taen a ring ;
' Give that your master,' she says, ' from me.
And tell him now, young man,' she says,
' To send down a cup of wine to me.'
41 ' Here 's a ring for you, master,' he says,
' On her mid-finger she has three.
And you are desird, my lord,' he says,
' To send down a cup of wine with me.'
42 He hit the table with his foot.
He kepd it with his right knee :
• I '11 wed my life and all my land
That is Susan Py, come o'er the sea ! '
43 He has gone tmto the stair-head,
A step he took but barely three ;
He opend the gates most speedily,
And Snsan Py he there could see.
44 ' Is this the way. Young Bichen,' she says,
' Is this the way you 've guided me ?
I relieved you from prison strong.
And ill have you rewarded me.
45 ' O mind ye, Young Bichen,' she says,
' The vows and oaths that ye made to me.
When ye lay bound in prison strong.
In a deep dungeon of misery 1 '
46 He took her by the milk-white hand.
And led her into the palace fine ;
There was not a lady in all the palace
But Susan Py did all outshine.
47 The day concluded with joy and mirth.
On every side there might you see ;
There was great joy in all England
For the wedding-day of Susan Py.
482
53. YOUNG BEICHAN
B. 17*. bids me. 22''*. Connected with 23 in
MS. 22«. send he.
C. a. lo'^. How y you.
b. 3'. omits house. 4?. omits foot.
7*. omits dear.
7°. For she 's ... of the prison.
7*. And gane the dungeon within.
8*. And when.
8\ Wow but her heart was sair.
9\ She 's gotten. 11*. thir twa.
13^ I kenna. 13*. keiisnae.
14*. fell out. 15". How y you.
16*. till. 16^. As fast as ye can gang.
16". tak three.
16^ To hand ye unthocht lang.
18*. Syne ye. 18^ And bonny.
19». And I wiU.
20^*. As fast as she could gang.
20°. she 's taen.
20*. To baud her unthocht lang.
22'. And sae bonny did.
22*. till. 24'. And her mind misgae by.
24*. That 't was. 25°. markis three.
25*. Bid your master. 27*. did never.
29*. and spak. 29'. be fine.
29*. as fine. 32'. out of .
34'. at the first. 35^. gang.
36*. Send her back a maid.
D. Written throughout without division into
stanzas.
7. A like repetition occurs again in tlie Skene
MSS : see No 36, p. 316.
10*' °. One line in the MS. The metre, in
several places where it is incomplete, was
doubtless made full hy repetition: see
19*- '.
14*. This line thus : (an a Leash of guid gray
hounds) . The reciter evidently could re-
member only this point in the stanza.
16, 17. Whan she cam to Young Beachens
gate
Is Young Beachen at hame
Or is he in this countrie
He is at hame is hearly (?) said
Him an sigh an says her Susie Pay
Has he quite forgotten me
19*" '. Probably sung, the stair, the stair ; win
up, win up.
22'' *. Tfie latter half of the stanza must be
supposed to be addressed to Young Bea-
chen.
26*- '^. He took her down to yon gouden green.
27*. Sh 's. 29^ my name.
After 29 a stanza belonging apparently to
some other ballad :
Courtess kind, an generous mind,
An winna ye answer me ?
An whan the hard their lady's word,
Well answered was she.
B. 6*^ was introduced, with other metrical pas-
sages, into a long tale of ' Young Beichan
and Susy Pye,' which Motherwell had
heard related, and of which he gives a
specimen at p. xv. of his Introduction :
" Well, ye must know that in tlie Moor's
castle there was a masspuore, which is a
dark dungeon for keeping prisoners. It
was twenty feet below the ground, and
into this hole they closed poor Beichan.
There he stood, night and day, uj) to his
waist in puddle water ; but night or day it
was all one to him, for no ae styme of
light ever got in. So he lay there a lang
and weaiy while, and thinking on his
heavy weird, he made a murnfu sang to
pass the time, and this was the sang that
he made, and grat when he sang it, for he
never thought of ever escaping from the
massymore, or of seeing his ain country
again :
' My hounds they all run masterless.
My hawks they flee from tree to tree ;
My youngest brother will heir my lands.
And fair England again I '11 never see.
' Oh were I free as I hae been.
And my ship swimming once more on
sea,
I 'd turn my face to fair England,
And sail no more to a strange coun-
trie.*
" Now the cruel "Moor had a beautiful
daughter, called Susy Pye, who was ac-
customed to take a walk every morning in
her garden, and as she was walking ae
day she heard the sough o Beichan's sang,
coming as it were from below the ground,"
etc., etc.
P. 3'. dungeon (donjon). 6*. only lands.
6". only castles. 8*. Oh.
53. YOUNG BEICHAK
483
' 10*. ha she has gane in : originally has she
gane in.
13^. Many, with Seven written over: Seven in
20. After this stanza : Then the porter gaed
up the stair and said.
25. After this stanza : Then Lord Beichan
gat up, and was in a great wrath, and
said.
31. ae : indistinct, but seems to have been one
changed to ae or a.
H. 4'. carts and wains for carts o wine of A 2',
B 2'. We have wine in H 4', 1 3', and wine
is in all likelihood original.
Christie, I, 31, abridges this version, making
" a few slight alterations from the way he
had heard it sung:" these, and one or two
more.
2*. wadna bend nor bow.
7'. The Moor he had.
25*. But Beichan courted.
I. 1*. Bechin was pronounced Beekin.
K. 1. Before this, as gloss, or remnant of a p>re-
ceding stanza : She came to a shepherd,
and he replied.
2. After this, in explanation : She gave Lord
Bechin a slice of bread and a bottle of
wine when she released him from prison,
hence the following.
3*. to him.
4. After this : He had married another lady,
not having heard from his Sophia for seven
long years.
L. " This affecting legend is given . . . precisely
as I have frequently heard it sung on Satur-
day nights, outside a house of general re-
freshment (familiarly termed a wine-vaults)
at Battle-bridge. The singer is a young
gentleman who can scarcely have numbered
nineteen summers. ... I have taken down
the words from his own mouth at different
periods, and have been careful to preserve
his pronunciation." [Attributed to Charles
Dickens.'] As there is no reason for indi-
cating pronunciation here, in this more than
in other cases, the phonetic spelling is re-
placed by common ortlwgraphy. Forms of
speech have, however, been preserved, ex-
cepting two, with regard to which I may
have been too nice.
V. his-seK. 5', 9^ guv.
M. 10'. in for wi (?) : wi in 5'.
12-, 46^^. bend. Possihly, liowever, understood
to be bend = leather, instead of ben = bane,
bone.
13*, 47*. on thought.
N. a. Susan Py, or Young Bichens Garland.
Shewing how he went to a far country,
and was taken by a savage Moor and cast
into prison, and delivered by the Moor's
daughter, on promise of marriage ; and
how he came to England, and was going
to be wedded to another bride ; with the
happy arrival of Susan Py on the wedding
day. Falkirk, Printed by T. Johnston,
1815.
b. 3*. his own.
4^. A week, a week, but only.
7'. own land.
7*. And foreign lands no more.
11*. young man. 13^. he lay.
24*. her trunks. 25*. was the.
28^^. that stood hard by. 28*. thou shalt.
29^ She knocked. 31*. waiting-maid.
32^ For this is his.
34*. up the stairs. 34', will you.
36*. Ye might.
37^. Sae loud as I hear ye lie.
39*. And a sight of him you cannot see.
40*. To bring. 42«. I '11 lay.
44'^. way that you 've used me.
47*. wedding of.
484
ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS
ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS
1. Riddles Wisely Expounded.
P. 1 b. A. Add : Miindel, Elsiissische Volkslieder,
p. 27, No 24. Second line from the bottom, for seven
read ten.
2 a. Add: H. J. H. Schmitz, Sitten u. s. w. des
Eifler Volkes, 1, 159 ; five pairs of riddles and no con-
clusion. (Kohler.) I. Alfred Miiller, Volkslieder aiis
dem Erzgebirge, p. 69 ; four pairs of riddles, and no
conclusion. J. Lemke, Volksthiiniliches in Ostpreussen,
p. 152 ; seven riddles guessed, " nun bin ich Deine
Frau."
2 b. (The Russian riddle-ballad.) So a Kosak: " I
give thee this riddle : if thou guess it, thou shalt be
mine ; if thou guess it not, ill shall it go with thee."
The riddle, seven-fold, is guessed. Metlinskiy, Narod-
nyya yuzhnorusskiya Pyesni, pp 363 f. Cf. Snegiref,
Russkie prostonarodnye Prazdniki, II, 101 f.
2 b, note. For Kaden substitute Casetti e Imbriani,
C. p. delle Provincie meridionali, I, 197 f. (Kohler.)
~ Serpolnica : Afanasief, II, 333 ; Veckenstedt, Wen-
dische Sagen, p. 107, No 14, p. 108 f. No 19, p. 109 f,
No 4. The Red Etin puts questions, too, in the Scot-
tish tale. Chambers, Popular Rhymes, 1870, p. 92.
There is certainly no occasion to scruple about elf or
elf-knight. Line 16f. The same in Snegiref, IV. 8.
14 b. For the legend of St Andrew, etc., see, fur-
ther, Gering, fslendzk ^ventyri, I, 95, No 24, ' Af
biskupi ok puka,' and Kohler's references, II, 80 f.
(Kohler.)
15 a. A, B. Dr Davidson informs me that the intro-
ductory stanza, or burden-stem, exists in the form :
Her pla'die awa, her plaidie awa,
The win blew the bonnie lassie's plaidie awa.
16 a. C. This version is in Kinloch MSS, VII, 163.
3 is wanting.
6. Married ye sail never get nana
Till ye mak a shirt without a seam.
2. The Elfin Knight.
P. 6 b. J. Read : Central New York ; and again in
J, p. 1 9 a. Add : M. Notes and Queries, 4th Series,
III, 605.
7 a, note. Another ballad with a burden-stem is a
version of ' Klosterrovet,' C, MSS of IGIO, and later,
communicated to me by Svend Grundtvig.
7 b. Add : O. ' Ehestandsaussichten ' [Norren-
berg], Des Diilkener Fiedlers Liederbuch, 1875, p. 88,
No 99. (Kohler.)
8-12. Jagiu, in Archiv fiir slavieche Philologie,
' Aus dem sudslavischen Miirchenschatz,' V, 47-50,
adds five Slavic stories of the wench whose ready wit
helps her to a good marriage, and Kohler, in notes to
Jagic, pp 50 ff, cites, in addition to nearly all those
which I have mentioned, one Slavic, one German, five
Italian, one French, one Iri^h, one Norwegian, besides
very numerous tales in which there is a partial agree-
ment. Wollner, in Leskien and Brugman's Litauische
Volkslieder und Miirchen, p. 573, cites Slavic parallels
to No 34, of which the following, not previously noted,
and no doubt others, are apposite to this ballad: Afa-
nasief, VI, 177, No 42, a, b; Trudy, II, 611-614, No 84,
614-616, No 85; Dragomanof, p. 347, No 29; Sadok
Baracz, p. 33 ; Kolberg, Lud, VIII, 206 ; Kulda, II, 68.
14 a, line 4. The Baba-Yaga, a malignant female
spirit, has the ways of the Rusalka and the Vila, and so
the Wendish Piezpolnica, the ' Mittagsfrau,' and the
7. And ye maun sew it seamless,
And ye maun do it wi needle, threedless.
10. wanting. 12'. I hae a bit o land to be corn.
14 is wantinfj. 16. loof — glove.
17 is wanting,
3, 10, 14, 17, are evidently supplied from some
form of B.
20.
M
Similar to F-H : Notes and Queries, 4th Series, III, C05,
communicated by W. F., Glasgow, from a manuscript collec-
tion.
1 As I went up to the top o yon hiU,
Every rose springs merry in' t' time
I met a fair maid, an her name it was Nell.
An she langed to be a true lover o mine
2 ' Ye 'U get to me a cambric sark.
An sew it all over without thread or needle.
Before that ye be, etc.
3 ' Ye '11 wash it doim in yonder well.
Where water neer ran an dew never fell.
ADDITIONS AND COEKECTIONS
485
4 ' Ye '11 bleach it doun by yonder green,
Where grass never grew an wind never blew.
5 ' Ye '11 dry it doun on yonder thorn,
That never bore blossom sin Adam was born.'
6 ' Four questions ye have asked at me,
An as mony mair ye '11 answer me.
7 ' Ye '11 get to me an acre o land
Atween the saut water an the sea sand.
8 ' Ye 'U plow it wi a ram's horn,
An sow it all over wi one peppercorn.
9 ' Ye '11 shear it wi a peacock's feather,
An bind it all up wi the sting o an adder.
10 ' Ye 'U stook it in yonder saut sea.
An bring the dry sheaves a' back to me.
11 ' An when ye 've done and finished your wark,
Ye 'U come to me, an ye 'se get your sark.'
An then shall ye be true lover o mine
Curialium, ed. Wri<;ht, p. 81, Alpenburg, Deutsche
Alpensagen, p. 312, No 330. So Thetis, according to
Sophocles, left Peleus when he reviled her : Scholia in
ApoUonii Ar<ronauiica, iv, 816. (Mannhardt, Wald-
und Feldkulte, II, 60, 68.)
22.
o
Obtained by Mr Macmath from tlic recitation of his aunt.
Miss Jane Webster, formerly of Airds of Kells, Stewartry
of Kirkcudhrijiht, Galloway, who learned it many years ago
from the wife of Peter McGuire, then cotman at Airds.
1 ' 0 whare are ye gaun ? '
Says the false knight upon the road :
' I am gaun to the schule,'
Says the wee boy, and stUl he stood.
2 ' Wha 's aught the sheep on yonder hill ? '
' They are my papa's and mine.'
3 ' How many of them 'a mine ? '
' A' them that has blue tails.'
4 ' I wish you were in yonder well : '
' And you were down in hell.'
3. The Fause Knight upon the Road.
P. 20a. Add: C. 'The False Knight,' communi-
cated by Mr Macmath, of Edinburgh.
