Part 2 — 4 LADY ISABEL AND THE ELF-KNIGHT (continued 2)
Reading edition
The story of the German ballad P has attached itself to localities in the neighborhood of Weissenbach, Aargau, and is told with modifications that connect it with the history of the Guggi-, or Schongauer-, bad. A rich man by lewd living had become a leper. The devil put it into his head that he could be cured by bathing in the blood of twelve [seven] pure maidens. He seized eleven at a swoop, while they were on their way to church, and hanged them, and the next day enticed away a miller's daughter, who was delivered from death as in the ballad. A medicinal spring rose near the fatal tree. (Rochholz, I, 22.) No pure version of this ballad has been obtained in the Harz region, though a mixed form has already been spoken of; but 'Der Reiter in Seiden,' Pröhle, Märchen für die Jugend, No 32, p. 136, which comes from the western Harz, or from some place further north, on the line between Kyffhaüser and Hamburg, is, roughly speaking, only 'Gert Olbert' turned into prose, with a verse or two remaining. 'Der betrogene Betrüger,' from Mühlbach, Müller's Siebenbürgische Sagen, No 418, p. 309, has for its hero a handsome young man, addicted to women, who obtains from the devil the power of making them follow his piping, on the terms that every twelfth soul is to be the devil's share. He had taken eleven to a wood, and hanged them on a tree after he had satisfied his desire. The brother of a twelfth substituted himself for his sister, dressed in her clothes, snatched the rope from the miscreant, and ran him up on the nearest bough; upon which a voice was heard in the wind, that cried The twelfth soul is mine. Grundtvig, in his Engelske og skotske Folkeviser, p. 249, gives his recollections of a story that he had heard in his youth which has a catastrophe resembling that of English C-F. A charcoal burner had a way of taking up women beside him on his wagon, and driving them into a wood, where he forced them to take off their clothes, then killed them, and sunk them with heavy stones in a deep moss. At last a girl whom he had carried off in this way got the advantage of him by inducing him to turn away while she was undressing, and then pushing him into the moss. Something similar is found in the conclusion of a robber story in Grundtvig's Danske Folkeminder, 1861, No 30, p. 108, and in a modern Danish ballad cited in Danmarks gamle Folkeviser, IV, 24, note.**
Another Transylvanian tale, Schuster, p. 433, has a fountain, a thirsty bride, and doves (two or three) that sing to her, traits which have perhaps been derived from some Ulinger ballad; but the fountain is of an entirely different character, and the doves serve a different purpose. The tale is a variety of 'Fitchers Vogel,' Grimms, No 46, and belongs to the class of stories to which 'Bluebeard,' from its extensive popularity, has given name. The magician of 'Fitcher's Vogel' and of 'Bluebeard' becomes, or remains, a preternatural being (a hill-man) further north, as in Grundtvig's Gamle danske Minder, 1857, No 312, p. 182. There is a manifest affinity between these three species of tales and our ballad (also between the German and Danish tales and the Scandinavian ballad of 'Rosmer'), but the precise nature of this affinity it is impossible to expound. 'Bluebeard,' 'La Barbe Bleue,' Perrault, Histoires ou Contes du temps passé, 1697, p. 57 (Lefèvre), has a special resemblance to the German ballads of the second class in the four calls to sister Anne, which represent the cries to father, mother, and brother, and agrees with these ballads as to the means by which the death of the malefactor is brought about.
Looking back now over the whole field covered by this ballad, we observe that the framework of the story is essentially the same in English, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian; in the first class of the German ballads; in Polish A; in French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Magyar. The woman delivers herself from death by some artifice,[72] and retaliates upon the man the destruction he had intended for her. The second form of the German ballad attributes the deliverance of the woman to her brother, and also the punishment of the murderer. The third form of the German ballad makes the woman lose her life, and her murderer, for the most part, to suffer the penalty of the law, though in some cases the brother takes immediate vengeance. Polish B-K may be ranked with the second German class, and O-CC still better with the third; but the brother appears in only a few of these, and, when he appears, counts for nothing. The Wendish and the Bohemian ballad have the incident of fraternal vengeance, though otherwise less like the German. The Servian ballad, a slight thing at best, is still less like, but ranks with the third German class. The oldest Icelandic copy is altogether anomalous, and also incomplete, but seems to imply the death of the woman: later copies suffer the woman to escape, without vengeance upon the murderer.
It is quite beyond question that the third class of German ballad is a derivation from the second.[73] Of the versions T-Z, Z alone has preserved clear traits of the marvellous. A king's daughter is enticed from home by Ulrich's singing, and is warned of her impending fate by the dove, as in Class II. The other ballads have the usual marks of degeneracy, a dropping or obscuring of marvellous and romantic incidents, and a declension in the rank and style of the characters. T, to be sure, has a hazel, and Y a tree-stump and a spring, and in T Ulrich offers to teach Ännchen bird-song, but these traits have lost all significance. Knight and lady sink to ordinary man and maid; for though in Y the woman is called a king's daughter, the opening stanzas of Y are borrowed from a different ballad. Ulrich retains so much of the knight that he rides to Ännchen's house, in the first stanza of T, but he apparently goes on foot with her to the wood, and this is the rule in all the other ballads of this class. As Ulrich has lost his horse, so the brother, in T, U, V, X, has lost his sword, or the use of it, and in all these (also, superfluously, in W) Ulrich, like a common felon as he was, is broken on the wheel.
