stanzas 5-11, and substitutes at that place the girdle of #a# 21-28. The
woodbine in #a# 36, 41, is also wanting, and the concluding stanza. A
deficiency both in matter and rhyme at #a# 32, is supplied by #b# 25,
26, but not happily:
'An do you to your mither then,
An bid her come to your boy's christnen;
'For dear's the boy he's been to you:
Then notice well what she shall do.'
Again, the transition in #a#, from st. 33 to st. 34, is abrupt even for
a ballad, and #b# introduces here four stanzas narrating the execution
of the Billy Blind's injunctions, and ending,
And notic'd well what she did say,
whereby we are prepared for the witch's exclamations.[102]
Danish versions of this ballad are numerous: #A-I#, 'Hustru og Mands
Moder' ['Fostermoder,' 'Stifmoder'], Grundtvig, No 84, II, 404 ff;
#J-T#, 'Hustru og Mands Moder,' Kristensen, II, 111 ff, No 35:
#U-X#,'Barselkvinden,' Kristensen, I, 201 ff, No 74; #Y#, 'Hustru og
Slegfred,' Grundtvig, No 85, II, 448 ff: in all twenty-five, but many of
Kristensen's copies are fragments. Grundtvig's 84 #A#, #B#, and 85 #a#
are from manuscripts of the sixteenth century. 84 #F-I# and several
repetitions of 85 are of the seventeenth. Grundtvig's 84 #C#, #D#, #E#,
and all Kristensen's versions, are from recent oral tradition. Some of
these, though taken down since 1870, are wonderfully well preserved.
The Danish ballads divide into two classes, principally distinguished by
their employing or not employing of the artifice of wax children. (There
is but one of these in #N#, #R#, Kristensen's #E#, #I#, II, 116, 122,
and in the oldest Swedish ballad, as in the Scottish: but children in
Scandinavian ballads are mostly born in pairs.) Of the former class, to
which our only known copy belongs, are #F-I#, #N-T#, #X# (Grundtvig, 84
#F-I#, Kristensen, II, No 35, #E-L#, I, No 74 #D#). #N# and #I# furnish,
perhaps, the most consistent story, which, in the former, runs thus: Sir
Peter married Ellen (elsewhere Mettelille, Kirstin, Tidelil, Ingerlil),
and gave her in charge to his mother, a formidable witch, and, as
appears from #F#, violently opposed to the match. The first night of her
marriage Ellen conceived twins. She wrapped up her head in her cloak and
paid a visit to her mother-in-law, to ask how long women go with child.
The answer was,
'Forty weeks went Mary with Christ,
And so each Danish woman must.
'Forty weeks I went with mine,
But eight years shalt thou go with thine.'
The forty weeks had passed, and Ellen began to long for relief. Sir
Peter besought aid of his sister Ingerlin. If I help your young bride,
she said, I must be traitor to my mother. Sir Peter insisted, and
Ingerlin moulded a fine child of wax,[103] wrapped it in linen, and
exhibited it to her mother, who, supposing that her arts had been
baffled, burst out into exclamations of astonishment. She had thought
she could twist a rope out of flying sand, lay sun and moon flat on the
earth with a single word, turn the whole world round about! She had
thought all the house was spell-bound, except the spot where the young
wife's chest stood, the chest of red rowan, which nothing can bewitch!
The chest was instantly taken away, and Ellen's bed moved to the place
it had occupied; and no sooner was this done than Ellen gave birth to
two children.
In the ballads of the other class, the young wife, grown desperate after
eight years of suffering, asks to be taken back to her maiden home. Her
husband's mother raises objections: the horses are in the meadow, the
coachman is in bed. Then, she says, I will go on my bare feet. The
moment her husband learns her wish, the carriage is at the door, but by
the arts of the mother it goes to pieces on the way, and the journey has
to be finished on horseback. The joy of her parents at seeing their
daughter approaching was quenched on a nearer view: she looked more dead
than quick. She called her family about her and distributed her effects.