For the fool getting the last word of the princess, see,
further, Kohler, Germania, XIV, 271 ; Leskieu u. Brug-
man, Litauische Volkslieder u. Miirchen, p. 469, No
33, and WoUner's note, p. 573.
21, note. I must retract the doubly hasty remark
that the Shetland belief that witches may be baffled by
fliting with them is a modern misunderstanding.
Mr George Lyman Kittredge has called my attention
to Apollonius of Tyana's encounter with an empusa
between the Caucasus and the Indus. Knowing what
the spectre was, Apollonius began to revile it, and told
his attendants to do the same, for that was the resource,
in such cases, against an attack. The empusa went off
with a shriek. Fhilostratus's Life of Apollonius, II, 4.
Mr Kittredge referred me later to what is said by Col.
Yule (who also cites Philostratus), Marco Polo, I, 183,
that the wise, according to Mas'udi, revile ghuls, and
the ghiils vanish. Mr Kittredge also cites Luther's ex-
perience: how, when he could not be rid of the Devil
by the use of holy writ and serious words, " so hiitte er
ihn oft mit spitzigen Worten und liicherlichen Possen
vertrieben ; . . . quia est superbus spiritus, et non potest
ferre contemptum sui." Tischreden, in Auswahl, Ber-
lin, 1877, pp 152-154.
Sprites of the more respectable orders will quit the
company of men if scolded : Walter Mapes, De Nugis
4. Lady Isabel and the Elf-Knight.
P. 22 b. D. Add : d. ' The historical ballad of May
Culzean,' an undated stall-copy.
26 b. Another Dutch version (Frisian), spirited, but
with gaps, is given by Dykstra and van der Meulen, In
Doaze fol aide Snypsnaren, Frjentsjer, 1882, p. 118,
' Jan Alberts,' 66 vv. (Kohler.)
D. Jan Alberts sings a song, and those that hear it
know it not. It is heard by a king's daughter, who
asks her mother's leave to go out for a walk, and is told
that it is all one where she goes or stays, if she keeps
her honor. Her father says the same, when she applies
for his leave. She goes to her bedroom and dresses
herself finely, dons a gold crown, puts her head out of
the window, and cries. Now am I Jan Alberts' bride.
Jan Alberts takes her on his horse; they ride fast and
long, with nothing to eat or drink for three days. She
then asks Jan why he gives her nothing, and he an-
swers that he shall ride to the high tree where hang
fourteen fair maids. Arrived there, he gives her the
choice of tree, sword, or water. She chooses the sword,
bids him spare his coat, for a pure maid's blood goes
far, and before his coat is half off" his head lies be-
hind him. The head cries. Behind the bush is a pot of
grease ; smear my neck with it. She will not smear
from a murderer's pot, nor blow in a murderer's horn.
She mounts his horse, and rides far and long. Jan Al-
berts' mother comes to meet her, and asks after him.
She says he is not far off, and is sporting with fourteen
486
ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS
maids. Had you told me this before, I would have laid
you in the water, says the mother. The maid rides on
till she comes to her father's gate. Then she cries to
her father to open, for his youngest daughter is with-
out. The father not bestirring himself, she swims the
moat, and, the door not being open, goes through the
glass. The next day she dries her clothes.
30 a, 37 a. There is a Low German version of the
first class, A-F, in Spee, Volksthiimliches voin Nieder-
rhein, Koln, 1875, Zweites Heft, p. 3, ' Schondili,' 50
vv. (Kohler.)
AA. Schondili's parents died when she was a child.
Schon-Albert, knowing this, rides to her. She attires
herself in silk, with a gold crown on her hair, and he
swings her on to his horse. They ride three days and
nights, with nothing to eat or drink. She asks whether
it is not meal-time; he replies that they are coming to
a linden, where they will eat and drink. Seven women
are hanging on the tree. He gives her the wale of tree,
river, and sword. She chooses the sword ; would be
loath to spot his coat ; whips off his head before the coat
is half off. The head says there is a pipe in the sad-
dle ; she thinks no good can come of playing a murder-
er's pipe. She meets first the father, then the mother ;
they think that must be Schon-AIbert's horse. That
may be, she says; I have not seen him since yesterday.
She sets the pipe to her mouth, when she reaches her
father's gate, and the murderers come like hares on the
wind.
BB. Alfred MUller, Volkslieder aus dem Erzgebirge,
p. 92, ' Schon Ulricli ' [und Trautendelein], 86 vv.
(Kohler.) Like T, without the song.
CC. A. Schlosser, Deutsche Volkslieder aus Steier-
mark, 1881, p. 338, No 309, ' Der Hitter und die
Maid.' (Kohler : not yet seen by me.)
DD. Curt Miindel, Elsiissische Volkslieder, p. 12,
No 10, a fragment of fifteen verses. As Anna sits by
the Rhine combing her hair, Heinrich conies along on
his horse, sees her weep, and asks why. It is not for
gold and not for goods, but because she is to die that
day. Heinrich draws his sword, runs her through, and
rides home. He is asked why his sword is red, and says
he has killed two doves. They say the dove must be
Anna.
32 b. H, line 10. Read : umbrunnen.
39 a, line 1. Read: contributed by Hoffmann.
39 a, third paragraph. Kozlowski, Lud, p. 54, No 15,
furnishes a second and inferior but still important form
of A (Masovian).
A b. Ligar (afterwards Jasia, Golo) bids Kasia take
all she has. She has already done this, and is ready
to range the world with him. Suddenly she asks, after
they have been some time on their way. What is that
yonder so green? Jasia replies. Our house, to which
we are going. They go on further, and Kasia again
inquires abruptly. What is that yonder so white ?
" That is my eight wives, and you shall be the ninth :
you are to die, and will be the tenth." " Where is
the gold, the maidens' gold ? " " In the linden, Ka-
sia, in the linden; plenty of it." " Let me not die so
wretchedly ; let me draw your sword for once." She
drew the sword, and with one stroke Jasia's head was
off.
39 b. To the Polish versions are further to be added:
NN, Piosnki wiesniacze znad Dzwiny, p. 41, No 51 ;
OO, Roger, p. 78, No 138 ; PP, Roger, p. 69, No 125 ;
QQ, ib., p. 79, No 140 ; RR, p. 81, No 142; SS, p. 79,
No 139. The last three are imperfect, and QQ, RR,
have a beginning which belongs elsewhere. Jasia sug-
gests to Kasia to get the key of the new room from her
mother by pretending headache, ancLbids her take gold
enough, NN, OO. They go off while her mother thinks
that Kasia is sleeping, NN, OO, QQ. They come to a
wood, NN, PP (which is corrupt here), SS ; first or
last, to a deep stream, NN, OO, QQ, SS ; it is red sea
in RR, as in J. Jasia bids Kasia return to her mother,
NN (twice), RR ; bids her take off her rich clothes,
OO, to which she answers that she has not come here
for that. -lohn throws her into the water, NN, OO,
QQ, SS, from a bridge in the second and third. Her
apron catches on a stake or post ; she begs John for
help, and gets for answer, " I did not throw you in to
help you : you may go to the bottom," OO. She swims
to a stake, to which she clings, and John hews her in
three, QQ. Fishermen draw out the body, and carry
it to the church, NN, OO. She apostrophizes her hair
in QQ, SS, as in G, I, J, and in the same absurd terms
in QQ as in J. John is pursued and cut to pieces in
OO, also broken on the wheel. PP closely resembles
German ballads of the third class. Katie shouts three
times : at her first cry the grass curls up ; at the second
the river overflows ; the third wakes her mother, who
rouses her sons, saying, Katie is calling in the wood.
They find John with a bloody sword ; he says he has
killed a dove. They answer. No dove, but our sister,
and maltreat him till he tells what he has done with
his victim : " I have hidden her under the yew-bush ;
now put me on the wheel."
39 b, line 13 of the middle paragraph. Read Piosnki
for Pies'ni, and omit the quotation marks in this and the
line before.
40 b, line 2 (the girl's adding her hair to lengthen the
cord). In the tale of the Sea-horse, Sehiefner, Awa-
rische Texte, Memoirs of the St Petersburg Academy,
vol. XIX, No 6, p. 11 f, a sixty-ell rope being required
to rescue a prince from a well into which lie had been
thrown, and no rope forthcoming, the daughter of a sea-
king makes a rope of the required length with her hair,
and with this the prince is drawn out. Dr Reinhold
Kohler, who pointed out this incident to me, refers in
his notes to the texts, at p. vii f, to the song of Siidiii
Miirgiin, Radloff, II, 627-31, where Siidiii Miirgiin's wife,
having to rescue her husband from a pit, tries fii'st his
horse's tail, and finds it too short, then her hair, which
proves also a little short. A maid is then found whose
hair is a hundred fathoms long, and her hair being tied
on to the horse's tail, and horse, wife, and maid pulling
together, the hero is drawn out. For climbing up by a
ADDITIONS AND COERECTIONS
487
maid's hair, see, furttier, Kohler's note to Gonzenbach,
No 53, 11, 236.
40 b, line 7. A message is sent to a father by a
daughter in the same way, in Chodzko, Les Chants
historiques de ['Ukraine, p. 75; cf. p. 92, of the same.
Tristram sends messages to Isonde by linden shavings
inscribed with runes : Sir Tristrem, ed. Kiilbing, p. 56,
St. 187 ; Tristrams Saga, cap. 54, p. 68, ed. Kolbing;
Gottfried von Strassburg, vv 14427-441.
40 b, line 36. For G, I, read G, J.
40, note f. In a Ruthenian ballad a girl who runs
away from her mother with a lover tells her brothers,
who have come in search of her, 1 did not leave home
to go back again with you : Golovatsky, Part I, p. 77,
No 32 ; Part III, i, p. 17, No 4, p. 18, No 5. So, " I
have not poisoned you to help you," Part I, p. 206, No
32, p. 207, No 33.
41a, second paragraph. Golovatsky, at 1, 116, No
29, has a ballad, found elsewhere without the feature
here to be noticed, in which a Cossack, who is watering
his horse while a maid is drawing water, describes his
home as a Wonderland, like John in Polish Q. " Come
to the Ukraine with the Cos.sacks," he says. " Our land
is not like this : with us the mountains are golden, the
water is mead, the grass is silk ; with us the willows
bear pears and the girls go in gold." She yields ; they
go over one mountain and another, and when they have
crossed the third the Cossack lets his horse graze. The
maid falls to weeping, and asks the Cossack, Where are
your golden mountains, where the water that is mead,
the grass that is silk V He answers. No girl of sense
and reason engages herself to a young Cossack. So in
Zegota Pauli, P. 1. ruskiego, p. 29, No 26 = Golovat-
sky, I, 117, No 30, where the maid rejoins to the glow-
ing description, I have ranged the world : golden moun-
tains I never saw ; everywhere mountains are of stone,
and everywhere rivers are of water ; very like the girl
in Grundtvig, 82 B, st. 7 ; 183 A 6, B 5, 6.
41b, last paragraph. Several Bohemian versions are
to be added to the single example cited from Waldau's
Btihmische Granaten. This version, which is presumed
to have been taken down by Waldau himself, may be
distinguished as A. B, Susil, Moravskd Ndrodnf Pi'snu,
No 189, p. 191, ' Vrah,' ' The Murderer,' is very like A.
C, Susil, p. 193. D, Erben, Prostondrodni ceskd Pi'sne
a Ri'kadla, p. 480, No 16, ' Zabite devce,' ' The Mur-
dered Maid.' E, p. 479, No 15, ' Zabitd sestra,' ' The
Murdered Sister.' B has a double set of names, be-
ginning with Black George, — not the Servian, but
" king of Hungary," — and ending with Indriasch. The
maid is once called Annie, otherwise Katie. At her first
call the grass becomes green ; at the second the moun-
tain bows ; the third the mother hears. C has marvels
of its own. Anna entreats John to allow her to call to
her mother. " Call, call," he says, " you will not reach
her with your call ; in this dark wood, even the birds
will not hear you." At her first call a pine-tree in the
forest breaks ; at the second the river overflows ; at the
third her mother rises from the grave. She calls to
her sons to go to Anna's rescue, and they rise from
their graves. The miscreant John confesses that he
has buried their sister in the wood. They strike off his
head, and put a hat on the head, with an inscription
in gold letters, to inform people what his offence has
been. There is a gap after the seventh stanza of D,
which leaves the two following stanzas unintelligible by
themselves : 8, Choose one of the two, and trust no-
body ; 9, She made her choice, and shouted three times
towards the mountains. At the first cry the mountain
became green ; at the second the mountain bowed back-
wards ; the third the mother heard. She sent her sons
off ; they found their neighbor John, who had cut off
their sister's head. The law-abiding, and therefore
modern, young men say that John shall go to prison and
never come out alive. In E the man, a young hunter,
says. Call five times ; not even a wood-bird will hear
you. Nothing is said of the first call ; the second is
heard by the younger brother, who tells the elder that
their sister must be in trouble. The hunter has a
bloody rifle in his hand : how he is disposed of we are
not told. All these ballads but C begin with the maid
cutting grass, and all of them have the dove that is
" no dove, but our sister."
Fragments of this ballad are found, F, in Susil, p.
112, No 113, 'Nevesta neit' astnice,' 'The Unhappy
Bride ; ' G, p. 171, No 171, ' Zbojce,' ' The Murderer ; '
and there is a variation from B at p. 192, note 3, which
is worth remarking, H. F, sts 11-14 : " Get together
what belongs to you ; we will go to a foreign land ; "
and when they came to the turf, " Look my head
through." * Every hair she laid aside she wet with a
tear. And when they came into the dark of the wood
he cut her into nine [three] pieces. G. Katie meets
John in a meadow ; they sit down on the grass. " Look
my head through." She weeps, for she says there is a
black fate impending over her ; " a black one for me,
a red one for thee." He gets angry, cuts off her head,
and throws her into the river, for which he is hanored.
