FOOTNOTES:
[128] Motherwell probably meant 13.
[129] So E 10; A 9 has, in Ramsay, kirk-yard, which obviously requires to be corrected.
[130] In a note in the Kinloch MSS, VII, 277, Kinloch says that Sir Walter Scott told him that he had received this story from an old woman in Shetland.
[131] The ballad has been often translated, mostly after the compounded form in the Danske Viser, No 29: Prior, III, 76 (Danish A), 81; "London Magazine, 1820, I, 152;" Borrow, Foreign Quarterly Review, 1830, VI, 62, and p. 47 of his Romantic Ballads; Buchanan, p. 112.
[132] Hoffmann von Fallersleben in Deutsches Museum, 1852, II, 162=Erk's Wunderhorn, IV, 73, and Liederhort, p. 75, No 24a, Mittler, No 545; Wagner in Deutsches Museum, 1862, II, 802, 803; Liederhort, No 24, p. 74; Ditfurth, II, 1, No 2; Meier, p. 355, No 201; Peter, I, 199, No 14; A. Müller, p. 95; Meinert, p. 3=Erlach, IV, 196, Erk's Wunderhorn, IV, 74, Liederhort, p. 76, No 24b, Zuccalmaglio, p. 130, No 60, Mittler, No 544; Schleicher, Volkstümliches aus Sonneberg, p. 112, No 22.
[78]
THE UNQUIET GRAVE
[A]. 'The Unquiet Grave,' Folk-Lore Record, I, 60, 1868.
[B]. Notes and Queries, Fifth Series, VII, 486.
[C]. Notes and Queries, Fifth Series, VII, 387.
[D]. 'The Ghost and Sailor,' Buchan's MSS, I, 268.
The vow in the second stanza of all the copies is such as we find in 'Bonny Bee-Ho'm,' and elsewhere (see p. 156f of this volume), and A, B, D 4, 5, C 3, 4 are nearly a repetition of '[Sweet William's Ghost],' A 5, 6, B 3, 4, C 7, 8, D 7, 10. This may suggest a suspicion that this brief little piece is an aggregation of scraps. But these repetitions would not strike so much if the ballad were longer, and we must suppose that we have it only in an imperfect form. Even such as it is, however, this fragment has a character of its own. It exhibits the universal popular belief that excessive grieving for the dead interferes with their repose. We have all but had 'The Unquiet Grave' before, as the conclusion of two versions of 'The Twa Brothers:'
She ran distraught, she wept, she sicht,
She wept the sma brids frae the tree,
She wept the starns adown frae the lift,
She wept the fish out o the sea.
'O cease your weeping, my ain true-love,
Ye but disturb my rest;'
'Is that my ain true lover, John,
The man that I loe best?'
''Tis naething but my ghaist,' he said,
'That's sent to comfort thee;
O cease your weeping, my true-love,
And 'twill gie peace to me.'
(I, 440, C 18-20.)
She put the small pipes to her mouth,
And she harped both far and near,
Till she harped the small birds off the briers,
And her true-love out of the grave.
'What's this? what's this, Lady Margaret?' he says,
'What's this you want of me?'
'One sweet kiss of your ruby lips,
That's all I want of thee.'
'My lips they are so bitter,' he says,
'My breath it is so strong,
If you get one kiss of my ruby lips,
Your days will not be long.'
(I, 439, B 10-12.)
Sir Walter Scott has remarked that the belief that excessive grieving over lost friends destroyed their peace was general throughout Scotland: Redgauntlet, Note 2 to Letter XI. See also Gregor's Notes on the Folk-Lore of the North-East of Scotland, p. 69. We have recent testimony that this belief survives in England (1868), Folk Lore Record, I, 60. It was held in Ireland that inordinate tears would pierce a hole in the dead: Killinger, Erin, VI, 65, 449 (quoting a writer that I have not identified).
The common notion is that tears wet the shroud or grave-clothes. Scott relates a story of a Highlander who was constrained to come back and say to a kinswoman: My rest is disturbed by your unnecessary lamentation; your tears scald me in my shroud.
Mrs Grant of Laggan tells a similar story. An only sister had lost an only brother. Night after night she sat up, weeping incessantly and calling upon his name. At length her brother appeared to her in his shroud, and seemed wet and shivering. "Why," said he, "am I disturbed with the extravagance of thy sorrow? Till thou art humble and penitent for this rebellion against the decrees of Providence, every tear thou sheddest falls on this dark shroud without drying, and every night thy tears still more chill and encumber me." Essays on the Superstitions of the Highlanders of Scotland, ed. New York, 1813, p. 95 f.
