The broom grows bonny, the broom grows fair
And by there came lilting a lady so gay.
And we daurna gang down to the broom nae mair
17
HIND HORN
#A.# 'Hindhorn,' Motherwell's MS., p. 106.
#B.# 'Young Hyndhorn,' Motherwell's MS., p. 418.
#C. a.# 'Young Hyn Horn,' Motherwell's Note-Book, p. 42.
#b.# Motherwell's MS., p. 413.
#D.# 'Young Hynhorn,' Cromek's Select Scotish Songs, II,
204.
#E.# 'Hynd Horn,' Motherwell's MS., p. 91.
#F.# Lowran Castle, or the Wild Boar of Curridoo: with
other Tales. By R. Trotter, Dumfries, 1822.
#G.# 'Hynde Horn,' Kinloch's Ancient Scottish Ballads, p.
135.
#H.# 'Hynd Horn,' Buchan's Ballads of the North of
Scotland, II, 268.
A defective copy of this ballad was printed in Cromek's Select Scottish
Songs, Ancient and Modern, 1810 (#D#). A fragment, comprising the first
half of the story, was inserted in "Lowran Castle, or the Wild Boar of
Curridoo: with other Tales," etc., by Robert Trotter, Dumfries,
1822[159] (#F#). A complete copy was first given in Kinloch's Ancient
Scottish Ballads, 1827 (#G#); another, described by the editor as made
up from Cromek's fragment and two copies from recitation, in
Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. 36,[160] later in the same year; and a
third, closely resembling Kinloch's, in Buchan's Ballads of the North of
Scotland, in 1828 (#H#). Three versions complete, or nearly so, and a
fragment of a fourth are now printed for the first time, all from
Motherwell's manuscripts (#A#, #B#, #C#, #E#).
The stanza about the auger bore [wimble bore], #B# 1, #F# 3, #H# 4, is
manifestly out of place. It is found in 'The Whummil Bore' (see further
on), and may have slipped into 'Hind Horn' by reason of its following,
in its proper place, a stanza beginning, "Seven lang years I hae served
the king:" cf. #F# 2, #H# 3.
#G# 17, 18, 21, 22, which are not intelligible in their present
connection, are perhaps, as well as #G# 16, #H# 18-20, borrowed from
some Robin Hood ballad, in which a change is made with a beggar.
The noteworthy points in the story of Hind Horn are these. Hind Horn has
served the king seven years (#D#, #F#), and has fallen in love with his
daughter. She gives Hind Horn a jewelled ring: as long as the stone
keeps its color, he may know that she is faithful; but if it changes
hue, he may ken she loves another man. The king is angry (#D#), and Hind
Horn goes to sea [is sent, #D#]. He has been gone seven years, #E#, #F#
[seven years and a day, #B#], when, looking on his ring, he sees that
the stone is pale and wan, #A-H#. He makes for the land at once, and,
meeting an old beggar, asks him for news. No news but the king's
daughter's wedding: it has lasted nine days [two and forty, #A#], and
she will not go into the bride-bed till she hears of Hind Horn, #E#.
Hind Horn changed cloaks and other gear with the beggar, and when he
came to the king's gate asked for a drink in Horn's name,[161] #A#, #B#,
#D#. The bride herself came down, and gave him a drink out of her own
hand, #A#, #B#, #C#, #G#, #H#. He drank out the drink and dropped in the
ring.
'O gat ye 't by sea, or gat ye 't by lan,
Or gat ye 't aff a dead man's han?'
So she asked; and he answered:
'I gat na 't by sea, I gat na 't by lan,
But I gat it out of your own han.' #D# 14.
'I got na 't by sea, I got na 't by land,
Nor got I it aff a drownd man's hand;
'But I got it at my wooing,
And I'll gie it at your wedding.' #G# 29, 30.
The bride, who had said,
'I'll go through nine fires so hot,
But I'll give him a drink for Young Hynhorn's sake,' #B# 16,
is no less ready now:
'I'll tak the red gowd frae my head,
And follow you and beg my bread.
'I'll tak the red gowd frae my hair,
And follow you for evermair.' #H# 31, 32.
But Hind Horn let his cloutie cloak fall, #G#, #H#, and told her,
'Ye need na leave your bridal gown,
For I'll make ye ladie o many a town.'
