Transcriber's Notes
This book contains material in multiple languages, and numerous
examples of archaic, non-standard and dialect forms of English.
Therefore no attempts to standardize spelling would be appropriate. The
only changes made to the text are to correct typographical errors etc.
which are listed at the end of the book. Minor corrections to format or
punctuation have been made without comment.
This Plain Text version of the e-book has been prepared using the
UTF-8 character set. The unicode symbols used are listed below:
ā macron
Ć ć ń ś ý acute accent
Č ě š caron/hacek
ḍ dot under
ĕ breve
Πoe-ligature
ş cedilla
† dagger/obelisk (used for cross symbol)
αβγδεζ Greek script
The following substitutions have been made to represent other
characters and diacritics:
[***] an asterism (triangle) of 3 stars
['s] denotes an editorial insertion of a contracted form, not an "s"
with a diacritic.
_underscore symbols_ represent italic typeface
~tilde symbols~ represent roman typeface within italics
ALL CAPS represent small caps typeface
#number signs# represent bold typeface
^x or ^{x, y} represents superscript text
_x or _{xyz} represents subscript text
Bold mark-up is widely used to denote the distinctive font used by the
author for ballad version references.
Footnotes have been numbered sequentially [1] to [187] throughout this
volume but are presented at the end of each section or ballad to which
they refer.
A line of 7 spaced dots indicates a missing line of poetry. A line
of 7 spaced asterisks indicates missing poetry material of one or
more stanzas; this is distinct from a "thought break" or sub-section
separator of 5 widely spaced asterisks such as follow these notes.
* * * * *
THE
ENGLISH AND SCOTTISH
POPULAR BALLADS
EDITED BY
FRANCIS JAMES CHILD
IN FIVE VOLUMES
VOLUME II
NEW YORK
DOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC.
This Dover edition, first published in 1965, is an unabridged and
unaltered republication of the work originally published by Houghton,
Mifflin and Company, as follows:
Vol. I--Part I, 1882; Part II, 1884
Vol. II--Part III, 1885; Part IV, 1886
Vol. III--Part V, 1888; Part VI, 1889
Vol. IV-Part VII, 1890; Part VIII, 1892
Vol. V--Part IX, 1894; Part X, 1898.
This edition also contains as an appendix to Part X an essay by Walter
Morris Hart entitled "Professor Child and the Ballad," reprinted _in
toto_ from Vol. XXI, No. 4, 1906 [New Series Vol. XIV, No. 4] of the
_Publications of the Modern Language Association of America_.
_Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 65-24347_
Manufactured in the United States of America
Dover Publications, Inc.
180 Varick Street
New York, N.Y. 10014
ADVERTISEMENT TO PART IV
NUMBERS 83-113
Upon concluding this Fourth Part, I have to express warm thanks to Mr
JAMES BARCLAY MURDOCH for a punctilious recollation of MOTHERWELL'S
manuscript, and to Mr MALCOLM COLQUHOUN THOMSON for again granting the
use of the volume. Miss MARY FRASER TYTLER, to remove a doubt about a
few readings, has generously taken the trouble to make a fac-simile
copy of ALEXANDER FRASER TYTLER'S BROWN manuscript. Mr MACMATH, whose
accuracy is not surpassed by photographic reproduction, has done me
favors of a like kind, and of many kinds. Rev. Professor SKEAT, with
all his engagements, has been prompt to render his peculiarly valuable
help at the libraries of Cambridge; and Mr F. H. STODDARD, late of
Oxford, now of the University of California, has allowed me to call
upon him freely for copies and collations at the Bodleian Library. The
notes which Dr REINHOLD KÖHLER, Professor FELIX LIEBRICHT, Professor C.
R. LANMAN, and Mr GEORGE LYMAN KITTREDGE have contributed, in the way
of Additions and Corrections, will speak for themselves. Miss ISABEL
FLORENCE HAPGOOD, translator of the Epic Songs of Russia, has given me
much assistance in Slavic popular poetry, and Lieutenant-Colonel W. F.
PRIDEAUX, of Calcutta, Mr FRANK KIDSON, of Leeds, and Mr P. Z. ROUND,
of London, have made obliging communications as to English ballads.
F. J. C.
NOVEMBER, 1886.
CONTENTS OF VOLUME II
BALLAD PAGE
54. THE CHERRY-TREE CAROL 1
(Additions and Corrections: II, 509; V, 220.)
55. THE CARNAL AND THE CRANE 7
(Additions and Corrections: II, 509; III, 507; IV, 462;
V, 220.)
56. DIVES AND LAZARUS 10
(Additions and Corrections: II, 510; III, 507; IV, 462;
V, 220, 292.)
57. BROWN ROBYN'S CONFESSION 13
(Additions and Corrections: II, 510; III, 508; IV, 462;
V, 220, 292.)
58. SIR PATRICK SPENS 17
(Additions and Corrections: II, 510; V, 220.)
59. SIR ALDINGAR 33
(Additions and Corrections: II, 510; III, 508; IV, 463;
V, 292.)
60. KING ESTMERE 49
(Additions and Corrections: II, 510; III, 508; IV, 463.)
61. SIR CAWLINE 56
(Additions and Corrections: II, 511; III, 508; IV, 463.)
62. FAIR ANNIE 63
(Additions and Corrections: II, 511; IV, 463; V, 220.)
63. CHILD WATERS 83
(Additions and Corrections: II, 511; III, 508; IV, 463;
V, 220.)
64. FAIR JANET 100
(Additions and Corrections: III, 508; IV, 464;
V, 222, 292.)
65. LADY MAISRY 112
(Additions and Corrections: III, 508; IV, 466;
V, 222, 292.)
66. LORD INGRAM AND CHIEL WYET 126
(Additions and Corrections: II, 511; III, 508;
V, 223, 292.)
67. GLASGERION 136
(Additions and Corrections: II, 511; III, 509; IV, 468;
V, 293.)
68. YOUNG HUNTING 142
(Additions and Corrections: II, 512; III, 509; IV, 468;
V, 223.)
69. CLERK SAUNDERS 156
(Additions and Corrections: II, 512; III, 509; IV, 468;
V, 223, 293.)
70. WILLIE AND LADY MAISRY 167
71. THE BENT SAE BROWN 170
(Additions and Corrections: III, 509; IV, 469; V, 223.)
72. THE CLERK'S TWA SONS O OWSENFORD 173
(Additions and Corrections: II, 512; III, 509; IV, 469;
V, 293.)
73. LORD THOMAS AND FAIR ANNET 179
(Additions and Corrections: II, 512; III, 509; IV, 469;
V, 223, 293.)
74. FAIR MARGARET AND SWEET WILLIAM 199
(Additions and Corrections: V, 224, 293.)
75. LORD LOVEL 204
(Additions and Corrections: II, 512; III, 510; IV, 471;
V, 225, 294.)
76. THE LASS OF ROCH ROYAL 213
(Additions and Corrections: III, 510; IV, 471;
V, 225, 294.)
77. SWEET WILLIAM'S GHOST 226
(Additions and Corrections: II, 512; IV, 474; V, 225, 294.)
78. THE UNQUIET GRAVE 234
(Additions and Corrections: II, 512; III, 512; IV, 474;
V, 225, 294.)
79. THE WIFE OF USHER'S WELL 238
(Additions and Corrections: III, 513; V, 294.)
80. OLD ROBIN OF PORTINGALE 240
(Additions and Corrections: II, 513; III, 514; IV, 476;
V, 225, 295.)
81. LITTLE MUSGRAVE AND LADY BARNARD 242
(Additions and Corrections: II, 513; IV, 476; V, 225.)
82. THE BONNY BIRDY 260
83. CHILD MAURICE 263
(Additions and Corrections: III, 514; IV, 478.)
84. BONNY BARBARA ALLAN 276
(additions and Corrections: III, 514.)
85. LADY ALICE 279
(Additions and Corrections: III, 514; V, 225.)
86. YOUNG BENJIE 281
(Additions and Corrections: IV, 478.)
87. PRINCE ROBERT 284
(Additions and Corrections: V, 295.)
88. YOUNG JOHNSTONE 288
89. FAUSE FOODRAGE 296
(Additions and Corrections: II, 513; III, 515; IV, 479.)
90. JELLON GRAME 302
(Additions and Corrections: II, 513; III, 515; IV, 479;
V, 226, 295.)
91. FAIR MARY OF WALLINGTON 309
(Additions and Corrections: II, 513; III, 515; IV, 479;
V, 227.)
92. BONNY BEE HOM 317
(Additions and Corrections: V, 229.)
93. LAMKIN 320
(Additions and Corrections: II, 513; III, 515; IV, 480;
V, 229, 295.)
94. YOUNG WATERS 342
(Additions and Corrections: III, 516.)
95. THE MAID FREED FROM THE GALLOWS 346
(Additions and Corrections: II, 514; III, 516; IV, 481;
V, 231, 296.)
96. THE GAY GOSHAWK 355
(Additions and Corrections: III, 517; IV, 482;
V, 234, 296.)
97. BROWN ROBIN 368
98. BROWN ADAM 373
99. JOHNIE SCOT 377
(Additions and Corrections: IV, 486; V, 234.)
100. WILLIE O WINSBURY 398
(Additions and Corrections: II, 514; III, 517; IV, 491;
V, 296.)
101. WILLIE O DOUGLAS DALE 406
(Additions and Corrections: III, 517; V, 235.)
102. WILLIE AND EARL RICHARD'S DAUGHTER 412
(Additions and Corrections: III, 518.)
103. ROSE THE RED AND WHITE LILY 415
104. PRINCE HEATHEN 424
(Additions and Corrections: V, 296.)
105. THE BAILIFF'S DAUGHTER OF ISLINGTON 426
(Additions and Corrections: III, 518; V, 237.)
106. THE FAMOUS FLOWER OF SERVING-MEN 428
(Additions and Corrections: III, 518; IV, 492.)
107. WILL STEWART AND JOHN 432
(Additions and Corrections: V, 237.)
108. CHRISTOPHER WHITE 439
109. TOM POTTS 441
(Additions and Corrections: III, 518.)
110. THE KNIGHT AND SHEPHERD'S DAUGHTER 457
(Additions and Corrections: IV, 492; V, 237.)
111. CROW AND PIE 478
112. THE BAFFLED KNIGHT 479
(Additions and Corrections: III, 518; IV, 495;
V, 239, 296.)
113. THE GREAT SILKIE OF SULE SKERRY 494
(Additions and Corrections: III, 518; IV, 495.)
ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS 495
54
THE CHERRY-TREE CAROL
#A. a.# 'Joseph was an old man,' Sandys, Christmas
Carols, p. 123. #b.# Sandys, Christmastide, p. 241.
#B. a.# 'The Cherry-Tree Carol,' Husk, Songs of the
Nativity, p. 59. #b.# Hone's Ancient Mysteries, p. 90.
#c.# 'The Cherry-Tree Carol,' Sylvester, A Garland
of Christmas Carols, p. 45. #d.# 'The Cherry-Tree,'
Birmingham chap-book, of about 1843, in B. Harris
Cowper's Apocryphal Gospels, p. xxxviii.
#C.# 'The Cherry-Tree Carol,' Bramley and Stainer,
Christmas Carols, p. 60.
#D.# Notes and Queries, Fourth Series, XII, 461.
The proper story of this highly popular carol is derived from the
Pseudo-Matthew's gospel, chapter XX; Tischendorf, Evangelia Apocrypha,
p. 82; Thilo, Codex Apocryphus Novi Testamenti, Historia de Nativitate
Mariæ et de Infantia Salvatoris, p. 395. What succeeds, after #A# 9,
#B# 8, #C# 7, #D# 6, is probably founded on the angel's words to the
shepherds in Luke ii, and on Jesus's predictions in the authentic
gospels. This latter portion is sometimes printed as an independent
carol, under the title of 'Joseph and the Angel.'[1]
On the third day of the flight into Egypt, Mary, feeling the heat to
be oppressive, tells Joseph that she will rest for a while under a
palm-tree. Joseph helps her to light from her beast, and Mary, looking
up from under the tree, and seeing it full of fruit, asks for some.
Joseph somewhat testily expresses his surprise that she should think
of such a thing, considering the height of the tree: he is much more
concerned to get a supply of water. Then Jesus, sitting on his mother's
lap, bids the palm to bow down and refresh his mother with its fruit.
The palm instantly bends its top to Mary's feet.
The truly popular carol would be sure to adapt the fruit to its own
soil. In English the tree is always a cherry. We have the story also
in the fifteenth of the Coventry Mysteries, ed. Halliwell, p. 146 (not
omitting Joseph's quip in #A# 5, etc.), with the addition of a little
more miracle: for it is not the season for cherries, and Mary's wish
is anticipated by the tree's blooming before she has uttered it. In
Catalan and Provençal the tree is an apple. On the way from Bethlehem
to Nazareth, Mary and Joseph come upon a gardener who is climbing an
apple-tree, and Mary asks for an apple. He politely gives her leave
to pluck for herself. Joseph, who this time has not been disobliging,
tries, but the branches go up; Mary tries, and the branches come to
her:[2] Milá, Romancerillo, p. 3, No 4. Also p. 63, No 55, where again
Joseph is _molt felló_, very crusty; further, Briz, III, 228; Arbaud,
Chants populaires de la Provence, 'Lou premier Miracle,' I, 23, and
'La Fuito en Egypto,' II, 237 f. In other legendary ballads, not so
entirely popular, the palm-tree is preserved: Meinert, p. 262; Böhme,
p. 628, No 523==Weinhold, Weihnachtspiele, p. 385; Lexer, Kärntisches
Wörterbuch, p. 310; Feifalik, Die Kindheit Jesu, pp 101, 106==Pailler,
Weihnachtlieder aus Oberösterreich, No 314, p 338 f; Pailler, p. 332,
No 310; Hoffmann, Horæ Belgicæ, Part Ten, p. 59; Alberdingk Thijm,
I, 212. In Schmitz, Sitten und Sagen des Eifler Volkes, I, 116, and
Pailler, as above, No 311, we have a fig-tree. Some of these are very
imperfect, or have even lost chief points in the story.
There are many narratives of the childhood of Jesus, based on the
apocryphal gospels, in which this legend must needs be found: as,
Cursor Mundi, ed. Morris, II, 668 f, v. 11,657 ff; Horstmann,
Altenglische Legenden, 1875, p. 6, 1878, pp 102, 112; Stephens,
Fornsvenskt Legendarium, p. 71; Pitré, Canti popolari siciliani, II,
333.[3]
A
#a.# Sandys, Christmas Carols, p. 123, West of England.
#b.# Sandys, Christmastide, p. 241.
1
Joseph was an old man,
and an old man was he,
When he wedded Mary,
in the land of Galilee.
2
Joseph and Mary walked
through an orchard good,
Where was cherries and berries,
so red as any blood.
3
Joseph and Mary walked
through an orchard green,
Where was berries and cherries,
as thick as might be seen.
4
O then bespoke Mary,
so meek and so mild:
'Pluck me one cherry, Joseph,
for I am with child.'
5
O then bespoke Joseph,
with words most unkind:
'Let him pluck thee a cherry
that brought thee with child.'
6
O then bespoke the babe,
within his mother's womb:
'Bow down then the tallest tree,
for my mother to have some.'
7
Then bowed down the highest tree
unto his mother's hand;
Then she cried, See, Joseph,
I have cherries at command.
8
O then bespake Joseph:
'I have done Mary wrong;
But cheer up, my dearest,
and be not cast down.'
9
Then Mary plucked a cherry,
as red as the blood,
Then Mary went home
with her heavy load.
10
Then Mary took her babe,
and sat him on her knee,
Saying, My dear son, tell me
what this world will be.
11
'O I shall be as dead, mother,
as the stones in the wall;
O the stones in the streets, mother,
shall mourn for me all.
12
'Upon Easter-day, mother,
my uprising shall be;
O the sun and the moon, mother,
shall both rise with me.'
B
#a.# Husk, Songs of the Nativity, p. 59, from a Worcester
broadside of the last century. #b.# Hone's Ancient
Mysteries, p. 90, from various copies, #c.# Sylvester,
A Garland of Christmas Carols, p. 45. #d.# Birmingham
chap-book, of about 1843, in B. Harris Cowper's
Apocryphal Gospels, p. xxxviii.
1
Joseph was an old man,
and an old man was he,
And he married Mary,
the Queen of Galilee.
2
When Joseph was married,
and Mary home had brought,
Mary proved with child,
and Joseph knew it not.
3
Joseph and Mary walked
through a garden gay,
Where the cherries they grew
upon every tree.
4
O then bespoke Mary,
with words both meek and mild:
'O gather me cherries, Joseph,
they run so in my mind.'
5
And then replied Joseph,
with words so unkind:
'Let him gather thee cherries
that got thee with child.'
6
O then bespoke our Saviour,
all in his mother's womb:
'Bow down, good cherry-tree,
to my mother's hand.'
7
The uppermost sprig
bowed down to Mary's knee:
'Thus you may see, Joseph,
these cherries are for me.'
8
'O eat your cherries, Mary,
O eat your cherries now;
O eat your cherries, Mary,
that grow upon the bough.'
9
As Joseph was a walking,
he heard an angel sing:
'This night shall be born
our heavenly king.
10
'He neither shall be born
in housen nor in hall,
Nor in the place of Paradise,
but in an ox's stall.
11
'He neither shall be clothed
in purple nor in pall,
But all in fair linen,
as were babies all.
12
'He neither shall be rocked
in silver nor in gold,
But in a wooden cradle,
that rocks on the mould.
13
'He neither shall be christened
in white wine nor red,
But with fair spring water,
with which we were christened.'
14
Then Mary took her young son,
and set him on her knee:
'I pray thee now, dear child,
tell how this world shall be.'
15
'O I shall be as dead, mother,
as the stones in the wall;
O the stones in the street, mother,
shall mourn for me all.
16
'And upon a Wednesday
my vow I will make,
And upon Good Friday
my death I will take.
17
'Upon Easter-day, mother,
my rising shall be;
O the sun and the moon
shall uprise with me.
18
'The people shall rejoice,
and the birds they shall sing,
To see the uprising
of the heavenly king.'
C
Bramley and Stainer, Christmas Carols, p. 60.
1
Joseph was an old man,
an old man was he,
He married sweet Mary,
the Queen of Galilee.
2
As they went a walking
in the garden so gay,
Maid Mary spied cherries,
hanging over yon tree.
3
Mary said to Joseph,
with her sweet lips so mild,
'Pluck those cherries, Joseph,
for to give to my child.'
4
O then replied Joseph,
with words so unkind,
'I will pluck no cherries
for to give to thy child.'
5
Mary said to cherry-tree,
'Bow down to my knee,
That I may pluck cherries,
by one, two, and three.'
6
The uppermost sprig then
bowed down to her knee:
'Thus you may see, Joseph,
these cherries are for me.'
7
'O eat your cherries, Mary,
O eat your cherries now,
O eat your cherries, Mary,
that grow upon the bough.'
8
As Joseph was a walking
he heard angels sing,
'This night there shall be born
our heavenly king.
9
'He neither shall be born
in house nor in hall,
Nor in the place of Paradise,
but in an ox-stall.
10
'He shall not be clothed
in purple nor pall,
But all in fair linen,
as wear babies all.
11
'He shall not be rocked
in silver nor gold,
But in a wooden cradle,
that rocks on the mould.
12
'He neither shall be christened
in milk nor in wine,
But in pure spring-well water,
fresh sprung from Bethine.'
13
Mary took her baby,
she dressed him so sweet;
She laid him in a manger,
all there for to sleep.
14
As she stood over him
she heard angels sing,
'Oh bless our dear Saviour,
our heavenly king.'
D
Notes and Queries, Fourth Series, XII, 461; taken from
the mouth of a wandering gypsy girl in Berkshire.
1
O Joseph was an old man,
and an old man was he,
And he married Mary,
from the land of Galilee.
2
Oft after he married her,
how warm he were abroad,
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
3
Then Mary and Joseph
walkd down to the gardens cool;
Then Mary spied a cherry,
as red as any blood.
4
'Brother Joseph, pluck the cherry,
for I am with child:'
'Let him pluck the cherry, Mary,
as is father to the child.'
5
Then our blessed Saviour spoke,
from his mother's womb:
'Mary shall have cherries,
and Joseph shall have none.'
6
From the high bough the cherry-tree
bowd down to Mary's knee;
Then Mary pluckt the cherry,
by one, two, and three.
7
They went a little further,
and heard a great din:
'God bless our sweet Saviour,
our heaven's love in.'
8
Our Saviour was not rocked
in silver or in gold,
But in a wooden cradle,
like other babes all.
9
Our Saviour was not christend
in white wine or red,
But in some spring water,
like other babes all.
* * * * *
#A. b.#
2.
When Joseph and Mary
walked in the garden good,
There was cherries and berries,
as red as the blood.
3 _is wanting_.
4^3. some cherries.
5^2. so unkind.
5^3. the cherries.
6^{1,2}. bespoke Jesus in.
6^4. that my mother may.
7^{1,2}. tallest tree, it bent to Mary's.
_After 8_:
Then Joseph and Mary
did to Bethlehem go,
And with travels were weary,
walking to and fro.
They sought for a lodging,
but the inns were filld all,
They, alas! could not have it,
but in an ox's stall.
But before the next morning
our Saviour was born,
In the month of December,
Christmas Day in the morn.
9-12 _are wanting_.
#B. b.#
2^2. and his cousin Mary got.
2^4. by whom Joseph knew not.
3^1. As Joseph.
3^2. the garden.
4^3. Gather me some.
4^{5,6}.
Gather me some cherries,
for I am with child.
5^1. O then bespoke.
5^2. with words most.
6.
O then bespoke Jesus,
all in his mother's womb:
Go to the tree, Mary,
and it shall bow down.
7.
Go to the tree, Mary,
and it shall bow to thee,
And the highest branch of all
shall bow down to Mary's knee.
And she shall gather cherries,
by one, by two, by three:
Now you may see, Joseph,
those cherries were for me.
13^3. with the spring.
15.
This world shall be like
the stones in the street,
For the sun and the moon
shall bow down at thy feet.
(_~my feet~ in a Warwickshire broadside: Sylvester._)
17.
And upon the third day
my uprising shall be,
And the sun and the moon
shall rise up with me.
18 _is wanting_.
