9_The English and Scottish popular ballads, volume 1 (of 5)

He's kept her there in Elmond's wood,

For six lang years and one,

Till six pretty sons to him she bear,

And the seventh she's brought home.

It fell ance upon a day,

This guid lord went from home,

And he is to the hunting gane,

Took wi him his eldest son.

And when they were on a guid way,

Wi slowly pace did walk,

The boy's heart being something wae,

He thus began to talk:

'A question I woud ask, father,

Gin ye woudna angry be:'

'Say on, say on, my bonny boy,

Ye'se nae be quarrelld by me.'

'I see my mither's cheeks aye weet,

I never can see them dry;

And I wonder what aileth my mither,

To mourn continually.'

'Your mither was a king's daughter,

Sprung frae a high degree,

And she might hae wed some worthy prince,

Had she nae been stown by me.

'I was her father's cup-bearer,

Just at that fatal time;

I catchd her on a misty night,

Whan summer was in prime.

'My luve to her was most sincere,

Her luve was great for me,

But when she hardships doth endure,

Her folly she does see.'

'I'll shoot the buntin o the bush,

The linnet o the tree,

And bring them to my dear mither,

See if she'll merrier be.'

It fell upo another day,

This guid lord he thought lang,

And he is to the hunting gane,

Took wi him his dog and gun.

Wi bow and arrow by his side,

He's aff, single, alane,

And left his seven children to stay

Wi their mither at hame.

'O I will tell to you, mither,

Gin ye wadna angry be:'

'Speak on, speak on, my little wee boy,

Ye'se nae be quarrelld by me.'

'As we came frae the hynd-hunting,

We heard fine music ring:'

'My blessings on you, my bonny boy,

I wish I'd been there my lane.'

He's taen his mither by the hand,

His six brithers also,

And they are on thro Elmond's wood,

As fast as they coud go.

They wistna weel where they were gaen,

Wi the stratlins o their feet;

They wistna weel where they were gaen,

Till at her father's yate.

'I hae nae money in my pocket,

But royal rings hae three;

I'll gie them you, my little young son,

And ye'll walk there for me.

'Ye'll gie the first to the proud porter,

And he will lat you in;

Ye'll gie the next to the butler-boy,

And he will show you ben;

'Ye'll gie the third to the minstrel

That plays before the king;

He'll play success to the bonny boy

Came thro the wood him lane.'

He gae the first to the proud porter,

And he opend an let him in;

He gae the next to the butler-boy,

And he has shown him ben;

He gae the third to the minstrel

That playd before the king;

And he playd success to the bonny boy

Came thro the wood him lane.

Now when he came before the king,

Fell low down on his knee;

The king he turned round about,

And the saut tear blinded his ee.

'Win up, win up, my bonny boy,

Gang frae my companie;

Ye look sae like my dear daughter,

My heart will birst in three.'

'If I look like your dear daughter,

A wonder it is none;

If I look like your dear daughter,

I am her eldest son.'

'Will ye tell me, ye little wee boy,

Where may my Margaret be?'

'She's just now standing at your yates,

And my six brithers her wi.'

'O where are all my porter-boys

That I pay meat and fee,

To open my yates baith wide and braid?

Let her come in to me.'

When she came in before the king,

Fell low down on her knee;

'Win up, win up, my daughter dear,

This day ye'll dine wi me.'

'Ae bit I canno eat, father,

Nor ae drop can I drink,

Till I see my mither and sister dear,

For lang for them I think.'

When she came before the queen,

Fell low down on her knee;

'Win up, win up, my daughter dear

This day ye'se dine wi me.'

'Ae bit I canno eat, mither,

Nor ae drop can I drink,

Until I see my dear sister,

For lang for her I think.'

When that these two sisters met,

She haild her courteouslie;

'Come ben, come ben, my sister dear,

This day ye'se dine wi me.'

'Ae bit I canno eat, sister,

Nor ae drop can I drink,

Until I see my dear husband,

For lang for him I think.'

