VOL. II.
56. Dives and Lazarus.
P. 10 b, III, 507 b, 508 a, IV, 462 b, V, 220 a. Add: Ruthenian ballad, Kolberg, Pokucie, II, 280, No 505. Legends not in stanzas, White Russian, ‘Lazar,’ Šejn, II, 578-90, 3 copies; Romanov, Part V, pp. 341-56, Nos 22-26, 5 copies and variants; Great Russian, Jakuškin, p. 44, No 13, 2 copies. Lazarus and the rich man are brothers.
‘Il ricco Epulone,’ the Madonna begging, Archivio, XIV, 209 f.
57. Brown Robyn’s Confession.
P. 13, 510 a, IV, 463 a, V, 220 a. A serpent stops a ship and demands a passenger: Larminie, West-Irish Folk-Tales, p. 131. On the detention of ships by submarine folk, see Whitley Stokes, Revue Celtique, XV, 294 f. G. L. K. (The article attributed to R. Köhler, II, 510 a, is by L. Laistner.) [Add Jātaka, Bk. I, No 41, Cowell, I, 110. A ship mysteriously detained because the owner has neglected a promise: Yacoub Artin Pacha, Contes pop. de la vallée du Nil, p. 74.]
59. Sir Aldingar.
[P. 33, 511 b, III, 508 a, IV, 462 a. For parallels, including the child champion, see R. Köhler’s account of the Breton mystery of Sainte Tryphine, Revue Celtique, I, 222 ff. F. N. Robinson.]
64. Fair Janet.
P. 102 f. (Breton ballad), III (497 b, No 5), 508 b, IV, 464 a, V, 222 a. Add to the French ballads a copy from Basse-Normandie obtained by M. Couraye du Parc, Études romanes dédiées à Gaston Paris, 1891, p. 49; ‘L’infidèle punie,’ Beauquier, Chansons p. recueillies en Franche-Comté, p. 254. [On the similarity of the beginning of ‘La Fidanzata Infedele’ to that of the Danish ballad ‘Hyrde og Ridderfrue,’ see Olrik, Ridderviser, I, 181, No 349.]
P. 109. Something similar to what is narrated in F 7-10 is, I am assured by high authorities, familiar to practising physicians. An eminent professor in the Harvard Medical School informs me that in the case of two families under his care the husband has been regularly troubled with “morning sickness” during the first three or four months of the wife’s pregnancy (the husband in neither case being of a nervous or hysterical disposition). Mr. E. E. Griffith, late of Harvard College, tells me that a respectable and intelligent man of his acquaintance in Indiana maintained that he always shared the pains of his wife during parturition, and that his labors were as intense in degree and as long in time as hers. A distinguished physician of Indiana, while testifying to the frequency of cases of the like sympathy, insists that such experiences occur only to husbands who have witnessed the pains in question, or who have learned about them by reading or conversation on the matter, and that “suggestion” affords an explanation of the phenomenon.
65. Lady Maisry.
P. 112 f. In a Polish ballad a girl who has had a child irregularly is burned by her two brothers. Her paramour comes by when she is half burned, and she begs him to save her. (How can I? he says; your brothers are here. The brothers say, we have done wrong to burn her; we have left her child an orphan.) Kolberg, Lud, XVI, 291, No 476.
P. 114, st. 17.
O whare is a’ my merry young men,
Whom I gi meat and fee?
With this common-place compare:
Hvor ere nu de Kæmper, min Fader giver Brød (Løn), Grundtvig, D. g. F., No 184, G, 8, 9.
Aquí, aquí, los mis doscientos,
Los que comeis el mi pan.
Wolf and Hofmann, Primavera, I, 39, 41 f., and Conde Claros, the same, II, 374.
66. Lord Ingram and Child Wyet.
Pp. 127, 511, III, 509 a. Naked sword as emblem of chastity. More notes by R. Köhler to Laura Gonzenbach’s Sicilianische Märchen, Nos 39, 40, now published by J. Bolte in Zeitschrift des Vereins für Volkskunde, VI, 76.
[Mame Ala, in the Kurdish story ‘Mâm and Sîn,’ lays a dagger (Dolchmesser) between himself and Sine, “so dass der Griff desselben gegen ihre, die Spitze gegen seine eigene Brust gerichtet war.” Prym u. Socin, Kurdische Sammlungen, Petersburg Academy, translation, p. 101.]
127, note *, III, 509 a. Italian ballad (sword reduced to a straw). Bernoni, Trad. pop. veneziane, p. 36; Ferraro, Canti pop. di Ferrara, pp. 56, 103; Villario, in Archivio, XI, 35; Menghini, Canzoni pop. romane, in Sabatini, Il Volgo di Roma, I, 75 ff.