_For 9-13 we have, as a separate carol, in Chappell's
Christmas Carols, edited by Dr E. F. Rimbault, p. 22, the
following verses, traditional in Somersetshire:[4]_
1
As Joseph was a walking
he heard an angel sing:
'This night shall be the birth-time
of Christ, the heavnly king.
2
'He neither shall be born
in housen nor in hall,
Nor in the place of Paradise,
but in an ox's stall.
3
'He neither shall be clothed
in purple nor in pall,
But in the fair white linen
that usen babies all.
4
'He neither shall be rocked
in silver nor in gold,
But in a wooden manger,
that resteth on the mould.'
5
As Joseph was a walking
there did an angel sing,
And Mary's child at midnight
was born to be our king.
6
Then be ye glad, good people,
this night of all the year,
And light ye up your candles,
for his star it shineth clear.
#c.#
1^3. When he.
2 _is omitted._
_After 3:_
Joseph and Mary walked
through an orchard good,
Where were cherries and berries,
as red as any blood.
5 _is omitted._
6, 7.
Go to the tree, Mary,
and it shall bow to thee,
And the highest branch of all
shall bow down to Mary's knee.
Go to the tree, Mary,
and it shall bow to thee,
And you shall gather cherries,
by one, by two, and three.
Then bowed down the highest tree
unto his mother's hand:
See, Mary cried, see, Joseph,
I have cherries at command.
17^2. my uprising.
17^3. moon, mother.
17^4. shall both rise.
18 _is wanting, and is suspiciously modern._
#d.#
1^1. When Joseph.
1^2. and _wanting_.
2^{1, 2}.
When Joseph he had
his cousin Mary got.
2^4. by whom Joseph knew not.
3^1. As Joseph.
3^2. the garden gay.
3^{3, 4}.
Where cherries were growing
upon every spray.
4^{3, 4}.
Gather me some cherries,
for I am with child.
5.
Gather me some cherries,
they run so in my mind.
Then bespoke Joseph,
with wordes so unkind,
I will not gather cherries.
Then said Mary, You shall see,
By what will happen,
these cherries were for me.
6^1. Then bespoke Jesus.
6^{3, 4}.
Go to the tree, Mary,
and it shall bow down.
7.
And the highest branch
shall bow to Mary's knee,
And she shall gather cherries,
by one, two, and three.
8 _wanting._
10 _wanting._
11^3. But in fine.
13^{1, 2}.
He never did require
white wine and bread.
13^3. But cold spring.
13 _precedes 12._
14^{3, 4}. Come tell me, dear child, how.
15.
This world shall be
like the stones in the street,
For the sun and the moon
shall bow down at my feet.
_The rest is wanting._
#D.#
3^2. to the garden school.
_The first stanza is said to have this variation in Worcestershire:_
Joseph was a hoary man,
and a hoary man was he.
_Notes and Queries, Fourth Series, III, 75._
[1] A copy of the Cherry-Tree carol in The Guardian, Dec. 27, 1871, is
partly compiled "from several ancient sources," and partly composed by
the contributor: see Notes and Queries, Fourth Series, X, 73.
[2] Cf. the very naive #D# 5: 'Mary shall have cherries, and Joseph
shall have none.'
[3] Liber de Infantia Mariæ et Christi Salvatoris, O. Schade, 1869,
p. 38 f, follows almost word for word the Pseudo-Matthew. In note 234
the editor points out passages where the story occurs in Hróthsvítha,
and other mediæval poetry. See, also, Schade, Narrationes de vita et
conversatione beatæ Mariæ Virginis, 1870, pp 16, 24.
[4] The same in Christmas and Christmas Carols [by J. F. Russell], p.
26, with an additional modern-sounding stanza.
55
THE CARNAL AND THE CRANE
'The Carnal and the Crane.' #a.# Sandys, Christmas
Carols, p. 152, Christmastide, p. 246, from a broadside.
#b.# Husk, Songs of the Nativity, p. 97, apparently from
a Worcester broadside, #c.# Birmingham chap-book, of
about 1843, in B. Harris Cowper's Apocryphal Gospels, p.
xli.
Mr Husk, who had access to a remarkably good collection of carols,
afterwards unfortunately dispersed, had met with no copy of 'The Carnal
and the Crane' of earlier date than the middle of the last century.
Internal evidence points us much further back. The carol had obviously
been transmitted from mouth to mouth before it was fixed in its present
incoherent and corrupted form by print.[5]
The well-informed Crane instructs his catechumen, the Crow, in several
matters pertaining to the birth and earliest days of Jesus: the
Immaculate Conception; the Nativity; the conference of Herod with
the Wise Men, including the miracle of the roasted cock; the Flight
into Egypt, with the Adoration of the Beasts and the Instantaneous
Harvest; the Massacre of the Innocents. Of the apocryphal incidents,
the miracle of the cock, sts 10, 11, has been spoken of under No 22.
The adoration of the beasts, sts 15, 16, is derived from the Historia
de Nativitate Mariæ, etc. (Pseudo-Matthæi Evangelium), c. 19, Thilo,
p. 394, Tischendorf, p. 81, and is of course frequent in legendaries
of the infancy of the Saviour,[6] but is not remarkable enough to be
popular in carols. The miraculous harvest, by which the Holy Family
evade Herod's pursuit, is, on the contrary, a favorite subject with
popular poetry, as also, like the bowing of the palm-tree, with
pictorial art. I do not know where and when this pretty and clever
legend was invented. In the Greek Gospel of Thomas, ch. 12, Jesus sows
one grain of wheat, in the Latin Gospel of Thomas, ch. 10, and ch.
34 of the Pseudo-Matthew, a very little, and reaps an immense crop
at harvest time; Tischendorf, pp 143 f, 165 f, 97: but this passage
would hardly even suggest the miracle in question.[7] In a Swedish
carol, 'Staffans-Visan,' reprinted from a recent broadside, in Dansk
Kirketidende, 1861, cols 35, 36, by Professor George Stephens, and
afterwards by Grundtvig, Danmarks Folkeviser, III, 882, the legend of
the Cock and that of the Sower are combined, as here. The legend of the
Sower is followed by that of the Palm-tree, and others, in La Fuito en
Egypto, Arbaud, Chants p. de la Provence, II, 235. Another Provençal
version of the Sower is given by Briz, IV, 70; a Catalan at pp 65
and 68, 'Lo rey Herodes;' ten Catalan versions by Milá, 'Herodes,'
Romancerillo, pp 6-9, No 10. To these add: 'La Fuite en Égypte,'
Poésies p. de la France, MS., I, fol. 226, 'Le roi Hérode,' VI, 192;
'De Vlucht naar Egypten,' Lootens et Feys, p. 32, No 20, Hoffmann
von Fallersleben, Horæ Belgicæ, Part Ten, p. 22, No 4; 'Die Flucht
Maria's,' Haupt und Schmaler, Volkslieder der Wenden, I, 275, No 283;
Bezsonof, Kalyeki Perekhozhie, II, 116, No 319. The legend of the Sower
occurs also in Le Geu des Trois Roys, Jubinal, Mystères inédits du
15^e Siècle, II, 117-131.
It is ordinarily Mary, and not Jesus, who operates the miracle; in the
French mystery it is perhaps Joseph.[8] In the Provençal and Catalan
ballads the Virgin commonly hides behind a sheaf or a stack, and does
not pass on.[9]
1
As I passd by a river side,
And there as I did reign,
In argument I chanced to hear
A Carnal and a Crane.
2
The Carnal said unto the Crane,
If all the world should turn,
Before we had the Father,
But now we have the Son!
3
'From whence does the Son come,
From where and from what place?'
He said, In a manger,
Between an ox and ass.
4
'I pray thee,' said the Carnal,
'Tell me before thou go,
Was not the mother of Jesus
Conceivd by the Holy Ghost?'
5
She was the purest virgin,
And the cleanest from sin;
She was the handmaid of our Lord
And mother of our king.
6
'Where is the golden cradle
That Christ was rocked in?
Where are the silken sheets
That Jesus was wrapt in?'
7
A manger was the cradle
That Christ was rocked in:
The provender the asses left
So sweetly he slept on.
8
There was a star in the east land,
So bright it did appear,
Into King Herod's chamber,
And where King Herod were.
9
The Wise Men soon espied it,
And told the king on high
A princely babe was born that night
No king could eer destroy.
10
'If this be true,' King Herod said,
'As thou tellest unto me,
This roasted cock that lies in the dish
Shall crow full fences three.'
11
The cock soon freshly featherd was,
By the work of God's own hand,
And then three fences crowed he,
In the dish where he did stand.
12
'Rise up, rise up, you merry men all,
See that you ready be;
All children under two years old
Now slain they all shall be.'
13
Then Jesus, ah, and Joseph,
And Mary, that was so pure,
They travelld into Egypt,
As you shall find it sure.
14
And when they came to Egypt's land,
Amongst those fierce wild beasts,
Mary, she being weary,
Must needs sit down to rest.
15
'Come sit thee down,' says Jesus,
'Come sit thee down by me,
And thou shalt see how these wild beasts
Do come and worship me.'
16
First came the lovely lion,
Which Jesus's grace did bring,
And of the wild beasts in the field
The lion shall be king.
17
We'll choose our virtuous princes
Of birth and high degree,
In every sundry nation,
Whereer we come and see.
18
Then Jesus, ah, and Joseph,
And Mary, that was unknown,
They travelled by a husbandman,
Just while his seed was sown.
19
'God speed thee, man,' said Jesus,
'Go fetch thy ox and wain,
And carry home thy corn again
Which thou this day hast sown.'
20
The husbandman fell on his knees,
Even upon his face:
'Long time hast thou been looked for,
But now thou art come at last.
21
'And I myself do now believe
Thy name is Jesus called;
Redeemer of mankind thou art,
Though undeserving all.'
22
'The truth, man, thou hast spoken,
Of it thou mayst be sure,
For I must lose my precious blood
For thee and thousands more.
23
'If any one should come this way,
And enquire for me alone,
Tell them that Jesus passed by
As thou thy seed did sow.'
24
After that there came King Herod,
With his train so furiously,
Enquiring of the husbandman
Whether Jesus passed by.
25
'Why, the truth it must be spoke,
And the truth it must be known;
For Jesus passed by this way
When my seed was sown.
26
'But now I have it reapen,
And some laid on my wain,
Ready to fetch and carry
Into my barn again.'
27
'Turn back,' says the captain,
'Your labor and mine's in vain;
It's full three quarters of a year
Since he his seed has sown.'
28
So Herod was deceived,
By the work of God's own hand,
And further he proceeded
Into the Holy Land.
29
There's thousands of children young
Which for his sake did die;
Do not forbid those little ones,
And do not them deny.
30
The truth now I have spoken,
And the truth now I have shown;
Even the Blessed Virgin
She's now brought forth a son.
* * * * *
#a.#
8^1. West land.
16^2. spring; _perhaps a preposition has been dropped_.
#b.#
1^2. did rein.
2^2. Sure all the world will turn.
3^1. Whence does the Son come from.
3^3. Out of the land of Egypt.
4^2. goest.
5^2. all sin.
5^3. of the.
7^4. slept in.
8^1. East land.
9^4. No prince should.
10^2. tellest me.
12^4. Now slaughtered shall be.
13^1. aye and.
13^3. Egypt land.
13^4. find most.
14^1. Egypt.
14^2. Among some.
14^3. Mary grown quite.
15^3. see that these.
15^4. Will come.
16^2. did bring.
16^4. be king.
17^3. every nation of the world.
18^1. aye and.
18^3. passed by.
18^4. As he his seed had.
19^4. hath sown.
20^{3, 4}.
And made a lowly reverence
To Jesus Christ His grace.
21.
Long time thou hast been looked for,
But now thou art come at last;
And I myself do now believe
Thy name is Jesus called.
22^3. must shed.
23^4. seed had sown.
24^2. train most.
25^1. spoken.
25^4. As I my seed had sown.
26^1. And now.
26^3. The other you see is fit to carry.
26^4. barns.
27^1. said the Captain of the guard.
29^1. There were.
29^2. Who for.
29^3. these little.
30^3. Thus the.
30^4. Brought forth our Lord the Son.
#c.#
1-7. _not given._
8.
There was a star in the west land,
Which shed a cheerful ray
Into King Herod's chamber,
And where King Herod lay.
12^4. Now shall destroyed be.
21, 22. _not given._
25^4. When I my seed had sown.
29, 30. _not given._
[5] Carnal, _cornicula_, _corneille_, might be thought to have been
long obsolete from the word not occurring in ordinary dictionaries, if
in any: but it is hazardous to build conclusions on the omissions of
dictionaries.
[6] As, Horstmann, Altenglische Legenden, 1875, p. 4, 1878, pp
101, 112; Cursor Mundi, 11, 629 ff, Morris, II, 660; Fornsvenskt
Legendarium, p. 71; Feifalik, Kindheit Jesu, p. 103; Schade, Liber de
Infantia, etc., p. 38, and note 226; etc.
[7] In Cursor Mundi, v. 12, 323 _ff_, II, 707, the sowing is according
to the Apocrypha. In Luzel's Breton Ballads, I, 80/81, the Virgin, to
keep a poor widow from killing one of her children to feed two others,
makes corn sown at Christmas in early morning ripen before day.
[8] Joseph stops a moment to speak to the sower, asks the direct road
to Egypt, and begs that if any inquiry is made he will say that nobody
has passed that way. The sower is not punctilious, and answers, Je le
feray très volontiers, que je voy bien qu'estez prodoms. The Swede is
scrupulous. When the Virgin says, If anybody asks after us, say that
you have seen nobody, he replies, I have promised my God never to
tell a lie, "thinking she was only a lady." In the Wendish ballad the
Virgin's demand is simply, If the Jews pass, conceal me not, reveal me
not.
[9] In one Provençal version, Arbaud, II, 245 f, Joseph and Mary ask a
man at work in the fields to save them from Herod, and he tells them
to hide under mint. The mint depresses its leaves so as to afford no
concealment. For this the mint is cursed; though it flower, it shall
not seed. The good man then tells them to hide under sage; the sage
stretches itself out to cover them. The mint betrays the Virgin in many
of the Catalan ballads: She is under the stack! The salvia answers
in Milá, #C#, 'ment la menta y mentirá.' In #D# parsley is the good
plant: the mint is cursed with barrenness as before. In Milá, #J#,
the partridge (one symbol of the devil) sings: Catxacatatxá! Sota la
garbera la Mare de Deu está! for which its head is cursed, never to be
eaten. So Briz, IV, 69.
56
DIVES AND LAZARUS
#A.# 'Dives and Lazarus.' #a.# Sylvester's Christmas
Carols, p. 50. #b.# Husk, Songs of the Nativity, p. 94.
#B.# 'Diverus and Lazarus,' F. S. L., in Notes and
Queries, Fourth Series, III, 76.
A ballet "of the Ryche man and poor Lazarus" was licensed to Master
John Wallye and Mistress Toye, 19 July, 1557-9 July, 1558. W. Pekerynge
pays his license for printing "of a ballett, Dyves and Lazarus,"
22 July, 1570-22 July, 1571. Arber, Registers of the Company of
Stationers, I, 76, 436. A fiddler in Fletcher's Monsieur Thomas,
printed 1639, says he can sing The merry ballad of Diverus and Lazarus:
Act 3, Scene 3, Dyce, VII, 364. The name Diverus is preserved in #C#,
and F. S. L., who contributed this copy to Notes and Queries, had heard
only Diverus, never Dives. Dr Rimbault, Notes and Queries, as above, p.
157, had never met with Diverus. Hone cites two stanzas, #a# 10, #b#
11, nearly, in his Ancient Mysteries, p. 95, and Sandys the last three
stanzas, nearly as in #a#, in Notes and Queries, p. 157, as above. A
copy in Bramley and Stainer's Christmas Carols, p. 85, seems to have
been made up from Sylvester's and another copy. The few variations are
probably arbitrary.
The subject could not escape the popular muse: e. g., Socard, Noëls et
Cantiques imprimés à Troyes, Histoire de Lazare et du Mauvais Riche,
p. 118 ff; 'El mal rico,' Milá, Romancerillo, p. 16, No 16, #A-F#;
'Lazarus,' Des Dülkener Fiedlers Liederbuch, p. 53, No 63; 'Lazar a
bohatec,' Sušil, Moravské Národní Písnĕ, p. 19, No 18, Wenzig,
Bibliothek Slavischer Poesien, p. 114; Bezsonof, Kalyeki Perekhozhie,
I, 43-97, Nos 19-27.
There is a very beautiful ballad, in which the Madonna takes the place
of Lazarus, in Roadside Songs of Tuscany, Francesca Alexander and John
Ruskin, 'La Madonna e il Riccone,' p. 82.
A
#a.# Sylvester, A Garland of Christmas Carols, p. 50,
from an old Birmingham broadside. #b.# Husk, Songs of the
Nativity, p. 94, from a Worcestershire broadside of the
last century.
1
As it fell out upon a day,
Rich Dives he made a feast,
And he invited all his friends,
And gentry of the best.
2
Then Lazarus laid him down and down,
And down at Dives' door:
'Some meat, some drink, brother Dives,
Bestow upon the poor.'
3
'Thou art none of my brother, Lazarus,
That lies begging at my door;
No meat nor drink will I give thee,
Nor bestow upon the poor.'
4
Then Lazarus laid him down and down,
And down at Dives's wall:
'Some meat, some drink, brother Dives,
Or with hunger starve I shall.'
5
'Thou art none of my brother, Lazarus,
That lies begging at my wall;
No meat nor drink will I give thee,
But with hunger starve you shall.'
6
Then Lazarus laid him down and down,
And down at Dives's gate:
'Some meat, some drink, brother Dives,
For Jesus Christ his sake.'
7
'Thou art none of my brother, Lazarus,
That lies begging at my gate;
No meat nor drink will I give thee,
For Jesus Christ his sake.'
8
Then Dives sent out his merry men,
To whip poor Lazarus away;
They had no power to strike a stroke,
But flung their whips away.
9
Then Dives sent out his hungry dogs,
To bite him as he lay;
They had no power to bite at all,
But licked his sores away.
10
As it fell out upon a day,
Poor Lazarus sickened and died;
Then came two angels out of heaven
His soul therein to guide.
11
'Rise up, rise up, brother Lazarus,
And go along with me;
For you've a place prepared in heaven,
To sit on an angel's knee.'
12
As it fell out upon a day,
Rich Dives sickened and died;
Then came two serpents out of hell,
His soul therein to guide.
13
'Rise up, rise up, brother Dives,
And go with us to see
A dismal place, prepared in hell,
From which thou canst not flee.'
14
Then Dives looked up with his eyes,
And saw poor Lazarus blest:
'Give me one drop of water, brother Lazarus,
To quench my flaming thirst.
15
'Oh had I as many years to abide
As there are blades of grass,
Then there would be an end, but now
Hell's pains will ne'er be past.
16
'Oh was I now but alive again,
The space of one half hour!
Oh that I had my peace secure!
Then the devil should have no power.'
B
From memory, as sung by carol-singers at Christmas, in
Worcestershire, at Hagley and Hartlebury, 1829-39: F. S.
L., in Notes and Queries, Fourth Series, III, 76.
1
As it fell out upon one day,
Rich Diverus he made a feast,
And he invited all his friends,
And gentry of the best.
2
And it fell out upon one day,
Poor Lazarus he was so poor,
He came and laid him down and down,
Evn down at Diverus' door.
3
So Lazarus laid him down and down
Even down at Diverus' door:
'Some meat, some drink, brother Diverus,
Do bestow upon the poor.'
4
'Thou art none of mine, brother Lazarus,
Lying begging at my door:
No meat, no drink will I give thee,
Nor bestow upon the poor.'
5
Then Lazarus laid him down and down,
Even down at Diverus' wall:
'Some meat, some drink, brother Diverus,
Or surely starve I shall.
6
'Thou art none of mine, brother Lazarus,
Lying begging at my wall;
No meat, no drink will I give thee,
And therefore starve thou shall.'
7
Then Lazarus laid him down and down,
Even down at Diverus' gate:
'Some meat, some drink, brother Diverus,
For Jesus Christ his sake.'
8
'Thou art none of mine, brother Lazarus,
Lying begging at my gate;
No meat, no drink will I give thee,
For Jesus Christ his sake.
9
Then Diverus sent out his merry men all,
To whip poor Lazarus away;
They had not power to whip one whip,
But threw their whips away.
10
Then Diverus sent out his hungry dogs,
To bite poor Lazarus away;
They had not power to bite one bite,
But licked his sores away.
11
And it fell out upon one day,
Poor Lazarus he sickened and died;
There came two angels out of heaven,
His soul thereto to guide.
12
'Rise up, rise up, brother Lazarus,
And come along with me;
There is a place prepared in heaven,
For to sit upon an angel's knee.'
13
And it fell out upon one day
Rich Diverus he sickened and died;
There came two serpents out of hell,
His soul thereto to guide.
14
'Rise up, rise up, brother Diverus,
And come along with me;
There is a place prepared in hell,
For to sit upon a serpent's knee.'
* * * * *
#A. a.#
_14-16. There are only these trifling variations in the
stanzas cited by Sandys:_
16^2. of an.
16^3. I'd made my peace.
#b.#
1^3. his guests.
7^3. I'll give to thee.
8^3. But they.
8^4. And flung.
9^3. But they.
9^4. So licked.
10^3. came an angel.
10^4. there for.
11^2. come along.
11^3. For there's a place in heaven provided.
12^3. There came a serpent.
12^4. there for.
13^{2-4}.
And come along with me,
For there's a place in hell provided
To sit on a serpent's knee.
14^1. lifting his eyes to heaven.
14^2. And seeing.
15^{3, 4}.
Then there would be an ending day,
But in hell I must ever last.
16^{3, 4}.
I would make my will and then secure
That the.
#B.#
_13, 14 differ but slightly in Hone:_
13^1. As it.
13^2. Rich Dives.
13^4. therein.
14^1. Dives.
14^3. For you've a place provided.
14^4. To sit.
57
BROWN ROBYN´S CONFESSION
Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, I, 110.
Motherwell's MS., p. 580.
The only known version of 'Brown Robyn's Confession' is the one printed
in Ballads of the North of Scotland, the copy in Motherwell's MS.
having been derived from Buchan.
