Part III_The English and Scottish popular ballads, volume 5 (of 5)

Now by [the] third part you will hear

This young man, as it does appear,

With care he then secur’d his chink,

And to this vintner went to drink.

When the proud vintner did him see,

He frownd on him immediately,

And said, Begone, or else with speed

I’ll kick thee out of doors indeed.

With smiles the young man he did say,

Thou cruel knave, tell me, I pray,

As I have here consum’d my store,

What makes thee kick me out of door?

To me thou hast been too severe;

The deeds of eight-score pounds a year

I pawnd them for three hundred pound;

Which I spent here; what makes thee frown?

The vintner said unto him, Sirrah,

Bring me one hundred pounds tomorrow

By nine o’clock, take them again:

So get you out of doors till then.

He answerd, If this chink I bring,

I fear thou wilt do no such thing;

He said, I’ll give under mine hand

A note that I to this will stand.

Having the note, away he goes,

And straightway went to one of those

Who made him drink when moneyless,

And did the truth to him confess.

They both went to this heap of gold,

Wherre in a bag he fairly told

A thousand pounds in yellow boys,

And to this tavern went their ways.

This bag they on the table set,

Which made the vintner for to fret,

And said, Young man, this will not do,

For I was but in jest with you.

So then bespoke this young man’s friend,

And [said], Vintner, thou mayst depend

In law this note it will you cast,

And he must have his land at last.

This made the vintner to comply,

Who fetchd the deeds immediately;

He had one hundred pounds, and then

The young man got his deeds again.

At length, the vintner, for to think

How he was foold out of his chink,

Said, When ’tis found how I came off

My neighbours will me game and scoff.

So, to prevent their game and laughter,

The vintner, in a few days after,

Being void of grace, as will appear,

He cut his throat from ear to ear.

Thus he untimely left the world,

Who to this young man prov’d a churl;

Now he who followd drunkenness

Lives sober and [does] his lands possess.

Instead of wasting all his store,

As formerly, resolves no more

To act the same, but does inde[e]d

Poor fatherless and mother- feed.

‘And let all young men, for my sake,

Take care how you such havock make,

For drunkenness, you plain may see,

Was near my ruin for to be.’

Printed and sold in Bow-Church-Yard, London.

FOOTNOTES:

[17] Cane in hand, 10^3, 22^3. This is bad enough, but not quite so bad

as the woman with cane in hand, ‘Tam Lin,’ III, 505, =O= 16^2, and ‘The

Kitchie-Boy,’ No 252, =E= 6^2. The mantle and cane are a commonplace.

See also =E= 14 of No 252, No 76, =G= 3, and No 97, =B= 20^2.

[18] The Gallowgate port of =B a= 35 belongs to Aberdeen.

[19] Of the 212 lines of Percy’s ballad, some 80, or the substance of

them, occur in the MS. copy, and half a dozen more of the 216 lines of

the 4th edition.

[20] Reprinted by Dixon, Ancient Poems, Ballads, etc., p. 151, Percy

Society, vol. xvii, from a chap-book.

[21] 44. Χρυσὸν ἀνὴρ εὑρὼν ἔλιπε βρόχον· αὐτὰρ ὁ χρυσὸν ὃν λίπεν οὐχ

εὑρὼν ἧψεν ὃν εὗρε βρόχον.

[22] All the above tales, except Pauli’s, have been cited, in one

connection or another, by Dunlop, History of Fiction, (II, 201, of

Wilson’s late edition); by Benfey, Pantschatantra, I, 97 f.; or by

Liebrecht, Göttingische Gelehrte Anzeigen, 1868, p. 1891. Oesterley,

in his note to Pauli, 16, p. 552 f., refers to three sixteenth-century

story-books which I have not seen. Robert, Fables Inédites, etc., II,

232, in his note to La Fontaine, IX, 16, refers to other fabulists.

Clouston, Popular Tales and Fictions, II, 55, gives from some old

magazine a story after the pattern of the Greek distich.

268

THE TWA KNIGHTS

Buchan’s Ballads of the North of Scotland, II, 271.

A knight and a squire, sworn brothers, have a talk about fair women.

’There’s nae gude women but nine,’ says the squire. ‘My luck is the

better,’ replies the knight, ‘that one of them is mine.’ The squire

undertakes to win the knight’s wife within six months, if the husband

will go over seas for that time; the knight is willing to give him

nine months. The knight’s lands are wagered (21) against the squire’s

life (23). As soon as the knight is at sea, the squire comes to the

lady with an offer of money. If you were not my lord’s brother, says

the lady, I would hang you on a pin before my door. The squire betakes

himself to his foster-mother, sets forth his case, and offers her a

heavy bribe for her aid. The false carline goes to the lady and opens

her business; the lady will never wrong her lord. The carline (who

is the wife’s foster-mother as well) now pretends concern about the

lady’s health, which is in danger for want of sleep. She turns all the

people out of the castle, lulls the dame to sleep, and introduces the

squire. He wakes the lady, and tells her that she is in his power. The

lady has presence of mind; it would, she says, be a sin to defile her

husband’s bed, but she will come to the squire’s bed at night. She

then offers her niece five hundred pounds to go to the squire in her

place. The young woman was never so much disposed to say nay, but goes,

notwithstanding. When the squire has had his will, he cuts off ‘her

ring but and her ring-finger.’ The maids come from the hay, the young

men from the corn, and the lady tells them all that has passed. She

will tie her finger in the dark, and hopes to loose it in the light.

The knight returns, and is greeted by the squire as a landless lord.

The ring and ring-finger are exhibited in proof. Thereupon the knight

gives a dinner, to which he asks the squire and his wife’s parents.

He throws his charters across the table and bids his wife farewell

forever. It is now time for the lady to loose in the light the finger

which she had tied in the dark. Come here, my lord, she says. No smith

can join a finger. My niece ‘beguiled the squire for me.’ They lay

before the niece a sword and a ring, and she is to have her choice, to

stick the squire with the sword, or to wed him with the ring. Thrice

she puts out her hand as if to take the sword, but she ends with taking

up the ring.

This ballad can have had no currency in Scotland, and perhaps was known

only through print. A similar one is strictly traditional in Greece,

and widely dispersed, both on the mainland and among the islands.

=Romaic.= =A.= Νεοελληνικὰ’ Ανάλεκτα, I, 80, No 16, 75 vv., Melos.

=B.= ‘Τὸ στοίχημα τοῦ βασιλιᾶ καὶ τοῦ Μαυριανοῦ,’ Jeannaraki, p. 231,

No 294, 76 vv., Crete. =C.= ‘Ὁ Μαυριανὸς καὶ ὁ βασιλεύς,’ Zampelios,

p. 719, No 6, 61 vv., Corcyra (?); repeated in Passow, p. 355, No 474,

Kind’s Anthologie, p. 56. =D.= ‘Τοῦ Μαυριανοπούλου,’ Manousos, II, 56,

51 vv., Corcyra (?). =E.= ‘Ὁ Μαυριανὸς κ’ ὁ βασιλεᾶς,’ Pappadopoulos

in Πανδώρα, XV, 417, 23 vv., Cargese, Corsica; repeated in Legrand,

p. 302, No 136. =F.= Δελτίον τῆς ἱστορικῆς καὶ ἐθνολογικῆς ἑταιρίας

τής Ἑλλάδος, I, 551, No 5, 35 vv., Peloponnesus. =G.= ‘Ὁ Σταυριανὸς

καὶ ὁ βασιλιᾶς,’ Melandrakes, in the same, III, 345, 54 vv., Patmos.

=H.= ‘Τὸ Στοίχημα,’ Kanellakes, Χιακά ἀλάεκτα, p. 8, No 5, 50 vv.,

Chios. =I a.= Bartholdy, Bruchstücke zur nähern Kenntniss des heutigen

Griechenlands, 1805, p. 434, 78 vv., translation without text. =b.=

‘Maurogène,’ Lemercier, I, 167, translation without text, neighborhood

of Arta. =J.= ‘Στοίχημα Διονῦ καὶ Χαντσαρλῆ,’ Chasiotes, p. 142, No 14,

26 vv., Epirus.

The personages are Μαυριανός, =B-E=, Μαυγιανός, =A=, Mavrogeni, =I=,

Σταυριανός, =G=, Γιάννος, =F=, Κωσταντῆς, =H=; his sister, =A-I=,

Αρετή;, =D=, Μάρω, =F=, Λιερή, =G=, and in =I b= (unless the name is

supplied by the editor), Cymodore; a king, anonymous except in =J=,

Διονύς, in which also the other two parties are husband (ὁ χαντσιαρλῆς,

the chancellor) and wife.

At the king’s table there is talk of women fair or foul. Maurianos

extols his sister (the chancellor his wife, =I=), whom gifts cannot

seduce. What shall be your forfeit, asks the king, if I seduce her?

Maurianos stakes his head, =A-I=, and the girl is to be the king’s

slave, =H=; the king, his kingdom and crown, =A=, =B=, his property,

=C=, =F=. There is a mutual wager of nine towers of silver, =J=. The

young man is to be a prisoner till the morning, =I=. The king begins,

in =A=, =B=, by engaging the services of witches eighteen, witches

fifteen, or bawds eighteen, witches fifteen. They ply their magic early

and late: forty days to get up her stair, other four-and-forty to get

sight of the girl, =A=. They address her with flatteries, but are

rebuffed, =A=, =B=. The king sends rich presents, =A=, =C-I=; beasts

laden with silver and money, nine, twelve, twenty and again ten. The

girl receives them with professions of pleasure; her brother will

return the compliment to the giver. It is explained that no return is

looked for; the presents are from the king, who desires to pass the

night with her. (In =J= the king goes straight to the wife, and says

that he has her husband’s permission.) The lady affects to put herself

at the king’s disposition. She appeals to her maid-servants, =A=, =B=;

first her “nurses,” then her maids, =C=; one servant, and then another,

=H=. Which of them will enable her to keep her word, change clothes

with her, and pass the night with the king? Only Maria, the youngest of

all (of forty, =B=), is willing to stead her mistress in this strait,

=A-C=. In =D-G=, =I=, =J=, there is but one nurse or servant, and she

assents, or follows her mistress’s directions as a matter of course.

The servant is to have the king’s present in =D=. The substitute is

elaborately combed and dressed, with a gold band round her hair, and

a beautiful ring on her finger. At midnight, or before dawn, the king

cuts off the finger that has the ring, =A=, =I=, her finger, =B=, =F=,

=G=, =H= (fingers, =B=, v. 43), little finger, =D=, =E=; takes the ring

from her finger, =C=, all the rings from her fingers, =J=. He also cuts

off her hair (braid), with its golden band, =B= (braids, v. 43), =C=,

=I=, her hair (braid), with the golden flowers, =A=, with the pearl,

=H=, right braid, =D=, braid, =F=, =G=, =I=, extremity of her braid,

=E=. These are to serve as tokens; he puts them in his handkerchief,

=A=, =D=. He takes his trophies to the assembly. Maurianos has lost

his wager, and is to be hanged. Where is Maurianos, the braggart, and

where his precious sister, whom no gifts could seduce? Word comes to

the sister. She dresses herself beautifully, and makes her way into the

assembly; she would fain know why they are to hang Maurianos. ‘I have

seduced his sister,’ says the king, ‘and I will hang Maurianos.’ The

girl demands tokens. ‘I cut off her finger, with the golden sapphire;

I cut off her hair, with the golden flowers (band).’ She extends her

hand; the earth is filled with sapphires. ‘See, lords! are fingers

of mine wanting?’ She flings out her hair; the earth is filled with

flowers. ‘See, lords! is a braid of mine wanting?’ (=A=, =B=, and the

rest to the same effect.) Then she turns to the king. ‘It fits you no

more to play the king,’ =A=, =B=. ‘You have slept with my slave, and

my slave you shall be,’ =C-I=. ‘Take my mule and go fetch wood.’ In

=A=, =B=, the king has to marry Maria. In =F=, John becomes king (as a

consequence of winning the wager). In =I=, the people depose the king

and make Maurianos’s sister queen.

There are numerous tales in which a man wagers heavily upon a woman’s

(generally his wife’s) constancy, and, upon plausible evidence, which

in the end proves to be nugatory, is adjudged to have lost.[23] We are

concerned only with a small section of these stories, characterized

by the circumstances that the woman whose virtue is questioned puts

another woman in her place in the encounter with the assailant, and

that the proofs of success offered are a finger, finger-ring, and head,

or braid, of hair[24] (one of these, or more).

A rhymed tale of the thirteenth century, ‘Von zwein Kaufmannen,’ by

Ruprecht von Würzburg,[25] has the following story, evidently French

by origin. Bertram, a merchant of Verdun, who has been happily married

for ten years, is required in the course of business to go to a fair at

Provins. While he is sitting at table in an inn with other merchants,

Hogier, the host, sets his guests to talking of their wives, and three

of them give a very bad account of their domestic experiences. Bertram,

when urged to take his turn, professes himself the most fortunate

of men, for his wife (Irmengard) is, for beauty, sense, modesty,

manners, the flower of womankind. The host declares that the man is

mad, and offers to stake all his goods against Bertram’s that he will

seduce this peerless wife within six months. The wager is accepted,

and Bertram, to afford an opportunity, sends his wife word that he

shall be gone from home longer than he had intended. Hogier goes to

Verdun and takes a lodging opposite to Bertram’s house. He begins with

presents and messages to Irmengard; she treats these with contempt,

and threatens to make a complaint to her friends. He gives bounties

to the servants, who sing his praises to their mistress till they are

told that they will be thrashed if they continue. He then gives a pound

to Irmengard’s favorite maid, Amelin, and commissions her to offer

a hundred mark if he may have his will; and the wife proving to be

both firm and indignant, he raises his offer to two hundred mark, and

finally to a thousand for one night. Not only the maid, but Irmengard’s

own father and her husband’s father, to whom she successively appeals,

urge her to take this large sum, and assure her that she will incur her

husband’s resentment if she does not. A way out of her difficulties now

occurs to her (which the author of the poem represents as an express

suggestion from God). She asks the maid if she will give Hogier a

night for the consideration of a hundred mark; Amelin is ready so to

do for half the money. Hogier is told to pay in his thousand, and an

appointment is made. Irmengard receives him in Amelin’s garb, and

Amelin in Irmengard’s. In the morning Hogier asks for some jewel as

a keepsake, and the maid having nothing to give him, he cuts off one

of her fingers. He now calls upon Bertram to pay his forfeit. Bertram

has some doubt whether he has not been tricked. It is mutually agreed

that the matter shall be settled at a banquet which Bertram is to

give at Verdun. Bertram, upon his return home, cannot conceal a deep

depression. His wife asks him the cause, and he opens his mind to her;

she bids him be of good cheer, for all Hogier’s goods are theirs.

At the banquet Hogier states his case, and produces the finger in

confirmation of his claim. Irmengard, asked what answer she has to

make, humorously replies that she is sorry for her misbehavior, but

all her friends, there present, had advised her to commit it. She then

shows her hands, both unmarred. Amelin comes in and complains of the

treatment she has received. Hogier owns that he has lost, and desires

to become Bertram’s ‘poor man.’ Amelin is given him as wife, with her

hundred mark for a dowry. Here we have wager, substitution, finger cut

off, as in the Scottish ballad and most of the Romaic versions, and the

loser marries the maid, as in the Scottish ballad and Romaic =A=, =B=.

The Mabinogi of Taliesin, “in its present form not older than the

thirteenth century,” has the incidents of the substitution of the

maid-servant, the finger and finger-ring, with the modification that

the wife’s general high character, and not simply her continence, is

impugned and vindicated.

At a Christmas feast in the palace of King Maelgwn, the company were

discoursing of the unequalled felicity of the king, upon whom heaven

had bestowed, with every other good gift, a queen whose virtues

exceeded those of all the noble ladies in the kingdom. Elphin,

Maelgwn’s nephew, said, None but a king may vie with a king; otherwise

he would say that his own wife was as virtuous as any lady in the

kingdom. Maelgwn was not there to hear this boast, but it was duly

reported to him, and he ordered Elphin to be thrown into prison,

pending a test of Elphin’s wife which he deputed his graceless son,

Rhun, to make. Taliesin, Elphin’s bard, warned the lady that Rhun

would try to put some disgrace upon her, and advised that one of the

servants should personate her mistress when Rhun came to the house.

Accordingly, a kitchen-maid was dressed up in her mistress’s clothes,

and was seated at the supper-table, her hands loaded with rings. Rhun

made his appearance and was welcomed by the disguised menial. He fell

to jesting with her, put a powder into her drink, which cast her into

a sound sleep, and cut off her little finger, on which was Elphin’s

signet-ring. The king assembled his councillors, had Elphin brought in

from prison, and showed him the finger, which (so Rhun had averred)

had been cut from his wife’s hand the preceding night, while she was

sunk in a drunken sleep. Elphin could not deny that the ring was his,

but he gave three incontrovertible reasons why the finger could not

be his wife’s, one of these being that the ring was too large to stay

on his wife’s thumb, yet too small to go over the joint of the little

finger of the hand from which it had been cut; and the fact was put

beyond question by Taliesin’s afterwards bringing in Elphin’s wife at a

state-dinner, and displaying her unmutilated hand.[26]

A lively play of Jakob Ayrer’s (about 1600) has the wager, the

substitution, the ring offered in evidence (as in Romaic =C=, =G=), the

marriage with the maid.

