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[Illustration: THE ROMANTIC SCOTTISH BALLADS:
THEIR EPOCH AND AUTHORSHIP.
ROBERT CHAMBERS.
1849]
THE ROMANTIC SCOTTISH BALLADS: THEIR EPOCH AND AUTHORSHIP.
Percy's _Reliques of Ancient English Poetry_, 1765; David Herd's
_Scottish Songs_, 1769; Scott's _Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_,
1802; and Jamieson's _Popular Ballads and Songs_, 1806, have been
chiefly the means of making us acquainted with what is believed to be
the ancient traditionary ballad literature of Scotland; and this
literature, from its intrinsic merits, has attained a very great fame.
I advert particularly to what are usually called the Romantic Ballads,
a class of compositions felt to contain striking beauties, almost
peculiar to themselves, and consequently held as implying extraordinary
poetical attributes in former generations of the people of this
country. There have been many speculations about the history of these
poems, all assigning them a considerable antiquity, and generally
assuming that their recital was once the special business of a set of
wandering _conteurs_ or minstrels. So lately as 1858, my admired
friend, Professor Aytoun, in introducing a collection of them, at once
ample and elegant, to the world, expressed his belief that they date at
least from before the Reformation, having only been modified by
successive reciters, so as to modernise the language, and, in some
instances, bring in the ideas of later ages.
There is, however, a sad want of clear evidence regarding the history
of our romantic ballads. We have absolutely no certain knowledge of
them before 1724, when Allan Ramsay printed one called _Sweet William's
Ghost_, in his _Tea-table Miscellany_. There is also this fact staring
us in the face, that, while these poems refer to an ancient state of
society, they bear not the slightest resemblance either to the minstrel
poems of the middle ages, or to the well-known productions of the
Henrysons, the Dunbars, the Douglases, the Montgomeries, who flourished
in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Neither in the poems of
Drummond, and such other specimens of verse--generally wretched--as
existed in the seventeenth century, can we trace any feature of the
composition of these ballads. Can it be that all editors hitherto
have been too facile in accepting them as ancient, though modified
compositions? that they are to a much greater extent modern than has
hitherto been supposed? or wholly so? Though in early life an editor of
them, not less trusting than any of my predecessors, I must own that a
suspicion regarding their age and authorship has at length entered my
mind. In stating it--which I do in a spirit of great deference to
Professor Aytoun and others--I shall lead the reader through the steps
by which I arrived at my present views upon the subject.
In 1719, there appeared, in a folio sheet, at Edinburgh, a heroic poem
styled _Hardyknute_, written in affectedly old spelling, as if it had
been a contemporary description of events connected with the invasion
of Scotland by Haco, king of Norway, in 1263. A corrected copy was soon
after presented in the _Evergreen_ of Allan Ramsay, a collection
professedly of poems written before 1600, but into which we know the
editor admitted a piece written by himself. _Hardyknute_ was afterwards
reprinted in Percy's _Reliques_, still as an ancient composition; yet
it was soon after declared to be the production of a Lady Wardlaw of
Pitreavie, who died so lately as 1727. Although, to modern taste, a
stiff and poor composition, there is a nationality of feeling about it,
and a touch of chivalric spirit, that has maintained for it a certain
degree of popularity. Sir Walter Scott tells us it was the first poem
he ever learned by heart, and he believed it would be the last he
should forget.
It is necessary to present a few brief extracts from this poem. In the
opening, the Scottish king, Alexander III., is represented as receiving
notice of the Norwegian invasion:
The king of Norse, in summer pride,
Puffed up with power and micht,
Landed in fair Scotland, the isle,
With mony a hardy knicht.
The tidings to our gude Scots king
Came as he sat at dine,
With noble chiefs in brave array,
Drinking the blude-red wine.
'To horse, to horse, my royal liege;
Your faes stand on the strand;
Full twenty thousand glittering spears
The king of Norse commands.'
'Bring me my steed, page, dapple-gray,'
Our good king rose and cried;
'A trustier beast in a' the land
A Scots king never tried.'
Hardyknute, summoned to the king's assistance, leaves his wife and
daughter, 'Fairly fair,' under the care of his youngest son. As to the
former lady--
... first she wet her comely cheeks,
And then her bodice green,
Her silken cords of twirtle twist,
Well plet with silver sheen;
And apron, set with mony a dice
Of needle-wark sae rare,
Wove by nae hand, as ye may guess,
But that of Fairly fair.
In his journey, Hardyknute falls in with a wounded and deserted knight,
to whom he makes an offer of assistance:
With smileless look and visage wan,
The wounded knight replied:
'Kind chieftain, your intent pursue,
For here I maun abide.
'To me nae after day nor nicht
Can e'er be sweet or fair;
But soon beneath some dropping tree,
Cauld death shall end my care.'
A field of battle is thus described:
In thraws of death, with wallowit cheek,
All panting on the plain,
The fainting corps[1] of warriors lay,
Ne'er to arise again;
Ne'er to return to native land,
Nae mair, with blithesome sounds,
To boast the glories of the day,
And shaw their shining wounds.
On Norway's coast, the widowed dame
May wash the rock with tears,
May lang look o'er the shipless seas,
Before her mate appears.
'Cease, Emma, cease to hope in vain;
Thy lord lies in the clay;
The valiant Scots nae rievers thole[2]
To carry life away.'
[1] A Scotticism, plural of corp, a body.
[2] Permit no robbers, &c.
