Appendix
THE GABERLUNYIE-MAN
Printed in the first volume of Ramsay’s Tea-Table Miscellany, 1724, from which it was repeated in Thomson’s Orpheus Caledonius, 1725, fol. 43, and Old Ballads, III, 259, the same year; in the Dublin reprint of the Miscellany, 1729, I, 96, the “fifth edition,” London, 1730, and the ninth edition, London, 1733, I. 84. The first edition, 1724, being of extreme rarity, if anywhere now to be found, the piece is given here from Old Ballads, which agrees with Orpheus Caledonius except as to the spelling of a single word.
The Gaberlunyie-Man is one of the pieces which were subjected to revision in the Miscellany; “such old verses as have been done time out of mind, and only wanted to be cleared from the dross of blundering transcribers and printers, such as ‘The Gaberlunzie-man,’ ‘Muirland Willy,’” etc. (Ramsay’s preface.)
In recited copies, as the “Old Lady’s Collection,” No 13 (Skene MS., p. 65), and Motherwell’s MS., p. 31, the girl is made to come back again to see her mother (or the gaberlunyie-man brings her) ‘wi a bairn in her arms and ane in her wame;’ but for all that a fine lady, ‘wi men- and maid-servants at her command.’
* * * * *
Translated by Herder, II, 264; Bodmer, I, 68; Fiedler, p. 23; Loeve-Veimars, p. 356.
1 The pauky auld carle came oer the lee, Wi many good eens and days to me, Saying, Goodwife, for your courtesie, Will ye lodge a silly poor man? The night was cauld, the carle was wat, And down ayont the ingle he sat; My daughter’s shoulders he gan to clap, And cadgily ranted and sang.
2 ‘O wow!’ quo he, ‘were I as free As first when I saw this country, How blyth and merry wad I be! And I wad never think lang.’ He grew canty, and she grew fain, But little did her auld minny ken What thir slee twa togither were sayn, When wooing they were sa[e] thrang.
3 ‘And O!’ quo he, ‘ann ye were as black, As eer the crown of your dady’s hat, ’Tis I wad lay thee by my back, And awa wi me thou shoud gang.’ ‘And O!’ quoth she, ‘ann I were as white As eer the snaw lay on the dike, I’d clead me braw, and lady-like, And awa with thee I’d gang.’
4 Between the twa was made a plot; They raise a wee before the cock, And wyliely they shot the lock, And fast to the bent are they gane. Up the morn the auld wife raise, And at her leasure pat on her claiths; Syne to the servants bed she gaes, To speer for the silly poor man.
5 She gaed to the bed where the beggar lay, The strae was cauld, he was away; She clapt her hands, cry’d, Waladay! For some of our gear will be gane. Some ran to coffers, and some to kists, But nought was stown that coud be mist; She danc’d her lane, cry’d, Praise be blest, I have lodg’d a leal poor man!
6 ‘Since nathing’s awa, as we can learn, The kirn’s to kirn and milk to earn; Gae butt the house, lass, and waken my bairn, And bid her come quickly ben.’ The servant gade where the daughter lay, The sheets was cauld, she was away; And fast to her goodwife can say, She’s aff with the gaberlunyie-man.
7 ‘O fy, gar ride, and fy, gar rin, And hast ye find these traitors again; For she’s be burnt, and he’s be slain, The wearifu gaberlunyie-man.’ Some rade upo horse, some ran a-fit, The wife was wood and out o’er wit; She coud na gang, nor yet coud she sit, But ay she cursd and she band.
8 Mean time far hind outoer the lee, Fou snug in a glen, where nane coud see, The twa, with kindly sport and glee, Cut frae a new cheese a whang. The priving was good, it pleasd them baith, To loe her for ay he gae her his aith; Quo she, To leave thee, I will be laith, My winsome gaberlunyie-man.
9 ‘O kend my minny I were wi you, Illfardly wad she crook her mou; Sic a poor man she’d never trow, After the gaberlunyie-man.’ ‘My dear,’ quo he, ‘ye’r yet oer young, And ha na learnd the beggar’s tongue, To follow me frae town to town, And carry the gaberlunyie on.
