feature, not paralleled, so far as I know, in English or northern
tradition. The Greek nereids, however, who do pretty much everything,
good or bad, that is ascribed to northern elves or fairies, and even
bear an appellation resembling that by which fairies are spoken of in
Scotland and Ireland, "the good damsels," "the good ladies," have a
queen who is described as taking no part in the unfriendly acts of her
subjects, but as being kindly disposed towards mankind, and even as
repairing the mischief which subordinate sprites have done against her
will. If now the fairy queen might interpose in behalf of men against
her own kith and kin, much more likely would she be to exert herself to
thwart the malignity of a witch.[301]
The object of the witch's blowing thrice on a grass-green horn in 8^2 is
not clear, for nothing comes of it. In the closely related ballad which
follows this, a witch uses a horn to summon the sea-fishes, among whom
there is one who has been the victim of her spells. The horn is
appropriate. Witches were supposed to blow horns when they joined the
wild hunt, and horn-blower, "hornblâse," is twice cited by Grimm as an
equivalent to witch: Deutsche Mythologie, p. 886.
* * * * *
Translated by Grundtvig, Engelske og skotske Folkeviser, No 19; by Rosa
Warrens, Schottische Volkslieder, No 7; Knortz, Lieder und Romanzen
Alt-Englands, No 9; Loève-Veimars, Ballades de l'Angleterre, p. 353.
1
O Allison Gross, that lives in yon towr,
The ugliest witch i the north country,
Has trysted me ae day up till her bowr,
An monny fair speech she made to me.
2
She stroaked my head, an she kembed my hair,
An she set me down saftly on her knee;
Says, Gin ye will be my lemman so true,
Sae monny braw things as I woud you gi.
3
She showd me a mantle o red scarlet,
Wi gouden flowrs an fringes fine;
Says, Gin ye will be my lemman so true,
This goodly gift it sal be thine.
4
'Awa, awa, ye ugly witch,
Haud far awa, an lat me be;
I never will be your lemman sae true,
An I wish I were out o your company.'
5
She neist brought a sark o the saftest silk,
Well wrought wi pearles about the ban;
Says, Gin you will be my ain true love,
This goodly gift you sal comman.
6
She showd me a cup of the good red gold,
Well set wi jewls sae fair to see;
Says, Gin you will be my lemman sae true,
This goodly gift I will you gi.
7
'Awa, awa, ye ugly witch,
Had far awa, and lat me be;
For I woudna ance kiss your ugly mouth
For a' the gifts that ye coud gi.'
8
She's turnd her right and roun about,
An thrice she blaw on a grass-green horn,
An she sware by the meen and the stars abeen,
That she'd gar me rue the day I was born.
9
Then out has she taen a silver wand,
An she's turnd her three times roun an roun;
She's mutterd sich words till my strength it faild,
An I fell down senceless upon the groun.
10
She's turnd me into an ugly worm,
And gard me toddle about the tree;
An ay, on ilka Saturdays night,
My sister Maisry came to me,
11
Wi silver bason an silver kemb,
To kemb my heady upon her knee;
But or I had kissd her ugly mouth,
I'd rather a toddled about the tree.
12
But as it fell out on last Hallow-even,
When the seely court was ridin by,
The queen lighted down on a gowany bank,
Nae far frae the tree where I wont to lye.
13
She took me up in her milk-white han,
An she's stroakd me three times oer her knee;
She chang'd me again to my ain proper shape,
An I nae mair maun toddle about the tree.
[300] Of these Dr Reinhold Köhler has given me a note of more than
twenty. The French tale itself had, in all likelihood, a popular
foundation.
[301] B. Schmidt, Das Volksleben der Neugriechen, pp 100 f, 107, 123.
Euphemistically the nereids are called ἡ καλαις αρχοντισσαις, ἡ
καλαις κυραδες, ἡ καλοκαρδαις, ἡ καλοτυχαις; their sovereign is
ἡ μεγαλη κυρα, ἡ πρωτη, etc.
36
THE LAILY WORM AND THE MACHREL OF THE SEA
Skene MS., p. 30: taken down from recitation in the north
of Scotland, in 1802 or 1803.
Somewhat mutilated, and also defaced, though it be, this ballad has
certainly never been retouched by a pen, but is pure tradition. It has
the first stanza in common with 'Kemp Owyne,' and shares more than that
with 'Allison Gross.' But it is independent of 'Allison Gross,' and has
a far more original sound.
