FOOTNOTES:

[181] All the genuine ones. 'Lady Anne,' in Scott's Minstrelsy, III, 259, 1803, is on the face of it a modern composition, with extensive variations, on the theme of the popular ballad. It is here given in an Appendix, with a companion piece from Cromek's Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song.

[APPENDIX]

LADY ANNE

"This ballad was communicated to me by Mr Kirkpatrick Sharpe of Hoddom, who mentions having copied it from an old magazine. Although it has probably received some modern corrections, the general turn seems to be ancient, and corresponds with that of a fragment [B b], which I have often heard sung in my childhood." Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, III, 259, ed. 1803.

Buchan, Gleanings, p. 90, has an additional stanza between 8 and 9 of Scott's, whether from the old magazine or not, it would not be worth the while to ascertain.

Cunningham, Songs of Scotland, I, 339, has rewritten even 'Lady Anne.'

Translated by Schubart, p. 170, and by Gerhard, p. 92.

1
Fair Lady Anne sate in her bower,
Down by the greenwood side,
And the flowers did spring, and the birds did sing,
'Twas the pleasant May-day tide.

2
But fair Lady Anne on Sir William calld,
With the tear grit in her ee,
'O though them be fause, may Heaven thee guard,
In the wars ayont the sea!'

3
Out of the wood came three bonnie boys,
Upon the simmer's morn,
And they did sing and play at the ba',
As naked as they were born.

4
'O seven lang years wad I sit here,
Amang the frost and snaw,
A' to hae but ane o these bonnie boys,
A playing at the ba.'

5
Then up and spake the eldest boy,
'Now listen, thou fair ladie,
And ponder well the rede that I tell,
Then make ye a choice of the three.

6
''Tis I am Peter, and this is Paul,
And that ane, sae fair to see,
But a twelve-month sinsyne to paradise came,
To join with our companie.'

7
'O I will hae the snaw-white boy,
The bonniest of the three:'
'And if I were thine, and in thy propine,
O what wad ye do to me?'

8
''Tis I wad clead thee in silk and gowd,
And nourice thee on my knee:'
'O mither, mither, when I was thine,
Sic kindness I couldna see.

9
'Beneath the turf, where now I stand,
The fause nurse buried me;
The cruel pen-knife sticks still in my heart,
And I come not back to thee.'

"There are many variations of this affecting tale. One of them appears in the Musical Museum, and is there called 'Fine Flowers of the Valley,' of which the present is either the original or a parallel song. I am inclined to think it is the original." Cromek's Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song, p. 267.

This is translated by Talvj, Versuch, p. 571.

1
There sat 'mang the flowers a fair ladie,
Sing ohon, ohon, and ohon O
And there she has born a sweet babie.
Adown by the greenwode side O

2
An strait she rowed its swaddling band,
An O! nae mother grips took her hand.

3
O twice it lifted its bonnie wee ee:
'Thae looks gae through the saul o me!'

4
She buried the bonnie babe neath the brier,
And washed her hands wi mony a tear.

5
And as she kneelt to her God in prayer,
The sweet wee babe was smiling there.

6
'O ay, my God, as I look to thee,
My babe 's atween my God and me.

7
'Ay, ay, it lifts its bonnie wee ee:
'"Sic kindness get as ye shawed me."'

8
'An O its smiles wad win me in,
But I'm borne down by deadly sin.

[21]
THE MAID AND THE PALMER

[A]. Percy MS., p. 461. 'Lillumwham,' Hales and Furnivall, IV, 96.

[B]. Sharpe's Ballad Book, ed. Laing, p. 157.

The only English copy of this ballad that approaches completeness is furnished by the Percy manuscript, A. Sir Walter Scott remembered, and communicated to Kirkpatrick Sharpe, three stanzas, and half of the burden, of another version, B.

There are three versions in Danish, no one of them very well preserved. A,'Maria Magdalena,' is a broadside of about 1700, existing in two identical editions: Grundtvig, No 98, II, 530; B, ib., was written down in the Färöe isles in 1848, by Hammershaimb; C was obtained from recitation by Kristensen in Jutland in 1869, Jydske Folkeviser, I, 197, No 72, 'Synderinden.'

