C
Kinloch MSS, V, 423.
1
Redesdale and Clerk William
Sat drinking at the wine;
They hae fawn a wagering them atween
At a wanhappy time.
2
‘What will ye wad,’ says Redesdale,
‘O what will ye wad wi me
That there’s na a lady in a’ the land
But I wad win wi ae blink o my ee?’
A.
There are some very trivial variations from Buchan’s text in Motherwell’s copies; mostly is, with a plural subject, Scottice, for are. Motherwell received the ballad from Buchan, and was much in the way of making small betterments.
B.
Air, ‘Johnnie Brod.’
44. o her.
52. Perhaps necht.
62. Perhaps leiht.
247
LADY ELSPAT
‘Lady Elspat.’ a. Jamieson-Brown MS., p. 19. Printed in Jamieson’s Popular Ballads, II, 191. b. “Scottish Songs,” MS., fol. 30, Abbotsford Library, N. 3, in the handwriting of Walter Scott, about 1795
This ballad was No 10 of the fifteen of Mrs Brown’s which were obtained by William Tytler from Professor Thomas Gordon in 1783: Anderson to Percy, December 29, 1800, in Nichols’s Illustrations, VII, 177, where the first stanza (of twelve) is cited. These transcripts were accompanied with the airs. In b, which is now ascertained to be in the handwriting of Walter Scott,[[149]] there is a mawkish stanza after 4, and another after 9, which do not occur in a, and many verbal variations. These two stanzas are not likely to have been inserted by Scott, for, so far as we know, the ballad has been preserved only by Mrs Brown. As for the other variations, we are not in a condition to say which are Mrs Brown’s, which Scott’s.
An appointment for an elopement made by Lady Elspat with Sweet William is revealed to her mother by an eavesdropping page. William is bound with his own bow-string and brought before the Lord Justice. The mother accuses him of stealing her jewels; Lady Elspat denies this, and says that his only crime is too small an estate. The judge sees no fault in the young man (whom he discovers to be his sister’s son!), hands him over to Lady Elspat, and promises the pair as much land as a valuable horse of his can ride about in a summer’s day.
Truly not impressive in story or style, and very fit to have been forgotten by Mrs Brown.
Translated from Jamieson by Grundtvig, Engelske og skotske Folkeviser, p. 196, No 30; by Rosa Warrens, Schottische Volkslieder, p. 118, No 26; by Loève-Veimars, p. 337.
1
‘How brent’s your brow, my Lady Elspat!
How golden yallow is your hair!
Of all the maids of fair Scotland,
There’s nane like Lady Elspat fair.’
2
‘Perform your vows, Sweet William,’ she says,
‘The vows which ye ha made to me,
An at the back o my mother’s castle
This night I’ll surely meet wi thee.’
3
But wae be to her brother’s page,
Who heard the words this twa did say!
He’s told them to her lady mother,
Who wrought Sweet William mieckle wae.
4
For she has taen him Sweet William,
An she’s gard bind him wi his bow-string
Till the red bluide o his fair body
Frae ilka nail o his hand did spring.
5
O it fell once upon a time
That the Lord Justice came to town;
Out has she taen him Sweet William,
Brought him before Lord Justice boun.
6
‘An what is the crime, now, madame,’ he says,
‘Has been committed by this young man?’
‘O he has broken my bonny castel,
That was well biggit wi lime an stane.
7
‘An he has broken my bonny coffers,
That was well banded wi aiken ban,
An he has stoln my rich jewels;
I wot he has them every one.’
8
Then out it spake her Lady Elspat,
As she sat by Lord Justice knee;
‘Now ye hae taul your tale, mother,
I pray, Lord Justice, you’l now hear me.
9
‘He has na broken her bonny castel,
That was well biggit wi lime an stane,
Nor has he stoln her rich jewels,
For I wot she has them every one.
10
‘But tho he was my first true love,
An tho I had sworn to be his bride,
Cause he had not a great estate,
She would this way our loves divide.’
11
An out it spake the Lord Justice,
I wot the tear was in his ee;
‘I see nae fault in this young man,
Sae loose his bans, an set him free.
12
‘Take back your love, now, Lady Elspat,
An my best blessing you baith upon!
For gin he be your first true love,
He is my eldest sister’s son.
13
‘There is a steed in my stable
Cost me baith gold and white money;
Ye’s get as mieckle o my free lan
As he’ll ride about in a summer’s day.’
a.
31. to our.
53. has he.
b.
13. maids in.
21. said.
31,2.
And this beheard her mother’s foot-page,
Who listed the words thae twa.
33. He tauld them ower to.
42. Gart bind: his ain.
44. hands.
