#A.# Skene MS., p. 33.
#B.# ‘Young Allan,’ Buchan’s MSS, II, 182.
#C.# ‘Young Allan,’ Buchan’s Ballads of the North of Scotland, II, 11.
#D.# ‘Young Allan,’ Murison MS., p. 117.
#E.# ‘Earl Patrick,’ Kinloch MSS, V, 395.
The copy in Christie’s Traditional Ballad Airs, I, 252, is abridged from
#C#, with half a dozen arbitrary and insignificant changes.
Skippers (lords) of Lothain, #A#, of Scarsburgh, #C#, of Aberdeen, #D#,
are bragging over their drink: some, absurdly enough, of their hawks and
hounds, #A-C#, some of their ladies, young Allan of his ship, which will
outsail all others but three.[147] A boy in #A#, #C#, says that his
master has a boat (it is a coal-carrier in #C#) which will take the wind
from him. A wager is laid, #A#, #B#, #C#. All the rest go to drinking,
‘to the tows,’ but Allan to his prayers, #C# 8. They sail; there is a
terrible storm, in the course of which the three competitors are ‘rent
in nine,’ #A# 9, or two of them sink, and the topmast of the third ‘gaes
in nine,’ #E# 7–9.
In #A# they have sailed only a few leagues, when Allan’s ship is so
racked by the storm that they see water through her sides. At this
point, especially in #A#, Allan’s seamanship appears to very little
advantage; he is more of a fair-weather yachtsman than of a skeely
skipper. If he could get a bonny boy to take the helm and bring the ship
in safe, the boy should have a liberal share of his gold and land, and a
daughter Ann besides, whom one is surprised that Young Allan should have
to offer. In #A# and #D# the bonny boy evidently takes command of the
ship, although in #A# 18 the sailors ascribe their safety, under God, to
their good master. The ballad indeed suffers almost as grievously as the
comely cog.
In #B-E# Allan calls for a bonny boy to take the helm while he goes to
the masthead to look for land. In #D# he makes the same promises as in
#A#, but the bonny boy cares only for Ann. In #B#, #C# the bonny boy
suggests that Allan should waken his drunken men, for whom good thick
shoes had been bought, though none had been given him. But in all the
boy takes the helm, and in fact keeps it till the ship is in. Allan, at
the masthead, can see neither day nor landmark; many feather-beds are
floating on the water, #B#, #C#. The boy calls his master down; the sea
can be seen through the ship’s sides, #B-E#.
Orders are given, by the boy or by Allan (by the boy certainly in #D#,
and by Allan in #E#), to take feather-beds and canvas and lay, busk, or
wrap the ship round; pitch and tar are also recommended in #B#, #C#.
This done, Allan addresses the ship: Spring up, and gold shall be your
hire, #A#; Haste to dry land, and every nail that is in you shall be a
gold pin, #B#; For every iron nail in you, of gold there shall be ten,
#C#; in #D#, indirectly, Where she wants an iron nail drive in a silver
pin, and where she wants an oaken bolt beat in the gold, and the like in
#E#. When the ship hears this, she springs from the water like sparks
from the fire, #A-C#.
The first shore they come to is Troup, #B#, Howdoloot, #C#, Linn, #D#,
#E#. The ship is kept off with cannon, #B#, #C#, with spears and
bayonets, #D#; is towed in (wrongly), #E#. The next shore they come to
is Lee, #B#, #E#, Howdilee, #C#, wanting in #D#; ‘they bare her to the
sea,’ #C#, ‘they turned their ship about,’ #D#, the ship is towed in
(wrongly), #B#, #E#. The third shore they come to is Lin, #B#, Howdilin,
#C#, Aberdeen, #D#; the ship is towed in (welcomed), with drums beating
and pipes playing, #B#, #C#, #D#.
Allan calls for the bonny boy that brought the ship safe in, that took
the helm in hand, and offers him gold, land, and his daughter; the boy
rejects gold and land, and takes the daughter, #A#, #D#; Allan makes
over to the boy his comely cog and gives him his daughter, #B#; gives
him his daughter, #C#.
Five-and-forty ships, #A#, three-and-fifty, #C#, one-and-twenty, #E#,
went to sea, and only one came back.[148]
This ballad is mixed with that of ‘Sir Patrick Spens,’ No 58, II, 21 ff.
#E# 1–6 belong entirely to No 58, and #K# 6–10, #M# 1, 3, of No 58
belong to ‘Young Allan.’ The bonny boy is found in 58, #B#, #C#, #E#,
#G#, #I#, #J#; the floating feather-beds occur in #E-H#, #J#, #O#, #R#;
the sea is seen through the ship in 58, #C# 15, #I# 21; cloth is wapped
into the ship’s side to keep out water, #H# 19, 20; feather-beds and
canvas (and pitch) are used as here in #I# 22, 23.
By far the most interesting feature in this ballad is Allan’s addressing
his ship and the ship’s intelligent behavior, #A# 16, 17, #B# 12–15, #C#
21–22. Friðþjóf’s ship Elliða understood and obeyed the speech of its
master: Fornaldar Sogur, II, 79, 443 (cited by Bugge). Ranild’s ship
came to him when he blew his horn: ‘Svend Ranild,’ Grundtvig, No 28, I,
367 (translated by Prior, I, 286). In another Danish ballad, and one of
the best, the Ox when sailed by St Olav, responds to his commands as if
fully endowed with consciousness; he thwacks it in the side and over the
eye, and it goes faster and faster; but it is animate only for the
nonce: ‘Hellig-Olavs Væddefart,’ Grundtvig, No 50, II, 134, Prior, I,
356.
The Phæacian ships have neither helmsman nor helm, and know men’s minds
and the way to all cities: Odyssey, viii, 557 ff. There is a magical
self-moving ship in Marie de France’s Guigemar, and elsewhere.
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A