Transcriber's Notes

Linenotes have been grouped at the end of each ballad. Linenote anchors have been added to the text which provide a link to the appropriate note.

Irregular and inconsistent spellings have been retained as in the original. Typographical errors such as wrongly placed line numbers, punctuation or inconsistent formatting have been corrected without comment. Where changes have been made to the wording these are listed at the end of the book.

ENGLISH AND SCOTTISH BALLADS.

EDITED BY FRANCIS JAMES CHILD.

VOLUME II.

BOSTON: LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY. M.DCCC.LX.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by Little, Brown and Company, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts.

RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY.

CONTENTS OF VOLUME SECOND.

BOOK II.

GLASGERION.

The two following ballads have the same subject, and perhaps had a common original. The "Briton Glaskyrion" is honourably mentioned as a harper by Chaucer, in company with Chiron, Orion, and Orpheus, (House of Fame, B. iii. v. 118,) and with the last he is also associated, as Mr. Finlay has pointed out, by Bishop Douglas, in the Palice of Honour. "The Scottish writers," says Jamieson, "adapting the name to their own meridian, call him Glenkindy, Glenskeenie, &c."

Glasgerion is reprinted from Percy's Reliques, iii. 83.

13, him fall.

77, MS. litle.

GLENKINDIE.

From Jamieson's Popular Ballads and Songs, i. 91. The copy in the Thistle of Scotland, p. 31, is the same.

5-8. These feats are all but equalled by the musician in the Swedish and Danish Harpans Kraft.

Arwidsson, No. 149.

Grundtvig, No. 40.

17-20. This stanza is found in the opening of Brown Robin, which commences thus:—

J.

25-28. The following stanza occurs in one of the editor's copies of The Gay Gosshawk:—

J.

64, at the chin. Sic.

120. This stanza has been altered, to introduce a little variety, and prevent the monotonous tiresomeness of repetition. J.

THE OLD BALLAD OF LITTLE MUSGRAVE AND THE LADY BARNARD.

The popularity of this ancient ballad is evinced by its being frequently quoted in old plays. In Beaumont and Fletcher's Knight of the Burning Pestle, (produced in 1611,) the fourteenth stanza is cited, thus:

Act V. Scene 3.

The oldest known copy of this piece is found in Wit Restor'd, (1658,) p. 174, and from the reprint of that publication we have taken it, (p. 293.) Dryden seems to have adopted it from the same source into his Miscellanies, and Ritson has inserted Dryden's version in Ancient Songs and Ballads, ii. 116. Percy's copy (Reliques, iii. 106,) was inferior to the one here used, and was besides somewhat altered by the editor.

A Scottish version, furnished by Jamieson, is given in the Appendix to this volume, and another, extending to forty-eight stanzas, in Scottish Traditional Versions of Ancient Ballads, Percy Society, vol. xvii. p. 21.

Similar incidents, with a verbal coincidence in one stanza, occur in the ballad immediately succeeding the present.

8, lady.

10, pale.

11, Bernards.

22, geight.

23, wed.

29, With that he heard: tyne.

34, sinn.

37, or wake.

55, And ever.

108, see.

LORD RANDAL (A).

From Jamieson's Popular Ballads and Songs, i. 162.

"The story of this ballad very much resembles that of Little Musgrave and Lord Barnard. The common title is, The Bonny Birdy. The first stanza is sung thus:—

In the text, the burden of diddle has been omitted; and the name of Lord Randal introduced, for the sake of distinction, and to prevent the ambiguity arising from 'the knight,' which is equally applicable to both."

The lines supplied by Jamieson have been omitted.

Allan Cunningham's "improved" version of the Bonny Birdy may be seen in his Songs of Scotland, ii. 130.

77, This is a proverbial saying in Scotland. J.

GIL MORRICE.

"Of the many ancient ballads which have been preserved by tradition among the peasantry of Scotland, none has excited more interest in the world of letters than the beautiful and pathetic tale of Gil Morice; and this, no less on account of its own intrinsic merits as a piece of exquisite poetry, than of its having furnished the plot of the justly celebrated tragedy of Douglas. It has likewise supplied Mr. Langhorne with the principal materials from which he has woven the fabric of his sweet, though prolix poem of Owen of Carron. Perhaps the list could be easily increased of those who have drawn their inspiration from this affecting strain of Olden Minstrelsy.

"If any reliance is to be placed on the traditions of that part of the country where the scene of the ballad is laid, we will be enforced to believe that it is founded on facts which occurred at some remote period of Scottish History. The 'grene wode' of the ballad was the ancient forest of Dundaff, in Stirlingshire, and Lord Barnard's Castle is said to have occupied a precipitous cliff, overhanging the water of Carron, on the lands of Halbertshire. A small burn, which joins the Carron about five miles above these lands, is named the Earlsburn, and the hill near the source of that stream is called the Earlshill, both deriving their appellations, according to the unvarying traditions of the country, from the unfortunate Erle's son who is the hero of the ballad. He, also, according to the same respectable authority, was 'beautiful exceedingly,' and especially remarkable for the extreme length and loveliness of his yellow hair, which shrouded him as it were a golden mist. To these floating traditions we are, probably, indebted for the attempts which have been made to improve and embellish the ballad, by the introduction of various new stanzas since its first appearance in a printed form.

"In Percy's Reliques, it is mentioned that it had run through two editions in Scotland, the second of which appeared at Glasgow in 1755, 8vo.; and that to both there was prefixed an advertisement, setting forth that the preservation of the poem was owing 'to a lady, who favoured the printers with a copy, as it was carefully collected from the mouths of old women and nurses,' and requesting that 'any reader, who could render it more correct or complete, would oblige the public with such improvements.' This was holding out too tempting a bait not to be greedily snapped at by some of those 'Ingenious Hands' who have corrupted the purity of legendary song in Scotland by manifest forgeries and gross impositions. Accordingly, sixteen additional verses soon appeared in manuscript, which the Editor of the Reliques has inserted in their proper places, though he rightly views them in no better light than that of an ingenious interpolation. Indeed, the whole ballad of Gil Morice, as the writer of the present notice has been politely informed by the learned and elegant Editor of the Border Minstrelsy, underwent a total revisal about the period when the tragedy of Douglas was in the zenith of its popularity, and this improved copy, it seems, embraced the ingenious interpolation above referred to. Independent altogether of this positive information, any one, familiar with the state in which traditionary poetry has been transmitted to the present times, can be at no loss to detect many more 'ingenious interpolations,' as well as paraphrastic additions, in the ballad as now printed. But, though it has been grievously corrupted in this way, the most scrupulous inquirer into the authenticity of ancient song can have no hesitation in admitting that many of its verses, even as they now stand, are purely traditionary, and fair, and genuine parcels of antiquity, unalloyed with any base admixture of modern invention, and in nowise altered, save in those changes of language to which all oral poetry is unavoidably subjected, in its progress from one age to another." Motherwell.

We have given Gil Morrice as it stands in the Reliques, (iii. 132,) degrading to the margin those stanzas which are undoubtedly spurious, and we have added an ancient traditionary version, obtained by Motherwell, which, if it appear short and crude, is at least comparatively incorrupt. Chield Morice, taken down from recitation, and printed in Motherwell's Minstrelsy, (p. 269,) nearly resembles Gil Morrice, as here exhibited. We have also inserted in the Appendix Childe Maurice, "the very old imperfect copy," mentioned in the Reliques, and first published from the Percy MS. by Jamieson.

The sets of Gil Morrice in the collections of Herd, Pinkerton, Ritson, &c., are all taken from Percy.

5. The stall copies of the ballad complete the stanza thus:

Which is no injudicious interpolation, inasmuch as it is founded upon the traditions current among the vulgar, regarding Gil Morice's comely face and long yellow hair. Motherwell.

51-58. A familiar commonplace in ballad poetry. See Childe Vyet, Lady Maisry, Lord Barnaby, &c.

95, mazer.

109

122, slaited.

125

153. Stall copy, And first she kissed.

157

CHILD NORYCE.

From Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. 282.

"By testimony of a most unexceptionable description,—but which it would be tedious here to detail,—the Editor can distinctly trace this ballad as existing in its present shape at least a century ago, which carries it decidedly beyond the date of the first printed copy of Gil Morice; and this with a poem which has been preserved but by oral tradition, is no mean positive antiquity."

In the Introduction to his collection, Motherwell mentions his having found a more complete copy of this ballad under the title of Babe Nourice.

27. This unquestionably should be Lady Barnard, instead of her lord. See third stanza under. M.

CLERK SAUNDERS.

From the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, (iii. 175,) where it was first published. It was "taken from Mr. Herd's MSS., with several corrections from a shorter and more imperfect copy in the same volume, and one or two conjectural emendations in the arrangement of the stanzas."