That the woman should save her life by her own craft and courage is certainly a more primitive conception than that she should depend upon her brother, and the priority of this arrangement of the plot is supported, if not independently proved, by the concurrence, as to this point, of so many copies among so many nations, as also by the accordance of various popular tales. The second German form must therefore, so far forth, be regarded as a modification of the first. Among the several devices, again, which the woman employs in order to get the murderer into her power, the original would seem to be her inducing him to lay his head in her lap, which gives her the opportunity (by the use of charms or runes, in English A, Danish G, Norwegian F, H, and one form of B) to put him into a deep sleep. The success of this trick no doubt implies considerable simplicity on the part of the victim of it; not more, however, than is elsewhere witnessed in preternatural beings, whose wits are frequently represented as no match for human shrewdness. Some of the Scandinavian ballads are not liable to the full force of this objection, whatever that may be, for they make the knight express a suspicion of treachery, and the lady solemnly asseverate that she will not kill [fool, beguile] him in his sleep. And so, when he is fast bound, she cries out, Wake up, for I will not kill thee in thy sleep! This last circumstance is wanting in hardly any of the Scandinavian ballads, whereas the previous compact is found only in Danish E, F, G, H, L, Swedish A, Norwegian A, and the Icelandic ballad. Not occurring in any of the older Danish copies, it may be that the compact is an after-thought, and was inserted to qualify the improbability. But the lady's equivocation is quite of a piece with Memering's oath in 'Ravengaard and Memering,' Grundtvig, No 13, and King Dietrich's in the Dietrichsaga, Unger, c. 222, p. 206.[74]
English A and all the Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian ballads employ the stratagem of lulling the man to sleep, but these are not the only ballads in which the man lays his head in the woman's lap. This trait is observed in nearly all German ballads of the second and third class, in all the well-preserved ones, and also in the Magyar ballad. With regard to the German ballads, however, it is purposeless (for it does not advance the action of the drama in the least), and must be regarded as a relic of an earlier form.[75] English B-F and all the French ballads dispose of the traitor by a watery death. The scene is shifted from a wood to a sea-coast, pool, or river bank, perhaps to suit the locality to which the ballad had wandered. In English B, where, apparently under the influence of other ballads,[76] the lady is forced to wade into water up to her chin, the knight is pushed off his horse when bending over to give a last kiss for which he had been asked; in English C-F and French A, B, the man is induced to turn his face to save the woman's modesty; in French C-E he is made to pull off her stockings or shoes, and then, while off his guard, pitched into a sea or river. This expedient is sufficiently trivial; but still more so, and grazing on the farcical, is that which is made use of in the Dutch ballad and those of the German first class, the woman's persuading the man to take off his fine coat lest it should be spattered with her blood, and cutting off his head with his own sword while he is thus occupied. The Spanish and Portuguese ballads make the lady borrow the knight's knife to remove some of the trimming of her dress, and in the Italian she borrows his sword to cut a bough to shade her horse; for in Italian the halt in the wood is completely forgotten, and the last half of the action takes place on horseback. All these contrivances plainly have less claim to be regarded as primary than that of binding the murderer after he has been put to sleep.
The knight in English A is called an Elf, and as such is furnished with an enchanting horn, which is replaced by a harp of similar properties in B, where, however, the male personage has neither name nor any kind of designation. The elf-horn of English A is again represented by the seductive song of the Dutch ballad and of German G-R and Z. Though the lady is not lured away in the Scandinavian ballads by irresistible music,[77] Danish A, E, Norwegian A, B, and Swedish D present to her the prospect of being taken to an elf-land, or elysium, and there are traces of this in Danish G and D also, and in Polish Q. The tongue that talks after the head is off, in the Dutch ballad and in German A, B, C, E, is another mark of an unearthly being. Halewyn, Ulver, Gert Olbert, like the English knight, are clearly supernatural, though of a nondescript type. The elf in English A is not to be interpreted too strictly, for the specific elf is not of a sanguinary turn, as these so conspicuously are. He is comparatively innocuous, like the hill-man Young Akin, in another English ballad, who likewise entices away a woman by magical music, but only to make her his wife. But the elf-knight and the rest seem to delight in bloodshed for its own sake; for, as Grundtvig has pointed out, there is no other apparent motive for murder in English A, B, the Norwegian ballads, Danish A, Swedish A, B, or German A-E.[78] This is true again, for one reason or another, of others of the German ballads, of the French, of most of the Italian, and of the Hungarian ballads.