A great wail went up in the house when two sons were cut from the
mother's side. (#C#, #J#, #K#, #L#, #W#: Grundtvig, 84 #C#; Kristensen,
II, No 35 #A#, #B#, #C#; I, No 74 #C#.)
The first son stood up and brushed his hair:
'Most surely am I in my ninth year.'
The second stood up both fair and red:
'Most sure we'll avenge our dear mother dead.'[104]
Several of the most important ballads of the first class have taken up a
part of the story of those of the second class, to the detriment of
consistency. #F#, #G#, #H#, #O#, #P# (Grundtvig, 84 #F#, #G#, #H#,
Kristensen, II, No 35 #F#, #G#), make the wife quit her husband's house
for her father's, not only without reason, but against reason. If the
woman is to die, it is natural enough that she should wish to die with
the friends of her early days, and away from her uncongenial
mother-in-law; but there is no kind of occasion for transferring the
scene of the trick with the wax children to her father's house; and, on
the other hand, it is altogether strange that her husband's mother and
the rowan-tree chest (which sometimes appears to be the property of the
mother, sometimes that of the wife) should go with her.
#Y#, 'Hustru og Slegfred,' Grundtvig, 85, agrees with the second class
up to the point when the wife is put to bed at her mother's house, but
with the important variation that the spell is the work of a former
mistress of the husband; instead of his mother, as in most of the
ballads, or of the wife's foster-mother, as in #C#, #D#, #J#, #K#, #M#
(Grundtvig, 84 #C#, #D#, Kristensen, II, No 35 #A#, #B#, #D#), or of the
wife's step-mother as in #A# only. The conclusion of 'Hustru og
Slegfred' is rather flat. The wife, as she lies in bed, bids all her
household hold up their hands and pray for her relief, which occurs on
the same day. The news is sent to her husband, who rejoins his wife, is
shown his children, praises God, and burns his mistress. Burning is also
the fate of the mother-in-law in #B#, #I#, #O#, #P#, whereas in #F# she
dies of chagrin, and in #G# bursts into a hundred flinders
(flentsteene).
This ballad, in the mixed form of #O#, #P# (Kristensen, II, 35 #F#,
#G#), has been resolved into a tale in Denmark, a few lines of verse
being retained. Recourse is had by the spell-bound wife to a cunning
woman in the village, who informs her that in her house there is a place
in which a rowan-tree chest has stood, and that she can get relief
there. The cunning woman subsequently pointing out the exact spot, two
boys are born, who are seven years old, and can both walk and talk. Word
is sent the witch that her son's wife has been delivered of two sons,
and that she herself shall be burned the day following. The witch says,
"I have been able to twine a string out of running water. If I have not
succeeded in bewitching the woman, she must have found the place where
the damned rowan chest stood." (Grundtvig, III, 858, No 84 #b#.)
Three Swedish versions of the ballad have been printed. #A#, #B#, from
tradition of this century, are given by Arwidsson, II, 252 ff, 'Liten
Kerstins Förtrollning,' No 134. These resemble the Danish ballads of the
second class closely. Liten Kerstin goes to her mother's house, gives
birth to two children, and dies. In #A# the children are a son and
daughter. The son stands up, combs his hair, and says, "I am forty weeks
on in my ninth year." He can run errands in the village, and the
daughter sew red silk. In #B# both children are boys. One combs his
hair, and says, "Our grandmother shall be put on two wheels." The other
draws his sword, and says, "Our mother is dead, our grandmother to
blame. I hope our mother is with God. Our grandmother shall be laid on
seven wheels." The other copy, #C#, mentioned by Grundtvig as being in
Cavallius and Stephens' manuscript collection, has been printed in the
Svenska Fornminnesföreningens Tidskrift, vol. ii, p. 72 ff, 1873-74. It
dates from the close of the sixteenth century, and resembles the mixed
ballads of the Danish first class, combining the flitting to the
father's house with the artifice of the wax children. The conclusion of
this ballad has suffered greatly. After the two sons are born, we are
told that Kirstin, before unmentioned, goes to the chest and makes a wax
child. If the chest were moved, Elin would be free of her child. And
then the boy stands up and brushes his hair, and says he has come to his
eighth year.
