(56) [Grimhild’s Vengeance: 1913]
Grimhild’s Vengeance / Three Ballads / By / George Borrow / Edited / With an Introduction / By / Edmund Gosse, C. B. / London: / Printed for Private Circulation / 1913.
Collation:—Square demy octavo, pp. 40; consisting of: Half-title (with blank reverse) pp. 1–2; Title-page, as above (with a note regarding the American
copyright upon the centre of the reverse) pp. 3–4; Introduction pp. 5–14; and text of the three Ballads pp. 15–40. The head-line is Grimhild’s Vengeance throughout, upon both sides of the page. At the foot of p. 40 is the following imprint: “London: / Printed for Thomas J. Wise, Hampstead, N.W. / Edition limited to Thirty Copies.” The signatures are A (a half-sheet of four leaves), and B and C (two sheets, each eight leaves), each inset within the other.
Issued in bright green paper wrappers, with untrimmed edges, and with the title-page reproduced upon the front. The leaves measure 8½ × 6⅞ inches.
Thirty Copies only were printed.
Contents.
| page | |
| Grimhild’s Vengeance. Song the First. [It was the proud Dame Grimhild Prepares the mead and beer] A reduced facsimile of page 2 of the 1854 Manuscript of this Song faces the present page. | 15 |
| Grimhild’s Vengeance. Song the Second. [It was the proud Dame Grimhild The wine with spices blends] | 24 |
| Grimhild’s Vengeance. Song the Third. [O, where will ye find kempions So bold and strong of hand] | 32 |
The Introduction furnished by Mr. Edmund Gosse to Grimhild’s Vengeance is undoubtedly by far the most illuminating and important contribution yet made to the critical study of Borrow’s Ballads, a study which has hitherto been both meagre and inadequate. Not only does Mr. Gosse handle the three Songs particularly before him, and make clear the relationship they bear to each other, but he deals with the whole subject of the
origin of Borrow’s Scandinavian Ballads, and traces fully and precisely the immediate source from which their author derived them. One of Borrow’s most vivid records Mr. Gosse calls into question, and proves indisputably that it must henceforth be regarded, if not as a fiction, at least as one more result of Borrow’s inveterate habit of “drawing the long bow,”—to wit the passages in Lavengro wherein Borrow recounts his acquisition of the “strange and uncouth-looking volume” at the price of a kiss from the yeoman’s wife, and the purpose which that volume served him.
Of the first and second of the three Ballads included in Grimhild’s Vengeance two Manuscripts are available. The first of these was written in 1829, and was intended to find a place in the Songs of Scandinavia advertised at the close of that year. The second Manuscript was written in 1854, and was prepared for the projected volumes of Kœmpe Viser of that date. Of the third Ballad there exists only a single Manuscript, namely that produced in 1829. Apparently in 1854 Borrow had relinquished all hope of publishing the Kœmpe Viser before he had commenced work upon the third Ballad. In the present volume the first two Songs were printed from the Manuscripts of 1854; the third Song from the Manuscript of 1829.
There is a copy of Grimhild’s Vengeance in the Library of the British Museum. The Press-mark is C. 44. d. 38.