I must now summon up, for a comparison with these specimens of the
modern antique in ballad lore, the famous and admired poem of _Sir
Patrick Spence_. It has come to us mainly through two copies--one
comparatively short, published in Percy's _Reliques_, as 'from two
manuscript copies transmitted from Scotland;' the other, containing
more details, in Scott's _Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_, also
'from two manuscript copies,' but 'collated with several verses recited
by the editor's friend, Robert Hamilton, Esq., advocate.' It is nowhere
pretended that any _ancient_ manuscript of this poem has ever been seen
or heard of. It acknowledgedly has come to us from modern manuscripts,
as it might be taken down from modern reciters; although Percy prints
it in the same quasi antique spelling as that in which _Hardyknute_ had
appeared, where being _quhar_; sea, _se_; come, _cum_; year, _zeir_;
&c. It will be necessary here to reprint the whole ballad, as given
originally by Percy, introducing, however, within brackets the
additional details of Scott's copy:[3]
The king sits in Dunfermline town,
Drinking the blude-red wine:
'O whar will I get a gude sailor,
To sail this ship of mine?'
Up and spak an eldern knight,
Sat at the king's right knee:
'Sir Patrick Spence is the best sailor
That sails upon the sea.'
The king has written a braid letter,
And signed it with his hand,
And sent it to Sir Patrick Spence,
Was walking on the sand.
['To Noroway, to Noroway,
To Noroway o'er the faem;
The king's daughter of Noroway,
'Tis thou maun bring her hame.']
The first line that Sir Patrick read,
A loud lauch lauched he:
The next line that Sir Patrick read,
The tear blinded his ee.
'O wha is this hae done this deed,
This ill deed done to me;
To send me out this time o' the year,
To sail upon the sea?
['Be it wind, be it weet, be it hail, be it sleet,
Our ship must sail the faem;
The king's daughter of Noroway,
'Tis we must fetch her hame.'
They hoysed their sails on Monenday morn,
Wi' a' the speed they may;
They hae landed in Noroway,
Upon a Wodensday.
They had na been a week, a week,
In Noroway, but twae,
When that the lords of Noroway
Began aloud to say:
'Ye Scottish men spend a' our king's gowd,
And a' our queenis fee.'
'Ye lie, ye lie, ye liars loud,
Fu' loud I hear ye lie.
'For I hae broucht as much white monie
As gane[4] my men and me,
And I broucht a half-fou o' gude red gowd,
Out ower the sea wi' me.']
'Mak haste, mak haste, my merry men a',
Our gude ship sails the morn.'
'O say na sae, my master dear,[5]
For I fear a deadly storm.
'Late, late yestreen, I saw the new moon
Wi' the auld moon in her arm;
And I fear, I fear, my master dear,
That we will come to harm.'
[They had na sailed a league, a league,
A league but barely three,
When the lift grew dark, and the wind blew loud,
And gurly grew the sea.
The ankers brak, and the topmasts lap,
It was sic a deadly storm,
And the waves cam o'er the broken ship,
Till a' her sides were torn.]
O our Scots nobles were richt laith
To weet their cork-heeled shoon;
But lang ere a' the play was played,
Their hats they swam aboon.[6]
[And mony was the feather-bed
That flattered on the faem;
And mony was the gude lord's son
That never mair cam hame.
The ladies wrang their fingers white,
The maidens tore their hair,
A' for the sake of their true loves,
For them they'll see nae mair.]
O lang, lang may the ladies sit,
Wi' their fans into their hand,
Or ere they see Sir Patrick Spence
Come sailing to the land.
O lang, lang may the ladies stand,
Wi' their gold kames in their hair,
Waiting for their ain dear lords,
For they'll see them nae mair.
Half ower, half ower to Aberdour,[7]
It's fifty fathom deep;
And there lies gude Sir Patrick Spence
Wi' the Scots lords at his feet.
[3] Only omitting the five verses supplied by Mr Hamilton, as
they appear redundant.
[4] Serve.
[5] Variation in Scott:
Now ever alak_e_, my master dear.
[6] Variation in Scott:
They wet their hats aboon.
[7] Variation in Scott:
O forty miles off Aberdeen.
Percy, at the close of his copy of _Sir Patrick Spence_, tells us that
'an ingenious friend' of his was of opinion that 'the author of
_Hardyknute_ has borrowed several expressions and sentiments from the
foregoing [ballad], and other old Scottish songs in this collection.'
It does not seem to have ever occurred to the learned editor, or any
friend of his, however 'ingenious,' that perhaps _Sir Patrick Spence_
had no superior antiquity over _Hardyknute_, and that the parity he
remarked in the expressions was simply owing to the two ballads being
the production of one mind. Neither did any such suspicion occur to
Scott. He fully accepted _Sir Patrick Spence_ as a historical
narration, judging it to refer most probably to an otherwise unrecorded
embassy to bring home the Maid of Norway, daughter of King Eric, on the
succession to the Scottish crown opening to her in 1286, by the death
of her grandfather, King Alexander III., although the names of the
ambassadors who did go for that purpose are known to have been
different.[8] The want of any ancient manuscript, the absence of the
least trait of an ancient style of composition, the palpable modernness
of the diction--for example, 'Our ship must sail the faem,' a glaring
specimen of the poetical language of the reign of Queen Anne--and,
still more palpably, of several of the things alluded to, as
cork-heeled shoon, hats, fans, and feather-beds, together with the
inapplicableness of the story to any known event of actual history,
never struck any editor of Scottish poetry, till, at a recent date, Mr
David Laing intimated his suspicions that _Sir Patrick Spence_ and
_Hardyknute_ were the production of the same author.[9] To me it
appears that there could not well be more remarkable traits of an
identity of authorship than what are presented in the extracts given
from _Hardyknute_ and the entire poem of _Sir Patrick_--granting only
that the one poem is a considerable improvement upon the other. Each
poem opens with absolutely the same set of particulars--a Scottish king
sitting--drinking the blude-red wine--and sending off a message to a
subject on a business of importance. Norway is brought into connection
with Scotland in both cases. Sir Patrick's exclamation, 'To Noroway, to
Noroway,' meets with an exact counterpart in the 'To horse, to horse,'
of the courtier in _Hardyknute_. The words of the ill-boding sailor in
_Sir Patrick_, 'Late, late yestreen, I saw the new moon'--a very
peculiar expression, be it remarked--are repeated in _Hardyknute_:
'Late, late the yestreen I weened in peace,
To end my lengthened life.'