Three stanzas and some of the incidents of a #Norwegian# version of this
ballad have been communicated to Grundtvig, III, 858 f, No 84 c, by
Professor Sophus Bugge. The only place which was unaffected by a spell
was where Signelíti's bride-chest stood, and the chest being removed,
the birth took place. The witch was a step-mother, as in Danish #A#.
There are two familiar cases of malicious arrest of childbirth in
classic mythology,--those of Latona and Alcmene. The wrath of Juno was
the cause in both, and perhaps the myth of Alcmene is only a repetition
of an older story, with change of name. The pangs of Latona were
prolonged through nine days and nights, at the end of which time
Ilithyia came to her relief, induced by a bribe. (Hymn to the Delian
Apollo, 91 ff.) Homer, Il. xix, 119, says only that Hera stopped the
delivery of Alcmene and kept back Ilithyia. Antoninus Liberalis, in the
second century of our era, in one of his abstracts from the
Metamorphoses of Nicander, a poem of the second century B. C., or
earlier, has this account: that when Alcmene was going with Hercules,
the Fates and Ilithyia, to please Juno, kept her in her pains by sitting
down and folding their hands; and that Galinthias, a playmate and
companion of Alcmene, fearing that the suffering would drive her mad,
ran out and announced the birth of a boy, upon which the Fates were
seized with such consternation that they let go their hands, and
Hercules immediately came into the world. (Antoninus Lib., Metam. c.
xxix.) Ovid, Metamorphoses, ix, 281-315, is more circumstantial. After
seven days and nights of torture, Lucina came, but, being bribed by
Juno, instead of giving the aid for which she was invoked, sat down on
the altar before Alcmene's door, with the right knee crossed over the
left, and fingers interlocked, mumbling charms which checked the
processes of birth. Galanthis, a servant girl _media de plebe_, was
shrewd enough to suspect that Juno had some part in this mischief; and
besides, as she went in and out of the house, she always saw Lucina
sitting on the altar, with her hands clasped over her knees. At last, by
a happy thought, she called out, "Whoever you are, wish my mistress joy;
she is lighter, and has her wish." Lucina jumped up and unclasped her
hands, and the birth followed instantly. Pausanias, ix, 11, tells a
similar but briefer story, in which Historis, daughter of Tiresias,
takes the place of Galanthis. See, for the whole matter, 'Ilithyia oder
die Hexe,' in C. A. Böttiger's Kleine Schriften, I, 76 ff.
Apuleius, in his Metamorphoses, mentions a case of suspended childbirth,
which, curiously enough, had lasted eight years,[105] as in the Danish
and Swedish ballads. The witch is a mistress of her victim's husband, as
in Grundtvig, 85, and as in a story cited by Scott from Heywood's
'Hierarchy of the Blessed Angels,' p. 474. "There is a curious tale
about a Count of Westeravia [Vestravia, in diocesi Argentoratensi], whom
a deserted concubine bewitched upon his marriage, so as to preclude all
hopes of his becoming a father. The spell continued to operate for three
years, till one day, the count happening to meet with his former
mistress, she maliciously asked him about the increase of his family.
The count, conceiving some suspicion from her manner, craftily answered
that God had blessed him with three fine children; on which she
exclaimed, like Willie's mother in the ballad, 'May Heaven confound the
old hag by whose counsel I threw an enchanted pitcher into the draw-well
of your palace!' The spell being found and destroyed, the count became
the father of a numerous family."
A story like that of the ballad is told as a fact that took place in
Arran within this century. A young man forsook his sweetheart and
married another girl. When the wife's time came, she suffered
excessively. A pack-man who was passing suspected the cause, went
straight to the old love, and told her that a fine child was born; when
up she sprang, and pulled out a large nail from the beam of the roof,
calling out to her mother, "Muckle good your craft has done!" The wife
was forthwith delivered. (Napier, in The Folklore Record, II, 117.)
