'O my bonnie babes, an ye were mine,
I would cleed ye i the scarlet sae fine.
3
'I 'd lay ye saft in beds o down,
And watch ye morning, night and noon.'
4
'O mither dear, when we were thine,
Ye didna cleed us i the scarlet sae fine.
5
'But ye took out yere little pen-knife,
And parted us frae our sweet life.
6
'Ye howkit a hole aneath the moon,
And there ye laid our bodies down.
7
'Ye happit the hole wi mossy stanes,
And there ye left our wee bit banes.
8
'But ye ken weel, O mither dear,
Ye never cam that gate for fear.'
* * * * * * *
9
'Seven lang years ye'll ring the bell,
And see sic sights as ye darna tell.'
M
Communicated by Miss Margaret Reburn, as learned in County
Meath, Ireland, about 1860.
'O mother dear, when we were thine,
All a lee and aloney O
You neither dressed us in coarse or fine.'
Down by the greenwood sidy O
* * * * *
#A.#
_Superscribed_, "Fragment to its own tune. Melancholy."
_Against the first line of the burden is written in the
margin, "~perhaps alas-a-day~," and this change is adopted
in Herd's printed copy. Scott suggested ~well-a-day~._
4^2. _MSS and ed. 1776 have ~ze ... ze'll~._
#B. b.#
"A fragment [_of 5 stanzas_] containing the following
verses, which I have often heard sung in my childhood."
_Scott, III. 259. No burden is given._
1^1. She set her back against.
1^2. young son born.
2^1. O smile nae sae.
3, 4, _wanting_.
5^1. An when that lady went.
5^2. She spied a naked boy.
6^1. O bonnie boy, an ye.
6^2. I'd cleed ye in the silks.
7^2. To me ye were na half.
_Cunningham, Songs of Scotland, I, 340, says:_ "I remember
a verse, and but a verse, of an old ballad which records a
horrible instance of barbarity," _and quotes the first two
stanzas of Scott's fragment literally; from which we may
infer that it was Scott's fragment that he partly
remembered. But he goes on:_ "At this moment a hunter
came--one whose suit the lady had long rejected with
scorn--the brother of her lover:
He took the babe on his spear point,
And threw it upon a thorn:
'Let the wind blow east, the wind blow west,
The cradle will rock alone.'"
_Cunningham's recollection was evidently much confused.
This last stanza, which is not in the metre of the others,
is perhaps from some copy of '~Edom o Gordon~.'_
#D. a.#
6^2. I was.
#b.#
_Kinloch makes slight changes in his printed copy, as
usual._
4^1. until a brier.
5^1. out she 's tane.
6^2. She seemd the lealest maiden amang.
8^1. O an thae.
#E.#
1^1, 11^1. Lurk _may be a corruption of ~York~, which
is written in pencil (by way of suggestion?) in the MSS._
#a.#
16^1. on your.
#b.#
4^1, 14^1. upon a thorn.
5^2. twind _wanting_.
6^1. sattins _wanting_.
_13, 14, 15, 16, 17 are not written out in the note-book_.
18^1. the heavens.
19^2. but there is none.
#F. a.#
_9 stands last but one in the MS._
14^2. Here.
#b.#
4^2. has her.
7^2. sweet _is omitted_.
_Printed as from the MS. in Dixon's Scottish Traditional
Versions, etc., p. 46. Dixon has changed ~baby~ to
~babies~ in 4, 5, 6, 8, and indulges in other variations._
#H.#
_The ballad had been heard with two different burdens;
besides the one given in the text, this:_
Three and three, and three by three
Ah me, some forty three
7 'Lady Mary Ann,' _Johnson's Museum, No 377, begins_:
O Lady Mary Ann looks oer the castle wa,
She saw three bonie boys playing at the ba.
#I. a, b.#
14^1, 16^1. _~fool~, i.e. ~fowl~ spelt phonetically._
#a.#
3^1. greenwoods
#b.#
2^2. it did.
8^2. with white.
11^2. wear'd.
13^2. maun die.
#c.#
"Epitomized" _from Buchan, II, 217_, "and somewhat changed
for this work, some of the changes being made according to
the way the Editor has heard it sung." _Note by Christie,
p. 106._
_Burden_, It 's hey with the rose, etc.
7^1. As a lady was looking.