H. He sprang from his horse, robbed the maid, and
laughed. He set her on the grass, and bade her look
• " Cette action, si peu seante pour nous, est accomplie
dans maint conte grec, allemand, etc., par des jeunes filles
sur leurs amants, sur des dragons par les princesses qu'ils
ont enleve'es, et, meme dans une legendc bulgare en vers,
saint Georges re^oit le meme service de la demoiselle e.^-
pose'e au dragon, dont il va la delivrer. Dozon, Contes al-
banais, p. 27, note. In the Bulgarian legend referred to,
Bulgar^ki narodni pesni, by the brothers Miladinov, p. 31,
the saint having dozed off during the operation, the young
maid sheds tears, and a burning drop falls on the face of
George, and wakes him. This recalls the Magyar ballad,
Molnar Anna, see p. 46. A Cretan legend of St George has
the same trait : Jeannaraki, p. 2, v. 41. Even a dead lover
recalled to the earth by his mistress, in ballads of the Lcnore
class, asks the same service : Golovatsky, II, 70S, No 12; Su-
sil, p. 1 11, No 112, ' Umrlec,' ' The Dead Man.' ^
488
ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS
his head through. Every hair she examined she dropped
a tear for. " Why do you weep, Katie ? Is it for your
crants ? " " I am not weeping for my crants, nor am I
afraid of your sword. Let me call three times, that my
father and mother may hear." Compare German H 10,
11 ; Q 8-10, etc., etc.
42 a. These Ruthenian ballads belong with the other
Slavic parallels to No 4: A, Zegota Pauli, P. 1. rus-
kiego, p. 21 = Golovatsky, III, i, 149, No 21 ; B, Golo-
vatsky. III, i, 172, No 46. A. A man induces a girl
to go off with him in the night. They wander over one
land and another, and then feel need of rest. Why
does your head ache ? he asks of her. Are you home-
sick? " My head does not ache ; I am not homesick."
He takes her by the white sides and throws her into the
deep Donau, saying. Swim with the stream ; we shall
not live together. She swims over the yellow sand,
crying, Was I not fair, or was it my fate? and he dryly
answers. Fair ; it was thy fate. In B it is a Jew's
daughter that is wiled away. They go in one wagon ;
another is laden with boxes [of valuables ?] and pillows,
a third with gold pennies. She asks, Where is your
bouse ? Over those hills, he answers. He takes her
over a high bridge, and throws her into the Donau,
with, Swim, since you were not acquainted with our
way, our faith I
42 a. A, line 2. Read : Puymaigre.
43 a. D. Add : Poesies populaires de la France, IV,
fol. 332, Chanson de I'Aunis, Charente Inferieur ; but
even more of the story is lost.
44 a. A ballad in Casetti e Imbriani, C. p. delle Pro-
vincie meridionali, II, 1, begins like ' La Contadina alia
Fonte ' (see p. 393 a), and ends like ' La Monferrina In-
contaminata.' Of the same class as the last is, I sup-
pose, Nannarelli, Studio comparativo sui Canti popo-
lari di Arlena, p. 51, No 50 (Kcihler), which I regret
not yet to have seen.
45 a. Portuguese C, D, in Alvaro Rodrigues de Aze-
vedo, Romanceiro do Archipelago da Madeira, p. 57,
' Estoria do Bravo-Franco,' p. 60, ' Gallo-frann-o.'
47. A story from Neumiinster about one Gbrtmi-
cheel, a famous robber, in Miillenhoff', p. 37, No 2,
blends features of ' Hind Etin,' or ' The Maid and the
Dwarf-King,' No 41, with others found in the Macyar
ballad, p. 45 f. A handsome wench, who had been lost
seven years, suddenly reappeared at the home of her
parents. She said that she was not at liberty to ex-
plain where she had been, but her mother induced her
to reveal this to a stone near the side-door, and takinc
up her Station behind the door heard all. She had
been carried off by a robber ; had lived with him seven
years, and borne him seven children. The robber, who
had otherwise treated her well, had refused to let her
visit her home, but finr.Uy had granted her this permis-
sion upon her promising to say nothing about him.
When the time arrived for her daughter to go back, the
mother gave her a bag of peas, which she was to drop
one by one along the way. She was kindly received.
6=.
7^.
but presently the robber thought there was something
strange in her ways. He laid his head in her lap, invit-
ing her to perform the service so common in like cases.
^Vhile she was doing this, she could not but think how
the robber had loved her and how he was about to be
betrayed by her, and her remorseful tears dropped on
his face. " So you have told of me ! " cried the astute
robber, springing up. He cut off the children's heads
and strung them on a willow-twig before her eyes, and
was now coming to her, when people arrived, under the
mother's conduct, who put a stop to his further revenge,
and took their own. See the note, Miillenhoff, p. 592 f.
57a. D. Insert: d. A stall-copy lent me by Mrs
Alexander Forbes, Liberton, Edinburgh. (See p. 23,
note §.)
62 b. Insert after o :
d. 1^' ^. Have ye not heard of fause Sir John,
Wha livd. in the west country ?
After 2 a stanza nearly as in b.
5 vjanting.
&. But he 's taen a charm frae a£E his arm.
follow him.
five hundred. 7^. the bravest horse.
8'. So merrily.
8^. Which is called Benan Bay.
9, 11, wanting.
121. Cast afP, cast aff. 12^ To sink.
13. Nearly as in b.
14. ' Cast aff thy coats and gay mantle,
And smock o Holland lawn.
For thei'r owre costly and owre guid
To rot in the sea san.'
15. ' Then turn thee round, I pray. Sir John,
See the leaf flee owre the tree,
For it never befitted a book-learned man
A naked lady to see.'
Sir John being a Dominican friar, according
to tlie historical preface.
18. As fause Sir John did turn him round,
To see the leaf flee owre the [tree],
She grasped him in her arms sma,
And flung him in the sea.
17. ' Now lie ye there, ye wild Sir John,
Whar ye thought to lay me ;
Ye wad hae drownd me as naked 's I was
born,
But ye 's get your claes frae me ! '
ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS
489
18. Her jewels, costly, rich and rare,
She straight puts on again ;
She lightly springs upon her horse,
And leads his by the rein. .
21'. 0 that 's a foundling.
22. Then out and spake the green parrot,
He says, Fair May Culzean,
O what hae ye done wi yon brave knight ?
23. ' Hand your tongue, my pretty parrot,
An I 'se be kind to thee ;
For where ye got ae handfu o groats,
My parrot shall get three.'
25. ' There came a cat into my cage,
Had nearly worried me.
And I was calling on May Culzean
To come and set me free.'
27 wanting. 28'. Carleton sands.
292. Was dashed. 29'. The golden ring.
5. Gil Brenton.
P. 62 a, last three lines. Read: said by Lockhart to
be Miss Christian Rutherford, bis mother's half-sister.
66 b, lines 2, 3. Read: 37 G, 38 A, D, and other
versions of both.
66 b, line 4. ' Bitte Mette,' Kristensen, Jyske Folke-
minder, V, 57, No 7, affords another version.
66 b, last line. For other cases of this substitution
see Legrand, Recueil de Contes populaires grecs, p.
257, < La Prinuesse et sa Nourrice ; ' Koliler, Romania,
XI, 581-84, ' Le conte de la reine qui tua son sene-
chal ; ' Neh-Manzer, ou Les Neuf Loges, conte, traduit
du persan par M. Lescallier, Genes, 1808, p. 55, ' His-
toire du devin Afezzell.' (Kohler.) The last I have
not seen.
67 a, note •, line 37. Read: a Scotch name.
84 b. The same artifice is tried, and succeeds, in a
case of birth delayed by a man's clasping his hands
round his knees, in Asbjernsen, Norske Huldre-Even-
tyr, I, 20, 2d ed.
85 a, first paragraph. A story closely resembling
Heywood's is told in the Ziinmerische Chronik, ed.
Barack, IV, 262-64, 1882, of Heinrich von Dierstein ;
Liebrecht in Germania XIV, 404. (Kohler.) As the
author of the chronicle remarks, the tale (Heywood's)
is in the Malleus Maleficarum (1620, I, 158 f).
85 a, third paragraph. Other cases resembling Gon-
zenbach, No 54, in Pitre, Fiabe, Novelle, etc., I, 1 73,
No 18 ; Comparetti, Novelline popolari, No 33, p. 139.
(Kohler.)
85, note. Add : (Kohler.)
62
85 b. Birth is sought to be maliciously impeded in
Swabia by crooking together the little fingers. Lam-
mert, Volksmedizin in Bayern, etc., p. 165. (Kohler.)
7. Earl Brand.
P. 88. Add :
G. ' Gude Earl Brand and Auld Carle Hude,' the
Paisley Magazine, 1828, p. 321, communicated by W.
Motherwell.
H. ' Auld Carle Hood, or. Earl Brand,' Campbell
MSS, n, 32.
I. ' The Douglas Tragedy,' ' Lord Douglas' Trag-
edy,' from an old-looking stall-copy, without place or
date.
This ballad was, therefore, not first given to the
world by Mr Robert Bell, in 1857, but nearly thirty
years earlier by Motherwell, in the single volume of the
Paisley Magazine, a now somewhat scarce book. I am
indebted for the information and for a transcript to Mr
Murdoch, of Glasgow, and for a second copy to Mr Mac-
math, of Edinburgh.
92 a. Add : I. ' Hildebrand,' Wigstrom, Folkdikt-
ning, II, 13. J. ' Frciken Gyllenborg,' the same, p. 24.
96 a. BoSvar Bjarki, fighting with great effect as a
huge bear for Hrdlfr Kraki, is obliged to return to his
ordinary shape in consequence of Hjalti, who misses the
hero from the fight, mentioning his name : Saga Hrdlfs
Kraka, c. 50, Fornaldar Sogur, I, 101 ff. In Hjalmters
ok divers Saga, c. 20, F. S. Ill, 506 f, Hdi-Sr bids his
comrades not call him by name while he is fighting, in
form of a sword-fish, with a walrus, else he shall die. A
prince, under the form of an ox, fighting with a six-
headed giant, loses much of his strength, and is nigh
being conquered, because a lad has, contrary to his
prohibition, called him by name. Asbjarnsen og Moe,
Norske Folkeeventyr, 2d ed., p. 419. All these are
cited by Moe, in Nordisk Tidskrift, 1879, p. 286 f. Cer-
tain kindly domestic spirits renounce relations with men,
even matrimonial, if their name becomes known: Maun-
hardt, Wald- und Feldkulte, I, 103.
97 b. Insert: Spanish. Mila, Romancerillo Cata-
lan, 2d ed.. No 206, D, p. 164: olivera y oliverd, which,
when grown tall, join.
Servian. Add : Karadshitch, I, 345, vv 225 ff, two
pines, which intertwine. In I 309, No 421, they plant a
rose over the maid, a vine over the man, which embrace
as if they were Jani and Milenko. The ballad has
features of the Earl Brand class. (I, 239, No 341 =
Talvj, II, 85.)
Russian. Hilferding, Onezhskya Byliny, col. 154,
No 31, laburnum (?) over Basil, and cypress over So-
phia, which intertwine; col. 696, No 134, cypress and
willow; col. 1242, No 285, willow and cypress.
Little Russian (Carpathian Russiaiis in Hungary),
Golovatsky, II, 710, No 13 : John on one side of the
church, Annie on the other; rosemary on his grave, a
lily on hers, growing so high as to meet over the church.
Annie's mother cuts them down. John speaks from the
490
ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS
grave : Wicked mother, thou wouldst not let us live to-
gether ; let us rest together. Golovatsky, I, 18G, No 8 :
a maple from the man's grave, white birch from the
woman's, which mingle their leaves.
Slovenian. Stiir, O ndrodni'ch Pisni'ch a Povestech
Piemen slovanskych, p. 51 : the lovers are buried east
and west, a rose springs from the man's grave, a lily
from the maid's, which mingle their growth.
Wend. Add : Haupt and Schmaler, II, 310, No 81.
Breton. Add : Villemarque, Barzaz Breiz, ' Le
Seigneur Nann et La Fee,' see p. 379, note §, of this
volume.
98 a. Armenian. The ashes of two lovers who
have been literally consumed by a mutual passion are
deposited by sympathetic hands in one grave. Two
rose bushes rise from the grave and seek to intertwine,
but a thorn interposes and makes the union forever im-
possible. (The thorn is creed. The young man was a
Tatar, and his religion had been an insuperable obstacle
in the eyes of the maid's father.) Baron von Haxt-
hausen, Transkaukasia, I, 315 f. (Kohler.)
A Middle High German poem from a MS. of the
end of the 14th century, printed in Haupt's Zeitschrift,
VI, makes a vine rise from the common grave of Pyra-
mus and Thisbe and descend into it again: p. 517.
(Kohler.)
J. Grimm notes several instances of this marvel (not
from ballads), Ueber Frauennamen aus Blumen, Klei-
nere Schriften, II, 379 f, note **.
104.
G
The Paisley Magazine, June 2, 1828, p. 321, commuui-
cated by William Motlierwell. " Sung to a long, drawling,
monotonous tune."
1 ' Gude Earl Brand, I long to see
Faldee faldee fal deediddle a dee
All your grey hounds running over the lea.'
And the brave knights in the valley
2 ' Gude lady fair, I have not a steed but one,
But you shall ride and I shall run.'
3 They 're ower moss and they 're ower mure,
And they saw neither rich nor pure.
4 Until that they came to auld Karl Hude ;
He 's aye for ill and never for gude.
5 ' Gude Earl Brand, if ye love me,
Kill auld Karl Hude, and gar him die.'
7 ' Gude Earl Brand, whare hae ye been,
Or VFhare hae ye stown this lady sheen ? '
8 ' She 's not my lady, but my sick sister,
And she 's been at the weUs of Meen.'
9 ' If she -was sick, and very sair,
She wadna wear the red gold on her hair.
10 ' Or if she were sick, and like to be dead,
She wadna wear the ribbons red.'
11 He cam till he cam to her father's gate,
And he has rappit furious thereat.