A Färöe version, from the end of the last century or the beginning of this, is given in Grundtvig's notes, p. 533 ff.

Versions recently obtained from recitation in Norway are: 'Maria,' Bugge's Gamle Norske Folkeviser, No 18; A, p. 88; B, p. 90, a fragment, which has since been completed, but only two more stanzas printed, Grundtvig, III, 889; C, Bugge, p. 91. D, E are reported, but only a stanza or two printed, Grundtvig, III, 889f; F, printed 890 f, and G, as obtained by Lindeman, 891: all these, D-G, communicated by Bugge. C, and one or two others, are rather Danish than Norwegian.

This is, according to Afzelius, one of the commonest of Swedish ballads. These versions are known: A, "a broadside of 1798 and 1802," Grundtvig, II, 531, Bergström's Afzelius, I, 335; B, 'Magdalena,' Atterbom's Poetisk Kalender for 1816, p. 20; C, Afzelius, II, 229; D, Arwidsson, I, 377, No 60; E, Dybeck's Svenska Visor, Häfte 2, No 6, only two stanzas; F, G, "in Wiede's collection, in the Swedish Historical and Antiquarian Academy;" H, "in Cavallius and Stephens' collection, where also A, F, G are found;" I, Maximilian Axelson's Vesterdalarne, p. 171; J, 'Jungfru Adelin,' E. Wigström's Folkdiktning, No 38, p. 76; K, 'Jungfru Maja,' Album utgifvet af Nyländingar, VI, 227. A-F are printed in Grundtvig's notes, II, 533 ff, and also some verses of G, H.

The ballad is known to have existed in Icelandic from a minute of Arne Magnusson, who cites the line, "Swear not, swear not, wretched woman," but it has not been recovered (Grundtvig, III, 891, note d).

Finnish, 'Mataleenan vesimatka,' Kanteletar, ed. 1864, p. 240.

The story of the woman of Samaria, John, iv, is in all these blended with mediæval traditions concerning Mary Magdalen, who is assumed to be the same with the woman "which was a sinner," in Luke, vii, 37, and also with Mary, sister of Lazarus. This is the view of the larger part of the Latin ecclesiastical writers, while most of the Greeks distinguish the three (Butler, 'Lives of the Saints,' VII, 290, note). It was reserved for ballads, as Grundtvig remarks, to confound the Magdalen with the Samaritan woman.

The traditional Mary Magdalen was a beautiful woman of royal descent, who derived her surname from Magdalum, her portion of the great family estate. For some of her earlier years entirely given over to carnal delights, "unde jam, proprio nomine perdito, peccatrix consueverat appellari," she was, by the preaching of Jesus, converted to a passionate repentance and devotedness. In the course of the persecution of the church at Jerusalem, when Stephen was slain and the Christians widely dispersed, Mary, with Lazarus, her brother, Martha, and many more, were set afloat on the Mediterranean in a rudderless ship, with the expectation that they would find a watery grave. But the malice of the unbelieving was overruled, and the vessel came safe into port at Marseilles. Having labored some time for the christianizing of the people, and founded churches and bishoprics, Mary retired to a solitude where there was neither water, tree, nor plant, and passed the last thirty years of her life in heavenly contemplation. The cave in which she secluded herself is still shown at La Sainte Baume. The absence of material comforts was, in her case, not so great a deprivation, since every day at the canonical hours she was carried by angels to the skies, and heard, with ears of the flesh, the performances of the heavenly choirs, whereby she was so thoroughly refected that when the angels restored her to her cave she was in need of no bodily aliment. (Golden Legend, Græsse, c. 96.) It is the practical Martha that performs real austerities, and those which are ascribed to her correspond too closely with the penance in the Scandinavian ballads not to be the original of it: "Nam in primis septem annis, glandibus et radicibus herbisque crudis et pomis[182] silvestribus corpusculum sustentans potius quam reficiens, victitavit.... Extensis solo ramis arboreis aut viteis, lapide pro cervicali capiti superposito subjecto, ... incumbebat." (Vincent of Beauvais, Spec. Hist., ix, 100.)