That that part of the ballad which follows the death of the lovers is an independent story, is obvious both from internal evidence, and from the separate existence of those concluding stanzas in a variety of forms: as, Sweet William's Ghost, (Tea-Table Miscellany, ii. 142,) Sweet William and May Margaret, (Kinloch, p. 241,) William and Marjorie, (Motherwell, p. 186.) Of this second part, Motherwell observes, that it is often made the tail-piece to other ballads where a deceased lover appears to his mistress. The two were, however, combined by Sir Walter Scott, and the present Editor has contented himself with indicating distinctly the close of the proper story.

An inferior copy of Clerk Saunders, published by Jamieson, is inserted in the Appendix, for the sake of a few valuable stanzas. It resembles the Swedish ballad of The Cruel Brother, (Svenska Folk-Visor, iii. 107,) which, however, is much shorter. The edition of Buchan, (i. 160,) is entirely worthless. A North-Country version of the First Part is given by Kinloch, Ancient Scottish Ballads, 233.

PART FIRST.

20. In Kinloch's version of this ballad we have an additional stanza here:—

PART SECOND.

1. The custom of the passing bell is still kept up in many villages in Scotland. The sexton goes through the town, ringing a small bell, and announcing the death of the departed, and the time of the funeral. Scott.

33. Chrisom.

57. The custom of binding the new-laid sod of the churchyard with osiers, or other saplings, prevailed both in England and Scotland, and served to protect the turf from injury by cattle, or otherwise. Scott.

SWEET WILLIE AND LADY MARGERIE.

From Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. 370.

"This Ballad, which possesses considerable beauty and pathos, is given from the recitation of a lady, now far advanced in years, with whose grandmother it was a deserved favourite. It is now for the first time printed. It bears some resemblance to Clerk Saunders."

Subjoined is a different copy from Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland.

WILLIE AND LADY MAISRY.

From Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, i. 155.

The Bent sae Brown, in the same volume, p. 30, resembles both Clerk Saunders and the present ballad, but has a different catastrophe.

THE CLERK'S TWA SONS O' OWSENFORD.

"This singularly wild and beautiful old ballad," says Chambers, (Scottish Ballads, p. 345,) "is chiefly taken from the recitation of the editor's grandmother, who learned it, when a girl, nearly seventy years ago, from a Miss Anne Gray, resident at Neidpath Castle, Peeblesshire; some additional stanzas, and a few various readings, being adopted from a less perfect, and far less poetical copy, published in Mr. Buchan's [Ancient Ballads and Songs of the North of Scotland, i. 281,] and from a fragment in the Border Minstrelsy, entitled The Wife of Usher's Well, [vol. i. p. 214, of this collection,] but which is evidently the same narrative."[A]

"The editor has been induced to divide this ballad into two parts, on account of the great superiority of what follows over what goes before, and because the latter portion is in a great measure independent of the other, so far as sense is concerned. The first part is composed of the Peeblesshire version, mingled with that of the northern editor: the second is formed of the Peeblesshire version, mingled with the fragment called The Wife of Usher's Well."

The natural desire of men to hear more of characters in whom they have become strongly interested, has frequently stimulated the attempt to continue successful fictions, and such supplements are proverbially unfortunate. A ballad-singer would have powerful inducements to gratify this passion of his audience, and he could most economically effect the object by stringing two ballads together. When a tale ended tragically, the sequel must of necessity be a ghost-story, and we have already had, in Clerk Saunders, an instance of this combination. Mr. Chambers has furnished the best possible reasons for believing that the same process has taken place in the case of the present ballad, and that the two parts, (which occur separately,) having originally had no connection, were arbitrarily united, to suit the purposes of some unscrupulous rhapsodist.

[A] There is to a certain extent a resemblance between this ballad and the German ballad Das Schloss in Oesterreich, found in most of the German collections, and in Swedish and Danish.

PART FIRST.

PART SECOND.

CHILDE VYET.

First printed in a complete form in Maidment's North Countrie Garland, p. 24. The same editor contributed a slightly different copy to Motherwell's Minstrelsy, (p. 173.) An inferior version is furnished by Buchan, i. 234, and Jamieson has published a fragment on the same story, here given in the Appendix.

4. The less was their bonheur. Motherwell.

70, she was neen. Motherwell.

76, gold.

78, mould. N. C. G.

LADY MAISRY.

This ballad, said to be very popular in Scotland, was taken down from recitation by Jamieson, and is extracted from his collection, vol. i. p. 73. A different copy, from Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. 234, is given in the Appendix. Another, styled Young Prince James, may be seen in Buchan's Ballads, vol. i. 103. Bonnie Susie Cleland, Motherwell, p. 221, is still another version.

In Lady Maisry we seem to have the English form of a tragic story which, starting from Denmark, has spread over almost all the north of Europe, that of King Waldemar and his Sister. Grundtvig's collection gives seven copies of the Danish ballad upon this subject (Kong Valdemar og hans Söster, No. 126), the oldest from a manuscript of the beginning of the 17th century. Five Icelandic versions are known, one Norse, one Faroish, five Swedish (four of them in Arwidsson, No. 53, Liten Kerstin och Fru Sofia), and several in German, as Graf Hans von Holstein und seine Schwester Annchristine, Erk, Liederhort, p. 155; Der Grausame Bruder, Erk, p. 153, and Hoffmann, Schlesische Volkslieder, No. 27; Der Grobe Bruder, Wunderhorn, ii. 272; Der Pfalzgraf am Rhein, id. i. 259, etc.; also a fragment in Wendish. The relationship of the English ballad to the rest of the cycle can perhaps be easiest shown by comparison with the simplified and corrupted German versions.

The story appears to be founded on facts which occurred during the reign and in the family of the Danish king, Waldemar the First, sometime between 1157 and 1167. Waldemar is described as being, with all his greatness, of a relentless and cruel disposition (in ira pertinax; in suos tantum plus justo crudelior). Tradition, however, has imputed to him a brutal ferocity beyond belief. In the ballad before us, Lady Maisry suffers for her weakness by being burned at the stake, but in the Danish, Swedish, and German ballads, the king's sister is beaten to death with leathern whips, by her brother's own hand.

The Icelandic and Faroe ballads have nothing of this horrible ferocity, but contain a story which is much nearer to probability, if not to historical truth. While King Waldemar is absent on an expedition against the Wends, his sister Kristín is drawn into a liaison with her second-cousin, the result of which is the birth of two children. Sofía, the Queen, maliciously makes the state of things known to the king the moment he returns (which is on the very day of Kristín's lying in, according to the Danish ballad), but he will not believe the story,—all the more because the accused parties are within prohibited degrees of consanguinity. Kristín is summoned to come instantly to her brother, and obeys the message, though she is weak with childbirth, and knows that the journey will cost her her life. She goes to the court on horseback (in the Danish ballads falling from the saddle once or twice on the way), and on her arrival is put to various tests to ascertain her condition, concluding with a long dance with the king, to which, having held out for a considerable time, she at last succumbs, and falls dead in her brother's arms.

The incidents of the journey on horseback, and the cruel probation by the dance, are found in the ballad which follows the present (Fair Janet), and these coincidences Grundtvig considers sufficient to establish its derivation from the Danish. The general similarity of Lady Maisry to King Waldemar and his Sister is, however, much more striking. For our part, we are inclined to believe that both the English ballads had this origin, but the difference in their actual form is so great, that, notwithstanding this conviction, we have not felt warranted in putting them together.

v. 41. See preface to Clerk Saunders, p. 319.

FAIR JANET.

From Sharpe's Ballad Book, p. 1.

"This ballad, the subject of which appears to have been very popular, is printed as it was sung by an old woman in Perthshire. The air is extremely beautiful."

Herd gave an imperfect version of this ballad under the title of Willie and Annet, in his Scottish Songs, i. 219; repeated after him in Ritson's Scottish Songs, and in Johnson's Museum. Finlay's copy, improved, but made up of fragments, follows the present, and in the Appendix is Sweet Willie and Fair Maisry, from Buchan's collection. We have followed Motherwell by inserting (in brackets) three stanzas from Willie and Annet and Sweet Willie, which contribute slightly to complete Sharpe's copy. None of these ballads is satisfactory, though Sharpe's is the best. Touching the relation of Fair Janet to the Danish ballad of King Waldemar and his Sister, the reader will please look at the preface to the preceding ballad.

SWEET WILLIE.

"This ballad has had the misfortune, in common with many others, of being much mutilated by reciters. I have endeavoured, by the assistance of some fragments, to make it as complete as possible; and have even taken the liberty of altering the arrangement of some of the stanzas of a lately-procured copy, that they might the better cohere with those already printed." Finlay's Scottish Ballads, ii. 61.

93. Sic Herd. Finlay, then sweet Willie.

97. Sic Herd. Finlay, Willie, she said.

FAIR ANNIE OF LOCHROYAN.

