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_Uniform with this Volume_

POPULAR BALLADS OF THE OLDEN TIME

FIRST SERIES. Ballads of Romance and Chivalry.

‘It forms an excellent introduction to a sadly neglected source of poetry.... We ... hope that it will receive ample encouragement.’ --_Athenæum_.

‘It will certainly, if carried out as it is begun, constitute a boon to the lover of poetry.... We shall look with anxiety for the following volumes of what will surely be the best popular edition in existence.’ --_Notes and Queries_.

‘There can be nothing but praise for the selection, editing, and notes, which are all excellent and adequate. It is, in fine, a valuable volume of what bids fair to be a very valuable series.’ --_Academy_.

‘The most serviceable edition of the ballads yet published in England.’ --_Manchester Guardian_.

[Transcriber’s Note: The First Series is available from Project Gutenberg as e-text 20469. All references to “First Series” are to this volume. The Third Series (not listed here) is “Ballads of Scottish Tradition and Romance”, e-text 20624. The Fourth Series, “Ballads of Robin Hood and other Outlaws”, is in preparation.]

POPULAR BALLADS OF THE OLDEN TIME SELECTED AND EDITED BY FRANK SIDGWICK

Second Series. Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth

‘Gar print me ballants weel, she said, Gar print me ballants many.’

A. H. BULLEN 47 Great Russell Street London. MCMIV

‘What man of taste and feeling can endure _rifacimenti_, harmonies, abridgments, expurgated editions?’

Macaulay.

CONTENTS Page

Preface ix Ballads in the Second Series x Additional Note on Ballad Commonplaces xvi

Thomas Rymer 1 The Queen of Elfan’s Nourice 6 Allison Gross 9 The Laily Worm and the Machrel of the Sea 12 Kemp Owyne 16 Willie’s Lady 19 The Wee Wee Man 24 Cospatrick 26 Young Akin 32 The Unquiet Grave 41 Clerk Colven 43 Tam Lin 47 The Clerk’s Twa Sons o’ Owsenford 56 The Wife of Usher’s Well 60 The Great Silkie of Sule Skerrie 63 Clerk Sanders 66 Young Hunting 74 The Three Ravens 80 The Twa Corbies 82 Young Benjie 83 The Lyke-Wake Dirge 88 The Bonny Earl of Murray 92 Bonnie George Campbell 95 The Lament of the Border Widow 97 Bonny Bee Ho’m 100 The Lowlands of Holland 102 Fair Helen of Kirconnell 104 Sir Hugh, or The Jew’s Daughter 107 The Dæmon Lover 112 The Broomfield Hill 115 Willie’s Fatal Visit 119 Adam 123 Saint Stephen and King Herod 125 The Cherry-Tree Carol 129 The Carnal and the Crane 133 Dives and Lazarus 139 Brown Robyn’s Confession 143 Judas 145 The Maid and the Palmer 152 Lady Isabel and the Elf-Knight 155 A Noble Riddle Wisely Expounded 159 Captain Wedderburn 162 The Elphin Knight 170 King John and the Abbot 173 The Fause Knight upon the Road 180 The Lord of Learne 182 The Bailiff’s Daughter of Islington 202 Glenlogie 205 King Orfeo 208 The Baffled Knight 212 Our Goodman 215 The Friar in the Well 221 The Knight and the Shepherd’s Daughter 224 Get Up and Bar the Door 231

Appendix 235 The Grey Selchie of Shool Skerry 235 The Lyke-wake Dirge 238 Index of Titles 245 Index of First Lines 247

PREFACE

The issue of this second volume of _Popular Ballads of the Olden Time_ has been delayed chiefly by the care given to the texts, in most instances the whole requiring to be copied by hand.

I consider myself fortunate to be enabled, by the kind service of my friend Mr. A. Francis Steuart, to print for the first time in a collection of ballads the version of the _Grey Selchie of Shool Skerry_ given in the Appendix. It is a feather in the cap of any ballad-editor after Professor Child to discover a ballad that escaped his eye.