The nearest approach to the Elf-knight, Halewyn, etc., is perhaps Quintalin, in the saga of Samson the Fair. He was son of the miller Galin. Nobody knew who his mother was, but many were of the mind that Galin might have had him of a "goddess," an elf or troll woman, who lived under the mill force. He was a thief, and lay in the woods; was versed in many knave's tricks, and had also acquired agreeable arts. He was a great master of the harp, and would decoy women into the woods with his playing, keep them as long as he liked, and send them home pregnant to their fathers or husbands. A king's daughter, Valentina, is drawn on by his music deep into the woods, but is rescued by a friendly power. Some parts of her dress and ornaments, which she had laid off in her rapid following up of the harping, are afterwards found, with a great quantity of precious things, in the subaqueous cave of Quintalin's mother, who is a complete counterpart to Grendel's, and was probably borrowed from Beówulf.[79] This demi-elf Quintalin is a tame personage by the side of Grendel or of Halewyn. Halewyn does not devour his victims, like Grendel: Quintalin does not even murder his. He allures women with his music to make them serve his lust. We may infer that he would plunder them, for he is a notorious thief. Even two of the oldest Danish ballads, B, C, and again Danish I and Swedish C, make the treacherous knight as lecherous as bloody, and so with German J, K, L, O, P, Q, R, S, and Italian A, B, C, E, F. This trait is wanting in Danish D, where, though traces of the originally demonic nature of the knight remain, the muckle gold of the maids already appears as the motive for the murders. In the later Danish E-H, K, L, and Swedish C, D, the original elf or demon has sunk to a remorseless robber, generally with brothers, sisters, or underlings for accomplices.[80] This is preëminently his character in English C-F, in nearly all the forty Polish ballads, and in the two principal ballads of the German second class, G, H, though English D, German H, and Polish Q retain a trace of the supernatural: the first in the charm by means of which the knight compels the maid to quit her parents, the second in the bloody spring, and the last in the golden mountains. There is nothing that unequivocally marks the robber in the other German ballads of the second class and in those of the third. The question 'Weinst du um deines Vaters Gut?' in I-L, O-S, T-W, is hardly decisive, and only in W and Z is it expressly said that the maid had taken valuable things with her (as in Swedish D, Norwegian A, B, English D-F). J-L, O-S, give us to understand that the lady had lost her honor,[81] but in all the rest, except the anomalous Z, the motive for murder is insufficient.[82]
The woman in these ballads is for the most part nameless, or bears a stock name to which no importance can be attached. Not so with the names of the knight. Most of these are peculiar, and the Northern ones, though superficially of some variety, have yet likeness enough to tempt one to seek for a common original. Grundtvig, with considerable diffidence, suggests Oldemor as a possible ground-form. He conceives that the R of some of the Scandinavian names may be a relic of a foregoing Herr. The initial H would easily come or go. Given such a name as Hollemen (Danish C), we might expect it to give place to Halewyn, which is both a family and a local name in Flanders, if the ballad should pass into the Low Countries from Denmark, a derivation that Grundtvig is far from asserting. So Ulinger, a local appellation, might be substituted for the Ulver of Danish A. Grundtvig, it must be borne in mind, declines to be responsible for the historical correctness of this genealogy, and would be still less willing to undertake an explanation of the name Oldemor.
In place of Oldemor, Professor Sophus Bugge, in a recent article, marked by his characteristic sharp-sightedness and ingenuity, has proposed Hollevern, Holevern, or Olevern as the base-form of all the Northern names for the bloody knight, and he finds in this name a main support for the entirely novel and somewhat startling hypothesis that the ballad we are dealing with is a wild shoot from the story of Judith and Holofernes.[83] His argument, given as briefly as possible, is as follows.
That the Bible story was generally known in the Middle Ages no one would question. It was treated in a literary way by an Anglo-Saxon poet, who was acquainted with the scriptural narrative, and in a popular way by poets who had no direct acquaintance with the original.[84] The source of the story in the ballad must in any case be a tradition many times removed from the biblical story; that much should be changed, much dropped, and much added is only what would be expected.
Beginning the comparison with 'Judith' with this caution, it is first submitted that Holofernes can be recognized in most of the Scandinavian and German names of the knight. The v of the proposed base-form is preserved in Ulver, Halewyn, and probably in the English Elf-knight. It is easy to explain a v's passing over to g, as in Ulinger, Adelger, and especially under the influence of the very common names in -ger. Again, v might easily become b, as in Olbert, or m, as in Hollemen, Olmor; and the initial R of Rulleman, Romor, etc., may have been carried over from a prefixed Herr.[85]
The original name of the heroine has been lost, and yet it is to be noticed that Gert Olbert's mother, in German A, is called Fru Jutte.
The heroine in this same ballad is named Helena (Linnich in F); in others (German C, D, E), Odilia. These are names of saints, and this circumstance may tend to show that the woman in the ballad was originally conceived of as rather a saint than a secular character, though in the course of time the story has so changed that the devout widow who sought out her country's enemy in his own camp has been transformed into a young maid who is enticed from home by a treacherous suitor.
It is an original trait in the ballad that the murderer, as is expressly said in many copies, is from a foreign land. According to an English version (E), he comes from the north, as Holofernes does, "venit Assur ex montibus ab aquilone" (Jud. xvi, 5).
The germ of this outlandish knight's bloodthirstiness is found in the truculent part that Holofernes plays in the Bible, his threats and devastations. That the false suitor appears without companions is in keeping with the ballad style of representation; yet we might find suggestions of the Assyrian's army in the swains, the brothers, the stable-boy, whom the maid falls in with on her way home.
The splendid promises made in many of the ballads might have been developed from the passage where Holofernes, whose bed is described as wrought with purple, gold, and precious stones, says to Judith, Thou shalt be great in the house of Nebuchadnezzar, and thy name shall be named in all the earth (xi, 21).
In many forms of the ballad, especially the Dutch and the German, the maid adorns herself splendidly, as Judith does: she even wears some sort of crown in Dutch A 16, German D 8, as Judith does in x, 3, xvi, 10 (mitram).