10 ‘Wi kauk and keel, I’ll win your bread, And spindles and whorles for them wha need, Whilk is a gentil trade indeed, To carry the gaberlunyie, O. I’ll bow my leg, and crook my knee, And draw a black clout oer my eye; A criple or blind they will ca me, While we shall be merry and sing.’
3^2. my dady’s, Dublin, 1729, London, 1730, 1733.
FOOTNOTES:
[93] And may have been omitted by Ramsay because he “kept out all ribaldry” from the Tea-Table Miscellany. This is not a Tea-Table Miscellany, and I have no discretion.
[94] I owe my knowledge of all of these three copies to Mr Baring-Gould. He informs me that the ballad which he took down is sung throughout Cornwall and Devon.
[95] Other copies, which are rather numerous, much less: Norrenberg, Des dülkener Fiedlers Liederbuch, p. 10, No 13; Peter I, 182; Uhland, No 285, p. 737; Haupt u. Schmaler, I, 102, No 67; etc. See Hoffmann’s notes, pp. 46, 47; Barack, Zimmerische Chronik, 2d ed., II, 111, and Liebrecht’s note, Germania, XIV, 38; Schade, Weimarisches Jahrbuch, III, 259 ff., 465 ff.
[96] For this older piece, see Ebsworth, Bagford Ballads, I, 216. There is no adventure; the subject is the beggar’s way of life.
280
THE BEGGAR-LADDIE
=A.= ‘The Shipherd Boy,’ “Old Lady’s Collection,” No 35.
=B.= ‘The Beggar’s Dawtie,’ Murison MS., p. 85.
=C.= ‘The Beggar-Laddie,’ Motherwell’s MS., p. 249.
=D.= ‘The Gaberlunzie Laddie, or, The Beggar’s Bride,’ Christie, Traditional Ballad Airs, I, 100.
=E.= ‘The Shepherd’s Bonny Lassy,’ Kinloch MSS, V, 249, II, 17.
This is a sort of ‘Gaberlunyie-Man’ with a romantic conclusion, resembling that of ‘Lizie Lindsay.’ A pretended beggar, who is for the time acting as shepherd’s swain, induces a young lady, or young woman of good standing, to follow him as his beggar-lassie. They come to a hall (his father’s, =A=, =D=, =E=, brother’s, =C=), he knocks loudly, four and twenty gentlemen welcome him in, and as many ladies the lassie, and she is thenceforth a knight’s or squire’s lady.
There is corruption in all the copies,[97] and the rhyme is frequently lost. =A= 2 (=B= 3, =C= 3, =D= 7, =E= 5) is taken almost bodily from ‘The Gaberlunyie-Man,’ 10. =D= is not the better for being a mixture of three copies. =D= 4 anticipates the conclusion, and it is inconceivable that any meddler should not have seen this. =D= 14 is caught from ‘The Jolly Beggar.’
A
The “Old Lady’s Collection,” No 35; north of Scotland.
1 Shiperd-boy, what is yer trade? Or what way do ye wine yer bread? Or what way do ye wine yer bread, Fan the kipeng nout gies over?
2 ‘Spindels an forls it is my trade, An bits o sticks to them who need, Whilk is a gentell trade indeed; Bony lassie, cane ye lea me?’
3 ‘I lea you as I supos Rachell loved Jacob of old, As Jason loied his flice of gould, Sae dearly do I lea ye.
4 ‘Ye cast off yer clouty coat, An ye pitt one my scarlett cloke, An I will follou you just att the back, Becass ye are a bonny laddie.’
5 He cust off his cloutty coat, An he patt on her scarlet cloke, An she folloued him just att the back, Becaus he was a bonny laddie.
6 They gaed on, an forder on, Till they came to yon borrous-toun; She bought a loaf an they both satt doun, Bat she ate no we her laddie.
7 They gaed on, an forder one, Till they came to the nest borrous-toun; I wat the lassie louked doun, For the following of her laddie.
8 ‘O if I wer on the head of yon hill, Ther I wad greet my fill, For the follouing of my laddie.’
9 ‘O had yer toung, my dearest dear, I ill ha ye back as I brought ye hear, For I canna bear yer morning.’
10 ‘O had yer toung, my dearest dear, I will gae throu the warld baith far an near, Becaus ye’r a bonny ladie.’
