English and Scottish Ballads, Volume VIII

Notes with reference to ballad line numbers are presented at the end of each ballad and the presence of a note is indicated by links in the text.

EDITED BY FRANCIS JAMES CHILD.
VOLUME VIII.
BOSTON: LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY. M.DCCC.LX.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1858, by Little, Brown and Company, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.
RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY.



The hint, and possibly a model, for these disputations may have been found in Jewish tradition. We learn from Josephus, ( Antiquities , Book VIII. ch. v.) that Hiram of Tyre and Solomon sent one another sophistical puzzles and enigmas to be solved, on condition of forfeiting large sums of money in case of failure, and that Solomon's riddles were all guessed by Abdæmon of Tyre, or by Abdimus, his son, for authorities differ. This account coincides with what we read in Chronicles , (Book II. ch. ii. 13, 14,) of the man sent by Hiram to Solomon, who, besides a universal knowledge of the arts, was skilful to find out every device that might be put to him by cunning men—that is, apparently, hard questions, such as the Queen of Sheba came to prove Solomon with, (1 Kings, x. i.) some account of which is given in the Talmud .—See, on the whole subject, Kemble's masterly essay on Salomon and Saturn , printed by the Ælfric Society: also Grässe, Sagenkreise des Mittelalters , p. 406-471; the Grimms' Kinder-und-Hausmärchen , vol. iii. p. 236, ed. 1856; F. W. V. Schmidt, Taschenbuch deutscher Romanzen , p. 82.