In the English D, E, F, the oldest Danish, A, and the Polish versions, the maid, like Judith, leaves her home in the night.
The Piedmontese casté, Italian E 1 [there is a castle in nearly all the Italian ballads, and also in Dutch B], may remind us of Holofernes' castra.
The knight's carrying off the maid, lifting her on to his horse in many copies, may well come from a misunderstanding of elevaverunt in Judith x, 20: Et cum in faciem ejus intendisset, adoravit eum, prosternens se super terram. Et elevaverunt eam servi Holofernis, jubente domino suo.[86]
In German A Gert Olbert and Helena are said to ride three days and nights, and in Danish D the ride is for three days; and we may remember that Judith killed Holofernes the fourth day after her arrival in his camp.
The place in which the pair alight is, according to German G 20, a deep dale, and this agrees with the site of Holofernes' camp in the valley of Bethulia. There is a spring or stream in many of the ballads, and also a spring in the camp, in which Judith bathes (xii, 7).
Most forms of the ballad make the knight, after the halt, inform the maid that she is to die, as many maids have before her in the same place; e.g., German G 7:
'Der Ulinger hat eylff Jungfrawen gehangen, Die zwölfft hat er gefangen.'[87]
This corresponds with the passage in Judith's song (xvi, 6), Dixit se ... infantes meos dare in prædam et virgenes in captivitatem: but it is reasonable to suppose that the ballad follows some version of the Bible words that varied much from the original.
The incident of the maid's lousing and tousing her betrayer's hair, while he lies with his head in her lap, may have come from Judith seizing Holofernes by the hair before she kills him, but the story of Samson and Delilah may have had influence here.
According to many German versions, the murderer grants the maid three cries before she dies. She invokes Jesus, Mary, and her brother. Or she utters three sighs, the first to God the Father, the second to Jesus, the third to her brother. These cries or sighs seem to take the place of Judith's prayer, Confirma me, Domine Deus Israel (xiii, 7), and it may also be well to remember that Holofernes granted Judith, on her request, permission to go out in the night to pray.
The Dutch, Low-German, Scandinavian, and other versions agree in making the woman kill the knight with his own sword, as in Judith. The Dutch and Low-German [also Danish F, Swedish A] have preserved an original trait in making the maid hew off the murderer's head. English and French versions dispose of the knight differently: the maid pushes him into sea or river. Perhaps, in some older form of the story, after the head was cut off, the trunk was pushed into the water: cf. Judith xiii, 10: Abscidit caput ejus et ... evolvit corpus ejus truncum. The words apprehendit comam capitis ejus (xiii, 9) have their parallel in Dutch A, 33: "Zy nam het hoofd al by het haer." The Dutch ballad makes the maid carry the head with her.
"Singing and ringing" she rode through the wood: Judith sings a song of praise to the Lord after her return home.
In English C-F, May Colven comes home before dawn, as Judith does. The Dutch A says, When to her father's gate she came, she blew the horn like a man. Compare Judith xiii, 13: Et dixit Judith a longe custodibus murorum, Aperite portas!
The Dutch text goes on to say that when the father heard the horn he was delighted at his daughter's return: and Judith v, 14, Et factum est, cum audissent viri vocem ejus, vocaverunt presbyteros civitatis.
The conclusion of Dutch A is that there was a banquet held, and the head was set on the table. So Judith causes Holofernes' head to be hung up on the city wall, and after the enemy have been driven off, the Jews hold a feast.
The Icelandic version, though elsewhere much mutilated, has a concluding stanza which certainly belongs to the ballad:
Ása went into a holy cell, Never did she harm to man.
This agrees with the view taken of the heroine of the ballad as a saint, and with the Bible account that Judith lived a chaste widow after her husband's demise.
Danish D is unique in one point. The robber has shown the maid a little knoll, in which the "much gold" of the women he has murdered lies. When she has killed him, the maid says, "I shall have the much gold," and takes as much as she can carry off. Compare with this Holofernes putting Judith into his treasury (xii, 1),[88] her carrying off the conopœum (xiii, 10), and her receiving from the people all Holofernes' gold, silver, clothes, jewels, and furniture, as her share of the plunder of the Assyrian camp (xv, 14). It is, perhaps, a perversion of this circumstance that the robber in German G, H, is refused permission to keep his costly clothes.
English D seems also to have preserved a portion of the primitive story, when it makes the maid tell her parents in the morning all that has happened, whereupon they go with her to the sea-shore to find the robber's body. The foundation for this is surely the Bible account that Judith makes known her act to the elders of the city, and that the Jews go out in the morning and fall on the enemy's camp, in which Holofernes' body is lying. In Swedish C the robber's sisters mourn over his body, and in Judith xiv, 18 the Assyrians break out into loud cries when they learn of Holofernes' death.
In all this it is simply contended that the story of Judith is the remote source of the ballad, and it is conceded that many of the correspondences which have been cited may be accidental. Neither the Latin text of Judith nor any other written treatment of the story of Judith is supposed to have been known to the author of the ballad. The knowledge of its biblical origin being lost, the story would develop itself in its own way, according to the fashion of oral tradition. And so the pious widow into whose hands God gave over his enemies is converted into a fair maid who is enticed by a false knight into a wood, and who kills him in defence of her own life.