My thanks are also due to the Rev. Professor W. W. Skeat for assistance generously given in connection with the ballad of _Judas_; and, as before, to Mr. A. H. Bullen.

F. S.

BALLADS IN THE SECOND SERIES

The ballads in the present volume have been classified roughly so as to fall under the heads (i) Ballads of Superstition and of the Supernatural, including Dirges (pp. 1-122); (ii) Ballads of Sacred Origin (pp. 123-154); (iii) Ballads of Riddle and Repartee (pp. 155-181); and (iv) a few ballads, otherwise almost unclassifiable, collected under the title of ‘Fyttes of Mirth,’ or Merry Ballads (pp. 182 to end).

I

That the majority of the ballads in the first section are Scottish can hardly cause surprise. Superstition lurks amongst the mountains and in the corners of the earth. And, with one remarkable exception, all the best lyrical work in these ballads of the supernatural is to be found in the Scots. _Thomas Rymer_, _Tam Lin_, _The Wife of Usher’s Well_, _Clerk Sanders_, and _The Dæmon Lover_, are perhaps the most notable examples amongst the ballads proper, and _Fair Helen of Kirconnell_, _The Twa Corbies_, and _Bonnie George Campbell_ amongst the dirges. All these are known wherever poetry is read.

‘For dulness, the creeping Saxons; For beauty and amorousness, the Gaedhills.’

But the exception referred to above, _The Unquiet Grave_, is true English, and yet lyrical, singing itself, like a genuine ballad, to a tune as one reads.

The complete superstition hinted at in this ballad should perhaps be stated more fully. It is obvious that excessive mourning is fatal to the peace of the dead; but it is also to be noticed that it is almost equally fatal to the mourner. The mourner in _The Unquiet Grave_ is refused the kiss demanded, as it will be fatal. _Clerk Sanders_, on the other hand, has lost--if ever it possessed--any trace of this doctrine. For Margret does not die; though she would have died had she kissed him, we notice, and the kiss was demanded by her and refused by him: and Clerk Sanders is only disturbed in his grave because he has not got back his troth-plight. The method of giving this back--the stroking of a wand--we have had before in _The Brown Girl_ (First Series, pp. 60-62, st. 14).

In the Helgi cycle of Early Western epics (_Corpus Poeticum Boreale_, vol. i. pp. 128 ff.), Helgi the hero is slain, and returns as a ghost to his lady, who follows him to his grave. But her tears are bad for him: they fall in blood on his corpse.

The subject of the Lyke-wake would easily bear a monograph to itself, and at present I know of none. I have therefore ventured, in choosing Aubrey’s version in place of the better known one printed--and doubtless written over--by Sir Walter Scott, to give rather fuller information concerning the Dirge, its folklore, and its bibliography. A short study of the ramifications of the various superstitions incorporated therein leads to a sort of surprise that there is no popular ballad treating of the subject of St. Patrick’s Purgatory, which has attracted more than one English poet. Thomas Wright’s volume on the subject, however, is delightful and instructive reading.

II

The short section of Ballads of Sacred Origin contains all that we possess in England--notice that only two have Scottish variants, even fragmentary--and somewhat more than can be classified as ballads with strictness. Yet I would fain have added other of our ‘masterless’ carols, which to-day seem to survive chiefly in the West of England. One of their best lovers, Mr. Quiller-Couch, has complained that, after promising himself to include a representative selection of carols in his anthology, he was chagrined to discover that they lost their quaint delicacy when placed among other more artificial lyrics. Perhaps they would have been more at home set amongst these ballads; but I have excluded them with the less regret in remembering that they stand well alone in the collections of Sylvester, Sandys, Husk; in the reprints of Thomas Wright; and, in more recent years, in the selections of Mr. A. H. Bullen and Canon Beeching.

