P. 7 a. The last two stanzas of #F# are also in Kinloch MSS, V, 275,
with one trivial variation, and the burden, ‘And then, etc.’
Sir Walter Scott had a copy beginning, ‘There lived a wife in the wilds
of Kent:’ Sharpe’s Ballad Book, 1880, p. 147 f.
7 b, 484 a. Add: #P#, #Q#, Hruschka u. Toischer, Deutsche Volkslieder
aus Böhmen, p. 171, No 124, a, b.
7 b, III, 496 a. ‘Store Fordringer,’ Kristensen, Jyske Folkeminder, X,
342, No 85 (with the stupid painted roses).
7 f, 484 a, II, 495 a, III, 496 a. Add: ‘I tre Tamburi,’ Ferraro, C. P.
del Basso Monferrato, p. 52; ‘Il Compito,’ Romaic, Tommaseo, III, 13
(already cited by Nigra).
8 a, II, 495 a. Tasks. #Servian# ballads. Karadžić, Sr. n. pj., I,
164, No 240, ‘The Spinster and the Tsar;’ I, 165, No 242, ‘The
Spinster and the Goldsmith.’ Cf. I, 166, No 243. Also, Karadžić, Sr.
n. pj. iz Herz., p. 217, No 191; Petranović, I, 13, No 16 (where the
girl’s father sets the tasks), and p. 218, No 238; Rajković, p. 209,
No 237. #Bulgarian.# Collection of the Bulgarian Ministry of Public
Instruction, II, 31, 3; III, 28, 4. Cf. Verković, p. 52, 43; Bezsonov,
II, 74, 105; Miladinof, p. 471, 536. #Russian.# An episode in the old
Russian legend of Prince Peter of Murom and his wife Fevronija, three
versions: Kušelev-Bezborodko, Monuments of Old Russian Literature, I,
29 ff. (W. W.)
Wit-contests in verse, the motive of love or marriage having probably
dropped out. Polish. Five examples are cited by Karłowicz, Wisła, III,
267 ff.: Kolberg, Krakowskie, II, 149, and Mazowsze, II, 149, No 332,
Zbiór wiad. do antrop., X, 297, No 217, and two not before printed.
Moravian examples from Sušil, p. 692 f., No 809, p. 701 ff., No 815:
make me a shirt without needle or thread, twist me silk out of oaten
straw; count me the stars, build me a ladder to go up to them; drain the
Red Sea, make me a bucket that will hold it; etc. Zapolski, White
Russian Weddings and Wedding-Songs, p. 35, No 19. Wisła, as before, III,
532 ff.
Polish tales of The Clever Wench are numerous: Wisła, III, 270 ff.
13 b. A fragment of a riddle given by a wise man to the gods is
preserved in a cuneiform inscription: [What is that] which is in the
house? which roars like a bull? which growls like a bear? which enters
into the heart of a man? etc. The answer is evidently air, wind. George
Smith, The Chaldean Account of Genesis, 1876, p. 156 : cited by J.
Karłowicz, Wisła, III, 273.
15–20, 484 f., II, 495 f. Communicated by the Rev. S. Baring-Gould.
“From the north of Cornwall, near Camelford. This used to be sung as a
sort of game in farm-houses, between a young man who went outside the
room and a girl who sat on the settle or a chair, and a sort of chorus
of farm lads and lasses. Now quite discontinued.” The dead lover
represents the auld man in #I#.
1
A fair pretty maiden she sat on her bed,
The wind is blowing in forest and town
She sighed and she said, O my love he is dead!
And the wind it shaketh the acorns down
2
The maiden she sighed; ‘I would,’ said she,
‘That again my lover might be with me!’
3
Before ever a word the maid she spake,
But she for fear did shiver and shake.
4
There stood at her side her lover dead;
‘Take me by the hand, sweet love,’ he said.
5
. . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . .
6
‘Thou must buy me, my lady, a cambrick shirt,
Whilst every grove rings with a merry antine
And stitch it without any needle-work.
O and thus shalt thou be a true love of mine
7
‘And thou must wash it in yonder well,
Whilst, etc.
Where never a drop of water in fell.
O and thus, etc.
8
‘And thou must hang it upon a white thorn
That never has blossomed since Adam was born.
9
‘And when that these tasks are finished and done
I’ll take thee and marry thee under the sun.’
10
‘Before ever I do these two and three,
I will set of tasks as many to thee.
11
‘Thou must buy for me an acre of land
Between the salt ocean and the yellow sand.
12
‘Thou must plough it oer with a horse’s horn,
And sow it over with one peppercorn.
13
‘Thou must reap it too with a piece of leather,
And bind it up with a peacock’s feather.
14
‘And when that these tasks are finished and done,
O then will I marry thee under the sun.’
15
‘Now thou hast answered me well,’ he said,
The wind, etc.
‘Or thou must have gone away with the dead.’
And the wind, etc.
16
. . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . .
Mr Frank Kidsen has given a copy of ‘Scarborough Fair,’ with some better
readings, as sung “in Whitby streets twenty or thirty years ago,” in
Traditional Tunes, p. 43, 1891.
* * * * *
1–4, _second line of burden_, true love.
2^2. Without any seam or needlework.
3^1. yonder dry well.
3^2. no water sprung.
4^1. Tell her to dry it on yonder thorn.
4^2. Which never bore blossom since.