[127 f., 511 b, III, 509 a. Table-jumping.
Et chil Robert d’Artois n’i fist arestement,
La table tressali tost et apertement;
Au conte Salebrin ala premierement.
The Vows of the Heron (about 1340), Wright, Political Poems, I, 9 f.]
[128. ‘Ebbe Skammelsøn’ is now No 354 in the Grundtvig-Olrik collection of Danish ballads, Ridderviser, I, 197 ff. 8 Danish versions are printed (some of which go back to MSS of the 17th century), with a very elaborate introduction and critical apparatus. Dr. Olrik regards the extant Norwegian texts as derived from print. He enumerates 8 Swedish versions.]
67. Glasgerion.
P. 137, II, 511 f. Soporific effect of harping: cf. Revue celtique, XII, 81, 109, XV, 438. G. L. K.
69. Clerk Saunders.
P. 166. Stanzas 30-37 are inserted in Buchan’s first MS. on a separate slip of paper, and at 29, where the ballad originally ended, there is this note: “See the additional stanzas on the annexed leaf.” W. Walker.
72. The Clerk’s Twa Sons o Owsenford.
P. 174, note *. ‘Dass Schloss in Oesterreich,’ etc.: see Böhme’s Erk, No 61a-g; Frischbier u. Sembrzychi, Hundert Ostpreussiche Volkslieder, No 16, p. 26; Becker, Rheinischer Volksliederborn, No 2, a, b, c, p. 2 ff.; Wolfram, No 44, p. 71; Kristensen, Jyske Folkeminder, XI, 218, No 81.
73. Lord Thomas and Fair Annet.
P. 181, III, 510 b, IV, 469 a, V, 223 b. Add to the Southern ballads ‘Le mariage tragique,’ Beauquier, Chansons p. recueillies en Franche-comté, p. 81; ‘Las bodas,’ Milá, Romancerillo Catalan, p. 257, No 262. (In this last, ‘vert marca esperansa.’)
74. Fair Margaret and Sweet William.
P. 199. Communicated by Miss Mary E. Burleigh, of Worcester, Massachusetts, and derived, through a relative, from her great-grandmother, who had heard the ballad sung at gatherings of young people in Webster, Massachusetts, not long after 1820.
1
There was such a man as King William, there was,
And he courted a lady fair,
He courted such a lady as Lady Margaret,
For a whole long twelve-month year.
2
Said he, ‘I’m not the man for you,
Nor you the maid for me,
But before many, many long months
My wedding you shall see.’
3
Said she, ‘If I’m not the maid for you,
Nor you the man for me,
Before many, many long days
My funeral you shall see.’
4
Lady Margaret sat in a green shady bower,
A combing her yellow, yellow hair,
When who should she see but King William and his bride,
And to church they did repair.
5
She threw all down her ivory comb,
Threw back her yellow hair,
And to the long chamber she did go,
And for dying she did prepare.
6
King William had a dream that night,
Such dreams as scarce prove true:
He dreamed that Lady Margaret was dead,
And her ghost appeared to view.
7
‘How do you like your bed?’ said she,
‘And how do you like your sheets?
And how do you like the fair lady
That’s in your arms and sleeps?’
8
‘Well do I like my bed,’ said he,
‘And well do I like my sheets,
But better do I like the fair lady
That’s in my arms and sleeps.’
9
King William rose early the next morn,
Before the break of day,
Saying, ‘Lady Margaret I will go see,
Without any more delay.’
10
He rode till he came to Lady Margaret’s hall,
And rapped long and loud on the ring,
But there was no one there but Lady Margaret’s brother
To let King William in.
11
‘Where, O where is Lady Margaret?
Pray tell me how does she do.’
‘Lady Margaret is dead in the long chamber,
She died for the love of you.’
12
‘Fold back, fold back that winding sheet,
That I may look on the dead,
That I may kiss those clay-cold lips
That once were the cherry-red.’
13
Lady Margaret died in the middle of the night,
King William died on the morrow,
Lady Margaret died of pure true love,
King William died of sorrow.
14
Lady Margaret was buried in King William’s church-yard,
All by his own desire,
And out of her grave grew a double red rose
And out of hisn a briar.
15
They grew so high, they grew so tall,
That they could grow no higher;
They tied themselves in a true-lover’s knot,
And both fell down together.
16
Now all ye young that pass this way,
And see these two lovers asleep,
’Tis enough to break the hardest heart,
And bring them here to weep.
