Note.—Each poem to which no reference is attached appeared for the first time in this volume.
There is a copy of The Song of Deirdra, King Byrge and his Brothers, and Other Ballads in the Library of the British Museum. The Press-mark is C. 44. d. 38.
(51) [Signelil: 1913]
Signelil / A Tale from the Cornish / and Other Ballads / By / George Borrow / London: / Printed for Private Circulation / 1913.
Collation:—Square demy octavo, pp. 28; consisting of: Half-title (with blank reverse) pp. 1–2; Title-page (with notice regarding the American copyright upon the centre of the reverse) pp. 3–4; and Text of the Ballads pp. 5–28. There are head-lines throughout, each page being headed with the title of the particular Ballad occupying it. At the foot of p. 28 is the following imprint: “London: / Printed for Thomas J. Wise, Hampstead, N.W. / Edition limited to Thirty Copies.” The signatures are A (a quarter-sheet of two leaves), B (a half-sheet of four leaves), and C (a full sheet of eight leaves), all inset within each other.
Issued in bright green paper wrappers, with untrimmed edges, and with the title-page reproduced upon the front. The leaves measure 8½ × 6⅞ inches.
Thirty Copies only were printed.
Contents.
| page | |
| Signelil. [The Lady her handmaid to questioning took] | 5 |
| A Tale from the Cornish. [In Lavan’s parish once of yore] Previously printed, with some trifling inaccuracies, in Knapp’s Life, Writings, and Correspondence of George Borrow, 1899, vol. ii, pp. 91–95. | 8 |
| Sir Verner And Dame
Ingeborg. [In Linholm’s house The swains they were drinking and making carouse] | 19 |
| The Heddeby Spectre. [At evening fall I chanced to ride] An earlier, and utterly different, version of this ballad was printed (under the tentative title The Heddybee-Spectre) in Romantic Ballads, 1826, pp. 37–39. Borrow afterwards described this earlier version as “a paraphrase.” | 22 |
| From Goudeli. [Yestere’en when the bat, and the owl, and his mate] | 25 |
| Peasant Songs of Spain: | |
| 1. [ When Jesu our Redeemer] | 27 |
| 2. [There stands a stone, a rounded stone] | 28 |