12 ' Where is the lady o this hall ? '
' She 's out wi her maidens, playing at the
baU.'
13 ' If you '11 get me fyfteen wale wight men,
Sae fast as I '11 fetch her back again.'
14 She 's lookit ower her left collar-bane :
' O gude Earl Brand, we baith are taen.'
15 ' Light dovm, light down, and hold my steed ;
Change never your cheer till ye see me
dead.
16 'If they come on me man by man,
I '11 be very laith for to be taen.
17 ' But if they come on me one and all.
The sooner you will see me fall.'
18 0 he has kiUd them all but one,
And wha was that but auld Karl Hude.
19 And he has come on him behind,
And put in him the deadly wound.
20 0 he has set his lady on,
And he 's come whistling all along.
21 ' Gude Earl Brand, I see blood : '
' It 's but the shade o my scarlet robe.'
22 They cam tiU they cam to the water aflood ;
He 's lighted down and he 's wushen a£E the
blood.
6 ' O fair ladie, we 'U do better than sae :
Gie him a penny, and let him. gae.'
23 His mother walks the floor alone :
' 0 yonder does come my poor son.
ADDITIONS AND COKEECTION8
491
24 ' He is both murderd and andone,
Ajid all for the sake o an English loon.'
25 ' Say not sae, my dearest mother,
Marry her on my eldest brother.'
26 She set her fit up to the wa,
Faldee faldee fal deediddle adee
She 's fallen down dead amang them a'.
And the brave knights o the valley
Campbell MSS, II, 32.
1 Did you ever hear of good Earl Brand,
Aye lally an Ully lally
And the king's daughter of fair Scotland ?
And the braw knights o Airly
2 She was scarce fifteen years of age
When she came to Earl Brand's bed.
Wi the braw knights o Airly
3 ' O Earl Brand, I fain wad see
Our grey hounds run over the lea.'
Mang the braw bents o Airly
4 ' O,' says Earl Brand, ' I 've nae steads but
one,
And you shall ride and I shall run.'
Oer the braw heights o Airly
5 ' O,' says the lady, ' I hae three.
And ye shall hae yeer choice for me.'
Of the braw steeds o Airly
6 So they lap on, and on they rade,
Till they came to auld Carle Hood.
Oer the braw hills o Airly
7 Carl Hood 's aye for ill, and he 's no for good.
He 's aye for Ul, and he 's no for good.
Mang the braw hills o Airly
8 ' Where hae ye been hunting a' day,
And where have ye stolen this fair may ? '
I' the braw nights sae airly
9 ' She is my sick sister dear.
New comd home from another sister.'
I the braw nights sae early
10 ' 0,' says the lady, ' if ye love me,
Gie him a penny fee and let him gae.'
I the braw nights sae early
11 He 's gane home to her father's bower.
12 ' Where is the lady o this ha ? '
' She 's out wi the young maids, playing at the
ba.'
I the braw nights so early
13 ' No,' says another, ' she 's riding oer the moor.
And a' to be Earl Brand's whore.'
I the braw nights so early
14 The king mounted fifteen weel armed men,
A' to get Earl Brand taen.
I the braw hills so early
15 The lady looked over her white horse mane :
* O Earl Brand, we will be taen.'
In the braw hills so early
16 He says, If they come one by one,
Ye '11 no see me so soon taen.
In the braw hills so early
17 So they came every one but one,
And he has kiUd them a' but ane.
In the braw hills so early
18 And that one came behind his back.
And gave Earl Brand a deadly stroke.
In the braw lulls of Airly
19 For as sair wounded as he was.
He lifted the lady on her horse.
In the braw nights so early
20 ' 0 Earl Brand, I see thy heart's bluid ! '
* It 's but the shadow of my scarlet robe.'
I the braw nights so early
21 He came to his mother's home ;
22 She looked out and cryd her son was gone.
And a' for the sake [of] an English loon.
492
ADDITIONS AND COKRECTIONS
23 ' What will I do wi your lady fair ? '
' Marry her to my eldest brother.'
The brawest knight i Airly
21*. to her. 21\ 22 are written as one stanza.
A stall-copy lent me by Mrs Alexander Eorbes, Libeiton,
Edinburgh.
1 ' Rise up, rise up, Lord Douglas,' she said,
' And draw to your arms so bright ;
Let it never be said a daughter of yours
Shall go with a lord or a knight.
2 ' Rise up, rise up, my seven bold sons,
And draw to your armour so bright ;
Let it never be said a sister of yours
Shall go with a lord or a knight.'
3 He looked over his left shoulder.
To see what he could see.
And there he spy'd her seven brethren bold,
And her father that lov'd her tenderly.
4 ' Light down, light down, Lady Margret,' he
said,
' And hold my steed in thy hand,
That I may go fight with your seven brethren
bold.
And your father who 's just at hand.'
5 0 there she stood, and bitter she stood.
And never did shed a tear,
TUl once she saw her seven brethren slain.
And her father she lovd so dear.
6 ' Hold, hold your hand, William, ' she said,
' For thy strokes are wondrous sore ;
For sweethearts I may get many a one.
But a father I neer wiU get more.'
7 She took out a handkerchief of hoUand so
fine
And wip'd her father's bloody woimd.
Which ran more clear than the red wine,.
And forked on the cold ground.
8 ' 0 chuse you, chuse you, Margret,' he said,
' Whether you will go or bide ! '
' I must go with you. Lord WUliam,' she said,
' Since you 've left me no other guide.'
9 He lifted her on a milk-white steed.
And himself on a dapple grey,
With a blue gilded horn hanging by his side.
And they slowly both rode away.
10 Away they rode, and better they rode,
Till they came to yonder sand,
Till once they came to yon river side.
And there they lighted down.
11 They lighted down to take a drink
Of the spring that ran so clear.
And there she spy'd his bonny heart's blood,
A rimning down the stream.
12 ' Hold up, hold up, Lord William,' she says,
' For I fear that you are slain ; '
' 'T is nought but the shade of my scarlet
clothes.
That is sparkling down the stream.'
13 He lifted her on a milk-white steed.
And himself on a dapple grey.
With a blue gilded horn hanging by his side.
And slowly they rode away.
14 Ay they rode, and better they rode,
TiU they came to his mother's bower ;
Till once they came to his mother's bower.
And down they lighted there.
15 ' O mother, mother, make my bed,
And make it saft and fine.
And lay my lady close at my back,
That I may sleep most sound.'
16 Lord William he died eer middle o the night.
Lady Margret long before the morrow ;
Lord William he died for pure true love,
And Lady Margret died for sorrow.
17 Lord William was bury'd in Lady Mary's kirk.
The other in Saint Mary's quire ;
Out of William's grave sprang a red rose,
And out of Margret's a briar.
18 And ay they grew, and ay they threw,
As they wad fain been near ;
And by this you may ken right well
They were twa lovers dear.
105 b. D. 10. For Kinlock (twice) read Kinloeh ;
and read I, 330.
ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS
493
The stanza cited is found in Kinloch MSS, VII, 95
and 255.
107 b. There is possibly a souvenir of Walter in
Susil, p. 105, No 107. A man and wonijin are riding
on one horse in the mountains. He asks her to sing.
Her song is heard by robbers, who come, intending to
kill him and carry her off". He bids her go under a
maple-tree, kills twelve, and spares one, to carry the
booty home.
9. The Fair Flower of Northumberland.
P. Ill a. B b, as prepared by Kinloch for printing,
is found in Kinloch MSS, VII, 105.
Add: P. 'The Fair Flower of Northumberland,'
Gibb MS., No 8.
117.
Gibb MS., No 8 : ' The Fair Flower o Northnmberland,'
from Jeannie Stirling, a young girl, as learned from her
grandmother.
1 She stole the keys from her father's bed-head,
0 but her love it was easy won !
She opened the gates, she opened them wide,
She let him out o the prison strong.
2 She went into her father's stable,
O but her love it was easy won !
She stole a steed that was both stout and
sti'ong,
To carry him hame frae Northumberland.
3 ' I 'U be cook in your kitchen,
Noo sure my love has been easy won !
I '11 serve your own lady with hat an with
hand,
For 1 dauma gae back to Northumberland.'
4 * I need nae cook in my kitchin,
O but your love it was easy won !
Ye 'U serve not my lady with hat or with hand,
For ye maun gae back to Northumberland.'
5 When she gaed hame, how her father did ban !
' O but your love it was easy won !
A fail' Scottish girl, not sixteen years old.
Was once the fair flower o Northumber-
land! '
10. The Twa Sisters.
Page 118 b. K is found in Kinloch MSS, VII, 256.
Add : V. ' Benorie,' Campbell MSS, II, 88.
W. ' Norham, down by Norham,' communicated by
Mr 1'homas Lugton, of Kelso.
X. ' Binnorie,' Dr Joseph Robertson's Note-Book,
January 1, 1830, p. 7, one stanza.
Y. Communicated to Percy by Rev. P. Parsons,
April 7, 1770.
119 a. Note *, first line. Read: I, 315.
120 a, first paragraph. " A very rare but very stupid
modern adaptation, founded on the tradition as told in
SmSland, appeared in Gotheborg, 1836, small 8vo, pp
32 : Antiquiteter i Thorskinge. Fornminnet eller Kum-
mel-Runan, tolkande Systersveket BroUopps-dagen."
The author was C. G. Lindblom, a Swedish priest. The
first line is :
" En Naskonnng bodde p8 Illvedens fjall."
Professor George Stephens.
120 a. Note *, lines 3, 4. Read : and in 14, 15, calls
the drowned girl " the bonnie miller's lass o Binorie,"
meaning the bonnie miller o Binorie's lass.
124 a, last paragraph. A drowned girl grows up on
the sea-strand as a linden with nine branches: from the
ninth her brother carves a harp. " Sweet the tone,"
he says, as he plays. The mother calls out through her
tears. So sang my youngest daughter. G. Tillemann,
in Livona, ein historisch-poetisches Taschenbuch, Riga
u. Dorpat, 1812, p. 187, Ueber die Volkslieder der Let-
ten. Dr R. Kohler points out to me a version of this
ballad given with a translation by Bishop Carl Chr.
Ulmann in the Dorpater Jahrbiicher, II, 404, 1834,
'Die Lindenharfe,' and another by Pastor Karl Ulmann
in his Lettische Volkslieder, iibertragen, 1874, p. 199,
No 18, 'Das Lied von der Jungsten.' In the former
of these the brother says. Sweet sounds my linden harp !
The mother, weeping. It is not the linden harp ; it is thy
sister's soul that has swum through the water to us ; it
is the voice of my youngest daughter.
124 b, first paragraph. In Bohemian, ' Zakleti dcera,'
'The Daughter Cursed,' Erben, 1864, p. 466 (with
other references) ; Moravian, Susil, p. 143, No 146.
Dr R. Kohler further refers to Peter, Volksthiimliches
aus Osterreichisch-Schlesien, I, 209, 'Die drei Spiel-
leute;' Meinert, p. 122, ' Die Erie;' Vernaleken, Al-
pensagen, p. 289, No 207, ' Der Ahornbaum.'
125 b. Add to the citations: 'Le Sifflet enchante,'
E. Cosquin, Contes populaires lorrains. No 26, Ro-
mania, VI, 565, with annotations, pp 567 f; Kohler's
Nachtriige in Zeitschrift fiir romanische Philologie, I],
350 f ; Engelien u. Lahn, Der Volksmund in der Mark
Brandenburg, I, 105, 'Dia 3 Briiijder ; ' Sebillot, Litte-
rature orale de la Haute Bretagne, p. 220, Les Trois
Freres, p. 226, ' Le Sifflet qui parle.' (Kohler.)
132. I. 10*. Read: for water.
K. Say : Kinloch MSS, VII, 256.
494 ADDITIONS AND. CORRECTIONS
1^. And I'll gie the hail o my father's land.
2. The first tune that the bonnie fiddle playd,
. ' Hang my sister Alison,' it said.
8. ' I wad gie you.'
136 a. R b. Read : Lanarkshire.
V
Campbell MS., II, 88.
1 There dwelt twa sisters in a bower,
Benorie, O Benorie
The youngest o them was the fairest flower.
In the merry milldams o Benorie
2 There cam a wooer them to woo,
11 The miller's daughter cam out clad in red,
Seeking water to bake her bread.
At etc.
12 ' O father, 0 father, gae fish yeer mill-dam,
There 's either a lady or a milk-[white] swan.'
In etc.
13 The miller cam out wi his lang cleek.
And he cleekit the lady out by the feet.
From the bonny milldam, etc.
14 Ye wadna kend her pretty feet,
The American leather was sae neat.
In etc.
15 Ye wadna kend her pretty legs,
The silken stockings were so neat tied.
In etc.
3 He 's gien the eldest o them a broach and a real,
Because that she loved her sister weel.
At etc.
4 He 's gien the eldest a gay penknife.
He loved the youngest as dear as his life.
At etc.
6 ' 0 sister, 0 sister, will ye go oer yon glen.
And see my father's ships coming in ? '
At etc.
6 ' 0 sister dear, I darena gang.
Because I 'm feard ye throw me in.'
The etc.
7 ' O set your foot on yon sea stane.
And was yeer hands in the sea foam.'
At etc.
8 She set her foot on yon sea stane.
To wash her hands in the sea foam.
At etc.
«7 • • • . •
But the eldest has thrown the youngest in.
The etc.
10 ' 0 sister, 0 sister, lend me your hand,
And ye 'se get William and a' his land.'
At etc.
16 Ye wadna kend her pretty waist,
The silken stays were sae neatly laced.
In etc.
17 Ye wadna kend her pretty face,
It was sae prettily preend oer wi lace.
In etc.
18 Ye wadna kend her yellow hair.
It was sae besmeared wi dust and glar.
In etc.
19 By cam her father's fiddler fine.
And that lady's spirit spake to him.
From etc.
20 She bad him take tliree taits o her hair.
And make them three strings to his fiddle sae
rare.
At etc.