After 4:
They threw him into dungeon-keep;
Full little he reckd the pain;
But sair he mournd each springing hope
That was blasted a’ sae sune.
51. fell out.
52. That wanting.
53. And they hae.
54. him to thole a deadly doom.
63,4. For gin I judge frae his gentle look I think he is where he should na stand.
7.
‘Yet has he broken my highest towr,
Was bigged strong wi stane and lime,
And stolen forth my rich jewels
Frae my coffer bound wi aiken beam.’
81. out and spak sweet.
82. sat near hir mother’s.
83. hae ye tauld.
84. Justice, hear you.
91,2. has not broken her highest towr, Was bigged strong wi stane and lime.
94. ane. After 9:
‘Yet has he stolen a dearer pledge,
Not frae my mother, but frae me;
For he has stolen a virgin’s heart
Should have waited for ane o high degree.’
101. first fair.
111. Then out and spake the good.
113. nae harm.
114. his hands.
121. love, sweet Lady.
123. first fair.
13. Wanting, and probably also in W. Tytler’s copy.
248
THE GREY COCK, OR, SAW YOU MY FATHER?
a..’The Grey Cock,’ Herd’s Ancient and Modern Scots Songs, 1769, p. 324; Herd’s MSS, I, 4; Herd’s Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs, 1776, II, 208. b. ‘Saw you my father?’ Chappell’s Popular Music, p. 731
Stanzas 1, 4, 6, 7, are printed in Herd, 1769; the three others are among the “Additions to songs in the former volume” [of 1769], at the beginning of the first volume of the MS.; the whole is given in Herd, 1776.
Repeated from Herd, 1776 (with a change or two) in Pinkerton’s Select Scotish Ballads II, 155, 1783, and in Johnson’s Museum, p. 77, No 76, 1787, ‘O saw ye my father?’ Stenhouse had not found the verses in any collection prior to that of Herd, but asserts that the song had been “a great favorite in Scotland for a long time past” (1820, Museum, ed. 1853, IV, 81).
“This song,” says Chappell, “is printed on broadsides, with the tune, and in Vocal Music, or the Songster’s Companion, II, 36, second edition, 1772. This collection was printed by Robert Horsfield, in Ludgate Street, and probably the words and music will also be found in the first edition, which I have not seen.” The words, he adds, are in several “Songsters.”
Three stanzas from recitation, wrongly attached to ‘The Broomfield Hill,’ No 43, E, have been given at p. 399 of the first volume of this collection. Much of the ballad has been adopted into ‘Willie’s Fatal Visit,’ Buchan’s Ballads of the North of Scotland, II, 259, the two concluding stanzas with little change. These two stanzas are given by a correspondent[[150]] of Notes and Queries, First Series, XII, 227, as heard by him in the nursery about 1787. They have been made the kernel of a song by Allan Cunningham, impudently put forward as “the precious relique of the original,” Cromek, Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song, 1810, p. 72.
The injunction to the cock is found in ‘The Swain’s Resolve,’ Lyle’s Ancient Ballads and Songs, 1827, p. 142:
She cries to the cock, saying, Thou must not crow
Until that the day be worn,
And thy wings shall be made of the silvery gray,
And thy voice of the silver horn.
It is also cited in Graves’s Irish Songs and Ballads, London, 1882, p. 249, No 50, as occurring “in a ballad descriptive of the visit of a lover’s ghost to his betrothed,” in which the woman, to protract the interview, says:
‘O my pretty cock, O my handsome cock,
I pray you do not crow before day,
And your comb shall be made of the very beaten gold,
And your wings of the silver so gray.’
The cock is remiss or unfaithful, again, in a little ballad picked up by Burns in Nithsdale, ‘A Waukrife Minnie,’ Cromek, Select Scotish Songs, 1810, II, 116 (of which another version is furnished by Lyle, p. 155, ‘The Wakerife Mammy’):
O weary fa the waukrife cock,
And the foumart lay his crawin!
He waukend the auld wife frae her sleep
A wee blink or the dawin.
The first stanza of ‘The Grey Cock’ seems to have been suggested by ‘Sweet William’s Ghost’ (of which the Irish ballad noted by Graves may have been a variety), as again is the case in Buchan’s ‘James Herries.’ The fantastic reward promised the cock in stanza 6 is an imitation, or a corruption, of the bribe to the parrot in No 4, D 23, E 15, F 10, or in No 68, A 10, B 13, C 14, etc.
