S
Communicated to Percy by Rev. P. Parsons, of Wye, near Ashford, Kent, April 19, 1775: taken down by a friend of Mr Parsons "from the spinning-wheel, in Suffolk."
1
'Where have you been today, Randall, my son?
Where have you been today, my only man?'
'I have been a hunting, mother, make my bed soon,
For I'm sick at the heart, fain woud lie down.
Dear sister, hold my head, dear mother, make my bed,
I am sick at the heart, fain woud lie down.'
2
'What have you eat today, Randal, my son?
What have you eat today, my only man?'
'I have eat an eel; mother, make,' etc.
3
'What was the colour of it, Randal, my son?
What was the colour of it, my only man?'
'It was neither green, grey, blue nor black,
But speckled on the back; make,' etc.
4
'Who gave you eels today, Randal, my son?
Who gave you eels today, my only man?'
'My own sweetheart; mother, make,' etc.
5
'Where shall I make your bed, Randal, my son?
Where shall I make your bed, my only man?'
'In the churchyard; mother, make,' etc.
6
'What will you leave her then, Randall, my son?
What will you leave her then, my only man?'
'A halter to hang herself; make,' etc.
[166] a. Insert after C:
D. b. Disordered: b 1 == a 1; b 2 == a 4; b 3 == a 51,2 + a 23,4; b 4 == a 3; a 21,2, 53,4, are wanting.
b. 13, been at the hunting.
32. I fear ye've drunk poison.
33 == a 23. I supd wi my auntie.
41,2 == a 31,2. your supper.
This copy may be an imperfect recollection of a.
[166] b.
I. h. Four stanzas only, 1, 2, 6, 7.
12. my own little one.
14. at the heart ... and fain.
61. will you leave mother.
71. will you leave grandma.
73. a rope.
k. Seven stanzas.
13. to see grandmother.
14. sick at heart, and fain.
23. Stripëd eels fried.
3 == a 6, d 5, h 3.
31,2. Your grandmother has poisoned you.
33. I know it, I know it.
4 == a 6. 41,2. would you leave mother.
5 == a 8, b 9, h 7.
51,2. would you leave sister.
53. A box full of jewels.
6 == a 7; 7 == a 8.
61,2. would you leave grandmother.
63. A rope for to hang her.
71,2. O where shall I make it.
K. Add after c:
d. 11, my bonnie wee crowdin, and always.
21. frae your stepmither.
22. She gied me a bonnie wee fish, it was baith black and blue.
51. my ain wee dog.
61. And whare is your ain wee dog.
62.
It laid down its wee headie and deed,
And sae maun I do nou.
Q. "The second, third, fourth, and fifth stanzas were very much similar to the set Lord Ronald, in Scott's Border Minstrelsy, and as Mr Robertson was hurried he did not take down the precise words." MS., p. 21.
Ronald is changed to Randal in 6, 7, but is left in 8.
R. Written in four-line stanzas.
13. Edward.
P. [168] a, first paragraph. Add: Swedish E, Aminson, Bidrag till Södermanlands Kulturhistoria, III, 37, eight stanzas. Nine stanzas of Finnish B are translated by Schott, Acta Comparationis, 1878, IV, cols 132, 133. The murder here is for wife-seduction, a peculiar and assuredly not original variation.
[168] b. B is translated by Adolph von Marées, p. 27; by Graf von Platen, II, 329, Stuttgart, 1847; after Herder into Magyar, by Dr Karl von Szász.
14. Babylon; or, The Bonnie Banks o Fordie.
P. [172] a. Swedish. Professor George Stephens points me to two localized prose outlines of the story, one from Småland, the other from Skåne; 'Truls och hans barn,' in the Svenska Fornminnesföreningens Tidskrift, II, 77 f.
15. Leesome Brand.
P. [179] a. Swedish. II. Add: I, 'Risa lill,' Wigström, Folkdiktning, II, 28.
[180] a, lines 25, 26. Read: A, G, M, X.
[181] a. German. Add: D, 'Der Ritter und seine Geliebte,' Ditfurth, Deutsche Volks- und Gesellschaftslieder des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts, p. 14, No 13. (Köhler.)
[181] b. French. C. A still more corrupted copy in Poésies populaires de la France, III, fol. 143, 'La fausse morte.' D. Fol. 215 of the same volume, a very pretty ballad from Périgord, which has lost most of the characteristic incidents, but not the tragic conclusion.
[182] b, first paragraph. A similar scene, ending happily, in I Complementi della Chanson d'Huon de Bordeaux, pubblicati da A. Graf, pp 26 ff. (Köhler.)
[183] b, stanzas 27, 28. Compare:
Modhreu lärde sonnenn sinn:
'Skiuter tu diur och skiuter tu råå;
'Skiuter tu diur och skiuter tu råå,
Then salige hindenn lätt tu gå!'
'Den förtrollade Jungfrun,' Arwidsson, II, 260, No 136, A I, 2.
17. Hind Horn.
P. [187]. F. Insert the title 'Young Hyndhorn.'
G. Insert: Kinloch MSS, VII, 117.
[192]. Dr Davidson informs me that many years ago he heard a version of 'Hind Horn,' in four-line stanzas, in which, as in 'Horn et Rymenhild' and 'Horn Childe and Maiden Rimnild,' Horn took part in a joust at the king's court,
An young Hind Horn was abune them a'.
He remembers further only these stanzas:
'O got ye this o the sea sailin,
Or got ye 't o the lan?
Or got ye 't o the bloody shores o Spain,
On a droont man's han?'