Claudius, master of the hunt to the Prince of Calabria, on the eve

of his departure on a voyage, is heard by two courtiers, Leipolt and

Seübolt, soliloquizing on the excellences of his wife, Frigia, her

housekeeping, virtue, and love for him. They wager all their goods

against his that they will bring the woman to do their will. One

undertakes to present her wedding-ring, the other her necklace, in

proof of the achievement. Leipolt and Seübolt, always acting severally,

attempt to buy the services of Jahn Türck, a quick-witted and loyal

servant of Claudius. He tells everything to his mistress, and by his

advice she dresses two of her maids in her clothes and lets them meet

the men, warning them to keep within bounds. Leipolt and Seübolt,

each finding the supposed lady coy, are content to secure the means

of winning their wager, and, by Frigia’s connivance (who, it seems,

had come to knowledge of the wager through Jahn), one of them receives

her ring, the other her necklace, as pretended love-tokens. Claudius

comes home. Leipolt informs the prince of the wager, and asks Claudius

whether he knows the ring and will pay; Seübolt brings out the

necklace. Claudius gives all for lost. The prince sends for Frigia. She

challenges the courtiers to say that she has misbehaved with them. They

own that they have never laid eyes on her, but they recognize the maids

when they are brought in, still in their mistress’s clothes. Frigia

explains in detail. The prince addresses his councillors (for such they

are) in terms of exemplary severity, and adjudges them to marry the

maids, making over one third of their property to these and another to

Claudius, or to lose their heads. (Compare the Scottish ballad at the

end.) They prefer to keep their heads.[27]

A Danish ballad, very popular in the sixteenth and seventeenth

centuries, has the wager (only on the part of the assailant), but the

story takes a different turn from the foregoing, for the irresistible

knight has simply a conversation with the lady, in which he meets with

a definitive repulse.

‘Væddemaalet,’ ‘Herr Lave og Herr Iver Blaa,’ Grundtvig, IV, 302, No

224, =A-L=, Kristensen, I, 319, No 118, X, 137, No 36; Prior, III, 28,

No 104. Lange (Lave) and Peder (Iver) sit at the board talking of wives

and fair maids. Peder asserts that the maid lives not in the world whom

he cannot cajole with a word. Lange knows the maid so virtuous that

neither words nor gold can beguile. Peder wagers life (gold, goods,

house, land) and neck (halsbane) that she shall be his by the morrow.

He rides straightway to Ingelil, Thorlof’s daughter, and makes love to

her in honorable phrase. Ingelil reminds him of two ladies who have

received the same professions from him and been betrayed. If she will

be his dear, every finger shall wear the red gold: her father has nine

gold rings, and would give them all to her if she wished. If she will

be his, she shall have a train of servants, out and in: she is not halt

or blind, and can go out and in by herself. If he cannot have his will

with her, it will cost him his white halsbane: much better so than that

he should cheat her, or any honorable maid. Peder rides away sorrowful,

for lost is gold and his white halsbane besides.[28] We have already

had the Scottish counterpart of this ballad, with variations for better

or worse, in ‘Redesdale and Wise William,’ IV, 383, No 246, =A-C=.

* * * * *

There were twa knights in fair Scotland,

And they were brothers sworn;

They made a vow to be as true

As if they’d been brothers born.

The one he was a wealthy knight,

Had lands and buildings free;

The other was a young hynde squire,

In rank of lower degree.

But it fell ance upon a day

These squires they walkd alone,

And to each other they did talk

About the fair women.

‘O wed a may,’ the knight did say,

‘For your credit and fame;

Lay never your love on lemanry,

Bring nae gude woman to shame.’

‘There’s nae gude women,’ the squire did say,

‘Into this place but nine;’

‘O well falls me,’ the knight replied,

‘For ane o them is mine.’

‘Ye say your lady’s a gude woman,

But I say she is nane;

I think that I could gain her love

Ere six months they are gane.

‘If ye will gang six months away,

And sail upon the faem,

Then I will gain your lady’s love

Before that ye come hame.’

‘O I’ll gang till a far countrie,

And far beyond the faem,

And ye winna gain my lady’s love

Whan nine lang months are gane.’

When the evening sun did set,

And day came to an end,

In then came the lady’s gude lord,

Just in at yon town’s end.

‘O comely are ye, my lady gay,

Sae fair and rare to see;

I wish whan I am gane away

Ye keep your mind to me.’

She gae ’m a bason to wash in,

It shin’d thro a’ the ha;

But aye as she gaed but and ben

She loot the saut tears fa.

‘I wonder what ails my gude lord

He has sic jealousie;

Never when we parted before,

He spak sic words to me.’

When cocks did craw, and day did daw,

This knight was fair at sea;

Then in it came the young hynde squire,

To work him villanie.

‘I hae a coffer o gude red gowd,

Another o white monie;

I woud gie you ’t a’, my gay lady,

To lye this night wi me.’

‘If ye warna my lord’s brother,

And him sae far frae hame,

Even before my ain bower-door

I’d gar hang you on a pin.’

He’s gane frae the lady’s bower,

Wi the saut tear in his ee,

And he is to his foster-mother

As fast as gang coud he.

‘There is a fancy in my head

That I’ll reveal to thee,

And your assistance I will crave

If ye will grant it me.

‘I’ve fifty guineas in my pocket,

I’ve fifty o them and three,

And if ye’ll grant what I request

Ye’se hae them for your fee.’

‘Speak on, speak on, ye gude hynde squire,

What may your asking be?

I kenna wha woud be sae base

As nae serve for sic a fee.’

‘O I hae wagerd wi my brother,

When he went to the faem,

That I woud gain his lady’s love

Ere six months they were gane.

‘To me he laid his lands at stake

Tho he were on the faem,

I wudna gain his lady’s love

Whan nine lang months were gane.

‘Now I hae tried to gain her love,

But finds it winna do;

And here I’m come, as ye her know,

To seek some help frae you.

‘For I did lay my life at stake,

Whan my brother went frae hame,

That I woud gain his lady’s love

Whan he was on the faem.’

But when the evening sun was set,

And day came to an end,

In it came that fause carline,

Just in at yon town’s end.

‘O comely are ye, my gay lady,

Your lord is on the faem;

Yon unco squire will gain your love,

Before that he come hame.’

‘Forbid it,’ said the lady fair,

‘That eer the like shoud be,

That I woud wrang my ain gude lord,

And him sae far at sea.’

‘O comely are ye, my gay lady,

Stately is your fair bodie;

Your lovely visage is far chang’d,

That is best known to me.

‘You’re sair dune out for want o sleep

Sin your lord went to sea;

Unless that ye do cease your grief,

It will your ruin be.

‘You’ll send your maids unto the hay,

Your young men unto the corn;

I’ll gar ye sleep as soun a sleep

As the night that ye were born.’

She sent her maids to ted the hay,

Her men to shear the corn,

And she gard her sleep as soun a sleep

As the night that she was born.

She rowd that lady in the silk,

Laid her on holland sheets;

Wi fine enchanting melodie,

She lulld her fast asleep.

She lockd the yetts o that castle

Wi thirty locks and three,

Then went to meet the young hynde squire

To him the keys gae she.

He’s opend the locks o that castle,

Were thirty and were three,

And he’s gane where that lady lay,

And thus to her said he.

‘O wake, O wake, ye gay lady,

O wake and speak to me;

I hae it fully in my power

To come to bed to thee.’

‘For to defile my husband’s bed,

I woud think that a sin;

As soon as this lang day is gane,

Then I shall come to thine.’

Then she has calld her niece Maisry,

Says, An asking ye’ll grant me,

For to gang to yon unco squire

And sleep this night for me.

‘The gude red gowd shall be your hire,

And siller’s be your fee;

Five hundred pounds o pennies round,

Your tocher it shall be.’

She turnd her right and round about,

And thus to her did say;

O there was never a time on earth

So fain’s I woud say nay.

But when the evening sun was set,

And day drawn to an end,

Then Lady Maisry she is gane,

Fair out at yon town-end.

Then she is to yon hynde squire’s yates,

And tirled at the pin;

Wha was sae busy as the hynde squire

To lat that lady in!

He’s taen her in his arms twa,

He was a joyfu man;

He neither bade her meat nor drink,

But to the bed he ran.

When he had got his will o her,

His will as he lang sought,

Her ring but and her ring-finger

Away frae her he brought.

With discontent straight home she went,

And thus lamented she;

Says, Wae be to yon young hynde squire!

Sae ill as he’s used me.

When the maids came frae the hay,

The young men frae the corn,

Ben it came that lady gay,

Who thought lang for their return.

‘Where hae ye been, my maidens a’,

Sae far awa frae me?

My foster-mother and lord’s brother

Thought to hae beguiled me.

‘Had not she been my foster-mother,

I suckd at her breast-bane,

Even before my ain bower-door,

She in a gleed shoud burn.

‘The squire he thought to gain my love,

He’s got but Lady Maisry;

He’s cutted her ring and her ring-finger,

A love-token for to be.

‘I’ll tie my finger in the dark,

Where nae ane shall me see;

I hope to loose it in the light,

Amang gude companie.’

When night was gane, and birds did sing,

And day began to peep,

The hynde squire walkd alang the shore,

His brother for to meet.

‘Ye are welcome, welcome, landless lord,

To my ha’s and my bowers;

Ye are welcome hame, ye landless lord,

To my lady white like flowers.’

‘Ye say I am a landless lord,

But I think I am nane,

Without ye show some love-token

Awa frae her ye’ve tane.’

He drew the strings then o his purse,

And they were a’ bludie;

The ring but and the ring-finger

Sae soon as he lat him see.

‘O wae be to you, fause hynde squire,

Ane ill death mat ye dee!

It was too sair a love-token

To take frae my ladie.

‘But ae asking of you, hynde squire,

In your won bowers to dine;’

‘With a’ my heart, my brother dear,

Tho ye had asked nine.’

Then he is to his lady’s father,

And a sorrow man was he:

‘O judge, O judge, my father dear,

This judgment pass for me.

‘What is the thing that shoud be done

Unto that gay lady

Who woud gar her lord gae landless,

And children bastards to be?’

‘She shoud be brunt upon a hill,

Or hangd upon a tree,

That woud gar her lord gang landless,

And children bastards be.’

‘Your judgment is too rash, father;

Your ain daughter is she

That this day has made me landless;

Your squire gaind it frae me.

‘Yet nevertheless, my parents dear,

Ae favour ye’ll grant me,

And gang alang to my lost ha’s,

And take your dine wi me.’

He threw the charters ower the table,

And kissd the yates o tree;

Says, Fare ye well, my lady gay,

Your face I’ll never see.

Then his lady calld out to him,

Come here, my lord, and dine;

There’s nae a smith in a’ the land

That can ae finger join.

‘I tied my finger in the dark,

Whan nae ane did me see;

But now I’ll loose it in the light,

Amang gude companie.

‘Even my niece, Lady Maisry,

The same woman was she;

The gude red gowd shall be her hire,

And likeways white monie.

‘Five hundred pounds o pennies round

Her tocher then shall be,

Because she did my wills obey,

Beguild the squire for me.’

Then they did call this young hynde squire

To come right speedilie,

Likeways they calld young Lady Maisry,

To pay her down her fee.

Then they laid down to Lady Maisry

The brand but and the ring;

It was to stick him wi the brand,

Or wed him wi the ring.

Thrice she minted to the brand,

But she took up the ring;

And a’ the ladies who heard o it

Said she was a wise woman.

FOOTNOTES:

[23] The cutting off the hair from a woman substituted occurs in

the fabliau ‘Des Tresces,’ Barbazan et Méon, IV, 393, Montaiglon et

Raynaud, IV, 67, and Méon, Nouveau Recueil, I, 343, Montaiglon et

Raynaud, V, 132 (a different version); Boccaccio, Decameron, VII, 8;

‘Der verkêrte Wirt,’ von der Hagen’s Gesammtabenteuer, II, 337, No 43:

all varieties of one story. See also ‘Der Reiger,’ p. 157 of the same

volume of von der Hagen, No 31, and the literary history of No 43, at

p. XLII.--Bédier, Les Fabliaux, p. 149 ff., refers to several other

examples.

[24] The more important of the stories which lack the distinctive

traits of the Scottish and Romaic ballads are: Roman de la Violette,

thirteenth century (ed. Michel, 1834); Roman du Comte de Poitiers,

thirteenth century (ed. Michel, 1831); Li Contes du Roi Flore et de la

bielle Jehane, thirteenth century, Moland et d’Héricault, 1856, p. 85,

and Monmerqué et Michel, Théâtre Français au Moyen Age, 1842, p. 417;

Miracle de Nostre Dame, Conment Ostes, roy d’Espaingne, perdi sa terre

par gagier contre Berengier, etc., Monmerqué et Michel, as before,

p. 431, and Miracles de Nostre Dame, G. Paris et U. Robert, IV, 319;

an episode in Perceforest, vol. iv, cc. 16, 17, retold by Bandello,

Part I, Nov. 21 (R. Köhler, in Jahrbuch für Rom. u. Eng. Lit., VIII,

51 ff.); the story of Bernabò da Genova da Ambruogiuolo ingannato,

Boccaccio, Decameron, II, 9, repeated in Shakspere’s Cymbeline and

many other pieces. Popular tales with the wager are: Campbell, West

Highlands, II, 1, No 18; J. W. Wolf’s Deutsche Hausmärchen, p. 355;

Simrock, Deutsche Märchen, p. 235 (ed. 1864), No 51; Pröhle, Kinder-

und Volksmärchen, No 61, p. 179 (see also p. XLII); Das Ausland,

1856, p. 1053, Roumanian; Miklosich, Märchen u. Lieder der Zigeuner

der Bukowina, p. 49, No 14; Bernoni, Fiabe veneziane, p. 1, No 1;

Gonzenbach, I, 38, No 7; Pitrè, Fiabe, Novelle e Racconti siciliani,

II, 142, 165, Nos 73, 75; Imbriani, Novellaja fiorentina, p. 483.

(Some of these have been cited by Köhler, some by Landau.) See, in

general, the Grimms, Altdeutsche Wälder, I, 35 ff., II, 181 f.; von

der Hagen’s Gesammtabenteuer, introduction to No LXVIII, especially

III, XCI-CIX; R. Köhler, as above, and in Orient u. Occident, II, 315;

Landau, Quellen des Dekameron, 1884, p. 135 ff.; R. Ohle, Shakespeares

Cymbeline und seine romanischen Vorläufer, Berlin, 1890.

[25] Altdeutsche Wälder, I, 35; von der Hagen, Gesammtabenteuer, III,

357.

[26] Lady Charlotte Guest’s Mabinogion, Part VII, pp. 364-83, or p. 477

ff. of the edition of 1877; an abstract in E. Jones’s Bardic Museum, p.

19.

[27] Ayrers Dramen, herausgegeben von A. von Keller, IV, 2279, No 30;

Comedia von zweyen fürstlichen räthen die alle beede umb eines gewetts

willen umb ein weib bulten, u. s. w.

[28] There is another Danish ballad in which two knights wager on a

maid’s fidelity, but it is of entirely different tenor, the maid being

lured by a magical horn: ‘Ridderens Runeslag,’ Grundtvig, II, 285, No

73, =A-B=, ‘Ridder Oles Lud,’ Kristensen, II, 108, 353, No 34, =A-C=;

Prior, III, 34, No 105.

269

LADY DIAMOND

=A.= ‘Lady Daisy,’ Aytoun’s Ballads of Scotland, II, 173, 1859.

=B.= ‘Lady Dayisie,’ from an old lady’s collection formerly in

possession of Sir Walter Scott,[29] now belonging to Mr Macmath,

Edinburgh.

=C.= Sharpe’s Ballad Book, p. 12, 1823.

=D.= ‘Lady Diamond,’ Buchan’s MSS, II, 164; ‘Lady Diamond, the King’s

Daughter,’ Buchan’s Ballads of the North of Scotland, II, 206; ‘Ladye

Diamond,’ Dixon, Scottish Traditional Versions of Ancient Ballads, p.

71, Percy Society, vol. xvii.

=E.= ‘Robin, the Kitchie-Boy,’ Joseph Robertson, “Adversaria,” p. 66.

Diamond (Daisy, Dysmal, Dysie), only daughter of a great king, is with

child by a very bonny kitchen-boy. The base-born paramour is put to

death, and, by the king’s order, his heart is taken to the princess in

a cup of gold. She washes it with the tears which run into the cup,

=A=, =B=, =C=, and dies of her grief. Her father has a sharp remorse,

=A=, =C=; his daughter’s shame looks pardonable, when he considers the

beauty of the man he has slain, =A=.

=B= is blended with ‘Willie o Winsbury,’ No 100; cf. =B= 4-9, and No

100, =A= 2-7, =B= 1-5, etc. In ‘Willie o Winsbury’, =B=, the princess’s

name is Dysmill. =A= 12, =B= 11 of ‘Lady Diamond’ also recall ‘Willie o

Winsbury.’

In =C=, =D=, the kitchen-boy is smothered between two feather-beds.