'O where are all my rangers bold

That I pay meat and fee,

To search the forest far an wide,

And bring Akin to me?'

Out it speaks the little wee boy:

Na, na, this maunna be;

Without ye grant a free pardon,

I hope ye'll nae him see.

'O here I grant a free pardon,

Well seald by my own han;

Ye may make search for Young Akin,

As soon as ever you can.'

They searchd the country wide and braid,

The forests far and near,

And found him into Elmond's wood,

Tearing his yellow hair.

'Win up, win up now, Young Akin,

Win up, and boun wi me;

We're messengers come from the court,

The king wants you to see.'

'O lat him take frae me my head,

Or hang me on a tree;

For since I've lost my dear lady,

Life's no pleasure to me.'

'Your head will nae be touchd, Akin,

Nor hangd upon a tree;

Your lady's in her father's court,

And all he wants is thee.'

When he came in before the king,

Fell low down on his knee;

'Win up, win up now, Young Akin,

This day ye'se dine wi me.'

But as they were at dinner set,

The boy asked a boun:

'I wish we were in the good church,

For to get christendoun.

'We hae lived in guid green wood

This seven years and ane;

But a' this time, since eer I mind,

Was never a church within.'

'Your asking's nae sae great, my boy,

But granted it shall be;

This day to guid church ye shall gang,

And your mither shall gang you wi.'

When unto the guid church she came,

She at the door did stan;

She was sae sair sunk down wi shame,

She coudna come farer ben.

Then out it speaks the parish priest,

And a sweet smile gae he:

'Come ben, come ben, my lily flower,

Present your babes to me.'

Charles, Vincent, Sam and Dick,

And likewise James and John;

They calld the eldest Young Akin,

Which was his father's name.

Then they staid in the royal court,

And livd wi mirth and glee,

And when her father was deceasd,

Heir of the crown was she.

Kinloch's Ancient Scottish Ballads, p. 228.

May Margret stood in her bouer door,

Kaiming doun her yellow hair;

She spied some nuts growin in the wud,

And wishd that she was there.

She has plaited her yellow locks

A little abune her bree,

And she has kilted her petticoats

A little below her knee,

And she's aff to Mulberry wud,

As fast as she could gae.

She had na pu'd a nut, a nut,

A nut but barely ane,

Till up started the Hynde Etin,

Says, Lady, let thae alane!

'Mulberry wuds are a' my ain;

My father gied them me,

To sport and play when I thought lang;

And they sall na be tane by thee.'

And ae she pu'd the tither berrie,

Na thinking o' the skaith,

And said, To wrang ye, Hynde Etin,

I wad be unco laith.

But he has tane her by the yellow locks,

And tied her till a tree,

And said, For slichting my commands,

An ill death sall ye dree.

He pu'd a tree out o the wud,

The biggest that was there,

And he howkit a cave monie fathoms deep,

And put May Margret there.

'Now rest ye there, ye saucie may;

My wuds are free for thee;

And gif I tak ye to mysell,

The better ye'll like me.'

Na rest, na rest May Margret took,

Sleep she got never nane;

Her back lay on the cauld, cauld floor,

Her head upon a stane.

'O tak me out,' May Margret cried,

'O tak me hame to thee,

And I sall be your bounden page

Until the day I dee.'

He took her out o the dungeon deep,

And awa wi him she's gane;

But sad was the day an earl's dochter

Gaed hame wi Hynde Etin.

* * * * * * *

It fell out ance upon a day

Hynde Etin's to the hunting gane,

And he has tane wi him his eldest son,

For to carry his game.

'O I wad ask ye something, father,

An ye wadna angry be;'

'Ask on, ask on, my eldest son,

Ask onie thing at me.'

'My mother's cheeks are aft times weet,

Alas! they are seldom dry;'

'Na wonder, na wonder, my eldest son,

Tho she should brast and die.

'For your mother was an earl's dochter,

Of noble birth and fame,

And now she's wife o Hynde Etin,

Wha neer got christendame.