The best-preserved Scandinavian ballads concur nearly in this account. A woman at a well, or a stream, is approached by Jesus, who asks for drink. She says she has no vessel to serve him with. He replies that if she were pure, he would drink from her hands. She protests innocence with oaths, but is silenced by his telling her that she has had three children, one with her father, one with her brother, one with her parish priest: Danish A, B, C; Färöe; Swedish C, D, F, I, J, K; Norwegian A, C, F, G. She falls at his feet, and begs him to shrive her. Jesus appoints her a seven years' penance in the wood. Her food shall be the buds or the leaves of the tree [grass, worts, berries, bark], her drink the dew [brook, juice of plants], her bed the hard ground [linden-roots, thorns and prickles, rocks, straw and sticks]; all the while she shall be harassed by bears and lions [wolves], or snakes and drakes (this last in Swedish B, C, D, I, K, Norwegian A). The time expired, Jesus returns and asks how she has liked her penance. She answers, as if she had eaten daintily, drunk wine, slept on silk or swan's-down, and had angelic company [had been listening to music].[183] Jesus then tells her that a place is ready for her in heaven.

The penance lasts eight years in Swedish C, F, J, Norwegian A; nine in the Färöe ballad; fifteen in Danish B; and six weeks in Danish C. It is to range the field in Danish A, Swedish F; to walk the snows barefoot in the Färöe ballad and Norwegian B; in Norwegian D to stand nine years in a rough stream and eight years naked in the church-paths.

The names Maria, or Magdalena, Jesus, or Christ, are found in most of the Scandinavian ballads. Swedish E has 'Lena (Lilla Lena); Swedish H He-lena; J, Adelin; K, Maja. Norwegian A gives no name to the woman, and Danish A a name only in the burden; Norwegian B has, corruptly, Margjit. In Danish C, Norwegian B, G, Jesus is called an old man, correspondingly with the "old palmer" of English A, but the old man is afterwards called Jesus in Norwegian G (B is not printed in full), and in the burden of Danish C. The Son is exchanged for the Father in Swedish D.

Stanzas 4, 5 of Swedish A, G, approach singularly near to English A 6, 7:

Swedish A:

4
'Would thy leman now but come,
Thou wouldst give him to drink out of thy hand.'

5
By all the worlds Magdalen swore,
That leman she never had.

Swedish G:

4
'Yes, but if I thy leman were,
I should get drink from thy snow-white hand.'

5
Maria swore by the Holy Ghost,
She neer had to do with any man.

The woman is said to have taken the lives of her three children in Danish A, B, C, and of two in Swedish C, D, F, I, J, K (B also, where there are but two in all), a trait probably borrowed from '[The Cruel Mother].'

The seven years' penance of the Scandinavian ballads is multiplied three times in English A, and four times in B and in those versions of 'The Cruel Mother' which have been affected by the present ballad (20, I, J, K; L is defective). What is more important, the penance in the English ballads is completely different in kind, consisting not in exaggerated austerities, but partly, at least, in transmigration or metensomatosis: seven years to be a fish, 20, I, J, K; seven years a bird, 20, I, J, K; seven years a stone, 21, A, B; seven years an eel, 20, J; seven years a bell, or bell-clapper, 20, I, 21, A (to ring a bell, 20, K, L). Seven years in hell seems to have been part of the penance or penalty in every case: seven years a porter in hell, 21, B, 20, I, K; seven years down in hell, 20, J; seven years to "ring the bell and see sic sights as ye darna tell, 20, L;" "other seven to lead an ape in hell," A, a burlesque variation of the portership.

The Finnish Mataleena, going to the well for water, sees the reflection of her face, and bewails her lost charms. Jesus begs a drink: she says she has no can, no glass. He bids her confess. "Where are your three boys? One you threw into the fire, one into the water, and one you buried in the wilderness." She fills a pail with her tears, washes his feet, and wipes them with her hair: then asks for penance. "Put me, Lord Jesus, where you will. Make me a ladder-bridge over the sea, a brand in the fire, a coal in the furnace."