[8] There is one insuperable objection to Sir Walter's
theory, which I am surprised should not have occurred to
himself, or to some of those who have followed him. In his
version of the ballad, the design to bring home the daughter
of the king of Norway is expressed by the king of Scotland
himself. Now, there was no occasion for Alexander III.
sending for his infant granddaughter; nor is it conceivable
that, in his lifetime, such a notion should have occurred or
been entertained on either his side or that of the child's
father. It was not till after the death of Alexander had made
the infant Norwegian princess queen of Scotland--four years
after that event, indeed--that the _guardians of the
kingdom_, in concert with Edward I. of England, sent for her
by Sir David Wemyss of Wemyss and Sir Michael Scott of
Balwearie, who actually brought her home, but in a dying
state. For these reasons, on the theory of the ballad
referring to a real occurrence, it must have been to the
bringing home of some Norwegian princess to be wedded to a
king of Scotland that it referred. _But there is no such
event in Scottish history._
Professor Aytoun alters a verse of the ballad as follows:
To Noroway, to Noroway,
To Noroway o'er the faem;
The king's daughter _to_ Noroway,
It's thou maun tak her hame.
And he omits the verse in which Sir Patrick says:
The king's daughter of Noroway,
'Tis we must fetch her hame.
Thus making the ballad referrible to the expedition in 1281
for taking Alexander's daughter to be married to the king of
Norway. But I apprehend such liberties with an old ballad are
wholly unwarrantable.
[9] Notes to Johnson's _Scots Musical Museum_, 1839.
The grief of the ladies at the catastrophe in _Sir Patrick Spence_, is
equally the counterpart of that of the typical Norse lady with regard
to the fate of her male friend at Largs. I am inclined, likewise, to
lay some stress on the localities mentioned in _Sir Patrick
Spence_--namely, Dunfermline and Aberdour--these being places in the
immediate neighbourhood of the mansions where Lady Wardlaw spent her
maiden and her matron days. A poet, indeed, often writes about places
which he never saw; but it is natural for him to be most disposed to
write about those with which he is familiar; and some are first
inspired by the historical associations connected with their native
scenes. True, as has been remarked, there is a great improvement upon
_Hardyknute_ in the 'grand old ballad of _Sir Patrick Spence_,'
as Coleridge calls it, yet not more than what is often seen in
compositions of a particular author at different periods of life.
It seems as if the hand which was stiff and somewhat puerile in
_Hardyknute_, had acquired freedom and breadth of style in _Sir Patrick
Spence_. For all of these reasons, I feel assured that _Sir Patrick_ is
a modern ballad, and suspect, or more than suspect, that the author is
Lady Wardlaw.[10]
[10] Professor Aytoun says: 'It is true that the name [of Sir
Patrick Spence] ... is not mentioned in history: but I am
able to state that tradition has preserved it. In the little
island of Papa Stronsay, one of the Orcadian group, lying
over against Norway, there is a large grave or tumulus, which
has been known to the inhabitants from time immemorial as
"The grave of Sir Patrick Spence." The Scottish ballads were
not early current in Orkney, a Scandinavian country; to it is
very unlikely that the poem could have originated the name.'
I demur to this unlikelihood, and would require some proof to
convince me that the grave of Sir Patrick Spence in Papa
Stronsay is not a parallel geographical phenomenon to the
island of Ellen Douglas in Loch Katrine.
Probably, by this time, the reader will desire to know what is now to
be known regarding Lady Wardlaw. Unfortunately, this is little, for, as
she shrank from the honours of authorship in her lifetime, no one
thought of chronicling anything about her. We learn that she was born
Elizabeth Halket, being the second daughter of Sir Charles Halket of
Pitfirran, Baronet, who was raised to that honour by Charles II., and
took an active part, as a member of the Convention of 1689, in settling
the crown upon William and Mary. Her eldest sister, Janet, marrying Sir
Peter Wedderburn of Gosford, was the progenitress of the subsequent
Halkets, baronets of Pitfirran, her son being Sir Peter Halket, colonel
of the 44th regiment of foot, who died in General Braddock's
unfortunate conflict at Monongahela in 1755. A younger sister married
Sir John Hope Bruce of Kinross, baronet, who died, one of the oldest
lieutenant-generals in the British service, in 1766. Elizabeth, the
authoress of _Hardyknute_, born on the 15th of April 1677, became, in
June 1696, the wife of Sir Henry Wardlaw of Pitreavie (third baronet of
the title), to whom she bore a son, subsequently fourth baronet, and
three daughters.[11]
[11] Playfair's _Brit. Fam. Antiquity_, viii., 170, lxviii.
The ballad of _Hardyknute_, though printed in a separate brochure by
James Watson in 1719, had been previously talked of or quoted, for the
curiosity of Lord Binning was excited about it, apparently in a
conversation with Sir John Hope Bruce, the brother-in-law of Lady
Wardlaw. Pinkerton received from Lord Hailes, and printed, an extract
from a letter of Sir John to Lord Binning, as follows: 'To perform my
promise, I send you a true copy of the manuscript I found a few weeks
ago in a vault at Dunfermline. It is written on vellum, in a fair
Gothic character, but so much defaced by time as you'll find the tenth
part not legible.' Sir John, we are told by Pinkerton, transcribed in
this letter 'the whole fragment first published, save one or two
stanzas, marking several passages as having perished, from being
illegible in the old manuscript.'[12]
[12] _Ancient Scottish Poems_, 2 vols. (1786), i. p. cxxvii.