Of this beautiful piece a complete copy was first published by Scott, another afterwards by Jamieson. Both are here given, the latter, as in some respects preferable, having the precedence. The ballad is found almost entire in Herd's Scottish Songs, i. 206, a short fragment in Johnson's Museum, p. 5, and a more considerable one, called Love Gregory, in Buchan's collection, ii. 199. This last has been unnecessarily repeated in a very indifferent publication of the Percy Society, vol. xvii. Dr. Wolcot, Burns, and Jamieson have written songs on the story of Fair Annie, and Cunningham has modernized Sir Walter Scott's version, after his fashion, in the Songs of Scotland, i. 298.

Of his text, Jamieson remarks, "it is given verbatim from the large MS. collection, transmitted from Aberdeen, by my zealous and industrious friend, Professor Robert Scott of that university. I have every reason to believe, that no liberty whatever has been taken with the text, which is certainly more uniform than any copy heretofore published. It was first written down many years ago, with no view towards being committed to the press; and is now given from the copy then taken, with the addition only of stanzas twenty-two and twenty-three, which the editor has inserted from memory." Popular Ballads, i. 36.

"Lochryan is a beautiful, though somewhat wild and secluded bay, which projects from the Irish Channel into Wigtonshire, having the little seaport of Stranraer situated at its bottom. Along its coast, which is in some places high and rocky, there are many ruins of such castles as that described in the ballad." Chambers.

THE LASS OF LOCHROYAN.

Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, iii. 199.

"This edition of the ballad is composed of verses selected from three MS. copies, and two obtained from recitation. Two of the copies are in Herd's MS.; the third in that of Mrs. Brown of Falkland."

Lord Gregory is represented in Scott's version, "as confined by fairy charms in an enchanted castle situated in the sea." But Jamieson assures us that when a boy he had frequently heard this ballad chanted in Morayshire, and no mention was ever made of enchantment, or "fairy charms." "Indeed," he very justly adds, "the two stanzas on that subject [v. 41-52,] are in a style of composition very peculiar, and different from the rest of the piece, and strongly remind us of the interpolations in the ballad of Gil Morris."

THE DOUGLAS TRAGEDY.

Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, iii. 3.

This ballad, of which more than thirty versions have been published in the Northern languages, is preserved in English in several forms, all of them more or less unsatisfactory. Of these the present copy comes nearest to the pure original, as it is found in Danish. The next best is The Brave Earl Brand and The King of England's Daughter, recently printed for the first time in Bell's Ballads of the Peasantry, and given at the end of this volume. Erlinton (vol. iii. 220) is much mutilated, and has a perverted conclusion, but retains a faint trace of one characteristic trait of the ancient ballad, which really constitutes the turning point of the story, but which all the others lack. (See Erlinton.) A fragment exists in the Percy MS., of which we can only say that if it much resembled Percy's Child of Elle (which it cannot), it might without loss be left undisturbed forever. In the only remaining copy Robin Hood appears as the hero. (See vol. v. p. 334.) It is of slight value, but considerably less insipid than the Child of Elle. Motherwell (Minstrelsy, p. 180) has given a few variations to Scott's ballad, but they are of no importance.—Of the corresponding Danish ballad, Ribolt og Guldborg, Grundtvig has collected more than twenty versions, some of them ancient, many obtained from recitation, and eight of the kindred Hildebrand og Hilde. There have also been printed of the latter, three versions in Swedish, and of the former, three in Icelandic, two in Norse, and seven in Swedish. (Danmarks Gamle Folkeviser, ii. 308-403, 674-81.) Jamieson has translated an inferior copy of the Danish ballad in Illustrations of North. Antiq., p. 317.

"The ballad of The Douglas Tragedy," says Scott, "is one of the few (?) to which popular tradition has ascribed complete locality.

"The farm of Blackhouse, in Selkirkshire, is said to have been the scene of this melancholy event. There are the remains of a very ancient tower, adjacent to the farm-house, in a wild and solitary glen, upon a torrent named Douglas burn, which joins the Yarrow, after passing a craggy rock, called the Douglas craig.... From this ancient tower Lady Margaret is said to have been carried by her lover. Seven large stones, erected upon the neighboring heights of Blackhouse, are shown, as marking the spot where the seven brethren were slain; and the Douglas burn is averred to have been the stream at which the lovers stopped to drink: so minute is tradition in ascertaining the scene of a tragical tale, which, considering the rude state of former times, had probably foundation in some real event."

Were it not for Scott's concluding remark, and the obstinate credulity of most of the English and Scotch editors, we should hardly think it necessary to say that the locality of some of the incidents in Ribolt and Guldborg, is equally well ascertained (Grundtvig, 342, 343). "Popular tales and anecdotes of every kind," as Jamieson well remarks, "soon obtain locality wherever they are told; and the intelligent and attentive traveller will not be surprised to find the same story which he had learnt when a child, with every appropriate circumstance of names, time, and place, in a Glen of Morven, Lochaber, or Rannoch, equally domesticated among the mountains of Norway, Caucasus, or Thibet." Ill. North. Ant. p. 317.

69-80. This miracle is frequently witnessed over the graves of faithful lovers.—King Mark, according to the German romance, planted a rose on Tristan's grave, and a vine on that of Isold. The roots struck down into the very hearts of the dead lovers, and the stems twined lovingly together. The French account is somewhat different. An eglantine sprung from the tomb of Tristan, and twisted itself round the monument of Isold. It was cut down three times, but grew up every morning fresher than before, so that it was allowed to stand. Other examples are, in this volume, Fair Janet, Lord Thomas and Fair Annet; in the third volume, Prince Robert, &c. The same phenomenon is exhibited in the Swedish ballads of Hertig Fröjdenborg och Fröken Adelin, Lilla Rosa, Hilla Lilla, Hertig Nils, (Svenska Folk-Visor, i. 95, 116, Arwidsson, ii. 8, 21, 24,) in the Danish ballad of Herr Sallemand, (Danske Viser, iii. 348,) in the Breton ballad of Lord Nann and the Korrigan, translated in Keightley's Fairy Mythology, p. 433, in a Servian tale cited by Talvi, Versuch, &c., p. 139, and in the Afghan poem of Audam and Doorkhaunee, described by Elphinstone, Account of the Kingdom of Caubul, i. 295,—which last reference we owe to Talvi.—In the case of the Danish ballad it is certain, and in some of the other cases probable, that the idea was derived from the romance of Tristan.

LORD THOMAS AND FAIR ELLINOR.

The four pieces which follow have all the same subject. Lord Thomas and Fair Ellinor, is given from the Collection of Old Ballads, 1723, vol. i. p. 249, where it is entitled, A Tragical Ballad on the unfortunate Love of Lord Thomas and Fair Ellinor, together with the Downfal of the Brown Girl. The text differs but slightly from that of Percy, (iii. 121,) and Ritson, Ancient Songs, ii. 89.

LORD THOMAS AND FAIR ANNET.

From Percy's Reliques, iii. 290, where it was "given, with some corrections, from a MS. copy transmitted from Scotland." There is a corresponding Swedish Ballad, Herr Peder och Liten Kerstin, in the Svenska Folk-Visor, i. 49. It is translated in Literature and Romance of Northern Europe, by William and Mary Howitt, i. 258.

SWEET WILLIE AND FAIR ANNIE

Is another version of the foregoing piece, furnished by Jamieson, Popular Ballads, i. 22.

"The text of Lord Thomas and Fair Annet," remarks Jamieson, "seems to have been adjusted, previous to its leaving Scotland, by some one who was more of a scholar than the reciters of ballads generally are; and, in attempting to give it an antique cast, it has been deprived of somewhat of that easy facility which is the distinguished characteristic of the traditionary ballad narrative. With the text of the following ditty, no such experiment has been made. It is here given pure and entire, as it was taken down by the editor, from the recitation of a lady in Aberbrothick, (Mrs. W. Arrot.) As she had, when a child, learnt the ballad from an elderly maid-servant, and probably had not repeated it for a dozen years before I had the good fortune to be introduced to her, it may be depended upon, that every line was recited to me as nearly as possible in the exact form in which she learnt it."

Mr. Chambers, in conformity with the plan of his work, presents us with an edition composed out of Percy's and Jamieson's, with some amended readings and additional verses from a manuscript copy, (Scottish Ballads, p. 269.)

19. That is, my slumbers are short, broken, and interrupted. J.

60. Duplin town. Duplin is the seat of the earl of Kinnoul, from which he derives his title of viscount. It is in the neighborhood of Perth. It is observable, that ballads are very frequently adapted to the meridian of the place where they are found. J.

FAIR MARGARET AND SWEET WILLIAM.

From Percy's Reliques, iii. 164.