The ballad, as we have it in English, celebrates a miracle of the
Virgin, and is our only example of that extensive class of legends,
unless we choose to include 'The Jew's Daughter,' and to take Robin
Hood's view of the restoration of his loan, in the fourth Fit of the
Little Gest. Of rescues on the sea, by which Mary "vere maris stella
indiciis evidentissimis comprobatur," we have two in most of the
collections of the Virgin's miracles, e. g., Vincent of Beauvais,
1. VII, cc 88,89, Gautier de Coincy, ed. Poquet, pp 515, 605. The
deliverance, however, _is_ for honor done to Mary, and _not_ for a fair
confession.
A fine ballad, very common in Sweden, and preserved by tradition also
in Denmark and Norway, has the same story with a tragical termination
for the hero, saving a single instance, in which there is also a
supernatural interference in his behalf.
#Swedish.# 'Herr Peders Sjöresa.' #A#, Afzelius, II, 31, No 36, new ed.
No 30, from oral traditions, compared with a printed copy of the date
1787. #B#, Atterbom's Poetisk Kalender, 1816, p. 52, apparently from
Gyllenmärs' Visbok, after which it is given by Bergström, Afzelius,
II, 158. #C#, Arwidsson, II, 5, No 67, one of three closely resembling
copies. #D#, 'Herr Peder,' Wigström, Folkdiktning, I, 43, No 21. #E#,
Fagerlund, p. 194, No 4. #F#, #G#, Aminson, IV, 20, 22.
#Norwegian.# 'Unge herr Peder pá sjöen,' Landstad, p. 617, No 82.
#Danish.# #A#, manuscript of the fifteenth century, in a copy
communicated by Professor Grundtvig. #B#, 'Jon Rimaardssøns
Skriftemaal,' Vedel, 1591, It Hundrede udvaalde Danske Viser, p. 3,
No 2 (Bergström); Danske Viser, II, 220, No 92. #C#, 'Lodkastningen,'
Kristensen, I, 16, No 6. #D#, 'Sejladsen,' the same, p. 322, No 119.
Swedish #C-E#, the Norwegian version, Danish #C#, #D#, are all from
recent oral tradition.
With a partial exception of Danish #A#, #B#,[10] the story of these
ballads is this. Sir Peter asks his foster-mother what death he shall
die. You are not to die in your bed, she says, and not in fight,
but beware of the waves. Peter cares not for the waves, and builds
a splendid ship, the hulk and masts of whalebone (elm, Swedish #D#;
walnut, Norwegian, Danish #D#), the flags of gold (oars, Danish #A#).
Let us drink to-day, while we have ale, says Peter; to-morrow we
will sail where gain shall guide. The skipper and helmsman push off,
forgetful of God the Father, God's Son, and the Holy Ghost. They sail
a year or two on the boiling sea, and when they come where water is
deepest the masts begin to go, Swedish #A#; the ship stops, Swedish
#C#, #D#, #F#, Norwegian, Danish #A#, #C#, #D#;[11] will not mind
her helm, Danish #B#. They cast lots to see who is the sinner; the
skipper and captain do this while Peter is in his cabin sleeping,[12]
in Swedish #D#, Norwegian, Danish #C#, #D#. The lot falls on Peter. He
makes his shrift, since there is no priest, before the mast (which,
with the yard, forms a cross), Swedish #A#, #B#, Norwegian, Danish
#B#, #C#; before an oar, on which Our Lord stands written, Danish #A#.
"Churches have I plundered, and convents have I burned, and stained
the honor of many a noble maid. I have roamed the woods and done both
robbery and murder, and many an honest peasant's son buried alive in
the earth:" Swedish #A#. He then says his last words, Danish #C#, #D#,
and nearly all.
'If any of you should get back to land,
And my foster-mother ask for me,
Tell her I'm serving in the king's court,
And living right merrily.
'If any of you should get back to land,
And my true-love ask for me,
Bid her to marry another man,
For I am under the sea.'[13]
In Swedish #C#, #D#, Danish #C#, they throw Peter over, on the larboard
in the first, and the ship resumes her course; in Swedish #D#, #F#, he
wraps a cloak round him and jumps in himself; in Swedish #A# the ship
goes down. In Danish #B# Jon Rimaardssøn binds three bags about him,
saying, He shall never die poor that will bury my body.[14] It was a
sad sight to see when he made a cross on the blue wave, and so took the
wild path that lay to the sea's deep bottom. Sir Peter, in Danish #A#,
made this cross and was ready to take this path; but when he reached
the water the wild sea turned to green earth.
Sir Peter took horse, the ship held her course,
So glad they coasted the strand;
And very glad was his true-love too
That he had come to land.[15]
No explanation is offered of this marvel. In the light of the Scottish
ballad, we should suppose that Sir Peter's deliverance in Danish #A#
was all for the fair confession he made upon the sea.[16]
Saxo relates that, in the earlier part of Thorkill's marvellous voyage,
the crews of his three ships, when reduced almost to starving, coming
upon an island well stocked with herds, would not heed the warning
of their commander, that if they took more than sufficed to mitigate
their immediate sufferings they might be estopped from proceeding by
the local divinities, but loaded the vessels with carcasses. During the
night which followed, the ships were beset by a crowd of monsters, the
biggest of whom advanced into the water, armed with a huge club, and
called out to the seafarers that they would not be allowed to sail off
till they had expiated the offence they had committed by delivering up
one man for each ship. Thorkill, for the general safety, surrendered
three men, selected by lot, after which they had a good wind and sailed
on. Book VIII; p. 161, ed. 1644.
King Half on his way home from a warlike expedition encountered so
violent a storm that his ship was nigh to foundering. A resolution was
taken that lots should be cast to determine who should jump overboard.
But no lots were needed, says the saga (implying, by the way, that a
vicarious atonement was sufficient), for the men vied with one another
who should go overboard for his comrade. Fornaldar Sögur, Rafn, II, 37
f.[17]
A very pretty Little-Russian _duma_, or ballad, also shows the
efficacy of confession in such a crisis: 'The Storm on the Black Sea,'
Maksimovitch, Songs of Ukraine, p. 14, Moscow, 1834, p. 48, Kief,
1849; translated by Bodenstedt, Die poetische Ukraine, p. 118. The
Cossack flotilla has been divided by a storm on the Black Sea, and
two portions of it have gone to wreck. In the third sails the hetman.
He walks his deck in sombre composure, and says to the sailors, Some
offence has been done, and this makes the sea so wild: confess then
your sins to God, to the Black Sea, and to me your hetman; the guilty
man shall die, and the fleet of the Cossacks not perish. The Cossacks
stand silent, for no one knows who is guilty, when lo, Alexis, son of
the priest of Piriatin, steps forth and says, Let me be the sacrifice;
bind a cloth round my eyes, a stone about my neck, and throw me in; so
shall the fleet of the Cossacks not perish. The men are astounded: how
can a heavy sin be resting on Alexis, who reads them the sacred books,
whose example has kept them from wickedness! Alexis left home, he says,
without asking his father's and mother's blessing, and with an angry
threat against his brother; he wrenched the last crust of bread from
his neighbors; he rode along the street wantonly spurning the breasts
of women and the foreheads of children; he passed churches without
uncovering, without crossing himself: and now he must die for his sins.
As he makes this shrift the storm begins to abate; to the amazement of
the Cossacks, the fleet is saved, and not one man drowned.
The rich merchant Sadko, the very entertaining hero of several Russian
popular epics, is nowhere more entertaining than when, during one of
his voyages, his ship comes to a stop in the sea. He thinks he has run
upon a rock or sand-bank, and tries to push off, but the vessel is
immovable. Twelve years we have been sailing, says Sadko, and never
paid tribute to the king of the sea. A box of gold is thrown in as a
peace-offering, but floats like a duck. It is clear that the sea-king
wants no toll; he requires a man. Every man is ordered to make a lot
from pine-wood and write his name on it. These lots are thrown into
the sea. Every one of them swims like a duck but Sadko's, and his goes
down like a stone. That is not the proper wood for a lot, says Sadko:
make lots of fir-wood. Fir lots are tried: Sadko's goes down like a
stone, the rest swim like ducks. Fir is not right, either; alder, oak,
are tried with the same result. We are quite wrong, says Sadko; we must
take cypress, for cypress was the wood of the cross. They try cypress,
and still Sadko's lot sinks, while all the others float. I am the man,
says Sadko. He orders his men to get for him an oblation of silver,
gold, and pearls, and with this, taking an image of St Nicholas in one
hand and his gusli in the other, commits himself to the sea, and goes
down like a stone. But not to drown. It was quite worth his while for
the rare adventures that followed.[18]
The casting of lots to find out the guilty man who causes trouble to a
ship occurs in William Guiseman, Kinloch's Ancient Scottish Ballads,
p. 156, Kinloch MSS, V, 43, a copy, improved by tradition, of the
"lament" in 'William Grismond's Downfal,' a broadside of 1650, which is
transcribed among the Percy papers, from Ballard's collection.
Captain Glen is thrown overboard without a lot, on the accusation of
the boatswain, and with the happiest effect; broadside in the Roxburghe
collection, Logan's Pedlar's Pack, p. 47, Kinloch MSS, V, 278.
* * * * *
Translated by Gerhard, p. 66, Knortz, L. u. R. Altenglands, p. 155,
No 40. Swedish #A# by the Howitts, Literature and Romance of Northern
Europe, I, 276; Danish #B# by Prior, II, 227.
1
It fell upon a Wodensday
Brown Robyn's men went to sea,
But they saw neither moon nor sun,
Nor starlight wi their ee.
2
'We'll cast kevels us amang,
See wha the unhappy man may be;'
The kevel fell on Brown Robyn,
The master-man was he.
3
'It is nae wonder,' said Brown Robyn,
'Altho I dinna thrive,
For wi my mither I had twa bairns,
And wi my sister five.
4
'But tie me to a plank o wude,
And throw me in the sea;
And if I sink, ye may bid me sink,
But if I swim, just lat me bee.'
5
They've tyed him to a plank o wude,
And thrown him in the sea;
He didna sink, tho they bade him sink;
He swimd, and they bade lat him bee.
6
He hadna been into the sea
An hour but barely three,
Till by it came Our Blessed Lady,
Her dear young son her wi.
7
'Will ye gang to your men again,
Or will ye gang wi me?
Will ye gang to the high heavens,
Wi my dear son and me?'
8
'I winna gang to my men again,
For they would be feared at mee;
But I woud gang to the high heavens,
Wi thy dear son and thee.'
9
'It's for nae honour ye did to me, Brown Robyn,
It's for nae guid ye did to mee;
But a' is for your fair confession
You've made upon the sea.'
* * * * *
4^4. if I sink.
[10] Danish #B# begins very like 'Sir Patrick Spens.' A skeely skipper
Haagen eyes the sky and tells his master that any one who sails to-day
will never come back alive, etc.
[11] In Danish #A# the ship is stopped by a sea-troll that lay on the
bottom. The helmsman crying out, Why does not the ship sail? the troll
replies, You have a sinful man among you; throw him over. It certainly
looks officious of a heathen troll to be arresting sinners. See also
'Germand Gladensvend, Grundtvig, No 33, and the corresponding 'Sætrölls
kvæði,' Íslenzk fornkvæði, No 5.
Hysmine is selected by lot and thrown over, in a storm, "according to
sailor's custom," in the Greek romance of Hysmine and Hysminias, VII,
12, 15.
Serpents (nâgas) stop a ship in mid ocean and demand that a certain
holy man whose instructions they desire shall be delivered to them;
when the holy man has thrown himself in, the vessel is free to move:
Burnouf, Introduction à l'Histoire du Buddhisme indien, p. 316 f.
(Rambaud, La Russie Épique, pp 175 f, 178 f.)
[12] A resemblance to Jonah, but a circumstance not unlikely to be
found in any such story. In Danish #C#, Kristensen, I, 16, after the
skipper and steersman have informed Peter that he is to be thrown
overboard, they suggest the confession which he elsewhere makes
unprompted. So Joshua to Achan, Joshua vii, 19, and Saul to Jonathan, 1
Samuel xiv, 43, in a similar emergency.
[13] These touching verses, which are of a kind found elsewhere in
ballads (see 'The Twa Brothers,' I, 436 f), are preceded by a vow in
Swedish #A#, and the same vow ends Swedish #E#:
'And if God would but help me,
That I might come to some land,
So surely would I build a church
All on the snow-white sand.
'And if I might but come to some town,
And God would so much stead,
So surely would I build a church,
And roof it over with lead.'
Slavic examples of these affecting messages are found in Roger, No 141,
p. 80==Konopka, No 14, p. 114; Woicicki, Pieśńi, I, 76, II, 328,
W. z Oleska, p. 507, No 27; Zegota Pauli, P. l. polskiego, p. 97, No 9,
Lipiński, p. 90, No 47; Kolberg, No 16, pp 196-205, #c#, #d#, #l#,
#m#, #p#, #s#, #x#; Kozlowski, p. 43, No 8; Sakarof, Pyesni, IV, 8. See
also 'Mary Hamilton,' further on.
[14] Lord Howard throws Sir Andrew Barton's body over the hatchbord
into the sea,
And about his middle three hundred crowns;
'Wherever thou land, this will bury thee!'
[15]
Herre Peder han red, og skibet det skred,
De fulgte så glade hit strand;
Så glad da var hans fæstemø
At han var kommen til land.
[16] The importance of confession for the soul's welfare is recognized
by Jon Rimaardssøn.
'Now would I render thanks for his grace
To bountiful Christ in heaven,
For in great peril my soul had been
Had I gone hence unshriven.'
[17] Cited by Dr Prior, Ancient Danish Ballads, II, 227, as also Saxo.
[18] Rybnikof, Pěsni, III, 241-48, No 41, reprinted in Kiryeevski,
V, 34-41. Other versions in Rybnikof, I, 363-80, Nos 61-64, III, 248 f,
No 42; Hilferding, Onezhskiya Byliny, No 70, coll 384-99, No 146, coll
738-40, No 174, coll 877-80; Kirsha Danilof, ed. Kalaidovitch, 1878, No
26, pp 182-87, Kiryeevski, V, 47-55, and No 44, pp 234-39, Kiryeevski,
V, 41-47. (I owe this note to Dr Theodor Vetter.) There is much
variety in the details, as might be expected. In Kirsha Danilof, No
44, Sadko's lot is a feather, the others of cork. He whose lot floats
is a righteous soul; he whose lot sinks is to be thrown overboard. All
the lots swim like ducks but Sadko's. Now make lots out of twigs, says
Sadko, and he whose lot sinks is a righteous soul. Sadko's lot is some
forty pounds of metal, and his the only one that floats.
58
SIR PATRICK SPENS
#A. a.# 'Sir Patrick Spence,' Percy's Reliques, 1765, I,
71. #b.# 'Sir Andrew Wood,' Herd's Scots Songs, 1769, p.
243. 11 stanzas.
#B.# 'Sir Patrick Spence,' Herd's MSS, II, 27, I, 49. 16
stanzas.
#C.# 'Sir Patrick Spens,' Motherwell's MS., p. 493. 20
stanzas.
#D.# 'Sir Andro Wood,' Motherwell's MS., p. 496. 8
stanzas.
#E.# 'Young Patrick,' Motherwell's MS., p. 348. 16
stanzas.
#F.# 'Skipper Patrick,' Motherwell's MS., p. 153. 14
stanzas.
#G.# 'Sir Patrick Spence,' Jamieson's Popular Ballads, I,
157. 17 stanzas.
#H.# 'Sir Patrick Spens,' Scott's Minstrelsy, III, 64,
ed. 1803. 29 stanzas.
#I.# 'Sir Patrick Spens,' Buchan's Ballads of the North
of Scotland, I, 1; Motherwell's MS., p. 550. 29 stanzas.
#J.# 'Sir Patrick Spens,' Harris MS., fol. 4. 24 stanzas.
#K.# 'Sir Patrick Spens,' communicated by Mr Murison. 14
stanzas.
#L.# 'Sir Patrick,' Motherwell's Note-Book, p. 6,
Motherwell's MS., p. 156. 5 stanzas.
#M.# Buchan's Gleanings, p. 196. 4 stanzas.
#N.# 'Earl Patricke Spensse,' Dr J. Robertson's
Adversaria, p. 67. 4 stanzas.
#O.# 'Sir Patrick Spens,' Gibb MS., p. 63. 3 stanzas.
#P.# 'Earl Patrick Graham,' Kinloch MSS, I, 281. 4
stanzas.
#Q.# Finlay's Scottish Ballads, I, xiv. 2 stanzas.
#R.# 'Sir Patrick Spence,' communicated by Mr Macmath. 1
stanza.
Stanzas of #E# and of #L#, a little altered, are given by Motherwell in
his Introduction, pp xlv, xlvi. The ballad in the Border Minstrelsy,
#H#, was made up from two versions, the better of which was #G#, and
five stanzas, 16-20, recited by Mr Hamilton, sheriff of Lanarkshire.
Mr Hamilton is said to have got his fragment "from an old nurse, a
retainer of the Gilkerscleugh family," when himself a boy, about the
middle of the last century.[19] The copy in Finlay's Scottish Ballads,
I, 49, is Scott's, with the last stanza exchanged for the last of #A#,
and one or two trifling changes. The imperfect copies #K#, stanzas
6-10, #M# 1, 3, show admixture with the more modern ballad of 'Young
Allan.' #L# 1, with variations, is found in 'Fair Annie of Lochroyan,'
Herd, 1776, I, 150, and may not belong here. But ballad-ships are wont
to be of equal splendor with Cleopatra's galley: see, for a first-rate,
the Scandinavian 'Sir Peter's Voyage,' cited in the preface to 'Brown
Robyn's Confession.'[20]
This admired and most admirable ballad is one of many which were
first made known to the world through Percy's Reliques. Percy's
version remains, poetically, the best. It may be a fragment, but the
imagination easily supplies all that may be wanting; and if more of the
story, or the whole, be told in #H#, the half is better than the whole.
The short and simple story in #A-F# is that the king wants a good
sailor to take command of a ship or ships ready for sea. Sir Patrick
Spens[21] is recommended, and the king sends him a commission. This
good sailor is much elated by receiving a letter from the king, but the
contents prove very unwelcome.[22] He would hang the man that praised
his seamanship, if he knew him, #B#; though it had been the queen
herself, she might have let it be, #F#; had he been a better man, he
might ha tauld a lee, #D#. The objection, as we learn from #A# 5, #C#
5, is the bad time of year. Percy cites a law of James III, forbidding
ships to be freighted out of the realm with staple goods between the
feast of Simon and Jude and Candlemas, October 28-February 2. There is
neither choice nor thought, but prompt obedience to orders. The ship
must sail the morn, and this without regard to the fearful portent of
the new moon having been seen _late_ yestreen with the auld moon in
her arm. They are only a few leagues out when a furious storm sets in.
The captain calls for a boy to take the steer in hand while he goes
to the topmast to spy land, #B#; or, more sensibly, sends up the boy,
and sticks to the rudder, #C#, #E#. The report is not encouraging, or
is not waited for, for the sea has everything its own way, and now
the nobles, who were loath to wet their shoes, are overhead in water,
and now fifty fathoms under. It would be hard to point out in ballad
poetry, or other, happier and more refined touches than the two stanzas
in #A# which portray the bootless waiting of the ladies for the return
of the seafarers.[23]
In #G-J# we meet with additional circumstances. The destination of the
ship is Norway. The object of the voyage is not told in #G#; in #H#
it is to bring home the king of Norway's daughter; in #J# to bring
home the Scottish king's daughter; in #I# to take out the Scottish
king's daughter to Norway, where she is to be queen. The Scots make
the passage in two days, or three, #G#, #H#, #I#. After a time the
Norwegians begin to complain of the expense caused by their guests,
#G#, #H#; or reproach the Scots with staying too long, to their own
king's cost, #I#. Sir Patrick tells them that he brought money enough
to pay for himself and his men, and says that nothing shall induce him
to stay another day in the country. It is now that we have the omen of
the new moon with the old moon in her arm, in #G#, #H#. In #I# this
comes before the voyage to Norway,[24] and in #G# the stanza expressing
apprehension of a storm, without the reason, occurs twice,[25] before
the voyage out as well as before the return voyage. In #J#, as in
#A-F#, the ship is lost on the voyage out. In #G#, therefore, and #I#
as well, two different accounts may have been blended.
Whether there is an historical basis for the shipwreck of Scottish
nobles which this ballad sings, and, if so, where it is to be found,
are questions that have been considerably discussed. A strict
accordance with history should not be expected, and indeed would be
almost a ground of suspicion.[26] Ballad singers and their hearers
would be as indifferent to the facts as the readers of ballads are now;
it is only editors who feel bound to look closely into such matters.
Motherwell has suggested a sufficiently plausible foundation. Margaret,
daughter of Alexander III, was married, in 1281, to Eric, King of
Norway. She was conducted to her husband, "brought home," in August of
that year, by many knights and nobles. Many of these were drowned on
the return voyage,[27] as Sir Patrick Spens is in #G#, #H#, #I#.
Margaret, Eric's queen, died in 1283, leaving a newly born daughter;
and Alexander III, having been killed by being thrown from his horse,
in 1286, the crown fell to the granddaughter. A match was proposed
between the infant Margaret, called the Maid of Norway, and the
eldest son of Edward I of England. A deputation, not so splendid as
the train which accompanied the little maid's mother to Norway, was
sent, in 1290, to bring the Princess Margaret over, but she died on
the way before reaching Scotland. The Scalacronica speaks of only a
single envoy, Master Weland, a Scottish clerk. If "the chronicle will
not lie," the Maid of Norway and the Scottish clerk perished, we must
suppose in a storm, on the coasts of Boghan[28] (Buchan?). This is
not quite enough to make the ballad out of, and there is still less
material in the marriage of James III with the daughter of the king of
Norway in 1469, and no shipwreck chronicled at all.
No such name as Patrick Spens is historically connected with any of
these occurrences. Spens has even been said not to be an early Scottish
name. Aytoun, however, points to a notable exploit by one Spens as
early as 1336, and Mr Macmath has shown me that the name occurred
in five charters of David II, therefore between 1329 and 1370. We
might allege that Spens, though called Sir Patrick in later days,
was in reality only a skeely skipper,[29] and that historians do not
trouble themselves much about skippers. But this would be avoiding the
proper issue. The actual name of the hero of a ballad affords hardly
a presumption as to who was originally the hero. This ballad may be
historical, or it may not. It might be substantially historical though
the command of the ship were invariably given to Sir Andrew Wood, a
distinguished admiral, who was born a couple of centuries after the
supposed event; and it might be substantially historical though we
could prove that Patrick Spens was only a shipmaster, of purely local
fame, who was lost off Aberdour a couple of hundred years ago. For one,
I do not feel compelled to regard the ballad as historical.
