E
Buchan’s MSS, I, 35; Dixon, Scottish Traditional Versions of Ancient Ballads, p. 37, Percy Society, vol. xvii.
1
There was a jolly harper-man,
That harped aye frae toun to toun;
A wager he made, with two knights he laid
To steal King Henry’s Wanton Brown.
2
Sir Roger he wagered five ploughs o land,
Sir Charles wagered five thousand pound,
And John he’s taen the deed in hand,
To steal King Henry’s Wanton Brown.
3
He’s taen his harp into his hand,
And he gaed harping thro the toun,
And as the king in his palace sat,
His ear was touched wi the soun.
4
‘Come in, come in, ye harper-man,
Some o your harping let me hear;’
‘Indeed, my liege, and by your grace,
I’d rather hae stabling to my mare.’
5
‘Ye’ll gang to yon outer court,
That stands a little below the toun;
Ye’ll find a stable snug and neat,
Where stands my stately Wanton Brown.
6
He’s down him to the outer court,
That stood a little below the toun;
There found a stable snug and neat,
For stately stood the Wanton Brown.
7
Then he has fixd a good strong cord
Unto his grey mare’s bridle-rein,
And tied it unto that steed’s tail,
Syne shut the stable-door behin.
8
Then he harped on, an he carped on,
Till all were fast asleep;
Then down thro bower and ha he’s gone,
Even on his hands and feet.
9
He’s to yon stable snug and neat,
That lay a little below the toun;
For there he placed his ain grey mare,
Alang wi Henry’s Wanton Brown.
10
‘Ye’ll do you down thro mire an moss,
Thro mony bog an lairy hole;
But never miss your Wanton slack;
Ye’ll gang to Mayblane, to your foal.’
11
As soon’s the door he had unshut,
The mare gaed prancing frae the town,
An at her bridle-rein was tied
Henry’s stately Wanton Brown.
12
Then she did rin thro mire an moss,
Thro mony bog an miery hole;
But never missed her Wanton slack
Till she reachd Mayblane, to her foal.
13
When the king awaked from sleep
He to the harper-man did say,
O waken ye, waken ye, jolly John,
We’ve fairly slept till it is day.
14
‘Win up, win up, ye harper-man,
Some mair o harping ye’ll gie me:’
He said, My liege, wi a’ my heart,
But first my gude grey mare maun see.
15
Then forth he ran, and in he came,
Dropping mony a feigned tear:
‘Some rogue hae broke the outer court,
An stown awa my gude grey mare.’
16
‘Then by my sooth,’ the king replied,
‘If there’s been rogues into the toun,
I fear, as well as your grey mare,
Awa is my stately Wanton Brown.’
17
‘My loss is great,’ the harper said,
‘My loss is twice as great, I fear;
In Scotland I lost a gude grey steed,
An here I’ve lost a gude grey mare.’
18
‘Come on, come on, ye harper-man,
Some o your music lat me hear;
Well paid ye’se be, John, for the same,
An likewise for your gude grey mare.’
19
When that John his money received,
Then he went harping frae the toun,
But little did King Henry ken
He’d stown awa his Wanton Brown.
20
The knights then lay ower castle-wa,
An they beheld baith dale an down,
An saw the jolly harper-man
Come harping on to Striveling toun.
21
Then, ‘By my sooth,’ Sir Roger said,
‘Are ye returned back to toun?
I doubt my lad ye hae ill sped
Of stealing o the Wanton Brown.’
22
‘I hae been into fair England,
An even into Lunan toun,
An in King Henry’s outer court,
An stown awa the Wanton Brown.’
23
‘Ye lie, ye lie,’ Sir Charles he said,
‘An aye sae loud’s I hear ye lie;
Twall armed men, in armour bright,
They guard the stable night and day.’
24
‘But I did harp them all asleep,
An managed my business cunninglie;
If ye make light o what I say,
Come to my stable an ye’ll see.
25
‘My music pleasd the king sae well
Mair o my harping he wishd to hear;
An for the same he paid me well,
And also for my gude grey mare.’