Maisry's services in washing and combing are more conceivable when
rendered by a maid in her proper shape, as in 'Allison Gross,' than when
attributed to a machrel of the sea; and it is likely that the machrel
returned to her own figure every Saturday, and that this is one of the
points lost from the story. It is said, here as in 'Allison Gross,' that
Maisry kames the laily head on her knee.[302] It would be a mere cavil
to raise a difficulty about combing a laily worm's head. The fiery beast
in 'Kemp Owyne,' #A#, has long hair, and the laily worm may have had
enough to be better for combing.[303]
It is only natural that the transformed maid should not wish to trust
herself again in the hands of the stepmother, but it is not according to
poetical justice that she should remain a machrel of the sea, and here
again we may suppose something to have dropped out.
We have had a double transformation, of sister and brother, in the
'Marriage of Gawain' and in the 'Wedding of Gawen and Dame Ragnell,' and
again, with a second sister added, in the story of Álsól. Brother and
sister are transformed in the Danish 'Nattergalen,' Grundtvig, No 57. It
is an aggravation of stepmother malice that the victim of enchantment,
however amiable and inoffensive before, should become truculent and
destructive; so with the brother of Gawain's bride, and with the Carl of
Carlile. The stepmother is satisfactorily disposed of, as she is in
'Kemp Owyne,' #B#, and the 'Laidly Worm of Spindleston Heughs.'
1
'I was but seven year auld
When my mither she did die;
My father married the ae warst woman
The warld did ever see.
2
'For she has made me the laily worm,
That lies at the fit o the tree,
An my sister Masery she's made
The machrel of the sea.
3
'An every Saturday at noon
The machrel comes to me,
An she takes my laily head
An lays it on her knee,
She kaims it wi a siller kaim,
An washes't in the sea.
4
'Seven knights hae I slain,
Sin I lay at the fit of the tree,
An ye war na my ain father,
The eight ane ye should be.'
5
'Sing on your song, ye laily worm,
That ye did sing to me:'
'I never sung that song but what
I would it sing to thee.
6
'I was but seven year auld,
When my mither she did die;
My father married the ae warst woman
The warld did ever see.
7
'For she changed me to the laily worm,
That lies at the fit o the tree,
And my sister Masery
To the machrel of the sea.
8
'And every Saturday at noon
The machrel comes to me,
An she takes my laily head
An lays it on her knee,
An kames it wi a siller kame,
An washes it i the sea.
9
'Seven knights hae I slain,
Sin I lay at the fit o the tree,
An ye war na my ain father,
The eighth ane ye shoud be.'
10
He sent for his lady,
As fast as send could he:
'Whar is my son that ye sent frae me,
And my daughter, Lady Masery?'
11
'Your son is at our king's court,
Serving for meat an fee,
An your daughter's at our queen's court,
. . . . . . . '
12
'Ye lie, ye ill woman,
Sae loud as I hear ye lie;
My son's the laily worm,
That lies at the fit o the tree,
And my daughter, Lady Masery,
Is the machrel of the sea!'
13
She has tane a siller wan,
An gien him strokes three,
And he has started up the bravest knight
That ever your eyes did see.
14
She has taen a small horn,
An loud an shrill blew she,
An a' the fish came her untill
But the proud machrel of the sea:
'Ye shapeit me ance an unseemly shape,
An ye's never mare shape me.'
15
He has sent to the wood
For whins and for hawthorn,
An he has taen that gay lady,
An there he did her burn.
* * * * *
2^2, 7^2. lays: _but ~lies~, 12^4._
3^3. _~ducks~, but compare 8^3._
[302] Dives, in one version of a well-known carol, has "a place prepared
in hell, to sit upon a _serpent's knee_." The pious chanson in question
is a very different thing from an old ballad, which, it is hoped, no one
will think capable of fatuity.
[303] As, for example, a dragon has in Hahn's Griechische Märchen, No
26, I, 187, and elsewhere.
37
THOMAS RYMER
#A.# 'Thomas Rymer and Queen of Elfland,' Alexander Fraser
Tytler's Brown MS., No 1.
#B.# 'Thomas the Rhymer,' Campbell MSS, II, 83.
#C.# 'Thomas the Rhymer,' Minstrelsy of the Scottish
Border, II, 251, 1802, "from a copy obtained from a lady
residing not far from Erceldoune, corrected and enlarged
by one in Mrs Brown's MS."
#A# is one of the nine ballads transmitted to Alexander Fraser Tytler by
Mrs Brown in April, 1800, as written down from her recollection.[304]
This copy was printed by Jamieson, II, 7, in his preface to 'True Thomas
and the Queen of Elfland.' #B#, never published as yet, has been
corrupted here and there, but only by tradition. #C# being compounded of
#A# and another version, that portion which is found in #A# is put in
smaller type.