Isbel was the princess’s name in a copy obtained by Motherwell, but not

preserved. Motherwell’s Note-Book, p. 7; C. K. Sharpe’s Correspondence,

II, 328.

The ballad is one of a large number of repetitions of Boccaccio’s tale

of Guiscardo and Ghismonda, Decamerone, IV, 1. This tale was translated

in Painter’s Palace of Pleasure, 1566 (ed. Jacobs, I, 180), and became

the foundation of various English poems and plays.[30] Very probably it

was circulated in a chap-book edition in Great Britain, as it was in

Germany (Simrock, Volksbücher, VI, 153).

Prince Tancredi has an only daughter (cf. =A=, =B=, =C=, 1), whose

name is Ghismonda (Diamond, =C=, Dysmal, =B=, Dysie, =D=, Daisy,

=A=). She has a secret amour with a young man of inferior condition

(valetto, di nazione assai umile; giovane di vilissima condizione,

says Tancredi), sunk in the ballad to the rank of kitchen-boy. This

young man, Guiscardo, is, however, distinguished for manners and fine

qualities; indeed, superior in these to all the nobles of the court.

In the ballad he is a very bonny boy (preferred to dukes and earls,

=B=, =C=). Guiscardo is strangled (or suffocated); the bonny boy is

smothered between two feather-beds in =B= 8, =C= 7. The bonny boy’s

heart is cut out and sent to the king’s daughter in a cup of gold, in

the ballad; she washes it with the tears that run from her eyes into

the cup. Ghismonda, receiving Guiscardo’s heart in a gold cup, sheds a

torrent of tears over it, pours a decoction of poisonous herbs into the

cup (ove il cuore era da molte delle sue lagrime lavato), and drinks

all off, then lies down on her bed and awaits her death. Tancredi,

repenting too late of his cruelty, has the pair buried with honors in

one tomb.[31]

=Italian. A.= ‘Il padre crudele,’ Widter und Wolf, Volkslieder aus

Venetien, p. 72, No 93. A king has an only daughter, Germonia. She

has twelve servants to wait upon her, and other twelve to take her

to school, and she falls in love with the handsomest, Rizzardo.

They talk together, and this is reported to the king by Rizzardo’s

fellow-servants. The king shuts Rizzardo up in a room, bandages his

eyes, cuts his heart out, puts it in a gold basin, and carries it

to his daughter. ‘Take this basin,’ he says; ‘take this fine mess,

Rizzardo’s heart is in it.’ Germonia reproaches him for his cruelty; he

tells her, if he has done her an offence, to take a knife and do him

another. She does not care to do this; however, if he were abed, she

would. In a variant, she goes out to a meadow, and ‘poisons herself

with her own hands.’

=B.= ‘Flavia,’ Sabatini, Saggio di Canti popolari romani, in Rivista di

Letteratura popolare, Rome, 1877, p. 17 f., and separately, 1878, p. 8

f. Flavia has thirteen servants, and becomes enamored of one of these,

Ggismónno. His fellows find out that the pair have been communing,

and inform the king. ‘Ságra coróna’ orders them to take Ggismónno to

prison, and put him to death. They seat him in a chair of gold, and

dig out his heart, lay the heart in a basin of gold, and carry it to

Flavia, sitting at table, saying, Here is a mess for you. She retires

to her chamber, lies down on her bed, and drinks a cup of poison.

=C.= ‘Risguardo belo e Rismonda bela,’ Bernoni, Tradizioni pop.

veneziane, p. 39. A count has an only daughter, Rismonda. She has

twelve servants, and falls in love with the handsomest, who waits

at table,--the handsome Risguardo. She asks him to be her lover; he

cannot, for if her father should come to know of such a thing he would

put him to death in prison. The knowledge comes to the father, and

Risguardo is put into prison. One of his fellows looks him up after

a fortnight, and after a month cuts out his heart, and takes it to

Rismonda; ‘here is a fine dish, the heart of Risguardo.’ Rismonda, who

is sitting at table, goes to her chamber; her father comes to console

her; she bids him leave her. If I have done you wrong, he says, take

this sword and run it through me. She is not disposed to do this; she

will write three letters and die.

All these come from the Decameron, IV, 1. The lover is sunk to a

serving-man, as in the Scottish ballad. The names are fairly well

preserved in =A=, =C=; in =B= the lover gets his name from the

princess, and she is provided with one from the general stock.

=Swedish.= ‘Hertig Fröjdenborg och Fröken Adelin,’ broadside, 48

stanzas, Stockholm, 1757; Afzelius, I, 95, No 19, ed. Bergström och

Höijer, I, 81, No 18, 47 sts; Lagus, Nyländska Folkvisor, I, 30, No 8

=a=, 47 sts; Djurklou, Ur Nerikes Folkspråk, p. 96, 22 sts; Dybeck,

Runa, 1869, p. 34, 37 sts, of which only 8 are given; Lagus, as above,

=b=, 2 sts, =c=, 1 st.; Aminson, Bidrag, I, 1st heft, p. 31, No 6, 2d

heft, p. 16, 1 st. each; unprinted fragments, noted by Olrik, Danmarks

gamle Folkeviser, V, II, 216 f. The broadside is certainly the source

or basis of all the printed copies, and probably of an unpublished

fragment of twenty-eight stanzas obtained by Eva Wigström in 1882

(Olrik); some trifling variations are attributable to editing or to

tradition.

Adelin is in the garden, making a rose chaplet for Fröjdenborg, who,

seeing her from his window, goes to her and expresses the wish that

she were his love. Adelin begs him not to talk so; she fears that her

father may overhear. False maid-servants tell the king that Fröjdenborg

is decoying his daughter; the king orders him to be put in chains and

shut up in the dark tower. There he stays fifteen years. Adelin goes

to the garden to make Fröjdenborg a garland again. The king sees from

his window what she is about, orders her into his presence (he has not

cared to see her for fifteen years), and angrily demands what she has

been doing in the garden. She says that she has been making a rose

garland for Fröjdenborg. ‘Not forgotten him yet?’ ‘No; nor should I,

if I lived a hundred years.’ ‘Then I will put a stop to this love.’

Fröjdenborg is taken out of the tower; his hair and beard are gray,

but he declares that the fifteen years have seemed to him only a few

days. They bind Fröjdenborg to a tree, and kill him as boors slaughter

cattle. They lay him on a board, and gut (slit) him as boors gut (slit)

a fish. The false maids take his heart and dress the lady a dainty

dish. She has a misgiving, and asks what she has eaten. They tell her

it is her lover’s heart; then, she says, it shall be my last meal. She

asks for drink: she will drink to Fröjdenborg, she will drink herself

dead. Her heart breaks; word is carried to her father; God a mercy! he

cries, I have betrayed my only child. The two are buried in one grave,

from which springs a linden; the linden grows over the church ridge;

one leaf enfolds the other.

=Danish.= ‘Hertug Frydenborg,’ in about forty copies from recent

tradition and a broadside of the eighteenth century, but not found in

old manuscripts: Olrik, Danmarks gamle Folkeviser, V, II, 216, No 305,

=H-A=, and Kristensen, XI, 117, No 46. Of these, =E i=, obtained in

1809, had been printed by Nyerup og Rasmussen, Udvalg af danske Viser,

II, 238, No 71. Others are in Kristensen’s Skattegraveren, I, 33, No

113, III, 148, Nos 835-38, and in Kristensen’s Jyske Folkeminder, II,

207, No 61 =A-D= (‘Ridderens Hjærte’), and X, 213, 385, 360, No 52

=A-E=, No 94 =B=.

One half of these texts, as Olrik remarks, are of Swedish origin, and

even derived from the Swedish broadside; others have marks of their

own, and one in particular, which indicates the ultimate source of the

story in both the Swedish and the Danish ballad. This source appears to

be the Decameron, IV, 1, as in the Scottish and Italian ballads. The

points of resemblance are: A princess, an only daughter, has a lover;

her father disapproves, and throws the lover into prison (where he

remains fifteen years in the ballad, only a day or two in the tale).

The lover is taken from prison and put to death, and his heart is cut

out. (The heart is not sent to the princess in a golden vessel, as in

the Decameron, IV, 1, and the Scottish and Italian ballads, but is

cooked, and given her to eat, and is eaten; and she says, when informed

that she has eaten her lover’s heart, that it shall be her last food.)

In most of the Scandinavian ballads the princess calls for wine (mead),

and ‘drinks herself to death.’ But in =C= it is expressly said that she

drinks poisoned wine, in =E a=, =c=, =k=, poisonous wine, in =D= that

she puts a grain of poison in the cruse. (In =E l= they mix the lover’s

blood in wine; she takes two draughts, and her heart bursts.)

A husband giving his wife her lover’s heart to eat is a feature in

an extensive series of poems and tales, sufficiently represented for

present purposes by the ninth tale in the fourth day of the Decameron,

and no further explanation is required of the admixture in the

Scandinavian ballad.[32]

In Danish =A a=, =b=, =h=, =o=, =B b=, two lilies spring from the

common grave of the lovers, and embrace or grow together. In =E k=,

=l=, =F b=, =e=, =f=, and Kristensen, XI, No 46, the lovers are buried

apart (she south, he north, of kirk, etc.), a lily springs from each,

and the two grow together.

=Low and High German, Dutch.= =A.= ‘Brennenberg,’ 12 stanzas, Uhland,

I, 158, No 75 A, Niederdeutsches Liederbuch, No 44, conjectured to be

of the beginning of the seventeenth century. ‘Der Bremberger,’ Böhme,

p. 87, No 23 B (omitting sts 3, 4); Simrock, Die deutschen Volkslieder,

p. 14, No 5, Die geschichtlichen deutschen Sagen, p. 325, No 105

(omitting sts 1-4, and turned into High German). =B.= ‘Ein schöner

Bremberger,’ 8 stanzas, flying-sheet, 8°, Nürnberg, Valentin Newber,

about 1550-70, Böhme, No 23 A; Wunderhorn, ed. Erk, 1857, IV, 41,

modernized. =C.= ‘Van Brandenborch,’ 6 stanzas, Antwerpener Liederbuch,

1544, ed. Hoffmann, p. 120, No 81; Hoffmann’s Niederländische

Volkslieder, 1856, p. 34, No 7 (omitting st. 6); Uhland, No 75 B. =D

a.= Grasliedlin, 1535, one st., Böhme, No 23 a; Uhland, No 75 C. =b.=

The same, heard on the Lower Rhine, 1850, Böhme, No 23 b.

‘Brunenborch,’ Willems, No 53, p. 135, 21 stanzas, purports to be a

critical text, constructed partly from copies communicated to the

editor (“for the piece is to this day sung in Flanders”), and partly

from =C=, =A=, =D a=, and Hoffmann, No 6.[33] It is not entitled to

confidence.

All the versions are meagre, and =A= seems to be corrupted and

defective at the beginning.[34]

A youth, =B= 2, has watched a winter-long night, brought thereto by

a fair maid, =A= 1, 3, =B= 1, to whom he has devoted his heart and

thoughts, and with whom he wishes to make off, =A=, =B=. Ill news

comes to the maid, =B= 2, that her lover is a prisoner, and has been

thrown into a tower. There Brennenberg (=A=, der Bremberger, =B=,

Brandenborch, =C=, der Brandenburger, =D a=) lay seven years or more,

till his head was white and his beard was gray. They laid him on a

table and slit him like a fish,[35] cut out his heart, dressed it with

pepper, and gave it to the fairest, =A=, the dame, =B=, the dearest,

=C=, to eat. ‘What have I eaten that tasted so good?’ ‘Brennenberg’s

heart,’ =A=. ‘If it is his heart, pour wine for me, and give me to

drink.’ She set the beaker to her mouth, and drank it to the bottom,

=B=. The first drop she drank, her heart broke into a dozen bits, =A=,

=C=. (Their love was pure, such as no one could forbid, =A= 11; the

same implied in =A= 12, =C= 5.)

The German-Dutch ballad, though printed two hundred years before any

known copy of the Swedish-Danish, is much less explicit. The lady is

certainly a maid in =B=, and she is a maid in =A= if the first stanza

is accepted as belonging to the ballad. Then it should be her father

who proceeds so cruelly against her. The wine-drinking, followed by

speedy death, may come, as it almost certainly does in some of the

Scandinavian ballads, from the story of Ghismonda; and therefore the

German-Dutch ballads, as they stand, may perhaps be treated as a

blending of the first and the ninth tale of Boccaccio’s fourth day. But

there is a German meisterlied, printed, like =B=, =C=, =D a=, in the

sixteenth century, which has close relation with these ballads, and

much more of Boccaccio’s ninth tale in it: ‘Von dem Brembergers end und

tod,’ von der Hagen’s Minnesinger, IV, 281, Wunderhorn, 1808, II, 229,

epitomized in the Grimms’ Deutsche Sagen, II, 211, No 500. The knight

Bremberger has loved another man’s wife. The husband cuts off his head,

and gives his heart to the lady to eat. He asks her if she can tell

what she has eaten. She would be glad to know, it tasted so good. She

is told that it is Bremberger’s heart. She says she will take a drink

upon it, and never eat or drink more. The lady hastens from table to

her chamber, grieves over Bremberger’s fate, protesting that they had

never been too intimate, starves herself, and dies the eleventh day.

The husband suffers great pangs for having ‘betrayed’[36] her and her

deserving servant, and sticks a knife into his heart.[37]

The incident of a husband giving his wife her lover’s heart to eat

occurs in a considerable number of tales and poems in literature, and

in all is obviously of the same source.

Ysolt, in the romance of Tristan, twelfth century, sings a lai how

Guirun was slain for love of a lady, and his heart given by the count

to his wife to eat. (Michel, III, 39, vv. 781-90.)

Ramon de Castel Rossillon (Raimons de Rosillon) cut off the head of

Guillems de Cabestaing, lover of his wife, Seremonda (Margarita),

took the heart from the body, ‘fetz lo raustir e far pebrada,’ and

gave it to his wife to eat. He then told her what she had been eating

(showing her Cabestaing’s head), and asked her if it was good. So good,

she said, that she would never eat or drink more; hearing which, her

husband rushed at her with his sword, and she fled to a balcony, let

herself fall (threw herself from a window), and was killed. (Chabaneau,

Les Biographies des Troubadours en langue provençale, pp. 99-103, MSS

of the thirteenth and the fourteenth century.) Nearly the same story,

‘secondo che raccontano i provenzali,’ in the Decameron, IV, 9, of

Messer Guiglielmo Rossiglione and Messer Guiglielmo Guardastagno. The

lady says that she liked very much the dish which she had eaten, and

the husband, No wonder that you should like when it was dead the thing

which you liked best of all when it was living: what you have eaten

was Guardastagno’s heart. God forbid, replies the lady, that I should

swallow anything else after so noble a repast; then lets herself drop

from a high window.

In Konrad von Würzburg, ‘Das Herz,’ ‘Das Herzmäre,’ 1260-70, five or

six hundred verses, a knight and a lady are inflamed with a mutual

passion (tugendhafter mann, reines weib). The lady’s husband conceives

that he may break this up by taking her to the Holy Land. In that case,

the knight proposes to follow; but the lady prevails upon him to go

before her husband shall take this step, with the object of lulling

his jealousy and stopping the world’s talk. The knight goes, and dies

of the separation. As his end was approaching, he had ordered his

attendant to take out his heart, embalm it, enclose it in a gold box,

and carry it to the lady. The husband lights upon the emissary, takes

away the box, directs his cook to make a choice dish of the heart, and

has this set before his wife for her exclusive enjoyment. He asks her

how she finds it, and she declares that she has never eaten anything so

delicious. She is then told that she has eaten the knight’s heart, sent

her by him as a token. God defend, she exclaims, that any ordinary food

should pass my mouth after so precious victual, and thereupon dies (von

der Hagen’s Gesammtabenteuer, I, 225). The same story is introduced as

an “example” in a sermon-book: ‘Quidam miles tutpiter adamavit uxorem

alterius militis.’[38] The lady kills herself.

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.

Aytoun’s Ballads of Scotland, II, 173, 1859, from the recollection of

a lady residing at Kirkaldy.

There was a king, and a very great king,

And a king of meikle fame;

He had not a child in the world but ane,

Lady Daisy was her name.

He had a very bonnie kitchen-boy,

And William was his name;

He never lay out o Lady Daisy’s bower,

Till he brought her body to shame.

When een-birds sung, and een-bells rung,

And a’ men were boune to rest,

The king went on to Lady Daisy’s bower,

Just like a wandering ghaist.

He has drawn the curtains round and round,

And there he has sat him down;

‘To whom is this, Lady Daisy,’ he says,

‘That now you gae so round?

‘Is it to a laird? or is it to a lord?

Or a baron of high degree?

Or is it William, my bonnie kitchen-boy?

Tell now the truth to me.’

‘It’s no to a laird, and it’s no to a lord,

Nor a baron of high degree;

But it’s to William, your bonnie kitchen-boy:

What cause hae I to lee?’

‘O where is all my merry, merry men,

That I pay meat and fee,

That they will not take out this kitchen-boy,

And kill him presentlie?’

They hae taen out this bonnie kitchen-boy,

And killd him on the plain;

His hair was like the threads o gold,

His een like crystal stane;

His hair was like the threads o gold,

His teeth like ivory bane.