'But we'll shoot the laverock in the lift,

The buntlin on the tree,

And ye'll tak them hame to your mother,

And see if she'll comforted be.'

* * * * * * *

'I wad ask ye something, mother,

An ye wadna angry be;'

'Ask on, ask on, my eldest son,

Ask onie thing at me.'

'Your cheeks they are aft times weet,

Alas! they're seldom dry;'

'Na wonder, na wonder, my eldest son,

Tho I should brast and die.

'For I was ance an earl's dochter,

Of noble birth and fame,

And now I am the wife of Hynde Etin,

Wha neer got christendame.'

* * * * * * *

Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, II, 67,

communicated by Mr James Nicol, of Strichen; Motherwell's

Minstrelsy, p. 287; Motherwell's MS., p. 450.

'O well like I to ride in a mist,

And shoot in a northern win,

And far better a lady to steal,

That's come of a noble kin.'

Four an twenty fair ladies

Put on this lady's sheen,

And as mony young gentlemen

Did lead her ower the green.

Yet she preferred before them all

Him, young Hastings the Groom;

He's coosten a mist before them all,

And away this lady has taen.

He's taken the lady on him behind,

Spared neither grass nor corn,

Till they came to the wood o Amonshaw,

Where again their loves were sworn.

And they hae lived in that wood

Full mony a year and day,

And were supported from time to time

By what he made of prey.

And seven bairns, fair and fine,

There she has born to him,

And never was in gude church-door,

Nor ever got gude kirking.

Ance she took harp into her hand,

And harped them a' asleep,

Then she sat down at their couch-side,

And bitterly did weep.

Said, Seven bairns hae I born now

To my lord in the ha;

I wish they were seven greedy rats,

To run upon the wa,

And I mysel a great grey cat,

To eat them ane and a'.

For ten lang years now I hae lived

Within this cave of stane,

And never was at gude church-door,

Nor got no gude churching.

O then out spake her eldest child,

And a fine boy was he:

O hold your tongue, my mother dear;

I'll tell you what to dee.

Take you the youngest in your lap,

The next youngest by the hand,

Put all the rest of us you before,

As you learnt us to gang.

And go with us unto some kirk--

You say they are built of stane--

And let us all be christened,

And you get gude kirking.

She took the youngest in her lap,

The next youngest by the hand,

Set all the rest of them her before,

As she learnt them to gang.

And she has left the wood with them,

And to the kirk has gane,

Where the gude priest them christened,

And gave her gude kirking.

* * * * *

#C.# _Motherwell's copies exhibit five or six slight

variations from Buchan._

[334] This reading, _nuts_, may have subsequently made its way into #A#

instead of _rose_, which it would be more ballad-like for Margaret to be

plucking, as the maid does in 'Tam Lin,' where also the passage #A# 3-6,

#B# 2-4 occurs. Grimm suggests a parallel to Tam Lin in the dwarf

Laurin, who does not allow trespassing in his rose-garden: Deutsche

Mythologie, III, 130. But the resemblance seems not material, there

being no woman in the case. The pretence of trespass in Tam Lin and Hind

Etin is a simple commonplace, and we have it in some Slavic forms of No

4, as at p. 41.

[335] #B# is defective in the middle and the end. "The reciter,

unfortunately, could not remember more of the ballad, although the story

was strongly impressed on her memory. She related that the lady, after

having been taken home by Hynde Etin, lived with him many years, and

bore him seven sons, the eldest of whom, after the inquiries at his

parents detailed in the ballad, determines to go in search of the earl,

his grandfather. At his departure his mother instructs him how to

proceed, giving him a ring to bribe the porter at her father's gate, and

a silken vest, wrought by her own hand, to be worn in presence of her

father. The son sets out, and arrives at the castle, where, by bribing

the porter, he gets admission to the earl, who, struck with the

resemblance of the youth to his lost daughter, and the similarity of the

vest to one she had wrought for himself, examines the young man, from

whom he discovers the fate of his daughter. He gladly receives his

grandson, and goes to his daughter's residence, where he meets her and

Hynde Etin, who is pardoned by the earl, through the intercession of his

daughter." Kinloch, Ancient Scottish Ballads, p. 226 f.