11 They gad on, an forder on, Till they came to his father’s haa, An he knoked ther fue loudly.
12 ‘O had yer hand, my dear[est] dear, An dou not knoke sae loudly, For fear they sud be angry.’
13 Four-an-tuenty gentelmen They conved the beager ben, An as mony gay ladës Conved the beager’s lassie.
14 His brother lead her throu the haa: ‘I wis, brother, we had beagged a’, For sick a bonny lassie.’
15 That same night she was bedded, An the nist morning she was wedded; She came to gued by grait misgiding, By the follouing of her laddie.
B
Murison MS., p. 85; from Aberdeenshire.
1 ’Twas on a day in the month o June . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . When Phoebus shines sae clearly.
2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . She says, My dear, what is your trade When thiggin ye give over?
3 ‘Spinls and forls is my trade, Wi bits o sticks I win my bread, An O it is a winnin trade; Bonnie lassie, can ye loo me?’ An O it is, etc.
4 ‘O I can love ye manyfold, As Jacob loved Rachel of old, And as Jessie loved the cups o gold; My dear, can ye believe me?’ As Jessie, etc.
5 ‘It’s ye’ll tak aff the robes o red, An ye’ll pit on the beggin-weed, An ye’ll gang wi me an ye’ll beg your bread, An ye’ll be the beggar’s dawtie.’
6 When they cam to yon borough-toon, They bocht a loaf an they baith sat doon, They bocht a loaf an they baith sat doon, An the lassie ate wi her laddie.
7 When they cam to yon grassy hill, Where spotted flocks do feed their fill, ‘I’ll sit me doon an I’ll greet a while, For the followin o my laddie.’
8 ‘It’s ye’ll tak aff yer beggin-weed, An ye’ll pit on the goons o red, An ye’ll gang ye back the road ye cam, For I canna bide yer greetin.’
9 ‘Betide me weel, betide me woe, It’s wi the beggar an I’ll go, An I’ll follow him through frost an snow, An I’ll be the beggar’s dawtie.’
10 When they cam to yonder ha, He knockit loud an sair did ca; She says, My dear, we’ll be foun in fa For knockin here sae loudly.
11 Four-an-twenty gentlemen Cam a’ to welcome the beggar in, An as monie fair ladies gay To welcome’s bonnie lassie.
12 When at he gied through the ha, They a’ did laugh, they were like to fa, Sayin, Brither, I wish we had beggit a’, For sic a bonnie lassie.
13 ‘The streen ye was the beggar’s bride, An noo this nicht ye’ll lie by my side, Come weel, come woe, whateer betide, An ye’ll be aye my dawtie.’
C
Motherwell’s MS., p. 249; from the recitation of Miss Ann Wilson, of the Tontine Inn, Paisley, who learned it from the cook in her father’s house.
1 Down in yonder garden gay, Where many a ladie does repair, Where many a ladie does repair, Puing of flowers sae bonnie.
2 ‘O do you see yon shepherd’s son, Feeding his flocks in yonder loan, Feeding his flocks in yonder loan? Vow but he feeds them bonnie!’
3 ‘O laddie, laddie, what is your trade? Or by what means do you win your bread? Or by what means do you win your bread? O laddie, tell unto me.’
4 By making spindles is my trade, Or whorles in the time o need, And by which ways I do win my bread: O lady, do you love me?’
5 ‘As Judas loved a piece of gold, As Jacob loved Rachel of old, As Jacob loved Rachel of old, O laddie, I do love thee.’
6 ‘You must put off your robes of silk, You must put on my cloutit claes, And follow me hard at my back, And ye’ll be my beggar-lassie.’
7 She’s put aff her robes of silk, And she’s put on his cloutit claes, And she’s followed him hard at his back, And she’s been his beggar-lassie.
8 O when they cam to [the] borrowstoun, Vow but the lassie lookit doun! Vow but the lassie lookit doun! Following her beggar-laddie.
9 O when they cam to Stirling toun, He coft a loaf and they baith sat doun, He coft a loaf and they baith sat doun, And she’s eaten wi her beggar-laddie.
10 ‘O do you see yon hie, hie hill, Where the corn grows baith rank and tall? If I was there, I would greet my fill, Where naebody wuld see me.’
