+The Text+ is given _verbatim et literatim_ from John Aubrey's MS. of
his _Remains of Gentilisme & Judaisme_ (1686-7) in the Lansdowne MSS.,
No. 231, folio 114 _recto_ and _verso_. This text has often been printed
before (see Appendix), but always with errors. The only change made here
is the placing of Aubrey's marginal notes among the footnotes: the
spelling is Aubrey's spelling. The present version was obtained by
Aubrey in 1686 from an informant whose father had heard it sung sixty
years previously.
Sir Walter Scott's text, better known than Aubrey's, presents very few
variations, the chief being 'sleete' for 'fleet' in 1.3 (see below).
This would seem to point to the fact that Scott obtained his version
from a manuscript, and confused the antique '[s]' (= s) with 'f.'
A collation, incomplete and inexact, of the two texts is given by T. F.
Henderson in his edition of the _Minstrelsy_ (1902), vol. iii. pp.
170-2.
+The Story.+--This dirge, of course, is not a ballad in the true sense
of the word. But it is concerned with myths so widespread and ancient,
that as much could be written about the dirge as almost any one of the
ballads proper. I have added an Appendix at the end of this volume, to
which those interested in the subject may refer. For the present, the
following account may suffice.
Ritson found an illustration of this dirge in a manuscript letter,
written by one signing himself 'H. Tr.' to Sir Thomas Chaloner, in the
Cotton MSS. (Julius, F. vi., fols. 453-462). The date approximately is
the end of the sixteenth century (Sir Thomas Chaloner the elder,
1521-1565; the younger, 1561-1615). The letter is concerned with
antiquities in Durham and Yorkshire, especially near Guisborough, an
estate of the Chaloner family. The sentence referring to the Lyke-Wake
Dirge was printed by Scott, to whom it was communicated by Ritson's
executor after his death. It is here given as re-transcribed from the
manuscript (f. 461 _verso_).
'When any dieth, certaine women singe a songe to the dead body,
recytinge the iorney that the partie deceased must goe, and they are of
beleife (such is their fondnesse) that once in their liues yt is good to
giue a payre of newe shoes to a poore man; forasmuch as after this life
they are to pass barefoote through a greate launde full of thornes &
furzen, excepte by the meryte of the Almes aforesaid they have redeemed
their forfeyte; for at the edge of the launde an aulde man shall meete
them with the same shoes that were giuen by the partie when he was
liuinge, and after he hath shodde them he dismisseth them to goe through
thicke and thin without scratch or scalle.'
The myth of Hell-shoon (Norse, _helsko_) appears under various guises in
many folklores. (See Appendix.)
Sir Walter Scott, in printing 'sleete' in 1.3, said: 'The word _sleet_,
in the chorus,[1] seems to be corrupted from _selt_, or salt; a quantity
of which, in compliance with a popular superstition, is frequently
placed on the breast of a corpse.' It is true that a superstition to
this effect does exist: but 'fleet' is doubtless the right reading.
Aubrey glosses it as 'water'; but Murray has shown (_New English
Dictionary, s.v._), by three quotations from wills dated between 1533
and 1570, that 'fire and flet' is an expression meaning simply 'fire and
house-room.' 'Flet,' in short, is our modern 'flat' in an unspecialised
and uncorrupted form.
[Footnote 1: Scott repeats the first stanza at the end of his
version.]