21 'Take two of my fingers, sae lang and sae
white.
And make them pins to your fiddle sae neat.'
At etc.
22 The ae fii-st spring that the fiddle played
Was, Cursed be Sir John, my ain true-love.
At etc.
23 The next sprmg tliat the fiddle playd
Was, Burn burd Hellen, she threw me in.
The etc.
ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS
495
2, 3. In the MS. thus :
There came . . .
Benorie . . .
He 's gien . . .
At the merry . . .
Because that . . .
At the merry . . .
8, 9. In the MS. thus :
She set . . .
Benorie . . .
To wash . . .
At the . . .
But the eldest . . .
The bomiy . . .
From 18 on, the burden is
O Benorie, O Benorie.
8 He could not catch her by the waist,
For her silken stays they were tight laced.
9 But he did catch her by the band.
And pulled her poor body unto dry land.
10 He took three taets o her bonnie yellow hair,
To make harp stringfs they were so rare.
11 The very first tune that the bonnie harp
played
Was The aldest has cuisten the youngest away.
Dr Joseph Robertson's Note-Book, January 1, 1830, p. 7.
I see a lady in the dam,
Binnorie, oh Blnnorie
She shenes as sweet as ony swan.
I the bonny miUdams o Binnorie
w
Commanicatcd bj' Mr Thomas Lugton, of Kelso, as snng
Commnnicated to Percy, April 7, 1770, and April 19,
"""' "' ^""'"' ~ °"""s 1775 by the Rev. P. Parsons, of Wye, near Ashford, Kent :
by an old cotter-woman fifty years ago ; learned by her from „ .. , j t .u »u t \.u • • l , ■» t
^ J J a t J "taken down from the mouth of the spinning-wheel, if I
her grandfather. ^^^ ^ ^^^^ ^j^^ expression."
1 Ther were three ladies playing at the ba,
Norham, down by Norham
And there cam a knight to view them a'.
By the bonnie mill-dams o Norham
2 He courted the aldest wi diamonds and rings,
But he loved the youngest abune a' things.
1 There was a king lived in the North Country,
Hey down down dery down
There was a king lived in the North Country,
And the bough it was bent to me
There was a king lived in the North Country,
And he had daughters one, two, three.
I 'U prove true to my love,
If my love will prove true to me.
3 ' Oh sister, oh sister, lend me your hand,
And pull my poor body unto dry land.
4 ' Oh sister, oh sister, lend me your glove,
And you shall have my own true love ! '
5 Oot cam the miller's daughter upon Tweed,
To carry in water to bake her bread.
6 ' Oh father, oh father, there 's a fish in your
dam ;
It either is a lady or a milk-white swan.'
7 Oot cam the miller's man upon Tweed,
And there he spied a lady lying dead.
2 He gave the eldest a gay gold ring,
But he gave the younger a better thing.
3 He bought the younger a beaver hat ;
The eldest she thought much of that
4 ' Oh sister, oh sister, let us go run.
To see the ships come sailing along ! '
5 And when they got to the sea-side brim.
The eldest pushed the younger in.
6 ' Oh sister, oh sister, lend me your hand,
I 'U make you heir of my house and land.'
496
ADDITIONS AND COEEECTIONS
7 ' I '11 neither lend you my hand nor my
glove,
Unless you grant me your true-love.'
8 Then down she sunk and away she swam,
Untill she came to the miller's miU-dam.
9 The miller's daughter sat at the mill-door,
As fair as never was seen before.
10 ' Oh father, oh father, there swims a swan,
Or else the body of a dead woman.'
11 The miUer he ran with his fishing hook.
To pull the fair maid out o the brook.
12 ' Wee '11 hang the miller upon the mill-gate,
For drowning of my sister Kate.'
139 a. K. I wad give you, is the heginning of a new
stanza (^as seen above}.
141 b. S. Read: l^. MS., Orless.
11. The Cruel Brother.
P. 141. B, I. Insert the title, ' Tl:e Cruel Brother.'
Add: L. ' The King of Fairies,' Campbell MSS, IT,
9.
M. ' The Roses grow sweet aye,' Campbell MSS, II,
19.
26.
N. ' The Bride's Testamen,' Dr Joseph Robertson's
Note-Book, January 1, 1830, one stanza.
142 b, second paragraph, lines 5, 6. Say : on the way
kisses her arm, neck, and mouth.
Add, as varieties of ' Rizzardo bello : '
B. ' Luggieri,' Contado aretino, communicated by
Giulio Salvatori to the Rassegna Settimanale, Rome,
1879, June 22, No 77, p. 485 ; reprinted in Romania,
XI, 391, note.
C. ' Rizzol d'Amor,' Guerrini, Alcuni Canti p. ro-
magnoli, p. 3, 1880.
D. ' La Canzone de 'Nucenzie,' Pitrd e Salomone-
Marino, Archivio per Tradizioni popolari, I, 213, 1882.
143. Slavic ballads resembling ' Graf Friedrich.'
Moravian, Susil, ' Neit'astna svatba,' ' The Unhappy
Wedding,' No 89, c, d, pp 85 f. A bridegroom is bring-
ing homo his bride; his sword slips from the sheath and
wounds the bride in the side. lie binds up the wound,
and begs her to hold out till she comes to the house.
The bride can eat nothing, and dies in the night. Her
mother comes in the morning with loads of cloth and
feathers, is put off when she asks for her daughter, re-
proaches the bridegroom for having killed her ; he
pleads his innocence.
Servian. Karadshitch, I, 309, No 421, ' Jani and
Milenko,' belongs to this class, though mixed with por-
tions of at least one other ballad (' Earl Brand '). Mi-
lenko wooes the fair Jani, and is favored by her mother
and by all her brotliers but the youngest. This brother
goes hunting, and bids Jani open to nobody while he is
away, but Milenko carries her off on his horse. As they
are riding over a green hill, a branch of a tree catches
in Jani's dress. Milenko attempts to cut the branch off
with his knife, but in so doing wounds Jani in the head.
Jani binds up the wound, and they go on, and presently
meet the youngest brother, who hails Milenko, asks
where he got the fair maid, discovers the maid to be
his sister, but bids her Godspeed. On reaching his
mother's house, Milenko asks that a bed may be pre-
pared for Jani, who is in need of repose. Jani dies in
the night, Milenko in the morning. They are buried
in one grave ; a rose is planted over her, a grape-vine
over him, and these intertwine, " as it were Jani with
Milenko."
143 b, after the first paragraph. A pallikar, who is
bringing home his bride, is detained on the way in con-
sequence of his whole train leaving him to go after a
stag. The young man, who has never seen his bride's
face, reaches over his horse to give her a kiss ; his knife
disengages itself and wounds her. She begs him to
staunch the blood with his handkerchief, praying only to
live to see her bridegroom's house. This wish is al-
lowed her ; she withdraws the handkerchief from the
wound and expires. Dozen, Chansons p. bulgares, ' Le
baiser fatal,' p. 270, No 49.
143 b, sixth line of the third paragraph. Read:
' Lord Randal'
144 a, line 4. ' Catarina de Lid ; ' in Milil, Roman-
cerillo Catalan, 2d ed.. No 307, p. 291, ' Trato feroz,'
seven versions.
Line 15. Cf. Blad^, Poesies p. de la Gascogne, II,
61.
144 b, first paragraph. A mother, not liking her
son's wife, puts before him a glass of mead, and poison
before the wife. God exchanges them, and the son
drinks the poison. The son makes his will. To his
brother he leaves four black horses, to his sister four
cows and four calves, to his wife a house. " And to
me ? " the mother asks. " To you that big stone and
the deep Danube, because you have poisoned me and
parted me from my beloved." Susil, ' Matka traviCka,'
pp 154, 155, No 157, two versions.
144 b, second paragraph. ' El testamento de Amelia,'
No 220, p. 185, of the second edition of Romancerillo
Catalan, with readings of eleven other copies, A-F,
A,-F,. In B, only have we an ill bequest to the mother.
After leaving her mother a rosary, upon the mother's
asking again. What for me ? the dying lady says, I will
leave you my chopines, clogs, so that when you come
downstairs they may break your neck.
There are testaments in good will also in ' Elveskud,'
Grundtvig, No 47, IV, 836 ff, L 14, 15, M 17, O 17-19.
ADDITIONS AND COBRECTIONS
497
151.
Campbell MSS, II, 19.
1 There were three ladies playing at the ba,
With a hey and a lilly gay
When the King o Fairies rode by them a'.
And the roses they grow sweetlie
2 The foremost one was clad in blue ;
He askd at her if she 'd be his doo.
3 The second of them was clad in red ;
He askd at her if she 'd be his bride.
4 The next of them was clad in green ;
He askd at her if she 'd be his queen.
5 ' Go you ask at my father then.
And you may ask at my mother then.
6 ' You may ask at my sister Ann,
And not forget my brother John.'
7 ' 0 I have askd at your father then.
And I have askd at your mother then.
8 ' And I have askd at your sister Ann,
But I 've quite forgot your brother John.'
9 Her father led her down the stair.
Her mother combd down her yellow hair.
10 Her sister Ann led her to the cross,
And her brother John set her on her horse.
11 ' Now you are high and I am low,
Give me a kiss before ye go.'
12 She 's lootit down to gie him a kiss.
He gave her a deep wound and didna miss.
13 And with a penknife as sharp as a dart,
And he has stabbit her to the heart
14 ' Ride up, ride up,' says the foremost man,
' I think our bride looks pale an wan.'
15 ' Bide up, ride up,' says the middle man,
* I see her heart's blude trinkling down.'
16 ' Ride on, ride,' says the Fairy King,
' She will be dead lang ere we win hame.'
63
17 ' O I wish I was at yonder cross,
Where my brother John put me on my horse.
18 ' I wish I was at yonder thorn,
I wad curse the day that ere I was born.
19 ' I wish I was at yon green hUl,
Then I wad sit and bleed my fill.'
20 ' What will you leave your father then ? '
' The milk-white steed that I ride on.'
21 ' What will you leave your mother then ? '
' My silver Bible and my golden fan.'
22 ' What will ye leave your sister Ann ? '
' My good lord, to be married on.'
23 ' What will ye leave your sister Pegg ? '
' The world wide to go and beg.'
24 ' What will you leave your brother John ? '
' The gallows-tree to hang him on.'
25 ' What will you leave your brother's wife ? '
* Grief and sorrow to end her life.'
Burden in all but 1, 2, 13, UUy hey ; in 16, 17, 18,
spring sweetlie ; in 22, smell sweetlie.
M
Campbell MSS, II, 26.
1 There was three ladies playing at the ba.
With a hay and a lUly gay
A gentleman cam amang them a'.
And the roses grow sweet aye
2 The first of them was clad in yellow.
And he askd at her gin she 'd be his marrow.
3 The next o them was clad in green ;
He askd at her gin she 'd be his queen.
4 The last o them [was] clad in red ;
He askd at her gin she 'd be his bride.
5 ' Have ye asked at my father dear ?
Or have ye asked my mother dear ?
6 ' Have ye asked my sister Ann ?
Or have ye asked my brother John ? '
498
ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS
7 ' I have asked yer father dear,
And I have asked yer mother dear.
8 ' I have asked yer sister Ann,
But I 've quite forgot your brother John.'
9 Her father dear led her thro them a',
Her mother dear led her thro the ha.
10 Her sister Ann led her thro the closs.
And her brother John stabbed her on her
horse.
11 ' Ride up, ride up,' says the foremost man,
' I think our bride looks pale and wan.'
12 ' Ride up,' cries the bonny bridegroom,
' I think the bride be bleeding.'
13 ' This is the bludy month of May,
Me and my horse bleeds night and day.
14 ' O an I were at yon green hill,
I wad ly down and bleed a while.
15 ' 0 gin I was at yon red cross,
I wad light down and corn my horse.
16 ' O an I were at yon kirk-style,
I wad lye down and soon be weel.'
17 When she cam to yon green hill.
Then she lay down and bled a while.
18 And when she cam to yon red cross.
Then she lighted and corned her horse.
19 ' What will ye leave your father dear ? '
' My milk-white steed, which cost me dear.'
20 ' What will ye leave your mother dear ? '
' The bludy clothes that I do wear.'
21 ' What will ye leave your sister Ann ? '
' My silver bridle and my golden fan.'
22 ' What will ye leave your brother John ? '
' The gallows-tree to hang him on.'
23 ' What will ye leave to your sister Pegg ? '
' The wide world for to go and beg.'
24 When she came to yon kirk-style,
Then she lay down, and soon was weel.
151.
17-.
green cross,
bleed.
N
Dr Joseph Robertson's Note-Book, January 1, 1830, No 4.
Then out bespak the foremost priest :
Wi a heigh ho and a liUy gay
I tliink she 's bleedin at the breast.
The flowers they spring so sweetly
12. Lord Randal.
P. 151.
B. Add ; Kinloch MSS, VII, 89.
D. Read : a. ' Lord Randal,' Minstrelsy, etc. b.
' Lord Rannal,' Campbell ]MSS, II, 269.
I. Add : h. Communicated by Mr George M. Rich-
ardson, i. Communicated by Mr George L. Kittredge.
K. b. Insert after Popular Rhymes : 1826, p. 295.
Add: d. 'The Crowdin Dou,' Kinloch MSS, I, 184.
Add: P. 'Lord Ronald, my son,' communicated by
]Mr Macmath, of Edinburgh.
Q. ' Lord Randal,' Pitcairn's MSS, III, 19.
R. ' Little wee toorin dow,' Pitcairn's MSS, III, 13,
from tradition.
153 a. I failed to mention, though I had duly noted
them, three versions of ' L'Avvelenato,' which are cited
by Professor D'Ancona in his Poesia popolare Italiana,
pp 106 ft'.
D. The Canon Lorenzo Panciatichi refers to the bal-
lad in a ' Cicalata in lode della Padella e della Frit-
tura,' recited at the Crusea, September 24, 1656, and
in such manner as shows that it was well known. He
quotes the first question of the mother, " Dove andastu
a cena," etc. To this the son answered, he says, that
he had been poisoned with a roast eel : and the mother
asking what the lady had cooked it in, the reply was.