[336] #B#, Landstad 44 (which has only this in common with the Scottish

ballad, that a hill-man carries a maid to his cave), has much

resemblance at the beginning to 'Kvindemorderen,' Grundtvig, No 183, our

No 4. See Grundtvig's note ** at III, 810. This is only what might be

looked for, since both ballads deal with abductions.

[337] It is not necessary, for purposes of the English ballad, to notice

these mixed forms.

[338] In 'Nøkkens Svig,' #C#, Grundtvig, No 39, the merman consults with

his mother, and then, as also in other copies of the ballad, transforms

himself into a knight. See the translation by Prior, III, 269; Jamieson,

Popular Ballads, I, 210; Lewis, Tales of Wonder, I, 60.

[339] The beauty of the Norse ballads should make an Englishman's heart

wring for his loss. They are particularly pretty here, where the

forgetful draught is administered; as Norwegian #C#, #A#:

Forth came her daughter, as jimp as a wand,

She dances a dance, with silver can in hand.

'O where wast thou bred, and where wast thou born?

And where were thy maiden-garments shorn?'

'In Norway was I bred, in Norway was I born,

And in Norway were my maiden-garments shorn.'

The ae first drink from the silver can she drank,

What stock she was come of she clean forgat.

'O where wast thou bred, and where wast thou born?

And where were thy maiden-garments shorn?'

'In the hill was I bred, and there was I born,

In the hill were my maiden-garments shorn.'

[340] For reasons, doubtless sufficient, but to me unknown, Grundtvig

has not noticed two copies in Boisen's Nye og gamle Viser, 10th edition,

p. 192, p. 194. The former of these is like #A#, with more resemblance

here and there to other versions, and may be a made-up copy; the other,

'Agnete og Bjærgmanden, fra Sønderjylland,' consists of stanzas 1-5 of

#C#.

[341] See five versions in Mittler, Nos 546-550. As Grundtvig remarks,

what is one ballad in Wendish is two in German and three in Norse: #D#.

g. #F#., IV, 810.

[342] This trait, corresponding to the prohibition in the Norse ballads

of bowing when the holy name is pronounced, occurs frequently in

tradition, as might be expected. In a Swedish merman-ballad, 'Necken,'

Afzelius, III, 133, the nix, who has attended to church the lady whom he

is about to kidnap, makes off with his best speed when the priest reads

the benediction. See, further, Árnason's Íslenzkar þjóðsögur, I, 73 f;

Maurer's Isländische Volksagen, 19 f; Liebrecht, Gervasius, p. 26, LVII,

and p. 126, note (Grundtvig).

[343] The merfolk are apt to be ferocious, as compared with hill-people,

elves, etc. See Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, I, 409 f.

[344] I 79, of a second edition, which, says Vraz, has an objectionable

fantastic spelling due to the publisher.

CLERK COLVILL

#A.# 'Clark Colven,' from a transcript of No 13 of William

Tytler's Brown MS.

#B.# 'Clerk Colvill, or, The Mermaid,' Herd's Ancient and

Modern Scots Songs, 1769, p. 302.

#C.# W. F. in Notes and Queries, Fourth Series, VIII, 510,

from the recitation of a lady in Forfarshire.