In the #Sicilian# tales, collected by Laura Gonzenbach, Nos 12 and 15,
we have the spell of folded hands placed between the knees to prevent
birth, and in No 54 hands raised to the head.[106] In all these examples
the spell is finally broken by telling the witch a piece of false news,
which causes her to forget herself and take away her hands.
(Sicilianische Märchen aus dem Volksmund gesammelt, Leipzig, 1870.)
We find in a #Roumanian# tale, contributed to Das Ausland for 1857, p.
1029, by F. Obert, and epitomized by Grundtvig, III, 859, No 84 d, a
wife condemned by her offended husband to go with child till he lays his
hand upon her. It is twenty years before she obtains grace, and the son
whom she then bears immediately slays his father. A #Wallachian# form of
this story (Walachische Märchen von Arthur u. Albert Schott, No 23)
omits the revenge by the new-born child, and ends happily.
With respect to the knots in st. 34, it is to be observed that the tying
of knots (as also the fastening of locks), either during the marriage
ceremony or at the approach of parturition was, and is still, believed
to be effectual for preventing conception or childbirth. The minister of
Logierait, Perthshire, testifies, about the year 1793, that immediately
before the celebration of a marriage it is the custom to loosen
carefully every knot about bride and bridegroom,--garters, shoe-strings,
etc. The knots are tied again before they leave the church. (Statistical
Account of Scotland, V, 83.) So among the Laps and Norwegians, when a
child is to be born, all the knots in the woman's clothes, or even all
the knots in the house, must be untied, because of their impeding
delivery. (Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, p. 322, who also cites the
Statistical Account of Scotland.)
* * * * *
Willie's Lady is translated by Schubart, p. 74, Talvj, p. 555, and by
Gerhard, p. 139. Grundtvig, 84 H (== Syv, 90, Danske Viser, 43), is
translated by Jamieson, Illustrations of Northern Antiquities, p. 344,
and by Prior, No 89.
A
#a.# A copy, by Miss Mary Fraser Tytler, of a transcript
made by her grandfather from William Tytler's manuscript.
#b.# Jamieson-Brown MS., No 15, fol. 33.
1
Willie has taen him oer the fame,
He's woo'd a wife and brought her hame.
2
He's woo'd her for her yellow hair,
But his mother wrought her mickle care.
3
And mickle dolour gard her dree,
For lighter she can never be.
4
But in her bower she sits wi pain,
And Willie mourns oer her in vain.
5
And to his mother he has gone,
That vile rank witch of vilest kind.
6
He says: 'My ladie has a cup,
Wi gowd and silver set about.
7
'This goodlie gift shall be your ain,
And let her be lighter o her young bairn.'
8
'Of her young bairn she'll neer be lighter,
Nor in her bower to shine the brighter.
9
'But she shall die and turn to clay,
And you shall wed another may.'
10
'Another may I'll never wed,
Another may I'll neer bring home.'
11
But sighing says that weary wight,
'I wish my life were at an end.'
12
'Ye doe [ye] unto your mother again,
That vile rank witch of vilest kind.
13
'And say your ladie has a steed,
The like o'm's no in the lands of Leed.
14
'For he [i]s golden shod before,
And he [i]s golden shod behind.
15
'And at ilka tet of that horse's main,
There's a golden chess and a bell ringing.
16
'This goodlie gift shall be your ain,
And let me be lighter of my young bairn.'
17
'O her young bairn she'll neer be lighter,
Nor in her bower to shine the brighter.
18
'But she shall die and turn to clay,
And ye shall wed another may.'
19
'Another may I['ll] never wed,
Another may I['ll] neer bring hame.'
20
But sighing said that weary wight,
'I wish my life were at an end.'
21
'Ye doe [ye] unto your mother again,
That vile rank witch of vilest kind.