A mermaid appears to the navigators in #J#, #L#, #P#, #Q#, and informs
them, #J#, that they will never see dry land, or are not far from land,
#L#, #P#, #Q#, which, coming from a mermaid, they are good seamen
enough to know means the same thing. The appearance of a mermaid to
seamen is a signal for despair in a brief little ballad, of no great
antiquity to all seeming, given further on under the title of 'The
Mermaid.' If nothing worse, mermaids at least bode rough weather, and
sailors do not like to see them: Faye, Norske Folke-Sagn, ed. 1844, p.
55 (Prior). They have a reputation for treachery: there is in a Danish
ballad, Grundtvig, II, 91, No 42, #B# 14, one who has betrayed seven
ships.
The place where the ship went down was half owre to Aberdour, #A#, #C#,
#F#?; ower by Aberdour, #I#, #J#, #N#; forty miles off Aberdeen, #G#,
#H# (#H# may only repeat #G#); nore-east, nore-west frae Aberdeen,
#D#; between Leith and Aberdeen, #K#. #B# and #E# transfer the scene to
St Johnston (Perth), and #P# to the Clyde, down below Dumbarton Castle.
We may fairly say, somewhere off the coast of Aberdeenshire, for the
southern Aberdour, in the Firth of Forth, cannot be meant.
The island of Papa Stronsay is said to be about half way between
Aberdour in Buchan and the coast of Norway, half owre to Aberdour; and
on this island there is a tumulus, which Mr Maidment informs us is
known now, and _has always been_ known, as the grave of Sir Patrick
Spens. Nothing more has been transmitted, we are assured, but only
the name as that of a man buried there: Maidment, Scotish Ballads and
Songs, Historical and Traditionary, I, 31 f. "The Scottish ballads were
not early current in Orkney, a Scandinavian country," says Aytoun, "so
it is very unlikely that the poem could have originated the name."
With regard to this Orcadian grave of Patrick Spens, it may first
be remarked that Barry, who, in 1808, speaks of the Earl's Knowe in
Papa Stronsay, says not a word of the tradition now affirmed to be
of indefinite long-standing (neither does Tudor in 1883). The ballad
has been in print for a hundred and twenty years. There are Scots in
the island now, and perhaps there "always" have been; at any rate,
a generation or two is time enough for a story to strike root and
establish itself as tradition.[30]
* * * * *
#A a# is translated by Herder, Volkslieder, I, 89, Bodmer, I, 56,
Döring, p. 157, Rosa Warrens, Schottische Volkslieder, No 16, 1; #G#,
by Loève-Veimars, p. 340; #H#, by Grundtvig, Engelske og skotske
Folkeviser, No 2, Schubart, p. 203, Wolff, Halle der Völker, I, 60,
Fiedler, Geschichte der schottischen Liederdichtung, I, 13; #I#,
by Gerhard, p. 1. Aytoun's ballad, by Rosa Warrens, Schottische
Volkslieder, No 16, 2.
A
#a.# Percy's Reliques, 1765, I, 71: "given from two MS.
copies, transmitted from Scotland." #b.# Herd's Scots
Songs, 1769, p. 243.
1
The king sits in Dumferling toune,
Drinking the blude-reid wine:
'O whar will I get guid sailor,
To sail this schip of mine?'
2
Up and spak an eldern knicht,
Sat at the kings richt kne:
'Sir Patrick Spence is the best sailor
That sails upon the se.'
3
The king has written a braid letter,
And signd it wi his hand,
And sent it to Sir Patrick Spence,
Was walking on the sand.
4
The first line that Sir Patrick red,
A loud lauch lauched he;
The next line that Sir Patrick red,
The teir blinded his ee.
5
'O wha is this has don this deid,
This ill deid don to me,
To send me out this time o' the yeir,
To sail upon the se!
6
'Mak hast, mak haste, my mirry men all,
Our guid schip sails the morne:'
'O say na sae, my master deir,
For I feir a deadlie storme.
7
'Late late yestreen I saw the new moone,
Wi the auld moone in hir arme,
And I feir, I feir, my deir master,
That we will cum to harme.'
8
O our Scots nobles wer richt laith
To weet their cork-heild schoone;
Bot lang owre a' the play wer playd,
Thair hats they swam aboone.
9
O lang, lang may their ladies sit,
Wi thair fans into their hand,
Or eir they se Sir Patrick Spence
Cum sailing to the land.
10
O lang, lang may the ladies stand,
Wi thair gold kems in their hair,
Waiting for thair ain deir lords,
For they'll se thame na mair.
11
Haf owre, haf owre to Aberdour,
It's fiftie fadom deip,
And thair lies guid Sir Patrick Spence,
Wi the Scots lords at his feit.
B
Herd's MSS., II, 27, I, 49.
1
The king he sits in Dumferling,
Drinking the blude reid wine: O
'O where will I get a gude sailor,
That'l sail the ships o mine?' O
2
Up then started a yallow-haird man,
Just be the kings right knee:
'Sir Patrick Spence is the best sailor
That ever saild the see.'
3
Then the king he wrote a lang letter,
And sealld it with his hand,
And sent it to Sir Patrick Spence,
That was lyand at Leith Sands.
4
When Patrick lookd the letter on,
He gae loud laughters three;
But afore he wan to the end of it
The teir blindit his ee.
5
'O wha is this has tald the king,
Has tald the king o me?
Gif I but wist the man it war,
Hanged should he be.
6
'Come eat and drink, my merry men all,
For our ships maun sail the morn;
Bla'd wind, bla'd weet, bla'd sna or sleet,
Our ships maun sail the morn.'
7
'Alake and alas now, good master,
For I fear a deidly storm;
For I saw the new moon late yestreen,
And the auld moon in her arms.'
8
They had not saild upon the sea
A league but merely three,
When ugly, ugly were the jaws
That rowd unto their knee.
9
They had not saild upon the sea
A league but merely nine,
When wind and weit and snaw and sleit
Came blawing them behind.
10
'Then where will I get a pretty boy
Will take my steer in hand,
Till I go up to my tap-mast,
And see gif I see dry land?'
11
'Here am I, a pretty boy
That'l take your steir in hand,
Till you go up to your tap-mast,
And see an you see the land.'
12
Laith, laith were our Scottish lords
To weit their coal-black shoon;
But yet ere a' the play was playd,
They wat their hats aboon.
13
Laith, laith war our Scottish lords
To weit their coal-black hair;
But yet ere a' the play was playd,
They wat it every hair.
14
The water at St Johnston's wall
Was fifty fathom deep,
And there ly a' our Scottish lords,
Sir Patrick at their feet.
15
Lang, lang may our ladies wait
Wi the tear blinding their ee,
Afore they see Sir Patrick's ships
Come sailing oer the sea.
16
Lang, lang may our ladies wait,
Wi their babies in their hands,
Afore they see Sir Patrick Spence
Come sailing to Leith Sands.
C
Motherwell's MS., p. 493, "from the recitation of ----
Buchanan, alias Mrs Notman, 9 September, 1826."
1
The king sat in Dunfermline toun,
Drinking the blude red wine:
'Where will I get a bold sailor,
To sail this ship o mine?'
2
Out then spak an auld auld knicht,
Was nigh the king akin:
'Sir Patrick Spens is the best sailor
That ever sailed the main.'
3
The king's wrote a large letter,
Sealed it with his own hand,
And sent it to Sir Patrick Spens,
Was walking on dry land.
4
The first three lines he looked on,
The tears did blind his ee;
The neist three lines he looked on
Not one word could he see.
5
'Wha is this,' Sir Patrick says,
'That's tauld the king o me,
To set me out this time o the year
To sail upon the sea!
6
'Yestreen I saw the new new mune,
And the auld mune in her arm;
And that is the sign since we were born
Even of a deadly storm.
7
'Drink about, my merry boys,
For we maun sail the morn;
Be it wind, or be it weet,
Or be it deadly storm.'
8
We hadna sailed a league, a league,
A league but only ane,
Till cauld and watry grew the wind,
And stormy grew the main.
9
We hadna sailed a league, a league,
A league but only twa,
Till cauld and watry grew the wind,
Come hailing owre them a'.
10
We hadna sailed a league, a league,
A league but only three,
Till cold and watry grew the wind,
And grumly grew the sea.
11
'Wha will come,' the captain says,
'And take my helm in hand?
Or wha'll gae up to my topmast,
And look for some dry land?
12
'Mount up, mount up, my pretty boy,
See what you can spy;
Mount up, mount up, my pretty boy,
See if any land we're nigh.'
13
'We're fifty miles from shore to shore,
And fifty banks of sand;
And we have all that for to sail
Or we come to dry land.'
14
'Come down, come down, my pretty boy,
I think you tarry lang;
For the saut sea's in at our coat-neck
And out at our left arm.
15
'Come down, come down, my pretty boy,
I fear we here maun die;
For thro and thro my goodly ship
I see the green-waved sea.'
16
Our Scotch lords were all afraid
To weet their cork-heeled shoon;
But lang or a' the play was played,
Their hats they swam abune.
17
The first step that the captain stept,
It took him to the knee,
And the next step that the captain stepped
They were a' drownd in the sea.
18
Half owre, half owre to Aberdour
It's fifty fadoms deep,
And there lay good Sir Patrick Spens,
And the Scotch lords at his feet.
19
Lang may our Scotch lords' ladies sit,
And sew their silken seam,
Before they see their good Scotch lords
Come sailing owre the main.
20
Lang lang may Sir Patrick's lady
Sit rocking her auld son,
Before she sees Sir Patrick Spens
Come sailing owre the main.
D
Motherwell's MS., p. 496, communicated by Kirkpatrick
Sharpe.
1
The king sits in Dumferling town,
Drinking the blood red wine: O
'Where will I get a good skipper,
To sail seven ships o mine?' O
Where will, etc.
2
O up then spake a bra young man,
And a bra young man was he:
'Sir Andrew Wood is the best skipper
That ever saild the sea.'
3
The king has written a bra letter,
And seald it wi his hand,
And ordered Sir Andrew Wood
To come at his command.
4
'O wha is this, or wha is that,
Has tauld the king o me?
For had he been a better man,
He might ha tauld a lee.'
* * * * * * *
5
As I came in by the Inch, Inch, Inch,
I heard an auld man weep:
'Sir Andrew Wood and a' his men
Are drowned in the deep!'
6
O lang lang may yon ladies stand,
Their fans into their hands,
Before they see Sir Andrew Wood
Come sailing to dry land.
7
O laith laith were our Scottish lords
To weit their cork-heeld shoon;
But ere that a' the play was plaid,
They wat their heads aboon.
8
Nore-east, nore-west frae Aberdeen
Is fifty fathom deep,
And there lies good Sir Andrew Wood,
And a' the Scottish fleet.
E
Motherwell's MS., p. 348.
1
The king sits in Dumfermline toun,
Sae merrilie drinking wine; O
Says, Whare will I get a fine skipper,
Wud sail these ships of mine? O
2
Out and spak an auld rich knicht,
And an ill death may he die!
Says, Young Patrick is the best skipper
That ever set sail on sea.
3
The king did write a lang letter,
Sealed it with his own hand,
And he sent it to Young Patrick,
To come at his command.
4
When Young Patrick read the letter lang,
The tear blindit his ee;
Says Wha is this, or wha is that,
That's tauld the king of me?
Altho he had been better than what he is,
He micht hae askt leave of me.
5
'But busk, O busk, my merry men a',
O busk and mak you braw,
For blaw the wind what airt it will,
Our ship she must awa.
6
'Drink, O drink, my merrie men all,
Drink o the beer and wine,
For gin Wedensday by twal o'clock
We'll a' be in our lang hame.'
7
Out and spak a pretty little boy:
'I fear a deadlie storm;
For I saw the new mune late yestreen,
And the old ane in her arm,
And readilie, maister,' said he,
'That's the sign of a deadly storm.'
8
Aye they sat, and aye they drank,
They drank of the beer and wine,
And gin Wedensday gin ten o'clock,
Their hair was wat abune.
9
'Whare wuld I get a pretty little boy,
That wants to win hose and shoon,
Wuld up to the top of my mainmast go,
See if he could spy land?'
10
O here am I, a pretty little boy,
Wants to win hose and shoon;
I'll up to the top of your mainmast go,
Though I should neer come doun.'
11
'Come doun, come doun, my pretty little boy,
I think thou tarries lang;
For the jawe is coming in at my coat-neck,
Going out at my richt hand.'
12
But there cum a shouir out o the Norewest,
Of dreidfu hail and rain,
It made Young Patrick and his men
A' flat wi the sea faem.
13
O is na it a great pitye
To see feather-beds on the main?
But it is a greater pitye, I think,
To see men doing the same.
14
There's a brig at the back o Sanct John's toun,
It's fifty fadom deep,
And there lies a' our brau Scots lords,
Young Patrick's at their feet.
15
Young Patrick's lady sits at hame,
She's sewing her silken seam;
And aye when she looks to the salt sea waves,
'I fear he'll neer return.'
16
Young Patrick's lady sits at hame
Rocking her oldest son;
And aye when she looks to the salt sea waves,
'I'm feared he'll neer come hame.'
F
Motherwell's MS., p. 153, from the recitation of Mrs
Thomson.
1
The king he sits on Dunfermline hill,
Drinking baith beer and wine; O
Says, Whare shall I get a good skipper,
That will sail the salt sea fine? O
2
But out then speaks an Irish knight,
Sat by the king's right knee:
'Skipper Patrick is the best skipper
That ever my eyes did see.'
3
The king has written a lang letter,
And sealed it wi his hand,
And sent it to Skipper Patrick,
As he walked alang the sand.
4
'O wha is this, or wha is that,
That's tauld the king of me?
For tho it had been the queen hersell,
She might hae let it be.
5
'But busk you, O busk, my merry men all,
Sae merrily busk and boune,
For blaw the wind where eer it will,
Our gude ship sails the morn.'
6
'O no, O no, our dear master,
It will be a deidly storm;
For yestreen I saw the new new mune,
Wi the auld mune in her arm;
It's a token, maister, or ye were born,
It will be a deadly storm.'
7
'But busk, O busk, my merrie men all,
Our gude ship sails the morn,
For blow the wind whereer it will,
Our gude ship sails the morn.'
8
They had na sailed a day, a day,
A day but scarsely five,
Till Skipper Patrick's bonny ship
Began to crack and rive.
9
It's bonny was the feather beds
That swimmed alang the main,
But bonnier was our braw Scots lords,
They neer returned again.
10
Our Scots lords they are all laith
To weet their coal black shoon;
But I trow or a' the play was played,
They wat their hair abune.
11
Our ladies may stand upon the sand,
Kembing down their yellow hair,
But they will neer see Skipper Patrick's ship
Come sailing in nae mair.
12
Our ladies may stand upon the sand
Wi gloves upon their hand,
But they will never see Skipper Patrick's ship
Come sailing into the land.
13
O vour and o vour to bonnie Aberdour
It's fifty fadoms deep;
There you will find young Patrick lye,
Wi his Scots lords at his head.
14
Row owre, row owre to Aberdour,
It's fifty fadom deep;
And there lies Earl Patrick Spens,
His men all at his feet.
G
Jamieson's Popular Ballads, I, 157, communicated by Scott.
1
The king sits in Dunfermlin town,
Sae merrily drinkin the wine:
'Whare will I get a mariner,
Will sail this ship o mine?'
2
Then up bespak a bonny boy,
Sat just at the king's knee:
'Sir Patrick Spence is the best seaman,
That eer set foot on sea.'
3
The king has written a braid letter,
Seald it wi his ain hand;
He has sent word to Sir Patrick,
To come at his command.
4
'O wha is this, or wha is that,
Has tald the king o me?
For I was never a good seaman,
Nor ever intend to be.'
5
They mounted sail on Munenday morn,
Wi a' the haste they may,
And they hae landed in Norraway,
Upon the Wednesday.
6
They hadna been a month, a month
In Norraway but three,
Till lads o Norraway began to say,
Ye spend a' our white monie.
7
'Ye spend a' our good kingis goud,
But and our queenis fee:'
'Ye lie, ye lie, ye liars loud,
Sae weel's I hear you lie.
8
'For I brought as much white money
As will gain my men and me;
I brought half a fou o good red goud
Out oer the sea with me.
9
'Be't wind or weet, be't snaw or sleet,
Our ships maun sail the morn:'
'O ever alack! my master dear,
I fear a deadly storm.
10
'I saw the new moon late yestreen,
Wi the auld moon in her arm;
And if we gang to sea, master,
I fear we'll suffer harm.'
11
They hadna sailed a league on sea,
A league but barely ane,
Till anchors brak, and tap-masts lap;
There came a deadly storm.
12
'Whare will I get a bonny boy
Will tak thir sails in hand,
That will gang up to the tap-mast,
See an he ken dry land?'
13
Laith, laith were our good Scots lords
To weet their leathern shoon;
But or the morn at fair day-light,
Their hats were wat aboon.
14
Mony was the feather bed,
That flotterd on the faem,
And mony was the good Scots lord
Gaed awa that neer cam hame,
And mony was the fatherless bairn
That lay at hame greetin.
15
It's forty miles to Aberdeen,
And fifty fathoms deep;
And there lyes a' our good Scots lords,
Wi Sir Patrick at their feet.
16
The ladies crackt their fingers white,
The maidens tore their hair,
A' for the sake o their true loves,
For them they neer saw mair.
17
Lang, lang may our ladies stand,
Wi their fans in their hand,
Ere they see Sir Patrick and his men
Come sailing to the land.
H
Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, III, 64, ed. 1803; I,
299, ed. 1833; "taken from two MS. copies, collated with
several verses recited by the editor's friend, Robert
Hamilton, Esq., Advocate."
1
The king sits in Dumfermline town,
Drinking the blude-red wine: O
'O whare will I get a skeely skipper,
To sail this new ship of mine?' O
2
O up and spake an eldern knight,
Sat at the king's right knee:
'Sir Patrick Spens is the best sailor
That ever saild the sea.'
3
Our king has written a braid letter,
And seald it with his hand,
And sent it to Sir Patrick Spens,
Was walking on the strand.
4
'To Noroway, to Noroway,
To Noroway oer the faem;
The king's daughter of Noroway,
'T is thou maun bring her hame.'
5
The first word that Sir Patrick read,
Sae loud, loud laughed he;
The neist word that Sir Patrick read,
The tear blinded his ee.
6
'O wha is this has done this deed,
And tauld the king o me,
To send us out at this time of the year
To sail upon the sea?
7
'Be it wind, be it weet, be it hail, be it sleet,
Our ship must sail the faem;
The king's daughter of Noroway,
'T is we must fetch her hame.'
8
They hoysed their sails on Monenday morn,
Wi a' the speed they may;
They hae landed in Noroway,
Upon a Wodensday.
9
They hadna been a week, a week
In Noroway but twae,
When that the lords o Noroway
Began aloud to say:
10
'Ye Scottishmen spend a' our king's goud,
And a' our queenis fee!'
'Ye lie, ye lie, ye liars loud,
Fu loud I hear ye lie!
11
'For I brought as much white monie
As gane my men and me,
And I brought a half-fou o gude red goud
Out oer the sea wi me.
12
'Make ready, make ready, my merrymen a',
Our gude ship sails the morn:'
'Now, ever alake! my master dear,
I fear a deadly storm!
13
'I saw the new moon late yestreen,
Wi the auld moon in her arm;
And if we gang to sea, master,
I fear we'll come to harm.'
14
They hadna 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.
15
The ankers brak, and the topmasts lap,
It was sic a deadly storm,
And the waves came oer the broken ship,
Till a' her sides were torn.
16
'O where will I get a gude sailor,
To take my helm in hand,
Till I get up to the tall topmast,
To see if I can spy land?'
17
'O here am I, a sailor gude,
To take the helm in hand,
Till you go up to the tall topmast;
But I fear you'll neer spy land.'
18
He hadna gane a step, a step,
A step but barely ane,
When a bout flew out of our goodly ship,
And the salt sea it came in.
19
'Gae fetch a web o the silken claith,
Another o the twine,
And wap them into our ship's side,
And letna the sea come in.'
20
They fetched a web o the silken claith,
Another o the twine,
And they wapped them roun that gude ship's side,
But still the sea came in.
21
O laith, laith were our gude Scots lords
To weet their cork-heeld shoon;
But lang or a' the play was playd,
They wat their hats aboon.
22
And mony was the feather-bed
That flattered on the faem,
And mony was the gude lord's son
That never mair cam hame.
23
The ladyes wrang their fingers white,
The maidens tore their hair,
A' for the sake of their true loves,
For them they'll see na mair.
24
O lang, lang may the ladyes sit,
Wi their fans into their hand,
Before they see Sir Patrick Spens
Come sailing to the strand.
25
And lang, lang may the maidens sit,
Wi their goud kaims in their hair,
A' waiting for their ain dear loves,
For them they'll see na mair.
26
O forty miles off Aberdeen
'T is fifty fathoms deep,
And there lies gude Sir Patrick Spens,
Wi the Scots lords at his feet.
I
Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, I, 1;
Motherwell's MS., p. 550.
1
The king sits in Dunfermline town,
A-drinking at the wine;
Says, Where will I get a good skipper,
Will sail the saut seas fine?
2
Out it speaks an eldren knight
Amang the companie:
'Young Patrick Spens is the best skipper
That ever saild the sea.'
3
The king he wrote a braid letter,
And seald it wi his ring;
Says, Ye'll gie that to Patrick Spens,
See if ye can him find.
4
He sent this not wi an auld man,
Nor yet a simple boy,
But the best o nobles in his train
This letter did convoy.
5
When Patrick lookd the letter upon
A light laugh then gae he;
But ere he read it till an end,
The tear blinded his ee.
6
'Ye'll eat and drink, my merry men a',
An see ye be weell thorn;
For blaw it weet, or blaw it wind,
My guid ship sails the morn.'
7
Then out it speaks a guid auld man,
A guid death mat he dee!
'Whatever ye do, my guid master,
Tak God your guide to bee.
8
'For late yestreen I saw the new moon,
The auld moon in her arm:'
'Ohon, alas!' says Patrick Spens,
'That bodes a deadly storm.
9
'But I maun sail the seas the morn,
And likewise sae maun you;
To Noroway, wi our king's daughter,
A chosen queen she's now.