Here is documentary evidence that _Hardyknute_ came out through the
hands of Lady Wardlaw's brother-in-law, with a story about its
discovery as an old manuscript, so transparently fictitious, that one
wonders at people of sense having ever attempted to obtain credence for
it--which consequently forms in itself a presumption as to an
authorship being concealed. Pinkerton rashly assumed that Sir John
Bruce was the author of the poem, and on the strength of that
assumption, introduced his name among the Scottish poets.
The first hint at the real author came out through Percy, who, in his
second edition of the _Reliques_ (1767), gives the following statement:
'There is more than reason to suspect that it [_Hardyknute_] owes most
of its beauties (if not its whole existence) to the pen of a lady
within the present century. The following particulars may be depended
on. Mrs [mistake for Lady] Wardlaw, whose maiden name was Halket ...
pretended she had found this poem, written on shreds of paper, employed
for what is called the bottoms of clues. A suspicion arose that it was
her own composition. Some able judges asserted it to be modern. The
lady did in a manner acknowledge it to be so. Being desired to show an
additional stanza, as a proof of this, she produced the two last,
beginning with "There's nae light, &c.," which were not in the copy
that was first printed. The late Lord President Forbes and Sir Gilbert
Elliot of Minto (late Lord Justice-clerk for Scotland), who had
believed it ancient, contributed to the expense of publishing the first
edition, in folio, 1719. This account was transmitted from Scotland by
Sir David Dalrymple (Lord Hailes),[13] who yet was of opinion that part
of the ballad may be ancient, but retouched and much enlarged by the
lady above mentioned. Indeed, he had been informed that the late
William Thomson, the Scottish musician, who published the _Orpheus
Caledonius_, 1733, declared he had heard fragments of it repeated in
his infancy before Mrs Wardlaw's copy was heard of.'
[13] It is rather remarkable that Percy was not informed of
these particulars in 1765; but in 1767--_Sir John Hope Bruce
having died in the interval_ (June 1766)--they were
communicated to him. It looks as if the secret had hung on
the life of this venerable gentleman.
The question as to the authorship of _Hardyknute_ was once more raised
in 1794, when Sir Charles Halket, grandson of Mary, third daughter of
Lady Wardlaw, wrote a letter to Dr Stenhouse of Dunfermline, containing
the following passage: 'The late Mr Hepburn of Keith often declared he
was in the house with Lady Wardlaw when she wrote _Hardyknute_.' He
also gave the following particulars in a manuscript account of his
family, as reported by George Chalmers (_Life of Allan Ramsay_, 1800):
'Miss Elizabeth Menzies, daughter of James Menzies, Esq., of Woodend,
in Perthshire, by Elizabeth, the daughter of Sir Henry Wardlaw [second
baronet], wrote to Sir Charles Halket that her mother, who was
sister-in-law to Lady Wardlaw, told her that Lady Wardlaw was the real
authoress of _Hardyknute_; that Mary, the wife of Charles Wedderburn,
Esq., of Gosford, told Miss Menzies that her mother, Lady Wardlaw,
wrote _Hardyknute_. Sir Charles Halket and Miss Elizabeth Menzies
concur in saying that Lady Wardlaw was a woman of elegant
accomplishments, _who wrote other poems_, and practised drawing, and
cutting paper with her scissors, and _who had much wit and humour_,
with great sweetness of temper.'
In the middle of the last century appeared two editions of a brochure
containing the now well-known ballad of _Gil Morrice_; the date of the
second was 1755. Prefixed to both was an advertisement setting forth
that the preservation of this poem was owing 'to a lady, who favoured
the printers with a copy, as it was carefully collected from the mouths
of old women and nurses;' and 'any reader that can render it more
correct or complete,' was desired to oblige the public with such
improvements. Percy adopted the poem into his collection, with four
additional verses, which meanwhile had been 'produced and handed about
in manuscript,' but which were in a florid style, glaringly incongruous
with the rest of the piece. He at the same time mentioned that there
existed, in his folio manuscript, (supposed) of Elizabeth's time, an
imperfect copy of the same ballad, under the title of _Child Maurice_.
This early ballad of _Child Maurice_, which Mr Jamieson afterwards
printed from Percy's manuscript, gives the same story of a gentleman
killing, under jealousy, a young man, who proved to be a son of his
wife by a former connection. But it is a poor, bald, imperfect
composition, in comparison with _Gil Morrice_. It was evident to Percy
that there had been a '_revisal_' of the earlier poem, attended by
'_considerable improvements_.'
Now, by whom had this improving revisal been effected? Who was the
'lady' that favoured the printers with the copy? I strongly suspect
that the reviser was Lady Wardlaw, and that the poem was communicated
to the printers either by her or by some of her near relations. The
style of many of the verses, and even some of the particular
expressions, remind us strongly of _Sir Patrick Spence_; while
other verses, again, are more in the stiff manner of _Hardyknute_.
The poem opens thus:
Gil Morrice was an earl's son,
His name it waxed wide;
It was na for his great riches,
Nor yet his mickle pride;
But it was for a lady gay,
That lived on Carron side.
'Whar sall I get a bonny boy,
That will win hose and shoon;
That will gae to Lord Barnard's ha',
And bid his lady come?
'And ye maun rin my errand, Willie,
And ye may rin wi' pride,
When other boys gae on their foot,
On horseback ye sall ride.'
'O no! O no! my master dear,
I dare nae for my life;
I'll ne gae to the bauld baron's,
For to tryst forth his wife.'
'O say na sae, my master dear,
For I fear a deadly storm.'