7^2. She spied twa.
11^2. Nor wore we a.
12^2. What sort of pain for you I must drie.
13^2. What sort of pain for us you must drie.
14^2. And seven.
_Printed as from the MS. in Dixon's Scottish Traditional
Versions of Ancient Ballads, p. 50, '~The Minister's
Dochter o Newarke~,' with a few arbitrary changes._
#J. a.#
9^1. You.
#b.# _has stanzas corresponding to a 1, 3, 4, 6, and, in
place of 2_,
She 's taen oot a little pen-knife,
And she 's robbit them o their sweet life.
_Burden_^1. Hey i the rose o Mylindsay O.
1^1, until a thorn.
1^2. An syne her twa bonnie boys was born.
3^1. As she leukit oer her father's.
3^2. bonnie boys.
4^1. an ye were mine.
4^2. bread.
6^2. claithe ye in.
#L.#
_8 looks like an interpolation, and very probably the
ballad was docked at the beginning in order to suit the
parlor better._
[181] All the genuine ones. 'Lady Anne,' in Scott's Minstrelsy, III,
259, 1803, is on the face of it a modern composition, with extensive
variations, on the theme of the popular ballad. It is here given in an
Appendix, with a companion piece from Cromek's Remains of Nithsdale and
Galloway Song.
APPENDIX
LADY ANNE
"This ballad was communicated to me by Mr Kirkpatrick Sharpe of Hoddom,
who mentions having copied it from an old magazine. Although it has
probably received some modern corrections, the general turn seems to be
ancient, and corresponds with that of a fragment [#B b#], which I have
often heard sung in my childhood." Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border,
III, 259, ed. 1803.
Buchan, Gleanings, p. 90, has an additional stanza between 8 and 9 of
Scott's, whether from the old magazine or not, it would not be worth the
while to ascertain.
Cunningham, Songs of Scotland, I, 339, has rewritten even 'Lady Anne.'
Translated by Schubart, p. 170, and by Gerhard, p. 92.
1
Fair Lady Anne sate in her bower,
Down by the greenwood side,
And the flowers did spring, and the birds did sing,
'Twas the pleasant May-day tide.
2
But fair Lady Anne on Sir William calld,
With the tear grit in her ee,
'O though them be fause, may Heaven thee guard,
In the wars ayont the sea!'
3
Out of the wood came three bonnie boys,
Upon the simmer's morn,
And they did sing and play at the ba',
As naked as they were born.
4
'O seven lang years wad I sit here,
Amang the frost and snaw,
A' to hae but ane o these bonnie boys,
A playing at the ba.'
5
Then up and spake the eldest boy,
'Now listen, thou fair ladie,
And ponder well the rede that I tell,
Then make ye a choice of the three.
6
''Tis I am Peter, and this is Paul,
And that ane, sae fair to see,
But a twelve-month sinsyne to paradise came,
To join with our companie.'
7
'O I will hae the snaw-white boy,
The bonniest of the three:'
'And if I were thine, and in thy propine,
O what wad ye do to me?'
8
''Tis I wad clead thee in silk and gowd,
And nourice thee on my knee:'
'O mither, mither, when I was thine,
Sic kindness I couldna see.
9
'Beneath the turf, where now I stand,
The fause nurse buried me;
The cruel pen-knife sticks still in my heart,
And I come not back to thee.'
* * * * *
"There are many variations of this affecting tale. One of them appears
in the Musical Museum, and is there called 'Fine Flowers of the Valley,'
of which the present is either the original or a parallel song. I am
inclined to think it is the original." Cromek's Remains of Nithsdale and
Galloway Song, p. 267.
This is translated by Talvj, Versuch, p. 571.
1
There sat 'mang the flowers a fair ladie,
Sing ohon, ohon, and ohon O
And there she has born a sweet babie.
Adown by the greenwode side O
2
An strait she rowed its swaddling band,
An O! nae mother grips took her hand.
3
O twice it lifted its bonnie wee ee:
'Thae looks gae through the saul o me!'
4
She buried the bonnie babe neath the brier,
And washed her hands wi mony a tear.
5
And as she kneelt to her God in prayer,
The sweet wee babe was smiling there.
6
'O ay, my God, as I look to thee,
My babe 's atween my God and me.