In the oil pot.
E. A version obtained by D'Ancona from the singing
of a young fellow from near Pisa, of which the first four
stanzas are given. Some verses after these are lost, for
the testament is said to supervene immediately.
F. A version from Lecco, which has the title, derived
from its burden, ' De lu cavalieri e figliu de re,' A.
Trifone Nutricati Briganti, Intorno ai Canti e Racconti
popolari del Leccese, p. 17. The first four stanzas are
cited, and it appears from these that the prince had
cooked the eel himself, and, appropriately, in a gold
pan.
154 a, first paragraph. F is given by Meltzl, Acta
Comparationis, 1880, columns 143 f, in another dialect.
154 b. Magyar. The original of this ballad, 'A
megetett Janos,' ' Poisoned John ' (as would appear, in
the Szekler idiom), was discovered by the Unitarian
bishop Kriza, of Klausenburg, and was jjublished by
him in J. Arany's ' Koszoru,' in 18G4. It is more ex-
actly translated by Meltzl in the Acta Comparationis
ADDITIONS AND COKRECTIONS
499
Litterarum Universarum, 1880, vii, columns 30 f, the
original immediately preceding. Aigner has omitted
the second stanza, and made the third into two, in his
translation. The Szekler has ten two-line stanzas, with
the burden, Ah, my bowels are on fire ! Ah, make ready
my bed 1 In the second stanza John says he has eaten
a four-footed crab ; in the sixth he leaves his elder
brother his yoke of oxen ; in the seventh he leaves his
team of four horses to his younger brother. Also trans-
lated in Ungarische Revue, 1883, p. 139, by G. Hein-
rich.
B, another Szekler version, taken down by Meltzl
from the mouth of a girl, is in seven two-line stanzas,
with the burden. Make my bed, sweet mother I ' Jdnos,'
Acta, cols 140 f, with a German translation. John has
been at his sister-in-law's, and had a stnfied chicken
and a big cake. At his elder sister's they gave him the
back of the axe, bloody stripes. He bequeaths to his
elder sister remorse and sickness ; to his sister-in-law
six oxen and his wagon ; to his father illness and pov-
erty ; to his mother kindness and beggary.
156 b, second paragraph. Polish : add Roger, p.
66, No 119. Add further : Little Russian, Golovatsky,
Part I, pp 206, 207, 209, Nos 32, 33, 35. Masovian,
Kozlowski, No 14, p. 52, p. 53. (Sacharof, IV, 7 = Cel-
akovsky. III, 108.)
157 a, second paragraph. Kaden translates Nanna-
relli, p. 52. (Kbhler.)
157 b. Italian A is translated by Evelyn Carrington
in The Antiquary, III, 156 f. D also by Freiligrath,
II, 226, ed. Stuttgart, 1877.
158 a. B. Found in Kinloch MSS, VII, 89. The
sixth stanza is not there, and was probably taken from
Scott, D.
160 a. D. Read : a. Minstrelsy, etc. b. Campbell
MSS, II, 269.
163 a. I. Add: h. By Mr George M. Richardson,
as learned by a lady in Southern New Hampshire, about
fifty years ago, from an aged aunt. i. By Mr George
L. Kittredge, obtained from a lady in Exeter, N. H.
164 a. K. Insert under b, after Scotland : 1826, p.
295. Add : d. Kinloch MSS, I, 184.
164 b. K G'^. Read : head and his feet.
' I 've been in the wood hunting ; mother,
make my bed soon.
For I am weary, weary hunting, and fain
would lie doun.'
2 ' O where did you dine. Lord Ronald, my
son?
O where did you dine, my handsome young
one ?'
' I dined with my sweetheart ; mother, make
my bed soon,
For I am weary, weary hunting, and fain
would lie doun.'
3 ' "What got you to dine on, Lord Ronald, my
son ?
What got you to dine on, my handsome young
one ?'
' I got eels boiled in water that in heather doth
run.
And I am weary, weary hunting, and fain
would lie doun.'
4 ' What did she wi the broo o them. Lord Ron-
ald, my son ?
What did she wi the broo o them, my hand-
some young one
?'
' She gave it to my hounds for to live upon.
And I am weary, weary hunting, and fain
would lie doun.'
5 ' Where are your hounds now, Lord Ronald,
my son ?
Where are your hounds now, my handsome
young one ? '
' They are a' swelled and bursted, and sae will
I soon,
And I am weary, weary hunting, and fain
would lie doun.'
165.
Communicated by Mr Macmath, of Edinburgh, as derived
from his aunt, Miss Jane Webster, formerly of Airds of
KeUs, now {January, 1883) of Dairy, Kirkcudbrightshire,
who learned it more than fifty years ago from Mary Wil-
liamson, then a niirse-maid at Airds.
1 ' Where hae ye been a' day, Lord Ronald, my
son ?
Where hae ye been a' day, my handsome
young one ? '
6 ' What will you leave your father, Lord Ron-
ald, my son ?
What will you leave your father, my handsome
young one ? '
' I '11 leave him my lands for to live upon.
And I am weary, weary hunting, and fain
would lie doun.'
7 ' What will you leave your brother. Lord Ron-
ald, my son ?
What will you leave your brother, my hand-
some young one
?'
500
ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS
' I '11 leave him my gallant steed for to ride
upon,
And I am weary, weary hunting, and fain
would lie doun.'
8 ' What will you leave your sister, Lord Ronald,
my son ?
What will you leave your sister, my handsome
yoimg one ? '
' I '11 leave her my gold watch for to look
upon.
And I am weary, weary hunting, and fain
would lie doun.'
9 ' What will you leave your mother. Lord Ron-
ald, my son ?
What wiU you leave your mother, my hand-
some young one
?'
' I 'U leave her my Bible for to read upon.
And I am weary, weary hunting, and fain
would lie doun.'
10 ' What will you leave your sweetheart. Lord
Ronald, my son ?
What will you leave your sweetheart, my hand-
some young one ? '
'I'll leave her the gallows-tree for to hang
upon.
It was her that poisoned me ; ' and so he fell
doun.
Q
Pitcairn's MSS, III, 19. " This was commnnicated to me
by my friend Patrick Robertson, Esq., Advocate,* who
heard it sung by an old lady in the North Country ; and
thouf;h by no means enthusiastic about popular poetry, it
struck him so forcibly that he requested her to repeat it
slowly, so as he might write it down." Stanzas 2-5 " were
very much similar to the set in Scott's Minstrelsy," and
were not taken down.
1 ' 0 whare hae ye been, Lord Randal, my
son ?
O whare hae ye been, my handsome young
man? '
' Oer the peat moss mang the heather, mother,
mak my bed soon,
For I 'm weary, weary hunting, and fain wad
lie down.'
* Afterwards a judge, with the name of Lord Robert-
son, but universally known as Peter Robertson, celebrated
for his wit and good fellowship as well as his law, friend of
6 ' What leave ye to your father. Lord Randal,
my son ?
What leave ye to your father, my handsome
young man ? '
' I leave my houses and land, mother, mak my
bed soon.
For I 'm weary, weary hunting, and fain wad
lie down.'
7 ' What leave ye to your brother. Lord Randal,
my son ?
What leave ye to your brother, my handsome
young man ? '
' 0 the guid milk-white steed tliat I rode upon,
For I 'm weary, weary hunting, and fain wad
lie down.'
8 ' What leave ye to your true-love, Lord Ran-
dal, my son ?
What leave ye to your true-love, my hand-
some young man
9 '
* O a high, high gaUows, to hang her upon.
For I 'm weary, weary hunting, and fain wad
lie down.'
R
Pitcairn's MSS, III, II. "From tradition: widow Ste-
venson."
1 ' Whare hae ye been a' day, my little wee toorin
dow ? '
' It 's I 've been at my grandmammy's ; mak my
bed, mammy, now.'
2 ' And what did ye get frae your grandmammy,
my little wee toorin dow ? '
' It 's I got a wee bit fishy to eat ; mak my bed,
mammy, now.'
3 ' An what did ye do wi the banes o it, my lit-
tle wee toorin dow ? '
' I gied it to my black doggy to eat ; mak my
bed, mammy, now.'
4 ' An what did your little black doggy do syne,
my little wee toorin dow ? '
' He shot out his head, and his feet, and he
died ; as I do, mammy, now.'
Scott, Christopher North, and Lockhart ; " the Paper Lord,
Lord Petei-, who broke the laws of God, of man, and metre."
Mr Macmath's note.
ADDITIONS AND COKKECTIONS
501
S
Communicated to Percy by TJev. P. Parsons, of Wye, near
Ashford, Kent, April 19, 1775 : taken down by a friend of
Mr Parsons " from the spinning-wheel, in Suffolk."
1 'Where have you been today, Randall, my
son ?
Where have you been today, my only man ? '
' I have been a himting, mother, make my bed
soon.
For I 'm sick at the heart, fain woud lie down.
Dear sister, hold my head, dear mother, make
my bed,
I am sick at the heart, fain woud lie down.'
2 ' What have you eat today, Randal, my son ?
What have you eat today, my only man ? '
' I have eat an eel ; mother, make,' etc.
3 * What was the colour of it, Randal, my son ?
What was the colour of it, my only man ? '
' It was neither green, grey, blue nor black,
But speckled on the back ; make,' etc.
4 ' Who gave you eels today, Randal, my son?
Who gave you eels today, my only man ? '
' My own sweetheart ; mother, make,' etc.
5 ' Where shall I make your bed, Randal, my
son ?
Where shall I make your bed, my only man ? '
' In the churchyard ; mother, make,' etc.
6 ' What will you leave her then, Randall, my
son?
What will you leave her then, my only man ? '
' A halter to hang herself ; make,' etc.
166 a.
D. b.
b.
166 b.
I. h.
k.
b 2 = a4;b3 =
a 3 ; a 2i> «, S* ^ are
Insert after C :
Disordered ; b 1 ^ a 1
a 5»- 2 4- a 2»' < ; b 4 z
wanting.
1*. been at the hunting.
3^. I fear ye 've drunk poison.
3' = a 2'. I supd wi my auntie.
41' * = a 31' ^. your supper.
This copy may be an imperfect recollection of a
Four stanzas only, 1, 2, 6, 7.
1^. my own little one.
1*. at the heart . . . and fain.
6^. will you leave mother.
7*. will you leave grandma. 7'. a rope.
Seven stanzas.
1'. to see grandmother.
1*. sick at heart, and fain.
2*. Striped eels fried.
3 = a 6, d 6, h 3.
3'' '. Your grandmother has poisoned you.
3*. I know it, I know it.
4 ^ a 6. 4^' ^. would you leave mother.
5 = a 8, b 9, h 7.
51,2. would you leave sister.
5'. A box full of jewels.
6 = a7;7 = a8.
6^ '. would you leave grandmother.
6'. A rope for to hang her.
71' ^. O where shall I make it.
K. Add after c :
d. 1^. my bonnie wee crowdin, and always.
2*. frae your stepmither.
2'. She gied me a bonnie wee fish, it was baith
black and blue.
5^. my ain wee dog.
6^. And whare is your ain wee dog.
6'. It laid down its wee headie and deed,
And sae maun I do nou.
Q. " The second, third, fourth, and fifth stanzas
were very much similar to the set Lord Ronald, in
Scott's Border Minstrelsy, and as Mr Robertson was
hurried he did not take down the precise words."
MS., p. 21.
Ronald is changed to Randal in 6, 7, but is left in 8.
R. Written in four-line stanzas.
13. Edward.
P. 168 a, first paragraph. Add : Swedish E, Amin-
son, Bidrag till Sodermanlands Kulturhistoria, iii, 37,
eight stanzas. Nine stanzas of Finnish B are trans-
lated by Schott, Acta Cpmparationis, 1878, IV, cols
132, 133. The murder here is for wife-seduction, a
peculiar and assuredly not original variation.
168 b. B is translated by Adolph von Maries, p. 27;
by Graf von Platen, II, 329, Stuttgart, 1847 ; after Her-
der into Magyar, by Dr Karl von Szdsz.
14. Babylon ; or, The Bonnie Banks o
Fordie.
P. 172 a. Swedish. Professor George Stephens
points me to two localized prose outlines of the story,
one from SmSland, the other from SkSne ; ' Truls och
bans barn,' in the Svenska Fornminnesfbreningens
Tidskrift, II, 77 f.
15. Leesome Brand.
P. 179 a. Swedish. II. Add :
Strom, Folkdiktning, II, 28.
I, ' Risa lill,' Wig-
502
ADDITIONS AND COERECTIONS
180 a, lines 25, 26. Read : A, G, M, X.
181 a. German. Add : D, ' Der Hitter und seine
Geliebte,' Ditfurth, Deutsche Volks- und Gesellschafts-
lieder des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts, p. 14, No 13. (Koh-
ler.)
181 b. French. C. A still more corrupted copy in
Poesies populaires de la France, III, fol. 143, ' La
fausse morte.' D. Fol. 215 of the same volume, a very
pretty ballad from Perigord, which has lost most of
the characteristic incidents, but not the tragic conclu-
sion.
182 b, first paragraph. A similar scene, ending hap-
pily, in I Complementi della Chanson d'Huon de Bor-
deaux, pubblicati da A. Graf, pp 26 £f. (Kohler.)
183 b, stanzas 27, 28. Compare :
Modhren liirde sonnenn sinn :
' Skiuter tu diur och skiuter tu rdS ;
' Skiuter tu diur och skiuter tu rfiS,
Then salige hiudenn latt tu gS ! '
' Den fiirtroUade Jungfrun,' Arwidsson, II, 260, No
136, A 1, 2.
17. Hind Horn.
P. 187. F. Insert the title ' Young Ilyndhorn.'
G. Insert: Kinloch MSS, VII, 117.
192. Dr Davidson informs me that many years ago
he heard a version of ' Hind Horn,' in four-line stanzas,
in which, as in ' Horn et Ryraenhild ' and ' Horn Childe
and Maiden Riuinild,' Horn took part in a joust at the
king's court,
An young Hiud Horn was abune them a'.