"This seems to be the old song quoted in Fletcher's Knight of the Burning Pestle, acts ii. and iii.; although the six lines there preserved are somewhat different from those in the ballad, as it stands at present. The reader will not wonder at this, when he is informed that this is only given from a modern printed copy picked up on a stall. Its full title is Fair Margaret's misfortunes; or Sweet William's frightful dreams on his wedding night, with the sudden death and burial of those noble lovers.

"The lines preserved in the play are this distich:

Act iii. 5.

And the following stanza:

Act ii. 8.

"These lines have acquired an importance by giving birth to one of the most beautiful ballads in our own or any other language: [Mallet's Margaret's Ghost.]

"Since the first edition, some improvements have been inserted, which were communicated by a lady of the first distinction, as she had heard this song repeated in her infancy."

The variations in Herd's copy, (i. 145,) and in Ritson's (Ancient Songs, ii. 92,) are unimportant.

In the main the same is the widely known ballad, Der Ritter und das Mägdlein, Erk, p. 81, Hoffmann's Schlesische Volkslieder, p. 9; Herr Malmstens Dröm, Svenska Folkvisor, iii. 104, Arwidsson, ii. 21; Volkslieder der Wenden, by Haupt and Schmaler, i. 159-162 (Hoffmann); in Dutch, with a different close, Hoffmann's Niederländische Volkslieder, p. 61: also Lord Lovel, post, p. 162.

21-24.

Herd's copy.

62. Alluding to the dole anciently given at funerals. P.

SWEET WILLIAM'S GHOST

As already remarked, is often made the sequel to other ballads. (See Clerk Saunders, p. 45.) It was first printed in the fourth volume of Ramsay's Tea Table Miscellany, with some imperfections, and with two spurious stanzas for a conclusion. We subjoin to Ramsay's copy the admirable version obtained by Motherwell from recitation, and still another variation furnished by Kinloch.

Closely similar in many respects are the Danish Fæstemanden i Graven (Aage og Else), Grundtvig, No. 90, and the Swedish Sorgens Magt, Svenska F. V., i. 29, ii. 204, or Arwidsson, ii. 103. Also Der Todte Freier, Erk's Liederhort, 24, 24 a. In the Danish and Swedish ballads it is the uncontrolled grief of his mistress that calls the lover from his grave: in the English, the desire to be freed from his troth-plight.—See vol. i. p. 213, 217.

39. ther's.

WILLIAM AND MARJORIE.

Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. 186.

SWEET WILLIAM AND MAY MARGARET.

Kinloch's Ancient Scottish Ballads, p. 241.

BONNY BARBARA ALLAN

Was first published in Ramsay's Tea-Table Miscellany, (ii. 171,) from which it is transferred verbatim into Herd's Scottish Songs, Johnson's Museum, Ritson's Scottish Songs, &c. Percy printed it, "with a few conjectural emendations, from a written copy," Reliques, iii. 175, together with another version, which follows the present. Mr. G. F. Graham, Songs of Scotland, ii. 157, has pointed out an allusion to the "little Scotch Song of Barbary Allen," in Pepys's Diary, 2 Jan. 1665-6.

BARBARA ALLEN'S CRUELTY.

From Percy's Reliques, iii. 169.

"Given, with some corrections, from an old blackletter copy, entitled, Barbara Allen's Cruelty, or the Young Man's Tragedy."

LORD LOVEL.

"This ballad, taken down from the recitation of a lady in Roxburghshire, appears to claim affinity to Border Song; and the title of the 'discourteous squire,' would incline one to suppose that it has derived its origin from some circumstance connected with the county of Northumberland, where Lovel was anciently a well-known name." Kinloch's Ancient Scottish Ballads, p. 31.

A version from a recent broadside is printed in Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs of the Peasantry of England, Percy Society, vol. xvii. p. 78.

A fragment of a similar story, the relations of the parties being reversed, is Lady Alice, given in Bell's Ballads of the Peasantry, p. 127, and Notes and Queries, 2d S, i. 418.—Compare also Fair Margaret, &c. p. 140.

LORD SALTON AND AUCHANACHIE.

The following fragment was first published in Maidment's North Countrie Garland, p. 10; shortly after, in Buchan's Gleanings, p. 161. A more complete copy, from Buchan's larger collection, is annexed.

LORD SALTON AND AUCHANACHIE.

From Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, ii. 133.

WILLIE AND MAY MARGARET.

A fragment obtained by Jamieson from the recitation of Mrs. Brown, of Falkland. Popular Ballads, i. 135. In connection with this we give the complete story from Buchan. Aytoun has changed the title to The Mother's Malison. An Italian ballad, containing a story similar to that of this ballad and the two following (but of independent origin), is La Maledizione Materna, in Marcoaldi's Canti Popolari, p. 170.

THE DROWNED LOVERS.

From Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, i. 140. The copy in the Appendix to Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. iii., is nearly the same.

39, 40. Found also in Leander on the Bay, and taken from the epigram of Martial:

WILLIE'S DROWNED IN GAMERY.

From Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, i. 245. A fragment, exhibiting some differences, is among those ballads of Buchan which are published in the Percy Society's volumes, xvii. 66. Four stanzas, of a superior cast, upon the same story, are printed in the Tea-Table Miscellany, (ii. 141.)

These stanzas furnished the theme to Logan's Braes of Yarrow.

ANNAN WATER.

Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, iii. 282.

"The following verses are the original words of the tune of Allan Water, by which name the song is mentioned in Ramsay's Tea-Table Miscellany. The ballad is given from tradition; and it is said that a bridge over the Annan, was built in consequence of the melancholy catastrophe which it narrates. Two verses are added in this edition, from another copy of the ballad, in which the conclusion proves fortunate. By the Gatehope-Slack, is perhaps meant the Gate-Slack, a pass in Annandale. The Annan, and the Frith of Solway, into which it falls, are the frequent scenes of tragical accidents. The Editor trusts he will be pardoned for inserting the following awfully impressive account of such an event, contained in a letter from Dr. Currie, of Liverpool, by whose correspondence, while in the course of preparing these volumes for the press, he has been alike honoured and instructed. After stating that he had some recollection of the ballad which follows, the biographer of Burns proceeds thus:—'I once in my early days heard (for it was night, and I could not see) a traveller drowning; not in the Annan itself, but in the Frith of Solway, close by the mouth of that river. The influx of the tide had unhorsed him, in the night, as he was passing the sands from Cumberland. The west wind blew a tempest, and, according to the common expression, brought in the water three foot a-breast. The traveller got upon a standing net, a little way from the shore. There he lashed himself to the post, shouting for half an hour for assistance—till the tide rose over his head! In the darkness of the night, and amid the pauses of the hurricane, his voice, heard at intervals, was exquisitely mournful. No one could go to his assistance—no one knew where he was—the sound seemed to proceed from the spirit of the waters. But morning rose—the tide had ebbed—and the poor traveller was found lashed to the pole of the net, and bleaching in the wind.'"

Scott.

ANDREW LAMMIE.

"From a stall copy published at Glasgow several years ago, collated with a recited copy, which has furnished one or two verbal improvements." Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. 239.

Mr. Jamieson has published two other sets of this simple, but touching ditty, (i. 126, ii. 382,) one of which is placed after the present. Motherwell's text is almost verbatim that of Buchan's Gleanings, p. 98. The Thistle of Scotland copies Buchan and Jamieson without acknowledgment.

The story has been made the foundation of a rude drama in the North of Scotland. For a description of similar entertainments, see Cunningham's Introduction to his Songs of Scotland, i. 148.

The unfortunate maiden's name, according to Buchan, (Gleanings, p. 197,) "was Annie, or Agnes, (which are synonymous in some parts of Scotland,) Smith, who died of a broken heart on the 9th of January, 1631, as is to be found on a roughly cut stone, broken in many pieces, in the green churchyard of Fyvie." "What afterwards became of Bonny Andrew Lammie," says Jamieson, "we have not been able to learn; but the current tradition of the 'Lawland leas of Fyvie,' says, that some years subsequent to the melancholy fate of poor Tifty's Nanny, her sad story being mentioned, and the ballad sung in a company in Edinburgh when he was present, he remained silent and motionless, till he was discovered by a groan suddenly bursting from him, and several of the buttons flying from his waistcoat."

211. "In one printed copy this is 'Sheugh,' and in a recited copy it was called 'Skew'; which is the right reading, the editor, from his ignorance of the topography of the lands of Fyvie, is unable to say. It is a received superstition in Scotland, that, when friends or lovers part at a bridge, they shall never again meet." Motherwell.

THE TRUMPETER OF FYVIE.

"The ballad was taken down by Dr. Leyden from the recitation of a young lady (Miss Robson) of Edinburgh, who learned it in Teviotdale. It was current in the Border counties within these few years, as it still is in the northeast of Scotland, where the scene is laid." Jamieson's Popular Ballads, i. 129.

FAIR HELEN OF KIRCONNELL.