7
'Ay, ay, it lifts its bonnie wee ee:
'"Sic kindness get as ye shawed me."'
8
'An O its smiles wad win me in,
But I'm borne down by deadly sin.
21
THE MAID AND THE PALMER
#A.# Percy MS., p. 461. 'Lillumwham,' Hales and Furnivall,
IV, 96.
#B.# Sharpe's Ballad Book, ed. Laing, p. 157.
The only English copy of this ballad that approaches completeness is
furnished by the Percy manuscript, #A#. Sir Walter Scott remembered, and
communicated to Kirkpatrick Sharpe, three stanzas, and half of the
burden, of another version, #B#.
There are three versions in #Danish#, no one of them very well
preserved. #A#,'Maria Magdalena,' is a broadside of about 1700, existing
in two identical editions: Grundtvig, No 98, II, 530; #B#, _ib._, was
written down in the Färöe isles in 1848, by Hammershaimb; #C# was
obtained from recitation by Kristensen in Jutland in 1869, Jydske
Folkeviser, I, 197, No 72, 'Synderinden.'
A #Färöe# version, from the end of the last century or the beginning of
this, is given in Grundtvig's notes, p. 533 ff.
Versions recently obtained from recitation in #Norway# are: 'Maria,'
Bugge's Gamle Norske Folkeviser, No 18; #A#, p. 88; #B#, p. 90, a
fragment, which has since been completed, but only two more stanzas
printed, Grundtvig, III, 889; #C#, Bugge, p. 91. #D#, #E# are reported,
but only a stanza or two printed, Grundtvig, III, 889f; #F#, printed 890
f, and #G#, as obtained by Lindeman, 891: all these, #D-G#, communicated
by Bugge. #C#, and one or two others, are rather Danish than Norwegian.
This is, according to Afzelius, one of the commonest of #Swedish#
ballads. These versions are known: #A#, "a broadside of 1798 and 1802,"
Grundtvig, II, 531, Bergström's Afzelius, I, 335; #B#, 'Magdalena,'
Atterbom's Poetisk Kalender for 1816, p. 20; #C#, Afzelius, II, 229;
#D#, Arwidsson, I, 377, No 60; #E#, Dybeck's Svenska Visor, Häfte 2, No
6, only two stanzas; #F#, #G#, "in Wiede's collection, in the Swedish
Historical and Antiquarian Academy;" #H#, "in Cavallius and Stephens'
collection, where also #A#, #F#, #G# are found;" #I#, Maximilian
Axelson's Vesterdalarne, p. 171; #J#, 'Jungfru Adelin,' E. Wigström's
Folkdiktning, No 38, p. 76; #K#, 'Jungfru Maja,' Album utgifvet af
Nyländingar, VI, 227. #A-F# are printed in Grundtvig's notes, II, 533
ff, and also some verses of #G#, #H#.
The ballad is known to have existed in #Icelandic# from a minute of Arne
Magnusson, who cites the line, "Swear not, swear not, wretched woman,"
but it has not been recovered (Grundtvig, III, 891, note d).
#Finnish#, 'Mataleenan vesimatka,' Kanteletar, ed. 1864, p. 240.
The story of the woman of Samaria, John, iv, is in all these blended
with mediæval traditions concerning Mary Magdalen, who is assumed to be
the same with the woman "which was a sinner," in Luke, vii, 37, and also
with Mary, sister of Lazarus. This is the view of the larger part of the
Latin ecclesiastical writers, while most of the Greeks distinguish the
three (Butler, 'Lives of the Saints,' VII, 290, note). It was reserved
for ballads, as Grundtvig remarks, to confound the Magdalen with the
Samaritan woman.
