C

Buchan’s Ballads of the North of Scotland, II, 144.

1

The Baron o Leys to France is gane,

The fashion and tongue to learn,

But hadna been there a month or twa

Till he gat a lady wi bairn.

2

But it fell ance upon a day

The lady mournd fu sairlie;

Says, Who’s the man has me betrayed?

It gars me wonder and fairlie.

3

Then to the fields to him she went,

Saying, Tell me what they ca thee;

Or else I’ll mourn and rue the day,

Crying, alas that ever I saw thee!

4

‘Some ca’s me this, some ca’s me that,

I carena fat befa me;

For when I’m at the schools o France

An awkward fellow they ca me.’

5

‘Wae’s me now, ye awkward fellow,

And alas that ever I saw thee!

Wi you I’m in love, sick, sick in love,

And I kenna well fat they ca thee.’

6

‘Some ca’s me this, some ca’s me that,

What name does best befa me;

For when I walk in Edinburgh streets

The Curling Buckle they ca me.’

7

‘O wae’s me now, O Curling Buckle,

And alas that ever I saw thee!

For I’m in love, sick, sick in love,

And I kenna well fat they ca thee.’

8

‘Some ca’s me this, some ca’s me that,

Whatever name best befa’s me;

But when I’m in Scotland’s king’s high court

Clatter the Speens they ca me.’

9

‘O wae’s me now, O Clatter the Speens,

And alas that ever I saw thee!

For I’m in love, sick, sick in love,

And I kenna well fat to ca thee.’

10

‘Some ca’s me this, some ca’s me that,

I carena what they ca me;

But when wi the Earl o Murray I ride

It’s Scour the Brass they ca me.’

11

‘O wae’s me now, O Scour the Brass,

And alas that ever I saw thee!

For I’m in love, sick, sick in love,

And I kenna well fat to ca thee.’

12

‘Some ca’s me this, some ca’s me that,

Whatever name best befa’s me;

But when I walk thro Saint Johnstone’s town

George Burnett they ca me.’

13

‘O wae’s me, O wae’s me, George Burnett,

And alas that ever I saw thee!

For I’m in love, sick, sick in love,

And I kenna well fat to ca thee.’

14

‘Some ca’s me this, some ca’s me that,

Whatever name best befa’s me;

But when I am on bonny Dee side

The Baron o Leys they ca me.’

15

‘O weal is me now, O Baron o Leys,

This day that ever I saw thee!

There’s gentle blood within my sides,

And now [I] ken fat they ca thee.

16

‘But ye’ll pay down ten thousand crowns,

Or marry me the morn;

Else I’ll cause you be headed or hangd

For gieing me the scorn.’

17

‘My head is a thing I cannot well want;

My lady loves me sae dearly;

But I’ll deal the gold right liberally

For lying ae night sae near thee.’

18

When word had gane to the Lady o Leys

The baron had gotten a bairn,

She clapped her hands, and this did say,

‘I wish he were in my arms!

19

‘O weal is me now, O Baron o Leys,

For ye hae pleased me sairly;

Frae our house is banishd the vile reproach

That disturbed us late and early.’

20

When she looked ower her castle-wa,

To view the woods sae rarely,

There she spied the Baron o Leys

Ride on his steed sae rarely.

21

Then forth she went her baron to meet,

Says, Ye’re welcome to me, fairly!

Ye’se hae spice-cakes, and seed-cakes sweet,

And claret to drink sae rarely.

C.

193,4. Frae her house she banishd the vile reproach That disturbs us. The Deeside Guide has nearly the reading here substituted, and some correction is necessary. The reference seems to be to childlessness. In A 8 the baron is said to have bairns.

242
THE COBLE O CARGILL

‘The Coble o Cargill,’ Motherwell’s MS., p. 80; ‘The Weary Coble o Cargill,’ Motherwell’s Minstrelsy, p. 230. Communicated to Motherwell by William George, tenant in Cambus Michael, Perthshire, who took it from the recitation of an old woman.

Stobhall is on the left bank of the Tay, eight miles above Perth, in Cargill parish, and Cargill is a little further up. Balathy is opposite Cargill, and Kercock is higher up the river on the right bank. The local tradition, as given by Motherwell in his manuscript and his book, is that the butler of Stobhall had a leman both at Kercock and at Balathy. Upon an occasion when the butler had gone to Kercock, the lass of Balathy scuttled the coble, which he had left below, “and waited his return, deeming that her suspicions of his infidelity would be well founded if he took the boat without visiting her in passing.” The butler took the boat without stopping at Balathy, and in her sight the weary coble sank. Local tradition in such cases seldom means more than a theory which people have formed to explain a preëxisting ballad. The jealousy of the lass of Balathy has, in the ballad, passed the point at which confirmation would be waited for. She has many a time watched late for her chance to bore the coble, and she bores it ‘wi gude will.’

