There's heart beneath the willow-tree,
There's no one here but my love and me.
"He had gone to the war, and promised to marry her when he came back.
She wrapped a shawl about her head, to see if he would recognize her."
This was all the reciter could recollect; the lines of the ballad were
sung by an old woman, the ring answering with the game-rhyme.
_Waterford, Ireland._
The round now in use in the town whence this comes, but where the
ballad is not at present known, begins:
King William was King George's son--
_From the Bay of Biscay, O!_
Upon his breast he wore a star--
_Point your way across the sea._
In the year 1287, Folke Algotson, a high-born Swedish youth, carried
off to Norway (at that time the refuge of such boldness) Ingrid, a
daughter of the "law-man" or judge of East Gothland, who was betrothed
to a Danish noble. Popular ballads attached themselves to the
occurrence, which are still preserved. The substance of that version
of the story with which we are concerned is as follows: A youth loves
a maid, who returns his affection, but in his absence her friends have
"given" her to another. He rides to the wedding ceremony with a troop
of followers. The bride, seeing him approach, and wishing to test his
affection, calls on her maidens to "take off her gold crown, and coif
her in linen white." But the hero at once recognizes his love, mounts
with her on horseback, and flees to Norway.
We cannot believe the resemblance to be accidental, and look upon our
rhymes as a branch from the same ancient--but not historical--root.
No. 18.
_Little Harry Hughes and the Duke's Daughter._
The writer was not a little surprised to hear from a group of colored
children, in the streets of New York city (though in a more incoherent
form) the following ballad. He traced the song to a little girl living
in one of the cabins near Central Park, from whom he obtained this
version. The hut, rude as the habitation of a recent squatter on the
plains, was perched on a rock still projecting above the excavations
which had been made on either side, preparatory to the erection of the
conventional "brown-stone fronts" of a New York street. Rocks flung by
carelessly managed explosions flew over the roof, and clouds of dust
were blown by every wind into the unswept hovel. In this unlikely spot
lingered the relics of old English folk-song, amid all the stir of the
busiest of cities. The mother of the family had herself been born in
New York, of Irish parentage, but had learned from her own mother, and
handed down to her children, such legends of the past as the ballad
we cite. A pretty melody gave popularity to the verse, and so the
thirteenth-century tradition, extinct perhaps in its native soil, had
taken a new lease of existence as a song of negro children in New York.
Under the thin disguise of the heading will be recognized the ballad
of "Hugh of Lincoln and the Jew's Daughter," the occasion of which
is referred by Matthew Paris to the year 1255. Chaucer, in exquisite
verse, has made his Prioress recount the same story: how the child,
This gemme of chastitè, this emeraude,
And eek of martirdom the ruby bright,
has his throat cut by "false Jewes," and, cast into a pit, still sings
his chant in honor of
This welle of mercy, Christes moder sweet;
and, when discovered, cannot be buried in peace till the magic grain is
removed which "that blissful maiden fre" has laid under his tongue.
The conclusion is, in our version, only implied. In that given by
Jamieson the murdered child, speaking from the well, bids his mother
prepare the winding-sheet, for he will meet her in the morn "at the
back of merry Lincoln;" and the funeral service is performed by angels.
[Illustration]
It was on a May, on a midsummer's day,
When it rained, it did rain small;
And little Harry Hughes and his playfellows all
Went out to play the ball.
He knocked it up, and he knocked it down,
He knocked it o'er and o'er;
The very first kick little Harry gave the ball,
He broke the duke's windows all.
She came down, the youngest duke's daughter,
She was dressed in green;
"Come back, come back, my pretty little boy,
And play the ball again."
"I won't come back, and I daren't come back,
Without my playfellows all;
And if my mother she should come in,
She'd make it the bloody ball."[64]
She took an apple out of her pocket,
And rolled it along the plain;
Little Harry Hughes picked up the apple,
And sorely rued the day.
She takes him by the lily-white hand,
And leads him from hall to hall,
Until she came to a little dark room,
That none could hear him call.
She sat herself on a golden chair,
Him on another close by;
And there's where she pulled out her little penknife
That was both sharp and fine.
Little Harry Hughes had to pray for his soul,
For his days were at an end;
She stuck her penknife in little Harry's heart,
And first the blood came very thick, and then came very thin.[65]
She rolled him in a quire of tin,
That was in so many a fold;
She rolled him from that to a little draw-well
That was fifty fathoms deep.
"Lie there, lie there, little Harry," she cried,
"And God forbid you to swim,
If you be a disgrace to me,
Or to any of my friends."
The day passed by, and the night came on,
And every scholar was home,
And every mother had her own child,
But poor Harry's mother had none.[66]
She walked up and down the street,
With a little sally-rod[67] in her hand;
And God directed her to the little draw-well,
That was fifty fathoms deep.
"If you be there, little Harry," she said,
"And God forbid you to be,
Speak one word to your own dear mother,
That is looking all over for thee."
"This I am, dear mother," he cried,
"And lying in great pain,
With a little penknife lying close to my heart,
And the duke's daughter she has me slain.
"Give my blessing to my schoolfellows all,
And tell them to be at the church,
And make my grave both large and deep,
And my coffin of hazel and green birch.
"Put my Bible at my head,
My busker[68] (?) at my feet,
My little prayer-book at my right side,
And sound will be my sleep."
No. 19.
_Barbara Allen._
In the first quarter of the century, this celebrated ballad was still
used in New England as a children's game or dance at evening parties.
We have here, perhaps, the latest English survival, in cultivated
society, of a practice which had once been universal. It is noteworthy
that while, in the town of which we speak,[69] the establishment, at
the period alluded to, of a children's dancing-school was bitterly
opposed, and the children of "church members" were hardly permitted to
attend, no such prohibition applied to amusements like this, which were
shared in irrespective of sectarian prejudice, by boys as well as by
girls.
Our informant describes the performers as standing in couples,
consisting each of a boy and a girl, facing each other. An elderly
lady, who was in particular request at children's parties on account
of her extensive stock of lore of the sort, sang the ballad, to which
the dancers kept time with a slow metrical movement, balancing without
any considerable change of place. At the final words, "Barbara Allen,"
which end every stanza, a courtesy took the place of the usual refrain.
The whole performance is described as exceedingly pretty, stately, and
decorous. It cannot be doubted that the version of the ballad sung was
traditional, but we have not been able to secure it.