He remembers further only these stanzas :
' O got ye this o the sea sailin,
Or got ye 't o the Ian I
Or got ye 't o the bloody shores o Spain,
On a droont man's ban? '
' I got na 't o the sea sailin,
I got na 't o the Ian,
Nor yet upo the bloody shores o Spain,
On a droont man's ban.'
193 b (2). Add : ' Herr Lovmand,' Kristensen, I,
136, No 52.
194. A corrupt fragment of a ballad, 'Der Bottler,'
in Schrcier's Ausflug nach Gottschee, p. 210 f (Koh-
ler), retains features like ' Hind Horn.' The beggar
comes to a wedding, and sits by the stove. The bride
kindly says. Nobody is thinking of the beggar, and
hands him a glass of wine. He says, Thanks, fair
bride ; thou wast my first wife. Upon this the bride-
groom jumps over the table, crying, Bachelor I came,
and bachelor will go.
The Epirots and Albanians have a custom of betroth-
ing or marrying, commonly in early youth, and of then
parting for a long period. A woman was lately (1875)
buried at lannina who, as the archbishop boasted in
the funeral discourse, had preserved her fidelity to a
husband who had been separated from her thirty years.
This unhappy usage has given rise to a distinct class
of songs. Dozon, Chansons populaires bulgares, p. 294,
note.
195 b (5). The German popular rhymed tale of
Henry the Lion is now known to have been composed
by the painter Heinrich Getting, Dresden, 1585. Ger-
mania, XXVI, 453, No 527.
198 a, to first paragraph. For the marvellous trans-
portation in these stories, see a note by Liebrecht in
Jahrbiicber fiir rora. u. eng. Literatur, HI, 147. In the
same, IV, 110, Liebrecht refers to the legend of Hugh
of Halton, recounted by Dugdale in his Antiquities of
Warwickshire, II, 646, ed. of 1730, and Monasticon
Anglicanum, IV, 90 f, ed. 1823 (and perhaps in Dug-
dale's Baronage of England, but I have not found it
there). Hugo is another Gerard : the two half-rings
miraculously unite. (Kohler.) See, also, Landau on
Torello, 'Der Wunderritt,' Quellen des Dekameron
1884, pp 193-218.
198 b, third paragraph. Other versions of ' Le Re-
tour du Mari : ' Fleury, Litterature Orale de la Basse-
Normandie, p. 268 ; E. Legrand, Romania, X, 374,
also from Normandy.
A ballad of the nature of ' Le Retour du Mari ' is
very popular in Poland : Kolberg, No 22, pp 224 ff,
some dozen copies ; Wojcicki, I, 287 ; Wojcicki, II,
311 =: Kolberg's c; Lipiriski, p. 159 = Kolberg's i;
Konopka, p. 121, No 20 ; Kozlowski, No 5, p. 35,
p. 36, two copies. In Moravian, ' Prvni milejsi',' 'The
First Love,' Suiil, No 135, p. 131. The general
course of the story is that a young man has to go to
the war the day of his wedding or the day after. He
commits his bride to her mother, saying. Keep her for
me seven years ; and if I do not then come back, give
her to whom you please. He is gone seven years, and,
returning then, asks for his wife. She has just been
given to another. He asks for a fiddle [pipe], and
says he will go to the wedding. They advise him to
stay away, for there will be a disturbance. No, he
will only stand at the door and play. The bride jumps
over four tables, and makes a courtesy to him on a
fifth, welcomes him and dismisses the new bridegroom.
199 a, end of the first paragraph. I forgot to men-
tion the version of Costantino, agreeing closely with
Camarda's, in De Rada, Rapsodie d'un poema alba-
nese raccolte nelle colonic del Napoletano, pp 61-64.
200. A maid, parting from her lover for three years,
divides her ring with him. He forgets, and prepares to
marry another woman. She comes to the nuptials, and
is not known. She throws the half ring into a cup,
drinks, and hands the cup to him. He sees the half
ring, and joins it to his own. This is my wife, he
says. She delivered me from death. He annuls his
ADDITIONS AND COKRECTIONS
503
marriage, and espouses the right woman. Miklosisch,
Ueber die Mundarten der Zigeuner, IV, Miirchen u.
Lieder, 15th Tale, pp 52-55, at the end of a story of the
class referred to at p. 401 f. (Kohler.)
A personage appeared at Magdeburg in 1348 in the
disguise of a pilgrim, asked for a cup of wine from the
archbishop's table, and, in drinking, dropped into the
cup from his mouth the seal ring of the margrave
Waldemar, supposed to have been long dead, but whom
he confessed or avowed himself to be. Klciden, Dip-
lomatische Geschichte des fiir falsch erkliirten Mark-
grafen 'W^aldemar, p. 189 f. (Kohler.)
A wife who long pursues her husband, lost to her
through spells, drops a ring into his broth at the feast
for his second marriage, is recognized, and they are
happily reunited : The Tale of the Hoodie, Campbell,
West Highland Tales, I, 63-66.
In a pretty Portuguese ballad, which has numerous
parallels in other languages, a long-absent husband,
after tormenting his wife by telling her that she is a
widow, legitimates himself by saying. Where is your
half of the ring which we parted ? Here is mine: ' Bella
Infanta,' Almeida- Garrett, II, 11, 14, Braga, Cantos p.
do Archipelago A^oriano, p. 300 ; ' Dona Infanta,'
' Dona Catherina,' Braga, Komanceiro Geral, pp 3 f , 7.
See, further, for ring stories, Wesselofsky, Neue
Beitriige zur Geschichte der Salomonsage, in Archiv
fiir Slavische Philologie, VI, 397 f ; Hahu, Neugriech-
ische Miirchen, No 25.
The cases in which a simple ring is the means of
recognition or confirmation need, of course, not be mul-
tiplied.
200 a, line twenty-four. For Alesha read Alyosha.
205. G. In Kinloch MSS, VII, 117. After " from
the recitation of my niece, M. Kinnear, 23 August,
1826," is written in pencil " Christy Smith," who may
have been the person from whom Miss Kinnear derived
the ballad, or another reciter. Changes are made in
pencil, some of which are written over in ink, some
not. The printed copy, as usual with Kinloch, differs
in some slight respects from the manuscript.
a. From the recitation of Miss Jane Webster, formerly of
Airds of Kelli, now of Dairy, both in the Stewartry of Kirk-
cudbright, December 12, 1882. b. From Miss Jessie Jane
Macmath and Miss Agnes Macmath, nieces of Miss Web-
ster, December 11, 1882: originally derived from an old
nurse. Communicated by Mr Macmath, of Edinburgh.
1 She gave him a gay gold ring,
Hey lillelu and how lo Ian
But he gave her a far better thing.
With my hey down and a hey diddle downie
2 He gave her a silver wan,
With nine bright laverocks thereupon.
3 Young Hynd Horn is come to the Ian,
There he met a beggar man.
4 ' What news, what news do ye betide ? '
' Na news but Jeanie 's the prince's bride.'
5 ' Wilt thou give me thy begging weed ?
And I '11 give thee my good grey steed.
6 ' Wilt thou give me thy auld grey hair ?
And I 'U give ye mine that is thrice as fair.'
7 The beggar he got on for to ride,
But young Hynd Horn is bound for the bride.
8 First the news came to the ha,
Then to the room niang the gentles a'.
9 ' There stands a beggar at our gate,
Asking a drink for young Hynd Horn's sake.'
10 ' I 'U ga through nine fires hot
To give him a drmk for young Hynd Horn's
sake.'
11 She gave him the drink, and he dropt in the
ring ;
The lady turned baith pale an wan.
12 ' Oh got ye it by sea, or got ye it by Ian ?
Or got ye it off some dead man's ban ? '
13 ' I got it not by sea, nor I got it not by Ian,
But I got it off thy milk-white han.'
14 ' I 'U cast off my dress of red.
And I '11 go with thee and beg my bread.
15 ' I 'n cast off my dress of brown.
And foUow you from city to town.
16 ' I '11 cast off my dress of green.
For I am not ashamed with you to be seen.'
17 ' You need not cast off your dress of red.
For I can support thee on both wine and
bread.
504
ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS
18 ' You need not cast off your dress of brown,
For I can keep you a lady in any town.
19 ' You need not cast off your dress of green,
For I can maintain you as gay as a queen.'
207 b. Add : F. !», 7i, 9', IS^, Hyndhorn.
208. I. b. 1-3, 6, 8, 10, 14, 16-19, toanling.
Burden 2 : Wi my hey-dey an my hey
deedle downie.
5^. O gie to me your aul beggar weed.
11. She gave him the cup, and he dropped
in the ring :
O but she turned pale an wan I
Between 1 1 and 1 2 :
O whaur got e that gay gold ring ?
13^. your ain fair ban.
15. O bring to me my dress o broun.
An I '11 beg wi you frae toun tae toun.
216 a. Sir Orfeo has been lately edited by Dr Os-
car Zielke : Sir Orfeo, ein englisches Feenmarchen aus
dem Mittelalter, mit Einleitung und Anraerlcungen,
Breslau, 1880.
20. The Cruel Mother.
P. 218. D. b. Kinloch MSS, VII, 23. Insert again
at p. 221.
F. a. Also in Motherwell's MS., p. 614. Insert again
at p. 222.
I. a. Also in Motherwell's MS., p. 475. Insert again
at p. 223.
Add : N. ' The Loch o the Loanie,' Campbell MSS,
II, 264.
219 b. Add to the German versions of 'The Cruel
Mother : ' M. Pater Amand Baumgarten, Aus der
volksmassigen Ueberlieferung der Heimat : IX, Geburt,
Heirat, Tod, mit einera Anhang von Liedern, p. 140.
[' Das ausgesetzte Kind.'] N. A. Schlosser, Deutsche
Volkslieder aus Steiermark, p. 336, No 306, ' Der alte
Halter und das Kind ' (not yet seen by me). (Kohler.)
220 a. A ballad of Slavic origin in Nesselmann's
Littauische Volkslieder, No 380, p. 322, resembles the
German and Wendish versions of ' The Cruel Mother,'
with a touch of ' The Maid and the Palmer.' (G. L.
Kittredge.)
220 b, line 7. Head : Ilausschatz.
225.
N ^^
Campbell MSS, II, 264.
1 As I lookit oer my father's castle wa,
All alone and alone 0
I saw two pretty babes playing at the ba.
Down by yon green-wood sidie
2 ' 0 pretty babes, gin ye were mine,'
Hey the loch o the Loanie
' I w ould dead ye o the silk sae fine.'
Down by that green-wood sidie
3 ' 0 sweet darlings, gin ye were mine,'
Hey the loch o the Loanie
' I would feed ye on the morning's milk.'
Down by that green-wood sidie
4 ' O mither dear, when we were thine,'
By the loch o the Loanie
' Ye neither dressd us wi sUk nor twine.'
Down by this green-wood sidie
5 ' But ye tuke out your little pen-knife,'
By, etc.
' And there ye tuke yer little babes' life.'
Down by the, etc.
6 ' O mither dear, when this ye had done,'
Alone by, etc.
' Ye unkirtled yersel, and ye wrapt us in 't.'
Down by the, etc.
7 ' Neist ye houkit a hole foment the seen,'
All alone and alone 0
' And tearless ye stappit your little babes in '
Down by the, etc.
8 ' But we are in the heavens high,'
And far frae the loch o the Loanie
'But ye hae the pains o hell to d[r]ie.'
Before ye leave the green-wood sidie
226 a. C. Cunningham, as Mr Macmath has re-
minded me, has made this stanza a part of another bal-
lad, in Cromek's Remains, p. 223.
231. Catalan. The Romancerillo Catalan, in the
new edition, p. 10, No 12, 'Magdalena,' gives another
version, with the variations of eight more copies, that of
the Observaciones being now C.
232. Add : Italian. Ive, Canti popolari istriani, p.
366, No 14, 'S. Maria Maddalena.' Mary's father,
dying, left her a castle of gold and silver, from which
ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS
505
one day she saw Jesus pass. She wept a fountain of
tears to wash his feet, and dried his feet with her
tresses. Then she asked for a penance. She wished
to go into a cave without door or windows, sleep on the
bare ground, eat raw herbs, and drink a little salt water;
and this she did. In ' La Maddalena,' Guerrini, AI-
cuni C. p. romagnoli, p. 7, there is no penance.
22. St Stephen and Herod.
P. 236 a. Spanish. Jlild's new edition, Romance-
rillo Catalan, No 31, ' El romero acusado de robo,'
pp 36-38, adds six copies, not differing in anything
important. In C, the youth, un estudiant, n'era ros
com un fil d'or, blanch com Santa Catarina.
I may note that Thomas Becket stands by his vo-
taries when brought to the gallows as effectually as St
James. See Robertson, Materials, etc., I, 369, 471, 515,
524.
238. Note % should have been credited to R. Koh-
ler.
238 b, second paragraph. Professor George Stephens
informs me that the miracle of the cock is depicted,
among scenes from the life of Jesus, on an antependium
of an altar, derived from an old church in Slesvig, and
now in the Danish Museum. Behind a large table sits
a crowned woman, and at her left stands a crowned
man, who points to a dish from which a cock has
started up, with beak wide open. At the queen's right
stands an old woman, simply clad and leaning on a
staff. This picture comes between the Magi announc-
ing Christ's Birth and the Massacre of the Innocents,
and the crowned figures are judged by Professor Ste-
phens to be Herod and Herodias. Who the old woman
should be it is not easy to say, but there can be no con-
nection with St James. The work is assigned to the
last part of the fourteenth century.
