[E]. a. 'The Old Man and his Three Sons,' Bell, as above, p. 250. b. Mr Robert White's papers.
[F]. Allies, as above, p. 120.
B can be traced in Banffshire, according to Christie, for more than a hundred years, through the old woman that sang it, and her forbears. C a, D were originally published by Allies in the year 1845, in a pamphlet bearing the title The Jovial Hunter of Bromsgrove, Horne the Hunter, and Robin Hood. No intimation as to the source of his copy, C b, is given by Bell, i. e., Dixon. Apparently all the variations from Allies, C a, are of the nature of editorial improvements. E a is said (1857) to be current in the north of England as a nursery song.
One half of A, the oldest and fullest copy of this ballad (the second and fourth quarters), is wanting in the Percy MS. What we can gather of the story is this. A knight finds a lady sitting in a tree, A, C, D [under a tree, E], who tells him that a wild boar has slain Sir Broning, A [killed her lord and thirty of his men, C; worried her lord and wounded thirty, E]. The knight kills the boar, B-D, and seems to have received bad wounds in the process, A, B; the boar belonged to a giant, B; or a wild woman, C, D. The knight is required to forfeit his hawks and leash, and the little finger of his right hand, A [his horse, his hound, and his lady, C]. He refuses to submit to such disgrace, though in no condition to resist, A; the giant allows him time to heal his wounds, forty days, A; thirty-three, B; and he is to leave his lady as security for his return, A. At the end of this time the knight comes back sound and well, A, B, and kills the giant as he had killed the boar, B. C and D say nothing of the knight having been wounded. The wild woman, to revenge her "pretty spotted pig," flies fiercely at him, and he cleaves her in two. The last quarter of the Percy copy would, no doubt, reveal what became of the lady who was sitting in the tree, as to which the traditional copies give no light.
Our ballad has much in common with the romance of 'Sir Eglamour of Artois,' Percy MS., Hales and Furnivall, II, 338; Thornton Romances, Camden Society, ed. Halliwell, p. 121; Ellis, Metrical Romances, from an early printed copy, Bohn's ed., p. 527. Eglamour, simple knight, loving Christabel, an earl's daughter, is required by the father, who does not wish him well, to do three deeds of arms, the second being to kill a boar in the kingdom of Sattin or Sydon, which had been known to slay forty armed knights in one day (Percy, st. 37). This Eglamour does, after a very severe fight. The boar belonged to a giant, who had kept him fifteen years to slay Christian men (Thornton, st. 42, Percy, 40). This giant had demanded the king of Sydon's daughter's hand, and comes to carry her off, by force, if necessary, the day following the boar-fight. Eglamour, who had been found by the king in the forest, in a state of exhaustion, after a contest which had lasted to the third or fourth day, and had been taken home by him and kindly cared for, is now ready for action again. He goes to the castle walls with a squire, who carries the boar's head on a spear. The giant, seeing the head, exclaims,
'Alas, art thou dead!
My trust was all in thee!
Now by the law that I lieve in,
My little speckled hoglin,
Dear bought shall thy death be.'
Percy, st. 44.
Eglamour kills the giant, and returns to Artois with both heads. The earl has another adventure ready for him, and hopes the third chance may quit all. Eglamour asks for twelve weeks to rest his weary body.
B comes nearest the romance, and possibly even the wood of Tore is a reminiscence of Artois. The colloquy with the giant in B is also, perhaps, suggested by one which had previously taken place between Eglamour and another giant, brother of this, after the knight had killed one of his harts (Percy, st. 25). C 11, D 9 strikingly resemble the passage of the romance cited above (Percy, 44, Thornton, 47).
The ballad has also taken up something from the romance of 'Eger and Grime,' Percy MS., Hales and Furnivall, I, 341; Laing, Early Metrical Tales, p. 1; 'Sir Eger, Sir Grahame, and Sir Gray-Steel,' Ellis's Specimens, p. 546. Sir Egrabell (Rackabello, Isaac-a-Bell), Lionel's father, recalls Sir Eger, and Hugh the Græme in B is of course the Grahame or Grime of the romance, the Hugh being derived from a later ballad. Gray-Steel, a man of proof, although not quite a giant, cuts off the little finger of Eger's right hand, as the giant proposes to do to Lionel in A 21.