Although, as has been already said, William Tytler's Brown manuscript is

now not to be found, a copy of two of its fifteen ballads has been

preserved in the Fraser Tytler family, and 'Clerk Colvill,' #A# ('Clark

Colven') is one of the two.[345] This ballad is not in Jamieson's Brown

manuscript. Rewritten by Lewis, #A# was published in Tales of Wonder,

1801, II, 445, No 56. #B#, 1769, is the earliest printed English copy,

but a corresponding Danish ballad antedates its publication by

seventy-five years. Of #C#, W. F., who communicated it to Notes and

Queries, says: "I have reason to believe that it is originally from the

same source as that from which Scott, and especially Jamieson, derived

many of their best ballads." This source should be no other than Mrs

Brown, who certainly may have known two versions of Clerk Colvill; but

#C# is markedly different from #A#. An Abbotsford manuscript, entitled

"Scottish Songs," has, at fol. 3, a version which appears to have been

made up from Lewis's copy, its original, #A#, and Herd's, #B#.

All the English versions are deplorably imperfect, and #C# is corrupted,

besides. The story which they afford is this. Clerk Colvill, newly

married as we may infer, is solemnly entreated by his gay lady never to

go near a well-fared may who haunts a certain spring or water. It is

clear that before his marriage he had been in the habit of resorting to

this mermaid, as she is afterwards called, and equally clear, from the

impatient answer which he renders his dame, that he means to visit her

again. His coming is hailed with pleasure by the mermaid, who, in the

course of their interview, does something which gives him a strange pain

in the head,--a pain only increased by a prescription which she pretends

will cure it, and, as she then exultingly tells him, sure to grow worse

until he is dead. He draws his sword on her, but she merrily springs

into the water. He mounts his horse, rides home tristful, alights

heavily, and bids his mother make his bed, for all is over with him.

#C# is at the beginning blended with verses which belong to 'Willie and

May Margaret,' Jamieson, I, 135 (from Mrs Brown's recitation), or 'The

Drowned Lovers,' Buchan, I, 140. In this ballad a mother adjures her son

not to go wooing, under pain of her curse. He goes, nevertheless, and is

drowned. It is obvious, without remark, that the band and belt in #C# 1

do not suit the mother; neither does the phrase 'love Colin' in the

second stanza.[346] #C# 9-11 afford an important variation from the

other versions. The mermaid appears at the foot of the young man's bed,

and offers him a choice between dying then and living with her in the

water. (See the Norwegian ballads at p. 377.)

Clerk Colvill is not, as his representative is or may be in other

ballads, the guiltless and guileless object of the love or envy of a

water-sprite or elf. His relations with the mermaid began before his

marriage with his gay lady, and his death is the natural penalty of his

desertion of the water-nymph; for no point is better established than

the fatal consequences of inconstancy in such connections.[347] His

history, were it fully told, would closely resemble that of the Knight

of Staufenberg, as narrated in a German poem of about the year

1300.[348]

The already very distinguished chevalier, Peter Diemringer, of

Staufenberg (in the Ortenau, Baden, four leagues from Strassburg), when

riding to mass one Whitsunday, saw a lady of surpassing beauty, dressed

with equal magnificence, sitting on a rock by the wayside. He became

instantaneously enamored, and, greeting the lady in terms expressive of

his admiration, received no discouraging reply. The lady rose; the

knight sprang from his horse, took a hand which she offered, helped her

from the rock, and they sat down on the grass. The knight asked how she

came to be there alone. The lady replied that she had been waiting for

him: ever since he could bestride a horse she had been devoted to him;

she had been his help and protection in tourneys and fights, in all

climes and regions, though he had never seen her. The knight wished he

might ever be hers. He could have his wish, she said, and never know

trouble or sickness, on one condition, and that was that he never should

marry: if he did this, he would die in three days. He vowed to be hers

as long as he lived; they exchanged kisses, and then she bade him mount

his horse and go to mass. After the benediction he was to return home,

and when he was alone in his chamber, and wished for her, she would

come, and so always; that privilege God had given her: "swâ ich wil, dâ

bin ich." They had their meeting when he returned from church: he

redoubled his vows, she promised him all good things, and the bounties

which he received from her overflowed upon all his friends and comrades.