11 When they came to his brother’s hall, Vow but he chappit loud and schill! ‘Don’t chap sae loud,’ the lassie said, ‘For we may be fund faut wi.’
12 Four-and-twenty gentlemen, And twice as many gay ladies, And twice as many gay ladies, Came to welcome in the lassie.
13 His brother led her thro the hall, With laughter he was like to fall; He said, I think we should beg it all, For she is a bonnie lassie.
14 ‘You must put aff your cloutit claes, You must put on your robes of silk, You must put on your robes of silk, For ye are a young knicht’s ladye.’
D
Christie’s Traditional Ballad Airs, I, 100; from three copies, two in Banffshire, and one in Aberdeenshire.
1 ’Twas in the pleasant month of June, When woods and valleys a’ grow green, And valiant ladies walk alane, While Phoebus shines soe clearly. And valiant ladies, etc.
2 Out-ower yon den I spied a swain, Wi a shepherd’s club into his han; He was driving ewes out-ower yon knowes, And said, Lassie, I could love you. He was driving ewes, etc.
3 ‘Oh, I could love you manifold, As Jacob lovd Rachel of old, As Jesse lovd the fields of gold, So dearly could I love you.
4 ‘In ha’s and chambers ye’se be laid, In silks and cambrics ye’se be clade, An wi the finest ye’se be fed, My dear, gin ye would believe me.’
5 ‘Your ha’s and chambers ye’ll soon sweep clean, Wi your flattering tongue now let me alane; You are designd to do me wrang, Awa, young man, and leave me.
6 ‘But tell me now what is your trade, When you’ve given over sheep and club?’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
7 ‘By making besoms I win my bread, And spindles and whorles in time o need; Isn’t that a gentle trade indeed? Bonnie lassie, can you loe me?
8 ‘Will ye cast aff your mantle black And put on you a clouty cloak, And follow me close at the back, The gaberlunyie-laddie?’
9 Then she coost aff her mantle black, And she put on a clouty cloak, And she followd him close at the back, Her gaberlunyie-laddie.
10 As they gaed through yon borough-town, For shame the lassie lookit down; But they bought a loaf and they both sat down, And the lassie ate wi her laddie.
11 When they came to his father’s gate, Sae loudly as he rappd thereat; ‘My dear,’ said she, ‘ye’ll be found in faut For rapping there sae loudly.’
12 Then four-and-twenty gentlemen Convoyd the gentle beggar ben, And aye as mony gay ladies Convoyd the bonny lassie.
13 When they were come into the ha, Wi laughter a’ were like to fa: ‘I wish, dear brother, we had beggëd a’, For sic a bonnie lassie.’
14 Then as he stood amang them a’, He let his meal-pocks a’ down fa, And in red gowd he shone oer them a’, And she was a young knight’s lady.
15 Yestreen she was the begger’s bride, As his wife she now stood by his side, And for a’ the lassie’s ill misguide, She’s now the young knight’s lady.
E
Kinloch MSS, V, 249. As recited by John Laurie, Abbeygreen.
1 ’Twas in the merry month of June, When woods and gardens were all in bloom, When woods and gardens were all in bloom, And Phœbus shining clearly.
2 Did you not see your shepherd-swain, Feeding his flocks upon the plain, Feeding his flocks all one by one, And keeping them together?
3 Did you not see yon bonny green, Where dukes and lords and my love hath been, Where dukes and lords and my love hath been, And Phœbus shining clearly?
4 ‘O shepherd, shepherd, tell me indeed Which is the way you dou win your bread, Which is the way you dou win your bread, When feeding you give over?’
5 ‘By making spindles I win my bread, By turning whorles in time of need, By turning whorles in time of need, Say, lassy, can you love me?’
6 ‘I could love you manifold, As Jacob loved Rachel of old, As Jacob loved Rachel of old, So dearly could I love you.’
7 ‘You must cast off these robes of silk, And put about my shepherd’s cloak, And you must walk down at my back, Like a shepherd’s bonny lassie.’
8 She has cast off her robes of silk, And put about his shepherd’s cloak, And she has walkd down at his back, Like a shepherd’s bonny lassie.