A similar transformation can be shown elsewhere in popular poetry. The little Katie of certain northern ballads (see Grundtvig, No 101) is a maid among other maids who prefers death to dishonor; but was originally Saint Catherine, daughter of the king of Egypt, who suffered martyrdom for the faith under the Emperor Maxentius. All the versions of the Halewyn ballad which we possess, even the purest, may be far removed from the primitive, both as to story and as to metrical form. New features would be taken up, and old ones would disappear. One copy has preserved genuine particulars, which another has lost, but Dutch tradition has kept the capital features best of all.[89]
Professor Bugge's argument has been given with an approach to fulness out of a desire to do entire justice to the distinguished author's case, though most of the correspondences adduced by him fail to produce any effect upon my mind.
The case is materially strengthened by the Dutch text C ('Roland'), which was not accessible at the time Bugge's paper was written. The name Roland is not so close to Holofern as Halewyn, but is still within the range of conceivable metamorphosis. The points of coincidence between Dutch C and the story of Judith are these: The woman, first making an elaborate toilet,[90] goes out to seek the man, who is spoken of as surrounded with soldiers; she is challenged on the way; finds Roland lying on his bed, which he proposes she shall share (or lose her life);[91] she cuts off his head, which, after her return home, she exposes from her window.[92]
If this was the original form of the Dutch ballad, and the Dutch ballad is the source from which all the other ballads have come, by processes of dropping, taking up, and transforming, then we may feel compelled to admit that this ballad might be a wild shoot from the story of Judith. Any one who bears in mind the strange changes which stories undergo will hesitate to pronounce this impossible. What poor Ophelia says of us human creatures is even truer of ballads: "We know what we are, but know not what we may be."
But when we consider how much would have to be dropped, how much to be taken up, and how much to be transformed, before the Hebrew "gest" could be converted into the European ballad, we naturally look for a less difficult hypothesis. It is a supposition attended with less difficulty that an independent European tradition existed of a half-human, half-demonic being, who possessed an irresistible power of decoying away young maids, and was wont to kill them after he got them into his hands, but who at last found one who was more than his match, and lost his own life through her craft and courage. A modification of this story is afforded by the large class of Bluebeard tales. The Quintalin story seems to be another variety, with a substitution of lust for bloodthirst. The Dutch ballad may have been affected by some lost ballad of Holofern, and may have taken up some of its features, at least that of carrying home Halewyn's [Roland's] head, which is found in no other version.[93]
A a is translated by Grundtvig in Engelske og skotske Folkeviser, No 37, p. 230: B b in the same, No 36, p. 227: C a, b, D a, b, blended, No 35, p. 221. A, by Rosa Warrens, Schottische V. L. der Vorzeit, No 1, p. 1: Gerhard, p. 15. C b, by Rosa Warrens, No 34, p. 148: Wolf, Halle der Völker, I, 38, Hausschatz, 225. C, D, etc., as in Allingham, p. 244, by Knortz, Lied. u. Rom. Alt-Englands, No 4, p. 14.
A.
a. Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, I, 22. b. Motherwell's MS., p. 563.
1 Fair lady Isabel sits in her bower sewing, Aye as the gowans grow gay There she heard an elf-knight blawing his horn. The first morning in May 2 'If I had yon horn that I hear blawing, And yon elf-knight to sleep in my bosom.' 3 This maiden had scarcely these words spoken, Till in at her window the elf-knight has luppen. 4 'It's a very strange matter, fair maiden,' said he, 'I canna blaw my horn but ye call on me. 5 'But will ye go to yon greenwood side? If ye canna gang, I will cause you to ride.' 6 He leapt on a horse, and she on another, And they rode on to the greenwood together. 7 'Light down, light down, lady Isabel,' said he, 'We are come to the place where ye are to die.' 8 'Hae mercy, hae mercy, kind sir, on me, Till ance my dear father and mother I see.' 9 'Seven king's-daughters here hae I slain, And ye shall be the eight o them.' 10 'O sit down a while, lay your head on my knee, That we may hae some rest before that I die.' 11 She stroakd him sae fast, the nearer he did creep, Wi a sma charm she lulld him fast asleep. 12 Wi his ain sword-belt sae fast as she ban him, Wi his ain dag-durk sae sair as she dang him. 13 'If seven king's-daughters here ye hae slain, Lye ye here, a husband to them a'.'
B.
a. Buchan's MSS, II, fol. 80. b. Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, II, 201. c. Motherwell's MS., p. 561. d. Harris MS., No 19.
