Part 64

21 But when they gaed to London town The trumpets loud were blown, Which made the king and a’ his court To marvel at the sound.

22 ‘Is this the Duke of Morebattle? Or James the Scottish king?’ ‘No, sire, I’m a Scottish lord, McNaughten is my name.’

23 ‘If you be that young Scottish lord, As I believe you be, The fairest lady in my court She gaes wi child by thee.’

24 ‘And if she be with child by me, As I think sae may be, It shall be heir of a’ my land, And she my gay lady.’

25 ‘O no, O no,’ the king reply’d, ‘That thing can never be, For ere the morn at ten o clock I’ll slay thy men an thee.

26 ‘A bold Italian in my court Has vanquishd Scotchmen three, And ere the morn at ten o clock I’m sure he will slay thee.’

27 But up then spake young Johny’s boy, A clever boy was he; ‘O master, ere that you be slain, There’s mae be slain than thee.’

28 The king and all his court appeard Neist morning on the plain, The queen and all her ladies came To see youn[g] Johny slain.

29 Out then stepd the Italian bold, And they met on the green; Between his shoulders was an ell, A span between his een.

30 When Johny in the list appeard, Sae young and fair to see, A prayer staw frae ilka heart, A tear frae ilka ee.

31 And lang they fought, and sair they fought, Wi swords o temperd steel, Until the blood like draps o rain Came trickling to their heal.

32 But Johny was a wannle youth, And that he weel did show; For wi a stroke o his broad sword He clove his head in two.

33 ‘A priest, a priest!’ then Johny cry’d, ‘To wed my love and me;’ ‘A clerk, a clerk!’ the king reply’d, ‘To write her tocher free.’

* * * * *

T

‘John, the little Scot;’ in the youthful handwriting of Sir Walter Scott, inserted, as No 4, at the beginning of a MS. volume, in small folio, containing a number of prose pieces, etc., Abbotsford Library, L. 2.

1 Johnny’s gane up to fair England Three quarters of a year, And Johny’s gane up to fair England, The king’s broad banner to bear.

2 He had not been in fair England, Even but a little while, When that the king’s ae dochter To Johnny gaes wi child.

3 And word is gane to the kitchen, And word’s gane to the ha, And word’s gane to the high, high court, Amang the nobles a’.

4 And word is gane unto the king, In the chair where he sat, That his ae dochter’s wi bairn To John the little Scott.

5 ‘If that I thought she is wi bairn, As I true weell she be, I’ll put her up in high prison, And hunger her till she die.’

6 ‘There is a silken sark, Johnny, My ain sell sewed the gare, And if ye come to tak me hence Ye need nae taken mare.

7 ‘For I am up in high prison, And O but it is cold! My garters are o the cold, cold iron, In place o the beaten gold.’

8 ‘Is this the Duke o York?’ they said, ‘Or James the Scottish king? Or is it John the little Scott, Frae Scotland new come hame?’

9 ‘I have an Italian in my bower, This day he has eaten three; Before I either eat or sleep The fourth man ye shall be.’

10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Between his een there was two spans, His shoulders ells were three.

11 Johnny drew forth his good braid glaive And slate it on the plain: ‘Is there any more of your Italian dogs That wanteth to be slain?’

12 ‘A clerk, a clerk!’ her father cry’d ‘To register this deed;’ ‘A priest, a priest!’ her mother cry’d, ‘To marry them wi speed.’

1^1. gane _struck out_.

1^4. broad _struck out_.

8^1. king o Scots, _originally_, _for_ Duke o York.

9^1. n Italian _struck out, and_ Lion _written above_.

100. Willie o Winsbury.

P. 399 ff. MS. of Thomas Wilkie, p. 5, in “Scotch Ballads, Materials for Border Minstrelsy,” No 34. From Mrs Hislope, Gattonside. 1813.

1 The king calld on his merry men all, By one, by two, and by three; Lord Thomas should been the foremost man, But the hindmost man was he.

2 As he came tripping down the stairs, His stockings were of the silk, His face was like the morning sun, And his hand as white as milk.

3 ‘No wonder, no wonder, Lord Thomas,’ he said, ‘Then my daughter she loved thee; For, if I had been a woman as I am a man, Tom, I would hae loved thee.’

106. The Famous Flower of Serving-Men.

P. 429. The fragment printed by Scott was given him by the Ettrick Shepherd. It was printed with no important change except in the last stanza, all of which is the editor’s but the second line. The two lines of stanza 7 are scored through in the MS.

“Scotch Ballads, Materials for Border Minstrelsy,” No 133 b, Abbotsford; in the handwriting of James Hogg.

1 My love he built me a bonny bowr, An cled it a’ wi lily-flowr; A brawer bowr ye neer did see Than my true-love he built to me.

2 There came a man by middle day, He spy’d his sport an went away, An brought the king that very night, Who brak my bowr, an slew my knight.

3 He slew my knight, to me sae dear; He slew my knight, an poind his gear; My servants all for life did flee, An left me in extremity.

4 I sewd his sheet, making my moan; I watchd the corpse, mysel alone; I watchd his body night and day; No living creature came that way.

5 I took the corpse then on my back, And whiles I gaed, and whiles I sat; I digd a grave, and laid him in, And hapd him wi the sod sae green.

6 But thinkna ye my heart was sair When I laid the mool on his yellow hair? O thinkna ye my heart was wae When I turnd about, away to gae?

7 Nae langer there I could remain Since that my lovely knight was slain; . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

110. The Knight and the Shepherd’s

Daughter.

P. 457 a, 476 f. #A. b# is printed in the Ballad Society’s ed. of the Roxburghe Ballads, III, 449. It is in the Crawford collection, No 1142. There are four copies in the Douce collection: I, 11 b, 14, 21 b, IV, 33, two of Charles II.’s time, two of no account (Chappell).

458 b. The Danish ballad is now No 314 of Danmarks gamle Folkeviser, continued by Axel Olrik, V, II, 377, ‘Ebbe Galt—Hr. Tidemand.’ There are four Danish versions, #A-D#, some of the sixteenth century; a Färöe version in five copies, ‘Ebbin kall,’ Føroyjakvæði, as elaborated by Grundtvig and Bloch, No 123, D. g. F., #E#; an Icelandic version, ‘Símonar kvæði,’ Íslenzk Fornkvæði, I, 224, No 26. Danish #C#, Vedel, III, No 17, is compounded of #B# and a lost version which must have resembled #A#. The copy in Danske Viser, Abrahamson, No 63, is recompounded from C and one of the varieties of #D#. Herr Tidemand is the offending knight in #A#, #C#; Ebbe Galt in #B#, #D# and the Färöe #E#; Kóng Símon in the Icelandic version. #A# has fifteen stanzas, #B# only eleven; the story is extended to sixty-seven in #D#. A begins directly with a complaint on the part of the injured husband before the King’s Bench; the husband in this version is of a higher class than in the others,—Herr Peder, and not a peasant. The forcing is done at the woman’s house in A and the Icelandic version; in #B-E# in a wood. In all, the ravisher is capitally punished.

Hr. Olrik is disposed to think ‘The Knight and the Shepherd’s Daughter’ a not very happy patching together of ‘Ebbe Galt,’ a lost ballad, and ‘Tærning-spillet,’ D. g. F., No 248, by a minstrel who may perhaps have had Chaucer’s story in mind. I am not prepared to go further than to admit that there is a gross inconsistency, even absurdity, in the English ballad; the shepherd’s daughter of the beginning could not possibly turn out a duke’s, an earl’s, or a king’s daughter in the conclusion.

‘Malfred og Sallemand,’ p. 458, note §, which has many verses in common with ‘Ebbe Galt,’ is now No 313 of Danmarks gamle Folkeviser, V, II, 367.

* * * * *

M

‘Earl Richmond,’ “Scotch Ballads, Materials for Border Minstrelsy,” No 81, Abbotsford; in the handwriting of James Skene of Rubislaw.

1 There was a shepherd’s daughter Kept hogs upo yon hill, By cam her a gentle knight, And he would hae his will.

2 Whan his will o her he had, [His will] as he had taen, ‘Kind sir, for yer courtesy, Will ye tell me yer name?’

3 ‘Some they ca me Jock,’ he says, ‘And some they ca me John; But whan ‘m in our king’s court Hitchcock is my name.’

4 The lady being well book-read, She spelt it oer again: ‘Hitchcock in our king’s court Is Earl Richard at hame.’

5 He pat his leg out-oer his steed And to the get he’s gane; She keltit up her green clothing, And fast, fast followed him.

6 ‘Turn back, turn back, ye carl’s daughter, And dinna follow me; It sets na carl’s daughters Kings’ courts for to see.’

7 ‘Perhaps I am a cerl’s daughter, Perhaps I am nane, But whan ye gat me in free forest Ye might ha latten’s alane.’

8 Whan they cam to yon wan water That a’ man does call Clyde, He looket oer his left shuder, Says, Fair may, will ye ride?

9 ‘I learnt it in my mother’s bowr, I wis I had learnt it better, Whan I cam to wan water To soom as does the otter.’

10 Or the knight was i the middle o the water, The lady she was oer; She took out a came o gold, To came down her yellow hair.

11 ‘Whar gat ye that, ye cerl’s daughter? I pray ye tell to me:’ ‘I got it fra my mither,’ she says, ‘To beguil sick chaps as thee.’

12 Whan they cam to our king’s court, He rade it round about, And he gade in at a shot-window, And left the lady without.

13 She gade to our king hersel, She fell low down upon her knee: ‘There is a knight into your court This day has robbed me.’

14 ‘Has he robbd ye o your goud? Or o yer well-won fee? Or o yer maidenhead, The flower o yer body?’

15 ‘He has na robbd me o my goud, For I ha nane to gee; But he has robbd me o my maidenhead, The flower o my body.’

16 ‘O wud ye ken the knight,’ he says, ‘If that ye did him see?’ ‘I wud him ken by his well-fared face And the blyth blink o his ee.’

17 ‘An he be a married man, High hanged sall he be, And an he be a free man, Well wedded to him ye’s be, Altho it be my brother Richie, And I wiss it be no he.’

18 The king called on his merry young men, By ane, by twa, by three; Earl Richmond had used to be the first, But the hindmost was he.

19 By that ye mith ha well kent That the guilty man was he; She took him by the milk-white hand, Says, This same ane is he.

20 There was a brand laid down to her, A brand but an a ring, Three times she minted to the brand, But she took up the ring; A’ that was in our king’s court Countet her a wise woman.

21 ‘I’ll gi ye five hundred pounds, To mak yer marriage we, An ye’l turn back, ye cerl’s daughter, And fash nae mere wi me.’

22 ‘Gae keep yer five hundred pounds To mak yer merriage we, For I’ll hae nathing but yersel The king he promised me.’

23 ‘I’ll gae ye one thousand pounds To mak yer marriage we, An ye’l turn back, ye cerl’s daughter, And fash nae mere wi me.’

24 ‘Gae keep yer one thousand pounds, To mak yer merriage we, For I’ll hae nathing but yersel The king he promised me.’

25 He took her down to yon garden, And clothed her in the green; Whan she cam up again, Sh[e] was fairer than the queen.

26 They gad on to Mary kirk, and on to Mary quire, The nettles they grew by the dyke: ‘O, an my mither wer her[e], So clean as she wud them pick!’

27 ‘I wiss I had druken water,’ he says, ‘Whan I drank the ale, That ony cerl’s daughter Sud tell me sick a tale.’

28 ‘Perhaps I am a cerl’s daughter, Perhaps I am nane; But whan ye gat me in free forest Ye might ha latten’s alane.

29 ‘Well mat this mill be, And well mat the gae! Mony a day they ha filled me pock O the white meal and the gray.’

30 ‘I wiss I had druken water,’ he says, ‘When I drank the ale, That ony cerl’s daughter Sud tell me sick a tale.’

31 ‘Perhaps I am a cerl’s daughter, Perhaps I am nane; But whan ye gat me in free forest Ye might ha latten’s alane.

32 ‘Tak awa yer siller spoons, Tak awa fra me, An gae me the gude horn spoons, It’s what I’m used tee.

33 ‘O an my mukle dish wer here, And sine we hit were fu, I wud sup file I am saerd, And sine lay down me head and sleep wi ony sow.’

34 ‘I wiss I had druken water,’ he says, ‘Whan I drank the ale, That any cerl’s daughter Sud tell me sick a tale.’

35 ‘Perhaps I am a cerl’s daughter, Perhaps I am nane, But whan ye gat me in free forest, Ye might ha latten’s alane.’

36 He took his hat in oer his face, The tear blindit his ee; She threw back her yellow locks, And a light laughter leugh she.

37 ‘Bot an ye be a beggar geet, As I trust well ye be, Whar gat ye their fine clothing Yer body was covered we?’

38 ‘My mother was an ill woman, And an ill woman was she; She gat them . . . . Fra sic chaps as thee.’

39 Whan bells were rung, and mess was sung, And aa man bound to bed, Earl Richard and the carl’s daughter In a chamer were laid.

40 ‘Lie yont, lie yont, ye carl’s daughter, Yer hot skin burns me; It sets na carl’s daughters In earls’ beds to be.’

41 ‘Perhaps I am a carl’s daughter, Perhaps I am nane; But whan ye gat me in free forest Ye might ha latten’s alane.’

42 Up it starts the Belly Blin, Just at their bed-feet.

43 ‘I think it is a meet marrige Atween the taen and the tither, The Earl of Hertford’s ae daughter And the Queen of England’s brither.’

44 ‘An this be the Earl of Hertford’s ae daughter, As I trust well it be, Mony a gude horse ha I ridden For the love o thee.’

1–34. _Written as far as 36 in long lines, two to a stanza: there is no division of stanzas._.

23, 24, 28, 30, 31, 34, 35, 41, _are not fully written out_.

29^2. _Possibly_ mat she gae, _but observe the plural in the next line._

112. The Baffled Knight.

P. 480 a. There is another variety of #D# in The Calleen Fuine, to which are added The Shepherd’s Boy, etc. Limerick, Printed by W. Goggin, corner of Bridge-Street. British Museum, 11621. e. 14 (16). Dated 1810? in the catalogue.

This begins:

There was a shepherd’s boy, He kept sheep upon a hill, And he went out upon a morning To see what he could kill. It’s blow away the morning dew, It’s blow, you winds, hi ho! You stole away my morning blush, And blow a little, blow.

481 a. ‘Lou Cabalier discret’ (‘Je vous passerai le bois’), Daymard, Vieux Chants p. rec. en Quercy, p. 126.

481 b, III, 518 a. Dans le bois elle s’est mise à pleurer: Revue des Traditions Populaires, IV, 514; ‘J’ai fini ma journée,’ Gothier, Recueil de Crâmignons, p. 5, ‘Youp ta deritou la la,’ Terry et Chaumont, Recueil d’Airs de Crâmignons, etc., p. 66, No 34; ‘Après ma journée faite,’ Meyrac, Traditions, etc., des Ardennes, pp. 277, 279.

Varieties: ‘Lou Pastour brégountsous (trop discret),’ Daymard, p. 124; ‘A la ronde, mesdames,’ Terry et Chaumont, p. 22, No 13; ‘La belle et l’ermite,’ ‘La jeune couturière,’ La Tradition, IV, 346, 348, Chansons populaires de la Picardie (half-popular).

482 a. A #Breton# song gives the essence of the story in seven couplets: Quellien, Chansons et Danses des Bretons, p. 156.

#Danish.# ‘Den dyre Kaabe,’ Kristensen, Jyske Folkeminder, X, 142, No 38.

482 b, third paragraph. The incident of the boots in Hazlitt, Jest-Books, II, 241 (Tarlton’s Jests, 1611, but printed before 1600).

113. The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry.

P. 494, III, 518. See David MacRitchie, The Finn-Men of Britain, in The Archæological Review, IV, 1–26, 107–129, 190 ff., and Alfred Nutt, p. 232.

A husband who is a man by day, but at night a seal: Curtin, Myths and Folk-Lore of Ireland, p. 51. (G. L. K.)

VOL. III.

114. Johnie Cock.

P. 1. There is a ballad of ‘Bertram, the Bauld Archer’ in Pitcairn’s MSS, III, 51; printed in Maidment’s Scotish Ballads and Songs, 1859, p. 46. Pitcairn derived it from Mrs McCorquodale, Stirling, a farmer’s wife, who remembered it “to have been sung by her grandmother, a woman above eighty years old, who stated that she had it from an old woman, her aunt.” The reciter herself was above sixty-five, and had “first heard it when a little girl.” Nevertheless, Bertram is fustian, of a sort all too familiar in the last century. The story, excepting perhaps the first stanza, is put into the mouth of Bertram’s mistress, _à la_ Gilderoy. The bauld archer has gone to the forest for to mak a robberie. The king has made proclamation that he will give five hunder merk for Bertram’s life. John o Shoumacnair (Stronmaknair, Maidment) proposes to his billies to kill Bertram and get the money. They busk themselves in hodden gray, ‘like to friers o low degree,’ present themselves to Bertram and ask a boon of him, which Bertram grants without inquiry. While they are parleying, Shoumacnair drives his dirk into Bertram’s back. But, though he swirls wi the straik, Bertram draws his awsome bran, kills ane, wounds twa, and then his stalwart, gallant soul takes its flight to heaven.

2b. Braid. “This version [‘Johnie of Braidisbank,’ I] was taken down by Motherwell and me from the recitation of Mr James Knox, land-surveyor at Tipperlinne, near Edinburgh, in the month of May, 1824, when we met him in the good town of Paisley. At 17 a tradition is mentioned which assigns Braid to have been the scene of this woeful hunting. Mr Knox is the authority for this tradition. Braid is in the neighborhood of Tipperlinne.” Note by Mr P. A. Ramsay in a copy of the Minstrelsy which had belonged to Motherwell. (W. Macmath.)

Wolves in Scotland. “It is usually said that the species was extirpated about 1680 by Sir Ewen Cameron of Lochiel, but the tradition to that effect appears to be true only of Sir Ewen’s own district of western Invernessshire.” The _very_ last wolf may have been killed in 1743. R. Chambers, Domestic Annals of Scotland, III, 690.

7. #F# was made up from several copies, one of which was the following, ‘John o Cockielaw,’ in Scott’s youthful handwriting, inserted, as No 3, at the beginning of a MS. volume, in small folio, containing a number of prose pieces, and beginning with excerpts from Law’s Memorials. Abbotsford Library, L. 2.

1 Johnny got up in a May morning, Calld for water to wash his hands: ‘Gar louse to me my good gray dogs That are tied with iron bands.’

2 When Johnny’s mother got word o that, For grief she has lain down: ‘O Johnny, for my benison, I red you bide at hame!’

3 He’s putten on his black velvet, Likewise his London brown, And he’s awa to Durrisdeer, To hunt the dun deer down.

4 Johnny shot, and the dun deer lap, And he wounded her on the side; Between the water and the brae, There he laid her pride.

5 He’s taken out the liver o her, And likewise sae the lungs, And he has made a’ his dogs to feast As they had been earl’s sons.

6 They eat sae much o the venison, And drank sae much of the blood, That they a’ then lay down and slept, And slept as they had been dead.

7 And bye there cam a silly ald man, And an ill death might he die! And he’s awa to the seven forresters, As fast as he can drie.

8 ‘As I cam down by Merriemas, And down aboon the scroggs, The bonniest boy that ever I saw Lay sleeping amang his doggs.

9 ‘The shirt that was upon his back Was of the holland fine, The cravat that was about his neck Was of the cambrick lawn.

10 ‘The coat that was upon his back Was of the London brown, The doublet . . . . Was of the Lincome twine.’

11 Out and spak the first forrester, That was a forrester our them a’; If this be John o Cockielaw, Nae nearer him we’ll draw.

12 Then out and spak the sixth, That was . forrester amang them a’; If this is John o Cockielaw, Nearer to him we’ll draw.

13 Johnny shot six of the forresters, And wounded the seventh, we say, And set him on a milk-white steed To carry tidings away.

4^4. Wi He there he (he _written in place of another word_). Wi He _struck out_.

6^3. _Originally_, That they lay a’ them down.

7^2. _Originally_, And a silly ald man was he.

11^2. was hed. hed _struck out_.

116. Adam Bell, etc.

P. 18. The Tell story in The Braemar Highlands, by Elizabeth Taylor, Edinburgh, 1869, pp. 99–103, is a transparent plagiarism, as indeed the author of the book seems to be aware.

117. A Gest of Robyn Hode.

P. 40 ff. Thomas Robinhood is one of six witnesses to a grant in the 4th of Richard II. (June 22, 1380–June 21, 1381). See Historical MSS Commission, Fifth Report, Appendix, p. 511, col. 2. The pronunciation, Robinhood (p. 41 a, note †), is clearly seen in the jingle quoted by Nash, Strange Newes, 1593, Works, ed. Grosart, II, 230: “Ah, neighbourhood, neighbourhood, Dead and buried art thou with Robinhood.”

Among the disbursements of John Lord Howard, afterwards Duke of Norfolk, occurs the following: “And the same day, my Lord paide to Robard Hoode for viij. shafftys xvj. d.” (This is Friday, Sept. 26, 1483.) Household Books of John Duke of Norfolk and Thomas Earl of Surrey, temp. 1481–1490, ed. by J. P. Collier, 1844, Roxburghe Club, p. 464. Collier, p. 525, remarks that “the coincidence that the duke bought them of a person of the name of Robin Hood is singular.”

The Crosscombe Church-Wardens’ Accounts (in Church-Wardens’ Accounts of Croscombe, Pilton, Yatton, etc., ranging from 1349 to 1560, ed. by Right Rev. Bishop Hobhouse, Somerset Record Soc. Publications, IV, 1890):

“Comes Thomas Blower and John Hille, and presents in xl _s._ of Roben Hod’s recones.” 147[6 7] (accounts for 147⅚), p. 4.

“Comys Robin Hode and presents in xxxiij _s._ iv _d_.” 148⅔ (for 148½), p. 10.

“Ric. Willes was Roben Hode, and presents in for yere past xxiij _s._” 148¾ (for 148⅔), p. 11.

“Comys Robyn Hode, Wyllyam Wyndylsor, and presents in for the yere paste iij _l._ vj _s._ viij _d._ ob.” 148[6 7] (for 148⅚), p. 14.

“Robyn Hode presents in xlvj _s._ viij. _d._” 149⅘ (for 149¾), p. 20.

And so of later years.

A pasture called Robynhode Closse is mentioned in the Chamberlains’ Accounts of the town of Nottingham in 1485, 1486, and 1500: Records of the Borough of Nottingham, III, 64, 230, 254. A Robynhode Well near the same town is mentioned in a presentment at the sessions of July 20, 1500 (III, 74), and again in 1548 as Robyn’s Wood Well (IV, 441). Robin Hood’s Acre is mentioned in 162⅘ (IV, 441). Robbin-hoodes Wele is mentioned in Jack of Dover, his Quest of Inquirie, 1604, Hazlitt, Jest-Books, II, 315. (The above by G. L. K.)

49 b. Italian robber-songs. “Sulle piazze romane e napoletane ognuno ha potuto sentire ripetere i canti epici che celebrano le imprese di famosi banditi o prepotenti, Meo Pataca, Mastrilli, Frà Diavolo:” Cantù, Documenti alla Storia universale (1858), V, 891.

53 a. Note on 243–47. The same incident in The Jests of Scogin, Hazlitt’s Jest-Books, II, 151. (G. L. K.)

53 f., 519 a. See also the traditional story how Bishop Forbes, of Corse, lent his brother a thousand marks on the security of God Almighty, in The Scotsman’s Library, by James Mitchell, 1825, p. 576. (W. Macmath.)

121. Robin Hood and the Potter.