It does not appear from Professor Child’s remarks whether he thought of the minstrel as composing his ballads,—or making them over,—orally or in writing. Perhaps we are to suppose that he followed now one method, now the other. Rychard Sheale may be supposed to have affixed his “expliceth” to his written copy of Chevy Chase; yet it is “quod Rychard Sheale” as if the manuscript had been written by another from his singing. But whether the ballad passed through the minstrel’s mouth or through his hands, it received some peculiar and characteristic modifications. Thus The Boy and the Mantle (29), King Arthur and King Cornwall (30), and The Marriage of Sir Gawain (31) “are clearly not of the same rise, and not meant for the same ears, as those which go before. They would come down by professional rather than by domestic tradition, through minstrels rather than knitters and weavers. They suit the hall better than the bower, the tavern or public square better than the cottage, and would not go to the spinning-wheel at all. An exceedingly good piece of minstrelsy ‘The Boy and the Mantle’ is, too; much livelier than most of the numerous variations on the somewhat overhandled theme.”[160] Crow and Pie (111), likewise, “is not a purely popular ballad, but rather of that kind which, for convenience, may be called the minstrel-ballad. It has, however, popular features, and markedly in stanzas 13, 14,”[161]—the damsel’s demanding the name of the man who has wronged her, a feature found in The Bonny Hind (50) and its continental parallels.[162] The term minstrel may, perhaps, be more loosely used in the passage which describes The Rising in the North (175) as “the work of a loyal but not unsympathetic minstrel;”[163] in the statement concerning Northumberland Betrayed by Douglas (176), that “the ballad-minstrel acquaints us with circumstances concerning the surrender of Northumberland;”[164] and in the statement to the effect that, in the case of Tom Potts (109), “the minstrel was not much above the estate of the serving-man.”[165]
We may now attempt to construct an account of the vicissitudes to which the ballad was subject when, in the course of transmission, it sometimes found its way into writing and into print. Version B of The Hunting of the Cheviot (162) “is a striking but by no means a solitary example of the impairment which an old ballad would suffer when written over for the broadside press. This very seriously enfeebled edition was in circulation throughout the seventeenth century, and much sung ... despite its length. It is declared by Addison, in his appreciative and tasteful critique ... to be the favorite ballad of the common people of England.”[166] Similarly, in the case of Sir Andrew Barton (167), “a collation of A and B will show how ballads were retrenched and marred in the process of preparing them for the vulgar press.”[167] “B begins vilely, but does not go on so ill. The forty merchants coming ‘with fifty sail’ to King Henry on a mountain top ... requires to be taken indulgently.”[168] Though a broadside differs widely from a true ballad, it is not to be supposed that,—at least in the examples included by Professor Child,—some general traits or special features peculiar to the popular or traditional matter or manner did not survive. Thus, although the ballad of The Twa Knights (268) “can have had no currency in Scotland, and perhaps was known only through print,” yet “a similar one is strictly traditional in Greece, and widely dispersed, both on the mainland and among the islands.”[169] Again, there are two broadsides of King John and the Bishop (45), which Professor Child does not include, “both inferior even to B, and in a far less popular style.”[170] There are, then, degrees of departure from the popular style. There are degrees of departure from the popular matter, also, and the broadside preserves sometimes but a single popular feature. Version M of Young Beichan (53) “was probably a broadside or stall copy, and is certainly of that quality, but preserves a very ancient traditional feature.”[171] The broadside version of The Broomfield Hill (43) is distinguished by a “pungent buckishness,” which is not found in A, and which “suggests the groom.”[172] A broadside may itself become tradition. The English version of Lord Thomas and Fair Annet (73) “is a broadside of Charles the Second’s time.... This copy has become traditional in Scotland and Ireland. The Scottish traditional copy ... is far superior, and one of the most beautiful of our ballads, and indeed of all ballads.”[173] The tradition lives, even after a ballad has found its way into print, and may influence and modify later versions of the printed form. Of Prince Heathen (104) “the fragment A ... is partly explained by B, which is no doubt some stall-copy, reshaped from tradition.”[174] Of The Baffled Knight (112) “E is, in all probability, a broadside copy modified by tradition.”[175] In origin, in any case, the broadsides in The English and Scottish Popular Ballads are popular.[176] “There is a Scottish ballad [similar to The Baffled Knight] in which the tables are turned.... This, as being of comparatively recent, and not of popular, but of low literary origin, cannot be admitted here.”[177]