"The following very popular ballad has been handed down by tradition in its present imperfect state. The affecting incident on which it is founded is well known. A lady, of the name of Helen Irving, or Bell, (for this is disputed by the two clans,) daughter of the Laird of Kirconnell, in Dumfries-shire, and celebrated for her beauty, was beloved by two gentlemen in the neighbourhood. The name of the favoured suitor was Adam Fleming of Kirkpatrick; that of the other has escaped tradition: though it has been alleged that he was a Bell, of Blacket House. The addresses of the latter were, however, favoured by the friends of the lady, and the lovers were therefore obliged to meet in secret, and by night, in the churchyard of Kirconnell, a romantic spot, almost surrounded by the river Kirtle. During one of these private interviews, the jealous and despised lover suddenly appeared on the opposite bank of the stream, and levelled his carabine at the breast of his rival. Helen threw herself before her lover, received in her bosom the bullet, and died in his arms. A desperate and mortal combat ensued between Fleming and the murderer, in which the latter was cut to pieces. Other accounts say, that Fleming pursued his enemy to Spain, and slew him in the streets of Madrid.

"The ballad, as now published, consists of two parts. The first seems to be an address, either by Fleming or his rival, to the lady; if, indeed, it constituted any portion of the original poem. For the Editor cannot help suspecting, that these verses have been the production of a different and inferior bard, and only adapted to the original measure and tune. But this suspicion being unwarranted by any copy he has been able to procure, he does not venture to do more than intimate his own opinion. The second part, by far the most beautiful, and which is unquestionably original, forms the lament of Fleming over the grave of fair Helen.

"The ballad is here given, without alteration or improvement, from the most accurate copy which could be recovered. The fate of Helen has not, however, remained unsung by modern bards. A lament, of great poetical merit, by the learned historian, Mr. Pinkerton, with several other poems on this subject, have been printed in various forms.[B]

"The grave of the lovers is yet shown in the churchyard of Kirconnell, near Springkell. Upon the tombstone can still be read—Hic jacet Adamus Fleming; a cross and sword are sculptured on the stone. The former is called by the country people, the gun with which Helen was murdered; and the latter the avenging sword of her lover. Sit illis terra levis! A heap of stones is raised on the spot where the murder was committed; a token of abhorrence common to most nations." Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, iii. 98.

Versions of the Second Part, (which alone deserves notice,) nearly agreeing with Scott's, are given in the Illustrations to the new edition of Johnson's Museum, p. 143, by Mr. Stenhouse, p. 210, by Mr. Sharpe. Inferior and fragmentary ones in Herd's Scottish Songs, i. 257; Johnson's Museum, 163; Ritson's Scottish Song, i. 145; Jamieson's Popular Ballads, i. 203.

[B] For Pinkerton's elegy, see his Select Scottish Ballads, i. 109; for Mayne's, the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. 86, Part ii. 64. Jamieson has enfeebled the story in Popular Ballads, i. 205, and Wordsworth's Ellen Irwin hardly deserves more praise. Ed.

FAIR HELEN.

PART FIRST.

FAIR HELEN.

PART SECOND.

THE LOWLANDS OF HOLLAND.

Mr. Stenhouse was informed that this ballad was composed, about the beginning of the last century, by a young widow in Galloway, whose husband was drowned on a voyage to Holland. (Musical Museum, ed. 1853, iv. 115.) But some of the verses appear to be old, and one stanza will be remarked to be of common occurrence in ballad poetry.

A fragment of this piece was published in Herd's collection, (ii. 49.) Our copy is from Johnson's Museum, p. 118, with the omission, however, of one spurious and absurd stanza, while another, not printed by Johnson, is supplied from the note above cited to the new edition. Cunningham makes sense of the interpolated verses and retains them; otherwise his version is nearly the same as the present. (Songs of Scotland, ii. 181.)

33-36, 45-48. With the conclusion of this piece may be compared a passage from Bonny Bee-Ho'm, vol. iii. p. 57.

See also The Weary Coble o' Cargill.

BOOK III.

THE TWA BROTHERS.

From Jamieson's Popular Ballads, i. 59.

The ballad of the Twa Brothers, like many of the domestic tragedies with which it is grouped in this volume, is by no means the peculiar property of the island of Great Britain. It finds an exact counterpart in the Swedish ballad Sven i Rosengård, Svenska F. V., No. 67, Arwidsson, No. 87, A, B, which, together with a Finnish version of the same story, thought to be derived from the Swedish, will be found translated in our Appendix. Edward, in Percy's Reliques, has the same general theme, with the difference that a father is murdered instead of a brother. Motherwell[C] has printed a ballad (Son Davie) closely agreeing with Edward, except that the crime is again fratricide. He has also furnished another version of The Twa Brothers, in which the catastrophe is the consequence of an accident, and this circumstance has led the excellent editor to tax Jamieson with altering one of the most essential features of the ballad, by filling out a defective stanza with four lines that make one brother to have slain the other in a quarrel. Jamieson is, however, justified in giving this more melancholy character to the story, by the tenor of all the kindred pieces, and by the language of his own. It will be observed that both in Edward and Son Davie, the wicked act was not only deliberate, but was even instigated by the mother. The departure from the original is undoubtedly on the part of Motherwell's copy, which has softened down a shocking incident to accommodate a modern and refined sentiment. But Jamieson is artistically, as well as critically right, since the effect of the contrast of the remorse of one party and the generosity of the other is heightened by representing the terrible event as the result of ungoverned passion.

The three Scottish ballads mentioned above, here follow, and Motherwell's Twa Brothers will be found in the Appendix. Mr. Sharpe has inserted a third copy of this in his Ballad Book, p. 56. Another is said to be in The Scot's Magazine, for June, 1822. Placing no confidence in any of Allan Cunningham's souvenirs of Scottish Song, we simply state that one of them, composed upon the theme of the Twa Brothers, is included in the Songs of Scotland, ii. 16.

"The common title of this ballad is, The Twa Brothers, or, The Wood o' Warslin, but the words o' Warslin appearing to the editor, as will be seen in the text, to be a mistake for a-wrestling, he took the liberty of altering it accordingly. After all, perhaps, the title may be right; and the wood may afterwards have obtained its denomination from the tragical event here celebrated. A very few lines inserted by the editor to fill up chasms, [some of which have been omitted,] are inclosed in brackets; the text, in other respects, is given genuine, as it was taken down from the recitation of Mrs. Arrott." Jamieson.

[C] The stanza mentioned by Motherwell, as occurring in Werner's Twenty Fourth of February, (Scene i.) is apparently only a quotation from memory of Herder's translation of Edward. When Motherwell became aware that a similar tradition was common to the Northern nations of Europe, he could no longer have thought it possible that an occurrence in the family history of the Somervilles gave rise to The Twa Brothers.

32. "The house of Inchmurry, formerly called Kirkland, was built of old by the abbot of Holyrood-house, for his accommodation when he came to that country, and was formerly the minister's manse." Stat. Ac. of Scotland, vol. xiii. p. 506. J.

EDWARD, EDWARD.

"This curious Song was transmitted to the Editor by Sir David Dalrymple, Bart., late Lord Hailes."

Percy, Reliques, i. 61.

SON DAVIE, SON DAVIE.

From the recitation of an old woman. Motherwell's Minstrelsy, 339.

THE CRUEL SISTER.

The earliest printed copy of this ballad is the curious piece in Wit Restor'd, (1658,) called The Miller and the King's Daughter, improperly said to be a parody, by Jamieson and others. (See Appendix.) Pinkerton inserted in his Tragic Ballads, (p. 72,) a ballad on the subject, which preserves many genuine lines, but is half his own composition. Complete versions were published by Scott and Jamieson, and more recently a third has been furnished in Sharpe's Ballad Book, p. 30, and a fourth in Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland (given at the end of this volume). The burden of Mr. Sharpe's copy is nearly the same as that of the Cruel Mother, post, p. 372. Jamieson's copy had also this burden, but he exchanged it for the more popular, and certainly more tasteful, Binnorie. No ballad furnishes a closer link than this between the popular poetry of England and that of the other nations of Northern Europe. The same story is found in Icelandic, Norse, Faroish, and Estnish ballads, as well as in the Swedish and Danish, and a nearly related one in many other ballads or tales, German, Polish, Lithuanian, etc., etc.—See Svenska Folk-Visor, iii. 16, i. 81, 86, Arwidsson, ii. 139, and especially Den Talende Strengeleg, Grundtvig, No. 95, and the notes to Der Singende Knochen, K. u. H. Märchen, iii. 55, ed. 1856.

Of the edition in the Border Minstrelsy, Scott gives the following account, (iii. 287.)