1 There came a bird out o a bush, On water for to dine, An sighing sair, says the king's daughter, 'O wae 's this heart o mine!' 2 He 's taen a harp into his hand, He 's harped them all asleep, Except it was the king's daughter, Who one wink couldna get. 3 He 's luppen on his berry-brown steed, Taen 'er on behind himsell, Then baith rede down to that water That they ca Wearie's Well. 4 'Wide in, wide in, my lady fair, No harm shall thee befall; Oft times I've watered my steed Wi the waters o Wearie's Well.' 5 The first step that she stepped in, She stepped to the knee; And sighend says this lady fair, 'This water 's nae for me.' 6 'Wide in, wide in, my lady fair, No harm shall thee befall; Oft times I've watered my steed Wi the water o Wearie's Well.' 7 The next step that she stepped in, She stepped to the middle; 'O,' sighend says this lady fair, I 've wat my gowden girdle.' 8 'Wide in, wide in, my lady fair, No harm shall thee befall; Oft times have I watered my steed Wi the water o Wearie's Well.' 9 The next step that she stepped in, She stepped to the chin; 'O,' sighend says this lady fair, 'They sud gar twa loves twin.' 10 'Seven king's-daughters I 've drownd there, In the water o Wearie's Well, And I'll make you the eight o them, And ring the common bell.' 11 'Since I am standing here,' she says, 'This dowie death to die, One kiss o your comely mouth I'm sure wad comfort me.' 12 He louted him oer his saddle bow, To kiss her cheek and chin; She 's taen him in her arms twa, An thrown him headlong in. 13 'Since seven king's daughters ye 've drowned there, In the water o Wearie's Well, I'll make you bridegroom to them a', An ring the bell mysell.' 14 And aye she warsled, and aye she swam, And she swam to dry lan; She thanked God most cheerfully The dangers she oercame.
C.
a. Herd's MSS, I, 166. b. Herd's Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs, 1776, I, 93. c. Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. 67, == b "collated with a copy obtained from recitation."
1 False Sir John a wooing came To a maid of beauty fair; May Colven was this lady's name, Her father's only heir. 2 He wood her butt, he wood her ben, He wood her in the ha, Until he got this lady's consent To mount and ride awa. 3 He went down to her father's bower, Where all the steeds did stand, And he 's taken one of the best steeds That was in her father's land. 4 He 's got on and she 's got on, And fast as they could flee, Until they came to a lonesome part, A rock by the side of the sea. 5 'Loup off the steed,' says false Sir John, 'Your bridal bed you see; For I have drowned seven young ladies, The eight one you shall be. 6 'Cast off, cast off, my May Colven, All and your silken gown, For it 's oer good and oer costly To rot in the salt sea foam. 7 'Cast off, cast off, my May Colven, All and your embroiderd shoen, For they 're oer good and oer costly To rot in the salt sea foam.' 8 'O turn you about, O false Sir John, And look to the leaf of the tree, For it never became a gentleman A naked woman to see.' 9 He turnd himself straight round about, To look to the leaf of the tree; So swift as May Colven was To throw him in the sea. 10 'O help, O help, my May Colven, O help, or else I'll drown; I'll take you home to your father's bower, And set you down safe and sound.' 11 'No help, no help, O false Sir John, No help, nor pity thee; Tho seven king's-daughters you have drownd, But the eight shall not be me.' 12 So she went on her father's steed, As swift as she could flee, And she came home to her father's bower Before it was break of day. 13 Up then and spoke the pretty parrot: 'May Colven, where have you been? What has become of false Sir John, That woo'd you so late the streen? 14 'He woo'd you butt, he woo'd you ben, He woo'd you in the ha, Until he got your own consent For to mount and gang awa.' 15 'O hold your tongue, my pretty parrot, Lay not the blame upon me; Your cup shall be of the flowered gold, Your cage of the root of the tree.' 16 Up then spake the king himself, In the bed-chamber where he lay: 'What ails the pretty parrot, That prattles so long or day?' 17 'There came a cat to my cage door, It almost a worried me, And I was calling on May Colven To take the cat from me.'
D.
a. Sharpe's Ballad Book (1823), No 17, p. 45. b. Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, II, 45. c. Motherwell's Minstrelsy, Appendix, p. 21, No. XXIV, one stanza.
1 O heard ye of a bloody knight, Lived in the south country? For he has betrayed eight ladies fair And drowned them in the sea. 2 Then next he went to May Collin, She was her father's heir, The greatest beauty in the land, I solemnly declare. 3 'I am a knight of wealth and might, Of townlands twenty-three; And you'll be lady of them all, If you will go with me.' 4 'Excuse me, then, Sir John,' she says; 'To wed I am too young; Without I have my parents' leave, With you I darena gang.' 5 'Your parents' leave you soon shall have, In that they will agree; For I have made a solemn vow This night you'll go with me.' 6 From below his arm he pulled a charm, And stuck it in her sleeve, And he has made her go with him, Without her parents' leave. 7 Of gold and silver she has got With her twelve hundred pound, And the swiftest steed her father had She has taen to ride upon. 8 So privily they went along, They made no stop or stay, Till they came to the fatal place That they call Bunion Bay. 9 It being in a lonely place, And no house there was nigh, The fatal rocks were long and steep, And none could hear her cry. 10 'Light down,' he said, 'fair May Collin, Light down and speak with me, For here I've drowned eight ladies fair, And the ninth one you shall be.' 11 'Is this your bowers and lofty towers, So beautiful and gay? Or is it for my gold,' she said, 'You take my life away?' 12 'Strip off,' he says, 'thy jewels fine, So costly and so brave, For they are too costly and too fine To throw in the sea wave.' 13 'Take all I have my life to save, O good Sir John, I pray; Let it neer be said you killed a maid Upon her wedding day.' 14 'Strip off,' he says, 'thy Holland smock, That's bordered with the lawn, For it's too costly and too fine To rot in the sea sand.' 15 'O turn about, Sir John,' she said, 'Your back about to me, For it never was comely for a man A naked woman to see.' 16 But as he turned him round about, She threw him in the sea, Saying, 'Lie you there, you false Sir John, Where you thought to lay me. 17 'O lie you there, you traitor false, Where you thought to lay me, For though you stripped me to the skin, Your clothes you've got with thee.' 18 Her jewels fine she did put on, So costly, rich and brave, And then with speed she mounts his steed, So well she did behave. 19 That lady fair being void of fear, Her steed being swift and free, And she has reached her father's gate Before the clock struck three. 20 Then first she called the stable groom, He was her waiting man; Soon as he heard his lady's voice He stood with cap in hand. 21 'Where have you been, fair May Collin? Who owns this dapple grey?' 'It is a found one,' she replied, 'That I got on the way.' 22 Then out bespoke the wily parrot Unto fair May Collin: 'What have you done with false Sir John, That went with you yestreen?' 23 'O hold your tongue, my pretty parrot, And talk no more to me, And where you had a meal a day O now you shall have three.' 24 Then up bespoke her father dear, From his chamber where he lay: 'What aileth thee, my pretty Poll, That you chat so long or day?' 25 'The cat she came to my cage-door, The thief I could not see, And I called to fair May Collin, To take the cat from me.' 26 Then first she told her father dear The deed that she had done, And next she told her mother dear Concerning false Sir John. 27 'If this be true, fair May Collin, That you have told to me, Before I either eat or drink This false Sir John I'll see.' 28 Away they went with one consent, At dawning of the day, Until they came to Carline Sands, And there his body lay. 29 His body tall, by that great fall, By the waves tossed to and fro, The diamond ring that he had on Was broke in pieces two. 30 And they have taken up his corpse To yonder pleasant green, And there they have buried false Sir John, For fear he should be seen.