9 O they walked up, and they walked down, Till this fair maiden she’s wearyed grown; Says she, My dear, we’ll go to some town, And there tak up our lodgings.
10 O whan they cam to his father’s gate, Sae loudly, loudly as he did rap; Says she, My dear, we’ll be found in fault For rapping here sae boldly.
11 But whan they cam to his father’s hall, O loud, loud laughter they laughed all, Saying, Brother, I wish we had herded all, Ye’ve got sic an a bonny lassie.
12 Now this young couple they were wed, And all the way the flowers were spread, For in disguise they were married; She’s now the young squire’s lady.
* * * * *
=A.=
2^2. who wad. Cf. ‘Gaberlunyie-Man,’ 10^2. =C=, =D=, =E=, time o need.
4^1. clouty clok. Cf. 5^1.
4, 5. In the other copies, the lady casts off her better clothes, and puts on the beggin-weed, his cloutit claes, a clouty cloak, his shepherd’s cloak, and this disposition is no doubt the right one.
6^3. She bought. He, =C=, They, =B=, =D=, either of which is preferable.
15^2. wouded.
=C.=
8^1, 9^1; 10^1. Oh.
8^1. Borrowstoun.
=D.=
6, 7 are printed together.
FOOTNOTES:
[97]
=B= 4^3, As Jessie loved the cups o gold,
=C= 5^1, As Judas loved a piece of gold,
=D= 3^3, As Jesse lovd the fields of gold; the original reading being as in
=A= 3^3, As Jason loied his flice of gould.
281
THE KEACH I THE CREEL
=A.= ‘The Keach i the Creel,’ Alexander Whitelaw, The Book of Scottish Ballads, p. 35, 1845; Dixon, Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs, p. 112, Percy Society, vol. xvii, 1846.
=B.= ‘The Creel, or, Bonnie May.’ Communicated by Mr David Louden, Morham, Haddington, 1873.
=C.= ‘The Cunning Clerk,’ Buchan’s Ballads of the North of Scotland, I, 278, 1828.
=D.= ‘The Covering Blue,’ Kinloch MSS, I, 276; Kinloch’s Ballad Book, p. 61, 1827.
A few copies of =A= were printed about 1845 by a Northumbrian gentleman for private distribution. One of these came into Whitelaw’s hands, another into Dixon’s. Dixon made some changes in reprinting. Bell, Ancient Poems, etc., p. 75, 1857, and Bruce and Stokoe, Northumbrian Minstrelsy, p. 82, 1882, repeat Dixon. This last remarks that “this old and very humorous ballad has long been a favorite on both sides of the Border.”
James Telfer, writing to Sir W. Scott, May 12, 1824 [Letters, XIII, No 73], says: “I have an humorous ballad sung by a few of the old people on this side of the Border. It is entitled The Keach in the Creel. It begins thus:@
A bonny may went up the street Some whitewish (sic) for to buy, And a bonny clerk’s faen in love with her, And he’s followed her by and by, by, And he’s followed her by and by.”@
Buchan notes, I, 319, that Motherwell had sent him a ballad “somewhat similar in incident,” taken down from the recitation of an old woman in or near Paisley.
This was perhaps a copy of which the first stanza is entered in Motherwell’s Note-Book, p. 55:
When I gade doun to Colliestoun, Some white-fish for to buy, buy, The cannie clarkie follows me, And he follows me spedily, -ly.
Or the ballad called ‘Ricadoo’ in the Appendix to Motherwell’s Minstrelsy, p. xxiii, No 29, where this first stanza is given:
The farmer’s daughter gade to the market, Some white-fish for to buy; The young squire followed after her, As fast as he could hie. Ricadoo, Tunaway, ricadoo a doo a day, Raddle ricadoo, Tunaway
Though occurring only in a late Scottish ballad, the story is somewhat old. In Gasté, Chansons normandes du XV^e siècle, MS. de Vire, No 19, p. 15, a gentleman of Orleans causes his servants to let him down a chimney in a basket, and conceals himself under a lady’s bed. She, made aware of his presence, sends her husband off to the barn, where, she says, he will find the curé, who has made love to her. On returning, the husband gets his feet into the basket, and the servants without draw the basket up. The man cries out to his wife that the devil is making away with him.
