[E]. 'The Gay Goss-hawk,' Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, II, 7, 1802.
[F]. Communicated by Miss Reburn, as sung in County Meath, Ireland.
[G]. 'The Scottish Squire,' Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, II, 245.
The 'Gay Goshawk' first appeared in print in the second volume of Scott's Minstrelsy, in 1802. Scott's copy was formed partly from Mrs Brown's version, A, "and partly from a MS. of some antiquity penes Edit." This compounded copy is now given, E, with those portions which are contained in the Brown MS. printed in smaller type, in order that what is peculiar to the other manuscript may be distinguished. A second copy of A was made for William Tytler under the direction of the reciter in 1783, but has not been recovered. There were 28 stanzas, as in A, and the first stanza has been given by Anderson in Nichols's Illustrations, VII, 176. C was furnished Motherwell by Buchan from a manuscript sent him, and Buchan says that he himself took down from recitation the vilely dilated and debased G: Ballads of the North of Scotland, II, 340.
A ballad widely known in France has the central idea of the Gay Goshawk, a maid's feigning death to escape from a father to a lover whom she is not permitted to marry, but in the development of the story there is no likeness. A version of this ballad, 'Belle Isambourg,' was printed as early as 1607 in a collection with the title Airs de Cour, p. 40, and was republished by Rathery in the Moniteur of August 26, 1853, p. 946, afterwards in Haupt's Französische Volkslieder, p. 92. The king wishes to give Fair Isambourg a husband, but her heart is fixed on a handsome knight, whom she loves more than all her kin together, though he is poor. The king shuts her up in a dark tower, thinking that this treatment will bring about a change, but it does not. Isambourg sees her lover riding towards or by the tower at full speed. She calls to him to stop, and says:
Malade et morte m'y feray,
Porter en terre m'y lairray,
Pourtant morte je ne seray.
Puis apres je vous prie amy,
Qu'à ma chapelle a Sainct-Denis
Ne m'y laissez pas enfouir.
Isambourg is now proclaimed to be dead, and is carried to burial by three princes and a knight. Her lover, hearing the knelling and chanting, puts himself in the way and bids the bearers stop. Since she has died for loving him too well, he wishes to say a De profundis. He rips open a little of the shroud, and she darts a loving smile at him. Everybody is astonished.
Other versions, derived from oral tradition, have a more popular stamp: (1.) Poésies populaires de la France, MS., III, 54, 'La fille du roi et le Prince de Guise,' learned at Maubeuge, about 1760. (2.) III, 47, 'Le beau Déon,' Auvergne. (3.) III, 49, 'La princesse de la Grand' Tour,' Berry. (4.) III, 50 (the hero being Léon), Berry. (5.) III, 53, Caudebec. (6.) III, 56, Pamiers, Languedoc. (7.) III, 57, and II, 52, Orléans. (8.) 'La fille d'un prince,' Buchon, Noëls et chants p. de la Franche-Comté, p. 82, No 16. (9.) 'La fille d'un prince,' Rondes et Chansons p. illustrées, Paris, 1876, p. 286. (10.) 'La princesse,' Guillon, Chansons p. de l'Ain, p. 87. (11.) 'La maîtresse captive,' Puymaigre, Chants p. messins, I, 87. (12.) Le Héricher, Littérature p. de Normandie, p. 153 f. (13.) 'De Dion et de la fille du roi,' Ampère, Instructions, p. 38, the first fourteen stanzas; Auvergne. (14.) G. de Nerval, La Bohème Galante, ed. 1866, p. 70, and Les Faux Saulniers, ed. 1868, p. 346, the story completed in Les Filles du Feu, ed. 1868, p. 132; or, in the collection lately made from his works, Chansons et Ballades p. du Valois, p. 16, VIII. The last two have a false termination, as already remarked under No 4, I, 42.
In these traditional versions, the father pays a visit to the princess after she has been confined seven years, and asks how she is. One side is eaten away by worms, her feet are rotting in the irons. She begs a few sous to give the jailer to loosen her fetters. Millions are at her disposal if she will give up her lover. Rather rot, is her reply. Rot, then, says her father. The lover comes by and throws a few words of writing into the tower, directing her to counterfeit death. The rest is much the same. In several versions the king yields.