They hae taen out this bonnie boy’s heart,

Put it in a cup o gold;

‘Take that to Lady Daisy,’ he said,

‘For she’s impudent and bold;’

And she washd it with the tears that ran from her eye

Into the cup of gold.

‘Now fare ye weel, my father the king!

You hae taen my earthly joy;

Since he’s died for me, I’ll die for him,

My bonnie kitchen-boy.’

‘O where is all my merry, merry men,

That I pay meat and wage,

That they could not withold my cruel hand,

When I was mad with rage?

‘I think nae wonder, Lady Daisy,’ he said,

‘That he brought your body to shame;

For there never was man of woman born

Sae fair as him that is slain.’

From “The Old Lady’s Collection,” formerly in the possession of Sir

Walter Scott, No 41.

Ther was a king, an a worthy king,

[An a king] of birth an fame;

He had an only dear daughter,

An Dayesie was her name.

Ther was a boy about the house,

Bold Roben was his name;

He would not stay out of Dayese’s bour,

Till he brought her body [to] shame.

When bells was rung,. .. .

An a’ man bon to rest,

The king went up to Lady Dayese’s bour,

He was an unwelcom gast.

‘O Lady Dayesë, dear, d[ea]r Dayisie,

What gars ye gae sae round?

We yer tua sides high an yer bellie bige,

Fra yer face the couller is gane.’

‘O have ye loved? or have ye lang-sought?

Or die ye goo we barn?’

‘It’s all for you, fair father,

That ye stayed so long in Spain.’

‘It’s aff ye take yer berry-broun goon,

An ye lay it on a ston,

An I will tell you in a very short time

If ye loued any man or no[n].’

It’s aff she has tane her berry-broun goon,

An laid it on a ston;

We her tua sides high, her belley turned bigg,

Fra her face the couller was gane.

‘O is it to lord? or is to lard?

Or till a man of mean?

Or is it to Bold Roben, the kittchen-boy?

Nou, Dayisie, dinne lea[n].’

‘It’s no to leard, nor [to] lord,

Nor to a man of mean,

But it’s to Bold Robien, our kittchen-boy;

Fatt neads me for to lea[n]?’

. . . . . . .

It’s the morn befor I eat or drink

His heart-blude I sall see.’

He’s tean Bold Robien by the hand

Lead him across the green;

His hear was leak the very threeds of goud,

His face shone leak the moon.

He’s tane out this bonny boy’s hear[t]

Into a cupe of gold,

Had it to Lady Dayese’s bour,

Says, No[u], Dayesë, behold!

‘O welcom to me my heart’s delight!

Nou welcom to me my joy!

Ye have dayed for me, an I’ll day for ye,

Tho ye be but the kittchen-boy.’

She has taen out the coup of gold,

Lead it belou her head,

An she wish it we the tears ran doun fra her eays,

An or midnight she was dead.

She has tean out the coup of gold,

Laid it belou her hear,

An she wish it we the tears ran don fra her eays,

An alass! spak never mare.

Sharpe’s Ballad Book, No 4, p. 12, as sung by Mary Johnston, dairy

maid at Hoddam Castle.

There was a king, and a glorious king,

And a king of mickle fame,

And he had daughters only one,

Lady Dysmal was her name.

He had a boy, and a kitchen-boy,

A boy of mickle scorn,

And she lovd him lang, and she loved him aye,

Till the grass oergrew the corn.

When twenty weeks were gone and past,

O she began to greet!

Her petticoat grew short before,

And her stays they wadna meet.

It fell upon a winter’s night

The king could get nae rest;

He cam unto his daughter dear,

Just like a wandring ghaist.

He cam into her bed-chalmer,

And drew the curtains round:

‘What aileth thee, my daughter dear?

I fear you’ve gotten wrong.’

‘O if I have, despise me not,

For he is all my joy;

I will forsake baith dukes and earls,

And marry your kitchen-boy.’

‘Go call to me my merry men all,

By thirty and by three;

Go call to me my kitchen-boy,

We’ll murder him secretlie.’

There was nae din that could be heard,

And neer a word was said,

Till they got him baith fast and sure

Between twa feather-beds.

‘Go cut the heart out of his breast,

And put it in a cup of gold,

And present it to his Dysmal dear,

For she is baith stout and bold.’

They’ve cut the heart out of his breast,

And put it in a cup of gold,

And presented it to his Dysmal dear,

Who was baith stout and bold.

‘O come to me, my hinney, my heart,

O come to me, my joy!

O come to me, my hinney, my heart

My father’s kitchen-boy!’

She’s taen the cup out of their hands,

And set it at her bed-head;

She washd it wi the tears that fell from her eyes,

And next morning she was dead.

‘O where were ye, my merry men all,

Whom I paid meat and wage,

Ye didna hold my cruel hand

When I was in my rage?

‘For gone is a’ my heart’s delight,

And gone is a’ my joy;

For my dear Dysmal she is dead,

And so is my kitchen-boy.’

Buchan’s MSS, II, 164.

There was a king, and a curious king,

And a king of royal fame,

He had ae daughter, he had never mair,

Lady Diamond was her name.

She’s fa’en into shame, and lost her good name,

And wrought her parents ’noy;

And a’ for her layen her love so low,

On her father’s kitchen-boy.

One night as she lay on her bed,

Just thinking to get rest,

Up it came her old father,

Just like a wandering ghaist.

‘Rise up, rise up, Lady Diamond,’ he says,

‘Rise up, put on your gown;

Rise up, rise up, Lady Diamond,’ he says,

‘For I fear ye go too roun.’

‘Too roun I go, ye blame me no,

Ye cause me not to shame;

For better love I that bonny boy

Than all your well-bred men.’

The king’s calld up his wall-wight men,

That he paid meat and fee:

‘Bring here to me that bonny boy,

And we’ll smore him right quietlie.’

Up hae they taken that bonny boy,

Put him between twa feather-beds;

Naething was dane, _nae_thing was said,

Till that bonny boy was dead.

The king’s taen out a broad, broad sword,

And streakd it on a strow,

And thro and thro that bonny boy’s heart

He’s gart cauld iron go.

Out he has taen his poor bloody heart,

Set it on a tasse of gold,

And set it before Lady Diamond’s face,

Said, Fair lady, behold!

Up she has taen this poor bloody heart,

And holden it in her hand:

‘Better loved I that bonny, bonny boy

Than all my father’s land.’

Up she has taen his poor bloody heart

And laid it at her head;

The tears away frae her eyes did fly,

And ere midnight she was dead.

Joseph Robertson, “Adversaria,” p. 66; noted down from a female

servant, July 15, 1829.

It was a king, and a verra greit king,

An a king o muckle fame,

An he had a luvelie dauchter fair,

An Dysie was her name.

She fell in love wi the kitchie-boy,

An a verra bonnie boy was he,

An word has gane till her father dear,

An an angry man was he.

‘Is it the laird? or is it the lord?

Or a man o high degree?

Or is it to Robin, the kitchie-boy?

O Dysie mak nae lee.’

‘It’s nae the laird, nor is it the lord,

Nor a man o high degree,

But it’s to Robin, the kitchie-boy;

What occasion hae I to lee?’

‘If it be to Robin, the kitchie-boy,

As I trust weel it be,

The morn, afore ye eat meal or drink,

Ye’ll see him hanged hie.’

They have taen Robin out,

His hair was like threads o gold;

That verra day afore it was night,

Death made young Dysie cold.

* * * * *

=B.= _Written without division into stanzas or verses._

3^2. to bed.

8^4. didde lea.

=C.= “Mary Johnston, our dairymaid at Hoddam Castle, used to sing

this. It had a very pretty air, and some more verses which I have now

forgot.” Sharpe’s Ballad-Book, 1880, p. 128.

=D.= _A little scotticized by Buchan in printing, and still more by

Dixon._

9^2. tasse _is_ tarse _in my transcript_; _probably miscopied_.

FOOTNOTES:

[29] See a letter from Scott to C. K. Sharpe, in Mr Allardyce’s edition

of Sharpe’s letters, II, 264.

[30] See Dunlop’s History of Fiction, ed. Wilson, II, 91; von der

Hagen’s Gesammtabenteuer, I, CXXII f.; Clarence Sherwood, Die

neu-englischen Bearbeitungen der Erzählung Boccaccios von Ghismonda und

Guiscardo, Berlin, 1892; Varnhagen in Literaturblatt, December, 1892,

p. 412 ff.

[31] The too late repentance and the burial of the two lovers in one

grave occur, also, in Decameron, IV, 9, presently to be spoken of.

[32] There is a mixture of Decameron, IV, 1 and 9 (with arbitrary

variations), in Palmerin of England (ch. 87, II, 328, of Southey’s

edition of the English translation). Artibel visited the Princess

Brandisia in a tower, ascending by a rope. One night he was taken.

He was shut up till the princess was delivered of a child (cf. the

Scottish ballad). Then the father took Artibel’s heart and sent it to

Brandisia in a cup. She filled the cup with her tears, and sent the cup

of tears to her father, reserving the heart, dressed herself in her

bravest apparel, and cast herself headlong from the tower.

[33] This is a Dutch ballad of Brennenberg without the extraction of

the heart, MS. of the end of the fifteenth century. (Sts 1, 2 resemble,

=A= 3, 4.) A fair lady offers Brunenburch a rose garland; a knight

observes this, goes to his master, and tells him, Brunenburch has been

sleeping with your wife. Brunenburch is imprisoned in a tower, and

after a time sent to the gallows. The lady rides to the gallows. She

has seven bold brothers, who will avenge his death. Brunenburch affirms

and reaffirms his innocence. The lady vows never to braid her hair,

etc. (Cf. II, 156 f.) Frydenborg is hanged in Danish =A d=, =n=, =E b=,

and his heart then taken out.

[34] In =A= 3, 4, which (as also =A= 1 and =B= 1) are in the first

person, a fair maid offers the singer a rose garland. This warrants

no inference of community with the Scandinavian ballad. The passage

probably does not belong in the ballad. Compare the beginning of

Hoffmann, No 6, and a song of John I of Brabant, Willems, p. 13, No 5.

[35] ‘Recht so einem wildenschwin,’ =A= 8, brings to mind ‘quel cuor di

cinghiare,’ in Decameron, IV, 9, but, considering the ‘recht wo einen

visch’ of =A= 7, may be judged an accidental correspondence.

[36] It is to be noted that the father reproaches himself for

‘betraying’ his only child in the Swedish ballad, and in Danish =A= 1,

=F a=, =c=, =d=.

[37] A meisterlied, of about 1500 (Böhme), noted by Goedeke, Grundriss,

§ 139, No 7 c, has not been reprinted.

[38] Sermones Parati, No 124, ninth Sunday after Trinity: cited by M.

Gaston Paris, Histoire Littéraire de la France, XXVIII, 382 f.

[39] The older literature is noted, with his usual fulness, by von der

Hagen, Gesammtabenteuer, I, CXVI-XXI. See, also, Dunlop’s History of

Fiction, ed. Wilson, II, 95 f. M. Gaston Paris has critically reviewed

the whole matter, with an account of modern French imitations of the

romance of the Châtelain de Couci, in Histoire Littéraire de la France,

XXVIII, 352-90. See, also, his article in Romania, XII, 359 ff.

[40] See Percy’s Reliques, 1765, III, 154, and Ebsworth, Roxburghe

Ballads, VI, 650. It is in many of the collections of black-letter

broadsides besides the Roxburghe, as Pepys, Wood, Crawford, etc.

Though perhaps absolutely the silliest ballad that ever was made, and

very far from silly sooth, the broadside was traditionally propagated

in Scotland without so much change as is usual in such cases: ‘There

livd a knight in Jesuitmont.’ Scotch Ballads, Materials for Border

Minstrelsy, No 22 e, Abbotsford, in the handwriting of William Laidlaw,

derived from Jean Scott; ‘The Knight in Jesuite,’ Campbell MSS, II,

63; ‘There was a knight in Jessamay,’ Motherwell’s MS. p. 399, from

Agnes Laird, of Kilbarchan. Percy’s ballad is translated by Bodmer,

I, 167, and by Döring, p. 91. The tragedy is said to be localized at

Radcliffe, Lancashire: Harland, Ballads and Songs of Lancashire, ed.

1879, p. 46, Roby’s Traditions of Lancashire, 1879, I, 107, both citing

Dr Whitaker’s History of Whalley.

270

THE EARL OF MAR’S DAUGHTER

‘The Earl of Mar’s Daughter,’ Buchan’s Ballads of the North of

Scotland, I, 49; Motherwell’s MS. p. 565.

The Earl of Mar’s daughter spies a dove on a tower, and promises him

a golden cage if he will come to her. The dove lights on her head,

and she takes him into her bower. When night comes, she sees a youth

standing by her side. The youth explains that his mother, a queen

versed in magic, had transformed him into a dove that he might charm

maids. He is a dove by day, a man at night, and will live and die with

her. In the course of seven years seven sons are born, all of whom are

successively committed to the care of the queen their grandmother.

After the twenty-third year a lord comes to court the lady. She refuses

him: she will live alone with her bird. Her father swears that he will

kill this bird, and Cow-me-doo prudently takes refuge with his mother,

who welcomes home her ‘young son Florentine,’ and calls for dancers

and minstrels. Cow-me-doo Florentine will have none of that; the

situation is too serious. The morrow the mother of his seven sons is

to be wedded; instead of merry-making, he desires to have twenty stout

men turned into storks, his seven sons into swans, and himself into a

goshawk. This feat is beyond his mother’s (quite limited) magic, but

it is done by an old woman who has more skill. The birds fly to Earl

Mar’s castle, where the wedding is going on. The storks seize some of

the noble guests, the swans bind the bride’s best man to a tree, and in

a twinkling the bride and her maidens are carried off by the birds. The

Earl of Mar reconciles himself with his daughter.

There is a Scandinavian ballad which Grundtvig has treated as

identical with this, but the two have little in common beyond the

assumption of the bird-shape by the lover. They are, perhaps, on a par

for barrenness and folly, but the former may claim some age and vogue,

the Scottish ballad neither.

=Danish.= ‘Ridderen i Fugleham,’ Grundtvig, II, 226, No 68, =A-C= (=C=

is translated by Prior, III, 206); ‘Herr Jon som Fugl,’ Kristensen,

I, 161, No 59, X, 23, No 11, =A=, =B=. In Grundtvig’s =A= (MS. of

the sixteenth century), the son of the king of England wooes a maid,

sending her rich presents. Her mother says he shall never have her

daughter, and this message his envoys take back to him. He is angry,

and has a bird’s coat forged for him out of nine gold rings (but his

behavior thereafter is altogether birdlike). He sits on the ridgepole

of the maid’s bower and sings. The maid exclaims, Christ grant thou

wert mine! thou shouldst drink naught but wine, and sleep in my arms.

I would send thee to England, as a gift to my love. She sits down on

the ground; the bird flies into her bosom. She takes the bird into her

bower; he throws off his bird-coat, and is recognized. The maid begs

him to do her no shame. ‘Not if you will go to England with me,’ he

answers, takes her up, and wings his way thither. There he marries her,

and gives her a crown and a queen’s name.

In Grundtvig =B=, the bird is a falcon. The maid will have no man that

cannot fly. Master Hillebrand, son of the king of England, learns this

fact, and has a bird’s coat made for him, enters the room where man had

never been before, sleeps under white linen, and in the morning is a

knight so braw. (Here the story ends.)

In =C=, the maid will have no man that cannot fly, and Master

Hillebrand orders a bird’s coat to be made for him (what could be more

mechanical!), flies into the maid’s bower, and passes the night on

the pole on which she hangs her clothes. In the morning he begins to

sing, flies to the bed, and plays with the maid’s hair. If you could

shed your feathers, says the maid, I would have no other man. Keep

your word, says the bird; give me your hand, and take my claw. She

passes her word; he throws off his feathers, and stands before her a

handsome man. By day, says the maid, he is to fly with the birds, by

night to sleep in her bed. He perches so long on the clothes-pole that

Ingerlille has a girl and a boy. When her father asks who is their

father, she tells him the positive truth; she found them in a wood.

When the bird comes back at night, she says that he must speak to her

father; further concealment is impossible. Master Hillebrand asks the

father to give him his daughter. The father is surprised that he should

want a maid that has been beguiled; but if he will marry her she shall

have a large dowry. The knight wants nothing but her.

Kristensen’s copies do not differ materially. 11 =A= in his tenth

volume (a very brief ballad) drops or lacks the manufacture of the

bird-coat. Grundtvig’s =D-G= drop the bird quite.

The ballad occurs in Swedish, but in the form of a mere abstract; in

Arwidsson, II, 188, No 112, MS. of the sixteenth century. A maid will

have no man but one that can fly. A swain has wings made from five gold

rings; he flies over the rose-wood, over the sea, sits on a lily-spray

and sings, flies till he sleeps in the maid’s bosom.

A Färöe copy is noted by Grundtvig as in the possession of

Hammershaimb, resembling his =B=, but about twice as long.

The lover in bird-shape is a very familiar trait in fiction,

particularly in popular tales.