22
'And say your ladie has a girdle,
It's red gowd unto the middle.
23
'And ay at every silver hem,
Hangs fifty silver bells and ten.
24
'That goodlie gift has be her ain,
And let me be lighter of my young bairn.'
25
'O her young bairn she's neer be lighter,
Nor in her bower to shine the brighter.
26
'But she shall die and turn to clay,
And you shall wed another may.'
27
'Another may I'll never wed,
Another may I'll neer bring hame.'
28
But sighing says that weary wight,
'I wish my life were at an end.'
29
Then out and spake the Belly Blind;
He spake aye in good time.
30
'Ye doe ye to the market place,
And there ye buy a loaf o wax.
31
'Ye shape it bairn and bairnly like,
And in twa glassen een ye pit;
32
'And bid her come to your boy's christening;
Then notice weel what she shall do.
33
'And do you stand a little fore bye,
And listen weel what she shall say.'
34
'Oh wha has loosed the nine witch knots
That was amo that ladie's locks?
35
'And wha has taen out the kaims of care
That hangs amo that ladie's hair?
36
'And wha's taen down the bush o woodbine
That hang atween her bower and mine?
37
'And wha has killd the master kid
That ran beneath that ladie's bed?
38
'And wha has loosed her left-foot shee,
And lotten that ladie lighter be?'
39
O Willie has loosed the nine witch knots
That was amo that ladie's locks.
40
And Willie's taen out the kaims o care
That hang amo that ladie's hair.
41
And Willie's taen down the bush o woodbine
That hang atween her bower and thine.
42
And Willie has killed the master kid
That ran beneath that ladie's bed.
43
And Willie has loosed her left-foot shee,
And letten his ladie lighter be.
44
And now he's gotten a bonny young son,
And mickle grace be him upon.
* * * * *
#a.#
_The stanzas are not regularly divided in the MS., nor
were they so divided by Scott._
41^2. hung (?) beneath: _but see 36^2._
_Scott's principal variations are_:
12^1. Yet gae ye.
14^1. For he is silver shod.
15.
At every tuft of that horse main
There's a golden chess and a bell to ring.
21^1. Yet gae ye.
21^2. o rankest kind.
22^2. It's a' red gowd to.
24^1. This gudely gift sall be.
26^1. For she.
28^2. my days.
30^1. Yet gae ye.
30^2. there do buy.
31^1. Do shape.
31^2. you'll put.
32^1. And bid her your boy's christening to.
33^1. a little away.
33^2. To notice weel what she may saye.
35^2. That were amang.
38^2. And let.
39^1. Syne Willie.
40^2. That were into.
41^1, 42^1, 43^1. And he.
41^2. Hung atween her bour and the witch carline.
44^2. a bonny son.
#b.#
_Divided in Jamieson's MS. into stanzas of four verses,
two verses being written in one line: but Jamieson's_
8==#a# 14-16.
1^1. Sweet Willy's taen.
5-11, _wanting. Instead of the cup, the girdle occurs
here_:==#a# 21-28.
12^1. He did him till.
12^2. wilest kin.
13^1. An said, My lady.
14^{1, 2}. he is.
16^2. An lat her be lighter o her young bairn.
18^1. go to clay.
#a# 21^1==b 5^1. Now to his mither he has gane.
18^2. kin.
#a# 22^1==b 6^1. He say[s] my lady.
22^2. It's a' red.
#a# 23^1==b 7^1. at ilka.
23^2. Hings.
#a# 24^1==b 8^1. gift sall be your ain.
24^2. lat her ... o her.
#a# 29==b 22. Then out it spake the belly blin; She spake
ay in a good time.
#a# 32==b 25, 26.
An do you to your mither then, An bid her come to your boy's
christnen;
For dear's the boy he's been to you: Then notice well what
she shall do.
_Between #a# 33 and #a# 34 occurs in #b# (28-31)_:
He did him to the market place, An there he bought a loaf o wax.
