N
Campbell MSS, II, 264.
1
As I lookit oer my father's castle wa,
All alone and alone O
I saw two pretty babes playing at the ba.
Down by yon green-wood sidie
2
'O pretty babes, gin ye were mine,'
Hey the loch o the Loanie
'I would clead ye o the silk sae fine.'
Down by that green-wood sidie
3
'O 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 silk 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 fornent the seen.'
All alone and alone O
'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 reminded me, has made this stanza a part of another ballad, 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 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, Alcuni C. p. romagnoli, p. 7, there is no penance.
22. St Stephen and Herod.
P. [236] a. Spanish. Milá's new edition, Romancerillo 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 votaries when brought to the gallows as effectually as St James. See Robertson, Materials, etc., I, 369, 471, 515, 524.
[238]. Note [195] should have been credited to R. Köhler.
[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 announcing Christ's Birth and the Massacre of the Innocents, and the crowned figures are judged by Professor Stephens to be Herod and Herodias. Who the old woman should be it is not easy to say, but there can be no connection 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 restoration of the roasted cock to life is collected by Dr R. Köhler and by Ferdinand Wolf, in Jahrbücher für romanische u. englische Literatur, III, 58 ff, 67 f. Dr Köhler 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 Legend), p. 223, v. 47-p. 225, v. 85; Lütolf, Sagen, Bräuche 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 Mühlhausen are thus accounted for. In the early days of the Reformation a couple of orthodox 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 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. Thüringen und der Harz, mit ihren Merkwürdigkeiten, u. s. w., VI, 20 f. (Köhler.)
[240] a. The monk Andrius has the scene between Judas and his mother as in Cursor Mundi, and attributes to Greek writers the opinion that the roasted cock was the same that caused Peter's compunction. Mussafia, Sulla legenda del legno della Croce, Sitz. Ber. der phil.-hist. Classe der Wiener Akad., LXIII, 206, note. (Köhler.)
"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 castle. 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 represent 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 astonished the assembly by his salutation of the morning.'" Notes and Queries, 5th series, IX, 412 a. (Köhler.)
A heathen in West Gothland (Vestrogothia) had killed his herdsman, Torsten, a Christian, and was reproached for it by Torsten's wife. Pointing to an ox that had been slaughtered, the heathen answered: Tam Torstenum tuum, quem sanctum et in cœlis vivere existimas, plane ita vivum credo prout hunc bovem quem in frusta cædendum conspicis. Mirum dictu, vix verba finiverat, cum e vestigio bos in pedes se erexit vivus, stupore omnibus qui adstabant attonitis. Quare sacellum in loco eodem erectum, multaque miracula, præsertim in pecorum curatione, patrata. Ioannis Vastovii Vitis Aquilonia, sive Vitæ Sanctorum regni Sveo-gothici, emend. et illustr. Er. Benzelius filius, Upsaliæ, 1708, p. 59. (Köhler.)
[240] b. Man begegnet auf alten Holzschnitten einer Abbildung von Christi Geburt, welche durch die dabei stehenden Thiere erklärt werden soll. Der Hahn auf der Stange krähet da: Christus natus est! der Ochse brüllt mit überschnappender Stimme drein: Ubi? und das Lammlein bläheret die Antwort: Bethlehem! Rochholz, Alemannisches Kinderlied und Kinderspiel aus der Schweiz, p. 69 f. (Köhler.)
[241] a. Wer sind die ersten Vorbothen Gottes? Der Hahn, weil er kräht, "Christ ist geboren." Der Tauber, weil er ruft, "Wo?" Und der Ziegenbock, weil er schreit, "Z' Bethlehem." Pater Amand Baumgarten, Aus der volksmässigen Ueberlieferung der Heimat, I, Zur volksthümlichen Naturkunde, p. 94. (Köhler.)
Hahn: Kikeriki! Gott der Herr lebt!
Ochs: Wo? Wo?
Geiss: Mäh! zu Bethlehem!
Simrock, Das deutsche Kinderbuch, 2d ed., p. 173, No 719; 3d ed., p. 192, No 787. (Köhler.)
Quando Christo nasceu disse o gallo: Jesus-Christo e ná ... á ... á ... do (nádo). J. Leite de Vasconcellos, Tradiçôes populares de Portugal, p. 148, No 285 b.
[242]. Note. Add: W. Creizenach, Judas Ischarioth in Legende und Sage des Mittelalters, in Paul and Braune's Beiträge, II, 177 ff.
25. Willie's Lyke-Wake.
P. [247] b. Add: E. 'Willie's Lyke-Wake.' a. Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, II, 51. b. Christie, Traditional Ballad Airs, I, 122.
[249] b. Swedish. Add: D. Aminson, Bidrag till Södermanlands Kulturhistoria, II, 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, Littérature Orale de la Basse Normandie, p. 310, 'La Religieuse;' Poésies 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 permission to see her for a last time, puts a ring on her finger, and then "falls dead." His love insists on conducting his funeral; the lover returns to life and carries her off.
[249] b. A. Magyar. The ballad of 'Handsome Tony' is also translated by G. Heinrich, in Ungarische Revue, 1883, p. 155.
The same story, perverted to tragedy at the end, in Golovatsky, II, 710, No 13, a ballad of the Carpathian Russians in Hungary.
[250]. Dr R. Köhler points out to me a German copy of A, B, C, which I had overlooked, in Schröer, Ein Ausflug nach Gottschee, p. 266 ff, 'Hansel june.' The mother builds a mill and a church, and then the young 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 married 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.