What next follows is like _Hardyknute_:
'But, O my master dear,' he cried,
In green wood ye're your lane;
Gie ower sic thoughts, I wad ye reid,
For fear ye should be tane.'
'Haste, haste! I say, gae to the ha';
Bid her come here wi' speed:
If ye refuse my heigh command,
I'll gar your body bleed.'
When the boy goes in and pronounces the fatal message before Lord
Barnard:
Then up and spak the wily nurse,
The bairn upon her knee:
'If it be come frae Gil Morrice,
It's dear welcome to me.'
Compare this with the second verse of _Sir Patrick Spence_:
O up and spak an eldern knight,
Sat at the king's right knee, &c.
The messenger replies to the nurse:
'Ye lied, ye lied, ye filthy nurse,
Sae loud I heard ye lie,' &c.
Identical with Sir Patrick's answer to the taunt of the Norwegian
lords:
'Ye lie, ye lie, ye liars loud,
Fu' loud I hear ye lie.'
When the youth has been slain by Lord Barnard, the lady explains that
he was her son, and exclaims:
'To me nae after days nor nichts
Will e'er be saft or kind;
I'll fill the air wi' heavy sighs,
And greet till I am blind.'
How nearly is this the same with the doleful complaint of the wounded
knight in _Hardyknute_!
'To me nae after day nor night
Can e'er be sweet or fair,' &c.
Lord Barnard pours out his contrition to his wife:
'With waefu' wae I hear your plaint,
Sair, sair I rue the deed,
That e'er this cursed hand of mine
Had garred his body bleed.'
'Garred his body bleed' is a quaint and singular expression: it occurs
in _Hardyknute_, and nowhere else:
'To lay thee low as horse's hoof,
My word I mean to keep:'
Syne with the first stroke e'er he strake,
He garred his body bleed.
Passages and phrases of one poem appear in another from various
causes--plagiarism and imitation; and in traditionary lore, it is easy
to understand how a number of phrases might be in general use, as part
of a common stock. But the parallel passages above noted are confined
to a particular group of ballads--they are not to such an extent
_beauties_ as to have been produced by either plagiarism or imitation;
it is submitted that they thus appear by an overwhelmingly superior
likelihood as the result of a common authorship in the various pieces.
Having so traced a probable common authorship, and that modern, from
_Hardyknute_ to _Sir Patrick Spence_, and from these two to the revised
and improved edition of _Gil Morrice_, I was tempted to inquire if
there be not others of the Scottish ballads liable to similar suspicion
as to the antiquity of their origin? May not the conjectured author of
these three have written several of the remainder of that group of
compositions, so remarkable as they likewise are for their high
literary qualities? Now, there is in Percy a number of Scottish ballads
equally noteworthy for their beauty, and for the way in which they came
to the hands of the editor. There is _Edward, Edward_, 'from a
manuscript copy transmitted from Scotland;' the _Jew's Daughter_, 'from
a manuscript copy sent from Scotland;' _Gilderoy_, 'from a written copy
that appears to have received some modern corrections;' likewise,
_Young Waters_, 'from a copy printed not long since at Glasgow, in one
sheet octavo,' for the publication of which the world was 'indebted to
Lady Jean Home, sister to the Earl of Home;' and _Edom o' Gordon_,
which had been put by Sir David Dalrymple to Foulis's press in 1755,
'as it was preserved in the memory of a lady that is now dead'--Percy,
however, having in this case improved the ballad by the addition of a
few stanzas from a fragment in his folio manuscript. Regarding the
_Bonny Earl of Murray_, the editor tells us nothing beyond calling it
'a Scottish song.' Of not one of these seven ballads, as published by
Percy, has it ever been pretended that any ancient manuscript exists,
or that there is any proof of their having had a being before the
eighteenth century, beyond the rude and dissimilar prototypes (shall we
call them?) which, _in two instances_, are found in the folio
manuscript of Percy. No person was cited at first as having been
accustomed to recite or sing them; and they have not been found
familiar to the common people since. Their style is elegant, and free
from coarsenesses, while yet exhibiting a large measure of the ballad
simplicity. In all literary grace, they are as superior to the
generality of the homely traditionary ballads of the rustic population,
as the romances of Scott are superior to a set of chap-books. Indeed,
it might not be very unreasonable to say that these ballads have done
more to create a popularity for Percy's _Reliques_ than all the other
contents of the book. There is a community of character throughout all
these poems, both as to forms of expression and style of thought and
feeling--jealousy in husbands of high rank, maternal tenderness, tragic
despair, are prominent in them, though not in them all. In several,
there is the same kind of obscure and confused reference to known
events in Scottish history, which editors have thought they saw in _Sir
Patrick Spence_.
Let us take a cursory glance at these poems.
_Young Waters_ is a tale of royal jealousy. It is here given entire.
About Yule, when the wind blew cool,
And the round tables began,
A! there is come to our king's court
Mony a well-favoured man.
The queen looked ower the castle-wa',
Beheld baith dale and down,
And then she saw Young Waters
Come riding to the town.
His footmen they did rin before,
His horsemen rade behind,
Ane mantel o' the burning gowd
Did keep him frae the wind.
Gowden graithed his horse before,
And siller shod behind;
The horse Young Waters rade upon
Was fleeter than the wind.
But then spak a wily lord,
Unto the queen said he:
'O tell me wha's the fairest face
Rides in the company?'
'I've seen lord, and I've seen laird,
And knights of high degree;
But a fairer face than Young Waters
Mine een did never see.'
Out then spak the jealous king,
And an angry man was he:
'O if he had been twice as fair,
You might have excepted me.'
'You're neither lord nor laird,' she says,
'But the king that wears the crown;
There's not a knight in fair Scotland,
But to thee maun bow down.'
For a' that she could do or say,
Appeased he wadna be,
But for the words which she had said,
Young Waters he maun dee.