“Last of all comes the modern editor,” and from Professor Child’s comments and skilful undoing of much of their work one might put together fairly complete accounts of the methods of Percy, Scott, Jamieson, Buchan, and the rest. We are concerned, however, not so much with the editors as with the results of their editing, with the kinds of change that the ballad suffered in their hands. It was often lengthened, in many cases by the combination of several versions. Thus Scott’s version of Tam Lin (39, I), “as he himself states, was compounded of the Museum copy, Riddell’s, Herd’s, and ‘several recitals from tradition.’”[178] Of this use of materials from recitation examples are very numerous. Ballads were lengthened also by the interpolation of new stanzas. After Scott’s edition, in the Minstrelsy, of The Twa Sisters (10), “Jamieson followed ... with a tolerably faithful, though not, as he says, verbatim,[179] publication of his copy of Mrs Brown’s ballad, somewhat marred, too, by acknowledged interpolations.”[180] King Henry (32) was increased by Jamieson’s interpolations from twenty-two to thirty-four stanzas.[181] Scott’s version of Fair Annie (62, A) “was obtained ‘chiefly from the recitation of an old woman,’ but we are not informed who supplied the rest. Herd’s fragment, D, furnished stanzas 2-6, 12, 17, 19. A doubt may be hazarded whether stanzas 8-10 came from the old woman.”[182] Interpolation and combination are here both illustrated. Scott’s later edition of Tam Lin (39) “was corrupted with eleven new stanzas, which are not simply somewhat of a modern cast as to diction, as Scott remarks, but of a grossly modern invention, and as unlike popular verse as anything can be.”[183] Of his version of Jellon Grame (90) Scott says: “‘Some verses are apparently modernized.’” “The only very important difference between Scott’s version and Mrs Brown’s is its having four stanzas of its own, the four before the last two, which are evidently not simply modernized, but modern.”[184]
But the editor did not merely combine or interpolate; more vaguely, he “improved.” Version E of The Fair Flower of Northumberland (9), “a traditional version from the English border, has unfortunately been improved by some literary pen.”[185] Or he “retouched,”[186] or “altered,”[187] or “emended.” Scott confesses to some emendation of Kinmont Willy (186); “it is to be suspected that a great deal more emendation was done than the mangling of reciters rendered absolutely necessary. One would like, for example, to see stanzas 10-12 and 31 in their mangled condition.”[188] In general, no changes or additions are “in so glaring contrast with the groundwork as literary emendations of traditional ballads.”[189] “Variations,” also, are to be noted: inaccuracies in The Fire of Frendraught (196) are acknowledged by Motherwell; “the implication is, or should be, that these variations are of editorial origin.”[190] Of Sweet William’s Ghost (77, A and B), “Percy remarks that the concluding stanza seems modern. There can be no doubt that both that and the one before it are modern; but, to the extent of Margaret’s dying on her lover’s grave, they are very likely to represent original verses not remembered in form.”[191]
Certain general results of transmission, of whatever kind, are to be noted. As a ballad passes from one country to another the nationality of the hero may be changed. In Hugh Spencer’s Feats in France (158) “Hugh is naturally turned into a Scotsman in the Scottish version, C.”[192] The hero’s name is not more stable than his nationality. “In the course of transmission [of John Thomson and the Turk (266)], as has ever been the wont, names were changed, and also some subordinate circumstances.”[193] Again, “the actual name of the hero of a ballad affords hardly a presumption as to who was originally the hero.”[194] Even the part that he plays the hero may exchange with another character. “Robin Hood’s rescue of Little John, in Guy of Gisborne, after quarrelling with him on a fanciful provocation, is a partial offset for Little John’s heart-stirring generosity in this ballad. [Robin Hood and the Monk (119).] We have already had several cases of ballads in which the principal actors exchange parts.”[195] The ballad, again, is not constant in its attachment to one locality, and “the topography of traditional ballads frequently presents difficulties, both because it is liable to be changed, wholly, or, what is more embarrassing, partially, to suit a locality to which a ballad has been transported, and again because unfamiliar names, when not exchanged, are exposed to corruption.”[196] Thus, “in the ballad which follows this [Rare Willie Drowned in Yarrow (215)], a western variety of the same story, Willie is drowned in the Clyde.”[197]
The corruption of names is but one phase of the change to which all unfamiliar ballad diction is exposed. “At every stage of oral transmission we must suppose that some accidental variations from what was delivered would be introduced, and occasionally some wilful variations. Memory will fail at times; at times the listener will hear amiss, or will not understand, and a perversion of sense will ensue, or absolute nonsense,—nonsense which will be servilely repeated, and which repetition may make more gross.... Learned words do not occur in ballads; still an old native word will be in the same danger of metamorphosis. But, though unfamiliarity naturally ends in corruption, mishearing may have the like effect where the original phrase is in no way at fault....
“It must be borne in mind, however, that as to nonsense the burden of proof rests always upon the expositor. His personal inability to dispose of a reading is not conclusive; his convictions may be strong, but patience and caution are his part and self-restraint as to conjectures.”[198]
In transmission, then, and even in the best of it, the ballad ordinarily fares but ill, “departs from the original form,” becomes less typically ballad; and, generally speaking, the older it is, the earlier it is caught and fixed in print, the better. Professor Child has thus special praise for those Robin Hood ballads which “have come down to us in comparatively ancient form.”[199] Robin Hood’s Death (120, B) is “in the fine old strain.”[200] Robin Hood and the Beggar (134, II), “by far the best of the Robin Hood ballads of the secondary, so to speak cyclic, period,” is “a composition of some antiquity,”[201] Thomas Rymer (37) “is an entirely popular ballad as to style, and must be of considerable age.”[202] One is not to expect in a late or modern ballad the excellence found in an early or ancient one. Robin Hood’s Chase (146) “is a well-conceived ballad, and only needs to be older.”[203] Walter Lesly (296) is “a late, but life-like and spirited ballad.”[204] The Hunting of the Cheviot (162, B) “is a striking ... example of the impairment which an old ballad would suffer when written over for the broadside press.”[205] Version M of Young Beichan (53) “was probably a broadside or stall copy, and is certainly of that quality, but preserves a very ancient traditional feature.”[206] The “ridiculous ballad” of John Thomson and the Turk (266) finds a place in the collection because it is “a seedling from an ancient and very notable story.”[207] The Knight’s Ghost (265) “has not a perceptible globule of old blood in it, yet it has had the distinction of being more than once translated as a specimen of Scottish popular ballads.”[208] Scott’s later edition of Tam Lin (39) “was corrupted with eleven new stanzas, which are not simply somewhat of a modern cast as to diction, as Scott remarks, but of a grossly modern invention, and as unlike popular verse as anything can be.”[209] Scott’s version of Jellon Grame (90) has four stanzas of its own, “which are evidently not simply modernized, but modern.”[210] Certain stanzas in version B b of Archie o Cawfield (188) “are indifferent modern stuff.”[211] The “modern ballad” on the subject of The Heir of Linne (267) is “an inexpressibly pitiable ditty.”[212]
Certain counterfeits, imitations, or “spurious” ballads, wholly or almost wholly the work of editors or modern writers, are included in Professor Child’s collection. Robin Hood and the Tinker (127) is a “contemptible imitation of imitations.”[213] Buchan’s version of Young Waters (94) is, for the most part, “a counterfeit of the lowest description. Nevertheless it is given in an appendix; for much the same reason that thieves are photographed.”[214] Young Ronald (304) is an example of the “spurious” ballad, and the reasons for its inclusion are given at some length. “If any lover of ballads should feel his understanding insulted by the presentation of such a piece as this, I can have no quarrel with him. There is certainly much in it that is exasperating.... In this and not a very few other cases, I have suppressed disgust, and admitted an actually worthless and manifestly—at least in part—spurious ballad, because of a remote possibility that it might contain relics, or be a debased representative, of something genuine and better. Such was the advice of my lamented friend, Grundtvig, in more instances than those in which I have brought myself to defer to his judgment.”[215] For the same reason is included The Laidley Worm of Spindleston Heughs: “This composition of Mr. Lamb’s—for nearly every line of it is his[216]—is not only based on popular tradition, but evidently preserves some small fragments of a popular ballad, and for this reason is given in an Appendix.”[217]