St. 14 is a commonplace which has been already several times noted.

The Rev. William Marshall’s Historic Scenes in Perthshire, Edinburgh, 1879, p. 246, gives us a “modern” version of this ballad; that is, one written over in magazine style. This is repeated in Robert Ford’s Auld Scots Ballants, 1889, p. 152. The Perthshire Antiquarian Miscellany, by Robert S. Fittis, Perth, 1875, p. 466, cites some stanzas from another ballad, composed by one James Beattie, journeyman-mason, but represented as having been taken down verbatim from the mouth of an old man. In these pieces the lass of Balathy has the name Jean, Jeanie Low (Low or Gow, according to Ford, p. 149).[[142]]

1

David Drummond’s destinie,

Gude man o appearance o Cargill;

I wat his blude rins in the flude,

Sae sair against his parents’ will.

2

She was the lass o Balathy toun,

And he the butler o Stobhall,

And mony a time she wauked late

To bore the coble o Cargill.

3

His bed was made in Kercock ha,

Of gude clean sheets and of [the] hay;

He wudna rest ae nicht therein,

But on the prude waters he wud gae.

4

His bed was made in Balathy toun,

Of the clean sheets and of the strae;

But I wat it was far better made

Into the bottom o bonnie Tay.

5

She bored the coble in seven pairts,

I wat her heart might hae been fu sair;

For there she got the bonnie lad lost

Wi the curly locks and the yellow hair.

6

He put his foot into the boat,

He little thocht o ony ill;

But before that he was mid-waters,

The weary coble began to fill.

7

‘Woe be to the lass o Balathy toun,

I wat an ill death may she die!

For she bored the coble in seven pairts,

And let the waters perish me.

8

‘Oh, help, oh help, I can get nane,

Nae help o man can to me come!’

This was about his dying words,

When he was choaked up to the chin.

9

‘Gae tell my father and my mother

It was naebody did me this ill;

I was a-going my ain errands,

Lost at the coble o bonnie Cargill.’

10

She bored the boat in seven pairts,

I wat she bored it wi gude will;

And there they got the bonnie lad’s corpse,

In the kirk-shot o bonnie Cargill.

11

Oh a’ the keys o bonnie Stobha

I wat they at his belt did hing;

But a’ the keys of bonnie Stobha

They now ly low into the stream.

12

A braver page into his age

Neer set a foot upon the plain;

His father to his mother said,

‘Oh, sae soon as we’ve wanted him!

13

‘I wat they had mair luve than this

When they were young and at the scule;

But for his sake she wauked late,

And bored the coble o bonnie Cargill.’

14

‘There’s neer a clean sark gae on my back,

Nor yet a kame gae in my hair;

There’s neither coal nor candle-licht

Shall shine in my bouir for evir mair.

15

‘At kirk nor market I’se neer be at,

Nor yet a blythe blink in my ee;

There’s neer a ane shall say to anither,

That’s the lassie gard the young man die.

16

‘Between the yates o bonnie Stobha

And the kirk-style o bonnie Cargill,

There is mony a man and mother’s son

That was at my love’s burial.’

142. Not yet.

243
JAMES HARRIS (THE DÆMON LOVER)

A. A Warning for Married Women, being an example of Mrs Jane Reynolds (a West-country woman), born near Plymouth, who, having plighted her troth to a Seaman, was afterwards married to a Carpenter, and at last carried away by a Spirit, the manner how shall presently be recited. To a West-country tune called ‘The Fair Maid of Bristol,’ ‘Bateman,’ or ‘John True.’ Pepys Ballads, IV, 101.

B. ‘The Distressed Ship-Carpenter,’ The Rambler’s Garland, 1785 (?), British Museum, 11621, c. 4 (57).

C. ‘James Herries,’ Buchan’s Ballads of the North of Scotland, I, 214.

D. ‘The Carpenter’s Wife,’ Kinloch MSS, I, 297.

E. ‘The Dæmon Lover,’ Motherwell’s MS., p. 97.

F. ‘The Dæmon Lover,’ Scott’s Minstrelsy, II, 427, 1812.

G. ‘The Dæmon Lover,’ Motherwell’s Minstrelsy, p. 93.

H. ‘The Banks of Italy,’ Christie, Traditional Ballad Airs, I, 138, two stanzas.

The Pepys copy was printed for Thackeray and Passenger. Others are: Crawford, No 1114, Printed for A. M[ilbourne], W. O[nley], and T. Thackeray; Ewing, 377, for Coles, Vere, and Gilbertson; the same, 378, by and for W. O[nley]. No 71 in Thackeray’s List, printed 1685. A later copy in the Douce ballads, II, fol. 249 b, Bodleian Library, printed by Thomas Norris at the Looking-Glass on London Bridge. Another, without publisher’s name, in the Roxburghe collection, I, 502; Ballad Society, III, 200.