In Marie de France’s Lai d’Yonec, a lover comes in at his mistress’s

window in the form of a hawk; in ‘Der Jungherr und der treue Heinrich,’

von der Hagen, Gesammtabenteuer, No 64, III, 197, MS. of 1444, as a

bird (by virtue of a stone of which he has possessed himself).[41]

In Hahn, No 102, II, 130 (Albanian), a dove flies in at a princess’s

window, and is changed to man’s shape by dipping in a dish of milk;

Hahn, No 7, I, 97==Pio, No 5, dove (through a hole in the ceiling, dips

in a basin of water); Δελτίον τῆς ἱστορικῆς καὶ ἐθνολογικῆς ἑταιρίας

τῆς Ἑλλάδος, I, 337, golden eagle (through a window, in rose water);

Schneller, No 21, p. 49, dove (dips in a basin of water); Coelho,

Contos pop. portuguezes, No 27, p. 65, bird (dips in a basin of water);

Braga, Contos tradicionães, No 31, I, 68, bird (dips in a basin of

water); Pitrè, Fiabe, etc., No 18, I, 163, green bird (pan of milk,

then pan of water); Bernoni, Fiabe, No 17, p. 87 (milk and water, milk,

rose-water); Visentini, No 17, p. 95, dove; Gonzenbach, No 27, I, 167,

green bird (through a hole in the wall); Nicolovius, p. 34, Asbjørnsen,

Norske Folkeeventyr, Ny Samling, 1871, No 10, p. 35==Juletræet, 1851,

p. 52, falcon; Grundtvig, Danske Folkeæventyr, No 14, p. 167, Madsen,

Folkeminder, p. 19 (‘The Green Knight’), bird; Berntsen, Folke-Æventyr,

No 13, II, 86, bird; Comtesse d’Aulnoy, L’Oiseau bleu,’ Cabinet des

Fées, II, 67, king turned into bird for seven years.[42]

* * * * *

Translated by Gerhard, p. 44; Knortz, Lieder u. Romanzen Alt-Englands,

p. 207, No 62.

* * * * *

It was intill a pleasant time,

Upon a simmer’s day,

The noble Earl of Mar’s daughter

Went forth to sport and play.

As thus she did amuse hersell,

Below a green aik tree,

There she saw a sprightly doo

Set on a tower sae hie.

‘O Cow-me-doo, my love sae true,

If ye’ll come down to me,

Ye’se hae a cage o guid red gowd

Instead o simple tree:

‘I’ll put gowd hingers roun your cage,

And siller roun your wa;

I’ll gar ye shine as fair a bird

As ony o them a’.’

But she hadnae these words well spoke,

Nor yet these words well said,

Till Cow-me-doo flew frae the tower

And lighted on her head.

Then she has brought this pretty bird

Hame to her bowers and ha,

And made him shine as fair a bird

As ony o them a’.

When day was gane, and night was come,

About the evening tide,

This lady spied a sprightly youth

Stand straight up by her side.

‘From whence came ye, young man?’ she said;

‘That does surprise me sair;

My door was bolted right secure,

What way hae ye come here?’

‘O had your tongue, ye lady fair,

Lat a’ your folly be;

Mind ye not on your turtle-doo

Last day ye brought wi thee?’

‘O tell me mair, young man,’ she said,

‘This does surprise me now;

What country hae ye come frae?

What pedigree are you?’

‘My mither lives on foreign isles,

She has nae mair but me;

She is a queen o wealth and state,

And birth and high degree.

‘Likewise well skilld in magic spells,

As ye may plainly see,

And she transformd me to yon shape,

To charm such maids as thee.

‘I am a doo the live-lang day,

A sprightly youth at night;

This aye gars me appear mair fair

In a fair maiden’s sight.

‘And it was but this verra day

That I came ower the sea;

Your lovely face did me enchant;

I’ll live and dee wi thee.’

‘O Cow-me-doo, my luve sae true,

Nae mair frae me ye’se gae;’

‘That’s never my intent, my luve,

As ye said, it shall be sae.’

‘O Cow-me-doo, my luve sae true,

It’s time to gae to bed;’

‘Wi a’ my heart, my dear marrow,

It’s be as ye hae said.’

Then he has staid in bower wi her

For sax lang years and ane,

Till sax young sons to him she bare,

And the seventh she’s brought hame.

But aye as ever a child was born

He carried them away,

And brought them to his mither’s care,

As fast as he coud fly.

Thus he has staid in bower wi her

For twenty years and three;

There came a lord o high renown

To court this fair ladie.

But still his proffer she refused,

And a’ his presents too;

Says, I’m content to live alane

Wi my bird, Cow-me-doo.

Her father sware a solemn oath

Amang the nobles all,

‘The morn, or ere I eat or drink,

This bird I will gar kill.’

The bird was sitting in his cage,

And heard what they did say;

And when he found they were dismist,

Says, Wae’s me for this day!

‘Before that I do langer stay,

And thus to be forlorn,

I’ll gang unto my mither’s bower,

Where I was bred and born.’

Then Cow-me-doo took flight and flew

Beyond the raging sea,

And lighted near his mither’s castle,

On a tower o gowd sae hie.

As his mither was wauking out,

To see what she coud see,

And there she saw her little son,

Set on the tower sae hie.

‘Get dancers here to dance,’ she said,

‘And minstrells for to play;

For here’s my young son, Florentine,

Come here wi me to stay.’

‘Get nae dancers to dance, mither,

Nor minstrells for to play,

For the mither o my seven sons,

The morn’s her wedding-day.’

‘O tell me, tell me, Florentine,

Tell me, and tell me true,

Tell me this day without a flaw,

What I will do for you.’

‘Instead of dancers to dance, mither,

Or minstrells for to play,

Turn four-and-twenty wall-wight men

Like storks in feathers gray;

‘My seven sons in seven swans,

Aboon their heads to flee;

And I mysell a gay gos-hawk,

A bird o high degree.’

Then sichin said the queen hersell,

‘That thing’s too high for me;’

But she applied to an auld woman,

Who had mair skill than she.

Instead o dancers to dance a dance,

Or minstrells for to play,

Four-and-twenty wall-wight men

Turnd birds o feathers gray;

Her seven sons in seven swans,

Aboon their heads to flee;

And he himsell a gay gos-hawk,

A bird o high degree.

This flock o birds took flight and flew

Beyond the raging sea,

And landed near the Earl Mar’s castle,

Took shelter in every tree.

They were a flock o pretty birds,

Right comely to be seen;

The people viewd them wi surprise,

As they dancd on the green.

These birds ascended frae the tree

And lighted on the ha,

And at the last wi force did flee

Amang the nobles a’.

The storks there seized some o the men,

They coud neither fight nor flee;

The swans they bound the bride’s best man

Below a green aik tree.

They lighted next on maidens fair,

Then on the bride’s own head,

And wi the twinkling o an ee

The bride and them were fled.

There’s ancient men at weddings been

For sixty years or more,

But sic a curious wedding-day

They never saw before.

For naething coud the companie do,

Nor naething coud they say

But they saw a flock o pretty birds

That took their bride away.

When that Earl Mar he came to know

Where his dochter did stay,

He signd a bond o unity,

And visits now they pay.

FOOTNOTES:

[41] The ‘Vogelritter’ mentioned by Prior, III, 207, is this same

story. See Mone, Uebersicht der niederländischen Volksliteratur, p. 90,

No 59.

[42] Most of the above are cited by R. Köhler, notes in Warnke’s ed. of

Marie’s Lais, p. LXXXVIII f. For the dipping in water, etc., see Tam

Lin, I, 338.

271

THE LORD OF LORN AND THE FALSE STEWARD

=A.= ‘Lord of Learne,’ Percy MS., p. 73; Hales and Furnivall, I, 180.

=B.= ‘A pretty ballad of the Lord of Lorn and the Fals Steward.’ =a.=

Wood, 401, fol. 95 b. =b.= Roxburghe, I, 222; Roxburghe Ballads, ed.

Chappell, II, 55. =c.= Pepys, I, 494, No 254.

Also in the Roxburghe collection, III, 534, without printer’s name;

Ewing, Nos 264, 265; Crawford, No 716. All the broadsides are of the

second half of the seventeenth century.

‘The Lord of Lorne and the false Steward’ was entered, with two other

ballads, to Master Walley, 6 October, 1580; ‘Lord of Lorne’ to Master

Pavier and others (among 128 pieces), 14 December, 1624. Arber, II,

379; IV, 131.[43]

=A.= The young Lord of Lorn, when put to school, learns more in one

day than his mates learn in three. He returns home earlier than was

expected, and delights his father with the information that he can

read any book in Scotland. His father says he must now go to France to

learn the tongues. His mother is anxious that he should have a proper

guardian if he goes, and the ‘child’ proposes the steward, who has

impressed him as a man of fidelity. The Lady of Lorn makes the steward

a handsome present, and conjures him to be true to her son. If I am

not, he answers, may Christ not be true to me. The young lord sails for

France, very richly appointed. Once beyond the water, the steward will

give the child neither penny to spend nor meat and drink. The child

is forced to lie down at some piece of water to quench his thirst;

the steward pushes him in, meaning to drown him. The child offers

everything for his life; the steward pulls him out, makes him put off

all his fine clothes and don a suit of leather, and sends him to shift

for himself, under the name of Poor Disaware. A shepherd takes him in,

and he tends sheep on a lonely lea.

The steward sells the child’s clothes, buys himself a suit fit for

a lord, and goes a-wooing to the Duke of France’s daughter, calling

himself the Lord of Lorn; the duke favors the suit, and the lady is

content. The day after their betrothal, the lady, while riding out,

sees the child tending his sheep, and hears him mourning. She sends a

maid to bring him to her, and asks him questions, which he answers,

not without tears. He was born in Scotland, his name is Poor Disaware;

he knows the Lord of Lorn, a worthy lord in his own country. The

lady invites him to leave his sheep, and take service with her as

chamberlain; the child is willing, but her father objects that the lord

who has come a-wooing may not like that arrangement. The steward comes

upon the scene, and is angry to find the child in such company. When

the child gives his name as Poor Disaware, the steward denounces him as

a thief who had robbed his own father; but the duke speaks kindly to

the boy, and makes him his stable-groom. One day, when he is watering

a gelding, the horse flings up his head and hits the child above the

eye. The child breaks out, Woe worth thee, gelding! thou hast stricken

the Lord of Lorn. I was born a lord and shall be an earl; my father

sent me over the sea, and the false steward has beguiled me. The lady

happens to be walking in her garden, and hears something of this; she

bids the child go on with his song; this he may not do, for he has

been sworn to silence. Then sing to thy gelding, and not to me, she

says. The child repeats his story, and adds that the steward has been

deceiving both her and him for a twelvemonth. The lady declares that

she will marry no man but him that stands before her, sends in haste to

her father to have her wedding put off, and writes an account of the

steward’s treachery to the old lord in Scotland. The old lord collects

five hundred friends of high degree, and goes over to France in search

of his son. They find him acting as porter at the duke’s palace. The

men of worship bow, the serving-men kneel, the old lord lights from his

horse and kisses his son. The steward is just then in a castle-top with

the duke, and sees what is going on below. Why are those fools showing

such courtesy to the porter? The duke fears that this means death for

one of them. The castle is beset; the steward is captured, is tried by

a quest of lords and brought in guilty, is hanged, quartered, boiled,

and burned. The young Lord of Lorne is married to the duke’s daughter.

=B.= =B= is an abridgment of an older copy. The story is the same as

in =A= in all material particulars. The admiration of the schoolmaster

and the self-complacency of his pupil in =A= 2, 3, =B= 3, are better

justified in =B= by a stanza which has perhaps dropped out of =A=:

There’s nere a doctor in all this realm,

For all he goes in rich array,

[But] I can write him a lesson soon

To learn in seven years day.

The last six stanzas are not represented in =A=, and the last two are

glaringly modern; but there is a foundation for 62-64 in a romance from

which the story is partly taken, the History of Roswall and Lillian.[44]

‘Roswall and Lillian.’ Roswall was son to the king of Naples.

Happening one day to be near a prison, he heard three lords, who had

been in durance many years for treason, putting up their prayers for

deliverance. He was greatly moved, and resolved to help them out. The

prison-keys were always hidden for the night under the king’s pillow.

Roswall possessed himself of them while his father was sleeping, set

the lords free, and replaced the keys. The escape of the prisoners

was reported the next morning, and the king made a vow that whoever

had been instrumental to it should be hanged; if he came within the

king’s sight, the king would even slay him with his own hands. It soon

came to light that the guilty party was none other than the prince.

The queen interceded for her son, but the king could not altogether

disregard his vow: the prince must be kept out of his sight, and the

king promptly decided that Roswall should be sent to reside with the

king of Bealm, under charge of the steward, a stalwart knight, to

whom the queen promised everything for good service. As the pair rode

on their way, they came to a river. The prince was sore athirst, and

dismounted to take a drink. The steward seized him by the feet as he

bent over the water, and vowed to throw him in unless he would swear an

oath to surrender his money and credentials, and become servant where

he had been master. To these hard terms Roswall was forced to consign.

When they were near the king of Bealm’s palace, the steward dropped

Roswall’s company, leaving him without a penny to buy his dinner; then

rode to the king, presented letters, and was well received. Roswall

went to a little house hard by, and begged for harbor and victuals

for a day. The mistress made him welcome. She saw he was from a far

country, and asked his name. Dissawar was his name; a poor name, said

the old wife, but Dissawar you shall not be, for I will help you. The

next day Roswall was sent to school with the dame’s son. He gave his

name as Dissawar again to the master; the master said he should want

neither meat nor teaching. Roswall had been a remarkable scholar at

home. Without doubt he astonished the master, but this is not said, for

the story has been abridged here and elsewhere. In about a month, the

steward of the king of Bealm, who had observed his beauty, courtesy,

and good parts, carried him to the court of Bealm, where Roswall made

himself a general favorite. The princess Lillian, only child of the

king of Bealm, chose him to be her chamberlain, fell in love with him,

and frankly offered him her heart, an offer which Roswall, professing

always to be of low degree, gratefully accepted.

At this juncture the king of Bealm sent messengers to Naples proposing

marriage between his daughter Lillian and the young prince who had

been commended to him. The king of Naples assented to the alliance,

and deputed lords and knights to represent him at the solemnity.

The king of Bealm proclaimed a joust for the three days immediately

preceding the wedding. Lillian’s heart was cold, for she loved none

but Dissawar. She told Dissawar that he must joust for his lady; but

he said that he had not been bred to such things, and would rather go

a-hunting. A-hunting he went, but before he got to work there came a

knight in white weed on a white steed, who enjoined him to take horse

and armor and go to the jousting, promising that he should find plenty

of venison when he came back. Roswall toomed many a saddle, turned the

steward’s heels upward, made his way back to the wood, in spite of the

king’s order that he should be stopped, resumed his hunting-gear, took

the venison, which, according to promise, was waiting for him, and

presented himself and it to his lady. The order is much the same on

the two succeeding days. A red knight equips Roswall for the joust on

the second day, a knight in gold on the third. The steward is, on each

occasion, put to shame, and in the last encounter two of his ribs are

broken.

When Roswall came back to the wood after the third jousting, the three

knights appeared together and informed him that they were the men

whom he had delivered from prison, and who had promised to help him

if help he ever needed. They bade him have no fear of the steward.

Lillian had suspected from the second day that the victor was Roswall,

and when he returned to her from his third triumph she intimated that

if he would but tell the whole truth to her father their mutual wish

would be accomplished. But Roswall kept his counsel--very whimsically,

unless it was out of respect to his oath--and Lillian was constrained

to speak for herself, for the marriage was to be celebrated on the

fourth day. She asked her father in plain terms to give her Dissawar

for her husband. The king replied, not unkindly, that she could not

marry below her rank, and therefore must take the prince who had been

selected for her; and to the steward she was married, however sorely

against her will. In the course of the wedding-dinner, the three

Neapolitan lords entered the hall, and saluted the king, the queen, and

Lillian, but not the bridegroom. The king asked why they did no homage

to their prince; they replied that they did not see their prince, went

in search of Roswall, and brought him in. The force of the oath, or

the consciousness of an obligation, must have been by this time quite

extinct, for Roswall divulged the steward’s treacherous behavior, and

announced himself as the victor at the jousts. The steward was hanged

that same day; then they passed to the kirk and married Roswall and

Lillian. There was dancing till supper and after supper, the minstrels

played with good will, and the bridal was kept up for twenty days.

Roswall and Lillian belongs with a group of popular tales of which

the original seems to have been characterized by all or many of the

following marks: (1) the son of a king liberates a man whom his father

has imprisoned; (2) the penalty for so doing is death, and to save his

life the prince is sent out of the country, attended by a servant; (3)

the servant forces the prince to change places and clothes with him;

(4) presents himself at a king’s court as prince, and in his assumed

quality is in a fair way to secure the hand of the king’s daughter;

(5) the true prince, figuring the while as a menial (stable-groom,

scullion, gardener’s lad), is successful, by the help of the man whom

he has liberated, in a thrice-repeated contention (battle, tourney,

race), or task, after which he is in a position to make known his rank

and history; (6) the impostor is put to death, and the prince (who has,

perhaps, in his humbler capacity, already attracted her notice and

regard) marries the princess.[45]

Two Slavic tales, a Bosnian and a Russian, come as near as any to the

story of our romance.