Thomas of Erceldoune, otherwise Thomas the Rhymer, and in the popular
style True Thomas, has had a fame as a seer, which, though progressively
narrowed, is, after the lapse of nearly or quite six centuries, far from
being extinguished. The common people throughout the whole of Scotland,
according to Mr Robert Chambers (1870), continue to regard him with
veneration, and to preserve a great number of his prophetic sayings,
which they habitually seek to connect with "dear years" and other
notable public events.[305] A prediction of Thomas of Erceldoune's is
recorded in a manuscript which is put at a date before 1320, and he is
referred to with other soothsayers in the Scalacronica, a French
chronicle of English history begun in 1355. Erceldoune is spoken of as a
poet in Robert Mannyng's translation of Langtoft's chronicle, finished
in 1338; and in the Auchinleck copy of 'Sir Tristrem,' said to have been
made about 1350, a Thomas is said to have been consulted at Erþeldoun
touching the history of Tristrem. So that we seem safe in holding that
Thomas of Erceldoune had a reputation both as prophet and poet in the
earlier part of the fourteenth century. The vaticinations of Thomas are
cited by various later chroniclers, and had as much credit in England as
in Scotland. "During the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth
centuries," says Chambers, "to fabricate a prophecy in the name of
Thomas the Rhymer appears to have been found a good stroke of policy on
many occasions. Thus was his authority employed to countenance the views
of Edward III against Scottish independence, to favor the ambitious
views of the Duke of Albany in the minority of James V, and to sustain
the spirits of the nation under the harassing invasions of Henry VIII."
During the Jacobite rising of 1745 the accomplishment of Thomas's as
then unfulfilled predictions was looked for by many. His prophecies, and
those of other Scotch soothsayers, were consulted, says Lord Hailes,
"with a weak if not criminal curiosity." Even as late as the French
revolutionary war a rhyme of Thomas's caused much distress and
consternation in the border counties of Scotland, where people were
fearing an invasion. The 'Whole Prophecie' of Merlin, Thomas Rymour, and
others, collected and issued as early as 1603, continued to be printed
as a chap-book down to the beginning of this century, when, says Dr
Murray, few farm-houses in Scotland were without a copy of it.
All this might have been if Thomas of Erceldoune had been not more
historical than Merlin. But the name is known to have belonged to a real
person. Thomas Rymor de Ercildune is witness to a deed whereby one
Petrus de Haga obliges himself to make a certain payment to the Abbey of
Melrose. Petrus de Haga is, in turn, witness to a charter made by
Richard de Moreville. Unluckily, neither of these deeds is dated. But
Moreville was constable of Scotland from 1162 to 1189. If we suppose
Moreville's charter to have been given towards 1189, and Haga to have
been then about twenty years old, and so born about 1170, and further
suppose Haga to have made his grant to Melrose towards the end of a life
of threescore, or three score and ten, the time of Thomas Rymer's
signature would be about 1230 or 1240. If Thomas Rymer was then twenty
years of age, his birth would have been at 1210 or 1220. In the year
1294 Thomas de Ercildoun, son and heir of Thomas Rymour de Ercildoun,
conveyed to a religious house his inheritance of lands in Ercildoun.
With Thomas Rhymer in mind, one naturally interprets Thomas Rymour as
the prophet and Thomas de Ercildoun as his son. If Rymour was the
surname of this family,[306] it would have been better, for us at least,
if the surname had been subjoined to the first Thomas also. As the
language stands, we are left to choose among several possibilities.
Thomas the Rhymer may have been dead in 1294; Thomas Rymour, meaning the
same person, may have made this cession of lands in 1294, and have
survived still some years. Thomas, the father, may, as Dr Murray
suggests, have retired from the world, but still be living, and it may
be his son who resigns the lands. Blind Harry's Life of Wallace makes
Thomas Rimour to be alive down to 1296 or 1297. A story reported by
Bower in his continuation of Fordun, c. 1430, makes Thomas to have
predicted the death of Alexander III in 1286, when, according to the
previous (necessarily very loose) calculation, the seer would have been
between sixty-six and seventy-six. Neither of these last dates is
established by the strongest evidence, but there is no reason for
refusing to admit, at least, that Thomas of Erceldoune may have been
alive at the latter epoch.
Thomas of Erceldoune's prophetic power was a gift of the queen of the
elves; the modern elves, equally those of northern Europe and of Greece,
resembling in respect to this attribute the nymphs of the ancient
Hellenic mythology. How Thomas attained this grace is set forth in the
first of three fits of a poem which bears his name. This poem has come
down in four somewhat defective copies: the earliest written a little
before the middle of the fifteenth century, two others about 1450, the
fourth later. There is a still later manuscript copy of the second and
third fits.[307] All the manuscripts are English, but it is manifest
from the nature of the topics that the original poem was the work of a
Scotsman. All four of the complete versions speak of an older story:
'gyff it be als the storye sayes,' v. 83, 'als the storye tellis full
ryghte,' v. 123. The older story, if any, must be the work of Thomas.
