LITTLE MUSGRAVE AND LADY BARNARD
The Text here given is the version printed, with very few variations, in Wit Restor’d, 1658, Wit and Drollery, 1682, Dryden’s Miscellany, 1716, etc. The Percy Folio contains a fragmentary version, consisting of some dozen stanzas. Child says that all the Scottish versions are late, and probably derived, though taken down from oral tradition, from printed copies. As recompense, we have the Scotch Bonny Birdy.
The Story would seem to be purely English. That it was popular long before the earliest known text is proved by quotations from it in old plays: as from Fair Margaret and Sweet William. Merrythought in The Knight of the Burning Pestle (1611) sings from this ballad a version of stanza 14, and Beaumont and Fletcher also put quotations into the mouths of characters in Bonduca (circ. 1619) and Monsieur Thomas (circ. 1639). Other plays before 1650 also mention it.
The reader should remember, once for all, that burdens are to be repeated in every verse, though printed only in the first.
LITTLE MUSGRAVE AND LADY BARNARD
1.
As it fell one holy-day,
Hay downe
As many be in the yeare,