A dead boy appears to his mother, and begs her to cease weeping, for all her tears fall upon his shirt and wet it so that he cannot sleep. The mother gives heed, her child comes again and says, Now my shirt is dry, and I have peace. Grimms, K. u. H. märchen, No 109.
In another form of this tradition a child has to carry all its mother's tears in a large pitcher, and cannot keep up with a happy little band to which it would belong, 'Die Macht der Thränen,' Erk, Neue Sammlung, III, I, No 35=Wunderhorn, IV, 95, Liederhort, p. 8, No 3, Mittler, No 557; Hoffmann u. Richter, p. 341, No 290; Börner, Volkssagen aus dem Orlagau, pp 142, 152; or lags behind because its clothes are heavy with these tears, Geiler von Kaisersberg's Trostspiegel, 1510, cited by Rochholz in Wolf's Zeitschrift für deutsche Mythologie, II, 252; Thomas Cantipratensis, Bonum Universale, "l. ii, c. 53, § 17," about 1250; or the child collects its mother's tears in its hands, Müllenhoff, No 196.
A wife's tears wet her dead husband's shirt in the German ballad 'Der Vorwirth:' Meinert, p. 13=Erk's Wunderhorn, IV, 96, Erk's Liederhort, p. 160, No 46a, Mittler, No 555; Hoffmann in Deutsches Museum, 1852, II, 161=Wunderhorn, IV, 98, Liederhort, p. 158, No 46, Mittler, No 556; Peter, I, 200, No 15.
Saint Johannes Eleemosynarius and a couple of his bishops are fain to rise from their graves because their stoles are wet through with a woman's tears, Legenda Aurea, c. 27, § 12, Grässe, p. 132, last half of the thirteenth century (cited by Liebrecht); and Saint Vicelin, because his robes are drenched with the tears of his friend Eppo, Helmold, Chronica Slavorum, l. i, 78, p. 15, ed. Lappenberg, last half of the twelfth century (cited by Müllenhoff).
Sigrún weeps bitter tears for Helgi's death every night ere she sleeps. The hero comes out of his mound to comfort her, but also to tell her how she discommodes him. He is otherwise well off, but every drop pierces, cold and bloody, to his breast: Helgakviða Hundingsbana II, 45. So in some of the ballads which apparently derive from this lay, the tears of Else or Kerstin fill her lover's coffin with blood: Grundtvig, II, 495, 497, No 90, A 17, B 8; Afzelius, I, 31, No 6, st. 14, Wigström, Folkdiktning, I, 18, st. 9.
Almost the very words of the Highland apparition in Scott's tale are used by an Indian sage to a king who is inconsolable for the loss of his wife; "the incessant tears of kinsfolk burn the dead, so it is said:" Kâlidâsas, Raghuvansa, VIII, 85, ed. Stenzler, p. 61 of his translation. Another representation is that the dead have to swallow the rheum and tears of their mourning relations, and therefore weeping must be abstained from: Yâjnavalkya's Gesetzbuch, Sanskrit u. Deutsch, Stenzler, III, 11, p. 89.
The ancient Persians also held that immoderate grief on the part of survivors was detrimental to the happiness of the dead. Weeping for the departed is forbidden, because the water so shed forms an impediment before the bridge Tchînavar (over which souls pass to heaven). Sad-der, Porta XCVII, Hyde, Veterum Persarum et Parthorum Religionis Historia, p. 486, ed. Oxford, 1700. Again, Ardai Viraf, seeing a deep and fetid river, which is carrying away a multitude of souls in all the agony of drowning, and asking what this is, is told: The river that you see before you is composed of the tears of mankind, tears shed, against the express command of the Almighty, for the departed; therefore, when you return again to the earth inculcate this to mankind, that to grieve immoderately is in the sight of God a most heinous sin; and the river is constantly increased by this folly, every tear making the poor wretches who float on it more distant from ease and relief. The Ardai Viraf Nameh, translated from the Persian, by J. A. Pope, London, 1816, p. 53 f.[133]
The Greeks and Romans also reprehend obstinate condolement as troubling the dead, and perhaps, if we had the popular views on the subject, these might be found to have taken an expression like some of the above. In Lucian De Luctu, c. 16, the ghost of a son who had died in the bloom of youth is made to reproach the disconsolate father in these words: [a]ὁ κακοδαιμον ανθρωπε, τι κεκραγας; τι δε μοι παραχεις πραγματα;][134]
See, also, Maurer, Isländische Volkssagen, p. 312 f, No 9; Luzel, I, 65, 'La jeune fille et l'âme de sa mère;' Karadshitch, I, 272, No 368, Talvj, I, 84, ed. 1853; Kapper, Gesänge der Serben, II, 116; Nibelungen, 2302, ed. Bartsch; Blaas, in Germania, XXV, 429, No 34; Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, III, 447, No 397; Müllenhoff, No 195; Wunderhorn, IV, 94, last stanza; Wolf, Beiträge zur deutschen Mythologie, I, 215, No 149.