A king who has caught a wild man shuts him up, and denounces death to

any one that shall let him out. The king’s son’s bedroom is just over

the place in which the wild man is confined. The prince cannot bear to

hear the continual wailings which come up, and he sets the prisoner

free. The prince confesses what he has done; the king is persuaded

by his advisers to banish his son rather than to enforce the penalty

which he had decreed; the prince is sent off to a distant kingdom,

attended by a servant. One day the prince was seized with thirst

while travelling, and wished to get a drink from a well; but there

was nothing to draw water with, and he ordered his servant to let him

down to the surface of the water, holding him the while by the legs.

This was done; but when the prince had drunk to his satisfaction, the

servant refused to draw him up until he had consented to change places

and clothes, and had sworn besides to keep the matter secret. When

they arrived at the court of the king designated by the father, the

sham prince was received with royal honors, and the true prince had to

consort with servants.... After a time, the king, wishing to marry off

his daughter, proclaimed a three days’ race, open to all comers, the

prize to be a golden apple, and any competitor who should win the apple

each of the three days to have the princess. Our prince had fallen in

love with the young lady, and was most desirous to contend. The wild

man had already helped him in emergencies here passed over, and did

not fail him now. He provided his deliverer with fine clothes and a

fine horse. The prince carried off the apple at each of the races, but

disappeared as soon as he had the prize in hand. All the efforts of

the king to find out the victor were to no purpose, but one day the

princess met the prince in his serving-man’s dress, and saw the apples

shining from his breast. She told her father. The prince did not feel

himself bound to further secrecy; he told everything; the king gave him

the princess, and the servant was properly disposed of.[46]

Ivan, the tsar’s son, releases from confinement Bulat, a robber, whom

the tsar has kept in prison three and thirty years. Bulat tells Ivan

to call him by name in case of future need, and he will not fail to

appear. Ivan travels in foreign countries with his servant, and feeling

thirsty of a warm day tells his servant to get him water from a deep

well to which they have come; Ivan will hold him by a rope tied firmly

about him, so that he can go down into the well without danger. The

servant represents that he is the heavier of the two, too heavy for

his master to hold, and that for this reason it would be better for

Ivan himself to go for the water. Ivan is let down into the well, and

having drunk his fill calls to his servant to draw him up. The servant

refuses to draw him up unless Ivan will swear to give him a certificate

in writing that he is master, and Ivan servant. The paper is given;

they change clothes, and proceed on their journey, and come to Tsar

Pantui’s kingdom. Here the servant is received as a tsar’s son, and

when he tells Tsar Pantui that the object of his coming is to woo his

daughter, the tsar complies with much pleasure. Ivan, at the servant’s

suggestion, is put to low work in the kitchen. Before long the kingdom

is invaded, and the tsar calls upon his prospective son-in-law to drive

off the enemy, for which service he shall receive the princess, but

without it, not. The false Ivan begs the true Ivan to take the invaders

in hand, and he assents without a word. Ivan calls for Bulat: one

attacks the hostile army on the right, the other on the left, and in an

hour they lay a hundred thousand low. Ivan returns to his kitchen. A

second invasion, and a third, on a larger and larger scale, ensue, and

Ivan and Bulat repulse the enemy with greater and greater loss. Ivan

each time goes back to his kitchen; his servant has all the glory, and

after the third and decisive victory marries the princess. Ivan gets

permission from the cook to be a spectator at the wedding-banquet. The

tsar’s daughter, it must now be observed, had overheard the conference

between the pseudo-prince and Ivan, and even that between Ivan and

Bulat, and had hitherto, for inscrutable reasons, let things take

their course. But when she saw Ivan looking at the feast from behind

other people, she knew him at once, sprang from the table, brought

him forward, and said, This is my real bridegroom and the savior of

the kingdom; after which she entered into a full explanation, with

the result that the servant was shot, and Ivan married to the tsar’s

daughter.[47]

Other tales of the same derivation, but deficient in some points,

are: (=A.=) Radloff, Proben der Volkslitteratur der türkischen Stämme

Süd-Sibiriens, IV, 385, ‘Der Peri.’ (=B.=) Straparola, Piacevoli Notti,

v, 1 (‘Guerrino, son of the king of Sicily’). (=C.=) Grimms, K.- und

Hausmärchen, No 136, II, 242, ed. 1857, ‘Der Eisenhaus.’ (=D.=) Sommer,

Sagen, Märchen und Gebräuche aus Sachsen und Thüringen, p. 86, No 2,

‘Der eiserne Mann.’ (=E.=) Milenowsky, Volksmärchen aus Böhmen, p. 147,

‘Vom wilden Manne.’[48]

(1) The son of a king liberates a prisoner (peri, wild or iron man),

=A-E=. (The keys are under his mother’s pillow, =B=, =C=.) (2) The

prince goes to another kingdom, =A-D= with attendance, =E= without. (3)

His attendant forces the prince to change places and clothes, only =A=.

(Advantage is taken of the helplessness of the hero when let down into

the well to force exchange of parts, in the Servian Tales of Dj. K.

Stefanović, 1871, p. 39, No 7, Jagić, Archiv, I, 271; Meyer, Albanian

Tales, No 13, in Archiv für Litteraturgeschichte, XII, 137; Franzisci,

Cultur-Studien in Kärnten, p. 99, and, nearly the same, Dozon, Contes

Albanais, No 12, p. 83.) (5) The hero, serving as kitchen-boy or

gardener’s lad, =C=, =D=, =E=, defeats an invading army, =C=, =D=, =E=,

wins a prize three successive days, =C=, =E=, is successful in three

tasks, =A=, =B=; and all these feats are performed by the help of the

prisoner whom he set free. The variation of the color of armor and

horses occurs in =C=, =E=, an extremely frequent trait in tales and

romances; see Ward, Catalogue of Romances, etc., 734 f., Lengert, XVII,

361. (Very striking in the matter of the tournaments is the resemblance

of the romance of Ipomedon to Roswall and Lillian. Ipomedon, like

Roswall, professes not to have been accustomed to such things, and

pretends to go a-hunting, is victorious three successive days in a

white, red, black suit, on a white, bay, black steed, vanishes after

the contest, and presently reappears as huntsman, with venison which

a friend had been engaged in securing for him.) (6) The treacherous

attendant is put to death, =A=. The hero of course marries the princess

in all the tales.

The points in the romance which are repeated in the ballad are

principally these: The young hero is sent into a foreign country under

the care of his father’s steward. The steward, by threatening to drown

him while he is drinking at a water-side, forces him to consent to an

exchange of positions, and strips him of his money; then passes himself

off as his master’s son with a noble personage, who eventually fixes

upon the impostor as a match for his only daughter. The young lord,

henceforth known as Dissawar,[49] is in his extremity kindly received

into an humble house, from which he soon passes into the service of the

lady whose hand the steward aspires to gain. The lady bestows her love

upon Dissawar, and he returns her attachment. In the upshot they marry,

the false steward having been unmasked and put to death.

What is supplied in the ballad to make up for such passages in the

romance as are omitted is, however, no less strictly traditional than

that which is retained. Indeed, were it not for the name Dissawar, the

romance might have been plausibly treated, not as the source of the

ballad, but simply as a kindred story; for the exquisite tale of ‘The

Goose Girl’ presents every important feature of ‘The Lord of Lorn,’

the only notable difference being that the young lord in the ballad

exchanges parts with the princess in the tale, an occurrence of which

instances have been, from time to time, already indicated.

In ‘Die Gänsemagd,’ Grimms, No 89, II, 13, ed. 1857, a princess is

sent by her mother to be wedded to a bridegroom in a distant kingdom,

with no escort but a maid. Distressed with thirst, the princess orders

her maid to get down from her horse and fetch her a cup of water

from a stream which they are passing. The maid refuses; she will no

longer be servant, and the princess has to lie down and drink from the

stream. So a second and a third time: and then the servant forces her

mistress, under threat of death, to change horses and clothes, and to

swear to keep the matter secret at the court to which they are bound.

There the maid is received as princess, while the princess is put to

tending geese with a boy. The counterfeit princess, fearing that her

mistress’s horse, Falada, may tell what he has observed, induces the

young prince to cut off Falada’s head. The princess has the head nailed

up on a gate through which she passes when she takes out the geese, and

every morning she addresses Falada with a sad greeting, and receives

a sad return. The goose-boy tells the old king of this, and the next

day the king hides behind the gate and hears what passes between the

goose-girl and Falada. The king asks an explanation of the goose-girl

when she comes back in the evening, but the only answer he elicits

is that she has taken an oath to say nothing. Then the king says, If

you will not tell me your troubles, tell them to the stove; and the

princess creeps into the oven and pours out all her grief: how she, a

king’s daughter, has been made to change places with her servant, and

the servant is to marry the bridegroom, and she reduced to tend geese.

All this the king hears from outside of the room through the stovepipe,

and he loses no time in repeating it to his son. The false maid is

dragged through the streets in a barrel stuck full with nails, and the

princess married to the prince to whom she had been contracted.

The passage in the ballad in which the Lord of Lorn relates to the

gelding, within hearing of the duke’s daughter, the injuries which he

had sworn to conceal has, perhaps, suffered some corruption, though

quibbling as to oaths is not unknown in ballads. The lady should be

believed to be out of earshot, as the king is thought to be by the

goose-girl. Unbosoming one’s self to an oven or stove is a decidedly

popular trait; “the unhappy and the persecuted betake themselves to the

stove, and to it bewail their sufferings, or confide a secret which

they may not disclose to the world.”[50] An entirely similar passage

(but without an oath to secrecy) occurs in Basile’s Pentamerone, II,

8, where a girl who has been shamefully maltreated by her uncle’s wife

tells her very miserable story to a doll, and is accidentally overheard

by the uncle. The conclusion of the tale is quite analogous to that of

the goose-girl.

* * * * *

Percy MS., p. 73, Hales and Furnivall, I, 180.

It was the worthy Lord of Learen,

He was a lord of a hie degree;

He had noe more children but one sonne,

He sett him to schoole to learne curtesie.

Lear[n]ing did soe p_ro_ceed w_i_th that child,

I tell you all in veretie,

He learned more vpon one day

Then other children did on three,

And then bespake the schoole-m_aster_,

Vnto the Lo_rd_ of Learne said hee,

I thinke thou be some stranger borne,

For the holy gost remaines w_i_th thee.

He said, I am noe stranger borne,

Forsooth, m_aster_, I tell it to thee;

It is a gift of Almighty God

W_hi_ch he hath giuen vnto mee.

The schoole-m_aster_ turnd him round about,

His angry mind he thought to asswage,

For the child cold answer him soe quicklie,

And was of soe tender yeere of age.

The child he caused a steed to be brought,

A golden bridle done him vpon;

He tooke his leaue of his schoolfellows,

And home the child that he is gone.

And when he came before his father,

He ffell low downe vpon his knee:

‘My blessing, father, I wold aske,

If Christ wold grant you wold gine it me.’

‘Now God thee blesse, my sonne and my heire,

His servant in heauen _tha_t thou may bee!

What tydings hast thou brought me, child,

Thou art comen home so soone to mee?’

‘Good tydings, father, I haue you brought,

Goo[d tydings] I hope it is to thee;

The booke is not in all S[c]ottlande

But I can reade it before yo_u_r eye.’

A ioyed man his father was,

Euen the worthy Lo_rd_ of Learne:

‘Thou shalt goe into Ffrance, my child,

The speeches of all strange lands to learne.’

But then bespake the child his mother,

The Lady of Learne and then was shee;

Saies, Who must be his well good guide,

When he goes into that strange country?

And then bespake that bonnie child,

Vntill his father tenderlie;

Saies, Father, I’le haue the hend steward,

For he hath beene true to you and mee.

The lady to concell the steward did take,

And counted downe a hundred pound there;

Saies, Steward, be true to my sonne and my heire,

And I will giue thee mickle mere.

‘If I be not true to my m_aster_,’ he said,

‘Christ himselfe be not trew to mee!

If I be not true to my lord and m_aster_,

An ill death _tha_t I may die!’

The Lo_rd_ of Learne did apparell his child

W_i_th bruche, and ringe, and many a thinge;

The apparrell he had his body vppon,

Thé say was worth a squier’s liuinge.

The parting of the younge Lo_rd_ of Learne

W_i_th his ffather, his mother, his ffellows deere,

Wold haue made a manis hart for to change,

If a Iew borne that he were.

The wind did serue, and thé did sayle

Over the sea into Ffrance land;

He vsed the child soe hardlie,

He wold let him haue neuer a penny to spend.

And meate he wold let the child haue none,

Nor mony to buy none, trulie;

The boy was hungry and thirsty both;

Alas! it was the more pitty.

He laid him downe to drinke the water

_Tha_t was soe low beneathe the brime;

He [that] was wont to haue drunke both ale and wine

Then was faine of the water soe thinne.

And as he was drinking of the water

_Tha_t ran soe low beneath the brime,

Soe ready was the false steward

To drowne the bonny boy therin.

‘Haue mercy on me, worthy steward!

My life,’ he said, ‘lend it to mee,

And all _tha_t I am heire vpon,’

Saies, ‘I will giue vnto thee.’

Mercy to him the steward did take,

And pulld the child out of the brime;

Euer alacke, the more pittye!

He tooke his clothes euen from him.

Saies, Doe thou me of that veluett gowne,

The crimson hose beneath thy knee,

And doe me of thy cordiuant shoone,

Are buckled w_i_th the gold soe free.

‘Doe thou me off thy sattin doublett,

Thy shirtband wrought w_i_th glistering gold,

And doe mee off thy golden chaine,

About thy necke soe many a fold.

‘Doe thou me off thy veluett hat,

W_i_th fether in _tha_t is soe ffine;

All vnto thy silken shirt,

_Tha_t’s wrought with many a golden seam.’

The child before him naked stood,

W_i_th skin as white as lilly flower;

For [t]his worthy lords bewtie

He might haue beene a ladye’s paramoure.

He put vpon him a lether cote,

And breeches of the same beneath the knee,

And sent that bony child him froe,

Service for to craue, truly.

He pulld then forth a naked sword

_Tha_t hange full low then by his side;

‘Turne thy name, thou villaine,’ he said,

‘Or else this sword shall be thy guide.’

‘What must be my name, worthy steward?

I pray thee now tell it me:’

‘Thy name shalbe Pore Disaware,

To tend sheepe on a lonelye lee.’

The bonny child he went him froe,

And looked to himselfe, truly;

Saw his apparrell soe simple vppon;

O Lo_rd_! he weeped tenderlye.

Vnto a shepard’s house _tha_t childe did goe,

And said, S_i_r, God you saue and see!

Doe you not want a servant-boy,

To tend yo_u_r sheepe on a lonelie lee?

‘Where was thou borne?’ the shepard said,

‘Where, my boy, or in what country?’

‘S_i_r,’ he said, ‘I was borne in fayre Scottland,

_Tha_t is soe farr beyond the sea.’

‘I haue noe child,’ the shepard sayd;

‘My boy, thoust tarry and dwell w_i_th mee;

My liuinge,’ he sayd, ‘and all my goods,

I’le make thee heire [of] after mee.’

And then bespake the shepard’s wife,

To the Lo_rd_ of Learne thus did she say;

‘Goe thy way to our sheepe,’ she said,

‘And tend them well both night and day.’

It was a sore office, O Lo_rd_, for him

_Tha_t was a lord borne of a great degree!

As he was tending his sheepe alone,

Neither sport nor play cold hee.

Let vs leaue talking of the Lo_rd_ of Learne,

And let all such talking goe;

Let vs talke more of the false steward,

That caused the child all this woe.

He sold this Lo_rd_ of Learne’s his clothes

For fiue hundred pound to his pay [there],

And bought himselfe a suite of apparrell

Might well beseeme a lo_rd_ to weare.

When he _tha_t gorgeous apparrell bought,

That did soe finelie his body vppon,

He laughed the bony child to scorne

_Tha_t was the bonny Lo_rd_ of Learne.

He laughed _tha_t bonny boy to scorne;

Lo_rd_! pitty it was to heare;

I haue herd them say, and soe haue you too,

_Tha_t a man may buy gold to deere.

When _tha_t he had all _tha_t gorgeous apparrell,

_Tha_t did soe finelie his body vpon,

He went a woing to the Duke’s daughter of France,

And called himselfe the Lo_rd_ of Learne.

The Duke of Ffrance heard tell of this,

To his place _tha_t worthy lo_rd_ was come, truly;

He entertaind him w_i_th a quart of red Renish wi[ne],

Saies, Lo_rd_ of Learne, thou art welcome to me.

Then to supp_er_ that they were sett,

Lords and ladyes in their degree;

The steward was sett next the Duke of France;

An vnseemlye sight it was to see.

Then bespake the Duke of Ffrance,

Vnto the Lo_rd_ of Leearne said hee there,

Sayes, Lo_rd_ of Learne, if thou’le marry my daught[er],

I’le mend thy liuing fiue hundred pound a yeere.

Then bespake _tha_t lady fayre,

Answered her ffather soe alone,

That shee would be his marryed wiffe

If he wold make her lady of Learne.

Then hand in hand the steward her he tooke,

And plight _tha_t lady his troth alone,

_Tha_t she shold be his marryed wiffe,

And he wold make her the ladie of Learne.

Thus _tha_t night it was gone,

The other day was come, truly;

The lady wold see the robucke run,

Vp hills and dales and forrest free.