Again, in a fabliau considerably older: ‘Du chevalier à la corbeille,’ MS. of the end of the fourteenth century, F. Michel, Gautier d’Aupais, Le chevalier à la Corbeille, Fabliaux du XIII^e siècle, p. 35; Montaiglon et Raynaud, Recueil général des Fabliaux, etc., II, 183. A gentleman makes appointment to visit a lady one night when her husband is away. An old woman, the husband’s mother, sleeps in a bed beside the lady’s, and keeps strict watch over her. The gentleman’s squires hoist him in a basket over the wall of the house, so that he obtains entrance into the hall, whence he passes into the lady’s chamber. The old woman observes a disturbance, and gets up, pretending that she is going to the kitchen. In the hall she goes astray and falls into the basket. The squires, noticing a movement of the cords, pull at the basket. The old woman is ‘towed’ up and down, and knocked about, much as in the ballad. She thinks that devils have carried her off. Finally the squires let the cords go, and the basket comes flat to the ground.
The story is also told in Henri Estienne’s Apologie pour Hérodote, 1566; here, of a girl and her lover, and it is the girl’s father that gets his feet into the basket. Ed. Ristelhuber, 1879, I, 282 f.
No one looks for decorum in pieces of this description, but a passage in this ballad, which need not be particularized, is brutal and shameless almost beyond example.
* * * * *
=C= is translated by Gerhard, p. 192.
A
Whitelaw’s Book of Scottish Ballads, p. 35; “taken down from the recitation of a gentleman in Liddesdale.”
1 A fair young may went up the street, Some white-fish for to buy, And a bonnie clerk’s faen in love wi her, And he’s followed her by and by, by, And he’s followed her by and by.
2 ‘O where live ye, my bonnie lass, I pray thee tell to me; For gin the nicht were ever sae mirk I wad come and visit thee.’
3 ‘O my father he aye locks the door, My mither keeps the key; And gin ye were ever sic a wily wight Ye canna win in to me.’
4 But the clerk he had ae true brother, And a wily wight was he; And he has made a lang ladder, Was thirty steps and three.
5 He has made a cleek but and a creel, A creel but and a pin; And he’s away to the chimley-top, And he’s letten the bonnie clerk in.
6 The auld wife, being not asleep, Heard something that was said; ‘I’ll lay my life,’ quo the silly auld wife, ‘There’s a man i our dochter’s bed.’
7 The auld man he gat owre the bed, To see if the thing was true; But she’s ta’en the bonny clerk in her arms, And coverd him owre wi blue.
8 ‘O where are ye gaun now, father?’ she says, ‘And where are ye gaun sae late? Ye’ve disturbd me in my evening prayers, And O but they were sweet!’
9 ‘O ill betide ye, silly auld wife, And an ill death may ye die! She has the muckle buik in her arms, And she’s prayin for you and me.’
10 The auld wife being not asleep, Then something mair was said; ‘I’ll lay my life,’ quo the silly auld wife, ‘There’s a man i our dochter’s bed.’
11 The auld wife she got owre the bed, To see if the thing was true; But what the wrack took the auld wife’s fit? For into the creel she flew.
12 The man that was at the chimley-top, Finding the creel was fu, He wrappit the rape round his left shouther, And fast to him he drew.
13 ‘O help! O help! O hinny, now, help! O help, O hinny, now! For him that ye aye wished me to He’s carryin me off just now.’
14 ‘O if the foul thief’s gotten ye, I wish he may keep his haud; For a’ the lee lang winter nicht Ye’ll never lie in your bed.’
15 He’s towed her up, he’s towed her down, He’s towed her through an through; ‘O Gude assist!’ quo the silly auld wife, For I’m just departin now.’
16 He’s towed her up, he’s towed her down, He’s gien her a richt down-fa, Till every rib i the auld wife’s side Playd nick-nack on the wa.
17 O the blue, the bonnie, bonnie blue, And I wish the blue may do weel! And every auld wife that’s sae jealous o her dochter, May she get a good keach i the creel!
B
Communicated February, 1873, by Mr David Louden, of Morham, Haddington, N. B., as derived from Andrew Hastie, Rentonhall.
1 As bonnie may went up the street, Some sweetmeats for to buy, There was a young clerk followed after her, And followed her by and by, by, And followed her by and by.