He shap'd it bairn and bairnly like, An in't twa glazen een he pat.
He did him till his mither then, An bade him (_sic_) to his boy's
christnen.
An he did stan a little forebye, An notic'd well what she did say.
#a# 35^2==#b# 33^2. hang amo.
36. _wanting in #b#._
37^2. aneath.
39^2==#b# 36^2. hang amo his.
40^1. kemb o care.
40^2. his lady's.
41. _wanting in #b#._
42^2==#b# 38^2. ran aneath his.
44. _wanting in #b#._
#b# _22^2 makes the Billy Blind feminine. This is not so
in #a#, or in any other ballad, and may be only an error
of the transcriber, who has not always written carefully._
[102] The Jamieson-Brown copy contains seventy-eight verses; Scott's
and the Tytler copy, eighty-eight. Dr Anderson's, Nichols's
Illustrations, VII, 176, counts seventy-six instead of eighty-eight;
but, judging by the description which Anderson has given of the
Alexander-Fraser-Tytler-Brown MS., at p. 179, he is not exact.
Still, so large a discrepancy is hard to explain.
[103] The sister does this in #F-I# and #S#: in #O#, #P#, the husband
"has" it done.
[104] Grundtvig, 84 #D#, #E#; Kristensen, I, No 74 #A#, #B#, #C#; II, No
35 #A#, #B#, #C#.
[105] Eadem amatoris sui uxorem, quod in eam dicacule probrum dixerat,
jam in sarcina prægnationis, obsæpto utero et repigrato fetu, perpetua
prægnatione damuavit, et, ut cuncti numerant, jam octo annorum onere
misella illa velut elephantum paritura distenditur. I, 9.
[106] We may suppose with closed fingers, or clasping the head, though
this is not said. Antique vases depict one or two Ilithyias as standing
by with hands elevated and _open_, during the birth of Athene from the
head of Zeus. Welcker, Kleine Schriften, III, 191, note 12.
7
EARL BRAND
#A. a. b.# 'Earl Bran,' Mr Robert White's papers. #c.#
'The Brave Earl Brand and the King of England's Daughter,'
Bell, Ancient Poems, etc., p. 122. #d.# Fragmentary verses
remembered by Mr R. White's sister.
#B.# 'The Douglas Tragedy,' Scott's Minstrelsy, III, 246,
ed. 1803.
#C.# 'Lord Douglas,' Motherwell's MS., p. 502.
#D.# 'Lady Margaret,' Kinloch MSS, I, 327.
#E.# 'The Douglas Tragedy,' Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p.
180.
#F.# 'The Child of Ell,' Percy MS., p. 57; Hales and
Furnivall, I, 133.
'Earl Brand,' first given to the world by Mr Robert Bell in 1857, has
preserved most of the incidents of a very ancient story with a
faithfulness unequalled by any ballad that has been recovered from
English oral tradition. Before the publication of 'Earl Brand,' #A c#,
our known inheritance in this particular was limited to the beautiful
but very imperfect fragment called by Scott 'The Douglas Tragedy,' #B#;
half a dozen stanzas of another version of the same in Motherwell's
Minstrelsy, #E#; so much of Percy's 'Child of Elle' as was genuine,
which, upon the printing of his manuscript, turned out to be one fifth,
#F#; and two versions of Erlinton, #A#, #C#.[107] What now can be added
is but little: two transcripts of 'Earl Brand,' one of which, #A a#, has
suffered less from literary revision than the only copy hitherto
printed, #A c#; a third version of 'The Douglas Tragedy,' from
Motherwell's manuscript, #C#; a fourth from Kinloch's manuscripts, #D#;
and another of 'Erlinton,' #B#. Even 'Earl Brand' has lost a
circumstance that forms the turning-point in Scandinavian ballads, and
this capital defect attends all our other versions, though traces which
remain in 'Erlinton' make it nearly certain that our ballads originally
agreed in all important particulars with those which are to this day
recited in the north of Europe.