Then shee was ware of the younge Lo_rd_ of Learne

Tending sheepe vnder a bryar, trulye,

. . . . . . . .

And thus shee called vnto her maids,

And held her hands vp thus an hie;

Sayes, Feitch me yond shepard’s boy,

I’le know why he doth mourne, trulye.

When he came before _tha_t lady fayer,

He fell downe vpon his knee;

He had beene so well brought vpp

He needed not to learne curtesie.

‘Where wast thou borne, thou bonny boy?

Where or in what countrye?’

‘Madam, I was borne in faire Scottland,

_Tha_t is soe farr beyond the sea.’

‘What is thy name, thou bonny boy?

I pray thee tell it vnto mee;’

‘My name,’ he sayes, ‘is Poore Disaware,

That tends sheepe on a lonely lee.’

‘One thing thou must tell mee, bonny boy,

W_hi_ch I must needs aske of thee,

Dost not thou know the young Lo_rd_ of Learne?

He is comen a woing into France to me.’

‘Yes, _tha_t I doe, madam,’ he said,

And then he wept most tenderlie;

‘The Lo_rd_ of Learne is a worthy lo_rd_,

If he were at home in his oune country.’

‘What ayles thee to weepe, my bonny boy?

Tell me or ere I part thee froe:’

‘Nothing but for a friend, madam,

_Tha_t’s dead from me many a yeere agoe.’

A loud laughter the ladie lought,

O Lo_rd_! shee smiled wonderous hie:

‘I haue dwelled in France since I was borne;

Such a shepard’s boy I did neuer see.

‘Wilt thou not leaue thy sheepe, my child,

And come vnto service vnto mee?

And I will giue thee meate and fee,

And my chamberlaine thou shalt bee.’

‘Then I will leaue my sheepe, madam,’ he sayd,

‘And come into service vnto thee,

If you will giue me meate and fee,

Yo_u_r chamberlaine _tha_t I may bee.’

When the lady came before her father,

Shee fell low downe vpon her knee;

‘Grant me, father,’ the lady said,

‘This boy my chamberlaine to be.’

‘But O nay, nay,’ the duke did say,

‘Soe my daughter it may not bee;

The lo_rd_ _tha_t is come a woing to you

Will be offended w_i_th you and mee.’

Then came downe the false steward,

W_hi_ch called himselfe the Lo_rd_ of Learne, trulie;

When he looked that bonny boy vpon,

An angry man i-wis was hee.

‘Where was thou borne, thou vagabond?

Where?’ he sayd, ‘and in what country?’

Says, I was borne in fayre Scotland,

_Tha_t is soe far beyond the sea.

‘What is thy name, thou vagabond?

Haue done qu[i]cklie, and tell it to me;’

‘My name,’ he sayes, ‘is Poore Disaware,

I tend sheep on the lonelie lee.’

‘Thou art a theefe,’ the steward said,

‘And soe in the end I will prooue thee;’

. . . . . . . .

Then be-spake the ladie fayre,

‘Peace, Lord of Learne! I doe pray thee;

Ffor if noe loue you show this child,

Noe favor can you haue of mee.’

‘Will you beleeue me, lady faire,

When the truth I doe tell yee?

Att Aberdonie, beyond the sea,

His father he robbed a hundred three.’

But then bespake the Duke of France

Vnto the boy soe tenderlie;

Saies, Boy, if thou loue harsses well,

My stable-groome I will make thee.

And thus _tha_t _tha_t did passe vppon

Till the twelve monthes did draw to an ende;

The boy applyed his office soe well

Euery man became his freind.

He went forth earlye one morning

To water a gelding at the water soe free;

The gelding vp, and with his head

He hitt the child aboue his eye.

‘Woe be to thee, thou gelding,’ he sayd,

‘And to the mare _tha_t foled thee!

Thou hast striken the Lo_rd_ of Learne

A litle tinye aboue the eye.

‘First night after I was borne, a lo_rd_ I was,

An earle after my father doth die;

My father is the worthy Lo_rd_ of Learne,

And child he hath noe more but mee;

He sent me over the sea with the false steward,

And thus that he hath beguiled mee.’

The lady [wa]s in her garden greene,

Walking with her mayds, trulye,

And heard the boy this mourning make,

And went to weeping, trulie.

‘Sing on thy song, thou stable groome,

I pray thee doe not let for mee,

And as I am a true ladie

I wilbe trew vnto thee.’

‘But nay, now nay, madam!’ he sayd,

‘Soe _tha_t it may not bee;

I am tane sworne vpon a booke,

And forsworne I will not bee.’

‘Sing on thy song to thy gelding,

And thou doest not sing to mee;

And as I am a true ladie

I will euer be true vnto thee.’

He sayd, Woe be to thee, gelding,

And to the mare _tha_t foled thee!

For thou hast strucken the Lo_rd_ of Learne

A litle aboue mine eye.

First night I was borne, a lord I was,

An earle after my father doth dye;

My father is the good Lo_rd_ of Learne,

And child he hath noe other but mee;

My father sent me over [the sea] w_i_th the false steward,

And thus _tha_t he hath beguiled mee.

‘Woe be to the steward, lady,’ he sayd,

‘Woe be to him verrily!

He hath beene about this twelve months day

For to deceiue both thee and mee.

‘If you doe not my councell keepe,

_Tha_t I haue told you w_i_th good intent,

And if you doe it not well keepe,

Ffarwell! my life is at an ende.’

‘I wilbe true to thee, Lo_rd_ of Learne,

Or else Christ be not soe vnto me;

And as I am a trew ladye,

I’le neuer marry none but thee.’

Shee sent in for her father, the Duke,

In all the speed _tha_t ere might bee;

‘Put of my wedding, father,’ shee said,

‘For the loue of God, this monthës three.

‘Sicke I am,’ the ladye said,

‘O sicke, and verry like to die!

Put of my wedding, father Duke,

Ffor the loue of God, this monthës three.’

The Duke of France put of this wedding

Of the steward and the lady monthës three,

For the ladie sicke shee was,

Sicke, sicke, and like to die.

Shee wrote a letter w_i_th her owne hand,

In all the speede _tha_t euer might bee;

Shee sent [it] over into Scottland,

_Tha_t is soe ffarr beyond the sea.

When the messenger came beffore the old Lo_rd_ of Learne,

He kneeled low downe on his knee,

And he deliuered the letter vnto him,

In all the speed _tha_t euer might bee.

[The] first looke he looked the letter vpon,

Lo! he wept full bitterly;

The second looke he looked it vpon,

Said, False steward, woe be to thee!

When the Ladye of Learne these tydings heard,

O Lo_rd_! shee wept soe biterlye:

‘I told you of this, now good my lord,

When I sent my child into that wild country.’

‘Peace, Lady of Learne,’ the lord did say,

‘For Christ his loue I doe pray thee;

And as I am a christian man,

Wroken vpon him _tha_t I wilbe.’

He wrote a letter w_i_th his owne hand,

In all the speede _tha_t ere might bee;

He sent it into the lords in Scottland,

_Tha_t were borne of a great degree.

He sent for lords, he sent for k_nigh_ts,

_Th_e best that were in the countrye,

To go w_i_th him into the land of France,

To seeke his sonne in _tha_t strange country.

The wind was good, and they did sayle,

Fiue hundred men into France land,

There to seeke _tha_t bonny boy

_Tha_t was the worthy Lo_rd_ of Learne.

They sought the country through and through,

Soe farr to the Duke’s place of Ffrance land;

There they were ware of _tha_t bonny boy,

Standing w_i_th a porter’s staffe in his hand.

Then the worshippfull, thé did bowe,

The serving-men fell on their knee,

They cast their hatts vp into the ayre

For ioy _tha_t boy _tha_t they had seene.

The Lo_rd_ of Learne then he light downe,

And kist his child both cheeke and chinne,

And said, God blesse thee, my sonne and my heire!

The blisse of heauen _tha_t thou may winne!

The false steward and the Duke of France

Were in a castle-topp, trulie;

‘What fooles are yond,’ says the false steward,

‘To the porter makes soe lowe curtesie?’

Then bespake the Duke of Ffrance,

Calling my Lo_rd_ of Learne, trulie;

He sayd, I doubt the day be come

_Tha_t either you or I must die.

Thé sett the castle round about,

A swallow cold not haue flone away;

And there thé tooke the false steward

That the Lo_rd_ of Learne did betray.

And when they had taken the false steward,

He fell lowe downe vpon his knee,

And craued mercy of the Lo_rd_ of Learne

For the villanous dedd he had done, trulye.

‘Thou shalt haue mercy,’ said the Lo_rd_ of Learne,

‘Thou vile traitor, I tell to thee,

As the lawes of the realme they will thee beare,

Wether it bee for thee to liue or dye.’

A quest of lords _tha_t there was chosen,

To goe vppon his death, trulie;

There thé iudged the false steward,

Whether he was guiltie, and for to dye.

100

The forman of the iury he came in,

He spake his words full lowd and hie;

Said, Make thee ready, thou false steward,

For now thy death it drawes full nie.

101

Sayd he, If my death it doth draw nie,

God forgiue me all I haue done amisse!

Where is _tha_t lady I haue loued soe longe?

Before my death to giue me a kisse.

102

‘Away, thou traitor!’ the lady said,

‘Auoyd out of my company!

For thy vild treason thou hast wrought,

Thou had need to cry to God for mercye.’

103

First they tooke him and h[a]ngd him halfe,

And let him downe before he was dead,

And quartered him in quarters many,

And sodde him in a boyling lead.

104

And then they tooke him out againe,

And cutten all his ioynts in sunder,

And burnte him eke vpon a hyll;

I-wis thé did him curstlye cumber.

105

A loud laughter the lady laught,

O Lord! she smiled merrylie;

She sayd, I may praise my heauenly k_ing_

That euer I seene this vile traytor die.

106

Then bespake the Duke of France,

Vnto the right Lo_rd_ of Learne sayd he there;

Says, Lo_rd_ of Learne, if thou wilt marry my daught[er]

I’le mend thy liuing fiue hundred a yeere.

107

But then bespake _tha_t bonie boy,

And answered the Duke quicklie,

I had rather marry yo_u_r daughter w_i_th a ring of go[ld]

Then all the gold _tha_t ere I blinket on w_i_th mine eye.

108

But then bespake the old Lo_rd_ of Learne,

To the Duke of France thus he did say,

Seeing our children doe soe well agree,

They shalbe marryed ere wee goe away.

109

The Lady of Learne shee was sent for

Throughout Scottland soe speedilie,

To see these two children sett vpp

In their seats of gold full royallye.

=a.= Wood, 401, fol. 95 b. =b.= Roxburghe, I, 222, III, 534; Roxburghe

Ballads, ed. Chappell, II, 55. =c.= Pepys, I, 494, No 254 (from a

transcript in Percy’s papers).

It was a worthy Lord of Lorn,

He was a lord of high degree,

He sent [his son] unto the schoole,

To learn some civility.

He learned more learning in one day

Then other children did in three;

And then bespake the schoolmaster

Unto him tenderly.

‘In faith thou art the honestest boy

That ere I blinkt on with mine eye;

I hope thou art some easterling born,

The Holy Ghost is with thee.’

He said he was no easterling born,

The child thus answered courteously;

My father is the Lord of Lorn,

And I his son, perdye.

The schoolmaster turned round about,

His angry mood he could not swage;

He marvelled the child could speak so wise,

He being of so tender age.

He girt the saddle to the steed,

The bridle of the best gold shone;

He took his leave of his fellows all,

And quickly he was gone.

And when he came to his father dear

He kneeled down upon his knee;

‘I am come to you, fathe[r],’ he said,

‘God’s blessing give you me.’

‘Thou art welcome, son,’ he said,

‘God’s blessing I give thee;

What tidings hast thou brought, my son,

Being come so hastily?’

‘I have brought tidings, father,’ he said,

‘And so likëd it may be,

There’s never a book in all Scotland

But I can read it, truly.

‘There’s nere a doctor in all this realm,

For all he goes in rich array,

I can write him a lesson soon

To learn in seven years day.’

‘That is good tidings,’ said the lord,

‘All in the place where I do stand;

My son, thou shalt into France go,

To learn the speeches of each land.’

‘Who shall go with him?’ said the lady;

‘Husband, we have no more but he;’

‘Madam,’ he saith, ‘my head steward,

He hath bin true to me.’

She cal’d the steward to an account,

A thousand pound she gave him anon;

Sayes, Good Sir Steward, be as good to my child,

When he is far from home.

‘If I be fals unto my young lord,

Then God be [the] like to me indeed!’

And now to France they both are gone,

And God be their good speed.

They had not been in France land

Not three weeks unto an end,

But meat and drink the child got none,

Nor mony in purse to spend.

The child ran to the river’s side;

He was fain to drink water then;

And after followed the fals steward,

To put the child therein.

‘But nay, marry!’ said the child,

He asked mercy pittifully,

‘Good steward, let me have my life,

What ere betide my body.’

‘Now put off thy fair cloathing

And give it me anon;

So put thee of thy s’lken shirt,

With many a golden seam.’

But when the child was stript naked,

His body white as the lilly-flower,

He might have bin seen for his body

A prince’s paramour.

He put him in an old kelter coat

And hose of the same above the knee,

He bid him go to the shepherd’s house,

To keep sheep on a lonely lee.

The child did say, What shall be my name?

Good steward, tell to me;

‘Thy name shall be Poor Disawear,

That thy name shall be.’

The child came to the shepheard’s house

And asked mercy pittifully;

Sayes, Good sir shepheard, take me in,

To keep sheep on a lonely lee.

But when the shepheard saw the child,

He was so pleasant in his eye,

‘I have no child, I’le make thee my heir,

Thou shalt have my goods, perdie.’

And then bespake the shepheard’s wife,

Unto the child so tenderly;

‘Thou must take the sheep and go to the field,

And keep them on a lonely lee.’

Now let us leave talk of the child,

That is keeping sheep on a lonely lee,

And we’l talk more of the fals steward,

And of his fals treachery.

He bought himself three suits of apparrell,

That any lord might a seem[d] to worn,

He went a wooing to the Duke’s daughter,

And cal’d himself the Lord of Lorn.

The duke he welcomed the yong lord

With three baked stags anon;

If he had wist him the fals steward,

To the devill he would have gone.

But when they were at supper set,

With dainty delicates that was there,

The d[uke] said, If thou wilt wed my daughter,

I’le give thee a thousand pound a year.

The lady would see the red buck run,

And also for to hunt the doe,

And with a hundred lusty men

The lady did a hunting go.

The lady is a hunting gon,

Over le and fell that is so high;

There was she ware of a shepherd’s boy,

With sheep on a lonely lee.

And ever he sighed and made moan,

And cried out pittifully,

‘My father is the Lord of Lorn,

And knows not wha[t]’s become of me.’

And then bespake the lady gay,

And to her maid she spake anon,

‘Go fetch me hither the shepherd’s boy;

Why maketh he all this moan?’

But when he came before the lady

. . . . . . . .

He was not to learn his courtesie:

‘Where was thou born, thou bonny child?

For whose sake makst thou all this mone?’

‘My dearest friend, lady,’ he said,

‘Is dead many years agon.’

‘Tell thou to me, thou bonny child,

Tell me the truth and do not lye,

Knost thou not the yong lord of Lorn,

Is come a wooing unto me?’

‘Yes, forsooth,’ then said the child,

‘I know the lord then, veryly;

The young lord is a valliant lord

At home in his own country.’

‘Wilt leave thy sheep, thou bonny child,

And come in service unto me?’

‘Yes, forsooth,’ then said the child,

‘At your bidding will I be.’

When the steward lookt upon the child,

He bewraild him villainously:

‘Where wast thou born, thou vagabone?

Or where is thy country?’

‘Ha don! ha don!’ said the lady gay,

She cal’d the steward then presently;

‘Without you bear him more good will,

You get no love of me.’

Then bespake the false steward

Unto the lady hastily:

‘At Aberdine, beyond the seas,

His father robbëd thousands three.’

But then bespake the lady gay

Unto her father courteously,

Saying, I have found a bonny child

My chamberlain to be.

‘Not so, not so,’ then said the duke,

‘For so it may not be,

For that young L[ord] of Lorn that comes a wooing

Will think somthing of thee and me.’

When the duke had lookt upon the child,

He seemd so pleasant to the eye,

‘Child, because thou lovst horses well,

My groom of stables thou shalt be.’

The child plied the horses well

A twelve month to an end;

He was so courteous and so true

Every man became his fri[e]nd.

He led a fair gelding to the water,

Where he might drink, verily;

The great gelding up with his head

And hit the child above the eye.

‘Wo worth thee, horse!’ then said the child,

‘That ere mare foalëd thee!

Thou little knowst what thou hast done;

Thou hast stricken a lord of high degree.’

The d[uke’s] daughter was in her garden green,

She heard the child make great moan;

She ran to the child all weeping,

And left her maidens all alone.

‘Sing on thy song, thou bonny child,

I will release thee of thy pain;’

‘I have made an oath, lady,’ he said,

‘I dare not tell my tale again.’

‘Tell the horse thy tale, thou bonny child,

And so thy oath shall savëd be;’

But when he told the horse his tale

The lady wept full tenderly.