199 f. Mallet and ‘Sweet William.’ Full particulars in W. L. Phelps, The Beginnings of the English Romantic Movement, 1893, p. 177 ff.
75. Lord Lovel.
P. 204 f., note †, 512 b, IV, 471 a, V, 225 a. Add: Wolfram, p. 87, No 61, ‘Es spielte ein Ritter mit einer Madam.’
205 b, note *. The Swedish ballad (p. 71 f. of the publication mentioned) is defective at the end, and altogether amounts to very little.
[206. Romaic. Add: ‘La belle Augiranouda,’ Georgeakis et Pineau, Folk-lore de Lesbos, p. 223 f.]
206 a, and note *. Add: Wolfram, No 28, p. 55, ‘Es war ein Jäger wohlgemut,’ and ‘Jungfer Dörtchen,’ Blätter für Pommersche Volkskunde, II. Jahrgang, p. 12.
211, H. I have received a copy recited by a lady in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which was evidently derived from print, and differs but slightly from a, omitting 83, 4, 91, 2.
76. The Lass of Roch Royal.
P. 215. ‘Germaine’: see Daymard, p. 170; Revue des Traditions populaires, III, 364; Beauquier, Chansons pop. recueillies en Franche-Comté, p. 259.
77. Sweet William’s Ghost.
P. 228 f., 233, 239, III, 514, IV, 474. Of the succession of three cocks, white, red, black (reduced to two in English ballads), see R. Köhler, Der weisse, der rothe und der schwarze Hahn, Germania, XI, 85-92. [So in the tale ‘L’Andromède et les Démons,’ Georgeakis et Pineau, Folk-lore de Lesbos, p. 82 f.]
228, note †. Two or three additions in Böhme’s Erk, I, 598 ff., No 197, c, d, g.
78. The Unquiet Grave.
P. 235 a, last paragraph. Servian ballad in which a child’s shirt is wet with its mother’s tears, Rajković, p. 143, No 186, ‘Dete Lovzar i majka mu’ (‘The child and his mother’).
[235. Tears burning the dead. Professor Lanman furnishes the following interesting parallel from the Mahābhārata, XI, 43 ff.: Dhṛtarāṣṭra is lamenting for his fallen sons. His charioteer says;—The face that thou wearest, covered with falling tears, is not approved by the sacred books; nor do wise men praise it. For they [the tears], like sparks, ’tis said, do burn those men (for whom they’re shed).]
79. The Wife of Usher’s Well.
[P. 238, III, 513. Communicated, 1896, by Miss Emma M. Backus, of North Carolina, who notes that it has long been sung by the “poor whites” in the mountains of Polk County in that State. It has the mother’s prayer for the return of her children, as in C, III, 513, but is in other respects much nearer to A. In the last stanza we should doubtless read “They wet our winding sheet,” or the like. In 43 the MS. has louely or lonely, perhaps meant for lovely.
1
There was a lady fair and gay,
And children she had three:
She sent them away to some northern land,
For to learn their grammeree.
2
They hadn’t been gone but a very short time,
About three months to a day,
When sickness came to that land
And swept those babes away.
3
There is a king in the heavens above
That wears a golden crown:
She prayed that he would send her babies home
To-night or in the morning soon.
4
It was about one Christmas time,
When the nights was long and cool,
She dreamed of her three little lonely babes
Come running in their mother’s room.
5
The table was fixed and the cloth was spread,
And on it put bread and wine:
‘Come sit you down, my three little babes,
And eat and drink of mine.’
6
‘We will neither eat your bread, dear mother,
Nor we’ll neither drink your wine;
For to our Saviour we must return
To-night or in the morning soon.’
7
The bed was fixed in the back room;
On it was some clean white sheet,
And on the top was a golden cloth,
To make those little babies sleep.
8
‘Wake up! wake up!’ says the oldest one,
‘Wake up! it’s almost day.
And to our Saviour we must return
To-night or in the morning soon.’
9
‘Green grass grows at our head, dear mother,
Green moss grows at our feet;
The tears that you shed for us three babes
Won’t wet our winding sheet.’]
80. Old Robin of Portingale.
[P. 240. Dr. Axel Olrik thinks that this ballad is related to the Danish ballad ‘Utro Fæstemø vil forgive sin Fæstemand,’ No 345 in the Grundtvig-Olrik collection (Ridderviser, I, 167, note *), which he refers for its origin to the story of the Lombard queen Rosemunda (see note on ‘Lord Randal,’ No 12, p. 286, above). The drink promised to Old Robin by his wife Dr Olrik thinks may indicate that the English ballad was once more similar to the Danish than it is in the version which we possess.]
87. Prince Robert.
P. 284. A mother prepares wholesome drink for her son, poison for his wife; both son and wife are poisoned. They are buried separately, one in the church, one in the graveyard. Trees from their graves join their tops. White Russian, Šejn, I, I, 444, No 544, 447-51, Nos 546-9; Hiltebrandt, p. 64, No 65; Kupčanko, ‘Vdova otravljaet nevěstu,’ p. 255, No 300. Ruthenian, Kolberg, Pokucie, II, 41, No 48.
90. Jellon Grame.
P. 303 b, 513 b, III, 515 b, IV, 479 b, V, 226 a.
Vol’ga, Volch, of the Russian bylinas, must have a high place among the precocious heroes. When he was an hour and a half old his voice was like thunder, and at five years of age he made the earth tremble under his tread. At seven he had learned all cunning and wisdom, and all the languages. Dobrynya is also to be mentioned. See Wollner, Volksepik der Grossrussen, pp. 47 f., 91.
Simon the Foundling in the fine Servian heroic song of that name, Karadžić, II, 63, No 14, Talvj, I, 71, when he is a year old is like other children of three; when he is twelve like others of twenty, and wonderfully learned, with no occasion to be afraid of any scholar, not even the abbot. (Cf. ‘The Lord of Lorne,’ V, 54, 9, 10.)
Other cases, Revue Celtique, XII, 63; Wardrop, Georgian Folk Tales, No 6, p. 26. G. L. K. [Lady Guest’s Mabinogion, III, 32, 65; 201, 232; Firdusi, Livre des Rois, Mohl, 1838, I, 353 ff. A. and A. Schott, Walachische Märchen, p. 265 (cf. A. Wirth, Danae in christlichen Legenden, p. 34). F. N. Robinson. See also von Wlislocki, M. u. S. der Bukowinaer u. Siebenbürger Armenier, No 24, p. 65; Jacottet, Contes pop. des Bassoutos, p. 196 f.; Georgeakis et Pineau, Folk-lore de Lesbos, p. 168.]
93. Lamkin.
Pp. 320-42, III, 515, IV, 480 f., V, 229 f.
Denham, Tracts, II, 190, refers to a Northumbrian version of the ballad which associated Long Lonkin with Nafferton Castle in the parish of Ovingham. He also gives a story, obtained from an old man in Newcastle, according to which Long Lonkin is no mason but a gentleman, who kills the lady and her one child because the lord of Nafferton had been preferred to him. The husband, abandoning his journey to London on account of a misgiving that all was not right at home, after finding his wife and child dead, hunts down the murderer, who drops from a tree in which he had concealed himself into a pool, thence called Long Lonkin’s pool, and is drowned.
Communicated by Mr. W. W. Newell, with the superscription (by the original transcriber, Miss Emma M. Backus) “as sung in Newbern, North Carolina, seventy-five years ago” (1895).
1
John Lankin was a good mason
As ever laid a stone;
He built Lord Arnold’s castle
And the lord he paid him none.
2
John Lankin then swore,
If the lord did not pay him,
He would break into his castle
And murder all his kinsmen.
3
Lord Arnold soon did hear
Of John Lankin’s threat so dour;
He did guard all his castle
With soldiers every hour.
4
He said to his lady,
‘I am going away from home,
And what should you do
If John Lankin should come?’
5
‘I care not for John Lankin,
Or any of his kin;
I will bar all my doors
And I’ll pin my windows in.’
6
The doors were all barrd
And the windows pinned in,
And out of the kitchen-window
The nurse she let him in.
7
He killed the good lady
With a cowardly cruel blow,
And threw her pretty baby
To the dank moat below.
8
John Lankin was hung
On the gallows so high,
And the nurse she was chained
In a dungeon to die.
95. The Maid freed from the Gallows.
P. 346 f., III, 516 a, IV, 481 a, V, 231 a. Michele Barbi, Poesia popolare pistoiese, p. 9, found a fragment of Scibilia Nobili at Plan dagli Ontani under the name of Violina, and Giannini’s ‘Prigioniera’ (III, 516 a), otherwise ‘Mosettina,’ under the name Violina,’ ‘Brunetta,’ etc.
The following copy was communicated by Mr W. W. Newell, as derived from Miss Emma M. Backus, North Carolina, who says: “This is an old English song, in the Yorkshire dialect, which was brought over to Virginia before the Revolution. It has not been written for generations, for none of the family have been able to read or write.” Miss Backus adds that the pronunciation indicated is by no means that which is ordinarily used by the people who sing this ballad. It will, however, be noted that the Yorkshire dialect is not well preserved.
THE HANGMAN’S TREE.
1
‘Hangman, hangman, howd yo hand,
O howd it wide and far!
For theer I see my feyther coomin,
Riding through the air.
2
‘Feyther, feyther, ha yo brot me goold?
Ha yo paid my fee?
Or ha yo coom to see me hung,
Beneath tha hangman’s tree?’
3
‘I ha naw brot yo goold,
I ha naw paid yo fee,
But I ha coom to see yo hung
Beneath tha hangman’s tree.’
| 4, 5, | } | meyther | } | ||
| 7, 8, | } | as in 1, 2, substituting | sister | } | for feyther |
| 10, 11 | } | sweetheart | } | ||
| 6, 9, | as in 3. | ||||
12
‘Oh I ha brot yo goold,
And I ha paid yo fee,
And I ha coom to take yo froom
Beneath tha hangman’s tree.’
34. hangmens.
43. mither.
52. Or ha.
53. hang.
54, 84, 114. gallows tree.
123. An.
124. the.
348 b. German. Böhme, in his edition of Erk’s Liederhort, I, 277, adds a copy, from singing, dated 1878, ‘Die Losgekaufte,’ No 78 e.
349 f., 514 a, III, 516 b. A young man in prison bought out by his sweetheart, father, mother, etc., refusing help: Little Russian, Romanov, I, 63, No 2; Croatian, Valjavec, p. 303, No 19, ‘Junak vu Madjarski vuzi;’ Great Russian, Jakuškin, p. 147 f.; Ruthenian, Kolberg, Pokucie, II, 226 f., Nos 418, 420. Woman rescued by lover from Tatar who was about to kill her, the blood-relations declining: Romanov, I, 53, No 105.
514 a. In Nesselmann’s Littauische Volkslieder, No 119, p. 96, and Bartsch’s Dainu Balsai, I, 147, No 107, II, 202, No 321 (from Bezzenberger, Litauische Forschungen, p. 17, No 27), we have a ballad of a youth who does not get release from confinement though his blood relations lay down handsomely for him, but in the end is freed by his sweetheart with a trifle of a ring or a garland. In Bartsch, I, 63, No 53, a girl who has been shut up nine years is let alone by her father and her brother, but liberated by her lover; II, 296, Ulmann, Lettische Volkslieder, p. 168, relations make an attempt to buy off a conscript, without success, but his sweetheart effects his release by selling her garland. Silly stories all.
96. The Gay Goshawk.
P. 356, III, 517 a, IV, 482 a, V, 234 a. Chanson du Roi Loys, ou de la Belle dans la Tour. Add ‘Le Prince qui torture sa Fille,’ Beauquier, Chansons p. recueillies en Franche-Comté, p. 147; copy from Normandy, copy from Savoy, Revue des Traditions populaires, X, 641 f.
356 b, III, 517 a, IV, 482, V, 234 a. ‘Les trois capitaines.’ Add: ‘Au château de Belfort,’ Beauquier, pp. 59 f., 369 f.
III, 517 b. Girl feigns death to avoid a disagreeable suitor; test of water, fire, and hand in bosom, which last is the hardest to bear: ‘Vojvoda Janko i mlada Andjelija,’ Hrvatske Pjesme iz “Naše Sloge,” II, 65, No 68.
100. Willie o Winsbury.
P. 399, note. The ballad need not be older than the 16th century. Drop “but it was hardly,” etc.
104. Prince Heathen.
P. 424 b. It is more commonly the lady that is rolled in silk; the son is laid, dressed, rolled in silk, No 5, C, 82, No 20, C, 8 of the places cited (C, 83, E, 32, are to be dropped), and No 104, B, 14.
112. The Baffled Knight.
II, 479 a. The Complete Collection of Old and New English and Scotch Songs, 1735, a rare book, is in the library of the British Museum, and Mr Round, who has kindly examined it for me, informs me that all the ballads in it are repetitions from earlier publications; in the present case of B, from Pills to purge Melancholy.
481 b, IV, 495 a. Add ‘Il fallait plumer la perdrix,’ Beauquier, Chansons p. recueillies en Franche-Comté, p. 303.
481 b, III, 518 a, IV, 495 a, V, 239 b. Tears: add ‘L’Amant timide,’ Beauquier, Chansons p. recueillies en Franche-Comté’, p. 180; La Tradition, 1895, p. 69.
483 b, V, 240 a. La Batelière rusée in Beauquier, Chansons populaires recueillies en Franche-Comté, p. 40.
Slavic ballads of similar tenor (Servian), Rajković, ‘Mudra devojka,’ p. 16, No 23, ‘Lukava čobanka,’ p. 129, No 173.