26
Then he drew out a gude lang purse,
Well stored wi gowd an white monie,
An in a short time after this
The Wanton Brown he lat them see.
27
Sir Roger produced his ploughs o land,
Sir Charles produced his thousand pounds,
Then back to Henry, the English king,
Restored the stately Wanton Brown.
A. a.
“I have here given another copy of this Border Ballad, which I took from a MS. collection of Mr Henderson. It varies a little from the former [A], which I had from Dr Clapperton of Lochmaben.”
44, 134, 184. The Wanton Brown is a mare: so b, and D, 94. But the Brown is a stallion in C, 34, 84, 134, and is so made to be in A c, 134, 173: rightly, I should suppose.
82. say.
124. to wanting.
b.
The third and fourth lines are repeated as burden.
11. O heard ye of a silly harper.
12. Livd long.
13. he did.
81. he wanting.
92. lords gaed through.
94. That they forgat.
144. ere it.
152. gae.
161. raise.
171. then (misprint) for those.
173. gainst.
213. shall.
c.
No burden.
11. O heard ye na o.
12. How lang he lived.
13. And how.
14. steal the Lord Warden’s.
22. the haste.
23. will neer gae weel.
31. hast.
32. That can baith lance oer laigh.
33. Sae set thee on the gray mare’s back.
4, 5, wanting.
62. And even: he may drie.
63. And when he cam to Carlisle gate.
64. O whae: but the Warden, he.
71. into my hall, thou.
74. I wad.
81. The Warden lookd ower.
82. said.
83. silly blind. 84. beside.
91. Then aye.
92. the lordlings footed.
93. But an the.
94. The groom had nae mind o.
102. were fast.
111 hied.
114. gude wanting.
121. took a cowt halter.
122. he did.
131. He turned them loose at the castle gate.
132. muir and moss.
133. neer let: bait.
134. But kept him a-galloping hame to her foal.
141. The mare she was: foot.
142. She didna.
144. A lang: before the day.
153. Rise up.
161. cloathes.
162. keekit through at the.
163. then cried.
164. braw brown.
171. haud thy tongue, thou silly wench.
172. morn’s: in your ee.
173. He’s.
18.
Now all this while, in merry Carlisle,
The harper harped to hie and law,
And the fiend thing dought they do but listen him to,
Untill that the day began to daw.
193. Behold the Wanton Brown was gane.
194. poor blind.
201. quo the cunning auld.
202. And ever allace.
203. I lost a.
21, 22, alteration of B 11, 12:
Come cease thy allacing, thou silly blind harper,
And again of thy harping let us hear;
And weel payd sall thy cowt-foal be,
And thou sall have a far better mare.
Then aye he harped, and aye he carped,
Sae sweet were the harpings he let them hear!
He was paid for the foal he had never lost,
And three times ower for the gude gray mare.
B.
12. in a Bell town: see 131.
5. The burden is here: Sing, Fadle fidle, etc.
C.
“The following is an oral version of a ballad which appears in the first volume of the ‘Minstrelsy.’ I have written it down from the recitation of a friend who learned it many years ago from her grandfather, a Mr John Macreddie, farmer, Little Laight parish of Inch, Wigtonshire. He died in 1813, at the age of ninety-four, and is supposed to have acquired the song from tradition in his youth. On comparison, it will be found to differ in several respects from Sir Walter’s version. 11 Hill Street, Anderston, Glasgow. W. G.”
D.
32, 42, 61, 181, oh. 101, at, 161, then, added by Mr Murray in pencil above the line, as if on reading over what he had written down.
184. Dr Mitchell gives: An waps. “ The ower-word,” he adds, “was something like the following:”
Hey tum tidly
Doodlem didly
Hey tum tidly
Doodley dan.
E.
22. The reading is perhaps pounds.
72,3. Absurdity could be avoided by exchanging grey mare and steed.
242. by for my.
193
THE DEATH OF PARCY REED
A. ‘A song of Parcy Reed and the Three False Halls,’ the late Robert White’s papers.
B. ‘The Death of Parcy Reed,’ Richardson’s Borderer’s Table Book, 1846, VII, 361; J. H. Dixon, Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of the Peasantry of England, p. 99, Percy Society, vol. xvii, 1846.
