Again, in a romance of eight thousand verses, of the Châtelain de Couci and la Dame de Faiel (of the end of the thirteenth or the beginning of the fourteenth century), with the difference that the châtelain takes the cross, is wounded with a poisoned arrow, and dies on his way to France. (Jakemon Sakesep, Roman du Châtelain de Couci, etc., ed. Crapelet, 1829.) From this romance was derived The Knight of Curtesy and the Fair Lady of Faguell (in which the lady is chaste to her lord as is the turtle upon the tree), five hundred verses, Ritson’s Metrical Romanceës, III, 193, from an edition by William Copland, “before 1568;” also a chap-book, curiously adapted to its time, ‘The Constant but Unhappy Lovers,’ London, 1707 (cited by Clouston, Popular Tales and Fictions, II, 191).
Descending to tradition of the present time, we find in the adventures of Rájá Rasálu, as told in verse and prose in the north of India, surprising agreements with Boccaccio’s tale: a. Temple’s Legends of the Panjâb, I, 64 f., 1883. b. The same, III, 240 f., 1886. c. Swynnerton in the Folk-Lore Journal, I, 143 ff., 1883, and in The Adventures of Rájá Rasálu, 1884, pp. 130-35. d. Clouston, Popular Tales and Fictions, II, 192, from a book privately printed, 1851. Rájá Rasálu kills his wife’s lover, tears out his heart, a, heart and liver, d, takes of his flesh, b, c, roasts and gives to his wife to eat. She finds the meat is very good, a, no venison was ever so dainty, c. The king retorts, You enjoyed him when he was living; why should you not relish his flesh now that he is dead? and shows her the body of his rival. She leaps from the palace wall and is killed (c only). (Rájá Rasálu is assigned to our second century.)
A Danish ballad in Syv’s collection, 1695, has one half of the story. A king has a man for whom his wife has a fancy chopped up and cooked and served to the queen. She does not eat. (‘Livsvandet,’ Grundtvig, II, 504, No 94 A, Prior, I, 391.)
Very like the Indian and the Provençal sage, but with change of the parts of husband and wife, is what Mme d’Aulnoy relates as having been enacted in the Astorga family, in Spain, in the seventeenth century. The Marchioness of Astorga kills a beautiful girl of whom her husband is enamored, tears out her heart, and gives it to her husband in a stew. She asks him if the dish was to his taste, and he says, Yes. No wonder, says the wife, for it was the heart of the mistress whom you loved so much; and then produces the gory head. (Mémoires de la Cour d’Espagne, La Haye, 1691, I, 108.)
Going back to the twelfth century, we come, even at that early date, upon one of those extravagances, not to say travesties, which are apt to follow successful strokes of invention. Ignaure loves and is loved by twelve dames. The husbands serve his heart to their twelve wives, who, when they are apprised of what has passed, duly vow that they will never eat again after the precious mess which they have enjoyed. (Lai d’Ignaurès, ed. Monmerqué et Michel.) There are relics of a similar story in Provençal and in German, and a burlesque tale to the same effect was popular in Italy: Le Cento Novelle Antiche, of about 1300, Biagi, Le Novelle Antiche, 1880, p. 38, No 29.[39]
A kitchen-boy plays a part of some consequence in several other ballads. A kitchen-boy is the hero of No 252, IV, 400, a very poor ballad, to be sure. There is a bad tell-tale of a kitchen-boy in ‘Lady Maisry,’ A, No 65, II, 114, and there is a high-minded kitchen-boy in ‘The Lady Isabella’s Tragedy.’[40] ‘A ballett, The Kitchen-boyes Songe’ (whatever this may be), is entered as licensed to John Alde in the Stationers’ Registers, 1570-71, Arber, I, 438. In about half of the versions of ‘Der grausame Bruder’ (see II, 101 f.), the king of England presents himself as a küchenjung to the brother of a lady whom he asks in marriage after a clandestine intimacy.
A is translated by Knortz, Schottische Balladen, p. 22, No 9.
A
Aytoun’s Ballads of Scotland, II, 173, 1859, from the recollection of a lady residing at Kirkaldy.