The circumstance that the poem, as we have it, begins in the first
person, and after a long passage returns for a moment to the first
person, though most of the tale is told in the third, is of no
importance; nor would it have been important if the whole narrative had
been put into Thomas's mouth, since that is the simplest of literary
artifices.
Thomas, having found favor with the queen of Elfland, was taken with her
to that country, and there he remained more than three [seven] years.
Then the time came round when a tribute had to be paid to hell, and as
Thomas was too likely to be chosen by the fiend, the elf queen conducted
him back to the world of men. At the moment of parting Thomas desires
some token which may authenticate his having spoken with her. She gives
him the gift of soothsaying. He presses her to stay and tell him some
ferly. Upon this she begins a train of predictions, which Thomas more
than once importunes her to continue. The first two of these, the
failure of Baliol's party and the battle of Halidon Hill, 1333, stand by
themselves, but they are followed by a series in chronological order,
extending from the battle of Falkirk to the battle of Otterbourn,
1298-1388. The third fit, excepting, perhaps, a reference to Henry IV's
invasion of Scotland in 1401, seems to consist, not of predictions made
after the event, but of "adaptations of legendary prophecies,
traditionally preserved from far earlier times, and furbished up anew at
each period of national trouble and distress, in expectation of their
fulfilment being at length at hand."[308]
The older "story," which is twice referred to in the prologue to the
prophecies of Thomas of Erceldoune, was undoubtedly a romance which
narrated the adventure of Thomas with the elf queen _simply_, without
specification of his prophecies. In all probability it concluded, in
accordance with the ordinary popular tradition, with Thomas's return to
fairy-land after a certain time passed in this world.[309] For the story
of Thomas and the Elf-queen is but another version of what is related of
Ogier le Danois and Morgan the Fay. Six fairies made gifts to Ogier at
his birth. By the favor of five he was to be the strongest, the bravest,
the most successful, the handsomest, the most susceptible, of knights:
Morgan's gift was that, after a long and fatiguing career of glory, he
should live with her at her castle of Avalon, in the enjoyment of a
still longer youth and never wearying pleasures. When Ogier had passed
his hundredth year, Morgan took measures to carry out her promise. She
had him wrecked, while he was on a voyage to France, on a loadstone rock
conveniently near to Avalon, which Avalon is a little way this side of
the terrestrial paradise. In due course he comes to an orchard, and
there he eats an apple, which affects him so peculiarly that he looks
for nothing but death. He turns to the east, and sees a beautiful lady,
magnificently attired. He takes her for the Virgin; she corrects his
error, and announces herself as Morgan the Fay. She puts a ring on his
finger which restores his youth, and then places a crown on his head
which makes him forget all the past. For two hundred years Ogier lived
in such delights as no worldly being can imagine, and the two hundred
years seemed to him but twenty. Christendom was then in danger, and even
Morgan thought his presence was required in the world. The crown being
taken from his head, the memory of the past revived, and with it the
desire to return to France. He was sent back by the fairy, properly
provided, vanquished the foes of Christianity in a short space, and
after a time was brought back by Morgan the Fay to Avalon.[310]
The fairy adventures of Thomas and of Ogier have the essential points in
common, and even the particular trait that the fairy is taken to be the
Virgin. The occurrence of this trait again in the ballad, viewed in
connection with the general similarity of the two, will leave no doubt
that the ballad had its source in the romance. Yet it is an entirely
popular ballad as to style,[311] and must be of considerable age, though
the earliest version (#A#) can be traced at furthest only into the first
half of the last century.