10
'But I wonder who has been sae base
As tauld the king o mee;
Even tho he ware my ae brither,
An ill death mat he dee!'
11
Now Patrick he riggd out his ship,
And sailed ower the faem,
But mony a dreary thought had hee,
While hee was on the main.
12
They hadna saild upon the sea
A day but barely three,
Till they came in sight o Noroway,
It's there where they must bee.
13
They hadna stayed into that place
A month but and a day,
Till he causd the flip in mugs gae roun,
And wine in cans sae gay.
14
The pipe and harp sae sweetly playd,
The trumpets loudly soun;
In every hall where in they stayd,
Wi their mirth did reboun.
15
Then out it speaks an auld skipper,
An inbearing dog was hee:
'Ye've stayd ower lang in Noroway,
Spending your king's monie.'
16
Then out it speaks Sir Patrick Spens:
'O how can a' this bee?
I hae a bow o guid red gowd
Into my ship wi mee.
17
'But betide me well, betide me wae,
This day I'se leave the shore,
And never spend my king's monie
Mong Noroway dogs no more.'
18
Young Patrick hee is on the sea,
And even on the faem,
Wi five-an-fifty Scots lords' sons,
That langd to bee at hame.
19
They hadna saild upon the sea
A day but barely three,
Till loud and boistrous grew the wind,
And stormy grew the sea.
20
'O where will I get a little wee boy
Will tak my helm in hand,
Till I gae up to my tapmast,
And see for some dry land?'
21
He hadna gane to his tapmast
A step but barely three,
Ere thro and thro the bonny ship's side
He saw the green haw sea.
22
'There are five-an-fifty feather beds
Well packed in ae room;
And ye'll get as muckle guid canvas
As wrap the ship a' roun.
23
'Ye'll pict her well, and spare her not,
And mak her hale and soun:'
But ere he had the word well spoke
The bonny ship was down.
24
O laith, laith were our guid lords' sons
To weet their milk-white hands;
But lang ere a' the play was ower,
They wat their gowden bands.
25
O laith, laith were our Scots lords' sons
To weet their coal-black shoon;
But lang ere a' the play was ower,
They wat their hats aboon.
26
It's even ower by Aberdour
It's fifty fathoms deep,
And yonder lies Sir Patrick Spens,
And a's men at his feet.
27
It's even ower by Aberdour,
There's mony a craig and fin,
And yonder lies Sir Patrick Spens,
Wi mony a guid lord's son.
28
Lang, lang will the ladyes look,
Into their morning weed,
Before they see young Patrick Spens
Come sailing ower the fleed.
29
Lang, lang will the ladyes look,
Wi their fans in their hand,
Before they see him Patrick Spens
Come sailing to dry land.
J
Miss Harris's MS., fol. 4, from the singing of her mother.
1
Hie sits oor king in Dumfermline,
Sits birlin at the wine;
Says, Whare will I get a bonnie boy
That will sail the saut seas fine?
That will hie owre to Norraway,
To bring my dear dochter hame?
2
Up it spak a bonnie boy,
Sat by the king's ain knie:
'Sir Patrick Spens is as gude a skipper
As ever sailed the sea.'
3
The king has wrote a broad letter,
And signed it wi his hand,
And sent it to Sir Patrick Spens,
To read it gif he can.
4
The firsten line he luikit on,
A licht lauchter gae he;
But ere he read it to the end,
The tear blindit his ee.
5
'O wha is this, or wha is that,
Has tauld oor king o me?
I wad hae gien him twice as muckle thank
To latten that abee!
6
'But eat an drink, my merrie young men,
Eat, an be weel forn;
For blaw it wind, or blaw it weet,
Oor gude ship sails the morn.'
7
Up it spak his youngest son,
Sat by Sir Patrick's knie:
'I beg you bide at hame, father,
An I pray be ruled by me.
8
'For I saw the new mune late yestreen,
Wi the auld mune in her arms;
An ever an alake, my father dear,
It's a token o diedly storms.'
9
'It's eat an drink, my merrie young men,
Eat, an be weel forn;
For blaw it wind, or blaw it weet,
Oor gude ship sails the morn.'
10
They hadna sailed a league, a league,
A league but only three,
When the whirlin wind an the ugly jaws
Cam drivin to their knie.
11
They hadna sailed a league, a league,
A league but only five,
When the whirlin wind an the ugly jaws
Their gude ship began to rive.
12
They hadna sailed a league, a league,
A league but only nine,
When the whirlin wind an the ugly jaws
Cam drivin to their chin.
13
'O whaur will I get a bonnie boy
Will tak the steer in hand,
Till I mount up to oor tapmast,
To luik oot for dry land?'
14
'O here am I, a bonnie boy,
Will tak the steer in hand,
Till you mount up to oor tapmast,
To luik oot for dry land.'
15
He's gaen up to the tapmast,
To the tapmast sae hie;
He luikit around on every side,
But dry land he couldna see.
16
He luikit on his youngest son,
An the tear blindit his ee;
Says, I wish you had been in your mother's bowr,
But there you'll never be.
17
'Pray for yoursels, my merrie young men,
Pray for yoursels an me,
For the first landen that we will land
Will be in the boddam o the sea.'
18
Then up it raise the mermaiden,
Wi the comb an glass in her hand:
'Here's a health to you, my merrie young men,
For you never will see dry land.'
19
O laith, laith waur oor gude Scots lords
To weet their cork-heeled shoon;
But lang, lang ere the play was played,
Their yellow locks soomed aboun.
20
There was Saturday, an Sabbath day,
An Monnonday at morn,
That feather-beds an silken sheets
Cam floatin to Kinghorn.
21
It's och, och owre to Aberdour,
It's fifty faddoms deep;
An there lie a' oor gude Scots lords,
Wi Sir Patrick Spens at their feet.
22
O lang, lang will his lady sit,
Wi the fan into her hand,
Until she see her ain dear lord
Come sailin to dry land.
23
O lang, lang will his lady sit,
Wi the tear into her ee,
Afore she see her ain dear lord
Come hieing to Dundee.
24
O lang, lang will his lady sit,
Wi the black shoon on her feet,
Afore she see Sir Patrick Spens
Come drivin up the street.
K
Communicated by Mr Murison, as taken down from recitation
in Old Deer by Mrs Murison.
* * * * * * *
1
It's when he read the letter ower
A licht lauch then leuch he;
But lang ere he wan the end o it
The saut tear filled his ee.
2
'O woe be to the man,' he says,
'That's tauld the king o me;
Altho he be my ain brither,
Some ill death mat he dee!
3
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
'For be it weet, or be it win,
My bonnie ship sails the morn.'
* * * * * * *
4
'For late the streen I saw the new meen,
Bit an the auld ane tee,
An it fears me sair, my good maister,
For a tempest in the sea.'
5
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
Till up it rase the win an storm,
An a tempest i the sea.
6
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
It's throch an throu the comely cog
There comes the green raw sea.
* * * * * * *
7
'Call upo your men, maister,
An dinna call on me,
For ye drank them weel ere ye tuke the gate,
But O nane gae ye me.
8
'Ye beat my back, an beat my sides,
When I socht hose an sheen;
So call upo your men, maister,
As they lie drunk wi wine.'
9
'Come doon, come doon, my bonnie boy,
An tak my helm in han;
Gin ever we live to gae to lan,
I'll wed ye wi my daughter Ann.'
10
'Ye used me ill, my guid maister,
When we was on the lan,
But nevertheless, my gude maister,
I'll tak your helm in han.'
11
O laith, laith was oor bonny boys
To weet their cork-heeled shoes;
But lang ere a' the play was played,
They wat their yallow broos.
12
O laith, laith was oor bonnie boys
To weet their cork-heeled sheen;
But lang ere a' the play was played,
They wat their hair abeen.
13
'O lang, lang will my lady leuk,
Wi the lantern in her han,
Afore she see my bonnie ship
Come sailin to dry lan.'
14
Atween Leith an Aberdeen
Lies mony a craig an sea,
An there it lies young Patrick Spens,
An mony bonnie boys him wi.
L
Motherwell's Note-Book, p. 6, Motherwell's MS., p. 156,
from Mrs Gentles, Paisley, February 1825.
1
Our ship it was a gudely ship,
Its topmast was of gold,
And at every tack of needlework
There hung a silver bell.
2
Up started the mermaid by our ship,
Wi the glass and the comb in her hand:
'Reek about, reek about, my merrie men,
Ye are not far from land.'
3
'You lie, you lie, you pretty mermaid,
Sae loud as I hear you lie;
For since I have seen your face this nicht,
The land I will never see.'
4
We hadna sailed a league but ane,
A league but barely three,
Till all we and our goodly ship
Was all drowned in the sea.
5
Lang lang may our ladies stand,
Wi their seams into their hand,
Looking for Sir Patrick's ship,
That will never come to land.
M
Buchan's Gleaning, p. 196, "from a very intelligent old
man."
1
There shall no man go to my ship
Till I say mass and dine,
And take my leave of my lady;
Go to my bonny ship syne.
2
When he was up at the top-mast head
Around could naething see,
But terrible storm in the air aboon,
And below the roaring sea.
3
'Come down, come down, my good master,
You see not what I see;
For thro an thro your bonny ship's side
I see the green salt sea.'
4
Lang lang will the ladies look,
Wi their gown-tails owre their crown,
Before they see Sir Patrick Spens
Sailing to Dunferline town.
N
Noted down from a female servant, by Joseph Robertson,
July 15, 1829, Adversaria, p. 67.
1
Ower and ower by Aberdour
There's mony a cloudy stone,
And there is mony a gude lord's son
I fear will never come home.
2
Lang, lang will his lady look,
Wi her baby in her arms,
But she'll never see Earl Patrick Spens
Com walkin up the stran.
3
'I have a table in my room,
It cost me guineas nine;
I wad sink it in the sea
For ae sight o dry lan.
4
'There's a coat o green velvet on my back,
I got it for my fee;
But tho I wad gie ten thousan punds,
Dry land I will never see.'
O
Gibb MS., p. 63.
1
Bonny were the feather beds
Cam sailin ower the faem,
But bonnier was the sixteen lords
Gaed out and neer cam hame.
2
Lang, lang may the nourice sit,
Wi the bonny babe on her knee,
Ere ever she see her good lord come,
To pay to her her fee.
3
An lang, lang will the lady sit,
Wi the gowd fan in her hand,
Ere ever she see her ain gude lord
Come skipping to dry land.
P
Kinloch MSS, I, 281.
1
Fu laith, fu laith was our braw Scots lords
To weet their coal black shoon;
But ere the battle a' was foucht,
Their hats war weet aboun.
2
Out and starts the mermaiden,
Wi a fan into her hand:
'Keep up your hearts, my merry men a',
For ye're near the dry land.'
3
Out and spak Earl Patrick Graham,
Wi the saut tear in his ee:
'Now sin we've seen the mermaiden,
Dry land we'll never see.'
4
Down below Dunbarton castle,
Full fifty fathoms deep,
There lies a' our braw Scots men,
Earl Patrick at their feet.
Q
Finlay's Scottish Ballads, I, xiv, from a recited copy.
1
Then up an cam a mermaid,
Wi a siller cup in her han:
'Sail on, sail on, my gude Scotch lords,
For ye sune will see dry lan.'
2
'Awa, awa, ye wild woman,
An let your fleechin be;
For sen your face we've seen the day,
Dry lan we'll never see.'
R
Communicated by Mr Macmath, from Mr William Traquair, S.
S. C., Edinburgh; obtained originally in Perthshire.
'Twas late, late on a Saturday night,
And early on a Sunday morn,
That robes of silk and feather beds
Came floating to Kean-Gorn.
* * * * *
#A. a.#
1^3. quhar.
5^1. quha.
5^3. zeir.
11^1. have owre, have owr.
#b.#
_In this copy ~Sir Andrew Wood~ replaces ~Sir Patrick
Spens~ throughout._
8^4. They wat thair heads aboone.
_At the end of version #B# Herd says_: The foundation
of the preceding song seems to have been the same story
with that under the title of 'Sir Andrew Wood' in the
former volume [of 1769]. In the Relicks of Antient Poetry
is a copy somewhat different from either. _We cannot
suppose, after this, that Herd took his copy from Percy
and altered it, and yet, excepting the variations noted
above, and ~haff~ for ~have~ in 11^1, the copies are the
same to a letter. If Herd's copy was one of the two used
by Percy, what was the other? Was there, after all, but
one copy again, as in the case of 'King Estmere'?_
#B.#
_~O~ is added, in singing, to every second and fourth
verse. Also in #D#, #E#, #F#, #H#._
#C.#
14^2. I thing.
#F.#
14. _In a smaller hand, and detached from the preceding,
as if added later._
#G.#
_After 4 occurs this stanza, almost verbally repeated in
9, and improperly anticipating matters, according to the
arrangement of the story in this version:_
Be't wind, be't weet, be't snaw, be't sleet,
Our ships maun sail the morn:
Ever alack! my master dear,
For I fear a deadly storm.
#H.#
24^4. _perhaps ~driven~._
#K.#
'Spendin the queen's meat an her fee' _was said by the
reciter to belong to the ballad, though the connection
was not remembered._
13^2. _Var._: An langer will she stan.
#L.#
_1 is 5 and 5 is 1 in the MS._
[19] Scott's Minstrelsy, ed. 1833, I, 295; Notes and Queries, Second
Series, X, 237.
[20] Christie, I, 7, makes up a copy from Scott and Buchan, "with some
alterations from the way the editor has heard" the ballad "sung."
I have not felt called upon always to register Christie's cursory
variations, but the fourth stanza may be given as he prints it:
The first word that Sir Patrick read
A licht licht laugh gae he;
But ere he read it to an end
The saut tear blint his ee.
'Sir Patrick Spens,' Aberdeen, printed by John Duffus, 1866, is
composed from several versions, as Scott's, Buchan's, Aytoun's.
[21] Sir Patrick Spens, or Spence, #A#, #B#, #C#, #G#, #H#, #J#, #M#;
Young Patrick, #E#; Skipper Patrick, #F#; Young Patrick Spens, #I#,
#K#; Sir Patrick, #L#; Earl Patrick Spens, #N#; Sir Andrew Wood, #A b#,
#D#; Earl Patrick Graham, #P#.
[22] It is so with the Conde Dirlos, when he receives a letter from the
emperor:
De las cartas placer hubo,
de las palabras pesar;
que lo que las cartas dicen
á él parece muy mal.
(Wolf y Hofmann, Primavera, II, 129.)
[23] There is a falling off in #C#, #E#, with the wives sewing their
silken seams and rocking the cradle, and in #B#, waiting with their
babies in their hands, till in #M# the ladies, still so called, are
reduced to fishers' wives, "wi their gown-tails owre their crown!"
[24] The reading in #I# 9, "To Noroway, wi our king's daughter," has
been treated as if important. This version, says Buchan, was taken down
from the recitation of "'a wight of Homer's craft,' who, as a wandering
minstrel, blind from his infancy, has been travelling in the North as a
mendicant for these last fifty years. He learned it in his youth from a
very old person." The mendicant was, no doubt, James Rankin, "the blind
beggar whom I kept travelling through Scotland, collecting ballads
for me, at a heavy expense" (frontispiece to Buchan's MSS, vol. i.).
A large part of Buchan's ballads have the mint-mark of this minstrel
beggar and beggarly minstrel, who collected for pay. No confidence can
be placed in any of his readings: his personal inspiration was too
decided to make him a safe reporter.
[25] For consistency's sake, it has here been dropped from the place
where it first occurs, after stanza 4.
[26] Or a pure accident. Wyntoun says that Margaret sailed the 12th of
August. Motherwell found, "from a laborious calculation," that the 12th
of August, 1282 (a misprint, I suppose, for 1281), was a Monday, the
sailing day in #G# 5. The account in #H# is probably taken from #G#.
[27] Fordun, ed. Skene, I, 307.
[28] Scalacronica, ed. Stevenson, p. 110. Fordun mentions Michael of
Wemyss and Michael Scot as the envoys, I, 311.
[29] He was not even that, according to #G# 4, which has the silly
reading,
For I was never a good seaman,
Nor ever intend to be.
So in a mixed ballad which will be put with 'Young Allan.'
[30] I have not felt called upon to say anything of the attempt of
the late Mr Robert Chambers to prove 'Sir Patrick Spens', a piece of
literary work of the last century, by arguments which would make Lady
Wardlaw author not only of most of the romantic Scottish ballads,
but also of a good part of the ballads of Europe. The flimsy plea of
Mr Chambers has been effectually disposed of by Mr Norval Clyne, The
Romantic Scottish Ballads and the Lady Wardlaw Heresy, Aberdeen, 1859,
and by Mr James Hutton Watkins, Early Scottish Ballads, Glasgow, 1867.
59
SIR ALDINGAR
#A.# 'Sir Aldingar,' Percy MS., p. 68; Hales and
Furnivall, I, 166.
#B.# 'Sir Hugh le Blond,' Minstrelsy of the Scottish
Border, III, 51, 1803.
#C.# 'Sir Hugh le Blond,' Dr Joseph Robertson's
Note-Book, January 1, 1830, p. 6.
This ballad, one of the most important of all that the Percy manuscript
has saved from oblivion, was first given to the world in the Reliques
of Ancient English Poetry, II, 48, ed. 1765, II, 49, ed. 1767, with
conjectural emendations by the editor, and the insertion of some
stanzas to complete the story. A second version, very much humbled in
diction, and otherwise corrupted, but of indubitable antiquity, as
Scott remarks, was published in the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border
in 1803, as communicated by Mr Williamson Burnet, of Monboddo, from
the recitation of an old woman. The story which this version relates
was then, we are informed, universally current in the Mearns, and was
supposed to be authenticated by the sword of the hero, preserved nearly
down to that time by his reputed descendants.
Tales of the same general description--of a noble lady accused to
her husband of infidelity, believed by him to be guilty, and in
process of time demonstrated to have been faultless, to his entire
conviction--are, as might be expected, extremely often to be met with
in ballad, romance, chronicle, or saga; nor is the number small of
those which have the special traits that the accusation is made by a
trusted officer of the husband, who has attempted to seduce the lady,
and has failed, and that the wife is cleared by a judgment of God. Our
ballad belongs with a very distinct Scandinavian variety of these last,
but has adopted one characteristic trait from another source.
The English version, as written down about the middle of the
seventeenth century, narrates that Sir Aldingar, steward of King Henry,
repulsed by the queen whom he has sought to make his paramour, cannot
rest till he has revenge. He takes a lazar that happens to come to the
king's gates, and lays him in the queen's bed, promising that in two
hours the blind and lame shall be whole and sound; he then goes to
fetch the king. The king, convinced by his eyes, says he will hang the
lazar and burn his wife, and immediately proceeds to tell the queen
his discovery. The queen sees the hand of Aldingar in this, and also
the meaning of a dream she has had: how a vulture, or griffin, had
carried her crown away, and would have taken her to his nest[31] had
it not been for a merlin, a little hawk, that came flying from the
east and struck the big bird down. She claims the right to maintain
her innocence by battle, and the king gives her forty days to provide
herself with a champion, which failing she shall be burnt. No man in
all the south country will undertake her cause, but a messenger who
rides into the east meets what seems to be a child, who interrogates
him, and, getting a slow answer, bids the queen by him to remember
her dream and be of good cheer, for when bale is highest boot shall
be nighest. The days of grace being out, and no champion found, the
queen is put into a tun to burn, and looks only for death. At this
moment a child is seen riding from the east, who, when he comes to the
fire, orders the brands to be withdrawn and Aldingar to be produced.
Aldingar, a very large man, would not have minded fifty such. The child
claims the first stroke, and if Aldingar can give a second he need not
spare him. Aldingar's legs are cut off at the knee with this stroke.
Aldingar asks for a priest to shrive him, confesses everything, and
begs the queen's forgiveness. The child enjoins King Harry to take back
his wife and love her, for she is true as stone; the lazar under the
gallows becomes a sound man at the same instant, and is made steward in
Aldingar's place.
The Scottish ballad repeats the main part of this story, dropping
all that is miraculous save the simple judgment of God. Rodingham,
who represents Aldingar, does not cajole the leper with the promise
of being restored to health, but intoxicates him with sweet liquors,
and lays him asleep in the queen's bed. The king wishes to believe
the queen guiltless, and proposes that she shall find a champion. The
champion is an ordinary knight; the leper is neither better nor worse
for the part he is made to play; and the knight is rewarded with a
gift of lands. That the Scottish ballad is the original of the English
is a singularly unhappy idea of Sir Walter Scott's, and it is hard to
conceive what suggested such a notion, unless it were the allegation
that the sword with which Sir Hugh defended the queen's honor was until
a late day producible by his posterity, whereas no one pretends to
have the other. But Sir Walter could not seriously have credited this
tradition, for he himself observes that there is no instance in history
in which the honor of a queen of Scotland was committed to the chance
of a duel.
Cousin to the English ballad is the Scandinavian 'Ravengaard og
Memering,' Grundtvig, No 13, I, 177-213, 426 f, II, 640-45, III,
779-82, IV, 722-31. There are eleven versions in all, besides a
#Norwegian# copy, extant at the end of the last century, of which
now only the story is at our command. Eight of the eleven texts
are #Danish#, #A-C#, #G-L#. #A# is from a manuscript of the middle
of the sixteenth century, and so a hundred years older than 'Sir
Aldingar.' The other Danish copies are from recent tradition,[32]
and so are #Färöe# #D#, #E#. An #Icelandic# version, #F#, is from a
seventeenth-century manuscript.
The old Danish ballad affords the following story. Gunild [Gunder]
lives at Spire, and many nobles from all quarters of the compass sue
for her hand, which Henry, Duke of Brunswick and Schleswig, obtains.
Henry, going to the wars, commits to Ravengaard the protection of his
land, and especially of his wife. But no sooner is the duke fairly
away than Ravengaard goes to "the queen," and demands of her the sword
Adelring, which she has in keeping. This being refused, Ravengaard
threatens that he will tell false tales of her, but the lady is not
intimidated. The duke comes home, and asks Ravengaard how things are.
The country remains as it was, but Gunild has been acting ill. The duke
will not believe anything wrong of Gunild; but Ravengaard affirms that
he has seen the archbishop with her with his own eyes. Henry, after
repeating this charge to Gunild, beats her severely, and nobody dares
come to the rescue, or to speak for her, save two ladies of the court,
who maintain that Ravengaard has lied. Then let her find a man who
will fight with him, says the duke. Bare-headed and bare-foot Gunild
goes to the hall where the knights are drinking. They all rise; but
when she asks, Is there anybody here who will fight for a woman? there
is no response except from Memering. He had served her father fifteen
years; never had he seen her so wretched, bare-shouldered, bare-foot.
