G
British Museum, MS. Addit. 20094. 'The Knight and the Chief's Daughter,' communicated to Mr T. Crofton Croker in 1829, as remembered by Mr W. Pigott Rogers, and believed by Mr Rogers to have been learned by him from an Irish nursery-maid.
1 'Now steal me some of your father's gold,
And some of your mother's fee,
And steal the best steed in your father's stable,
Where there lie thirty three.'
2 She stole him some of her father's gold,
And some of her mother's fee,
And she stole the best steed from her father's stable,
Where there lay thirty three.
3 And she rode on the milk-white steed,
And he on the barb so grey,
Until they came to the green, green wood,
Three hours before it was day.
4 'Alight, alight, my pretty colleen,
Alight immediately,
For six knight's daughters I drowned here,
And thou the seventh shall be.'
5 'Oh hold your tongue, you false knight villain,
Oh hold your tongue,' said she;
''T was you that promised to marry me,
For some of my father's fee.'
6 'Strip off, strip off your jewels so rare,
And give them all to me;
I think them too rich and too costly by far
To rot in the sand with thee.'
7 'Oh turn away, thou false knight villain,
Oh turn away from me;
Oh turn away, with your back to the cliff,
And your face to the willow-tree.'
8 He turned about, with his back to the cliff,
And his face to the willow-tree;
So sudden she took him up in her arms,
And threw him into the sea.
9 'Lie there, lie there, thou false knight villain,
Lie there instead of me;
'T was you that promised to marry me,
For some of my father's fee.'
10 'Oh take me by the arm, my dear,
And hold me by the hand,
And you shall be my gay lady,
And the queen of all Scotland.'
11 'I'll not take you by the arm, my dear,
Nor hold you by the hand;
And I won't be your gay lady,
And the queen of all Scotland.'
12 And she rode on the milk-white steed,
And led the barb so grey,
Until she came back to her father's castle,
One hour before it was day.
13 And out then spoke her parrot so green,
From the cage wherein she lay:
Where have you now been, my pretty colleen,
This long, long summer's day?
14 'Oh hold your tongue, my favourite bird,
And tell no tales on me;
Your cage I will make of the beaten gold,
And hang in the willow-tree.'
15 Out then spoke her father dear,
From the chamber where he lay:
Oh what hath befallen my favourite bird,
That she calls so loud for day?
16 'T is nothing at all, good lord,' she said,
''T is nothing at all indeed;
It was only the cat came to my cage-door,
And I called my pretty colleen.'
5. Gil Brenton.
P. 67 a, line 14. Add the Icelandic versions of 'Torkild Trundesøn' recently printed: Íslenzk fornkvæði, II, 281, No 62, A 42 f, B 42, C 29.
6. Willie's Lady.
P. 85 b, the third paragraph. "Bei der Entbindung... muss man alle Schlösser im Hause an Thüren und Kisten aufmachen: so gebiert die Frau leichter." Wuttke, Der deutsche Volksaberglaube, p. 355, No 574, ed. 1869. G. L. K.
7. Earl Brand.
P. 96 b, line 1. In England the north side of the burial-ground is appropriated to unbaptized children, suicides, etc. Brand's Antiquities, ed. Hazlitt, II, 214-218.
97 b. Add: Portuguese. Roméro, Cantos pop. do Brazil, No 4, 'D. Duarte e Donzilha,' I, 9: sicupira and collar.
Romaic. Chasiotis, p. 169, No 5, lemon and cypress; Aravandinos, p. 284 f, Nos 471, 472, cypress and reed.
97 b, and 489 b. Russian. Bezsonof, Kalyeki Perekhozhie, I, 697-700, Nos 167, 168 (Ruibnikof): Vasily is laid on the right, Sophia on the left; golden willow and cypress. The hostile mother pulls up, breaks down, the willow; cuts down, pulls up, the cypress.
Trudy, V, 711, No 309, A, man buried under church, wife under belfry; green maple and white birch. B-J, other copies with variations. V, 1208, No 50, a Cossack blossoms into a thorn, a maid into an elder; his mother goes to pull up the thorn, hers to pluck up the elder. "Lo, this is no thorn! it is my son!" "Lo, this is no elder! it is my daughter!"
489 b, eighth line from below, read, for laburnum, silver willow, and golden willow in the next line but one; and also for No 285.
98 a. Magyar. In Ungarische Revue, 1883, pp. 756-59, these three and one more.
Chinese. Hanpang has a young and pretty wife named Ho, whom he tenderly loves. The king, becoming enamored of her, puts her husband in prison, where he kills himself. Ho throws herself from a high place, leaving a letter to the king, in which she begs that she may be buried in the same tomb as her husband; but the king orders them to be put in separate graves. In the night cedars spring up from their tombs, which thrive so extraordinarily that in ten days their branches and their roots are interlocked. A. de Gubernatis, La Mythologie des Plantes, II, 53, from Schlegel, Uranographie chinoise, p. 679. (Already cited by Braga.)
9. The Fair Flower of Northumberland.
P. 116 a, C 51. Bed-head should certainly be bed-stock: cf. B 31.
10. The Twa Sisters.
P. 119 b. Färöe versions. Seven are now known, and one is printed, from the manuscript collection of Färöe ballads made by Svend Grundtvig and Jørgen Bloch, in Hammershaimb, Færøsk Anthologi, No 7, p. 23, 'Harpu rima.'
124 b. Waldau, Böhmische Granaten, II, 97. R. Köhler. (I have never been able to get the second volume.)
125 a.
'Siffle, berger, de mon haleine!
Mon frère m'a tué sous les bois d'Altumène,
Pour la rose de ma mère, que j'avais trouvée,' etc.
Poésies pop. de la France, MS., VI, 193 bis; popular in Champagne: Mélusine, I, col. 424.
125 b, second paragraph. (7), also in Rochholz, Schweizersagen aus dem Aargau, II, 126, No 353. Add to stories of this group, 'La Flute,' Bladé, Contes pop. de la Gascogne, II, 100-102. G. L. K.
The last paragraph. De Gubernatis, Zoölogical Mythology, I, 195, cites other similar stories: Afanasief, Skazki, V, 71, No 17, and two varieties, VI, 133, No 25; the twentieth story of Santo Stefano di Calcinaia, II, 325. G. L. K.
11. The Cruel Brother.
P. 143 b, line 27. Add D 3, and the Swedish ballad at p. 203, stanzas 14-17.
12. Lord Randal.
P. 151 a. Lt.-Col. W. F. Prideaux, of Calcutta, has kindly informed me that E was printed in The Universal Magazine, 1804. It is there said to have been sung, to a very simple and very ancient Scotch tune, by a peasant-girl at the village of Randcallas, Perthshire. See, also, Notes and Queries, Sixth Series, XII, 134.
152 b. Italian A is translated in the Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco's Essays in the Study of Folk-Songs, p. 219.
156 b, at the end of the second paragraph. The Čelakovský and the Sakharof ballad are the same. Add: Trudy, V, 432, No 822; p. 915, No 481.
13. Edward.
P. 168 b. B is translated also in Seckendorf's Musenalmanach für das Jahr 1808, p. 7, and by Du Méril, Histoire de la Poésie scandinave, p. 467.
14. Babylon, or, The Bonnie Banks o Fordie.
P. 172 b. Färöe. Four versions are known; Lyngbye's is repeated in Hammershaimb's Færøsk Anthologi, No 13, p. 45, 'Torkils døtur.'
173. 'La Fille d'un Cabaretier,' Guillon, Chansons pop. de l'Ain, p. 165, has some of the circumstances of No 14. A girl is stopped by three "libertins" in a wood. She gives them her ring and her chain, to ransom her person. They say they will have that too, and kill her when she resists. They then go for breakfast to her father's tavern, and while they are paying their scot the ring falls and is recognized by her mother. The youngest confesses, and they are taken to the forest and burned.
In a Russian ballad the only sister of nine [seven] brothers is given in marriage to a rich merchant, who lives at a distance from her home. After three years the married pair undertake a journey to her native place. On their way they are attacked by nine robbers, who kill her husband, throw her child into the sea, and act their pleasure with her. One of the nine, entering into talk with the woman, discovers that she is his sister. Sakharof, translated in Ralston's Songs of the Russian People, p. 49 f; Ruibnikof, Part III, p. 340, No 62, Part IV, p. 99, No 19; Hilferding, col. 149, No 28, col. 844, No 167, col. 1154, No 248, col. 1265, No 294; Trudy, V, 910, No 479, A-H.
15. Leesome Brand.
P. 181 b, line 12. Montanus is Vincenz von Zuccalmaglio; the ballad-editor is Wilhelm.
French. Add C, Decombe, No 96, p. 275, 'Le fils du roi d'Espagne.'
182 a, second paragraph, line 6 ff. Say: No 102, '[Willie and Earl Richard's Daughter];' No 103, '[Rose the Red and White Lily];' No 64, '[Fair Janet]',' C 7, D 1; No 63, '[Child Waters],' J 39; No 24, 'Bonnie Annie,' A 10, B 6, 7.
A man's help refused in travail. Add: Sir Beues of Hamtoun, p. 132, v. 3449 ff (Maitland Club).
Beues is seruise gan hire bede,
To helpe hire at the nede.
'For Godes loue,' she seide, 'nai!
Leue sire, thow go the wai;
For forbede, for is pite,
That no wimmanis priuite
To no man thourgh me be kouthe,'
16. Sheath and Knife.
P. 185. As an arrow-shot is to fix the place for a grave here and in 'Robin Hood's Death,' so, in many popular tales, arrows are shot to determine where a wife is to be sought: see a Hindoo tale, Asiatic Journal, 1833, XI, 207, Benfey, Pantschatantra, I, 261; Hahn, Griechische Märchen, No 67, II, 31, 285; Afanasief, I, 346, No 23, cited by Ralston, The Nineteenth Century, IV, 1004, 1878; Jagić, in Archiv für slavische Philologie, II, 619, and R. Köhler's notes at p. 620.
17. Hind Horn.
P. 194. The warning by a dream, the preternaturally rapid transportation, and the arrival in time to prevent a second marriage taking effect are found in the story of Aboulfaouaris, Cabinet des Fées, XV, 336 ff, Les Mille et un Jours, Paris, 1840, 228 ff. Rohde, Der griechische Roman, p. 182: F. Liebrecht.
196. Recognition by a ring dropped into a drinking-vessel. See Nigra, Romania, XIV, 255 f, note 2: but Willems and Coussemaker are cited in this book, I, 195 a (3).
197 b, second paragraph. Wernhart von Strätlingen: see the note to I, 350, of Birlinger and Buck, Volksthümliches aus Schwaben.
198 a. The story of the return, by marvellous means, of the seven years abroad husband, in Leskien u. Brugman, Litauische Volkslieder u. Märchen, No 22, p. 437 f: Wollner's notes, p. 571. G. L. K.
198 b, third paragraph. Add: Victor Smith, 'Le Retour du Mari,' Chants pop. du Velay et du Forez, in Romania, IX, 289; Tarbé, Romancero de Champagne, II, 122: "E. Muller, Chansons de mon village, journal Le Mémorial de la Loire du 19 septembre, 1867; Daymard, Collection de vieilles chansons, p. 220 du Bulletin de la Société des éludes du Lot, 1879" (V. Smith). Imperfect copies of this ballad in Guillon, Chansons pop. de l'Ain, p. 95, 'Les deux Maris,' p. 39, 'Ma pauvre Elise.'
As a tale in Bladé, Contes pop. de la Gascogne, I, 43. The seigneur is conveyed from the Holy Land by the devil, appears as a beggar, and produces one half of his marriage contract, which fits the half left with his wife. G. L. K.
200 a, second paragraph. Say, in the fourth line, three, six, or twelve. Dobrynya and Nastasya in Hilferding, Nos 23, 26, 33, 38, 43, columns 131, 144, 160, 176, 211, and twenty other places; Ruibnikof, I, 169, No 27, III, 90, No 18; Miss Hapgood's Epic Songs of Russia, Dobrynya and Alyosha, p. 253.
18. Sir Lionel.
P. 209 a. A king's daughter is to be given to the man that rids the country of a boar: Diarmaid and the Magic Boar, Campbell, Tales of the West Highlands, III, 81.
19. King Orfeo.
P. 216 a, first paragraph. The Bodleian copy, B, also refers to the lay of Orpheus at the end. G. L. K. So the Lai de l'Espine, Roquefort, Poésies de Marie de France, I, 556, v. 185, and Floire et Blanceflor, ed. Du Méril, p. 231, v. 71: Zielke, Sir Orfeo, p. 131.
For correspondences between Sir Orfeo and the Irish epic tale of the Wooing of Etain, see Kittredge, in The American Journal of Philology, VII, 191 ff.
20. The Cruel Mother.
P. 219 b. Add to the German versions: M, O. Knoop, Volkssagen, Erzählungen, u. s. w., aus dem östlichen Hinterpommern, Posen, 1885, pp. x, xi: 'Es trieb ein Schäfer mit Lämmlein raus.' Fr. Schönwerth, Aus der Oberpfalz, I, 234, gives a prose tale which is evidently founded on the ballad of 'The Cruel Mother' (three children, one in the water, one in dung, one in the wood). R. Köhler.
225.