239. Most of the literature on the topic of the res-
toration of the roasted cock to life is collected by Dr
R. Kohler and by Ferdinand Wolf, in Jahrbiicher fiir
romanische u. englische Literatur, III, 58ff, 67f. Dr
Kohler now adds these notes : The miracle of St James,
in Hermann von Fritslar's Heiligenleben, Pfeiffer's
Deutsche Mystiker des vierzehnten Jahrhunderts, I,
168 f ; Hahn, Das alte Passional (from the Golden Le-
gend), p. 223, v. 47-p. 225, v. 85 ; Liitolf, Sagen, Briiuche
und Legenden aus Lucern, u. s. w., p. 367, No 334 ;
von Alpenburg, Deutsche Alpensagen, p. 137, No 135;
Sepp, Altbayerischer Sagenschatz, pp 652 ff, 656 f.
239 b. Three stone partridges on a buttress of a church
at Miihlhausen are thus accounted for. In the early
days of the Reformation a couple of orthodo.x divines,
while waiting dinner, were discussing the prospect of the
infection spreading to their good city. One of them,
growing warm, declared that there was as much chance
of that as of the three partridges that were roasting in
the kitchen taking flight from the spit. Immediately
there was heard a fluttering and a cooing in the region
64
of the kitchen, the three birds winged their way from
the house, and, lighting on the buttress of Mary Kirk,
were instantly turned to stone, and there they are.
Thiiringen und der Harz, mit ihren Merkwiirdigkei-
ten, u. 8. w., VI, 20 f. (Kohler.)
240 a. The monk Andrius has the scene between
Judas and his mother as in Cursor Mundi, and attrib-
utes to Greek writers the opinion that the roasted cock
was the same that caused Peter's compunction. Mus-
safia, Sulla legenda del legno della Croce, Sitz. Ber.
der phil.-hist. Classe der Wiener Akad., LXIII, 206,
note. (Kohler.)
" About the year 1850 I was on a visit to the rector
of Kilmeen, near Clonakilty, in the county of Cork.
My friend brought me to visit the ruins of an old cas-
tle. Over the open fireplace in the great hall there
was a stone, about two or three feet square, carved
in the rudest fashion, and evidently representing our
Lord's sufferings. There were the cross, the nails, the
hammer, the scourge ; but there was one piece of
sculpture which I could not understand. It was a sort
of rude semi-circle, the curve below and the diameter
above, and at the junction a figure intended to repre-
sent a bird. My friend asked me what it meant. I
confessed my ignorance. ' That,' said he, ' is the
cock. The servants were boiling him for supper, but
when the moment came to convict the apostle he
started up, perched on the side of the pot, and aston-
ished the assembly by his salutiition of the morning.' "
Notes and Queries, 5th series, IX, 412 a. (Kohler.)
A heathen in West Gothland (Vestrogothia) had
killed his herdsman, Torsten, a Christian, and was re-
proached for it by Torsten's wife. Pointing to an ox
that had been slaughtered, the heathen answered: Tarn
Torstenum tuum, quem sanctum et in coelis vivere ex-
istimas, plane ita vivum credo prout hunc bovem quem
in frusta caedendum conspicis. Mirum dictu, vix verba
finiverat, cum e vestigio bos in pedes se erexit vivus,
stupore omnibus qui adstabant attonitis. Quare sacel-
lum in loco eodem erectum, multaque miracula, praeser-
tim in pccorum curatione, patrata. loannis Vastovii
Vitis Aquilonia, sive Vitae Sanctorum regni Sveo-goth-
ici, emend, et illustr. Er. Benzelius filius, Upsaliae,
1708, p. 59. (Kohler.)
240 b. Man begegnet auf alten Holzschnitten einer
Abbildiing von Christi Geburt, welche durch die dabei
stehenden Thiere erklart werden soil. Der Hahn
auf der Stange krahet da: Christus natus est! der
Ochse briillt mit iiberschnappender Stimme drein :
Ubi ? und das Lammlein bliiheret die Antwort : Bethle-
hem! Roehholz, Alemannisches Kinderlied und Kin-
derspiel aus der Schweiz, p. 69 t. (Kohler.)
241 a. Wer sind die ersten Vorbothen GottesV Der
Hahn, well er kraht, " Christ ist geboren." Der Tau-
ber, weil er ruft, " Wo ? " Und der Ziegenbock, weil er
schreit, " Z' Bethlehem." Pater Amand Baumgarten,
Aus der volksmassigen Ueberlieferung der Heimat,
I, Zur volksthiimlichen Naturkunde, p. 94. (Kohler.)
Hahn : Kikeriki ! Gott der Herr lebt 1
506
ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS
Ochs: Wo? Wo?
Geiss : Miih ! zu Bethlehem I
Simrock, Das deutsche Kinderbuch, 2d ed., p. 173,
No 719 ; 3d ed., p. 192, No 787. (Kohler.)
Quando Christo nasceu disse o gallo : Jesus-Christo
e nd ... a ... d ... do (niido). J. Leite de Vas-
concellos, Tradi96es populares do Portugal, p. 148, No
285 6.
242. Note. Add : W. Creizenach, Judas Ischarioth
in Legende und Sage des Mittelalters, in Paul and
Braune's Beitrage, II, 177 S.
25. "Willie's Lyke-Wake.
P. 247 b. Add : E. ' Willie's Lyke-Wake.' a. Bu-
chan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, II, 51. b.
Christie, Traditional Ballad Airs, I, 122.
249 b. Swedish. Add: D. Aminson, Bidrag till
Scidermanlands Kulturhistoria, li, 18.
French. ' Le Soldat au Convent,' Victor Smith,
Vielles Chansons recueillies en Velay et en Forez, p.
24, No 21, or Romania, VII, 73 ; Fleury, Litt^rature
Orale de la Basse Normandie, p. 310, ' La Religieuse ;'
Poesies populaires de la France, III, fol. 289, fol. 297.
A soldier who has been absent some years in the wars
returns to find his mistress in a convent; obtains per-
mission to see her for a last time, puts a ring on her
finger, and then "falls dead." Plis love insists on con-
ducting his funeral ; the lover returns to life and car-
ries her off.
249 b. A. Magyar. The ballad of ' Handsome
Tony ' is also translated by G. Heinrich, in Ungarische
Kevue, 1883, p. 155.
The same story, perverted to tragedy at the end, in
Golovatsky, II, 710, No 13, a ballad of the Carpa-
thian Russians in Hungary.
250. Dr 11. Kohler points out to me a German copy
of A, B, C, which I had overlooked, in Schriier, Ein
Ausflug nach Gottschee, p. 266 if, ' Hansel junc' The
mother builds a mill and a church, and then the younc
man feigns death, as before. But a very cheap tragic
turn is given to the conclusion when the young man
springs up and kisses his love. She falls dead with
fright, and he declares that since she has died for him
he will die for her. So they are buried severally at
one and the other side of the church, and two lily
stocks are planted, which embrace " like two real mar-
ried people ; " or, a vine grows from one and a flower
from the other.
252. This is the other form referred to at p. 247 a.
E
a. Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, II, 51.
Christie, Traditional Ballad Airs, I, 122.
1 ' If my love loves me, she lets me not know,
That is a dowie chance ;
I vrish that I the same could do,
Tho my love were in France, France,
Tho my love were in France.
2 ' O lang think I, and very lang,
And lang think I, I true ;
But lang and langer will I think
Or my love o me rue.
3 ' I will write a broad letter.
And write it sae perfite,
That an she winna o me rue,
I '11 bid her come to my lyke.'
4 Then he has written a broad letter,
And seald it wi his hand.
And sent it on to his true love.
As fast as boy could gang.
5 Wlien she looked the letter upon,
A light laugh then gae she ;
But ere she read it to an end.
The tear blinded her ee.
6 ' O saddle to me a steed, father,
O saddle to me a steed ;
For word is come to me this night,
That my true love is dead.'
7 ' The steeds are in the stable, daughter.
The keys are casten by ;
Ye cannot won to-night, daughter.
To-morrow ye 'se won away.'
8 She has cut aff her yellow locks,
A little aboon her ee.
And she is on to Willie's lyke,
As fast as gang could she.
9 As she gaed ower yon high bill head,
She saw a dowie light ;
It was the candles at Willie's lyke.
And torches burning bright.
10 Three o Willie's eldest brothers
Were making for him a bier ;
One half o it was gude red gowd,
The other siller clear.
11 Three o Willie's eldest sisters
Were making for liim a sark ;
The one half o it was cambric fine,
The other needle wark.
ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS
507
12 Out spake the youngest o his sisters,
As she stood on the fleer :
How happy would our brother been,
If ye 'd been sooner here !
13 She lifted up the green covering,
And gae him kisses three ;
Then he lookd up into her face.
The blythe blink in his ee.
14 O then he started to his feet,
And thus to her said he :
Fair Annie, since we 're met again,
Parted nae mair we 'se be.
" Given with some changes from the way the
editor has heard it sung."
2". I trow. 31. But I. 3«. That gin.
7'. the night.
39. Tarn Lin.
P. 335. Add : J. ' Young Tamlane,' Kinloch MSS,
V, 391.
335 a. The stanzas introduced into I a were from
"Mr Beattie of Meikledale's Tamlane," as appears
from a letter of Scott to Laidlaw, January 21, 1803.
(W. Macmath.^
336 b, third paragraph. Add : Aminson, Bidrag,
etc., IV, 6, No 27.
Fourth paragraph, line 9. Read : in it which.
338 a. An old woman is rejuvenated by being burnt
to bones, and the bones being thrown into a tub of
milk : llalston, Russian Folk-Tales, p. 59, ' The Smith
and the Demon;' Afanasief, Legendui, No 31, from
Dahl's manuscript collection.
356. The following is perhaps the version referred
to by Dr Joseph Robertson : see p. 335.
28. Burd Ellen and Young Tamlane.
P. 256. This ballad is in Pitcairn's MSS, III, 49.
It was from the tradition of Mrs Gammel. The last
word of the burden is Machey, not May-hay, as in
Maidment.
" A fragment of Young Tamlane," Kinloch MSS, V, 391.
In Dr John Hill Burton's handwriting, and perhaps from
the recitation of Mrs Robertson (Christian Leslie), mother
of Dr Joseph Robertson.
29. The Boy and the Mantle.
P. 270 b. If a girl takes a pot of boiling water off
the fire, and the pot ceases to boil, this is a sign of lost
modesty. Lammert, Volksmedizin und medizinischer
Aberglaube in Bayern, u. s. w., p. 146.
30. King Arthur and King Cornwall.
P. 27^. A Galien in verse has been found in the
library of Sir Thomas Fnillipps, at Cheltenham. Ro-
mania, XII, 5.
31. The Marriage of Sir Gawain.
P. 292 b, last paragraph but one. Add : ' Gorviimb,'
Arnason, II, 375, Powell, Icelandic Legends, Second
Series, 366, ' The Paunch.' Gorvonib, a monstrous
creature, in reward for great services, asks to liave the
king's brother for husband, and in bed turns into a
beautiful princess. She had been suffering under the
spells of a step-mother.
1 ' The night, the night is Halloween,
Tomorrow 's HaUowday,
2 ' The night, the night is Halloween,
Our seely court maun ride,
Thro England and thro Ireland both.
And a' the warld wide.
3 ' The firsten court that comes ye bye.
You 'U lout, and let them gae ;
The seconden court that comes you bye,
You 'U had them reverently.
4 ' The thirden court that comes you by,
Sae we el 's ye will me ken,
For some will be on a black, a black.
And some wiU be on a brown.
But I will be on a bluid-red steed.
And will ride neist the queen.
508
ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS
5 ' The thirden court that comes you bye,
Sae weel 's ye will me ken,
For I '11 be on a bluid-red steed,
Wi three stars on his crown.
6 ' Ye '11 tak the horse head in yer hand,
And grip the bridle fast ;
The Queen o Elfin will gie a cry,
" True Tamas is stown awa ! "
7 ' And I will grow in your twa hands
An adder and an eel ;
But the grip ye get ye '11 hold it fast,
I '11 be father to yer chiel.
8 ' I will wax in your twa hans
As hot as any coal ;
But if you love me as you say,
You '11 think of me and thole.
9 ' 0 I will grow in your twa hands
An adder and a snake ;
The grip ye get now hold it fast,
And I 'U be your world's mait.
10 ' 0 I '11 gae in at your gown sleeve,
And out at your gown hem,
And I 'U stand up before thee then
A freely naked man.
11 ' O I '11 gae in at your gown sleeve,
And out at your gown hem,
And I '11 stand before you then,
But claithing I '11 hae nane.
12 ' Ye '11 do you down to Garden's Ha,
And down to Garden's stream.
And there you '11 see our seely court.
As they come riding hame.'
13
' It 's nae wonder, my daughter Janet,
True Tammas ye thought on ;
An he were a woman as he 's a man.
My bedfellow he should be.'
1 The night, the night is Halloween,
Tomorrow 's Hallowday, our seely court
maun ride.
Thro England and thro Ireland both,
And a' the warld wide.
Cf. A 25, 26 ; D 16 ; G 30 ; I 33, 34.
8*. think and of me thole.
41. Hind Btin.
P. 363, note. Compare, for style, the beginning of
' Hind Horn ' G, H, pp 205, 206.
43. The Broomfleld Hill.
P. 393 a, first paragraph. In Gongu-R(51vs kvasSi,
Hammershaimb, Fieroiske Kvseder, No 16, p. 140, sts
99-105, Liudin remains a maid for two nights, and
loses the name the third, but the sleep-rune or thorn
which should explain this does not occur.
393 b, third paragraph. Add : ' Kurz gefasst,' Al-
fred Miiller, Volkslieder aus dem Erzgebirge, p. 90.
45. King John and the Bishop.
P. 410. Translated after Percy's Reliques also by
von Marees, p. 7, No 2.
503 a, fifth paragraph (ring stories). Add : W. Frei-
herr von Tettau, Ueber einige bis jetzt unbekannte
Erfurter Drucke, u. s. w., Jahrbiicher der koniglichen
Akademie zu Erfurt, Neue Folge, Heft VI, S. 291, at
the end of an excellent article on Ritter Morgeners
Wallfahrt. (Kijhler.)
C43