They hae tane Young Waters, and
Put fetters to his feet;
They hae tane Young Waters, and
Thrown him in dungeon deep.
Aft hae I ridden through Stirling town,
In the wind but and the weet,
But I ne'er rade through Stirling town
Wi' fetters at my feet.
Aft hae I ridden through Stirling town,
In the wind both and the rain,
But I ne'er rade through Stirling town
Ne'er to return again.
They hae tane to the heading-hill
His young son in his cradle;
They hae tane to the heading-hill
His horse both and his saddle.
They hae tane to the heading-hill
His lady fair to see;
And for the words the queen had spoke,
Young Waters he did dee.
Now, let the parallel passages be here observed. In verse second, the
lady does exactly like the mother of Gil Morrice, of whom it is said:
The lady sat on the castle-wa',
Beheld baith dale and down,
And there she saw Gil Morrice' head
Come trailing to the town.
Dale and down, let it be observed in passing, are words never used in
Scotland; they are exotic English terms. The mantle of the hero in
verse third recalls that of Gil Morrice, which was 'a' gowd but the
hem'--a specialty, we may say, not likely to have occurred to a male
mind. What the wily lord does in verse fifth is the exact counterpart
of the account of the eldern knight in _Sir Patrick Spence_:
Up and spak an eldern knight,
Sat at the king's right knee.
Observe the description of the king's jealous rage in _Young Waters_;
how perfectly the same is that of the baron in _Gil Morrice_:
Then up and spak the bauld baron,
An angry man was he * *
'Nae wonder, nae wonder, Gil Morrice,
My lady lo'es thee weel,
The fairest part of my bodie
Is blacker than thy heel.'
Even in so small a matter as the choice of rhymes, especially where
there is any irregularity, it may be allowable to point out a
parallelism. Is there not such between those in the verse descriptive
of Young Waters's fettering, and those in the closing stanza of _Sir
Patrick Spence_? It belongs to the idiosyncrasy of an author to make
_feet_ rhyme twice over to _deep_. Finally, let us observe how like the
tone as well as words of the last lines of _Young Waters_ to a certain
verse in _Hardyknute_:
The fainting corps of warriors lay,
Ne'er to rise again.
Percy surmised that _Young Waters_ related to the fate of the Earl of
Moray, slain by the Earl of Huntly in 1592, not without the concurrence,
as was suspected, of the king, whose jealousy, it has been surmised,
was excited against the young noble by indiscreet expressions of the
queen. To the same subject obviously referred the ballad of the _Bonny
Earl of Murray_, which consists, however, of but six stanzas, the last
of which is very like the second of _Young Waters_:
O lang will his lady
Look ower the Castle Downe,
Ere she see the Earl of Murray
Come sounding through the town.
_Edom o' Gordon_ is only a modern and improved version of an old ballad
which Percy found in his folio manuscript under the name of _Captain
Adam Carre_. It clearly relates to a frightful act of Adam Gordon of
Auchindown, when he maintained Queen Mary's interest in the north in
1571--the burning of the house of Towie, with the lady and her family
within it. All that can be surmised here is that the revision was the
work of the same pen with the pieces here cited--as witness, for
example, the opening stanzas:
It fell about the Martinmas,
When the wind blew shrill and cauld,[14]
Said Edom o' Gordon to his men:
'We maun draw till a hauld.
'And what a hauld shall we draw till,
My merry men and me?
We will gae to the house o' Rodes,
To see that fair ladye.'
The lady stood on her castle-wa',
Beheld baith dale and down;
There she was 'ware of a host of men
Come riding towards the town.[15]
'O see ye not, my merry men a',[16]
O see ye not what I see?' &c.
In the _Jew's Daughter_ there is much in the general style to remind us
of others of this group of ballads; but there are scarcely any parallel
expressions. One may be cited:
She rowed him in a cake of lead,
Bade him lie still and sleep,
She cast him in a deep draw-well,
Was fifty fadom deep.
[14] _Young Waters_ opens in the same manner:
About Yule, when the wind blew cool.
[15] We have seen the same description in both _Young Waters_
and the _Bonny Earl of Murray_.
[16] Compare this with _Sir Patrick Spence_:
'Mak haste, mak haste, my merry men a'.'
This must remind the reader of _Sir Patrick Spence_:
Half ower, half ower to Aberdour,
It's fifty fathom deep.
_Gilderoy_, in the version printed by Percy, is a ballad somewhat
peculiar, in a rich dulcet style, and of very smooth versification, but
is only an improved version of a rude popular ballad in the same
measure, which was printed in several collections long before,[17] and
was probably a street-ditty called forth by the hanging of the real
robber, Patrick Macgregor, commonly called Gilderoy,[18] in 1636. The
concluding verses of the refined version recall the peculiar manner of
the rest of these poems:
[17] In a _Collection of Old Ballads_, printed for J.
Roberts, London, 1723; also in Thomson's _Orpheus
Caledonius_, 1733.
[18] The appellative, Gilderoy, means the ruddy-complexioned
lad.
Gif Gilderoy had done amiss,
He might hae banished been;
Ah what sair cruelty is this,
To hang sic handsome men:
To hang the flower o' Scottish land,
Sae sweet and fair a boy;
Nae lady had sae white a hand
As thee, my Gilderoy.
Of Gilderoy sae 'fraid they were,
They bound him mickle strong;
Till Edinburgh they led him there,
And on a gallows hung:
They hung him high aboon the rest,
He was sae trim a boy;
There died the youth whom I lo'ed best,
My handsome Gilderoy.
Thus having yielded up his breath,
I bare his corpse away;
With tears that trickled for his death,
I washed his comely clay.
And sicker in a grave sae deep,
I laid the dear-lo'ed boy;
And now for ever maun I weep
My winsome Gilderoy.