There are several Slavic ballads which blend the story of the Samaritan woman and that of 'The Cruel Mother,' without admixture of the Magdalen. Wendish A, 'Aria' (M-aria?), Haupt and Schmaler, I, 287, No 290, has a maid Who goes for water on Sunday morning, and is joined by an old man who asks for a drink. She says the water is not clean; it is dusty and covered with leaves. He says, The water is clean, but you are unclean. She demands proof, and he bids her go to church in her maiden wreath. This she does. The grass withers before her, a track of blood follows her, and in the churchyard there come to her nine headless boys, who say, Nine sons hast thou killed, chopt off their heads, and meanest to do the same for a tenth. She entreats their forgiveness, enters the church, sprinkles herself with holy water, kneels at the altar and crosses herself, then suddenly sinks into the ground, so that nothing is to be seen but her yellow hair. B, 'Die Kindesmörderin,' ib., II, 149, No 197, begins like A. As the maid proceeds to the church, nine graves open before her, and nine souls follow her into the church. The oldest of her children springs upon her and breaks her neck, saying, "Mother, here is thy reward. Nine of us didst thou kill."

There are two Moravian ballads of the same tenor: A, Deutsches Museum, 1855, I, 282, translated by M. Klapp: B, communicated to the Zeitschrift des böhmischen Museums, 1842, p. 401, by A.W. Šembera, as sung by the "mährisch sprechenden Slawen" in Prussian Silesia; the first seven stanzas translated in Haupt u. Schmaler, II, 314, note to No 197. The Lord God goes out one Sunday morning, and meets a maid, whom he asks for water. She says the water is not clean. He replies that it is cleaner than she; for (A) she has seduced fifteen men and had children with all of them, has filled hell with the men and the sea with the children. He sends her to church; but, as she enters the church-yard, the bells begin to ring (of themselves), and when she enters the church, all the images turn their backs. As she falls on her knees, she is changed into a pillar of salt.

The popular ballads of some of the southern nations give us the legend of the Magdalen without mixture.

French. A, Poésies populaires de la France, I (not paged), from Sermoyer, Ain, thirty lines, made stanzas by repetition. Mary goes from door to door seeking Jesus. He asks what she wants: she answers, To be shriven. Her sins have been such, she says, that the earth ought not to bear her up, the trees that see her can but tremble. For penance she is to stay seven years in the woods of Baume, eat the roots of the trees, drink the dew, and sleep under a juniper. Jesus comes to inquire about her when this space has expired. She says she is well, but her hands, once white as flower-de-luce, are now black as leather. For this Jesus requires her to stay seven years longer, and then, being thoroughly cured of her old vanities, she is told,

'Marie Magdeleine, allez au paradis;
La porte en est ouverte depuis hier à midi.'

B is nearly the same legend in Provençal: Damase Arbaud, I, 64. The penance is seven years in a cave, at the end of which Jesus passes, and asks Mary what she has had to eat and drink. "Wild roots, and not always them; muddy water, and not always that." The conclusion is peculiar. Mary expresses a wish to wash her hands. Jesus pricks the rock, and water gushes out. She bewails the lost beauty of her hands, and is remanded to the cavern for another seven years. Upon her exclaiming at the hardship, Jesus tells her that Martha shall come to console her, the wood-dove fetch her food, the birds drink. But Mary is not reconciled:

'Lord God, my good father,
Make me not go back again!
With the tears from my eyes
I will wash my hands clean.

'With the tears from my eyes
I will wash your feet,
And then I will dry them
With the hair of my head.'

C, Poésies populaires de la Gascogne, Bladé, 1881, p. 339; 'La pauvre Madeleine,' seventeen stanzas of four short lines, resembles B till the close. When Jesus comes back after the second penance, and Mary says, as she had before, that she has lived like the beasts, only she has lacked water, Jesus again causes water to spring from the rock. But Mary says, I want no water. I should have to go back to the cave for another seven years. She is conducted straightway to paradise.

D, Bladé, as before, p. 183, 'Marie-Madeleine,' six stanzas of five short lines. Mary is sent to the mountains for seven years' penance; at the end of that time washes her hands in a brook, and is guilty of admiring them; is sent back to the mountains for seven years, and is then taken to heaven.