The traditional Mary Magdalen was a beautiful woman of royal descent,
who derived her surname from Magdalum, her portion of the great family
estate. For some of her earlier years entirely given over to carnal
delights, "unde jam, proprio nomine perdito, peccatrix consueverat
appellari," she was, by the preaching of Jesus, converted to a
passionate repentance and devotedness. In the course of the persecution
of the church at Jerusalem, when Stephen was slain and the Christians
widely dispersed, Mary, with Lazarus, her brother, Martha, and many
more, were set afloat on the Mediterranean in a rudderless ship, with
the expectation that they would find a watery grave. But the malice of
the unbelieving was overruled, and the vessel came safe into port at
Marseilles. Having labored some time for the christianizing of the
people, and founded churches and bishoprics, Mary retired to a solitude
where there was neither water, tree, nor plant, and passed the last
thirty years of her life in heavenly contemplation. The cave in which
she secluded herself is still shown at La Sainte Baume. The absence of
material comforts was, in her case, not so great a deprivation, since
every day at the canonical hours she was carried by angels to the skies,
and heard, with ears of the flesh, the performances of the heavenly
choirs, whereby she was so thoroughly refected that when the angels
restored her to her cave she was in need of no bodily aliment. (Golden
Legend, Græsse, c. 96.) It is the practical Martha that performs real
austerities, and those which are ascribed to her correspond too closely
with the penance in the Scandinavian ballads not to be the original of
it: "Nam in primis _septem_ annis, glandibus et radicibus herbisque
crudis et _pomis_[182] silvestribus corpusculum sustentans potius quam
reficiens, victitavit.... Extensis solo ramis arboreis aut viteis,
lapide pro cervicali capiti superposito subjecto, ... incumbebat."
(Vincent of Beauvais, Spec. Hist., ix, 100.)
The best-preserved Scandinavian ballads concur nearly in this account. A
woman at a well, or a stream, is approached by Jesus, who asks for
drink. She says she has no vessel to serve him with. He replies that if
she were pure, he would drink from her hands. She protests innocence
with oaths, but is silenced by his telling her that she has had three
children, one with her father, one with her brother, one with her parish
priest: Danish #A#, #B#, #C#; Färöe; Swedish #C#, #D#, #F#, #I#, #J#,
#K#; Norwegian #A#, #C#, #F#, #G#. She falls at his feet, and begs him
to shrive her. Jesus appoints her a seven years' penance in the wood.
Her food shall be the buds or the leaves of the tree [grass, worts,
berries, bark], her drink the dew [brook, juice of plants], her bed the
hard ground [linden-roots, thorns and prickles, rocks, straw and
sticks]; all the while she shall be harassed by bears and lions
[wolves], or snakes and drakes (this last in Swedish #B#, #C#, #D#, #I#,
#K#, Norwegian #A#). The time expired, Jesus returns and asks how she
has liked her penance. She answers, as if she had eaten daintily, drunk
wine, slept on silk or swan's-down, and had angelic company [had been
listening to music].[183] Jesus then tells her that a place is ready for
her in heaven.
The penance lasts eight years in Swedish #C#, #F#, #J#, Norwegian #A#;
nine in the Färöe ballad; fifteen in Danish #B#; and six weeks in Danish
#C#. It is to range the field in Danish #A#, Swedish #F#; to walk the
snows barefoot in the Färöe ballad and Norwegian #B#; in Norwegian #D#
to stand nine years in a rough stream and eight years naked in the
church-paths.
The names Maria, or Magdalena, Jesus, or Christ, are found in most of
the Scandinavian ballads. Swedish #E# has 'Lena (Lilla Lena); Swedish
#H# He-lena; #J#, Adelin; #K#, Maja. Norwegian #A# gives no name to the
woman, and Danish #A# a name only in the burden; Norwegian #B# has,
corruptly, Margjit. In Danish #C#, Norwegian #B#, #G#, Jesus is called
an _old_ man, correspondingly with the "old palmer" of English #A#, but
the old man is afterwards called Jesus in Norwegian #G# (#B# is not
printed in full), and in the burden of Danish #C#. The Son is exchanged
for the Father in Swedish #D#.
Stanzas 4, 5 of Swedish #A#, #G#, approach singularly near to English
#A# 6, 7:
Swedish #A#:
4
'Would thy leman now but come,
Thou wouldst give him to drink out of thy hand.'
5
By all the worlds Magdalen swore,
That leman she never had.
Swedish #G#:
4
'Yes, but if I thy leman were,
I should get drink from thy snow-white hand.'
5
Maria swore by the Holy Ghost,
She neer had to do with any man.
The woman is said to have taken the lives of her three children in
Danish #A#, #B#, #C#, and of two in Swedish #C#, #D#, #F#, #I#, #J#, #K#
(#B# also, where there are but two in all), a trait probably borrowed
from 'The Cruel Mother.'