'I got na 't o the sea sailin,
I got na 't o the lan,
Nor yet upo the bloody shores o Spain,
On a droont man's han.'
[193] b (2). Add: 'Herr Lovmand,' Kristensen, I, 136, No 52.
[194]. A corrupt fragment of a ballad, 'Der Bettler,' in Schröer's Ausflug nach Gottschee, p. 210 f (Köhler), retains features like 'Hind Horn.' The beggar comes to a wedding, and sits by the stove. The bride kindly says, Nobody is thinking of the beggar, and hands him a glass of wine. He says, Thanks, fair bride; thou wast my first wife. Upon this the bridegroom jumps over the table, crying, Bachelor I came, and bachelor will go.
The Epirots and Albanians have a custom of betrothing or marrying, commonly in early youth, and of then parting for a long period. A woman was lately (1875) buried at Iannina who, as the archbishop boasted in the funeral discourse, had preserved her fidelity to a husband who had been separated from her thirty years. This unhappy usage has given rise to a distinct class of songs. Dozon, Chansons populaires bulgares, p. 294, note.
[195] b (5). The German popular rhymed tale of Henry the Lion is now known to have been composed by the painter Heinrich Götting, Dresden, 1585. Germania, XXVI, 453, No 527.
[198] a, to first paragraph. For the marvellous transportation in these stories, see a note by Liebrecht in Jahrbücher für rom. u. eng. Literatur, III, 147. In the same, IV, 110, Liebrecht refers to the legend of Hugh of Halton, recounted by Dugdale in his Antiquities of Warwickshire, II, 646, ed. of 1730, and Monasticon Anglicanum, IV, 90 f, ed. 1823 (and perhaps in Dugdale's Baronage of England, but I have not found it there). Hugo is another Gerard: the two half-rings miraculously unite. (Köhler.) See, also, Landau on Torello, 'Der Wunderritt,' Quellen des Dekameron 1884, pp 193-218.
[198] b, third paragraph. Other versions of 'Le Retour du Mari:' Fleury, Littérature Orale de la Basse-Normandie, p. 268; E. Legrand, Romania, X, 374, also from Normandy.
A ballad of the nature of 'Le Retour du Mari' is very popular in Poland: Kolberg, No 22, pp 224 ff, some dozen copies; Wojcicki, I, 287; Wojcicki, II, 311 == Kolberg's c; Lipinski, p. 159 == Kolberg's i; Konopka, p. 121, No 20; Kozłowski, No 5, p. 35, p. 36, two copies. In Moravian, 'První milejší,' 'The First Love,' Sušil, No 135, p. 131. The general course of the story is that a young man has to go to the war the day of his wedding or the day after. He commits his bride to her mother, saying, Keep her for me seven years; and if I do not then come back, give her to whom you please. He is gone seven years, and, returning then, asks for his wife. She has just been given to another. He asks for a fiddle [pipe], and says he will go to the wedding. They advise him to stay away, for there will be a disturbance. No, he will only stand at the door and play. The bride jumps over four tables, and makes a courtesy to him on a fifth, welcomes him and dismisses the new bridegroom.
[199] a, end of the first paragraph. I forgot to mention the version of Costantino, agreeing closely with Camarda's, in De Rada, Rapsodie d'un poema albanese raccolte nelle colonie del Napoletano, pp 61-64.
[200]. A maid, parting from her lover for three years, divides her ring with him. He forgets, and prepares to marry another woman. She comes to the nuptials, and is not known. She throws the half ring into a cup, drinks, and hands the cup to him. He sees the half ring, and joins it to his own. This is my wife, he says. She delivered me from death. He annuls his marriage, and espouses the right woman. Miklosisch, Ueber die Mundarten der Zigeuner, IV, Märchen u. Lieder, 15th Tale, pp 52-55, at the end of a story of the class referred to at p. 401 f. (Köhler.)
A personage appeared at Magdeburg in 1348 in the disguise of a pilgrim, asked for a cup of wine from the archbishop's table, and, in drinking, dropped into the cup from his mouth the seal ring of the margrave Waldemar, supposed to have been long dead, but whom he confessed or avowed himself to be. Klöden, Diplomatische Geschichte des für falsch erklärten Markgrafen Waldemar, p. 189 f. (Köhler.)
A wife who long pursues her husband, lost to her through spells, drops a ring into his broth at the feast for his second marriage, is recognized, and they are happily reunited: The Tale of the Hoodie, Campbell, West Highland Tales, I, 63-66.
In a pretty Portuguese ballad, which has numerous parallels in other languages, a long-absent husband, after tormenting his wife by telling her that she is a widow, legitimates himself by saying, Where is your half of the ring which we parted? Here is mine: 'Bella Infanta,' Almeida-Garrett, II, 11, 14, Braga, Cantos p. do Archipelago Açoriano, p. 300; 'Dona Infanta,' 'Dona Catherina,' Braga, Romanceiro Geral, pp 3 f, 7.
See, further, for ring stories, Wesselofsky, Neue Beiträge zur Geschichte der Salomonsage, in Archiv für Slavische Philologie, VI, 397 f; Hahn, Neugriechische Märchen, No 25.
The cases in which a simple ring is the means of recognition or confirmation need, of course, not be multiplied.
[200] a, line twenty-four. For Alesha read Alyosha.
[205]. G. In Kinloch MSS, VII, 117. After "from the recitation of my niece, M. Kinnear, 23 August, 1826," is written in pencil "Christy Smith," who may have been the person from whom Miss Kinnear derived the ballad, or another reciter. Changes are made in pencil, some of which are written over in ink, some not. The printed copy, as usual with Kinloch, differs in some slight respects from the manuscript.