Ravengaard had had more of her father's bounty than anybody, and he
has been the first to betray her. Memering had always been last when
gifts were giving; but he will go into the lists for her if he can have
the sword Adelring, and this Gunild promises him. A ring is marked
on the ground for the fight. Ravengaard requires Memering to swear
that he knows not of the sword Adelring. Memering (who has thrust the
blade into the earth) swears that he does not know of more than the
hilt being above ground, and exacts in turn that Ravengaard shall
swear that he has no knowledge of the sword Sudevind [Saadering], to
which Ravengaard makes oath without qualification. With the first blow
Ravengaard cuts Memering's sword in two. This shows, says the duke,
what deeds you have been doing. Memering strikes, and cuts Ravengaard's
sword in two. Ravengaard asks his adversary to wait a moment till he
can tie his shoe, stoops, and picks up the sword Sudevind; for which
perjury, says Memering, thy foul soul is lost. Ravengaard now cuts a
second sword of Memering's in two. Memering asks for time to tie his
shoe, stoops down, and produces the sword Adelring; for which perjury,
says Ravengaard, thy foul soul is lost. But Memering had been careful
to swear with circumstance: he had sworn that he knew of nothing but
the hilt being above ground. With one stroke he cuts Sudevind in two,
and with a second Ravengaard's neck. And now Gunild may say to the
duke, You see Ravengaard lied. Henry begs forgiveness. Memering, who
has a broken head and leg, demands nothing more than bread the rest of
his days, but Gunild says she will herself be his leech, and he shall
have both bread to eat and scarlet to wear.
The trick of reserving a peculiarly formidable sword is a commonplace
in northern sagas,[33] and we are not obliged to suppose that it
belonged to the ballad from the beginning. No trace of it is found in
the other Scandinavian versions.
The Danish versions from recent oral tradition, #B#, #C#, #G-L#, relate
that Henry, going off on an expedition, commits Gunild to the care of
Ravnlil, who forthwith demands that she shall do his will, otherwise he
will tell a great lie about her. She trusts in the triumph of honesty,
and defies him. Henry comes back, and inquires of Ravnlil about his
wife, and Ravnlil tells his great lie: Gunild spares neither monk nor
priest; he has seen the archbishop with her, #C#. Henry seizes Gunild
by the hair, throws her to the ground and beats her; thus shall she be
served till she find a kemp that will fight for her. Gunild goes to the
kemp-house, and asks if there is any man that will fight for a woman.
None who will fight for a whore, #H#, #K#. Memering jumps over the
table, #B#, #G#, #I#, and offers to be her champion. At the first shock
in the lists Memering's horse is brought to his knees; in the second
encounter Memering takes off Ravnlil's head. Henry offers tons of gold
to redeem Gunild. Shame befall him that sells her, says Memering, and
rides off with Gunild, leaving Henry wringing his hands.
#K#, like #A#, represents that Gunild was wooed from all quarters
before she was won by Henry. Memering, who sits lowest at the board,
says to Gunild, as in #A# 20-23, that he had served her father eleven
years, and never seen her with bare feet. In #C# Memering finds Gunild
weeping, and, learning the reason, asks the loan of her father's horse,
receives horse and armor of proof, goes where the kemps are drinking,
and challenges the slanderer. The burly villain says he will take him
in his left hand and chuck him out of the country, crush all his limbs
with his little finger. After the fight, Memering presents Gunild with
"the head that has belied her," and she carries it to Henry, who asks
in wonder, Who in all my land has hewn down a man so big? Memering,
the least of men, she says. Henry offers him his Sudselille, his
Strudselille, his Spire, but will have Gunild for his own. Memering
bids him keep his gifts; he will not resign Gunild, whom he has won.
The diminutive size of Memering is noted also in #B#, #H#, #I#, #K#,
and the hugeness of Ravnlil in #B#, #G#, #I#. In #H# Memering knocks
off his opponent's hat in the first bout, and the head follows in the
second. Now we will ride off, says Memering to Gunild; but Gunild will
not budge till she has had vengeance on Henry.
The Norwegian story has lost the beginning, but agrees well with the
Danish so far as it goes. Gunild goes into the kemps' hall, and asks if
any man dare fight for a woman against huge Ronnegaar. All are silent
but Mimmer, smallest of Christian men, who offers himself. Gunild holds
him cheap for his low stature, and says he had better stay at home
and keep his sheep; but he, not rebuffed, mounts his horse, seeks out
Ronnegaar, and, after a three days' fight, vanquishes him and cuts off
his head, which he ties to his saddle-bow and brings back in triumph.
The Icelandic ballad is in accord with the Danish until we come to the
judicium dei, and then an ordeal by hot iron takes the place of the
combat. So with the two Färöe copies, which, however, mix both forms,
and inconsistently bring in Memering, with nothing for him to do. King
Diderik replaces Henry in all three, but Spire remains the place of the
action. When the returning king asks after Gunild, he is told that the
archbishop has been seen lying with her, or the bishop's brother, and
others besides. He seizes her by the hair and drags her from her bed,
#F#, beats her for two days, #E#, #F#, and a third, and no one dares
interfere. At last two of his children beg him to stop, #D#, #E#; ask
what their mother has done, #F#. She has been untrue. Then let her
carry iron and walk on steel. Nine times she carries iron and ten times
she walks on steel, #F#. The conclusion is very much injured in all
these copies. In the Icelandic, #F#, "all her iron bands fall off;"
her accuser goes to infernal punishment, and she to heaven. In #D#,
#E#, after the children have asked for the ordeal by fire, Gunild goes
to the strand, or along the street, and meets Mimmering, smallest of
Christian men, #E#, who says he has served her father eight years, and
never saw her in such wretched plight. She then goes to another land,
#D#; Mimmering takes her from heathen land (which at least makes him of
some use), #E#; when she enters a church her iron bands burst. She is
making gifts of a Yule day, and gives her traducer a red ring, meaning
a rope round his neck.
The names of the four actors in the Scandinavian versions are: Henry,
as in English, in all the Danish copies,[34] replaced by King Diderik
in Färöe #D#, #E#, Icelandic #F#; Gunild, or Gunder, Gunni, Gunde,
in all copies, including the Norwegian; Memering, Mimmering, in all
but the Norwegian and Danish #H#, which have the slight modifications
Mimmer, Nimmering, these last, as also Färöe #D#, #E#, adding the
suffix Tand. There is considerable variety, always with some likeness,
in the fourth name: Raffuengaard, Danish #A#; Röngård, #H#; Ronnegaar,
the Norwegian; Ravnlil, #B#, #G#, #K#, #L#, Ravnhild, #I#; Rundkrud
Hagensgaard, #C#; Roysningur, Färöe #D#, #E#; Rögnvaldr, Icelandic
#F#. Ravengaard, Röngård, Ronnegaar, with the Anglo-Latin Rodingar,
presently to be mentioned, are evidently the forerunners of the English
Aldingar (Sir Raldingar) and Rodingham.[35] The English Eleanor is
probably a later substitution for Gunild, become unfamiliar. Eleanor
may have been meant or understood for Henry Second's queen (less likely
for Henry Third's, though she went into a monastery), but considering
how freely the name is dealt with in English ballads, the question
is hardly worth raising, and assuredly it never was raised except by
editors.[36]
Memering is of diminutive size in #B-E#, #H-K#, the smallest of
Christian men in #E#, and also in the Norwegian copy.[37] The large
size of his antagonist is noted in #B#, #C#, #G#, #I#, and the
Norwegian copy. His representative in English #A# seems no more in a
man's likeness than a child of four years old. Aldingar would not have
recked had there been half a hundred such; and Aldingar is as big as a
fooder, "a tun of man," like Falstaff, though not so unwieldy.
Gunhild, daughter of Cnut the Great and Emma, was married in 1036 to
King Henry, afterwards the Emperor Henry III, and died of the plague at
Ravenna two years later, never having had any trouble with her husband.
William of Malmesbury, who died only a little more than a hundred
years after Gunhild, 1142 or 1143, writes of her as follows: She was
a girl of extraordinary beauty, and had been sighed for in vain by
many suitors before her hand was bestowed upon Henry. She was attended
to the ship which was to take her to her husband by a procession so
splendid that it was still in William's day the theme of popular song.
After many years of married life she was denounced for adultery, and
offered as her champion against her accuser (who was a man of gigantic
bulk), others refusing, a mere boy that she had brought with her from
England, who by miracle hamstrung her defamer. Gunhild then could not
be induced by threats or blandishments to live longer with her husband,
but took the veil, and passed the remainder of a long life in the
service of God.[38]
It will be recognized that we have in this narrative many points of
the English and Danish ballad: the beauty of the queen, English #A# 2;
her numerous suitors, Danish #A#, #K#; the youth or under size of the
queen's champion, who had previously been in the service of her family,
and the huge dimensions of the other party; the triumph of weakness
and innocence, and Gunhild's separating herself from Henry, Danish
#B#, #C#, #G-L#. Nor can we well doubt that William of Malmesbury was
citing a ballad, for the queen's wonderful deliverance in so desperate
an extremity would be even more likely to be celebrated in popular
song than her magnificent wedding, and a ballad is known to have been
made upon a similar and equally fabulous adventure which is alleged in
chronicle to have occurred to Gunhild's mother.
Malmesbury does not mention the names of the combatants, though he
may very well have known them. These names are supplied by a French
metrical life of Edward the Confessor, "translatée du Latin," of which
the manuscript must have been written before 1272, and may, perhaps, be
dated as early as 1245. In this poem we are told that Gunhild, having
been calumniated to her husband, the Emperor Henry, was obliged by the
custom of the empire to purge herself by battle, and with difficulty
could find a champion, because her accuser was of gigantic size. But
a dwarf, whom she had brought up, by name Mimecan,[39] undertook to
fight for her, hamstrung the giant at the first blow, and at the second
cut off his feet, "as the history says." The lady, thus acquitted,
declined to have the emperor for her lord. The other name is given in
verses describing a picture of the combat, one of many illustrations
which adorn the manuscript: How the dwarf Mimecan, to redeem the honor
of his mistress, fights with the huge old Rodegan, and cuts off his
feet; where Rodegan is, perhaps, an adaptation of Rodingar, for rhyme's
sake;[40] but we have Rodyngham in English #B#.
In The Chronica Majora of Matthew Paris, I, 515, ed. Luard, manuscript
of the beginning of the fourteenth century, the passage in Malmesbury
is repeated, with additions from other sources. The name of Gunhild's
champion is given as Mimecan, and the dwarf is further said to have
cut off the giant's head, as in the Norwegian version of the ballad and
Danish #C#, and to have presented it to his mistress, as in Danish #C#.
Brompton's Chronicle, of the second half of the fourteenth century,
reiterates the story of the duel, giving the names of both combatants,
Mimecan (misprinted or misread Municon) and Roddyngar.[41]
It is highly probable that this story became connected with Gunhild,
wife of Henry III, in consequence of her bearing the name Cunigund
after her marriage, owing to which circumstance she might become
confused with the consort of the Emperor St Henry II, St Cunigund, in
whose legendary history there is a passage essentially similar. St
Cunigund's married life extended from 1002 to 1024. After Henry's death
she retired to a nunnery, and she died "in the service of God," 1033,
which corresponds with what Malmesbury says of Gunhild. Notwithstanding
the mutual asceticism of the imperial pair, reports obtained,
instigated by the devil, that Cunigund had doubly broken her vows, nor
did these fail to make an impression on her husband's mind. To justify
herself, Cunigund offered to walk barefoot over red-hot ploughshares,
or, according to another account, to carry red-hot iron in her hands,
and she went through the test without injury.[42] This form of ordeal
is of the nature of what is suggested in the Färöe and the Icelandic
ballad, and executed in the latter, where Gunild both walks over hot
steel and carries hot iron in her hands.
Emma, Gunhild's mother, had the misfortune to be subjected to the same
aspersions as her daughter and the Empress Cunigund, and was favored
with the like glorious vindication. Accused of having a bishop for
her lover, she asked to be submitted to the ordeal of hot iron, and
walked over nine glowing ploughshares, in the church of St Swithin,
Winchester, not only without injury, but even without the consciousness
of what she had done.[43] We are expressly informed that a ballad on
the subject was sung by a minstrel in the hall of the prior of St
Swithin on the occasion of a visit of the Bishop of Winchester in 1338,
in conjunction with another about the giant Colbrand.[44]
Earlier instances of a miraculous exoneration, under similar
circumstances, are those of Richarda, or Richardis, wife of the Emperor
Charles III, 887, and of Gundeberg, wife of the Lombard king Arioald,
c. 630.
Richarda, accused of adultery with a bishop, protests, like Cunigund,
not only her innocence of crime, but her intact virginity after a
marriage of ten or twelve years, and offers herself to the judgment
of God, either by duel or hot ploughshares; or actually proves her
integrity by some form of ordeal, divino [aquino] judicio, or by
passing through fire in a waxed shift, or donning a wax shift, which
is set on fire at her hands and feet. Disculpated thus, she goes, like
Cunigund, into a monastery for the rest of her days.[45]
Gundeberg happening to praise a certain nobleman's figure, he solicited
her in shameless style, and was most contemptuously rejected. Upon
this he tells the king that Gundeberg means to poison her husband and
take another man, and the queen is put under confinement. Remonstrance
is made by the king of the Franks, to which race Gundberg belongs,
and Arioald consents to allow her to clear herself by a champion.
One Pitto (otherwise Carellus) fights with the accuser and kills
him.[46] If Pitto, as Bugge has suggested, and as seems more than
plausible, be Little (old Italian pitetto, etc.), then the root of the
Scandinavian-English story is found in the early part of the seventh
century. The name Carellus may also be a significant diminutive.
Henry, in the Scandinavian ballad, accepts the testimony of the
man in whose charge he had left Gunild, without asking for proof.
Circumstantial evidence is offered in the English ballad; the false
steward shows the king a leper lying in the queen's bed. Aldingar
induces the leper to conform to his orders by promising that he shall
be a sound man in two hours. Rodyngham gives the leper a drink, and
lays him in the bed asleep. The queen, to the advantage of good taste,
but to the detriment of the proof, is not there in either case.
We have here a link with the story of Oliva, or Sibilla, in the
Charlemagne cycle of fictions. We may begin with the second section of
the Karlamagnus saga, because we know that it was translated from an
English copy brought home by a Norseman resident in Scotland in 1287.
Olif is here sister to Charles, and married to King Hugo. Going to the
chase, Hugo leaves his wife in the care of his steward, Milon, who had
long had a passion for her, and takes advantage of this occasion to
declare it. The queen threatens to have him hanged. Milon goes home,
puts a potion in a mazer, returns to the queen, and, pretending that
what he had said was only a jest and meant to try her virtue, asks her,
in token of reconciliation, to drink the cup with him. He feigns to
begin; the queen follows in earnest, and falls into a dead sleep. He
lays her in her bed, administers the same drink to a black beggar, and,
when it has had its effect, lays him by the queen, putting the arms of
each about the other's neck. When the king comes back he wonders that
his wife does not come to meet him, and asks where she is. The steward
answers, as in #A# 8, that the queen has taken a new love, and conducts
the king to his chamber. Hugo cuts off the black man's head. Every drop
of his blood turns to a burning candle, which makes the king think that
he has killed a holy man. But the steward says, Not so; rather she is
a witch, that can make stones float and feathers sink, and urges the
king, now that his sword is out, to take off the queen's head, too. The
king refuses. Olif wakes, and is astounded at what her eyes behold.
What means this black man in her bed! God wot, says Milon, he has long
been your leman. The queen demands an ordeal, according to the law of
the land; and successively proposes that she shall be put naked into
a copper over a hot fire, or be thrown from a high tower on sword and
spear points, or be taken in a boat out of sight of land and thrown
into the water. The king is each time disposed to let her have her way,
but is always dissuaded by Milon, who tells him that no such trial
would signify anything with a witch of her powers. Hereupon a knight
leaps up and knocks Milon down for a liar, and offers to fight him on
these terms: Milon to be fully armed and on his best horse, and the
challenger to have no armor, a mule for a steed, and a wooden wand for
a weapon. Milon is immediately thrown, but the king is still induced
to think this to be more of his wife's magic, calls his best men to
council, and bids them determine what death she shall die. There is no
further resemblance to our ballad. Karlamagnus Saga, Af Fru Olif ok
Landres, Unger, p. 51.
A Färöe ballad, 'Óluvu kvæði,' Hammershaimb, in Antiquarisk Tidsskrift,
1846-48, p. 281, repeats this story with variations, and as we are
informed by Grundtvig, I, 201, so do Icelandic rimes, 'Landres rímur,'
as yet unprinted. In the Färöe ballad, after Óluva's champion (who had
come with her from home, like Memering) has unhorsed her accuser, she
passes the ordeal of water and fire triumphantly, and still another.
In the Spanish prose romance of Oliva (printed in 1498) and the French
chanson de geste of Doon l'Alemanz (fifteenth-century manuscript), the
heroine, who is now Pepin's sister, becomes the victim of slander,
not in consequence of her having rebuffed an overweening lover, but
because the father or uncle of the arch-traitor Ganelon had been
thwarted in his plan to match his daughter or sister with the nobleman
upon whom Pepin has bestowed Oliva. It is an ordinary young lad who
is put into the lady's bed, and no loathsome leper or beggar. The
injured woman asks for the ordeal of fire or of water, and, in the
Spanish romance, when these are refused her, to be thrown from a tower.
After much difficulty this right is conceded in the latter, and, like
Richardis,[47] she walks through a blazing fire, in simple shift,
without singeing hair or thread. But all this helps her not. F. Wolf,
Ueber die neuesten Leistungen der Franzosen, u. s. w., p. 98 ff; C.
Sachs Beiträge, u. s. w., p. 2 ff.
According to other forms of the same story, it is Sibilla, wife of
Charles the Great, that is temporarily repudiated by her husband,
owing to a false suspicion of unfaithfulness, seemingly justified by
an ugly dwarf being found in bed with her. A French romance, which
narrated this story, is described in the Chronicle of Alberich, a monk
of the cloister of Trois Fontaines, in the diocese of Liége, writing
in the first half of the thirteenth century.[48] A fragment of the
latter half of such a romance, and of the same age, is preserved. A
complete tale is extant in a variety of forms: Hystoria de la reyna
Sebílla, in Spanish prose, French by origin, of which a full analysis
is given by Ferdinand Wolf, Ueber die neuesten Leistungen, u. s. w.,
p. 124 ff, from a printed copy dated 1532;[49] a Dutch volksbuch,
also from the French, printed not far from the same time, of which an
ample account is also given by Wolf in Denkschriften der kaiserlichen
Akademie der Wissenschaften, Phil. Hist. Classe, VIII, 180 ff; Macaire,
a French romance in verse, of the thirteenth or fourteenth century,
Mussafia, Altfranzösische Gedichte aus venezianischen Handschriften,
II, Guessard, Les Anciens Poëtes de la France; a German metrical tale
of uncertain date, 'Diu Künigin von Frankrich und der ungetriuwe
Marschalk,' found in many manuscripts, von der Hagen, Gesammtabenteuer,
I, 169, Meyer und Mooyer, Altdeutsche Dichtungen, p. 52; a meisterlied,
'Die Kunigin von Frankreich, dy der marschalk gegen dem Kunig versagen
wart,' u. s. w., printed in the fifteenth century, and lately in
Wolff's Halle der Völker, II, 255.[50] The king and queen are nameless
in the last two, and the queen bears the name of Blançiflor in
'Macaire.' In the two German versions the false marshal repeats the
part of the false steward in the English and Norse story; having failed
with the queen, he lays a sleeping dwarf in her bed. The dwarf is
principal in the Spanish and Dutch story, and after a discomfiture in
which he loses some of his teeth at the vigorous hand of the queen,
creeps into her bed while she is asleep. He does the same in the
Venetian-French romance, thinking to get vengeance for rough handling
from his mistress when acting as Pandarus for Macaire, of whose spite
against the queen for rebuking his inordinate passion he is all the
while the tool.
Sibilla appears again as Sisibe, daughter of a Spanish king, married
to Sigmundr, father of Sigurðr Fáfnisbani. The king, summoned to arms,
entrusts her to two of his nobles, one of whom, Hartvin, proposes that
she shall accept him as a husband, and is threatened with the gallows.
The two represent to the king, on his return, that the queen has had
a handsome thrall for her partner during his absence. Hartvin advises
that she be relegated to a desolate forest and have her tongue cut out,
to which Sigmundr assents. Þiðriks Saga, Unger, p. 159 ff, cc 156-59;
Hyltén-Cavallius, p. 115, cc 149-51.
The first part of the English romance of Sir Triamour, or a little more
than 600 verses, is derived from some French form of Sibilla. A king
going on a crusade to the holy land commits his queen to the care of
his steward; the steward sues the queen to accept him as a paramour,
and is threatened with hanging; the steward pretends that he has only
been proving her, but when the king comes home tells him that he has
seen a man lying with the queen, and has slain the traitor; the king is
minded to burn his wife, but is advised by the steward rather to banish
her; three days are allowed the queen to quit the country, and if found
after that she is to die in the fire. Percy Society, vol. XVI, ed.
Halliwell; Percy MS., ed. Hales and Furnivall, II, 78; Utterson, Select
Pieces of Early Popular Poetry, I, 5.
In like manner, Genoveva's husband is persuaded by the false Golo, who
has been charged with the care of her and has abused his trust, that
his wife has admitted a cook to her favor; and Octavian's mother, in
the English romance, excites her son's resentment against his innocent
queen by inducing a scullion, "lothly of face," to get into the
empress's bed: Weber, III, 163, v. 153 ff.[51]
Another series of tales, that has likeness in parts with the story
of Gunhild and of Sibilla, is represented in English by the pleasing
romance of The Erl of Tolous,[52] dating from about 1400.