E.
J. H. Dixon, Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs of the Peasantry of England, p. 74.
1 An outlandish knight came from the north lands, And he came a-wooing to me; He told me he'd take me unto the north lands, And there he would marry me. 2 'Come, fetch me some of your father's gold, And some of your mother's fee, And two of the best nags out of the stable, Where they stand thirty and three.' 3 She fetched him some of her father's gold, And some of her mother's fee, And two of the best nags out of the stable, Where they stood thirty and three. 4 She mounted her on her milk-white steed, He on the dapple grey; They rode till they came unto the sea-side, Three hours before it was day. 5 'Light off, light off thy milk-white steed, And deliver it unto me; Six pretty maids have I drowned here, And thou the seventh shalt be. 6 'Pull off, pull off thy silken gown, And deliver it unto me; Methinks it looks too rich and too gay To rot in the salt sea. 7 'Pull off, pull off thy silken stays, And deliver them unto me; Methinks they are too fine and gay To rot in the salt sea. 8 'Pull off, pull off thy Holland smock, And deliver it unto me; Methinks it looks too rich and gay To rot in the salt sea.' 9 'If I must pull off my Holland smock, Pray turn thy back unto me; For it is not fitting that such a ruffian A naked woman should see.' 10 He turned his back towards her And viewed the leaves so green; She catched him round the middle so small, And tumbled him into the stream. 11 He dropped high and he dropped low, Until he came to the side; 'Catch hold of my hand, my pretty maiden, And I will make you my bride.' 12 'Lie there, lie there, you false-hearted man, Lie there instead of me; Six pretty maids have you drowned here, And the seventh has drowned thee.' 13 She mounted on her milk-white steed, And led the dapple grey; She rode till she came to her own father's hall, Three hours before it was day. 14 The parrot being in the window so high, Hearing the lady, did say, 'I'm afraid that some ruffian has led you astray, That you have tarried so long away.' 15 'Don't prittle nor prattle, my pretty parrot, Nor tell no tales of me; Thy cage shall be made of the glittering gold, Although it is made of a tree.' 16 The king being in the chamber so high, And hearing the parrot, did say, 'What ails you, what ails you, my pretty parrot, That you prattle so long before day?' 17 'It's no laughing matter,' the parrot did say, 'That so loudly I call unto thee, For the cats have got into the window so high, And I'm afraid they will have me.' 18 'Well turned, well turned, my pretty parrot, Well turned, well turned for me; Thy cage shall be made of the glittering gold, And the door of the best ivory.'
F.
Roxburghe Ballads, III, 449.
1 'Go fetch me some of your father's gold, And some of your mother's fee, And I'll carry you into the north land, And there I'll marry thee.' 2 She fetchd him some of her father's gold, And some of her mother's fee; She carried him into the stable, Where horses stood thirty and three. 3 She leapd on a milk-white steed, And he on a dapple-grey; They rode til they came to a fair river's side, Three hours before it was day. 4 'O light, O light, you lady gay, O light with speed, I say, For six knight's daughters have I drowned here, And you the seventh must be.' 5 'Go fetch the sickle, to crop the nettle That grows so near the brim, For fear it should tangle my golden locks, Or freckle my milk-white skin.' 6 He fetchd the sickle, to crop the nettle That grows so near the brim, And with all the strength that pretty Polly had She pushd the false knight in. 7 'Swim on, swim on, thou false knight, And there bewail thy doom, For I don't think thy cloathing too good To lie in a watry tomb.' 8 She leaped on her milk-white steed, She led the dapple grey; She rid till she came to her father's house, Three hours before it was day. 9 'Who knocked so loudly at the ring?' The parrot he did say; 'O where have you been, my pretty Polly, All this long summer's day?' 10 'O hold your tongue, parrot, Tell you no tales of me; Your cage shall be made of beaten gold, Which is now made of a tree.' 11 O then bespoke her father dear, As he on his bed did lay: 'O what is the matter, my parrot, That you speak before it is day?' 12 'The cat's at my cage, master, And sorely frighted me, And I calld down my Polly To take the cat away.'