_The Maid and the Palmer_ would appear to be the only ballad of Christ’s wanderings on the earth that we possess, just as _Brown Robyn’s Confession_ is the only one of the miracles of the Virgin. One may guess, however, that others have descended rapidly into nursery rhymes, as in the case of one, noted in J. O. Halliwell’s collection, which, in its absence, may be called _The Owl, or the Baker’s Daughter_. For Ophelia knew that they said the owl was the baker’s daughter. And the story of her metamorphosis is exactly paralleled by the Norse story of _Gertrude’s Bird_, translated by Dasent.

Gertrude was an old woman with a red mutch on her head, who was kneading dough, when Christ came wandering by, and asked for a small bannock. Gertrude took a niggardly pinch of dough, and began to roll it into a bannock; but as she rolled, it grew, until she put it aside as too large to give away, and took a still smaller pinch. This also grew miraculously, and was put aside. The same thing happened a third time, till she said, ‘I cannot roll you a small bannock.’ Then Christ said, ‘For your selfishness, you shall become a bird, and seek your food ’twixt bark and bole.’ Gertrude at once became a bird, and flew up into a tree with a screech. And to this day the great woodpecker of Scandinavia is called ‘Gertrude’s Bird,’ and has a red head.

III

The Ballads of Riddle and Repartee do not amount to very many in our tongue. But they contain riddles which may be found in one form or another in nearly every folklore on the earth. Even Samson had a riddle. Always popular, they seem to have been especial favourites in early Oriental literature, in the mediæval Latin races, and, in slightly more modern times, amongst the Teutonic and Scandinavian peoples. Perhaps _King John and the Abbot_ is the best English specimen, for it is to-day as pleasing to an audience as it can ever have been. But _Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight_, better known as _May Colvin_, is the most startling of any, in its myriad ramifications and supposed origin.

IV

The ‘Fyttes of Mirth’ conclude the present volume. It may be as well to say here that I have placed under this head any ballad that tells of a successful issue and has a happy ending or mirthful climax.

The version I have given of that famous ballad _The Lord of Learne_ (or, more commonly, _Lorne_) is most enchanting in its _naïveté_, and, when read aloud or recited, is exceedingly effective. The curious remark that the affectionate parting between the young Lord and his father and mother would have changed even a Jew’s heart; the picturesque description of the siege of the castle, so close that ‘a swallow could not have flown away’; the sudden descent from romance to a judicial trial; the remarkable assumption by the foreman of the jury of the privileges of a judge; and the thoroughly satisfactory description of the false steward’s execution--

‘I-wis they did him curstly cumber!’

--all these help to form the ever-popular _Lord of Learne_.

The remaining ‘Fyttes of Mirth’ are mostly well known, and require no further comment.

ADDITION TO GLOSSARY OF BALLAD COMMONPLACES

(See First Series, pp. xlvi-li)

The late Professor York Powell explained to me, since the note on ‘gare’ (First Series, p. 1) was written, that the word means exactly what is meant by ‘gore’ in modern dressmaking. The antique skirt was made of four pieces: two cut square, to form the front and the back; and two of a triangular shape, to fill the space between, the apex of the triangle, of course, being at the waist. Thus a knife that ‘hangs low down’ by a person’s ‘gare,’ simply means that the knife hung at the side and not in front.

THOMAS RYMER

+The Text.+--The best-known text of this famous ballad is that given by Scott in the _Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_, derived ‘from a copy obtained from a lady residing not far from Erceldoune, corrected and enlarged by one in Mrs. Brown’s MS.’ Scott’s ballad is compounded, therefore, of a traditional version, and the one here given, from the Tytler-Brown MS., which was printed by Jamieson with a few changes. It does not mention Huntlie bank or the Eildon tree. Scott’s text may be seen printed parallel with Jamieson’s in Professor J. A. H. Murray’s book referred to below.

+The Story.+--As early as the fourteenth century there lived a Thomas of Erceldoune, or Thomas the Rhymer, who had a reputation as a seer and prophet. His fame was not extinct in the nineteenth century, and a collection of prophecies by him and Merlin and others, first issued in 1603, could be found at the beginning of that century ‘in most farmhouses in Scotland’ (Murray, _The Romance and Prophecies of Thomas of Erceldoune_, E.E.T.S., 1875). The existence of a Thomas de Ercildoun, son and heir of Thomas Rymour de Ercildoun, both living during the thirteenth century, is recorded in contemporary documents.

