THE HAWTHORN TREE.
Ritson's Ancient Songs, ii. 44.
A Mery Ballet of the Hathorne Tre, from a MS. in the Cotton Library, Vespasian, A. xxv. The MS. has "G. Peele" appended to it, but in a hand more modern than the ballad. Mr. Dyce, with very good reason, "doubts" whether Peele is the author of the ballad, but has printed it, Peele's Works, ii. 256. It is given also by Evans, i. 342, and partly in Chappell's Popular Music, i. 64.
The true character of this piece would never be suspected by one reading it in English. The same is true of the German, where the ballad is very common, and much prettier than in English, e.g. Das Mädchen und die Hasel, Das Mädchen und der Sagebaum, Erk's Liederhort, No. 33, five copies; Hoffmann, Schlesische Volkslieder, No. 100, three copies, etc. In Danish and Swedish we find a circumstantial story: Jomfruen i Linden, Grundtvig, No. 66; Linden, Svenska Folkvisor, No. 87. The tree is an enchanted damsel, one of eleven children transformed by a step-mother into various less troublesome things, and the spell can be removed only by a kiss from the king's son. By the intervention of the maiden, this rite is performed, and the beautiful linden is changed to as beautiful a young woman, who of course becomes the
prince's bride. A Wendish ballad resembling the German is given by Haupt and Schmaler, and ballads akin to the Danish, are found in Slovensk and Lithuanian (see Grundtvig).
It was a maide of my countrè,
As she came by a hathorne-tre,
As full of flowers as might be seen,
'She' merveld to se the tree so grene.
5 At last she asked of this tre,
"Howe came this freshness unto the,
And every branche so faire and cleane?
I mervaile that you growe so grene."
The tre 'made' answere by and by:
10 "I have good causse to growe triumphantly;
The swetest dewe that ever be sene
Doth fall on me to kepe me grene."
"Yea," quoth the maid, "but where you growe,
You stande at hande for every blowe;
15 Of every man for to be seen;
I mervaile that you growe so grene."
"Though many one take flowers from me,
And manye a branche out of my tre,
I have suche store they wyll not be sene,
20 For more and more my ['twegges'] growe grene."