‘The Dæmon Lover’ was first published in Scott’s Minstrelsy, 5th edition, 1812 (F). William Laidlaw, who furnished the copy, inserted four stanzas of his own (6, 12, 17, 18, here omitted).[[143]] Motherwell, in 1827, had not been able to get more than nine stanzas (G), but afterwards secured a version of twice as many (E). Kinloch says of D, “My reciter, and others to whom I applied, assured me that they had never heard any more of it than what is given here.” Buchan, I, 313, referring to Motherwell’s fragment (G), is “happy to say ... there is still a perfect copy of this curious and scarce legend in existence, which is now for the first time given to the public” (C).@

An Americanized version of this ballad was printed not very long ago at Philadelphia, under the title of ‘The House-Carpenter.’ I have been able to secure only two stanzas, which were cited in Graham’s Illustrated Magazine, September, 1858:

‘I might have married the king’s daughter dear;’

‘You might have married her,’ cried she,

‘For I am married to a house-carpenter,

And a fine young man is he.’

‘Oh dry up your tears, my own true love,

And cease your weeping,’ cried he,

‘For soon you’ll see your own happy home,

On the banks of old Tennessee.’

B-H have for their basis the broadside A; the substance of the story is repeated, with traditional modifications. Two or three stanzas of A are of the popular description, but it does not seem necessary to posit a tradition behind A. The correspondences of the several versions are as follows:

It will be observed that each of the versions B-F adds something which is taken up by a successor or successors. The arrangement of E and F, of E especially, is objectionable.

A. Jane Reynolds and James Harris, a seaman, had exchanged vows of marriage. The young man was pressed as a sailor, and after three years was reported as dead; the young woman married a ship-carpenter, and they lived together happily for four years, and had children. One night when the carpenter was absent from home, a spirit rapped at the window and announced himself as James Harris, come after an absence of seven years[[144]] to claim the woman for his wife. She explained the state of things, but upon obtaining assurance that her long-lost lover had the means to support her—seven ships upon the sea—consented to go with him, for he was really much like unto a man. ‘The woman-kind’ was seen no more after that; the carpenter hanged himself.

The carpenter is preserved in B-E, and even his name in C. He swoons in B, and runs distracted in C, when he learns what has become of his wife; the other versions take no notice of him after the elopement. B-F all begin with the return of the long-absent lover. The ship (as it is to have in A 26) has silken sails and gold masts, or the like, C 10, F 93,4 (cf. B 8, G 1); but there are no visible mariners, F 91,2, G 43,4. The pair have been only a short time afloat when the woman begins to weep for son, husband, or both, B 9, 10, C 14, D 5, E 12, 13, G 5. The seaman (as it will be convenient to call him) tells her to hold her tongue, he will show her how the lilies grow on the banks of Italy, C 16, D 6 (cf. E 16, 17), F 12, and, in a different connection, G 6. The seaman’s countenance grows grim, and the sea gurly, D 7, E 10, F 10, G 8. He will let her see the fishes swim, where the lilies grow, in the bottom of the sea, C 21, D 8 (cf. E 16, 17). She discerns that the seaman has a cloven foot, E 11, F 11, G 7. She asks, What is yon bright hill? It is the hill of heaven, where she will never be. What is yon dark hill? It is the hill of hell, where they two shall be: E 14, 15, F 13, 14. The seaman reaches his hand to the topmast, strikes the sails, and the ship drowns, C 22; takes the woman up to the topmast and sinks the ship in a flash of fire, E 18; strikes the topmast with his hand, the fore-mast with his knee, and sinks the ship, F 15. In E 9 he throws the woman into the main, and five-and-twenty hundred ships are wrecked; in G 9 the little ship runs round about and never is seen more.

In A the revenant is characterized as a spirit; in B, which is even tamer than A, he is called the mariner, and is drowned with the woman; in C he expressly says to the woman, I brought you away to punish you for breaking your vows to me. This explicitness may be prosaic, but it seems to me regrettable that the conception was not maintained. To explain the eery personality and proceedings of the ship-master, E-G, with a sort of vulgar rationalism, turn him into the devil, and as he is still represented in E, F (G being defective at the beginning) as returning to seek the fulfilment of old vows, he there figures as a “dæmon lover.” D (probably by the fortunate accident of being a fragment) leaves us to put our own construction upon the weird seaman; and, though it retains the homely ship-carpenter, is on the whole the most satisfactory of all the versions.[[145]]

Scott’s ballad is translated by Talvj, Versuch, etc., p. 558; by Gerhard, p. 84; and by Rosa Warrens, Schottische Volkslieder, No 14, p. 61 (after Aytoun, who repeats Scott, omitting one of Laidlaw’s stanzas). Knortz, Lieder und Romanzen Alt-Englands, p. 192, translates Allingham’s ballad.