If any one will compare the Percy version of this ballad with the
homely and indecorous ones printed before, he will not be the more
disposed to go back to antiquity and a humble grade of authorship for
what is best in the Scottish ballads.[19]
[19] Professor Aytoun says of this ballad, that 'it was
adapted from the original by Sir Alexander Halket--at least,
such was the general understanding until lately, when it
became a mania with some literary antiquaries [a glance at
the opinions of the present writer] to attribute the
authorship of the great bulk of the Scottish ballads to Sir
Alexander's sister, Lady Wardlaw, on the single ground that
she was the composer of _Hardyknute_.' My learned friend is
here very unlucky, for Lady Wardlaw had no brother, nor does
any Sir Alexander Halket appear in her family history. This,
however, is not all. It was a song to the _tune of Gilderoy_
which was attributed to Sir Alexander Halket (Johnson's
_Scots Musical Museum_)--namely, the well-known _Ah,
Chloris_, which turns out to be a composition of Sir Charles
Sedley, inserted by him in a play entitled the _Mulberry
Garden_, which was acted in 1668.
_Edward, Edward_, which Percy received from Sir David Dalrymple, and
placed among his oldest pieces, in affectedly old spelling, is a
striking melodramatic composition:
'Why does your brand sae drap wi' bluid,
Edward, Edward?
Why does your brand sae drap wi' bluid,
And why sae sad gang ye, O?'
'O, I hae killed my hawk sae guid,
Mother, mother:
O, I hae killed my hawk sae guid,
And I had nae mair but he, O.'
'Your hawk's bluid was never sae reid,
Edward, Edward;
Your hawk's bluid was never sae reid,
My dear son, I tell ye, O.'
'O, I hae killed my reid-roan steed,
Mother, mother;
O, I hae killed my reid-roan steed,
That erst was sae fair and free, O.'
'Your steed was auld, and ye hae gat mair,
Edward, Edward;
Your steed was auld, and ye hae gat mair,
Some other dool ye drie, O.'
'O, I hae killed my father dear,
Mother, mother;
O, I hae killed my father dear,
Alas, and wae is me, O.'
'And whaten penance will ye drie for that,
Edward, Edward?
And whaten penance will ye drie for that,
My dear son, now tell me, O?'
'I'll set my feet in yonder boat,
Mother, mother;
I'll set my feet in yonder boat,
And I'll fare over the sea, O.'
* * *
'And what will ye leave to your bairns and your wife,
Edward, Edward?
And what will ye leave to your bairns and your wife,
When ye gang over the sea, O?'
'The warld's room, let them beg through life,
Mother, mother;
The warld's room, let them beg through life,
For them never mair will I see, O.'
'And what will ye leave to your ain mother dear,
Edward, Edward;
And what will ye leave to your ain mother dear,
My dear son, now tell me, O?'
'The curse of hell frae me sall ye bear,
Mother, mother;
The curse of hell frae me sall ye bear,
Sic counsels ye gave me, O.'
It seems unaccountable how any editor of Percy's discernment could ever
have accepted this as old poetry. There is certainly none prior to 1700
which exhibits this kind of diction. Neither did any such poetry at any
time proceed from a rustic uneducated mind.
When we continue our search beyond the bounds of Percy's _Reliques_, we
readily find ballads passing as old, which are not unlike the above,
either in regard to their general beauty, or special strains of thought
and expression. There are five which seem peculiarly liable to
suspicion on both grounds--namely, _Johnie of Bradislee_, _Mary
Hamilton_, the _Gay Gos-hawk_, _Fause Foodrage_, and the _Lass o'
Lochryan_.
In _Johnie o' Bradislee_, the hero is a young unlicensed huntsman, who
goes out to the deer-forest against his mother's advice, and has a
fatal encounter with seven foresters. Observe the description of the
youth:
His cheeks were like the roses red,
His neck was like the snaw;
He was the bonniest gentleman
My eyes they ever saw.
His coat was o' the scarlet red,
His vest was o' the same;
His stockings were o' the worset lace,
And buckles tied to the same.
The shirt that was upon his back
Was o' the Holland fine;
The doublet that was over that
Was o' the Lincoln twine.
The buttons that were upon his sleeve
Were o' the gowd sae guid, &c.
This is mercery of the eighteenth, and no earlier century. Both
Gilderoy and Gil Morrice are decked out in a similar fashion; and we
may fairly surmise that it was no man's mind which revelled so
luxuriously in the description of these three specimens of masculine
beauty, or which invested them in such elegant attire. Johnie kills the
seven foresters, but receives a deadly hurt. He then speaks in the
following strain:
'O is there a bird in a' this bush
Would sing as I would say,
Go home and tell my auld mother
That I hae won the day?
'Is there ever a bird in a' this bush
Would sing as I would say,
Go home and tell my ain true love
To come and fetch Johnie away?
'Is there a bird in this hale forest
Would do as mickle for me,
As dip its wing in the wan water,
And straik it ower my ee-bree?'
The starling flew to his mother's bower-stane,
It whistled and it sang;
And aye the owerword o' its tune
Was, 'Johnie tarries lang.'
The mother says in conclusion:
'Aft hae I brought to Bradislee
The less gear and the mair;
But I ne'er brought to Bradislee
What grieved my heart sae sair.'
Now, first, is not the literary beauty of the above expressions of the
young huntsman calculated to excite suspicion? It may be asked, is
there anything in the older Scottish poets comparable to them? Second,
how like is the verse regarding the starling to one in _Gil
Morrice_!
Gil Morrice sat in guid green wood,
He whistled and he sang;
'O what mean a' the folk coming?
My mother tarries lang.'
Then, as to the last verse, how like to one in _Young Waters_!