The seven years' penance of the Scandinavian ballads is multiplied three
times in English #A#, and four times in #B# and in those versions of
'The Cruel Mother' which have been affected by the present ballad (20,
#I#, #J#, #K#; #L# is defective). What is more important, the penance in
the English ballads is completely different in kind, consisting not in
exaggerated austerities, but partly, at least, in transmigration or
metensomatosis: seven years to be a fish, 20, #I#, #J#, #K#; seven years
a bird, 20, #I#, #J#, #K#; seven years a stone, 21, #A#, #B#; seven
years an eel, 20, #J#; seven years a bell, or bell-clapper, 20, #I#, 21,
#A# (to ring a bell, 20, #K#, #L#). Seven years in hell seems to have
been part of the penance or penalty in every case: seven years a porter
in hell, 21, #B#, 20, #I#, #K#; seven years down in hell, 20, #J#; seven
years to "ring the bell and see sic sights as ye darna tell, 20, #L#;"
"other seven to lead an ape in hell," #A#, a burlesque variation of the
portership.
The Finnish Mataleena, going to the well for water, sees the reflection
of her face, and bewails her lost charms. Jesus begs a drink: she says
she has no can, no glass. He bids her confess. "Where are your three
boys? One you threw into the fire, one into the water, and one you
buried in the wilderness." She fills a pail with her tears, washes his
feet, and wipes them with her hair: then asks for penance. "Put me, Lord
Jesus, where you will. Make me a ladder-bridge over the sea, a brand in
the fire, a coal in the furnace."
There are several Slavic ballads which blend the story of the Samaritan
woman and that of 'The Cruel Mother,' without admixture of the Magdalen.
#Wendish# #A,# 'Aria' (M-aria?), Haupt and Schmaler, I, 287, No 290, has
a maid Who goes for water on Sunday morning, and is joined by an old man
who asks for a drink. She says the water is not clean; it is dusty and
covered with leaves. He says, The water is clean, but you are unclean.
She demands proof, and he bids her go to church in her maiden wreath.
This she does. The grass withers before her, a track of blood follows
her, and in the churchyard there come to her nine headless boys, who
say, Nine sons hast thou killed, chopt off their heads, and meanest to
do the same for a tenth. She entreats their forgiveness, enters the
church, sprinkles herself with holy water, kneels at the altar and
crosses herself, then suddenly sinks into the ground, so that nothing is
to be seen but her yellow hair. #B#, 'Die Kindesmörderin,' _ib._, II,
149, No 197, begins like #A#. As the maid proceeds to the church, nine
graves open before her, and nine souls follow her into the church. The
oldest of her children springs upon her and breaks her neck, saying,
"Mother, here is thy reward. Nine of us didst thou kill."
There are two #Moravian# ballads of the same tenor: #A#, Deutsches
Museum, 1855, I, 282, translated by M. Klapp: #B#, communicated to the
Zeitschrift des böhmischen Museums, 1842, p. 401, by A.W. Šembera, as
sung by the "mährisch sprechenden Slawen" in Prussian Silesia; the first
seven stanzas translated in Haupt u. Schmaler, II, 314, note to No 197.
The Lord God goes out one Sunday morning, and meets a maid, whom he asks
for water. She says the water is not clean. He replies that it is
cleaner than she; for (#A#) she has seduced fifteen men and had
children with all of them, has filled hell with the men and the sea with
the children. He sends her to church; but, as she enters the
church-yard, the bells begin to ring (of themselves), and when she
enters the church, all the images turn their backs. As she falls on her
knees, she is changed into a pillar of salt.
The popular ballads of some of the southern nations give us the legend
of the Magdalen without mixture.
#French.# #A#, Poésies populaires de la France, I (not paged), from
Sermoyer, Ain, thirty lines, made stanzas by repetition. Mary goes from
door to door seeking Jesus. He asks what she wants: she answers, To be
shriven. Her sins have been such, she says, that the earth ought not to
bear her up, the trees that see her can but tremble. For penance she is
to stay seven years in the woods of Baume, eat the roots of the trees,
drink the dew, and sleep under a juniper. Jesus comes to inquire about
her when this space has expired. She says she is well, but her hands,
once white as flower-de-luce, are now black as leather. For this Jesus
requires her to stay seven years longer, and then, being thoroughly
cured of her old vanities, she is told,
'Marie Magdeleine, allez au paradis;
La porte en est ouverte depuis hier à midi.'