We read in this lay of Britain, as it is called in the last stanza,
that Barnard, Earl of Toulouse, has become enamored of the Empress of
Germany, with whose lord he is at strife, and has excited a certain
interest in the mind of the lady. The emperor selects two knights to
guard his wife; these conceive a violent passion for her, and declare
it, one after the other, after having obtained from her a promise of
secrecy. She tells the first that he is a traitor and deserves to be
hanged, and the second that he should be hanged had she not hight
to hold counsel. These knights, who have been in collusion from the
first, think themselves unsafe, notwithstanding the empress's promise,
and conspire to be her ruin. They induce a young gentleman, for a
jest, to strip himself all but bare, and hide behind a curtain in her
chamber while she is sleeping; then summon "lords of bed" to help
take a traitor who is with their lady in her bower, find the young
man where they had put him, and bear him through the body. The lady
is cast into prison. Her husband, who is far off, has a dream of two
wild bears tearing his wife to pieces, and returns home with all haste.
The knights tell their story. A council is called the next day, and it
is decided that the empress must die (be burned). An old knight calls
attention to the circumstance that the young man's tongue is stopped,
and that none ever found a fault in the lady before; he advises that
proclamation be made for a champion, to which the king, who loves his
wife tenderly, gladly assents. The Earl of Toulouse hears of the
lady's peril, and resolves to go to Germany and fight for her. This,
as being on hostile terms with the emperor, he must do in disguise. By
the help of an abbot, who is the empress's uncle, he obtains admission
to the lady in a monk's dress, hears her shrift, and assures himself
of her innocence; and then, monk as he seems, offers to do battle
with the accusers. One is run through, the other yields as recreant
and confesses the plot, and both are burned. The monk is revealed by
the abbot, under a pledge that he shall receive no injury, to be Sir
Barnard of Toulouse. The emperor treats his late foe graciously, and
rewards him, even to the extent of dying in three years, when the earl
is chosen his successor and weds the empress.
Of this story the following are repetitions, with variations: (1)
Miracle de la Marquise de Gaudine, MS. of about 1400, Paris et Robert,
Miracles de Notre Dame, II, 121 ff; (2) the German Volksbuch, Eine
schöne und liebliche History vom edlen und theuren Ritter Galmien,
printed 1539 or earlier, upon which Hans Sachs founded his play Der
Ritter Galmi mit der Hertzogin auss Britanien, Keller, VIII, 261; (3)
the Danish poem Den kydske Dronning, by Jeppe Jensen, 1483, Brandt,
Romantisk Digtning, II, 89 ff; (4) a tale of Bandello, Second Part,
No 44, Amore di Don Giovanni di Mendozza e della Duchessa di Savoia,
printed 1554; (5) the French prose-romance L'Histoire de Palanus,
Comte de Lyon, ed. A. de Terrebasse, 1833, put before 1539. In (1)
a dwarf is made to conceal himself in the lady's chamber; in (2) a
scullion to boast that he is the object of her passion; in (3) a
servitor is the instrument of treachery; in (4) a young gentleman;
in (5) this machinery is dropped, and a slanderous letter does the
mischief. In none of these is the lady a German empress; in (5) she is
an English queen; in (2) of British birth. In all there is a reciprocal
predilection on the part of the lady and her champion.
Spanish and Provençal chroniclers and a Spanish ballad relate a story
substantially according with what we find in The Earl of Toulouse, the
injured heroine being an empress of Germany, and her champion a count,
in all cases but one Count Ramon of Barcelona.
In the Spanish ballad 'Romance de cómo el conde don Ramon de Barcelona
libró á la emperatriz de Alemaña que la tenian para quemar,' Duran,
Romancero, II, 210, No 1228, Wolf y Hofmann, Primavera, II, 102, from
the Silva de Romances of 1550, two knights, with no motive given but
their own wickedness, tell the emperor that they have seen the empress
toying with her chamberlain. The empress is imprisoned, and casts
about for two knights to defend her life against the accusers. In all
the chivalry of the court there is none that will venture against
appellants so redoubtable, and she is to be burned in three days. The
Count of Barcelona hears the distressing intelligence, and sets out to
the rescue. No one being admitted to the lady except her confessor, the
count makes known to the holy father that he has come for the defence,
and begs, if possible, that he may first have a word with her majesty.
He has an interview, in the guise of a monk, and is properly welcomed
by the empress, who expresses her confidence that he will succeed
in establishing her innocence, but will not permit him even to kiss
hands. Asking only to take his adversaries one at a time, the count
speedily disposes of the first, when the other surrenders. The emperor,
delighted with the result, wishes to show due honor to the champion,
who, however, is not to be found, having returned to his estates
immediately after the fight; nor is the empress at liberty to tell who
he is until the third day. He is then revealed to be the flower of
chivalry, the lord of Catalonia. The empress, with the approval of her
husband, goes to Barcelona, attended by a magnificent train and under
conduct of two cardinals, to express her gratitude in person, and is
very splendidly received and entertained.
The oldest of the chroniclers, the Catalan Bernart Desclot, writing
about 1300, ascribes the misfortune of the empress to a harmless
partiality for a young nobleman, which was misrepresented to the
emperor by two of his councillors, out of envy and spite.[53] The
empress is allowed a year and a day to find a champion, in default of
which she is to be burned. None of the knights to whom she has shown
kindness dare offer themselves in her cause, on account of the high
favor in which her accusers, who engage to make good their charge
by battle, stand with their master. But a minstrel attached to the
court takes it in hand to find her a defender, goes to Barcelona, and
so interests the count in the case that he sets out immediately for
Germany. Carbonell, c. 1500, Beuter, c. 1530, and Pujades, † 1635,
all of whom rely in part on popular tradition, make the count to be
Ramon Berengar III, and Beuter says that, according to the Catalans,
the empress was Matilda, daughter of Henry I of England, who was
married to the emperor Henry V in 1114.[54]
Provençal chronicles, Cæsar de Nostradamus's Histoire et chronique
de Provence, 1614, and La Royalle Couronne des Roys d'Arles, 1641,
return to the baffled steward or maître d'hôtel and his revenge. The
empress is Matilda in Nostradamus, as in Beuter, and the steward simply
accuses her of adultery, and offers to sustain the charge by battle.
No one dares to defend the lady, because the accuser is un fort rude
et dangereux champion. The steward is hanged after his defeat. In La
Royalle Couronne des Roys d'Arles the emperor is said to be Henry
III and the empress Matilde, fille de Camet, qui avoit esté roy de
Dannemarc et estoit roy d'Angleterre. The emperor Henry V was as king
of Arles Henry III. Camet, whether miswritten or not, can mean only
Canut, and there is an obvious confusion between Gunild, daughter of
Cnut, wife of Henry III of Germany, and Matilda, daughter of Henry I of
England, wife of Henry III of Arles and V of Germany.[55] This may be
an historical blunder, pure and simple, or may have been occasioned by
a knowledge of the tradition concerning Gunild.
There is little or nothing in all these tales that can be historically
authenticated, and much that is in plain contradiction with
history.[56] Putting history out of the question, there is no footing
firmer than air for him who would essay to trace the order of the
development. Even if we exaggerate the poverty of human invention so
far as to assume that there must have been a single source for stories
so numerous and so diversified in the details, a simple exposition of
the subject-matter, with subordinate connections, seems all that it is
safe, at present, to attempt.[57]
* * * * *
#A# is translated, according to Percy's Reliques, by Bothe, p. 175, and
by Knortz, Lieder u. Romanzen Altenglands, No 68; #B# by Gerhard, p.
71. The old Danish ballad, Grundtvig's #A#, by Dr Prior, I, 151.
A
Percy MS., p. 68; Hales and Furnivall, I, 166.
1
Our king he kept a ffalse steward,
Men called him S_i_r Aldingar,
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
2
He wold haue layen by our comely queene,
Her deere worshipp to haue betraide;
Our queene shee was a good woman,
And euer more said him nay.
3
Aldingar was offended in his mind,
W_i_th her hee was neuer content,
But he sought what meanes he cold find out,
In a fyer to haue her brent.
4
There came a lame lazer to the k_ing_s gates,
A lazar was blind and lame;
He tooke the lazar vpon his backe,
Vpon the queenes bed he did him lay.
5
He said, Lye still, lazar, wheras thou lyest;
Looke thou goe not away;
Ile make thee a whole man and a sound
In two howres of a day.
6
And then went forth S_i_r Aldingar,
Our queene for to betray,
And then he mett w_i_th our comlye k_ing_,
Saies, God you saue and see!
7
'If I had space, as I haue grace,
A message I wold say to thee.'
'Say on, say on, S_i_r Aldingar,
Say thou on and vnto me.'
8
'I can let you now see one of [the] greiuos[est] sights
_Tha_t euer Christen k_ing_ did see;
Our queene hath chosen a new, new loue,
She will haue none of thee.
9
'If shee had chosen a right good k_nigh_t,
The lesse had beene her shame;
But she hath chosen a lazar man,
W_hi_ch is both blinde and lame.'
10
'If this be true, thou Aldingar,
_Tha_t thou dost tell to me,
Then will I make thee a rich k_nigh_t
Both of gold and fee.
11
'But if it be false, S_i_r Aldingar,
That thou doest tell to me,
Then looke for noe other death
But to be hangd on a tree.
Goe w_i_th me,' saide our comly k_ing_,
'This lazar for to see.'
12
When the k_ing_ he came into the queenes chamber,
Standing her bed befor,
'There is a lodly lome,' says Harry K_ing_,
'For our dame Queene Elinor!
13
'If thou were a man, as thou art none,
Here thou sholdest be slaine;
But a paire of new gallowes shall be built,
Thoust hang on them soe hye.
14
'And [a] fayre fyer there shalbe bett,
And brent our queene shalbee:'
Fforth then walked our comlye k_ing_,
And mett w_i_th our comly queene.
15
Saies, God you saue, our queene, Madam,
And Christ you saue and see!
Heere you [haue] chosen a new, new loue,
And you will haue none of mee.
16
'If you had chosen a right good k_nigh_t,
The lesse had beene yo_u_r shame;
But you haue chosen a lazar man,
That is both blind and lame.'
17
'Euer alacke!' said our comly queene,
'S_i_r Aldingar is false to mee;
But euer alacke!' said our comly queene,
'Euer alas, and woe is mee!
18
'I had thought sweuens had neuer been true;
I haue prooued them true at the last;
I dreamed in my sweauen on Thursday at eueninge,
In my bed wheras I lay,
19
'I dreamed a grype and a grimlie beast
Had carryed my crowne away,
My gorgett and my kirtle of golde,
And all my faire heade-geere.
20
'How he wold haue worryed me w_i_th his tush,
And borne me into his nest,
Saving there came a little hawk,
Flying out of the east.
21
'Saving there came a little hawke,
W_hi_ch men call a merlion;
Vntill the ground he stroke him downe,
_Tha_t dead he did fall downe.
22
'Giffe I were a man, as I am none,
A battell I would proue;
I wold fight w_i_th that false traitor;
Att him I cast my gloue!
23
'Seing I am able noe battell to make,
You must grant me, my leege, a k_nigh_t,
To fight w_i_th _tha_t traitor, S_i_r Aldingar,
To maintaine me in my right.'
24
'I'le giue thee forty dayes,' said our k_ing_,
'To seeke thee a man therin;
If thou find not a man in forty dayes,
In a hott fyer thou shall brenn.'
25
Our queene sent forth a messenger;
He rode fast into the south;
He rode the countryes through and through,
Soe ffar vnto Portsmouth.
26
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
He cold find never a man in the south country
_Tha_t wold fight w_i_th the k_nigh_t soe keene.
27
The second messenger the queen forth sent
Rode far into the east;
But, blessed be God made sunn and moone!
He sped then all of the best.
28
As he rode then by one riuer side,
There he mett w_i_th a little child;
He seemed noe more in a mans likenesse
Then a child of four yeeres old.
29
He askt the queenes messenger how far he rode;
Loth he was him to tell;
The little one was offended att him,
Bid him adew, farwell.
30
Said, Turne thou againe, thou messenger,
Greete our queene well from me;
When bale is att hyest, boote is att next;
Helpe enough there may bee.
31
'Bid o_u_r queene remember what she did dreame
In her bedd wheras shee lay;
Shee dreamed the grype and the grimly beast
Had carryed her crowne away;
32
'Her gorgett and her kirtle of gold,
Alsoe her faire head-geere;
He wold haue werryed her w_i_th his tushe,
And borne her into his nest.
33
'Saving there came a little hawke,
Men call him a merlyon;
Vntill the ground he did strike him downe,
_Tha_t dead he did ffall downe.
34
'Bidd the queene be merry att her hart,
Euermore light and glad;
When bale is att hyest, boote is at next,
Helpe enoughe there shalbe.'
35
Then the queenes messenger rode backe,
A gladed man then was hee;
When he came before our queene,
A gladd woman then was shee.
36
Shee gaue the messenger twenty pound,
O lord, in gold and ffee;
Saies, Spend and spare not while this doth last,
Then feitch thou more of me.
37
Our queene was put in a tunne to burne,
She thought no thing but death;
Thé were ware of the little one
Came ryding forth of the east.
38
W_i_th a mu...
A louelie child was hee;
When he came to that fier,
He light the queene full nigh.
39
Said, Draw away these brands of fire
Lie burning before our queene,
And feitch me hither S_i_r Aldingar,
_Tha_t is a knight soe keene.
40
When Aldingar see _tha_t little one,
Ffull litle of him hee thought;
If there had beene halfe a hundred such,
Of them he wold not haue wrought.
41
Hee sayd, Come hither, S_i_r Aldingar;
Thou seemust as bigge as a ffooder;
I trust to God, ere I haue done w_i_th thee,
God will send to vs [an] auger.
42
Saies, The first stroke that's giuen, S_i_r Aldingar,
I will giue vnto thee,
And if the second giue thou may,
Looke then thou spare not mee.
43
The litle one pulld forth a well good sword,
I-wis itt was all of guilt;
It cast light there over _tha_t feild,
It shone soe all of guilt.
44
He stroke the first stroke att Aldingar,
He stroke away his leggs by his knee;
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
45
Sayes, Stand vp, stand vp, thou false traitor,
And fight vpon thy feete;
For and thou thriue as thou begins,
Of a height wee shalbe meete.
46
'A preist, a preist,' sayes Aldingar,
'Me for to houzle and shriue!
A preist, a preist,' sayes Aldingar,
'While I am a man liuing a-liue!
47
'I wold haue laine by our comlie queene;
To it shee wold neuer consent;
I thought to haue betrayd her to our k_ing_,
In a fyer to haue had her brent.
48
'There came a lame lazar to the k_ing_s gates,
A lazar both blind and lame;
I tooke the lazar vpon my backe,
In the Queenes bed I did him lay.
49
'I bad him, Lie still, lazar, where he lay,
Looke he went not away;
I wold make him a whole man and a sound
In two houres of a day.
50
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
'Euer alacke!' sayes S_i_r Aldingar,
'Falsing neuer doth well;
51
'Forgiue, forgiue me, queene, Madam!
For Christs loue forgiue me!'
'God forgaue his death, Aldingar,
And freely I forgiue thee.'
52
'Now take thy wife, thou K_ing_ Harry,
And loue her as thou shold;
Thy wiffe shee is as true to thee
As stone _tha_t lies on the castle wall.'
53
The lazar vnder the gallow tree
Was a pretty man and small;
The lazar vnder the gallow tree
Was made steward in K_ing_ Henerys hall.
B
Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, III, 51, 1803.
Communicated to Scott by K. Williamson Burnet, of
Monboddo, as written down from the recitation of an old
woman, long in the service of the Arbuthnot family.
1
The birds sang sweet as ony bell,
The world had not their make;
The queen she's gone to her chamber,
With Rodingham to talk.
2
'I love you well, my queen, my dame,
Bove land and rents so clear,
And for the love of you, my queen,
Would thole pain most severe.'
3
'If well you love me, Rodingham,
I'm sure so do I thee;
I love you well as any man,
Save the king's fair bodye.'
4
'I love you well, my queen, my dame,
'T is truth that I do tell;
And for to lye a night with you,
The salt seas I would sail.'
5
'Away, away, O Rodingham!
You are both stark and stoor;
Would you defile the king's own bed,
And make his queen a whore?
6
'To-morrow you'd be taken sure,
And like a traitor slain,
And I'd be burned at a stake,
Altho I be the queen.'
7
He then steppd out at her room-door,
All in an angry mood,
Untill he met a leper-man,
Just by the hard way-side.
8
He intoxicate the leper-man,
With liquors very sweet,
And gave him more and more to drink,
Until he fell asleep.
9
He took him in his arms two,
And carried him along,
Till he came to the queen's own bed,
And there he laid him down.
10
He then steppd out of the queen's bower,
As swift as any roe,
Till he came to the very place
Where the king himself did go.
11
The king said unto Rodingham,
What news have you to me?
He said, Your queen's a false woman,
As I did plainly see.
12
He hastend to the queen's chamber,
So costly and so fine,
Until he came to the queen's own bed,
Where the leper-man was lain.
13
He looked on the leper-man,
Who lay on his queen's bed;
He lifted up the snaw-white sheets,
And thus he to him said.
14
'Plooky, plooky are your cheeks,
And plooky is your chin,
And plooky are your armis twa,
My bonny queen's layne in.
15
'Since she has lain into your arms,
She shall not lye in mine;
Since she has kissd your ugsome mouth,
She never shall kiss mine.'
16
In anger he went to the queen,
Who fell upon her knee;
He said, You false, unchaste woman,
What's this you've done to me?
17
The queen then turnd herself about,
The tear blinded her ee:
'There's not a knight in a' your court
Dare give that name to me.'
18
He said, 'T is true that I do say;
For I a proof did make;
You shall be taken from my bower,
And burned at a stake.
19
'Perhaps I'll take my word again,
And may repent the same,
If that you'll get a Christian man
To fight that Rodingham.'
20
'Alass! alass!' then cried our queen,
'Alas, and woe to me!
There's not a man in all Scotland
Will fight with him for me.'
21
She breathed unto her messengers,
Sent them south, east, and west;
They could find none to fight with him,
Nor enter the contest.
22
She breathed on her messengers,
She sent them to the north;
And there they found Sir Hugh le Blond,
To fight him he came forth.
23
When unto him they did unfold
The circumstance all right,
He bade them go and tell the queen
That for her he would fight.
24
The day came on that was to do
That dreadful tragedy;
Sir Hugh le Blond was not come up,
To fight for our lady.
25
'Put on the fire,' the monster said,
'It is twelve on the bell;'
''T is scarcely ten, now,' said the king,
'I heard the clock mysell.'
26
Before the hour the queen is brought,
The burning to proceed;
In a black velvet chair she's set,
A token for the dead.
27
She saw the flames ascending high,
The tears blinded her ee:
'Where is the worthy knight,' she said,
'Who is to fight for me?'
28
Then up and spak the king himsell:
'My dearest, have no doubt,
For yonder comes the man himsel,
As bold as eer set out.'
29
They then advanced to fight the duel,
With swords of temperd steel;
Till down the blood of Rodingham
Came running to his heel.
30
Sir Hugh took out a lusty sword,
'T was of the metal clear,
And he has pierced Rodingham
Till's heart-blood did appear.
31
'Confess your treachery, now,' he said,
'This day before you die;'
'I do confess my treachery,
I shall no longer lye.
32
'I like to wicked Haman am,
This day I shall be slain:'
The queen was brought to her chamber,
A good woman again.
33
The queen then said unto the king,
Arbattle's near the sea;
Give it unto the northern knight,
That this day fought for me.
34
Then said the king, Come here, Sir Knight,
And drink a glass of wine,
And, if Arbattle's not enough,
To it we'll Fordoun join.
C
Dr Joseph Robertson's Note-Book, January 1, 1830, p. 6.
1
They've putten her into prison strang,
A twalmon lang and mair,
Until the mice and wild rattens
Did tear her yallow hair.
* * * * * * *
2
'One shake o your han,' said Rodingham,
'One shak o your han gie me:'
'I cam na here for shaking hans,
But to fight maist desperatelie.'
3
'It's nae ten strucken on the clock,
Nor eleven on the bell:'
'We'll doe ill deeds anew ere night,
Tho it were strucken twall.'
* * * * *
#A.#
2^2. _Perhaps we should read ~to betray~._
4^2. was lind.
5^4. in 2.
13^3. be bul: _~t~ torn off, and one stroke of the ~u~
dotted. Furnivall._
17^4. _~S^r~ before ~Euer~ crossed out. Furnivall._
19^1. dreamed the grype.
24^{1, 3}. 40.
28^4. 4.
30^3, 34^3. _~next~ should, perhaps, be ~nyest~._
32^1. kirt e.
32^4. her nest.
36^1. 20^{li}_{:}.
38^1. _The rest of the line is cut away._
40^3. 100.
45^3. thriue: _one stroke of the ~u~ is left out.
Furnivall._
49^4. 2.
52^1. thou K.
52^3. is a.
#B.#
28^4. as ere.
[31] Such dreams are not unusual in this connection: the empress has
a like one in Octavian, Weber, Metrical Romances, III, 165, v. 195
ff; the emperor in The Erl of Tolous, Lüdtke, st. 68; the duke in the
German Hirlanda.
[32] All these Scandinavian versions were printed for the first time
by Grundtvig, save two out of eleven copies of #K#: these two in
Kristensen, I, 124, No 49, 'Mimering,' and II, 306, No 87, 'Fru Gunder
i Spire.' #F# was subsequently printed in Íslenzk Fornkvæði, No 12, I,
78, 'Gunnhildar kvæði.' Grundtvig devoted particular attention to this
ballad, and has elucidated the history of the subject in a masterly way.
[33] See Flóamannasaga, Vigfússon and Möbius, Fornsögur, p. 134 f,
where the whole sword is hid in the sand; Svarfdælasaga, Íslendínga
Sögur, 1830, II, 132-134; Gunnlaugs saga ormstúngu, Ísl. Sög., 1847,
II, 225 f; Þiðriks saga, Unger, p. 206, c. 222; Sturlaugs saga
starfsama, c. 10, Rafn, Fornaldar Sögur, III, 608 f; and cf. 'Orm
Ungersvend og Bermer Rise,' Danmarks gamle Folkeviser, No 11: Grundtvig
and Bugge. Besides the oath customary in judicial combats, that the
parties believe in the justice of their cause, the old Frisian and
Lombard laws require champions to swear that they will fight fairly and
honestly, and that they have no charm concealed about them, "ne forte
carminibus, vel machinis diabolicis, vel magicis artibus insidientur:"
Grundtvig, I, 194 note *. Jove seems to be expected to laugh at a
qualified perjury in some of the above cases.
[34] Hans Hendrik in #H#; clearly, as Grundtvig says, a modern
misunderstanding of Han Hendrik.
[35] The name Raadengaard occurs in Grundtvig, No 7, #A#, #G#, #H#,
No 12, #C#; Ravengaard also in No 7, #D#, No 12, #A#; Raanegaard,
Ronegaard, in No 12, #B#.
[36] Percy says that it had been suggested to him that the author
of 'Sir Aldingar' "had in his eye the story of Gunhilda, _who was
sometimes called Eleanor_, and was married to the Emperor (here called
King) Henry." I have not found that Gunhilda was ever called Eleanor.
[37] Little Mimmering Tand is found in several ballads. He is one of
King Diderik's kemps in Grundtvig, No 7, #A#, and appears again in his
No 16, #C#. Mimering is the smallest of men in Grundtvig, No 14.
[38] De Gestis Regum Anglorum, l. ii, c. 12.
[39] Danish and Norwegian Mimecan, Mimmering, Memering, English
mimicking, mimocking, and probably minnikin, Scottish memerkyn,
mynmerkin, all denote a man or object of small size, and point to
Icelandic minni==minor, minnkan, a minishing, etc.; as Bugge remarks.
[40] Lives of Edward the Confessor, edited by Henry Richards Luard, p.
39 f, vv 506-531, p. 3, VII.
[41] Twysden, Historiæ Anglicanæ Scriptores Decem, col. 933. In MS.
#A# of the Abbreviationes of Ralph de Diceto, ed. Stubbs, I, 174,
this note is inserted in the margin (at Gunnildam imperatori Romano
cum ineffabilibus divitiis maritavit): Quam Rodingarus Alemannicus
impetivit de adulterio, sed Mimekinus eam defendit et Rodingarum
interfecit. The Abbreviationes were written before 1200, but the date
of the insertion is of course uncertain.
[42] The second account in Alberti Krantzii Saxonia, lib. IV, c. 32,
p. 97, ed. 1621: Grundtvig. Cunigund having publicly protested that
she had never known man (not even her husband), Henry, who wished the
secret kept, according to one account struck her lightly in the face,
according to another squeezed her mouth together so roughly as to draw
blood. Grundtvig sees in this story a correspondence with the severe
beating that Henry is said, in some of the ballads, to have inflicted
on Gunild.
[43] The trial is described with every detail in the Annals of
Winchester, which may be of Henry II's time: Luard, Annales Monastici,
II, 20-25. See, also, Brompton's Chronicle, Hist. Angl. Scriptores
X, col. 941 f; Eulogium Historiarum, ed. Haydon, II, 184, c. 184;
Rudbourn, in Wharton's Anglia Sacra, I, 233-35; etc.
[44] Et cantabat joculator quidam, nomine Herebertus, canticum
Colbrandi, necnon gestum Emme regine a judicio ignis liberate, in aula
prioris: Registrum prioratus S. Swithini Wintoniensis, cited by Warton,
History of English Poetry, I, 81, ed. 1840. While the ordeal was in
process, we are told, the spectators were weeping "intolerably" and
crying with one voice, St Swithin, help her! now or never! Deus vim
patitur. Regina sine clamore faciebat orationem: Deus, qui liberasti
Susannam, tu me liberare digneris! It may be the same or another ballad
on the deliverance of Queen Emma which Langland refers to at the end
of the Prologue to Piers Plowman, as sung by lazy dykers and delvers,
"that drive forth the long day with Dieu vous saue, Dame Emme."
[45] Regino, † 915, in Pertz, I, 597; Hermannus Contractus, † 1054,
and Compendium ex codice Bernoldi, Migne, Patrologia, CXLIII, col.
201; Massmann, Kaiserchronik, twelfth century, II, 415-22; Jac. von
Königshofen's Chronicle, end of fourteenth century, ed. Schilter, p.
105, cited by Grimm, Rechtsalterthümer, p. 912, Grundtvig, I, 190. In
the Kaiserchronik the emperor gives his wife a blow with his fist.
[46] Fredegarius, Chronicon, c. 51, in Du Chesne, I, 755; Aimoinus,
c. 1000, Historia Francorum, lib. IV, c. 10, in Du Chesne, III, 103.
Paulus Diaconus, lib. IV, c. 47, has wrongly made Gundeberg wife of
Rodoald, putting the event at 652.
[47] In Königshofen's Chronicle.
[48] Edited by Leibnitz in Accessiones Historicæ, tom. II, Pars I, p.
105 f. The passage relating to this romance is cited from Leibnitz
by Wolf, Ueber die neuesten Leistungen, u. s. w., p. 156f, and from
a manuscript by Guessard, Macaire, p. xii f. All that is said of the
dwarf is: de quodam nano turpissimo, cujus occasione dicta regina fuit
expulsa.
[49] This tale apparently exists also in a manuscript of the end of the
fourteenth century: Gayangos in Rivadeneyra's Biblioteca, Libros de
Caballerias, p. lxxxiii, 'Sebilla.' Cited by Wolf.
[50] See, for the last, and generally for the related literature, von
Tettau, Ueber einige bis jetzt unbekannte Erfurter Drucke aus dem 15.
Jahrhundert, pp 8-65. Hans Sachs has dramatized the story of the false
marshal, VIII, 54, ed. Keller.
[51] For Genoveva see Seuffert, Die Legende von der Pfalzgräfin
Genovefa, Würzburg, 1877.
[52] Ritson, A. E. Metrical Romanceës, III, 93; newly and admirably
edited, Berlin, 1881, by Gustav Lüdtke, with a thorough investigation
of the related literature, the more material part of which is furnished
in appendixes.
[53] This recalls Morant in Karl Meinet, Keller, 219 ff, and in La
gran conquista de ultramar, Wolf, Denkschriften der kais. Akad., as
before, VIII, 280. Olive, in the German volksbuch Hirlanda, seems to
be patterned after Morant. Hirlanda is charged with an intrigue with
Olive by a graceless nobleman, and is to be burned unless vindicated
by battle. Everybody is afraid of the impeacher's strength and skill
in fight, but he is vanquished by a mere boy (divinely assisted) and
confesses his villainy. The boy is Hirlanda's long-lost son. This is a
stale paraphrase of an old story.
[54] Diago in his history of the counts of Barcelona contends for Ramon
Berengar IV and the wife of Alfonso VII, who was crowned Emperor of
Spain in 1135: Wolf, Lüdtke.
[55] For these chronicles and for Palanus, see F. Wolf in Jahrbücher
für wissenschaftliche Kritik, 1835, 945-56, and Lüdtke, 78 ff. In
the Arles chronicle, as also in Desclot, Carbonell, Beuter, etc.,
the empress gives the count a ring when he visits her in prison,
and the same is done earlier in The Erl of Tolous; see Lüdtke, pp
80,171,181,183,191,201, and vv 392, 1076 of the English romance. It may
be noted, without the intention of suggesting any particular inference,
that Arthur's queen in Le lai du Corn, v. 325 ff, to clear herself from
the suspicion of loving amiss, professes herself ready to be thrown
into a fire of thorns, and, should a hair of her head or any of her
dress be burned, then to be dragged at a horse's heels. She owns that
she _had_ given a ring to a young donzel, who had killed a giant that
had slandered Gawain, and then wished modestly to withdraw.
[56] Lüdtke has endeavored, by a very carefully conducted comparison,
to show the probability of an historical foundation for The Erl of
Tolous in the relations of Bernard I, Count of Barcelona, with the
Empress Judith, second wife of Louis le Débonnaire. By the influence
of this beautiful and clever woman, Bernard, son of the William of
Orange of romance, and later in his life Count or Duke of Toulouse, as
his father had been, was made imperial chamberlain or prime minister,
with the object of forwarding the aspirations which the empress
entertained for her son Karl. Hugo, Count of Tours, and Matfrid, Count
of Orleans, partisans of Lothair, stand for the empress's two lovers
and enemies. Judith was accused of adultery with Bernard, and shut up
in a monastery. At an assembly of the estates of the empire in 831,
she declared herself prepared to refute the charge against her, and no
accuser appearing, did so, when required, by an oath, after which she
was restored to her rights as wife and empress. Bernard, though already
incidentally purged by the empress's oath, some months subsequently
asked the privilege of a duel with anybody that was disposed to
inculpate him, and, no such person offering, in turn cleared himself by
an oath. See Lüdtke, p. 98 ff, p. 209 ff. Hildegard, Louis's mother,
according to tradition, labored under the same imputation as Judith,
his wife; a parallel to the case of Gunild and her mother Emma.
The story of Hildegard (Grimms, Deutsche Sagen, II, 102) has some
resemblance to that of Repsima, Les Mille et un Jours, p. 265, Paris,
1840, and Jonathan Scott's Arabian Nights, VI, 396, 'Adventures of the
Cauzce,' etc.
[57] Grundtvig, admitting that the time has not come for anything more,
sketches an hypothesis of the evolution and transmission of the story,
"as a mere experiment," I, 203 f.
60
KING ESTMERE
#a.# Percy's Reliques, edition of 1794, I, 64.
#b.# Reliques, edition of 1765, I, 58.
'King Estmere' occurred at page 249 of Percy's folio manuscript, but
the three leaves on which it was written were "unfortunately torn out"
by Percy to send to the press, and the genuine form of the ballad
thereby put beyond recovery. In the second and later editions of the
Reliques the editor professes to give the ballad from two copies
("containing very great variations," 1794), one of them being that of
the folio. But here and elsewhere Percy employs a singular periphrasis,
as he has explained to us in the preface to the Reliques, and means
only that he has amended his original more or less. Notwithstanding the
seemingly explicit language, there is no second copy at all.[58]
We are told by Percy, in a note to stanza 63, that though liberties
have been taken with that portion of the ballad which follows, yet
wherever the fourth edition differs from the preceding ones it has
been brought nearer to the folio.[59] Some notes of readings of the
folio are also furnished in the fourth edition (and are here restored),
which were not given in the others. While we cannot but be vexed that
so distinguished a ballad, not injured much, so far as we can see, by
time, should not come down to us as it came to Percy, our loss must not
be exaggerated. The changes made by the editor, numerous enough, no
doubt, cannot be very material until we approach the end. Stanzas 63-66
are entirely suspicious, and it may even be questioned whether the
manuscript contained a word that is in them.
The name of Bremor, son of the king of Spain, and "a heathen hound" (if
this be not Percy's interpolation), taken with certain resemblances
in the story, very naturally suggested to Professor Sophus Bugge
(Grundtvig, IV, 704) a connection between this ballad and 'Young Orm
and Bermer-Giant,' 'Orm Ungersvend og Bermer-Rise.'[60] The giant, who
is described as a rabid berserker, presents himself at the Danish court
(Grundtvig, #A#), and demands that the king shall give him his daughter
and half his land, or find a man who will fight in the ring with him.
The king refuses daughter and land, and says he will find a champion.
He offers the chance of winning so fair a may to his men, and no one
dares say a word except Young Orm, who sits lowest at the board: he
will be the man. But first Orm provides himself with an irresistible
sword, which is buried in his father's tomb, and is yielded by the dead
man only upon the condition that his son shall take the revenge due
for his death. With this sword Orm, like the child in 'Sir Aldingar,'
cuts the giant through at the knees, being, he says, not tall enough
to strike higher. He then goes to Iceland, and fights three days with
the men who had slain his father, but without prevailing. A mermaid,
from the sea-bottom, cries out to him that his sword is under a spell,
and that he must whirl it three times round his head and then stick the
point in the ground. This done, he has no difficulty in despatching his
foes. He returns to the Danish court, and marries the princess.
The likeness between the English ballad and the Danish (which
represents well enough the other Norse poems) is that a youthful
champion wins a king's daughter by killing a truculent competitor, who
has nearly the same name in both (Bremor, Bermer).
Further consideration led Bugge to maintain that the proper subject
of 'King Estmere' is rather the story of Hjalmar, Odd and Anganty,
and that the English ballad is better represented by the tragic Färöe
ballad of 'Arngrim's Sons' than by 'Orm and Bermer-Giant,' which last
he regards as a free reconstruction of an earlier and fuller form
of 'Arngrim's Sons' than has come down to us. The points in which
the story of Hjalmar, Odd and Anganty[61] is like 'King Estmere,'
in contrast with the Orm ballad, are that the hero does not fight
single-handed with the giant, but has the help of Odd (Adler); that
the king's daughter chooses her husband for herself; that the bride
is not won by a sword taken from a father's grave. The argument is,
however, much too intricate and too long to be repeated here, even
had the subtle and accomplished advocate shown full confidence in the
conclusion.
But this confidence he does not feel, for, as he conceives, King
Estmere again exhibits resemblances to 'Ogier le Danois,' the basis of
the Danish ballad 'Holger Danske og Burmand,' Grundtvig, No 30.[62] The
name Adler, says Bugge, is about as near to Ogier, Oddgeir, as to Oddr.
Adler's brother, Estmere, might be the chivalrous paynim Karaheus,
despite the unlike name, and King Adland's daughter the amiral's
daughter Gloriande, the beloved of Karaheus. Brunamons of Majorca, to
whom the amiral offers his daughter after the defection of Karaheus,
may be Bremer of Spain. Ogier, like Adler (in Percy's edition), kills
the hateful interloper, and Karaheus, like Estmere, gets the lady, but
without taking part in the fight. If this hypothesis is not quite so
satisfactory as the other, we may combine both. The English ballad may
have been derived from some form of 'Arngrim's Sons,' but have been
modified under the influence of 'Ogier le Danois.'[63]
A brief statement of these speculations may suffice in view of their
inconclusiveness, which is the greater by reason of our not knowing to
what extent Percy interfered with his manuscript.
The names Adler and Estmere appear again in a short romance in the
Percy manuscript, Hales and Furnivall, II, 296. The story is that
of Hugdietrich in the Heldenbuch: von der Hagen, I, 169, ed. 1855,
Amelung and Jänicke, I, 167; given by Weber in Illustrations of
Northern Antiquities, p. 63. Adler is a king, and, like Estmere in
the ballad, is exacting in the matter of a wife. In the Heldenbuch it
is not the young man who is so difficult to suit, but his guardian.
Estmere (v. 11, where there is corruption or defect) appears to be
Adler's messenger to King Ardine, the father of a lady who answers all
requirements, and who, as it turns out, likes Adler, but is not to be
had on easy terms.[64]
'King Estmere' begins very much like the Danish ballad, 'Den farlige
Jomfru,' Grundtvig, No 184, and especially like version #D#.
1
Ther stod drick paa felde,
der druck kiemper snile.
2
Der druck innde her Ion Runnd,
och ryder och her Rosenns-wannd.
3
'Høre du, her Ion Rund, kiere stolbroder mynn,
vilttu icki gifftis ennd?'
4
'Ieg ved icki denn yomffru y dette rige
der yeg lader were minn lige.'
For knights and others to ride into hall, and up to the high board,
is quite according to use. Every one will remember the passage in
Chaucer's Squire's Tale, vv 30 ff. So again in Sir Perceval, Thornton
Romances, p. 19, xxxi; Sir Degrevant, the same, p. 227, lxxvi; Libius
Disconius, Percy MS., Hales and Furnivall, II, 486, v. 1951 (Skeat);
Madden's Syr Gawayne, p. 8 ff, p. 111, v. 332; Perceval le Gallois,
ed. Potvin, II, 125, vv 12,640-50; Messire Gauvain, p. 27, p. 146;
Mabinogion, I, 70, 303 f, II, 257; Stowe's Survey of London (vol. II,
book VI, p. 48, ed. 1720, following Walsingham), cited by Percy in his
Essay on the Ancient Minstrels, Reliques, I, xli, lxxxvii, ed. 1794;
Warton's History of English Poetry, II, 172, note d, ed. 1840.
The champion of England formerly rode into Westminster Hall in the
coronation ceremony, but this part of the spectacle was omitted from
the two last coronations.
King Estmere stables his steed at the hall board. Here again the
minstrel is within the bounds of custom. "On voyait au moyen âge, dans
la salle des chefs gallois, d'énormes crampons de fer, fixés au pavé
de distance en distance, qui servaient aux chevaliers pour attacher
leurs chevaux, car ils y entraient souvent avec eux; quelques-uns les
conduisaient même jusque dans leur chambre à coucher:" Villemarqué, Les
Romans de la Table Ronde, etc., 1860, p. 416 (cited by Liebrecht).
For bribing to secrecy with an arm-ring, stanza 47, see, also,
Grundtvig, No 82, #A# 14, 15, #B# 20, 21; No 95, #D# 16, 17,
Kristensen, I, No 96, 16; Grundtvig, No 233, #A# 18, #B# 12, #D# 13; No
274, #A# 21.
* * * * *
Translated by Grundtvig, Engelske og skotske Folkeviser, p. 1; by
Bodmer, I, 27; Herder, I, 195; Knortz, L. u. R. Alt-Englands, No 14.
1
Hearken to me, gentlemen,
Come and you shall heare;
Ile tell you of two of the boldest brether
That ever borne were.
2
The tone of them was Adler Younge,
The tother was Kyng Estmere;
The were as bolde men in their deeds
As any were, farr and neare.
3
As they were drinking ale and wine
Within his brother's hall,
'When will ye marry a wyfe, brother,
A wyfe to glad us all?'
4
Then bespake him Kyng Estmere,
And answered him hartilye:
'I know not that ladye in any land,
That's able to marrye with mee.'
5
'Kyng Adland hath a daughter, brother,
Men call her bright and sheene;
If I were kyng here in your stead,
That ladye shold be my queene.'
6
Saies, Reade me, reade me, deare brother,
Throughout merry England,
Where we might find a messenger
Betwixt us towe to sende.
7
Saies, You shal ryde yourselfe, brother,
Ile beare you companye;
Many a man throughe fals messengers is deceived,
And I feare lest soe shold wee.
8
Thus the renisht them to ryde,
Of twoe good renisht steeds,
And when the came to King Adlands halle,
Of redd gold shone their weeds.
9
And when the came to Kyng Adlands hall,
Before the goodlye gate,
There they found good Kyng Adland
Rearing himselfe theratt.
10
'Now Christ thee save, good Kyng Adland;
Now Christ you save and see:'
Sayd, You be welcome, King Estmere,
Right hartilye to mee.
11
'You have a daughter,' said Adler Younge,
'Men call her bright and sheene;
My brother wold marrye her to his wiffe,
Of Englande to be queene.'
12
'Yesterday was att my deere daughter
The king his sonne of Spayn,
And then she nicked him of naye,
And I doubt sheele do you the same.'
13
'The kyng of Spayne is a foule paynim,
And 'leeveth on Mahound,
And pitye it were that fayre ladye
Shold marrye a heathen hound.'
14
'But grant to me,' sayes Kyng Estmere,
'For my love I you praye,
That I may see your daughter deere
Before I goe hence awaye.'
15
'Although itt is seven yeers and more
Since my daughter was in halle,
She shall come once downe for your sake.
To glad my guestës alle.'
16
Downe then came that mayden fayre,
With ladyes laced in pall,
And halfe a hundred of bold knightes,
To bring her [from] bowre to hall,
And as many gentle squiers,
To tend upon them all.
17
The talents of golde were on her head sette
Hanged low downe to her knee,
And everye ring on her small finger
Shone of the chrystall free.
18
Saies, God you save, my deere madam,
Saies, God you save and see:
Said, You be welcome, Kyng Estmere,
Right welcome unto mee.
19
'And, if you love me, as you saye,
Soe well and hartilee,
All that ever you are comen about
Soone sped now itt shal bee.'
20
Then bespake her father deare:
My daughter, I saye naye;
Remember well the kyng of Spayne,
What he sayd yesterdaye.
21
'He wold pull downe my halles and castles,
And reave me of my lyfe;
I cannot blame him if he doe,
If I reave him of his wyfe.
22
'Your castles and your towres, father,
Are stronglye built aboute,
And therefore of the king his sonne of Spaine
Wee neede not stande in doubt.
23
'Plight me your troth, nowe, Kyng Estmere,
By heaven and your righte hand,
That you will marrye me to your wyfe,
And make me queene of your land.'
24
Then Kyng Estmere he plight his troth,
By heaven and his righte hand,
That he wolde marrye her to his wyfe,
And make her queene of his land.
25
And he tooke leave of that ladye fayre,
To goe to his owne countree,
To fetche him dukes and lordes and knightes,
That marryed the might bee.
26
They had not ridden scant a myle,
A myle forthe of the towne,
But in did come the kyng of Spayne,
With kempës many one.
27
But in did come the kyng of Spayne,
With manye a bold barone,
Tone day to marrye Kyng Adlands daughter,
Tother daye to carrye her home.
28
Shee sent one after Kyng Estmere,
In all the spede might bee,
That he must either turne againe and fighte,
Or goe home and loose his ladye.
29
One whyle then the page he went,
Another while he ranne;
Till he had oretaken King Estmere,
I-wis he never blanne.
30
'Tydings, tydings, Kyng Estmere!'
'What tydinges nowe, my boye?'
'O tydinges I can tell to you,
That will you sore annoye.
31
'You had not ridden scant a mile,
A mile out of the towne,
But in did come the kyng of Spayne,
With kempës many a one.
32
'But in did come the kyng of Spayne,
With manye a bold barone,
Tone daye to marrye King Adlands daughter,
Tother daye to carry her home.
33
'My ladye fayre she greetes you well,
And ever-more well by mee;
You must either turne againe and fighte,
Or goe home and loose your ladye.'
34
Saies, Reade me, reade me, deere brother,
My reade shall ryse at thee,
Whether it is better to turne and fighte,
Or goe home and loose my ladye.
35
'Now hearken to me,' sayes Adler Yonge,
'And your reade must rise at me;
I quicklye will devise a waye
To sette thy ladye free.
36
'My mother was a westerne woman,
And learned in gramarye,
And when I learned at the schole,
Something shee taught itt mee.
37
'There growes an hearbe within this field,
And iff it were but knowne,
His color, which is whyte and redd,
It will make blacke and browne.
38
'His color, which is browne and blacke,
Itt will make redd and whyte;
That sworde is not in all Englande
Upon his coate will byte.
39
'And you shal be a harper, brother,
Out of the north countrye,
And Ile be your boy, soe faine of fighte,
And beare your harpe by your knee.
40
'And you shal be the best harper
That ever tooke harpe in hand,
And I wil be the best singer
That ever sung in this lande.
41
'Itt shal be written in our forheads,
All and in grammarye,
That we towe are the boldest men
That are in all Christentye.'