"It is compiled from a copy in Mrs. Brown's MSS., intermixed with a beautiful fragment, of fourteen verses, transmitted to the Editor by J. C. Walker, Esq. the ingenious historian of the Irish bards. Mr. Walker, at the same time, favored the Editor with the following note: 'I am indebted to my departed friend, Miss Brook, for the foregoing pathetic fragment. Her account of it was as follows: This song was trans-scribed, several years ago, from the memory of an old woman, who had no recollection of the concluding verses; probably the beginning may also be lost, as it seems to commence abruptly.' The first verse and burden of the fragment ran thus:—

THE TWA SISTERS.

Verbatim (with one interpolated stanza) from the recitation of Mrs. Brown. Jamieson's Popular Ballads, i. 50.

LORD DONALD.

Kinloch's Ancient Scottish Ballads, p. 110.

Like the two which preceded it, this ballad is common to the Gothic nations. It exists in a great variety of forms. Two stanzas, recovered by Burns, were printed in Johnson's Museum, i. 337; two others were inserted by Jamieson, in his Illustrations, p. 319. The Border Minstrelsy furnished five stanzas, giving the story, without the bequests. Allan Cunningham's alteration of Scott's version, (Scottish Songs, i. 285,) has one stanza more. Kinloch procured from the North of Scotland the following complete copy.

In the Appendix, we have placed a nursery song on the same subject, still familiar in Scotland, and translations of the corresponding German and Swedish ballads—both most remarkable cases of parallelism in popular romance.

Lord Donald, as Kinloch remarks, would seem to have been poisoned by eating toads prepared as fishes. Scott, in his introduction to Lord Randal, has quoted from an old chronicle, a fabulous account of the poisoning of King John by means of a cup of ale, in which the venom of this reptile had been infused.

LORD RANDAL (B).

From Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, (iii. 49.)

Scott changed the name of the hero of this piece from Lord Ronald to Lord Randal, on the authority of a single copy. The change is unimportant, but the reason will appear curious, if we remember that the Swedes and Germans have the ballad as well as the Scotch;—"because, though the circumstances are so very different, I think it not impossible, that the ballad may have originally regarded the death of Thomas Randolph, or Randal, Earl of Murray, nephew to Robert Bruce, and governor of Scotland."

THE CRUEL BROTHER: OR, THE BRIDE'S TESTAMENT.

Of this ballad, which is still commonly recited and sung in Scotland, four copies have been published. The following is from Jamieson's collection, i. 66, where it was printed verbatim after the recitation of Mrs. Arrott. A copy from Aytoun's collection is subjoined, which is nearly the same as a less perfect one in Herd, i. 149, and the fourth, from Gilbert's Ancient Christmas Carols, &c., is in the Appendix to this volume.

The conclusion, or testamentary part, occurs very frequently in ballads, e. g. Den lillas Testamente, Svenska Folk-Visor, No. 68, translated in the Appendix to this volume, the end of Den onde Svigermoder, Danske Viser, i. 261, translated in Illustrations of Northern Antiquities, p. 344, Möen paa Baalet, Grundtvig, No. 109, A, st. 18-21, and Kong Valdemar og hans Söster, Grundtvig, No. 126, A, st. 101-105. See also Edward, and Lord Donald, p. 225, p. 244.

THE CRUEL BROTHER.

From Aytoun's Ballads of Scotland (2d ed.), i. 232, "taken down from recitation." Found also, but with several stanzas wanting, in Herd's Scottish Songs, i. 149. The title in both collections is Fine Flowers i' the Valley. This part of the refrain is found in one of the versions of the Cruel Mother, p. 269. To Herd's copy are annexed two fragmentary stanzas with nearly the same burden as that of the foregoing ballad.

LADY ANNE.

From Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, iii. 18.

"This ballad was communicated to me by Mr. Kirkpatrick Sharpe of Hoddom, who mentions having copied it from an old magazine. Although it has probably received some modern corrections, the general turn seems to be ancient, and corresponds with that of a fragment which I have often heard sung in my childhood."

The version to which Sir Walter Scott refers, and part of which he proceeds to quote, had been printed in Johnson's Museum. It is placed immediately after the present, with other copies of the ballad from Motherwell and Kinloch.

In Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland there are two more, which are repeated with slight variations in the XVII. Vol. of the Percy Society, p. 46, p. 50. Both will be found in the Appendix. The copy in Buchan's Gleanings, p. 90, seems to be taken from Scott. Smith's Scottish Minstrel, iv. 33, affords still another variety.

In German, Die Kindesmörderin, Erk's Liederhort, No. 41, five copies; Erlach, iv. 148; Hoffmann, Schlesische V. L., No. 31, 32; Wunderhorn, ii. 202; Zuccalmaglio, No. 97; Meinert, No. 81; Simrock, p. 87. (But some of these are repetitions.) Wendish, Haupt and Schmaler, I. No. 292, and with considerable differences, I. No. 290, II. 197. This last reference is taken from Grundtvig, ii. 531.

FINE FLOWERS IN THE VALLEY.

From Johnson's Musical Museum, p. 331.

The first line of the burden is found also in The Cruel Brother, p. 258.

THE CRUEL MOTHER.

From Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. 161.

THE CRUEL MOTHER.

From Kinloch's Ancient Scottish Ballads, p. 46.

Three stanzas of a Warwickshire version closely resembling Kinloch's are given in Notes and Queries, vol. viii. p. 358.

MAY COLVIN, OR FALSE SIR JOHN.

In the very ancient though corrupted ballads of Lady Isabel and the Elf-Knight, and The Water o' Wearie's Well (vol. i. p. 195, 198), an Elf or a Merman occupies the place here assigned to False Sir John. Perhaps May Colvin is the result of the same modernizing process by which Hynde Etin has been converted into Young Hastings the Groom (vol. i. p. 294, 189). The coincidence of the name with Clerk Colvill, in vol. i. p. 192, may have some significance. This, however, would not be the opinion of Grundtvig, who regards the Norse and German ballads resembling Lady Isabel, &c., as compounded of two independent stories. If this be so, then we should rather say that a ballad similar to May Colvin has been made to furnish the conclusion to the pieces referred to.

The story of this ballad has apparently some connection with Bluebeard, but it is hard to say what the connection is. (See Fitchers Vogel in the Grimms' K. u. H.-Märchen, No. 46, and notes.) The versions of the ballad in other languages are all but innumerable: e. g. Röfvaren Rymer, Röfvaren Brun, Svenska F.-V., No. 82, 83; Den Falske Riddaren, Arwidsson, No. 44; Ulrich und Aennchen, Schön Ulrich u. Roth-Aennchen, Schön Ulrich und Rautendelein, Ulinger, Herr Halewyn, etc., in Wunderhorn, i. 274; Uhland, 141-157 (four copies); Erk, Liederhort, 91, 93; Erlach, iii. 450; Zuccalmaglio, Deutsche Volkslieder, No. 15; Hoffmann, Schlesische Volkslieder, No. 12, 13, and Niederländische Volkslieder, No. 9, 10; etc. etc. A very brief Italian ballad will be found in the Appendix, p. 391, which seems to have the same theme. In some of the ballads the treacherous seducer is an enchanter, who prevails upon the maid to go with him by the power of a spell.

May Colvin was first published in Herd's Collection, vol. i. 153. The copy here given is one obtained from recitation by Motherwell, (Minstrelsy, p. 67,) collated by him with that of Herd. It is defective at the end. The other versions in Sharpe's Ballad Book, p. 45, and Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, ii. 45, though they are provided with some sort of conclusion, are not worth reprinting. A modernized version, styled The Outlandish Knight, is inserted in the Notes to Scottish Traditional Versions of Ancient Ballads, Percy Society, vol. xvii. 101.

Carlton Castle, on the coast of Carrick, is affirmed by the country people, according to Mr. Chambers, to have been the residence of the perfidious knight, and a precipice overhanging the sea, called "Fause Sir John's Loup," is pointed out as the place where he was wont to drown his wives. May Colvin is equally well ascertained to have been "a daughter of the family of Kennedy of Colzean, now represented by the Earl of Cassilis." Buchan's version assigns a different locality to the transaction—that of "Binyan's Bay," which, says the editor, is the old name of the mouth of the river Ugie.

BABYLON, OR, THE BONNIE BANKS O' FORDIE.

"This ballad is given from two copies obtained from recitation, which differ but little from each other. Indeed, the only variation is in the verse where the outlawed brother unweetingly slays his sister. One reading is,—

The other reading is that adopted in the text. This ballad is popular in the southern parishes of Perthshire: but where the scene is laid the editor has been unable to ascertain. Nor has any research of his enabled him to throw farther light on the history of its hero with the fantastic name, than what the ballad itself supplies." Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. 88.

Another version is subjoined, from Kinloch's collection.

This ballad is found in Danish; Herr Truels's Doettre, Danske Viser, No. 164. In a note the editor endeavors to show that the story is based on fact!

DUKE OF PERTH'S THREE DAUGHTERS.

From Kinloch's Ancient Scottish Ballads, p. 212.

JELLON GRAME.

From Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, iii. 162.

"This ballad is published from tradition, with some conjectural emendations. It is corrected by a copy in Mrs. Brown's MS., from which it differs in the concluding stanzas. Some verses are apparently modernized.

"Jellon seems to be the same name with Jyllian, or Julian. 'Jyl of Brentford's Testament' is mentioned in Warton's History of Poetry, vol. ii. p. 40. The name repeatedly occurs in old ballads, sometimes as that of a man, at other times as that of a woman. Of the former is an instance in the ballad of The Knight and the Shepherd's Daughter. [See this collection, vol. iii. p. 253.]

"Witton Gilbert, a village four miles west of Durham, is, throughout the bishopric, pronounced Witton Jilbert. We have also the common name of Giles, always in Scotland pronounced Jill. For Gille, or Juliana, as a female name, we have Fair Gillian of Croyden, and a thousand authorities. Such being the case, the Editor must enter his protest against the conversion of Gil Morrice into Child Maurice, an epithet of chivalry. All the circumstances in that ballad argue, that the unfortunate hero was an obscure and very young man, who had never received the honour of knighthood. At any rate there can be no reason, even were internal evidence totally wanting, for altering a well-known proper name, which, till of late years, has been the uniform title of the ballad." Scott.

May-a-Row, in Buchan's larger collection, ii. 231, is another, but an inferior, version of this ballad.

1. Silverwood, mentioned in this ballad, occurs in a medley MS. song, which seems to have been copied from the first edition of the Aberdeen Cantus, penes John G. Dalyell, Esq. advocate. One line only is cited, apparently the beginning of some song:—

"Silverwood, gin ye were mine." Scott.

YOUNG JOHNSTONE.

A fragment of this fine ballad (which is commonly called The Cruel Knight) was published by Herd, (i. 222,) and also by Pinkerton, (Select Scottish Ballads, i. 69,) with variations. Finlay constructed a nearly complete edition from two recited copies, but suppressed some lines. (Scottish Ballads, ii. 72.) The present copy is one which Motherwell obtained from recitation, with a few verbal emendations by that editor from Finlay's.

With respect to the sudden and strange catastrophe, Motherwell remarks:—

"The reciters of old ballads frequently supply the best commentaries upon them, when any obscurity or want of connection appears in the poetical narrative. This ballad, as it stands, throws no light on young Johnstone's motive for stabbing his lady; but the person from whose lips it was taken down alleged that the barbarous act was committed unwittingly, through young Johnstone's suddenly waking from sleep, and, in that moment of confusion and alarm, unhappily mistaking his mistress for one of his pursuers. It is not improbable but the ballad may have had, at one time, a stanza to the above effect, the substance of which is still remembered, though the words in which it was couched have been forgotten." Minstrelsy, p. 193.

Buchan's version, (Lord John's Murder, ii. 20,) it will be seen, supplies this deficiency.

15. In the copy obtained by the Editor, the word "ritted" did not occur, instead of which the word "stabbed" was used. The "nut-brown sword" was also changed into "a little small sword." Motherwell.

96. Buchan's version furnishes the necessary explanation of Young Johnstone's apparent cruelty:—

YOUNG BENJIE.

From the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, iii. 10. Bondsey and Maisry, another version of the same story, from Buchan's collection, is given in the Appendix.

"In this ballad the reader will find traces of a singular superstition, not yet altogether discredited in the wilder parts of Scotland. The lykewake, or watching a dead body, in itself a melancholy office, is rendered, in the idea of the assistants, more dismally awful, by the mysterious horrors of superstition. In the interval betwixt death and interment, the disembodied spirit is supposed to hover round its mortal habitation, and, if invoked by certain rites, retains the power of communicating, through its organs, the cause of its dissolution. Such inquiries, however, are always dangerous, and never to be resorted to, unless the deceased is suspected to have suffered foul play, as it is called. It is the more unsafe to tamper with this charm in an unauthorized manner, because the inhabitants of the infernal regions are, at such periods, peculiarly active. One of the most potent ceremonies in the charm, for causing the dead body to speak, is, setting the door ajar, or half open. On this account, the peasants of Scotland sedulously avoid leaving the door ajar, while a corpse lies in the house. The door must either be left wide open, or quite shut; but the first is always preferred, on account of the exercise of hospitality usual on such occasions. The attendants must be likewise careful never to leave the corpse for a moment alone, or, if it is left alone, to avoid, with a degree of superstitious horror, the first sight of it.

"The following story, which is frequently related by the peasants of Scotland, will illustrate the imaginary danger of leaving the door ajar. In former times, a man and his wife lived in a solitary cottage, on one of the extensive Border fells. One day the husband died suddenly; and his wife, who was equally afraid of staying alone by the corpse, or leaving the dead body by itself, repeatedly went to the door, and looked anxiously over the lonely moor for the sight of some person approaching. In her confusion and alarm she accidentally left the door ajar, when the corpse suddenly started up, and sat in the bed, frowning and grinning at her frightfully. She sat alone, crying bitterly, unable to avoid the fascination of the dead man's eye, and too much terrified to break the sullen silence, till a Catholic priest, passing over the wild, entered the cottage. He first set the door quite open, then put his little finger in his mouth, and said the paternoster backwards; when the horrid look of the corpse relaxed, it fell back on the bed, and behaved itself as a dead man ought to do.

"The ballad is given from tradition. I have been informed by a lady, [Miss Joanna Baillie,] of the highest literary eminence, that she has heard a ballad on the same subject, in which the scene was laid upon the banks of the Clyde. The chorus was,

"O Bothwell banks bloom bonny,"

and the watching of the dead corpse was said to have taken place in Bothwell church." Scott.

APPENDIX.

LORD BARNABY.

Scottish version of Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard. See p. 15.

From Jamieson's Popular Ballads and Songs, i. 170.

26. For slack'd read bent. J.

Note. [In v. 31] the term "braid bow" has been altered by the editor into "brent bow," i. e. straight, or unbent bow. In most of the old ballads, where a page is employed as the bearer of a message, we are told, that,

And

The application of the term bent, in the latter instance, does not seem correct, and is probably substituted for brent.

In the establishment of a feudal baron, every thing wore a military aspect; he was a warrior by profession; every man attached to him, particularly those employed about his person, was a soldier; and his little foot-page was very appropriately equipped in the light accoutrements of an archer. His bow, in the old ballad, seems as inseparable from his character as the bow of Cupid or of Apollo, or the caduceus of his celestial prototype Mercury. This bow, which he carried unbent, he seems to have bent when he had occasion to swim, in order that he might the more easily carry it in his teeth, to prevent the string from being injured by getting wet. At other times he availed himself of its length and elasticity in the brent, or straight state, and used it (as hunters do a leaping pole) in vaulting over the wall of the outer court of a castle, when his business would not admit of the tedious formality of blowing a horn, or ringing a bell, and holding a long parley with the porter at the gate, before he could gain admission. This, at least, appears to the editor to be the meaning of these passages in the old ballads. Jamieson.

CHILDE MAURICE. See p. 30.

From Jamieson's Popular Ballads and Songs, i. 8.

1. MS. silven. See vv. 25, 53, 70, 72.

11. out out.

25. Sic in MS.

CLERK SAUNDERS. See p. 45.

From Jamieson's Popular Ballads and Songs, i. 83.

"The following copy was transmitted by Mrs. Arrott of Aberbrothick. The stanzas, where the seven brothers are introduced, have been enlarged from two fragments, which, although very defective in themselves, furnished lines which, when incorporated with the text, seemed to improve it. Stanzas 21 and 22, were written by the editor; the idea of the rose being suggested by the gentleman who recited, but who could not recollect the language in which it was expressed."

This copy of Clerk Saunders bears traces of having been made up from several sources. A portion of the concluding stanzas (v. 107-130) have a strong resemblance to the beginning and end of Proud Lady Margaret (vol. viii. 83, 278), which ballad is itself in a corrupt condition. It may also be doubted whether the fragments Jamieson speaks of did not belong to a ballad resembling Lady Maisry, p. 78 of this volume.

Accepting the ballad as it stands here, there is certainly likeness enough in the first part to suggest a community of origin with the Swedish ballad Den Grymma Brodern, Svenska Folk-Visor, No. 86 (translated in Lit. and Rom. of Northern Europe, p. 261). W. Grimm mentions (Altdän. Heldenl., p. 519) a Spanish ballad, De la Blanca Niña, in the Romancero de Amberes, in which the similarity to Den Grymma Brodern is very striking. The series of questions (v. 30-62) sometimes appears apart from the story, and with a comic turn, as in Det Hurtige Svar, Danske V., No. 204, or Thore och hans Syster, Arwidsson, i. 358. In this shape they closely resemble the familiar old song, Our gudeman came hame at e'en, Herd, Scottish Songs, ii. 74.

114. The wa' here is supposed to mean the wall, which, in some old castles, surrounded the court. J.

LORD WA'YATES AND AULD INGRAM.

A FRAGMENT. See p. 72.

Jamieson's Popular Ballads, ii. 265.

"From Mr. Herd's MS., transmitted by Mr. Scott."

SWEET WILLIE AND FAIR MAISRY. See p. 79.

From Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, i. 97.

112. The first reel, danced with the bride, her maiden, and two young men, and called the Shame Spring, or Reel, as the bride chooses the tune that is to be played. B.

LADY MARJORIE. See p. 92.

"Given from the recitation of an old woman in Kilbarchan, Renfrewshire, from whom the Editor has obtained several valuable pieces of a like nature. In singing, O is added at the end of the second and fourth line of each stanza." Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. 234.

LEESOME BRAND.

Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, i. 38. This is properly a tragic story, as may be perceived by comparing the present corrupted version (evidently made up from several different sources) with the Danish and Swedish ballads. See Herr Medelvold, Danske Viser, iii. 361, Die wahrsagenden Nachtigallen, in Grimm's Altdänische Heldenlieder, p. 88, Fair Midel and Kirsten Lyle, translated by Jamieson, Illustrations, p. 377; and Herr Redevall, Svenska Folkvisor, ii. 189, Krist' Lilla och Herr Tideman, Arwidsson, i. 352, Sir Wal and Lisa Lyle, translated by Jamieson, p. 373.

Note to v. 49-72.—A similar passage is found at p. 94 of this volume, v. 33-36, also vol. v. p. 178, v. 97-108, and p. 402, v. 169-176, and in the Scandinavian ballads cited in the preface to this ballad. In these last the lady frees herself from the presence of the knight by sending him to get her some water, and she is found dead on his return. This incident, remarks Grimm, (Altdänische Heldenlieder, p. 508), is also found in Wolfdietrich, Str. 1680-96.

THE YOUTH OF ROSENGORD. See p. 219.

Sven i Rosengård, Svenska Folk-Visor, iii. 3, and Arwidsson's Fornsånger, ii. 83: translated in Literature and Romance of Northern Europe, i. 263.

THE BLOOD-STAINED SON.—See p. 219.

A translation, nearly word for word, of Der Blutige Sohn, printed from oral tradition in Schröter's Finnische Runen, (Finnisch und Deutsch,) ed. 1834, p. 151.

THE TWA BROTHERS. See p. 220.

From Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. 61.

THE MILLER AND THE KING'S DAUGHTER. See p. 231.

From Wit Restor'd, (1658,) reprinted, London, 1817, i. 153. It is there ascribed to "Mr. Smith," (Dr. James Smith, the author of many of the pieces in that collection,) who may have written it down from tradition, and perhaps added a verse or two. Mr. Rimbault has printed the same piece from a broadside dated 1656, in Notes and Queries, v. 591. A fragment of it is given from recitation at p. 316 of that volume, and a copy quite different from any before published, at p. 102 of vol. vi. Although two or three stanzas are ludicrous, and were probably intended for burlesque, this ballad is by no means to be regarded as a parody.

THE BONNY BOWS O' LONDON. See p. 231.

From Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, ii. 128.

I. THE CROODLIN DOO.

See Lord Donald, p. 244.

From Chambers's Scottish Ballads, p. 324. Other copies in The Scot's Musical Museum, (1853,) vol. iv. 364*, and Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, ii. 179.

II. THE SNAKE-COOK.

From oral tradition, in Erk's Deutscher Leiderhort, p. 6. Our homely translation is, as far as possible, word for word. Other German versions are The Stepmother, at p. 5 of the same collection, (or Uhland, i. 272,) and Grandmother Adder-cook, at p. 7. The last is translated by Jamieson, Illustrations of Northern Antiquities, p. 320.

III. THE CHILD'S LAST WILL.

Den lillas Testamente: Svenska Folk-Visor, iii. 13. Translated in Literature and Romance of Northern Europe, i. 265. See also Arwidsson's Fornsånger, ii. 90.

THE THREE KNIGHTS. See p. 251.

From the second edition of Gilbert's Ancient Christmas Carols, &c. p. 68.

THE CRUEL MOTHER. See p. 262.

From Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, ii. 222.

THE MINISTER'S DOCHTER O' NEWARKE.

See p. 262.

From Scottish Traditional Versions of Ancient Ballads, Percy Society, vol. xvii. p. 51. This is the same ballad, with trifling variations, as The Minister's Daughter of New York, Buchan, ii. 217.

BONDSEY AND MAISRY. See p. 298.

From Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, ii. 265.

LADY DIAMOND.

From the Percy Society Publications, xvii. 71. The same in Buchan, ii. 206. The ballad is given in Sharpe's Ballad Book, under the title of Dysmal, and by Aytoun, Ballads of Scotland, 2d ed., ii. 173, under that of Lady Daisy. All these names are corruptions of Ghismonda, on whose well-known story (Decamerone, iv. 1, 9) the present is founded.—This piece and the next might better have been inserted at p. 347, as a part of the Appendix to Book III.

THE WEST COUNTRY DAMOSELS COMPLAINT.

From Collier's Book of Roxburghe Ballads, p. 202.

After a broadside "printed by P. Brooksby, at the Golden Bull in Westsmith-field, neer the Hospitall Gate." The first ten or twelve stanzas seem to be ancient.

5, so then.

THE BRAVE EARL BRAND AND THE KING OF ENGLAND'S DAUGHTER.

See p. 114.

From Bell's Ballads of the Peasantry of England, p. 122.

This ballad, which was printed by Bell from the recitation of an old Northumberland fiddler, is defective in the tenth and the last stanzas, and has suffered much from corruption in the course of transmission. The name of the hero, however, is uncommonly well preserved, and affords a link, rarely occurring in English, with the corresponding Danish and Swedish ballads, a good number of which have Hildebrand, though more have Ribold. It may be observed that in Hildebrand og Hilde (Grundtvig, No. 83), the knight has the rank here ascribed to the lady.

The "old Carl Hood" who gives the alarm in this ballad, is called in most of the Danish ballads "a rich earl"; in one a treacherous man, in another a young Carl, and in a third an old man; which together furnish the elements of his character here of a treacherous old Carl.

58. Qy.? of my scarlet hood.

LA VENDICATRICE. See p. 273.

From Canti Popolari Inediti Umbri, Piceni, Piemontesi, Latini, raccolti e illustrati da Oreste Marcoaldi. Genova, 1855. p. 167.—From Alessandria.

1 guarda ben, Monferina.

2 quel castello.

3 fanciulle.

4 menate io.

5 negato.

6 tagliato.

7 dica lei, signor.

8 sua spada.

10 vuoi fare.

11 tagliare.

12 cavallo.

13 spadina.

16 (boscon) cespugli.

17 spine.

18 tuoi.

GLOSSARY.

☞ Figures placed after words denote the pages in which they occur.

Transcriber's Notes

Irregular and inconsistent spellings have been retained as in the original. Typographical errors such as wrongly placed line numbers and punctuation have been corrected without comment. Where changes have been made to the wording these are listed as follows:

Page 10, line 33: added missing opening quotation mark ("But look that ye tell na Gib your man,...)

Page 38, line note 157: reference originally read "177".

Page 55, line 47, 48: added missing quotation marks (Lye yont, lye yont, Willie," she says, / "For your sweat I downa bide O.")

Page 97, line 97: added final comma ("Now haud your tongue, my lord," she said, ...)

Page 118, line 58, 59: removed unnecessary quotation mark ("Get up, and let me in!— / Get up, get up, lady mother," he says, ...)

Page 119, line 71: deleted duplicate "the" (Out o' the lady's grave grew a bonny red rose).

Page 184, line 50: deleted erroneous closing quotation mark (Says, "What means a' this mourning?)

Page 189, line 41 and page 396: "dapperpy" appears in text but is "dapperby" in the Glossary (O he has pou'd aff his dapperpy coat, ...)

Page 227, line 41: added open quotation mark ("And quhat wul ze leive to zour bairns and zour wife,)

Page 263 line 16: added missing period (A playing at the ba'."—)

Page 270, line 24: changed "Doan" to "Doun" (Doun by the greenwud sae bonnie)

Page 300: added missing closing quotation mark (... taken place in Bothwell church." SCOTT.)

Page 338, line 11: changed "Majorie" to "Marjorie" (That Lady Marjorie she gaes wi' child, ...)

Page 347: heading "Book IV" removed. Note that it does not appear in the Table of Contents and there are several references to ballads and page numbers after this point as part of the Appendix. Note also that Volume 3 starts with "Book III (continued)".

Page 352, line 42: added closing quotation mark ("Where leav'st thou thy youthful daughter, / Merry son of mine?")

Page 401, changed "widdershius" to "widdershins" (widdershins, the contrary way, round about.)