A Catalan ballad combines the legend of the Magdalen's penance with that of her conversion: Milá, Observaciones, p. 128, No 27, 'Santa Magdalena,' and Briz y Saltó, Cansons de la Terra, II, 99. Martha, returning from church, asks Magdalen, who is combing her hair with a gold comb, if she has been at mass. Magdalen says no, nor had she thought of going. Martha advises her to go, for she certainly will fall in love with the preacher, a young man; pity that he ever was a friar. Magdalen attires herself with the utmost splendor, and, to hear the sermon better, takes a place immediately under the pulpit. The first word of the sermon touched her; at the middle she fainted. She stripped off all her ornaments, and laid them at the preacher's feet. At the door of the church she inquired of a penitent where Jesus was to be found. She sought him out at the house of Simon, washed his feet with her tears, and wiped them with her hair, picked up from the floor the bones which he had thrown away. Jesus at last noticed her, and asked what she wished. She wished to confess. He imposed the penance of seven years on a mountain, "eating herbs and fennels, eating bitter herbs." Magdalen turned homewards after the seven years, and found on the way a spring, where she washed her hands, with a sigh over their disfigurement. She heard a voice that said, Magdalen, thou hast sinned. She asked for new penance, and was sent back to the mountain for seven years more. At the end of this second term she died, and was borne to the skies with every honor from the Virgin, saints, and angels.

Danish A is translated by Prior, II, 25, No 44: Swedish C by William and Mary Howitt, Literature and Romance of Northern Europe, I, 282.

A.

Percy MS., p. 461. Furnivall, IV, 96.

1
The maid shee went to the well to washe,
Lillumwham, lillumwham!
The mayd shee went to the well to washe,
Whatt then? what then?
The maid shee went to the well to washe,
Dew ffell of her lilly white fleshe.
Grandam boy, grandam boy, heye!
Leg a derry, leg a merry, mett, mer, whoope, whir!
Driuance, larumben, grandam boy, heye!

2
While shee washte and while shee ronge,
While shee hangd o the hazle wand.

3
There came an old palmer by the way,
Sais, 'God speed thee well, thou faire maid!'

4
'Hast either cupp or can,
To giue an old palmer drinke therin?'

5
Sayes, 'I have neither cupp nor cann,
To giue an old palmer drinke therin.'

6
'But an thy lemman came from Roome,
Cupps and canns thou wold ffind soone.'

7
Shee sware by God & good St. John,
Lemman had shee neuer none.

8
Saies, 'Peace, ffaire mayd, you are fforsworne!
Nine children you haue borne.

9
'Three were buryed vnder thy bed's head,
Other three vnder thy brewing leade.

10
'Other three on yon play greene;
Count, maid, and there be 9.'

11
'But I hope you are the good old man
That all the world beleeues vpon.

12
'Old palmer, I pray thee,
Pennaunce that thou wilt giue to me.'

13
'Penance I can giue thee none,
But 7 yeere to be a stepping-stone.

14
'Other seaven a clapper in a bell,
Other 7 to lead an ape in hell.

15
'When thou hast thy penance done,
Then thoust come a mayden home.'

B.

A Ballad Book, by Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, edited by David Laing, p. 157 f, VII; from Sir W. Scott's recollection.

1
'Seven years ye shall be a stone,
.  .  .  .  .  .  .
For many a poor palmer to rest him upon.
And you the fair maiden of Gowden-gane

2
'Seven years ye'll be porter of hell,
And then I'll take you to mysell.'

*   *   *   *   *

3
'Weel may I be a' the other three,
But porter of hell I never will be.'
And I, etc.

[A].

21. White shee washee & white.

22. White.

91. They were.

101. on won.

102. maids

[B].

Note by Scott: "There is or was a curious song with this burthen to the verse,

'And I the fair maiden of Gowden-gane.'

Said maiden is, I think, courted by the devil in human shape, but I only recollect imperfectly the concluding stanzas [1, 2]:

'Seven years ye shall be a stone,'

(here a chorus line which I have forgot), etc. The lady answers, in allusion to a former word which I have forgotten,

"Weel may I be [etc., st. 3]."