A poem, extant in five manuscripts (all printed by Murray as above), of which the earliest was written about the middle of the fifteenth century, relates that Thomas of Erceldoune his prophetic powers were given him by the Queen of Elfland, who bore him away to her country for some years, and then restored him to this world lest he should be chosen for the tribute paid to hell. So much is told in the first fytte, which corresponds roughly to our ballad. The rest of the poem consists of prophecies taught to him by the Queen.

The poem contains references to a still earlier story, which probably narrated only the episode of Thomas’s adventure in Elfland, and to which the prophecies of Thomas Rymour of Ercildoun were added at a later date. The story of Thomas and the Queen of Elfland is only another version of a legend of Ogier le Danois and Morgan the Fay.

Our ballad is almost certainly derived directly from the poem, and the version here given is not marred by the repugnant ending of Scott’s ballad, where Thomas objects to the gift of a tongue that can never lie. But Scott’s version retains Huntlie bank and the Eildon tree, both mentioned in the old poem, and both exactly located during last century at the foot of the Eildon Hills, above Melrose (see an interesting account in Murray, _op. cit._, Introduction, pp. l-lii and footnotes).

THOMAS RYMER

1. True Thomas lay o’er yond grassy bank, And he beheld a ladie gay, A ladie that was brisk and bold, Come riding o’er the fernie brae.

2. Her skirt was of the grass-green silk, Her mantel of the velvet fine, At ilka tett of her horse’s mane Hung fifty silver bells and nine.

3. True Thomas he took off his hat, And bowed him low down till his knee: ‘All hail, thou mighty Queen of Heaven! For your peer on earth I never did see.’

4. ‘O no, O no, True Thomas,’ she says, ‘That name does not belong to me; I am but the queen of fair Elfland, And I’m come here for to visit thee.

5. ‘But ye maun go wi’ me now, Thomas, True Thomas, ye maun go wi’ me, For ye maun serve me seven years, Thro’ weel or wae, as may chance to be.’

6. She turned about her milk-white steed, And took True Thomas up behind, And aye whene’er her bridle rang, The steed flew swifter than the wind.

7. For forty days and forty nights He wade thro’ red blude to the knee, And he saw neither sun nor moon, But heard the roaring of the sea.

8. O they rade on, and further on, Until they came to a garden green: ‘Light down, light down, ye ladie free, Some of that fruit let me pull to thee.’

9. ‘O no, O no, True Thomas,’ she says, ‘That fruit maun not be touched by thee, For a’ the plagues that are in hell Light on the fruit of this countrie.

10. ‘But I have a loaf here in my lap, Likewise a bottle of claret wine, And now ere we go farther on, We’ll rest a while, and ye may dine.’

11. When he had eaten and drunk his fill; ‘Lay down your head upon my knee,’ The lady sayd, ‘ere we climb yon hill, And I will show you fairlies three.

12. ‘O see not ye yon narrow road, So thick beset wi’ thorns and briers? That is the path of righteousness, Tho’ after it but few enquires.

13. ‘And see not ye that braid braid road, That lies across yon lillie leven? That is the path of wickedness, Tho’ some call it the road to heaven.

14. ‘And see not ye that bonny road, Which winds about the fernie brae? That is the road to fair Elfland, Where you and I this night maun gae.

15. ‘But, Thomas, ye maun hold your tongue, Whatever you may hear or see, For gin ae word you should chance to speak, You will ne’er get back to your ain countrie.’

16. He has gotten a coat of the even cloth, And a pair of shoes of velvet green, And till seven years were past and gone True Thomas on earth was never seen.

[Annotations: 2.3: ‘tett,’ lock or bunch of hair. 7: 7 is 15 in the MS. 8.2: ‘garden’: ‘_golden green_, if my copy is right.’ --Child. 11.4: ‘fairlies,’ marvels. 13.2: ‘lillie leven,’ smooth lawn set with lilies. 16.1: ‘even cloth,’ cloth with the nap worn off.]

THE QUEEN OF ELFAN’S NOURICE

+The Text.+--As printed in Sharpe’s Ballad Book, from the Skene MS. (No. 8). It is fragmentary--regrettably so, especially as stanzas 10-12 belong to _Thomas Rymer_.

+The Story+ is the well-known one of the abduction of a young mother to be the Queen of Elfland’s nurse. Fairies, elves, water-sprites, and nisses or brownies, have constantly required mortal assistance in the nursing of fairy children. Gervase of Tilbury himself saw a woman stolen away for this purpose, as she was washing clothes in the Rhone.

The genuineness of this ballad, deficient as it is, is best proved by its lyrical nature, which, as Child says, ‘forces you to chant, and will not be read.’

‘Elfan,’ of course, is Elfland; ‘nourice,’ a nurse.

THE QUEEN OF ELFAN’S NOURICE

1. ‘I heard a cow low, a bonnie cow low, An’ a cow low down in yon glen; Lang, lang, will my young son greet Or his mother bid him come ben.

2. ‘I heard a cow low, a bonnie cow low, An’ a cow low down in yon fauld; Lang, lang will my young son greet Or his mither take him frae cauld.

*** *** ***

3. ‘ ... ... ... ... ... ... Waken, Queen of Elfan, An’ hear your nourice moan.’

4. ‘O moan ye for your meat, Or moan ye for your fee, Or moan ye for the ither bounties That ladies are wont to gie?’

5. ‘I moan na for my meat, Nor moan I for my fee, Nor moan I for the ither bounties That ladies are wont to gie.

6. ‘ ... ... ... ... ... ... But I moan for my young son I left in four nights auld.

7. ‘I moan na for my meat, Nor yet for my fee, But I mourn for Christen land, It’s there I fain would be.’

8. ‘O nurse my bairn, nourice,’ she says, ‘Till he stan’ at your knee, An’ ye’s win hame to Christen land, Whar fain it’s ye wad be.

9. ‘O keep my bairn, nourice, Till he gang by the hauld, An’ ye’s win hame to your young son Ye left in four nights auld.’

*** *** ***

10. ‘O nourice lay your head Upo’ my knee: See ye na that narrow road Up by yon tree?

11. ... ... ... ... ... ... That’s the road the righteous goes, And that’s the road to heaven.

12. ‘An’ see na ye that braid road, Down by yon sunny fell? Yon’s the road the wicked gae, An’ that’s the road to hell.’

*** *** ***

[Annotations: 1.4: ‘ben,’ within. 9.2: _i.e._ till he can walk by holding on to things.]

ALLISON GROSS

+The Text+ is that of the Jamieson-Brown MS.

+The Story+ is one of the countless variations of the French ‘Beauty and the Beast.’ A modern Greek tale narrates that a nereid, enamoured of a youth, and by him scorned, turned him into a snake till he should find another love as fair as she.

The feature of this ballad is that the queen of the fairies should have power to undo the evil done by a witch.

ALLISON GROSS

1. O Allison Gross, that lives in yon tow’r, The ugliest witch i’ the north country, Has trysted me ae day up till her bow’r, An’ monny fair speech she made to me.

2. She stroaked my head, an’ she kembed my hair, An’ she set me down saftly on her knee; Says, ‘Gin ye will be my lemman so true, Sae monny braw things as I woud you gi’.’

3. She show’d me a mantle o’ red scarlet, Wi’ gouden flow’rs an’ fringes fine; Says, ‘Gin ye will be my lemman sae true, This goodly gift it sal be thine.’

4. ‘Awa’, awa’, ye ugly witch, Haud far awa’, an’ lat me be; I never will be your lemman sae true, An’ I wish I were out o’ your company.’

5. She neist brought a sark o’ the saftest silk, Well wrought wi’ pearles about the ban’; Says, ‘Gin ye will be my ain true love, This goodly gift you sal comman’.’