#B# is nearly the same legend in Provençal: Damase Arbaud, I, 64. The
penance is seven years in a cave, at the end of which Jesus passes, and
asks Mary what she has had to eat and drink. "Wild roots, and not always
them; muddy water, and not always that." The conclusion is peculiar.
Mary expresses a wish to wash her hands. Jesus pricks the rock, and
water gushes out. She bewails the lost beauty of her hands, and is
remanded to the cavern for another seven years. Upon her exclaiming at
the hardship, Jesus tells her that Martha shall come to console her, the
wood-dove fetch her food, the birds drink. But Mary is not reconciled:
'Lord God, my good father,
Make me not go back again!
With the tears from my eyes
I will wash my hands clean.
'With the tears from my eyes
I will wash your feet,
And then I will dry them
With the hair of my head.'
#C#, Poésies populaires de la Gascogne, Bladé, 1881, p. 339; 'La pauvre
Madeleine,' seventeen stanzas of four short lines, resembles #B# till
the close. When Jesus comes back after the second penance, and Mary
says, as she had before, that she has lived like the beasts, only she
has lacked water, Jesus again causes water to spring from the rock. But
Mary says, I want no water. I should have to go back to the cave for
another seven years. She is conducted straightway to paradise.
#D#, Bladé, as before, p. 183, 'Marie-Madeleine,' six stanzas of five
short lines. Mary is sent to the mountains for seven years' penance; at
the end of that time washes her hands in a brook, and is guilty of
admiring them; is sent back to the mountains for seven years, and is
then taken to heaven.
A #Catalan# ballad combines the legend of the Magdalen's penance with
that of her conversion: Milá, Observaciones, p. 128, No 27, 'Santa
Magdalena,' and Briz y Saltó, Cansons de la Terra, II, 99. Martha,
returning from church, asks Magdalen, who is combing her hair with a
gold comb, if she has been at mass. Magdalen says no, nor had she
thought of going. Martha advises her to go, for she certainly will fall
in love with the preacher, a young man; pity that he ever was a friar.
Magdalen attires herself with the utmost splendor, and, to hear the
sermon better, takes a place immediately under the pulpit. The first
word of the sermon touched her; at the middle she fainted. She stripped
off all her ornaments, and laid them at the preacher's feet. At the door
of the church she inquired of a penitent where Jesus was to be found.
She sought him out at the house of Simon, washed his feet with her
tears, and wiped them with her hair, picked up from the floor the bones
which he had thrown away. Jesus at last noticed her, and asked what she
wished. She wished to confess. He imposed the penance of seven years on
a mountain, "eating herbs and fennels, eating bitter herbs." Magdalen
turned homewards after the seven years, and found on the way a spring,
where she washed her hands, with a sigh over their disfigurement. She
heard a voice that said, Magdalen, thou hast sinned. She asked for new
penance, and was sent back to the mountain for seven years more. At the
end of this second term she died, and was borne to the skies with every
honor from the Virgin, saints, and angels.
* * * * *
Danish #A# is translated by Prior, II, 25, No 44: Swedish #C# by William
and Mary Howitt, Literature and Romance of Northern Europe, I, 282.
A
Percy MS., p. 461. Furnivall, IV, 96.
1
The maid shee went to the well to washe,
Lillumwham, lillumwham!
The mayd shee went to the well to washe,
Whatt then? what then?
The maid shee went to the well to washe,
Dew ffell of her lilly white fleshe.
Grandam boy, grandam boy, heye!
Leg a derry, leg a merry, mett, mer, whoope, whir!
Driuance, larumben, grandam boy, heye!
2
While shee washte and while shee ronge,
While shee hangd o the hazle wand.
3
There came an old palmer by the way,
Sais, 'God speed thee well, thou faire maid!'
4
'Hast either cupp or can,
To giue an old palmer drinke therin?'
5
Sayes, 'I have neither cupp nor cann,
To giue an old palmer drinke therin.'
6
'But an thy lem_m_an came from Roome,
Cupps and canns thou wold ffind soone.'
7
Shee sware by God & good St. John,
Lemman had shee neuer none.
8
Saies, 'Peace, ffaire mayd, you are fforsworne!
Nine children you haue borne.