Of B, which purports to have been taken down from an old woman’s singing by James Telfer, Mr Robert White, from whom I received A, said in a letter to Mr J. H. Dixon: “Parcy Reed, as you suspect, is not genuine, for it bears marks of our friend’s improvements. I have a copy of the original somewhere, but may not be able to find it.” And again, Telfer himself, “in a letter to the late Robert Storey, the Northumbrian poet,” wrote, “I will send Mr Dixon the real verses, but it is but a droll of a ballad.” (J. H. Dixon, in Notes and Queries, Fourth Series, I, 108, V, 520.)
Comparison will show that almost the whole of A is preserved in B, and in fairly good form. B has also some stanzas not found in A which may be accepted as traditional. Telfer may have added a dozen of his own, and has retouched others.
Mr White, after remarking that there is no historical evidence to show when the event on which the ballad was founded occurred, informs us that almost every circumstance in the narrative has been transmitted to the present century by local tradition.
“Percival, or Parcy, Reed,” in the words of Mr White, “was proprietor of Troughend, an elevated tract of land lying on the west side and nearly in the centre of Redesdale, Northumberland. The remains of the old tower may still be seen, a little to the west of the present mansion, commanding a beautiful and most extensive view of nearly the whole valley. Here he resided, and being a keen hunter and brave soldier, he possessed much influence, and was appointed warden or keeper of the district. His office was to suppress and order the apprehension of thieves and other breakers of the law; in the execution of which he incurred the displeasure of a family of brothers of the name of Hall, who were owners of Girsonsfield, a farm about two miles east from Troughend. He also drew upon himself the hostility of a band of moss-troopers, Crosier by name, some of whom he had been successful in bringing to justice. The former were, however, artful enough to conceal their resentment, and under the appearance of friendship calmly awaited an opportunity to be avenged. Some time afterwards, they solicited his attendance on a hunting expedition to the head of Redesdale, and unfortunately he agreed to accompany them. His wife had some strange dreams anent his safety on the night before his departure, and at breakfast, on the following morning, the loaf of bread from which he was supplied chanced to be turned with the bottom upwards, an omen which is still accounted most unfavorable all over the north of England. Considering these presages undeserving of notice, Reed set out in company with the Halls, and, after enjoying a good day’s sport, the party withdrew to a solitary hut in Batinghope, a lonely glen stretching westward from the Whitelee, whose little stream forms one of the chief sources of Reedwater. The whole of this arrangement had been previously planned by the Halls and Crosiers, and when the latter came down, late in the evening, to execute their purpose of vengeance, they found Parcy Reed altogether a defenceless man. His companions not only deserted him, but had previously driven his sword so firmly in its scabbard that it could not be drawn, and had also moistened the powder with which the very long gun he carried with him was charged, so as to render both useless when he came to rely upon them for protection. Accordingly the Crosiers instantly put him to death; and so far did they carry out their sanguinary measures, even against his lifeless body, that tradition says the fragments thereof had to be collected together and conveyed in pillow-slips home to Troughend. Public indignation was speedily aroused against the murderers; the very name of Crosier was abhorred throughout Redesdale, and the abettors were both driven from their residence and designated as the fause-hearted Ha’s, an appellation which yet remains in force against them.” (Richardson’s Borderer’s Table Book, VII, 361.)
The farm of Girsonsfield, according to the ballad, A 3, 18, belonged to the Halls. But that place has been the property of others, says Mr White, “ever since the reign of Elizabeth;” whence he concludes that the story is not to be dated later than the sixteenth century.
Parcy Reed is famed to have had a favorite dog named Keeldar, and, though a “peerless archer,” to have killed him by an unlucky shot while hunting. Sir Walter Scott has celebrated this mishap and its consequence in ‘The Death of Keeldar’ (Table Book, as above, p. 240); and he alludes to the treacherous murder of Reed (with which he became acquainted through Robert Roxby’s ‘Lay of the Reedwater Minstrel,’ 1809) in Rokeby, written in 1812, Canto I, xx.