Of the same general description is ‘Le Chant de l’Alouette,’ Victor Smith, Chansons de Velay, etc., Romania, VII, 56 (see further note 6 of Smith); ‘Le Rendez-vous,’ Mélusine, I, 285 ff., Rolland, Recueil, etc., IV, 43, No 196. Again, ‘La Rondinella,’ Kopisch, Agrumi, p. 80, 1837; ‘La Visita,’ Wolf, Volkslieder aus Venetien, p. 8; ‘La Rondine importuna,’ Ferraro, C. p. monferrini, p. 75, No 54; ‘Il Furto amoroso’ Gianandrea, C. p. marchigiani, p. 274; ‘La Rondinella,’ Archivio, VII, 401, No 6. The treacherous or troublesome bird is in French the lark, in one case the cock; in Italian the swallow.
This piece is a variety of the aube (concerning which species see Jeanroy, Les Origines de la Poésie lyrique en France, the third chapter), but is none the less quite modern.
1
‘O saw ye my father? or saw ye my mother?
Or saw ye my true-love John?’
‘I saw not your father, I saw not your mother,
But I saw your true-love John.
2
‘It’s now ten at night, and the stars gie nae light,
And the bells they ring ding, dang;
He’s met wi some delay that causeth him to stay,
But he will be here ere lang.’
3
The surly auld carl did naething but snarl,
And Johny’s face it grew red;
Yet, tho he often sighd, he neer a word replied
Till all were asleep in bed.
4
Up Johny rose, and to the door he goes,
And gently tirlëd the pin;
The lassie taking tent unto the door she went,
And she opend and let him in.
5
‘And are ye come at last? and do I hold ye fast?
And is my Johny true?’
‘I hae nae time to tell, but sae lang’s I like mysell
Sae lang will I love you.’
6
‘Flee, flee up, my bonny grey cock,
And craw whan it is day;
Your neck shall be like the bonny beaten gold,
And your wings of the silver grey.’
7
The cock prov’d false, and untrue he was,
For he crew an hour oer soon;
The lassie thought it day when she sent her love away,
And it was but a blink of the moon
a.
41. MS. Then up.
54. Ed. 1776, sall I.
b.
11. Saw you my father? Saw you my mother.
12. Saw you.
13,4. He told his only dear that he soon would be here, But he to another is gone.
21,2==13,4.
23. has met with ... which has caused.
24. here anon.
3. Wanting.
41. Then John he up arose.
42. And he twirld, he twirld at.
43. lassie took the hint and to the.
44. she let her true love in.
5. Wanting.
61. Fly up, fly up.
63. Your breast shall be of the beaming gold.
71. cock he.
72. crowd an hour too soon.
73. day, so she.
74. it prov’d but the.
Notes and Queries, I, xii, 227:
62. But crow not until it be day.
63. And your breast shall be made of the burnishd gold.
249
AULD MATRONS
‘Auld Matrons,’ Buchan’s Ballads of the North of Scotland, II, 238; Motherwell’s MS., p. 585, with the title
‘Love Annie.’
Willie tirls at Annie’s bower-door and is admitted. After the exchange of familiar formulas, Willie expresses apprehension of “Matrons,” an old woman who is sitting by the kitchen-fire. Annie says there is no occasion to mind the old woman; she has not walked for seven years. But while the lovers are occupied with endearments the old woman makes speed to the sheriff, and informs him that Willie is with his daughter. The sheriff, guided by Matrons, goes to the bower, with men in mail. Annie hears the bridles ring, and wakens Willie. There is shooting of arrows and fire is set to the bower (cf. st. 17 and st. 33 of No 116). Willie maintains himself with spirit, but is so hard pressed that he is fain to blow his horn for his brother John, who is lying in Ringlewood. John wounds fifty and fifteen with his first shot, and with the next strikes out the sheriff’s eyes. The sheriff orders a retreat, and threatens, very illogically, to burn the old woman.
This piece was made by some one who had acquaintance with the first fit of ‘Adam Bell.’ The anonymous ‘old wife’ becomes ‘auld Matrons;’ Inglewood, Ringlewood. The conclusion is in imitation of the rescues in Robin Hood ballads. Stanzas 2–5 are hacknied commonplaces.
It is not considerate of Willie to take a foot-groom with him when he goes to pass a night at the bower of an unprovided seamstress, though the seamstress be a gentlewoman and the daughter of a sheriff. William of Cloudesly did not so. That the sheriff’s unmarried daughter should be living apart from her father is unusual, but a separate establishment was probably a necessity in Kelso for a gentlewoman who had ‘her living by the seam.’
1
My love she is a gentlewoman,
Has her living by the seam;
I kenna how she is provided
This night for me and my foot-groom.
2
He is gane to Annie’s bower-door,
And gently tirled at the pin:
‘Ye sleep, ye wake, my love Annie,
Ye’ll rise and lat your true-love in.’
3
Wi her white fingers lang and sma
She gently lifted up the pin;
Wi her arms lang and bent
She kindly caught sweet Willie in.