A
Communicated to the Folk Lore Record, I, 60, by Miss Charlotte Latham, as written down from the lips of a girl in Sussex.
1 'The wind doth blow today, my love,
And a few small drops of rain;
I never had but one true-love,
In cold grave she was lain.
2 'I'll do as much for my true-love
As any young man may;
I'll sit and mourn all at her grave
For a twelvemonth and a day.'
3 The twelvemonth and a day being up,
The dead began to speak:
'Oh who sits weeping on my grave,
And will not let me sleep?'
4 ''Tis I, my love, sits on your grave,
And will not let you sleep;
For I crave one kiss of your clay-cold lips,
And that is all I seek.'
5 'You crave one kiss of my clay-cold lips;
But my breath smells earthy strong;
If you have one kiss of my clay-cold lips,
Your time will not be long.
6 ''Tis down in yonder garden green,
Love, where we used to walk,
The finest flower that ere was seen
Is withered to a stalk.
7 'The stalk is withered dry, my love,
So will our hearts decay;
So make yourself content, my love,
Till God calls you away.'
B
Notes and Queries, Fifth Series, VII, 436, cited by W. R. S. R., from the Ipswich Journal, 1877: from memory, after more than seventy years.
1 'How cold the wind do blow, dear love,
And see the drops of rain!
I never had but one true-love,
In the green wood he was slain.
2 'I would do as much for my own true-love
As in my power doth lay;
I would sit and mourn all on his grave
For a twelvemonth and a day.'
3 A twelvemonth and a day being past,
His ghost did rise and speak:
'What makes you mourn all on my grave?
For you will not let me sleep.'
4 'It is not your gold I want, dear love,
Nor yet your wealth I crave;
But one kiss from your lily-white lips
Is all I wish to have.
5 'Your lips are cold as clay, dear love,
Your breath doth smell so strong;'
'I am afraid, my pretty, pretty maid,
Your time will not be long.'
C
"From a yeoman in Suffolk, who got it from his nurse;" B. Montgomerie Ranking, in Notes and Queries, Fifth Series, VII, 387.
1 'Cold blows the wind oer my true-love,
Cold blow the drops of rain;
I never, never had but one sweetheart,
In the greenwood he was slain.
2 'I did as much for my true-love
As ever did any maid;
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
* * * * *
3 'One kiss from your lily-cold lips, true-love,
One kiss is all I pray,
And I'll sit and weep all over your grave
For a twelvemonth and a day.'
4 'My cheek is as cold as the clay, true-love,
My breath is earthy and strong;
And if I should kiss your lips, true-love,
Your life would not be long.'
D
Buchan's MSS, I, 268.
1 'Proud Boreas makes a hideous noise,
Loud roars the fatal fleed;
I loved never a love but one,
In church-yard she lies dead.
2 'But I will do for my love's sake
What other young men may;
I'll sit and mourn upon her grave,
A twelvemonth and a day.'
3 A twelvemonth and a day being past,
The ghost began to speak:
'Why sit ye here upon my grave,
And will not let me sleep?'
4 'One kiss of your lily-white lips
Is all that I do crave;
And one kiss of your lily-white lips
Is all that I would have.'
5 'Your breath is as the roses sweet,
Mine as the sulphur strong;
If you get one kiss of my lips,
Your days would not be long.
6 'Mind not ye the day, Willie,
Sin you and I did walk?
The firstand flower that we did pu
Was witherd on the stalk.'
7 'Flowers will fade and die, my dear,
Aye as the tears will turn;
And since I've lost my own sweet-heart,
I'll never cease but mourn.'
8 'Lament nae mair for me, my love,
The powers we must obey;
But hoist up one sail to the wind,
Your ship must sail away.'