Aft hae I ridden through Stirling town,
In the wind both and the rain,
But I ne'er rade through Stirling town
Ne'er to return again.
_Mary Hamilton_ describes the tragic fate of an attendant on Queen
Mary, brought to the gallows for destroying her own infant. The
reflections of the heroine at the last sad moment are expressed in the
same rich strain of sentiment as some of the passages of other ballads
already quoted, and with remarkable parallelisms in terms:
'O aften hae I dressed my queen,
And put gowd in her hair;
But now I've gotten for my reward
The gallows tree to share.
* * *
'I charge ye all, ye mariners,
When ye sail ower the faem,
Let neither my father nor mother get wit
But that I 'm coming hame.
* * *
'O little did my mother think
That day she cradled me,
What lands I was to travel ower,
What death I was to die!'
The Scottish ladies sit bewailing the loss of Sir Patrick Spence's
companions, 'wi' the gowd kaims in their hair.' Sir Patrick tells his
friends before starting on his voyage, 'Our ship must sail the faem;'
and in the description of the consequences of his shipwreck, we find
'Mony was the feather-bed that flattered on the faem.' No old poet
would use foam as an equivalent for the sea; but it was just such a
phrase as a poet of the era of Pope would love to use in that sense.
The first of the above verses is evidently a cast from the same mould
of thought as Bradislee's mother's concluding lament, and Young
Waters's last words just quoted. The resemblance is not of that kind
which arises from the use of literary commonplaces or stock phrases:
the expressions have that identity which betrays their common source in
one mind, a mind having a great command of rich and simple pathos.
In the _Gay Gos-hawk_, a gentleman commissions the bird to go on a
mission to his mistress, who is secluded from him among her relations,
and tell her how he dies by long waiting for her; whereupon she returns
an answer by the same messenger, to the effect that she will presently
meet him at Mary's Kirk for the effecting of their nuptials. The
opening of the poem is just a variation of Bradislee's apostrophe to
_his_ bird-messenger:
'O waly, waly, my gay gos-hawk,
Gin your feathering be sheen!'
'And waly, waly, my master dear,
Gin ye look pale and lean!
'Oh, have ye tint at tournament
Your sword, or yet your spear?
Or mourn ye for the southern lass,
Whom ye may not win near?'
'I have not tint at tournament
My sword, nor yet my spear;
But sair I mourn for my true love,
Wi' mony a bitter tear.
'But weel's me on you, my gay gos-hawk,
Ye can both speak and flie;
Ye sall carry a letter to my love,
Bring an answer back to me.'
_Hardyknute_, _Sir Patrick Spence_, and _Gil Morrice_, all open, it
will be recollected, with the sending away of a message. Here is a
fourth instance, very like one artist's work, truly.
The lover describes his mistress in terms recalling _Bradislee_:
'The red that is on my true love's cheek
Is like blood-draps on the snaw;
The white that is on her breast bare,
Like the down o' the white sea-maw.'
The bird arrives at the lady's abode:
And first he sang a low, low note,
And syne he sang a clear;
And aye the owerword o' the sang
Was, 'Your love can no win here.'
_Gil Morrice_ has:
Aye the owerword o' his sang
Was, 'My mother tarries lang.'
The lady feigns death, after the device of Juliet:
Then up and rose her seven brethren,
And hewed to her a bier;
They hewed frae the solid aik,
Laid it ower wi' silver clear.
Then up and gat her seven sisters,
And sewed to her a kell;
And every steek that they put in
Sewed to a silver bell.
Here we have the same style of luxurious description of which we have
already seen so many examples--so different from the usually bald style
of the real homely ballads of the people. It is, further, very
remarkable that in _Clerk Saunders_ it is seven brothers of the heroine
who come in and detect her lover; and in the _Douglas Tragedy_, when
the pair are eloping, Lord William spies his mistress's
... seven brethren bold
Come riding o'er the lee.
Both of these ballads, indeed, shew a structure and a strain of
description and sentiment justifying the strongest suspicions of their
alleged antiquity, and pointing to the same source as the other pieces
already noticed.
The ballad of _Fause Foodrage_, which Sir Walter Scott printed for the
first time, describes a successful conspiracy by Foodrage and others
against King Honour and his queen. The king being murdered, the queen
is told, that if she brings forth a son, it will be put to death
likewise; so she escapes, and, bringing a male child into the world,
induces the lady of Wise William to take charge of it as her own, while
she herself takes charge of the lady's daughter. The unfortunate queen
then arranges a future conduct for both parties, in language violently
figurative:
'And ye maun learn my gay gos-hawk,
Right weel to breast a steed;
And I sall learn your turtle-dow
As weel to write and read.
'And ye maun learn my gay gos-hawk,
To wield both bow and brand;
And I sall learn your turtle-dow
To lay gowd wi' her hand.
'At kirk and market, when we meet,
We'll dare make nae avowe,
But--Dame, how does my gay gos-hawk?
Madam, how does my dow?'
When the royal youth grows up, Wise William reveals to him his history,
and how his mother is still in confinement in Foodrage's hands. 'The
boy stared wild like a gray gos-hawk' at hearing the strange
intelligence, but soon resolves on a course of action:
He has set his bent bow to his breast,
And leapt the castle-wa',
And soon he has seized on Fause Foodrage,
Wha loud for help 'gan ca'.
The slaying of Foodrage and marriage of the turtle-dow wind up the
ballad. Now, is not the adoption of the term, 'gay gos-hawk' in this
ballad, calculated to excite a very strong suspicion as to a community
of authorship with the other, in which a gay gos-hawk figures so
prominently? But this is not all. 'The boy stared wild like a gray
gos-hawk,' is nearly identical with a line of _Hardyknute_:
Norse e'en like gray gos-hawk stared wild.