Margaret, Eric's queen, died in 1283, leaving a newly born daughter; and Alexander III, having been killed by being thrown from his horse, in 1286, the crown fell to the granddaughter. A match was proposed between the infant Margaret, called the Maid of Norway, and the eldest son of Edward I of England. A deputation, not so splendid as the train which accompanied the little maid's mother to Norway, was sent, in 1290, to bring the Princess Margaret over, but she died on the way before reaching Scotland. The Scalacronica speaks of only a single envoy, Master Weland, a Scottish clerk. If "the chronicle will not lie," the Maid of Norway and the Scottish clerk perished, we must suppose in a storm, on the coasts of Boghan[28] (Buchan?). This is not quite enough to make the ballad out of, and there is still less material in the marriage of James III with the daughter of the king of Norway in 1469, and no shipwreck chronicled at all.
No such name as Patrick Spens is historically connected with any of these occurrences. Spens has even been said not to be an early Scottish name. Aytoun, however, points to a notable exploit by one Spens as early as 1336, and Mr Macmath has shown me that the name occurred in five charters of David II, therefore between 1329 and 1370. We might allege that Spens, though called Sir Patrick in later days, was in reality only a skeely skipper,[29] and that historians do not trouble themselves much about skippers. But this would be avoiding the proper issue. The actual name of the hero of a ballad affords hardly a presumption as to who was originally the hero. This ballad may be historical, or it may not. It might be substantially historical though the command of the ship were invariably given to Sir Andrew Wood, a distinguished admiral, who was born a couple of centuries after the supposed event; and it might be substantially historical though we could prove that Patrick Spens was only a shipmaster, of purely local fame, who was lost off Aberdour a couple of hundred years ago. For one, I do not feel compelled to regard the ballad as historical.
A mermaid appears to the navigators in J, L, P, Q, and informs them, J, that they will never see dry land, or are not far from land, L, P, Q, which, coming from a mermaid, they are good seamen enough to know means the same thing. The appearance of a mermaid to seamen is a signal for despair in a brief little ballad, of no great antiquity to all seeming, given further on under the title of 'The Mermaid.' If nothing worse, mermaids at least bode rough weather, and sailors do not like to see them: Faye, Norske Folke-Sagn, ed. 1844, p. 55 (Prior). They have a reputation for treachery: there is in a Danish ballad, Grundtvig, II, 91, No 42, B 14, one who has betrayed seven ships.
The place where the ship went down was half owre to Aberdour, A, C, F?; ower by Aberdour, I, J, N; forty miles off Aberdeen, G, H (H may only repeat G); nore-east, nore-west frae Aberdeen, D; between Leith and Aberdeen, K. B and E transfer the scene to St Johnston (Perth), and P to the Clyde, down below Dumbarton Castle. We may fairly say, somewhere off the coast of Aberdeenshire, for the southern Aberdour, in the Firth of Forth, cannot be meant.
The island of Papa Stronsay is said to be about half way between Aberdour in Buchan and the coast of Norway, half owre to Aberdour; and on this island there is a tumulus, which Mr Maidment informs us is known now, and has always been known, as the grave of Sir Patrick Spens. Nothing more has been transmitted, we are assured, but only the name as that of a man buried there: Maidment, Scotish Ballads and Songs, Historical and Traditionary, I, 31 f. "The Scottish ballads were not early current in Orkney, a Scandinavian country," says Aytoun, "so it is very unlikely that the poem could have originated the name." With regard to this Orcadian grave of Patrick Spens, it may first be remarked that Barry, who, in 1808, speaks of the Earl's Knowe in Papa Stronsay, says not a word of the tradition now affirmed to be of indefinite long-standing (neither does Tudor in 1883). The ballad has been in print for a hundred and twenty years. There are Scots in the island now, and perhaps there "always" have been; at any rate, a generation or two is time enough for a story to strike root and establish itself as tradition.[30]
A a is translated by Herder, Volkslieder, I, 89, Bodmer, I, 56, Döring, p. 157, Rosa Warrens, Schottische Volkslieder, No 16, 1; G, by Loève-Veimars, p. 340; H, by Grundtvig, Engelske og skotske Folkeviser, No 2, Schubart, p. 203, Wolff, Halle der Völker, I, 60, Fiedler, Geschichte der schottischen Liederdichtung, I, 13; I, by Gerhard, p. 1. Aytoun's ballad, by Rosa Warrens, Schottische Volkslieder, No 16, 2.
A
a. Percy's Reliques, 1765, I, 71: "given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland." b. Herd's Scots Songs, 1769, p. 243.
1 The king sits in Dumferling toune,
Drinking the blude-reid wine:
'O whar will I get guid sailor,
To sail this schip of mine?'