The ballads in the present volume have been classified roughly so
as to fall under the heads (i) Ballads of Superstition and of the
Supernatural, including Dirges (pp. 1-122); (ii) Ballads of Sacred
Origin (pp. 123-154); (iii) Ballads of Riddle and Repartee (pp.
155-181); and (iv) a few ballads, otherwise almost unclassifiable,
collected under the title of 'Fyttes of Mirth,' or Merry Ballads
(pp. 182 to end).
I
That the majority of the ballads in the first section are Scottish can
hardly cause surprise. Superstition lurks amongst the mountains and in
the corners of the earth. And, with one remarkable exception, all the
best lyrical work in these ballads of the supernatural is to be found in
the Scots. _Thomas Rymer_, _Tam Lin_, _The Wife of Usher's Well_, _Clerk
Sanders_, and _The Dæmon Lover_, are perhaps the most notable examples
amongst the ballads proper, and _Fair Helen of Kirconnell_, _The Twa
Corbies_, and _Bonnie George Campbell_ amongst the dirges. All these
are known wherever poetry is read.
'For dulness, the creeping Saxons;
For beauty and amorousness, the Gaedhills.'
But the exception referred to above, _The Unquiet Grave_, is true
English, and yet lyrical, singing itself, like a genuine ballad, to a
tune as one reads.
The complete superstition hinted at in this ballad should perhaps be
stated more fully. It is obvious that excessive mourning is fatal to
the peace of the dead; but it is also to be noticed that it is almost
equally fatal to the mourner. The mourner in _The Unquiet Grave_ is
refused the kiss demanded, as it will be fatal. _Clerk Sanders_, on the
other hand, has lost--if ever it possessed--any trace of this doctrine.
For Margret does not die; though she would have died had she kissed him,
we notice, and the kiss was demanded by her and refused by him: and
Clerk Sanders is only disturbed in his grave because he has not got back
his troth-plight. The method of giving this back--the stroking of a
wand--we have had before in _The Brown Girl_ (First Series, pp. 60-62,
st. 14).
In the Helgi cycle of Early Western epics (_Corpus Poeticum Boreale_,
vol. i. pp. 128 ff.), Helgi the hero is slain, and returns as a ghost to
his lady, who follows him to his grave. But her tears are bad for him:
they fall in blood on his corpse.
The subject of the Lyke-wake would easily bear a monograph to itself,
and at present I know of none. I have therefore ventured, in choosing
Aubrey's version in place of the better known one printed--and doubtless
written over--by Sir Walter Scott, to give rather fuller information
concerning the Dirge, its folklore, and its bibliography. A short study
of the ramifications of the various superstitions incorporated therein
leads to a sort of surprise that there is no popular ballad treating of
the subject of St. Patrick's Purgatory, which has attracted more than
one English poet. Thomas Wright's volume on the subject, however, is
delightful and instructive reading.