4
‘O will ye go to cards or dice?
Or will ye go to play?
Or will ye go to a well made bed,
And sleep a while till day?’
5
‘I winna gang to cards nor dice,
Nor yet will I to play;
But I will gang to a well made bed,
And sleep a while till day.
6
‘My love Annie, my dear Annie,
I would be at your desire;
But wae mat fa the auld Matrons,
As she sits by the kitchen fire!’
7
‘Keep up your heart, Willie,’ she said,
‘Keep up your heart, dinna fear;
It’s seven years, and some guid mair,
Sin her foot did file the flear.’
8
They hadna kissd nor love clapped,
As lovers when they meet,
Till up it raise the auld Matrons,
Sae well’s she spread her feet.
9
O wae mat fa the auld Matrons,
Sae clever’s she took the gate!
And she’s gaen ower yon lang, lang hill,
Knockd at the sheriff’s yate.
10
‘Ye sleep, ye wake, my lord?’ she said;
‘Are ye not your bower within?
There’s a knight in bed wi your daughter,
I fear she’s gotten wrang.’
11
‘Ye’ll do ye down thro Kelso town,
Waken my wall-wight men;
And gin ye hae your wark well dune
I’ll be there at command.’
12
She’s done her down thro Kelso town,
Wakend his wall-wight men;
But gin she had her wark well done
He was there at command.
13
He had his horse wi corn fodderd,
His men armd in mail;
He gae the Matrons half a merk
To show them ower the hill.
14
Willie sleepd, but Annie waked
Till she heard their bridles ring;
Then tapped on her love’s shoulder,
And said, Ye’ve sleepit lang.
15
‘O save me, save me, my blessd lady,
Till I’ve on my shooting-gear;
I dinna fear the king himsell,
Tho he an’s men were here.’
16
Then they shot in, and Willie out,
The arrows graz’d his brow;
The maid she wept and tore her hair,
Says, This can never do.
17
Then they shot in, and he shot out,
The bow brunt Willie’s hand;
But aye he kissd her ruby lips,
Said, My dear, thinkna lang.
18
He set his horn to his mouth,
And has blawn loud and shrill,
And he’s calld on his brother John,
In Ringlewood he lay still.
19
The first an shot that Lord John shot,
He wound fifty and fifteen;
The next an shot that Lord John shot,
He ca’d out the sheriff’s een.
20
‘O some o you lend me an arm,
Some o you lend me twa;
And they that came for strife this day,
Take horse, ride fast awa.
21
‘But wae mat fa yon, auld Matrons,
An ill death mat ye die!
I’ll burn you on yon high hill-head,
Blaw your ashes in the sea.’
23. Ye sleep ye, wake ye: cf. 101.
212: All ill.
213: And burn. Motherwell, I’ll.
250
HENRY MARTYN
A. a, b. ‘Henry Martyn;’ taken down from recitation, by the Rev. S. Baring-Gould.
B. a. A broadside, Catnach, Seven Dials. b. ‘Henry Martin,’ Kidson, Traditional Tunes, p. 31. c. The same, p. 30.
C. ‘Robin Hood,’ Motherwell’s MS., p. 660.
D. [‘Andrew Bodee’], from New Hampshire, U. S. A., communicated by Mr George M. Richardson; two stanzas.
A copy edited from A, B a, with the addition of one stanza for a “snapper,” is printed in Baring-Gould and Sheppard’s Songs and Ballads of the West, No 53. Four traditional versions were obtained by Mr Baring-Gould.
Three brothers in Scotland cast lots to determine which of them shall rob on the sea to maintain them. The lot falls on the youngest, Henry Martyn, A, B; Robin Hood, C; Andrew Bodee, D. The pirate meets and stops an English ship the very first day (third, A b; fifth, B, C). There is a brisk fight, and the English ship is sunk by shot, A, B. She is plundered and then scuttled, C. In A a, Henry Martyn gets a deep wound and falls by the mast.
The ballad must have sprung from the ashes of ‘Andrew Barton,’ of which name Henry Martyn would be no extraordinary corruption. Only one copy, A a, preserves the trait of Barton’s death, an incident not quite in keeping with the rest of the story of the new ballad.
Robin Hood, C, is always at the service of any ballad-monger who wants a name for his hero. But it will be remembered that he is credited with taking a French ship in ‘The Noble Fisherman,’ No 148, and that is enough to explain his appearance here. ‘Andrew Bodee’ may just conceivably be a corruption of Andrew Wood, who displaces Patrick Spens in two versions of No 58 (A b, D). Motherwell knew of a copy in which the hero was called Roberton: MS., p. 660.