The knight now undertook a chivalrous tour, to see such parts of the

world as he had not visited before. Wherever he went, the fair lady had

only to be wished for and she was by him: there was no bound to her love

or her gifts. Upon his return he was beset by relatives and friends, and

urged to marry. He put them off with excuses: he was too young to

sacrifice his freedom, and what not. They returned to the charge before

long, and set a wise man of his kindred at him to beg a boon of him.

"Anything," he said, "but marrying: rather cut me into strips than

that." Having silenced his advisers by this reply, he went to his closet

and wished for his lady. She was full of sympathy, and thought it might

make his position a little easier if he should tell his officious

friends something of the real case, how he had a wife who attended him

wherever he went and was the source of all his prosperity; but he must

not let them persuade him, or what she had predicted would surely come

to pass.

At this time a king was to be chosen at Frankfurt, and all the nobility

flocked thither, and among them Staufenberg, with a splendid train. He,

as usual, was first in all tourneys, and made himself remarked for his

liberal gifts and his generous consideration of youthful antagonists:

his praise was in everybody's mouth. The king sent for him, and offered

him an orphan niece of eighteen, with a rich dowry. The knight excused

himself as unworthy of such a match. The king said his niece must accept

such a husband as he pleased to give, and many swore that Staufenberg

was a fool. Bishops, who were there in plenty, asked him if he had a

wife already. Staufenberg availed himself of the leave which had been

given him, and told his whole story, not omitting that he was sure to

die in three days if he married. "Let me see the woman," said one of the

bishops. "She lets nobody see her but me," answered Staufenberg. "Then

it is a devil," said another of the clergy, "and your soul is lost

forever." Staufenberg yielded, and said he would do the king's will. He

was betrothed that very hour, and set out for Ortenau, where he had

appointed the celebration of the nuptials. When night came he wished for

the invisible lady. She appeared, and told him with all gentleness that

he must prepare for the fate of which she had forewarned him, a fate

seemingly inevitable, and not the consequence of her resentment. At the

wedding feast she would display her foot in sight of all the guests:

when he saw that, let him send for the priest. The knight thought of

what the clergy had said, and that this might be a cheat of the devil.

The bride was brought to Staufenberg, the feast was held, but at the

very beginning of it a foot whiter than ivory was seen through the

ceiling. Staufenberg tore his hair and cried, Friends, ye have ruined

yourselves and me! He begged his bride and all who had come with her to

the wedding to stay for his funeral, ordered a bed to be prepared for

him and a priest to be sent for. He asked his brothers to give his bride

all that he had promised her. But she said no; his friends should rather

have all that she had brought; she would have no other husband, and

since she had been the cause of his death she would go into a cloister,

where no eye should see her: which she did after she had returned to her

own country.

A superscription to the old poem denominates Staufenberg's amphibious

consort a mer-fey, sea-fairy; but that description is not to be strictly

interpreted, no more than mer-fey, or fata morgana, is in some other

romantic tales. There is nothing of the water-sprite in her, nor is she

spoken of by any such name in the poem itself. The local legends of

sixty years ago,[349] and perhaps still, make her to have been a proper

water-nymph. She is first met with by the young knight near a spring or

a brook, and it is in a piece of water that he finds his death, and that

on the evening of his wedding day.

Clerk Colvill and the mermaid are represented by Sir Oluf and an elf in

Scandinavian ballads to the number of about seventy. The oldest of these

is derived from a Danish manuscript of 1550, two centuries and a half

later than the Staufenberg poem, but two earlier than Clerk Colvill, the

oldest ballad outside of the Scandinavian series. Five other versions

are of the date 1700, or earlier, the rest from tradition of this

century. No ballad has received more attention from the heroic Danish

editor, whose study of 'Elveskud' presents an admirably ordered synoptic

view of all the versions known up to 1881: Grundtvig, No 47, II, 109-19,

663-66; III, 824-25; IV, 835-74.[350]

The Scandinavian versions are:

#Färöe#, four: #A#, 39 sts, #B#, 24 sts, #C#, 18 sts, #D#, 23 sts,

Grundtvig, IV, 849-52.