A.
Burden. Song xix of Forbes's 'Cantus,' Aberdeen, 1682, 3d ed., has, as pointed out by Motherwell, Minstrelsy, p. lx, nearly the same burden: The gowans are gay, The first morning of May. And again, a song in the Tea Table Miscellany, as remarked by Buchan, There gowans are gay, The first morning of May: p. 404 of the 12th ed., London, 1763.
b.
No doubt furnished to Motherwell by Buchan, as a considerable number of ballads in this part of his MS. seem to have been.
32. Then in.
81. kind sir, said she.
102. That we may some rest before I die.
111. the near.
132. to them ilk ane.
1 is given by Motherwell, Minstrelsy, p. lx, but apparently to improve metre and secure rhyme, thus:
Lady Isabel sits in her bouir sewing, She heard an elf-knight his horn blowing.
B b.
Buchan's printed copy differs from the manuscript very slightly, except in spelling.
43, 63. Aft times hae I.
53. And sighing sair says.
73, 93. And sighing says.
142. Till she swam.
143. Then thanked.
144. she'd.
c.
Like A b, derived by Motherwell from Buchan.
41, 61, 81. wade in, wade in.
143. And thanked.
Dixon, Scottish Traditional Versions of Ancient Ballads, p. 63, printing B from the manuscript, makes one or two trivial changes.
d
is only this fragment.
43 Mony a time I rade wi my brown foal The water o Wearie's Wells. 'Leave aff, leave aff your gey mantle, It's a' gowd but the hem; Leave aff, leave [aff], it's far owre gude To weet i the saut see faem.' 5 She wade in, an he rade in, Till it took her to the knee; Wi sighin said that lady gay 'Sic wadin's no for me.' * * * * * 9 He rade in, and she wade in, Till it took her to the chin; Wi sighin said that ladie gay 'I'll wade nae farer in.' 103 'Sax king's dochters I hae drowned, An the seventh you sall be.' * * * * * 13 'Lie you there, you fause young man, Where you thought to lay me.'
C b.
The printed copy follows the manuscript with only very trifling variations: Colvin for Colven;
131, up then spak;
164, ere day;
172, almost worried.
c.
21, 2. he's courted.
23. Till once he got.
Between 2 and 3 is inserted:
She's gane to her father's coffers, Where all his money lay, And she's taken the red, and she's left the white, And so lightly as she tripped away.
31 She's gane down to her father's stable,
3 And she's taken the best, and she's left the warst.
4 He rode on, and she rode on, They rode a long summer's day, Until they came to a broad river, An arm of a lonesome sea. 53, 4 'For it's seven king's daughters I have drowned here, And the eighth I'll out make with thee.' 61, 2 'Cast off, cast off your silks so fine, And lay them on a stone.' 71, 2, 3 'Cast off, cast off your holland smock, And lay it on this stone, For it's too fine.' ... 93, 4 She's twined her arms about his waist, And thrown him into 101, 2 'O hold a grip of me, May Colvin, For fear that I should'
3 father's gates
4 and safely I'll set you down.
11 'O lie you there, thou false Sir John, O lie you there,' said she, 'For you lie not in a caulder bed Than the ane you intended for me.'
123. father's gates.
4. At the breaking of the day.
134. yestreen.
Between 13 and 14 is inserted:
Up then spake the pretty parrot, In the bonnie cage where it lay: 'O what hae ye done with the false Sir John, That he behind you does stay?' 153, 4 'Your cage will be made of the beaten gold, And the spakes of ivorie.' 171, 2 'It was a cat cam ... I thought 't would have' ...
D a.
21. Colin.
b.
Buchan's copy makes many slight changes which are not noticed here.
12. west countrie.
After 1 is inserted:
All ladies of a gude account As ever yet were known; This traitor was a baron knight, They calld him fause Sir John.
After 2:
'Thou art the darling of my heart, I say, fair May Colvin, So far excells thy beauties great That ever I hae seen.'
32. Hae towers, towns twenty three.
72. five hunder.
73. The best an steed.
83. fatal end.
84. Binyan's Bay.
122. rich and rare.
124. sea ware.
After 12:
Then aff she's taen her jewels fine, And thus she made her moan: 'Hae mercy on a virgin young, I pray you, gude Sir John.' 'Cast aff, cast aff, fair May Colvin, Your gown and petticoat, For they're too costly and too fine To rot by the sea rock.'
134. Before her.
144. to toss.
183. her steed.
233. What hast thou made o fause.
283. Charlestown sands. Sharps thinks Carline Sands means Carlinseugh Sands on the coast of Forfarshire.
After 30:
Ye ladies a', wherever you be, That read this mournful song, I pray you mind on May Colvin, And think on fause Sir John. Aff they've taen his jewels fine, To keep in memory; And sae I end my mournful sang And fatal tragedy.
c.
Motherwell's one stanza is:
O heard ye eer o a bloody knight That livd in the west countrie? For he has stown seven ladies fair, And drownd them a' in the sea.
E.
32. of the.
172. But so.