The story of Horn, of which this ballad gives little more than the
catastrophe, is related at full in
I. 'King Horn,' a _gest_ in about 1550 short verses, preserved in three
manuscripts: the oldest regarded as of the second half of the 13th
century, or older; the others put at 1300 and a little later. All three
have been printed: (1.) By Michel, Horn et Rimenhild, p. 259 ff,
Bannatyne Club, 1845; J. R. Lumby, Early English Text Society, 1866; and
in editions founded on Lumby's text, by Mätzner, Altenglische
Sprachproben, p. 270 ff, and later by Wissmann, Quellen u. Forschungen,
No 45. (2.) By Horstmann, Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen,
1872, L, 39 ff. (3.) By Ritson, A.E. Metrical Romanceës, II, 91 ff.
II. 'Horn et Rymenhild,' a romance in about 5250 heroic verses,
preserved likewise in three manuscripts; the best in the Public Library
of the University of Cambridge, and of the 14th century.
III. 'Horn Childe and Maiden Rimnild,' from a manuscript of the 14th
century, in not quite 100 twelve-line stanzas: Ritson, Metrical
Romanceës, III, 282 ff; Michel, p. 341 ff.
Horn, in the old English _gest_, is son of Murry [Allof], king of
Suddenne. He is a youth of extraordinary beauty, and has twelve
comrades, of whom Athulf and Fikenild are his favorites. One day, as
Murry was out riding, he came upon fifteen ships of Saracens, just
arrived. The pagans slew the king, and insured themselves, as they
thought, against Horn's future revenge by putting him and his twelve
aboard a vessel without sail or rudder; but "the children" drove to
shore, unhurt, on the coast of Westerness. The king, Ailmar, gave them a
kind reception, and committed them to Athelbrus, his steward, to be
properly brought up. Rymenhild, the king's daughter, fell in love with
Horn, and having, with some difficulty, prevailed upon Athelbrus to
bring him to her bower, offered herself to him as his wife. It were no
fair wedding, Horn told her, between a thrall and a king,--a speech
which hurt Rymenhild greatly; and Horn was so moved by her grief that he
promised to do all she required, if she would induce the king to knight
him. This was done the next day, and Horn at once knighted all his
comrades. Rymenhild again sent for Horn, and urged him now to make her
his wife. But Horn said he must first prove his knighthood: if he came
back alive, he would then marry her. Upon this Rymenhild gave him a
ring, set with stones of such virtue that he could never be slain if he
looked on it and thought of his leman. The young knight had the good
fortune to fall in immediately with a ship full of heathen hounds, and
by the aid of his ring killed a hundred of the best of them. The next
day he paid Rymenhild a visit, and found her drowned in grief on account
of a bad dream. She had cast her net in the sea, and a great fish had
broken it: she weened she should lose the fish that she would choose.
Horn strove to comfort her, but could not conceal his apprehension that
trouble was brewing. The fish proved to be Fikenild, Horn's much
cherished friend. He told Ailmar of the intimacy with Rymenhild, and
asserted that Horn meant to kill the king as well as marry the princess.
Ailmar was very angry (v. 724, Wissmann), and much grieved, too. He
found the youth in his daughter's bower, and ordered him to quit the
land anon. Horn saddled his horse and armed himself, then went back to
Rymenhild, and told her that he was going to a strange land for seven
years: if, after that, he neither came nor sent word, she might take a
husband. He sailed a good way eastward (v. 799) to Ireland, and,
landing, met two princes, who invited him to take service with their
father. The king, Thurston, welcomed him, and had soon occasion to
employ him; for at Christmas came into court a giant, with a message
from pagans newly arrived. They proposed that one of them should fight
three Christians:
'If your three slay our one.
Let all this land be your own;
If our one oercomes your three,
All this land then ours shall be.'
Horn scorned to fight on such terms; he alone would undertake three of
the hounds; and so he did. In the course of a hard fight it came out
that these were the very heathen that had slain King Murry. Horn looked
on his ring and thought on Rymenhild, then fell on his foes. Not a man
of them escaped; but King Thurston lost many men in the fight, among
them his two sons. Having now no heir, he offered Horn his daughter
Reynild and the succession. Horn replied that he had not earned such a
reward yet. He would serve the king further; and when he asked for his
daughter, he hoped the king would not refuse her.
Seven years Horn stayed with King Thurston, and to Rymenhild neither
sent nor went. A sorry time it was for her, and worst at the end, for
King Modi of Reynis asked her in marriage, and her father consented. The
wedding was to be in a few days. Rymenhild despatched messengers to
every land, but Horn heard nothing, till one day, when he was going out
to shoot, he encountered one of these, and learned how things stood. He
sent word to his love not to be troubled; he would be there betimes.
But, alas, the messenger was drowned on his way back, and Rymenhild,
peering out of her door for a ray of hope, saw his body washed up by the
waves. Horn now made a clean breast to Thurston, and asked for help.
This was generously accorded, and Horn set sail for Westerness. He
arrived not too early on the day of the wedding,--"ne might he come no
later!"--left his men in a wood, and set off for Ailmar's court alone.
He met a palmer, and asked his news. The palmer had come from a bridal;
a wedding of maid Rymenhild, who wept and would not be married, because
she had a husband, though he was out of the land. Horn changed clothes
with the palmer, put on the sclavin, took scrip and staff, blackened his
skin and twisted his lip, and presented himself at the king's gate. The
porter would not let him in; Horn kicked open the wicket, threw the
porter over the bridge, made his way into the hall, and sat down in the
beggars' row. Rymenhild was weeping as if she were out of her wits, but
after meat she rose to give all the knights and squires drink from a
horn which she bare: such was the custom. Horn called to her:
'Skink us with the first,
The beggars ben athirst.'
She laid down her horn and filled him a gallon bowl; but Horn would not
drink of that. He said, mysteriously, "Thou thinkest I am a beggar, but
I am a fisher, come far from the East, to fish at thy feast. My net lies
near at hand, and hath full seven year. I am come to see if it has taken
any fish.
'I am come to fish;
Drink to me from thy dish,
Drink to Horn from horn!'"
Rymenhild looked at him, a chill creeping over her heart. What he meant
by his fishing she did not see. She filled her horn and drank to him,
handed it to the pilgrim, and said, "Drink thy fill, and tell me if ever
thou saw Horn." Horn drank, and threw the ring into the vessel. When the
princess went to bower, she found the ring she had given Horn. She
feared he was dead, and sent for the palmer. The palmer said Horn had
died on the voyage to Westerness, and had begged him to go with the ring
to Rymenhild. Rymenhild could bear no more. She threw herself on her
bed, where she had hid a knife, to kill both King Modi and herself if
Horn should not come; she set the knife to her heart, and there Horn
stopped her. He wiped off the black, and cried, "I am Horn!" Great was
their bliss, but it was not a time to indulge themselves fully.
Horn sprang out of hall,
And let his sclavin fall, (1246)
and went to summon his knights. Rymenhild sent after him the faithful
Athulf, who all the while had been watching for Horn in the tower. They
slew all that were in the castle, except King Ailmar and Horn's old
comrades. Horn spared even Fikenild, taking an oath of fidelity from him
and the rest. Then he made himself known to Ailmar, denied what he had
been charged with, and would not marry Rymenhild even now, not till he
had won back Suddenne. This he went immediately about; but while he was
engaged in clearing the land of Saracens and rebuilding churches, the
false Fikenild bribed young and old to side with him, built a strong
castle, "married" Rymenhild, carried her into his fortress, and began a
feast. Horn, warned in a dream, again set sail for Westerness, and came
in by Fikenild's new castle. Athulf's cousin was on the shore, to tell
him what had happened; how Fikenild had wedded Rymenhild that very day;
he had beguiled Horn twice. Force would not avail now. Horn disguised
himself and some of his knights as harpers and fiddlers, and their music
gained them admittance. Horn began a lay which threw Rymenhild into a
swoon. This smote him to the heart; he looked on his ring and thought of
her. Fikenhild and his men were soon disposed of. Horn was in a
condition to reward all his faithful adherents. He married Athulf to
Thurston's daughter, and made Rymenhild queen of Suddenne.
The French romance contains very nearly the same story, extended, by
expansions of various sorts, to about six times the length of King Horn.
It would be out of place to notice other variations than those which
relate to the story preserved in the ballads. Rimild offers Horn a ring
when she first avows her love. He will not take it then, but accepts a
second tender, after his first fight. When he is accused to the king, he
offers to clear himself by combat with heavy odds, but will not submit,
king's son as he is, to purgation by oath. The king says, then he may
quit the land and go--to Norway, if he will. Horn begs Rimild to
maintain her love for him seven years. If he does not come then, he will
send her word to act thereafter at her pleasure. Rimild exchanges the
ring she had previously given him for one set with a sapphire, wearing
which faithfully he need not fear death by water nor fire, battle nor
tourney (vv 2051-8). He looks at this ring when he fights with the pagan
that had killed his father, and it fires his heart to extraordinary
exploits (3166 ff). Having learned through a friend, who had long been
seeking him, that Rimild's father is about to marry her to a young king
(Modun), Horn returns to Brittany with a large force. He leaves his men
in a woody place, and goes out alone on horseback for news; meets a
palmer, who tells him that the marriage is to take place that very day;
gives the palmer his fine clothes in exchange for sclavin, staff and
scrip, forces his way into the city, and is admitted to the banquet hall
with the beggars. After the guests had eaten (4152 ff), Rimild filled a
splendid cup with piment, presented it first _a sun dru_, and then, with
her maids, served the whole company. As she was making her fifth round,
Horn pulled her by the sleeve, and reproached her with attending only to
the rich. "Your credit would be greater should you serve _us_." She set
a handsome cup before him, but he would not drink. "Corn apelent Horn li
Engleis," he said. "If, for the love of him who bore that name, you
would give me the same horn that you offered your _ami_, I would share
it with you." All but fainting, Rimild gave him the horn. He threw in
his ring, even that which she had given him at parting, drank out half,
and begged her to drink by the love of him whom he had named. In
drinking, she sipped the ring into her mouth, and she saw at once what
it was (4234). "I have found a ring," said she. "If it is yours, take
it. Blest be he to whom I gave it: if you know aught of him, conceal it
not. If you are Horn, it were a great sin not to reveal yourself." Horn
owned that the ring was his, but denied knowledge of the man she spake
of. For himself, he had been reared in that land, and by service had
come into possession of a hawk, which, before taming it, he had put in a
cage: that was nigh seven years since: he had come now to see what it
amounted to. If it should prove to be as good as when he left it, he
would carry it away with him; but if its feathers were ruffled and
broken, he would have nothing to do with it. At this, Rimild broke into
a laugh, and cried, "Horn, 't is you, and your hawk has been safely
kept!"[162] She would go with him or kill herself. Horn saw that she had
spoken truth, but, to try her yet further, said he was indeed Horn, whom
she had loved, but he had come back with nothing: why should she follow
a poor wretch who could not give her a gown to her back? "Little do you
know me," was her reply. "I can bear what you bear, and there is no king
in the East for whom I would quit you."
'Horn Childe and Maiden Rimnild,' with many diversities of its own as to
details, is more like the French than the English romance as to the
story, and, on the other hand, has one or two resemblances to the
ballads which they both lack. Rimnild's father, maddened by the traitor
Wikel's false information, beats her till she bleeds, and threatens to
slay Horn. Rimnild, expecting her lover to be at least exiled, assures
Horn that she will marry no other man for seven years. The king, who had
shut himself up till his first wrath was past, tells Horn, when he next
comes into his presence, that if he is found in the land on the morrow,
he shall be drawn with horses and hanged. Rimnild, at parting, gives him
a ring, with these words:
'Loke thou forsake it for no thing,
It schal ben our tokening;
The ston it is wele trewe.
When the ston wexeth wan,
Than chaungeth the thouȝt of thi leman,
Take than a newe;
When the ston wexeth rede,
Than have Y lorn mi maidenhed,
Oȝaines the untrewe.'
(Michel, st. 48.)
Horn, for his part, bids her every day look into a spring in her arbor:
should she see his shadow, then he is about to marry another; till then
his thought will not have changed (sts 48, 49). Though loved, as before,
by another princess, Horn kept his faith; but when seven years were
gone, on looking at the stone he saw that its hue was changed (st. 71).
He immediately gathered a force, and set sail for Rimnild. On landing he
saw a beggar, who turned out to be one of his old friends, and had been
looking for him a long time. That day Moging the king was to marry
Rimnild. They changed weeds (76); Horn forced his way into the castle.
While Rimnild was serving the guests, Horn, who had tried to pass for a
fool, called to her to attend to God's men. She fetched him drink, and
he said, "For Horn's love, if ever he was dear to thee, go not ere this
be drunk." He threw the ring into the cup: she brought him another drink
(something is wrong here, for nothing is said of her seeing and
recognizing the ring), and asked if Horn were there. She fainted when
she learned that he was, but on recovering sent Hatherof (==Athulf) to
bid the king make merry, and then to gather periwinkle and ivy, "grasses
that ben of main" (to stain her face with, no doubt), and then to tell
Horn to wait for her under a woodside.
'When al this folk is gon to play,
He and Y schal steal oway,
Bituene the day and the niȝt.' (87)
Hatherof did his message. Of true love Horn was sure. He said he would
come into the field with a hundred knights. A tournament follows, as in
the French romance; the royal bridegroom is unhorsed, but spared;
treachery is punished and forced to confession.
Now is Rimnild tuiis wedde,
Horn brouȝt hir to his bedde. (94)
That the lay or gest of King Horn is a far more primitive poem than the
French romance, and could not possibly be derived from it, will probably
be plain to any one who will make even a hasty comparison of the two;
and that the contrary opinion should have been held by such men as
Warton and Tyrwhitt must have been the result of a general theory, not
of a particular examination.[163] There is, on the other hand, no
sufficient reason for supposing that the English lay is the source of
the other two poems. Nor do the special approximations of the ballads to
the romance of Horn Child oblige us to conclude that these, or any of
them, are derived from that poem. The particular resemblances are the
discoloration of the ring, the elopement with the bride, in #C#, #G#,
#H# (which is only prepared for, but not carried out, in Horn Child),
and the agreement between the couplet just cited from Horn Child,
Now is Rimnild tuiis wedde,
Horn brouȝt hir to his bedde,
and the last stanza of #A#, #B#, #C#:
The bridegroom he had wedded the bride,
But Young Hind Horn he took her to bed. (#A#)
The bridegroom thought he had the bonnie bride wed,
But Young Hyn Horn took the bride to bed. (#B#)
Her ain bridegroom had her first wed,
But Young Hyn Horn had her first to bed. (#C#)
The likeness evinces a closer affinity of the oral traditions with the
later English romance than with the earlier English or the French, but
no filiation. And were filiation to be accepted, there would remain the
question of priority. It is often assumed, without a misgiving, that
oral tradition must needs be younger than anything that was committed to
writing some centuries ago; but this requires in each case to be made
out; there is certainly no antecedent probability of that kind.[164]
Two Scandinavian ballads, as Dr Prior has remarked, seem to have been at
least suggested by the romances of Horn.
(1.) 'Unge Hr. Tor og Jomfru Tore,' Grundtvig, No 72, II, 263,
translated by Prior, III, 151. Of this there are two traditional
versions: #A# from a manuscript of the sixteenth century, #B# from one
of the seventeenth. They agree in story. In #A#, Tor asks Sølffuermord
how long she will wait for him. Nine years, she answers, if she can do
so without angering her friends. He will be satisfied with eight. Eight
have passed: a family council is held, and it is decided that she shall
not have Young Tor, but a certain rich count. Her father "gives her
away" that same day. The lady goes up to a balcony and looks seaward.
Everybody seems to be coming home but her lover. She begs her brother to
ride down to the shore for her. Tor is just coming in, hails the
horseman, and eagerly asks how are the maids in the isle. The brother
tells him that _his_ maid has waited eight years, and is even now
drinking her bridal, but with tears. Tor takes his harp and chess-board,
and plays outside the bridal hall till the bride hears and knows him. He
then enters the hall, and asks if there is anybody that can win a game
of chess. The father replies, Nobody but Sølffuermord, and she sits a
bride at the board. The mother indulgently suggests that the midsummer
day is long, and the bride might well try a game. The bride seeks an
express sanction of her father, who lessons her the livelong day, being
suspicious of Tor, but towards evening consents to her playing a little
while,--not long. Tor wins the first game, and must needs unpack his
heart in a gibing parable, ending
'Full hard is gold to win,
And so is a trothless quean.'
She wins the next game, takes up the parable, and says
'Many were glad their faith to hold,
Were their lot to be controlled.'
They are soon at one, and resolve to fly. They slip away, go aboard
Tor's ship, and put off. The bride's parents get information, and the
mother, who is a professor of the black art, raises a storm which she
means shall sink them both. No one can steer the ship but the bride. She
stands at the helm, with her gold crown on, while her lover is lying
seasick on the deck, and she brings the craft safe into Norway, where a
second wedding is celebrated.
(2.) The other ballad is 'Herr Lovmand og Herr Thor,' Syv, iv, No 68,
Danske Viser, IV, 180, No 199, translated by Prior, II, 442. Lovmand,
having betrothed Ingelil, asks how long she will be his maid. "Eight
years, if I may," she says. This term has elapsed; her brothers consult,
and give her to rich Herr Thor. They drink the bridal for five days; for
nine days; she will not go to bed. On the evening of the tenth, they
begin to use force. She begs that she may first go to the look-out
up-stairs. From there she sees ships, great and small, and the sails
which her own hands have made for her lover. Her brother goes down to
the sea, as in the other ballad, and has a similar interview. Lovmand
has the excuse of having been sick seven years. He borrows the brother's
horse, flies faster than a bird, and the torch is burning at the door of
the bride's house when he arrives. Thor is reasonable enough to give up
the bride, and to accept Lovmand's sister.