‘I’le do for thee, my bonny child,

In faith I will do more for thee;

For I will send thy father word,

And he shall come and speak with me.

‘I will do more, my bonny child,

In faith I will do more for thee,

And for thy sake, my bonny child,

I’le put my wedding off months three.’

The lady she did write a letter,

Full pittifully with her own hand,

She sent it to the Lord of Lorn

Whereas he dwelt in fair Scotland.

But when the lord had read the letter

His lady wept most tenderly:

‘I knew what would become of my child

In such a far country.’

The old lord cal’d up his merry men,

And all that he gave cloth and fee,

With seven lords by his side,

And into France rides he.

The wind servd, and they did saile

So far into France land;

They were ware of the Lord of Lorn,

With a porter’s staff in his hand.

The lords they moved hat and hand,

The servingmen fell on their knee;

‘What folks be yonder,’ said the steward,

‘That makes the porter courtesie?’

‘Thou art a false thief,’ said the L[ord] of Lorn,

‘No longer might I bear with thee;

By the law of France thou shalt be ju[d]gd,

Whether it be to live or die.’

A quest of lords there chosen was,

To bench they came hastily,

But when the quest was ended

The fals steward must dye.

First they did him half hang,

And then they took him down anon,

And then put him in boyling lead,

And then was sodden, brest and bone.

And then bespake the Lord of Lorn,

With many other lords mo;

‘Sir Duke, if you be as willing as we,

We’l have a marriage before we go.’

These children both they did rejoyce

To hear the lord his tale so ended;

They had rather to day then to morrow,

So he would not be offended.

But when the wedding ended was

There was delicious dainty cheer;

I’le tell you how long the wedding did last,

Full three quarters of a year.

Such a banquet there was wrought,

The like was never seen;

The king of France brought with him then

A hundred tun of good red wine.

Five set of musitians were to be seen,

That never rested night nor day,

Also Italians there did sing,

Full pleasantly with great joy.

Thus have you heard what troubles great

Unto successive joyes did turn,

And happy news among the rest

Unto the worthy Lord of Lorn.

Let rebels therefore warnëd be

How mischief once they do pretend;

For God may suffer for a time,

But will disclose it in the end.

* * * * *

=A.=

2^4. on 3.

5^4. agee.

9^2. to mee.

10^4. to learne the speeches of all strange lands.

13^2. 100^{li}_{:}.

16^3. ? mams _in MS._ Furnivall.

19^2. brimn.

19^4. thime.

22^3. euen alacke.

24^3. _a long_ s _in the MS. between_ me _and_ off. =F.=

25^2. thats.

25^4. golden swaine. =B.= seam.

35^3. tenting.

36^3. falst.

37^2. 500^{li}_{:}: pay [there]. _Cf._ 43^2, 105^2.

43^4. 500^{l}_{:}.

46^3. rum.

_47^{1, 2}, 48^{1, 2}, make a stanza in the MS., and 52^{3, 4}, 53,

are written together. 47-53 have been arranged upon the supposition

that two verses (about the boy’s mourning) have dropped out after

47^{1, 2}._

48^{1, 2}. _A tag after_ d _in_ maids, hands _may not mean_ s. =F.=

53^4. _One stroke too many for_ oune _in MS._ =F.=

54^1. _One stroke too many for_ bony, _or too few for_ bonny, _in the

MS._ =F.=

60^4. I-wis.

61^1. thou was.

_63^{1, 2}, 64, are written together in the MS._

64^1. he spake.

65^4. 100: 3.

67^2. 12.

69^4. the knee. _Cf. 68^4, 75^4._

70^4. his child. _Cf. 76^4._

74^4. euer. _Either_ ieuer _in MS. or the letter before_ e _crossed

out_. =F.=

_75^{1, 2} are written with 74, 75^{3, 4} with 76^{1, 2}, in the MS._

75^1. to thy.

76^5. _Cf. 70^5._

77^1. to thee.

77^3. beene aboue: 12.

79^2. soe _may be_ true: _half the line is pared away_. =F.=

80^4, 81^4, 82^2. 3.

90^2. 500.

92^2. knees.

92^4. _Perhaps_ did see.

93^2. chime.

93^4. wiine.

95^3. daubt.

98^3. they. _The_ y _is in a modern hand_. =F.=

100^2. hiye.

106^4. 500.

107^4. mine. _One stroke too few in the MS._ =F.=

109^1. They: for sent.

109^3. 2. And _for_ & _always_.

=B.= The tune is Green Sleeves.

=a.= Printed for F. Coles, T. Vere, and W. Gilbertson.

=b.= Printed by and for A. M[ilbourne], and sold by the booksellers of

London.

=c.= Printed for J. Clarke, W. Thackeray, and T. Passinger.

=a, b, c.=

1^3. =b, c.= sent his son.

2^1. =b, c.= learning _wanting_.

2^3. =b, c.= And thus.

2^4. =c.= To him.

3^2. =b, c.= with my.

4^3. =a.= Lord of Lord.

5^2. =b.= he thought to asswage.

5^4. =b.= so tender of.

6^2. =a.= of his (?) gold. =b=, =c=. of the best gold.

7^2. =c.= on his.

7^4. =b.= give to.

8^1. =b=, =c=. my son.

8^2. =c.= I the give.

9^2. =b.= if that well liked.

9^{3,4}. =b=, =c=. _Wanting._

10^1. =b=, =c=. all the.

11^3. =b.= to France.

12^2. =b=, =c=. have none.

12^3. =b.= said he.

13^3. =b=, =c=. as _wanting_.

13^4. =b=, =c=. while he.

14^1. =b.= false to.

14^2. =b.= may God justly punish me indeed. =c.= the like.

15^2. =b=, =c=. to an.

16^1. =b=, =c=. run. =b.= river.

16^2. =b.= the water.

17^4. =b.= eer else.

19^2. =b=, =c=. as white.

19^4. =b.= princess’s.

20^1. =b=, =c=. him on.

20^2. =a.= thee.

20^4. =a.= love lodely: =b.= keep them on a love lovely: =c.= love

lovely.

21^1. =b=, =c=. child said.

21^3. =a=, =b=, =c=. poor dost thou wear. =A.= disaware.

22^3. =b=, =c=. sir _wanting_.

22^4, 24^4, 25^2, 30^4. =a, b, c.= love lovely. =A.= lonelye lee.

_Perhaps_, lone, lone, lee.

23^2. =b, c.= in the.

24^1. =a.= wise. =b=, =c=. bespoke.

24^2. =c.= thee sheep. =b.= to field.

24^4. =a=, =c=. And get. =b.= keep.

25^1. =b=, =c=. talking.

25^3. =c.= we will.

26^2. =b.= a lord. =b=, =c=. have seemd.

27^3. =c.= himself.

27^4. =b=, =c=. he should.

28^2. =b=, =c=. were.

28^3. =b.= you will.

28^4. =b=, =c=. pounds.

29^3. =b=, =c=. an.

30^2. =a=, =c=. Feansell. =b.= feanser.

30^3. =b=, =c=. aware.

31^1. =b.= And often: made great moan.

31^4. =c.= what is.

32^2. =b=, =c=. unto her maid anon.

33^{1, 4}. =a=, =b=, =c=. _Two lines wanting._

34^1. =b.= wast born. =c.= wast thou born.

35^1. =b.= to _wanting_.

35^2. =c.= the _wanting_.

35^4. =b=, =c=. he is.

36^1. =a.= foorsooth. =c.= forsooth saith the.

37^3. =c.= the _wanting_.

38^2. =b=, =c=. bewailed. =c.= villaniously.

38^3. =b=, =c=. vagabond.

39^1. =a=, =b=, =c=. Ha down. =b=, =c=. gay _wanting_.

40^1. =a.= stewardly.

41^1. =c.= than.

42^3. =b.= the Lord. =c.= young =D=.

42^4. =b=, =c=. think no good. =b.= of me nor thee.

43^1. =b.= had _wanting_.

43^2. =b.= in the.

43^4. =b=, =c=. stable.

44^4. =a=, =c=. become. =b.= became.

45^2. =a.= may. =b=, =c=. might.

45^3. =b=, =c=. great _wanting_. =b.= his heel.

46^1. =a.= thou horse. =b.= thee. =c.= the.

46^2. =b=, =c=. ever.

47^1. =a=, =c=. =D.= daughter.

49^1. =a.= Mell: lonny.

49^4. =b=, =c=. wept most.

50^{3, 4}, 51^{1, 2}. =b, c.= _Wanting._

52^1. =b=, =c=. she _wanting_: letter then.

52^4. =a.= dwells. =b=, =c=. dwelt.

54^4. =b.= unto.

55^3. =b.= aware.

56^4. =c.= maketh.

57^1. =b=, =c=. quoth the.

59^2. =b.= they _wanting_.

60^2. =a.= more. =b=, =c=. mo.

61^3. =b=, =c=. than.

62^2. =b=, =c=. delicate, dilicate.

63. =a.= _Before_ 63: Such a banquet there was wrought, the like was

seen I say.

64^1. =a.= fet. =b=, =c=. set.

65^1. =b=, =c=. how troubles.

65^3. =b=, =c=. amongst.

FOOTNOTES:

[43] Edward Guilpin, in his Skialethia, or A Shadow of Truth, 1598, has

this couplet:

Yet like th’ olde ballad of the Lord of Lorne, Whose last line in King

Harrie’s days was borne. Chappell, Popular Music, p. 228.

It is possible that Guilpin meant that the last line (stanza?) showed

the ballad to be of Henry VIII’s time; but he may have meant exactly

what he says, that the last line was of Henry VIII’s time. We do not

know what the last line of the copy intended by Guilpin was, and all

we learn from the couplet is that ‘The Lord of Lorn’ was called an old

ballad before the end of the sixteenth century.

[44] ‘A Pleasant History of Roswall and Lillian,’ etc., Edinburgh,

1663, reprint by David Laing, Edinburgh, 1822. Edited, with collation

of the later texts and valuable contributions to the traditional

history of the tale, by O. Lengert, Englische Studien, XVI, 321 ff.,

XVII, 341 ff.

[45] The Grimms have indicated some of the tales belonging to this

group, in their notes to No 136 and No 89. Others have been added by

Lengert in Englische Studien. A second group, which has several of the

marks of the first, is treated by Köhler, with his usual amplitude,

in Archiv für Litteraturgeschichte, XII, 142-44. Abstracts of many

tales of both groups, including all that I have cited, are given by

Lengert.--See further in Additions, p. 280 f.

[46] ‘Kraljev sin,’ ‘The King’s Son,’ Bosanske narodne pripovjedke,

1870, No 4, p. 11, Serbian Folk-Lore, Madam Csedomille Mijatovies, ‘One

good turn deserves another,’ p. 189.

[47] Dietrich, Russische Volksmärchen, No 10, p. 131; Vogl, Die

ältesten Volksmärchen der Russen, p. 55. ‘Sługobyl,’ Gliński, Bajarz

polski, I, 166, ed. 1862, Chodzko, Contes des paysans et des patres

slaves, p. 193, is an abridged form of the same story, with a

traditional variation at the beginning, and in the conclusion a quite

too ingenious turn as to the certificate.

[48] Also, Waldau, Böhmisches Märchenbuch, p. 50, after Franz Rubeš.

[49] I can make no guess that I am willing to mention as to the

derivation and meaning of Dissawar. The old woman in the romance, v.

249 ff., says, ‘Dissawar is a poor name, yet Dissawar you shall not be,

for good help you shall have;’ and the schoolmaster, v. 283 ff., says,

‘Dissawar, thou shalt want neither meat nor laire.’ It would seem that

they understood the word to mean, “in want.” Some predecessor of the

romance may by and by be recovered which shall put the meaning beyond

doubt.

[50] Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, 1875, I, 523 and note. “In 1585, a

man that had been robbed, and had sworn silence, told his story to a

stove in a tavern.” A boy who has come to knowledge of a plot, and has

been sworn to secrecy on pain of death, unburdens his mind to a stove.

Grimm, Deutsche Sagen, No 513, II, 231.

272

THE SUFFOLK MIRACLE

‘The Suffolk Miracle.’ =a.= Wood, E. 25, fol. 83. =b.= Roxburghe, II,

240; Moore’s Pictorial Book of Ancient Ballad Poetry, p. 463.

Also Pepys, III, 332, No 328; Crawford, No 1363; Old Ballads, 1723, I,

266.

A young man loved a farmer’s daughter, and his love was returned. The

girl’s father sent her to his brother’s, forty miles off, to stay till

she should change her mind. The man died. A month after, he appeared

at the uncle’s at midnight, and, as he came on her father’s horse and

brought with him her mother’s travelling gear, he was allowed to take

the girl away with him. As they rode, he complained of headache, and

the girl bound her handkerchief about his head; he was cold as clay.

In two hours they were at her father’s door. The man went to put up

the horse, as he said, but no more was seen of him. The girl knocked,

and her father came down, much astonished to see her, and still more

astonished when she asked if her lover, known by the father to be dead,

had not been sent to bring her. The father went to the stable, where

the girl said the man would be; there was nobody there, but the horse

was found to be ‘all on a sweat.’ After conferences, the grave was

opened, and the kerchief was found about the head of the mouldering

body. This was told to the girl, and she died shortly after.

This piece could not be admitted here on its own merits. At the first

look, it would be classed with the vulgar prodigies printed for

hawkers to sell and for Mopsa and Dorcas to buy. It is not even a good

specimen of its kind. Ghosts should have a fair reason for walking,

and a quite particular reason for riding. In popular fictions, the

motive for their leaving the grave is to ask back plighted troth, to

be relieved from the inconveniences caused by the excessive grief of

the living, to put a stop to the abuse of children by stepmothers, to

repair an injustice done in the flesh, to fulfil a promise; at the

least, to announce the visitant’s death. One would not be captious with

the restlessness of defeated love, but what object is there in this

young man’s rising from the grave to take his love from her uncle’s to

her father’s house? And what sense is there in his headache?

I have printed this ballad because, in a blurred, enfeebled, and

disfigured shape, it is the representative in England of one of the

most remarkable tales and one of the most impressive and beautiful

ballads of the European continent. The relationship is put beyond doubt

by the existence of a story in Cornwall which comes much nearer to the

Continental tale.[51]

Long, long ago, Frank, a farmer’s son, was in love with Nancy, a very

attractive girl, who lived in the condition of a superior servant in

his mother’s house. Frank’s parents opposed their matching, and sent

the girl home to her mother; but the young pair continued to meet, and

they bound themselves to each other for life or for death. To part them

effectually, Frank was shipped for an India voyage. He could not write,

and nothing was heard of him for nearly three years. On All-hallows-Eve

Nancy went out with two companions to sow hemp-seed. Nancy began the

rite, saying:

Hemp-seed, I sow thee,

Hemp-seed, grow thee!

And he who will my true-love be

Come after me

And shaw thee.

This she said three times, and then, looking back over her left

shoulder, she saw Frank indeed, but he looked so angry that she

shrieked, and so broke the spell. One night in November a ship was

wrecked on the coast, and Frank was cast ashore, with just enough

life in him to ask that he might be married to Nancy before he died,

a wish which was not to be fulfilled. On the night of his funeral, as

Nancy was about to lock the house-door, a horseman rode up. His face

was deadly pale, but Nancy knew him to be her lover. He told her that

he had just arrived home, and had come to fetch her and make her his

bride. Nancy was easily induced to spring on the horse behind him.

When she clasped Frank’s waist, her arm became stiff as ice. The horse

went at a furious pace; the moon came out in full splendor. Nancy saw

that the rider was in grave-clothes. She had lost the power of speech,

but, passing a blacksmith’s shop, where the smith was still at work,

she recovered voice and cried, Save me! with all her might. The smith

ran out with a hot iron in his hand, and, as the horse was rushing by,

caught the girl’s dress and pulled her to the ground. But the rider

held on to the gown, and both Nancy and the smith were dragged on till

they came near the churchyard. There the horse stopped for a moment,

and the smith seized his chance to burn away the gown with his iron and

free the girl. The horseman passed over the wall of the churchyard, and

vanished at the grave in which the young man had been laid a few hours

before. A piece of Nancy’s dress was found on the grave. Nancy died

before morning. It was said that one or two of the sailors who survived

the wreck testified that Frank, on Halloween, was like one mad, and,

after great excitement, lay for hours as if dead, and that when he came

to himself he declared that if he ever married the woman who had cast

the spell, he would make her suffer for drawing his soul out of his

body.[52]

A tale of a dead man coming on horseback to his inconsolable love, and

carrying her to his grave, is widely spread among the Slavic people

(with whom it seems to have originated) and the Austrian Germans, was

well known a century ago among the northern Germans, and has lately

been recovered in the Netherlands, Denmark, Iceland, and Brittany.

Besides the tale in its integrity, certain verses which occur in it,

and which are of a kind sure to impress the memory, are very frequent,

and these give evidence of a very extensive distribution. The verses

are to this effect:

The moon shines bright in the lift,

The dead, they ride so swift,

Love, art thou not afraid?

to which the lovelorn maid answers,

How fear, when I am with thee?[53]

There are also ballads with the same story, one in German, several in

Slavic, but these have not so original a stamp as the tale, and have

perhaps sprung from it.

The following will serve as specimens of the tale in question; many

more may certainly be recovered: