C - The English and Scottish popular ballads, volume 3 (of 5) - 146

C

‘The Widow-Woman,’ Shropshire Folk-Lore, edited by Charlotte Sophia Burne, 1883–86, p. 541; “taken down by Mr Hubert Smith, 24th March, 1883, from the recitation of an elderly fisherman at Bridgworth, who could neither read nor write, and had learnt it some forty years before from his grandmother in Corve Dale.”

“The West and South Shropshire folk say far for fair.”

There was a widow-woman lived in far Scotland,

And in far Scotland she did live,

And all her cry was upon sweet Jesus,

Sweet Jesus so meek and mild.

Then Jesus arose one morning quite soon,

And arose one morning betime,

And away he went to far Scotland,

And to see what the good woman want.

And when he came to far Scotland,

. . . . . . .

Crying, What, O what, does the good woman want,

That is calling so much on me?

‘It’s you go rise up my three sons,

Their names, Joe, Peter, and John,

And put breath in their breast,

And clothing on their backs,

And immediately send them to far Scotland,

That their mother may take some rest.’

Then he went and rose up her three sons,

Their names, Joe, Peter, and John,

And did immediately send them to far Scotland,

That their mother may take some rest.

Then she made up a supper so neat,

As small, as small, as a yew-tree leaf,

But never one bit they could eat.

Then she made up a bed so soft,

The softest that ever was seen,

And the widow-woman and her three sons

They went to bed to sleep.

There they lay; about the middle of the night,

Bespeaks the youngest son:

‘The white cock he has crowed once,

The second has, so has the red.’

And then bespeaks the eldest son:

‘I think, I think it is high time

For the wicked to part from their dead,’

Then they laid [==led] her along a green road,

The greenest that ever was seen,

Until they came to some far chaperine,

Which was builded of lime and sand;

Until they came to some far chaperine,

Which was builded with lime and stone.

And then he opened the door so big,

And the door so very wide;

Said he to her three sons, Walk in!

But told her to stay outside.

‘Go back, go back!’ sweet Jesus replied,

‘Go back, go back!’ says he;

‘For thou hast nine days to repent

For the wickedness that thou hast done.’

Nine days then was past and gone,

And nine days then was spent,

Sweet Jesus called her once again,

And took her to heaven with him.

80. Old Robin of Portingale.

P. 240 a. ‘Sleep you, wake you.’ Add: ‘Young Beichan,’ No 53, B 5; Duran, Romancero, I, 488, Nos 742, 743.

240 a, II, 513 a.

The very wicked knight Owen, after coming out of St Patrick’s Purgatory, lay in his orisons fifteen days and nights before the high altar,

“And suþþe in is bare flech þe holi crois he nom,

And wende to þe holi lond, and holi mon bicom.”

Horstmann, Altengl. Legenden, 1875, p. 174, vv. 611–612; also p. 208, v. 697, and p. 209, v. 658. In a mediæval traveller’s tale the Abyssinians are said to burn the cross in their children’s foreheads. “Vort wonent da andere snoide kirsten in deme lande ind die heischent Ysini; wan man yr kinder douft ind kirsten macht, dan broet der priester yn eyn cruce vor dat houft.” Ein niederrheinischer Bericht über den Orient, ed. Röhricht u. Meier, in Zacher’s Zeitschrift, XIX, 15. (G. L. K.)

83. Child Maurice.

P. 272. F.

Mr Macmath has found the edition of 1755, and has favored me with a copy. Substitute for F. a., p. 263: Gill Morice, An Ancient Scottish Poem. Second Edition. Glasgow, Printed and sold by Robert and Andrew Foulis, 1755. (Small 4º, 15 pages.) The copy mentioned p. 263 b, note, is a reprint of this or of the first edition; it has but two variations of reading. The deviations from the text of 1755 will be put in the list of things to be corrected in the print.

84. Bonny Barbara Allen.

P. 276. In Miss Burne’s Shropshire Folk-Lore, 1883–86, p. 543, there is a copy, taken from singing, which I must suppose to be derived ultimately from print.

85. Lady Alice.

P. 279. The following version is printed by Mr G. R. Tomson in his Ballads of the North Countrie, 1888, p. 434, from a MS. of Mrs Rider Haggard.

GILES COLLINS AND LADY ANNICE

Giles Collins said to his own mother,

‘Mother, come bind up my head,

And send for the parson of our parish,

For to-morrow I shall be dead.

‘And if that I be dead,

As I verily believe I shall,

O bury me not in our churchyard,

But under Lady Annice’s wall.’

Lady Annice sat at her bower-window,

Mending of her night-coif,

When passing she saw as lovely a corpse

As ever she saw in her life.

‘Set down, set down, ye six tall men,

Set down upon the plain,

That I may kiss those clay-cold lips

I neer shall kiss again.

‘Set down, set down, ye six tall men,

That I may look thereon;

For to-morrow, before the cock it has crowd,

Giles Collins and I shall be one.

‘What had you at Giles Collins’s burying?

Very good ale and wine?

You shall have the same to-morrow night,

Much about the same time.’

Giles Collins died upon the eve,

This fair lady on the morrow;

Thus may you all now very well know

This couple died for sorrow.

Lt-Col. Prideaux has sent me this copy, from Fly-Leaves, London, John Miller, 1854, Second Series, p. 98.

GILES COLLINS

Lady Annis she sat in her bay-window,

A-mending of her night-coif;

As she sat, she saw the handsomest corpse

That ever she saw in her life.

‘Who bear ye there, ye four tall men?

Who bear ye on your shouldyers?’

‘It is the body of Giles Collins,

An old true lovyer of yours.’

‘Set’n down, set’n down,’ Lady Annis she said,

‘Set’n down on the grass so trim;

Before the clock it strikes twelve this night,

My body shall lie beside him.’

Lady Annis then fitted on her night-coif,

Which fitted her wondrous well;

She then pierced her throat with a sharp-edgd knife,

As the four pall-bearers can tell.

Lady Annis was buried in the east church-yard,

Giles Collins was laid in the west,

And a lily grew out from Giles Collins’s grave

Which touched Lady Annis’s breast.

There blew a cold north-westerly wind,

And cut this lily in twain;

Which never there was seen before,

And it never will again.

89. Fause Foodrage.

P. 298 a. Add, ‘Sönnens hævn,’ Kristensen, Skattegraveren, IV, 113, No 284; a fragment.

90. Jellon Grame.

Pp. 303 b, 513 b. Marvellous growth, etc. Ormr Stórólfsson very early attained to a great size, and at seven was a match for the strongest men: Flateyjarbok, I, 521, Fornmanna Sögur, III, 205, cited by Bugge in Paul u. Braune’s Beiträge, XII, 58. Wolfdietrich gains one man’s strength every year, and amazes everybody in his infancy even. Wolfdietrich A, ed. Amelung, sts 31, 38–41, 45, 233, 234, pp. 84, 85, 86, 108. (Some striking resemblances to Robert le Diable.) Cf. also Wigalois, ed. Pfeiffer, 36, 2 f.,==Benecke, 1226 f.:

In einem jâre wuchs ez mêr

dan ein anderz in zwein tuo.

Elias (afterwards the Knight of the Swan), who is to avenge his mother, astonishes by his rapid growth the old hermit who brings him up:

“A! Dieu! dist ly preudons, à qui est cest enfant?

Il est sy jouènes d’âge et s’a le corps sy grant:

S’il croist sy faitement, ce sera ung gaiant.”

Chevalier au Cygne, ed. Reiffenberg, vv. 960–963, I, 45. “The little Malbrouk grew fast, and at seven years old he was as tall as a tall man.” Webster, basque Legends, 2d ed., p. 78; Vinson, Folk-Lore du Pays basque, p. 81. The Ynca Mayta Ccapac “a few months after his birth began to talk, and at ten years of age fought valiantly and defeated his enemies.” Markham, Narratives of the Rites and Laws of the Yncas, Hakluyt Society, p. 83. A Tête-Rasée infant in four days grows to the full size of man. Petitot, Traditions Indiennes du Canada Nord-Ouest, pp. 241–243. (G. L. K.)

91. Fair Mary of Wallington.

P. 310. Danish. Another copy of ‘Malfreds Død,’ Kristensen’s Skattegraveren, VI, 195, No 804.

93. Lamkin.

P. 320. The negroes of Dumfries, Prince William County, Virginia, have this ballad, orally transmitted from the original Scottish settlers of that region, with the stanza found in F (19) and T (15):

Mr Lammikin, Mr Lammikin,

oh, spare me my life,

And I’ll give you my daughter Betsy,

and she shall be your wife.

“They sang it to a monotonous measure.” (Mrs Dulany.)

94. Young Waters.

P. 343. By the kindness of Mr Macmath, I have now a copy of the original edition.

Young Waters, an Ancient Scottish Poem, never before printed. Glasgow, Printed and sold by Robert and Andrew Foulis, 1755. (Small 4º, 8 pages.) The few differences of reading will be given with corrections to be made in the print.

95. The Maid Freed from the Gallows.

P. 346. Mr Alfred Nutt has communicated to the Folk-Lore Journal, VI, 144, 1888, the outline of a ballad in which, as in some versions of the European continent, the man has the place of the maid. But this may be a modern turn to the story, arising from the disposition to mitigate a tragic tale. The ballad was obtained “from a relative of Dr Birbeck Hill’s, in whose family it is traditional. Mother, father, and brethren all refuse him aid, but his sweetheart is kinder, and buys him off.” For the burden see C 6, which, as well as B 12, might better have been printed as such.

‘Hold up, hold up your hands so high!

Hold up your hands so high!

For I think I see my own mother coming

Oer yonder stile to me.

Oh the briars, the prickly briars,

They prick my heart full sore;

If ever I get free from the gallows-tree,

I’[ll] never get there any more.

‘Oh mother hast thou any gold for me,

Any money to buy me free,

To save my body from the cold clay ground,

And my head from the gallows-tree?’

‘Oh no, I have no gold for thee,

No money to buy thee free,

For I have come to see thee hanged,

And hangëd thou shalt be.’

Struppa’s text of ‘Scibilia Nobili’ is repeated in Salomone-Marino’s Leggende p. siciliane in Poesia, p. 160, No 29. The editor supplies defects and gives some varying readings from another version, in which Scibilia is the love, not the wife, of a cavalier.—Mango, Calabria, in Archivio, I, 394, No 75 (wife).—‘La Prigioniera,’ Giannini, No 25, p. 195, two copies, reduces the story to four or five stanzas. The sequel, No 26, p. 197, is likely to have been originally an independent ballad. It is attached to ‘Scibilia Nobili,’ but is found separately in Bernoni, XI, No 3, ‘La Figlia snaturata,’ Finamore, Archivio, I, 212, ‘Catarine.’

347 b. ‘Frísa vísa’ is reprinted by Hammershaimb, Færøsk Anthologi, p. 268, No 34. The editor expressly says that the ballad is used as a children’s game, like the English F. So also are Danish A, and a Magyar ballad of like purport, to be mentioned presently.

348 b. Danish. A, in Kristensen’s Skattegraveren, ‘Jomfruens udløsning,’ II, 49, No 279, 1884; B, III, 5, No 3, 1885. From tradition. Both versions agree with the Swedish in all important points, and the language of B points to a Swedish derivation.

349 a. Ransom for maid refused by father, mother, brother, sister, and paid by lover: Little-Russian, Golovatsky, I, 50, No 11; II, 245, No 7. (W. W.)

349 b, 514 a. Man redeemed by maid when abandoned by his own blood: Little-Russian, Golovatsky, I, 250, No 26; Servian, Vuk, III, 547, No 83; Magyar-Croat, Kurelac, p. 254, No 61, p. 352, No 96. (W. W.)

In a Slovak ballad in Kollár, Národnie Zpiewanky, II, 13, translated by Herrmann, Ethnologische Mittheilungen, col. 42 f., John, in prison, writes to his father to ransom him; the father asks how much would have to be paid; four hundred pieces of gold and as many of silver; the father replies that he has not so much, and his son must perish. An ineffectual letter to mother, brother, sister, follows; then one to his sweetheart. She brings a long rope, with which he is to let himself down from his dungeon. If the rope proves too short, he is to add his long hair (cf. I, 40 b, line 2, 486 b); and if it be still too short, he may light upon her shoulders. John escapes. Nearly the same is the Polish ballad translated in Waldbrühl’s Balalaika, which is referred to II, 350 b.

A fragment of a Székler ransom-ballad is found in Arany and Gyulai’s collection, III, 42: Herrmann, as above, col. 49. Another form of love-test is very popular in Hungary, of which Herrmann gives eight versions. In one of these, from a collection made in 1813, Arany and Gyulai, I, 189 (Herrmann’s IV), the story is told with the conciseness of the English ballad. A snake has crept into a girl’s bosom: she entreats her father to take it out; he dares not, and sends her to her mother; the mother has as little devotion and courage as the father, and sends her to her brother; she is successively passed on to sister-in-law, brother-in-law, sister; then appeals to her lover, who instantly does the service. This is the kernel, and perhaps all that is original, in versions, I (of Herrmann), col. 34 f., contributed by Kálmány; II, 36 f., contributed by Szabó; V, col. 38, Kálmány, Koszorúk az Alföld vad Virágaiból, I, 21, translated into German by Wlislocki, Ungarische Revue, 1884, p. 344; VIII, col. 39, Kálmány, Szeged Népe, II, 13. In Herrmann, VI, col. 38, Kálmány, Koszorúk, II, 62; VII, col. 38 f., Kálmány, Szeged Népe, II, 12; and III, col. 37 (a fragment), young man and maid change parts. In I, III, V (?), VI, VII, the father says he can better do without a daughter (son) than without one of his hands, and the youth (maid) would rather lose one of his (her) hands than his (her) beloved.[^[326]] In I the snake has been turned to a purse of gold when the maid attempts to take it out; in II, according to a prose and prosaic comment of the reciter, there was no snake, but the girl had put a piece of gold in her bosom, and calls it a yellow adder to experiment upon her family; in VII, again, there is no snake, but a rouleau of gold, and the snake is explained away in like manner in a comment to VIII. Even the transformation in I is to be deprecated; the money in the others is a modern depravation.

A brief ballad of the Transylvania Gipsies, communicated and translated by Wlislocki, Ungarische Revue, 1884, p. 345 f., agrees with the second series of those above. A youth summons mother and sister to take a reptile from his breast; they are afraid; his sweetheart will do it if she dies. A very pretty popular Gipsy tale to the same effect is given by Herrmann, col. 40 f.

A Roumanian ballad, ‘Giurgiu,’ closely resembling the Magyar I, VII, from Pompiliu Miron’s Balade populare române, p. 41, is given in translation by Herrmann, col. 106 ff.; a fragment of another, with parts reversed, col. 213.

A man, to make trial of his blood-relations, begs father, mother, etc., to take out a snake from his breast, and is refused by all. His wife puts in her hand and takes out a pearl necklace, which she receives as her reward: Servian, Vuk, I, No 289, Herzegovine, No 136, Petranović, Serajevo, 1867, p. 191, No 20; Slavonian, Stojanović, No 20. (W. W.)

There are many variations on this theme, of which one more may be specified. A drowning girl given over by her family is saved by her lover: Little-Russian, Golovatsky, II, 80, No 14, 104, No 18, 161, No 15, 726, No 11; Servian, Vuk, I, Nos 290, 291; Bulgarian, Dozon, p. 98, No 61; Polish, Kolberg, Lud, 1857, I, 151, 12^a. Again, man is saved by maid: Little-Russian, Golovatsky, I, 114, No 28; Waclaw z Oleska, p. 226. (W. W.)

96. The Gay Goshawk.

P. 356 a. (1.) (2.) (4.) are now printed in Mélusine, II, 342, III, 1, II, 341. (15.) (16.) ‘La Fille dans la Tour,’ Victor Smith, Chansons du Velay et du Forez, Romania, VII, 76, 78. (17.) Bladé, Poésies p. rec. dans l’Armagnac, etc., p. 23, ‘La Prisonnière.’

There is an Italian form of ‘Belle Isambourg’ in Nigra, No 45, p. 277, ‘Amor costante.’

356 b. For other forms of ‘Les trois Capitaines,’ see, French, Puymaigre, I, 131, 134 and note; Tiersot, in Revue des Traditions populaires, III, 501, 502; Rolland, III, 58 ff., a, b, d; Italian, Marcoaldi, p. 162, ‘La Fuga e il Pentimento;’ Nigra, No 53, p. 309, ‘L’Onore salvato.’

357 b, second paragraph.

On messenger-birds, see Nigra, p. 339 f., and note.

A girl feigns death simply to avoid a disagreeable suitor. Proof by fire, etc.; cf. C 23 f., D 7 f., E 27 f., F 1–3, G 36–38. Servian. (1.) Mara, promised to the Herzog Stephen, and wishing for good reasons to escape him, pretends death. Stephen is incredulous; puts live coals into her bosom, then a snake; she does not flinch. He then tickles her face with his beard; she does not stir. Stephen is convinced and retires; Mara springs from the bier. Her mother asks her what had given her most trouble. She had not minded the coals or the snake, but could hardly keep from laughing when tickled with the beard. Vuk, I, 551, No 727. (2.) The suitor tests the case by thrusting his hands into the girl’s bosom, fire, snake. The first is the worst. Vuk, Herzegovine, No 133. (3.) The same probation, with the same verdict (in this case the girl loves another), Petranović, Srpske n. pjesme, Serajevo, 1867, No 362. Cf. Rajković, p. 176, No 211.—Bulgarian. Proofs by snow and ice laid on the heart; a snake. She stands both. Miladinof, No 68, cf. No 468. In the same, No 660, the girl holds out under ice and snake, but when kissed between the eyes wakes up.—Bohemian, Erben, p. 485, No 20, ‘The Turk duped,’ and Moravian, Sušil, No 128, the tests are lacking. (W. W.)

Three physicians from Salerno pour melted lead in the hands of Fenice, who is apparently dead. (She has taken a drug which makes her unconscious for a certain time. Her object is to escape from her husband to her lover, Cligés.) The lead has no effect in rousing Fenice. Crestien de Troies, Cligés, ed. Förster, vv. 6000–6009, pp. 246, 247. Förster cites Solomon and Morolf (Salman und Morolf, st. 133, ed. F. Vogt, Die deutschen Dichtungen v. Salomon und Markolf, I, 27, molten gold), and other parallels. Einleitung, pp. xix-xx. Cf. Revue de Traditions pop., II, 519. (G. L. K.)

100. Willie o Winsbury.

P. 398. There is a ‘Lord Thomas of Wynnesbury ’ in the Murison MS., p. 17, which was derived from recitation in Aberdeenshire, but it seems to me to have had its origin in the stalls, resembling I, which is of that source.

101. Willie o Douglas Dale.

Pp. 407, 409, A 14², B 12², ‘An lions gaed to their dens,’ ‘And the lions took the hill.’ “Lions we have had verie manie in the north parts of Scotland, and those with maines of no less force than they of Mauritania are sometimes reported to be; but how and when they were destroied as yet I doo not read:” Holinshed, I, 379.

102. Willie and Earl Richard’s Daughter.

P. 412 b. A is translated by Anastasius Grün, Robin Hood, p. 57; Doenniges, p. 166; Knortz, L. u. R. Altenglands, No 18; Loève-Veimars, p. 252.

105. The Bailiff’s Daughter of Islington.

II, 426 b, 428. The tune of 105 b is, I have a good old woman at home: of f, I have a good old wife at home.

Italian. ‘La Prova,’ Nigra, No 54, p. 314, A-D. ‘Il Ritorno,’ Giannini, p. 154.

106. The Famous Flower of Serving-Men.

P. 428. The Roxburghe copy, III, 762, Aldermary Church-Yard, is in the Ballad Society’s edition, VI, 567. The Euing copy, printed for John Andrews, is signed L. P., for Laurence Price: Mr J. W. Ebsworth, at p. 570.

109. Tom Potts.

P. 441 b. B. b. Ritson’s copy was “compared with another impression, for the same partners, without date.”

I have failed to mention, but am now reminded by Mr Macmath, that the ballad of ‘Jamie o Lee’ is given, under the title ‘James Hatelie,’ by Robert Chambers in the Romantic Scottish Ballads, their Epoch and Authorship, 1859, p. 37, Lord Phenix appearing as simple Fenwick.

112. The Baffled Knight.

P. 480 b. Spanish C, ‘El Caballero burlado,’ is now printed in full in Pidal, Asturian Romances, No 34, p. 156.

481 b. Add: ‘La Marchande d’Oranges’ in Rolland, V, 10. (Say Rolland, I, 258.)

Tears. Add: Rolland, II, 29, e, g, h.

Varieties. There may be added: Mélusine I, 483==Revue des Traditions pop., III, 634 f.; Romania, X, 379 f., No 18; Bladé, Poésies p. de la Gascogne, II, 208.

482 a. Italian. Nigra, No 71, p. 375, ‘Occasione mancata,’ A-F. See also ‘La Monacella salvata,’ No 72, p. 381, and ‘Il Galante burlato,’ No 75, p. 388.

482 b. The ballad, it seems, is by Madame Favart: see Rolland, II, 33, k. Add: l, ib., p. 34, and Poésies pop. de la France, MS., III, 493.

483 b. Danish A is translated by Prior, III, 182, No 126.

113. The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry.

P. 494.

“On the west coast of Ireland the fishermen are loth to kill the seals, which once abounded in some localities, owing to a popular superstition that they enshrined ‘the souls of thim that were drowned at the flood.’ They were supposed to possess the power of casting aside their external skins and disporting themselves in human form on the sea-shore. If a mortal contrived to become possessed of one of these outer coverings belonging to a female, he might claim her and keep her as his bride.” Charles Hardwick, Traditions, Superstitions, and Folk-Lore, chiefly Lancashire and the North of England, p. 231. (G. L. K.)

506 a, last paragraph but one. So in Douns Lioð, Strengleikar, ed. Kayser and Unger, p. 52 ff. (G. L. K.)