The scene of the meeting of Thomas with the elf queen is Huntly Banks
and the Eildon Tree in versions #B#, #C# of the ballad, as in the
romance.[312] Neither of these is mentioned in #A#, the reciter of which
was an Aberdeen woman. The elf-lady's costume and equipment, minutely
given in the romance (henceforth referred to as #R#), are reduced in the
ballad to a skirt of grass-green silk and a velvet mantle, #A#, and a
dapple-gray horse, #B# 2 (#R# 5), with nine and fifty bells on each tett
of its mane, #A# 2 (three bells on either side of the bridle, #R#
9).[313] Thomas salutes the fairy as queen of heaven, #A# 3, #R# 11. #B#
3 has suffered a Protestant alteration which makes nonsense of the
following stanza. She corrects his mistake in all, and in #B# 4 tells
him she is out hunting, as in #R# 16. As #C# 5 stands, she challenges
Thomas to kiss her, warning him at the same time, unnaturally, and of
course in consequence of a corrupt reading, of the danger; which Thomas
defies, #C# 6. These two stanzas in #C# represent the passage in the
romance, 17-21, in which Thomas embraces the fairy queen, and are
wanting in #A#, #B#, though not to be spared. It is contact with the
fairy that gives her the power to carry her paramour off; for carry him
off she does, and he is in great fright at having to go. The ballad is
no worse, and the romance would have been much better, for the omission
of another passage, impressive in itself, but incompatible with the
proper and original story. The elf-queen had told Thomas that he would
ruin her beauty, if he had his will, and so it came to pass: her eyes
seemed out, her rich clothing was away, her body was like the lead; and
it is while thus disfigured that she bids Thomas take leave of sun and
moon, so that his alarm is not without reason.[314] He must go with her
for seven years, #A#, #B#; only for a twelvemonth, #R#. She takes him up
behind her, #A#; she rides and he runs, #B#; she leads him in at Eldon
hill, #R#; they cross a water, he wading up to the knee, #B#, #R#. The
water is subterranean in #R#, and for three days naught is heard but the
soughing of the flood. Then they come to an orchard, #A#, #B#, #R#, and
Thomas, like to tyne for lack of food, is about to pull fruit, but is
told that the fruit is cursed, #A# 9, #B# 8;[315] if he plucks it, his
soul goes to the fire of hell, #R# 35. The fairy has made a provision of
safe bread and wine for him in the ballad, #A# 10, #B# 9, but he has
still to fast a while in the romance. #C#, which lacks this passage,
makes them ride till they reach a wide desert, and leave living land
behind, 9; and here (but in #A#, #B#, and #R# in the vicinity of the
orchard) the fairy bids Thomas lay his head on her knee, and she will
show him rare sights. These are the way to heaven, #A# 12, #B# 11, #R#
38; the way to hell, #A# 13, #B# 10, #R# 41; the road to Elfland,
whither they are going, #A# 14. #R# does not point out the road to
Elfland, but the elf-queen's castle on a high hill; and there are two
additional ferlies, the way to paradise and the way to purgatory,[316]
39, 40. Thomas, in #A# 15, is now admonished that he must hold his
tongue, for if he speaks a word he will never get back to his own
country; in #R# 44 he is told to answer none but the elf-queen, whatever
may be said to him, and this course he takes in #B# 12. But before they
proceed to the castle the lady resumes all the beauty and splendor which
she had lost, and no explanation is offered save the naive one in the
Lansdowne copy, that if she had not, the king, her consort, would have
known that she had been in fault. Now follows in #A# 15 (as recited,
here 7), #C# 15, 16, the passage through the subterranean water, which
should come before they reach the orchard, as in #B# 6, #R# 30, 31.
There is much exaggeration in the ballad: they wade through rivers in
darkness and hear the sea roaring, #C# 15, #A# 7, as in #R#, but they
also wade through red blood to the knee, #A# 7, #C# 16, and the crossing
occupies not three days, as in #R# 31, but forty days, #A# 7. In #C#
they _now_ come to the garden. Stanzas 15, 16 are out of place in #C#,
as just remarked, and 17 is entirely perverted. The cursed fruit which
Thomas is not to touch in #A# 9, #B# 8, #R# 35, is offered him by the
elf-queen as his wages, and will give him the tongue that can never
lie,--a gift which is made him in the romance at the beginning of the
second fit, when the fairy is preparing to part with him. Stanzas 18,19
of #C# are certainly a modern, and as certainly an ill-devised,
interpolation. #B# has lost the conclusion. In #A#, #C#, Thomas gets a
fairy costume, and is not seen on earth again for seven years.
The romance, after some description of the life at the elf-castle,
informs us that Thomas lived there more than three years [Cambridge MS.,
seven], and thought the time but a space of three days, an almost
moderate illusion compared with the experience of other mortals under
analogous circumstances.[317] The fairy queen then hurried him away, on
the eve of the day when the foul fiend was to come to fetch his tribute.
He was a mickle man and hend, and there was every reason to fear that he
would be chosen. She brought him again to Eldon Tree, and was bidding
him farewell. Thomas begged of her a token of his conversation with her,
and she gave him the gift of true speaking. He urged her further to tell
him some ferly, and she made him several predictions, but he would not
let her go without more and more. Finally, with a promise to meet him on
Huntly Banks when she might, she left him under the tree.