FOOTNOTES:
[284] Still so called: near Aiketgate, Hesket. Lysons, Cumberland, p. 112.
[285] 'The Weddynge of Sr Gawen and Dame Ragnell,' Rawlinson MS., C 86, Bodleian Library, the portion containing the poem being paper, and indicating the close of Henry VII's reign. The poem is in six-line stanzas, and, with a leaf that is wanting, would amount to about 925 lines. Madden's Syr Gawayne, lxiv, lxvii, 26, 298a-298y.
[286] Sir Gromer occurs in "The Turke and Gowin," Percy MS., Hales and Furnivall, I, 102; Sir Grummore Grummorsum, "a good knight of Scotland," in Morte d'Arthur; ed. Wright, I, 286 and elsewhere (Madden).
[287] See 'King Henry,' the next ballad.
[288] 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 be 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." Campbell, Popular 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, Hrólfr Kraki's Saga, c. 26, Asbjørnsen og Moe, Norske Folkeeventyr, No 41; a lion by day and a man by night, Grimms, K. u. H. m., No 88; a crab by day and a man by night, B. Schmidt, Griechische Märchen, u. s. w., No 10; a snake by day and a man by night, Karadshitch, Volksmärchen der Serben, Nos 9, 10; a pumpkin by day and a man by night, A. & A. Schott, Walachische Mærchen, No 23; a ring by day, a man by night, Müllenhoff, No 27, p. 466, Karadshitch, No 6, Afanasief, VI, 189. Three 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 sometimes implied though not mentioned.
[289] The brother, Grower Somer Joure, was a victim of the same necromancy; so the Carl of Carlile, Percy MS., Hales & Furnivall, III, 291.
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, vv 474 f, and our ballad, stanzas 29, 30.
[291] This was a melodrama by Favart, in four acts: reduced in 1821 to one act, at the Gymnase.
[292] 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 "bigspellbóc, ná swilce gé secgað, ac wísdómes bigspell and warnung wið dysig," etc.
[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, corrected 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 fragment. 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 manuscript 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 Hrólfr Kraki's saga; A, Torfæus, Historia Hrolfi Krakii, c. vii, Havniæ, 1705; B, Fornaldar Sögur, Rafn, I, 30 f, c. 15.
King Helgi, father of Hrólfr Kraki, in consequence 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 creature 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 admitted 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 lxxxvi, 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 midnight, 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 went away, with a scream, and the 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 hideous. 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, 'Collun 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 unkempt draggle-tail who begs shelter of the Finn successively and obtains her boon only from Diarmaid. See Campbell's Gaelic Ballads, p. ix.
The monstrous deformity of the woman is a trait in the ballad of '[The Marriage of Sir Gawain],' and related stories, and is described in these with revolting details. Her exaggerated appetite also is found in the romance of The Wedding of Sir Gawen and Dame Ragnell, see p. 290. The occasion on which she exhibits it is there the wedding feast, and the scene consequently resembles, even more closely there than here, what we meet with in the Danish ballads of 'Greve Genselin,' Grundtvig, 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 þrymskviða, or Hamarsheimt, of the older Edda. In a Norwegian version of 'Greve Genselin,' Grundtvig, IV, 732, the feats of eating and drinking are performed not by the bride, but by an old woman who acts as bridesmaid, brúrekvinne.[293]
A maid who submits, at a linden-worm's entreaty, 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',' Müllenhoff, 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, without 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.
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.
3
He chas'd the deer now him before,
An the roe down by the den,
Till the fattest buck in a' the flock
King Henry he has slain.
4
O he has doen him to his ha,
To make him beerly cheer;
An in it came a griesly ghost,
Steed stappin i the fleer.
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 mell;
An I ken naething she 'peard to be,
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
O whan he slew his berry-brown steed,
Wow but his heart was sair!
Shee eat him [a'] up, skin an bane,
Left naething 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.'
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 gi 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
O 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.
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?'
'O 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
O 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.'
* * * * *
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'll 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.
136. shew.
191. will.
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.
14. And fu o courtesey.
21. And this was seen o.
23. And he has taen him to a haunted hunt's ha.
31. He's chaced the dun deer thro the wood.
33. 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 Scott's invention, for nearly all that is not in a is found in Lewis, too.
53,4. Each frighted huntsman fled the ha,
And left the king alone.
74-6. That ye're nae wellcum tee?'
'O ye's gae kill your berry brown steed,
And serve him up to me.'
94. That ye're na wellcum tee?
103. a' up, ane by ane.
114-6. That I hae left to gie?'
'O ye do fell your gay goss-hawks,
And bring them a' to me.'
121. he felled.
123. bane by bane.
142. And put in a pipe of wine.
143. up a' at ae draught.
144. drap therein.
15. Between 2 and 3:
And what's the bed i this house, ladye,
That ye're nae wellcum tee?
153. O ye maun pu the green heather.
171,2. Now swear, now swear, ye king Henrie,
To take me for your bride.
181. When day was come, and night was gane.
193. 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.