2 ‘It’s bonnie may, where do you stay? Or where is’t that you be? Oh if the night be neer so dark, Awat I’ll come and visit thee.’
3 ‘My father locks the door at een, My mother keeps the key; Gin ye were neer sic a rovin blade, Ye canna win in to me.’
4 The young clerk has a young brither, And a wily wag was he; He’s made to him a long ladder, Wi thirty steps and three.
5 And he’s put it to the chimney-top, And the creel he’s put on a pin, And he’s put it to the chimney-top, And he’s let the young clerk in.
6 The auld wife she was standing by, She heard a word was said; ‘I could lay my life,’ said the silly auld wife, There’s a man in oor dochter’s bed.’
7 The auld man he cam doun the stairs To see if it were true; The young clerk was lying in bonnie may’s arms, And she’s covered him oer wi blue.
8 ‘Where are you going, dear father?’ she says, ‘Where are you going so late? You stopped me of my evening prayers, And oh, but they were sweet!’
9 ‘The deil tak you, ye silly auld wife, And an ill death may ye dee! For your dochter was lyin wi the book in her arms, And she’s prayin for you and me.’
10 The auld wife still standin no far by, Still hearin a word, she said, ‘Ye may say as ye like, ye silly auld man, There’s a man in oor dochter’s bed.’
11 I dinna ken what’s taen the auld wife’s fit, But into the creel she flew; The young clerk[‘s brither] being at the chimney-top, He found the creel was fu.
12 He’s thrown the rope out-owre his shouther, And to him he did draw; He’s drawn her up, he’s drawn her doun, He’s drawn her through and through.
13 Till the auld wife she began to cry, I’m just departin noo! But aye he drew her up and doun, And drew her through and through.
14 He’s drawn her up, he’s let her doun, He’s gien her evendoun fall, Till every rib on the auld wife’s side Played nick-nack on the wall.
15 It’s O the blue, the bonnie, bonnie blue, I wish the blue may do weel! For every auld wife that is jealous o her dochter May be rockit to the d----l in a creel!
C
Buchan’s Ballads of the North of Scotland, I, 278.
1 As I gaed down to Collistown, Some white-fish for to buy, buy, The cunning clerk he followed me, And he followed me speedily, ly, And he followed me speedily.
2 Says, Faur ye gaun, my dearest dear? O faur ye gaun, my dow? There’s naebody comes to my bedside, And naebody wins to you.
3 ‘Your brother is a gallant square-wright, A gallant square-wright is he; Ye’ll gar him make a lang ladder, Wi thirty steps and three.
4 ‘And gar him big a deep, deep creel, A deep creel and a string, And ye’ll come up to my bedside, And come bonnily linken in.’
5 The auld gudeman and auld gudewife, To bed they went, to sleep; But wae mat worth the auld gudewife! A wink she coudna get.
6 ‘I dreamd a dreary dream this night, I wish it binna true, That the rottens had come thro the wa, And cutted the coverin blue.’
7 Then up it raise the auld gudeman, To see gin it was true; And he’s gane to his daughter dear, Says, What are ye doing, my dow?
8 ‘What are ye doing, my daughter dear? What are ye doing, my dow?’ ‘The prayer book’s in my hand, father, Praying for my auld minnie and you.’
9 The auld gudeman and auld gudewife, To bed they went, to sleep; But wae mat worth the auld gudewife! But aye she wakend yet.
10 ‘I dreamd a dreary dream this night, I wish it binna true, That the cunning clerk and your ae daughter Were aneath the coverin blue.’
11 ‘O rise yoursell, gudewife,’ he says, ‘The diel may had you fast! Atween you and your ae daughter I canno get ae night’s rest.’
12 Up then raise the auld gudewife, To see gin it was true, And she fell arselins in the creel, And up the string they drew.
13 ‘Win up, win up, gudeman,’ she says, ‘Win up and help me now! For he that ye gae me to last night, I think he’s catchd me now.’
14 ‘Gin Auld Nick he has catchd you now, I wish he may had you fast; As for you and your ae daughter, I ever get kindly rest.’
15 They howded her, and they showded her, Till the auld wife gat a fa, And three ribs o the auld wife’s side Gaed knip-knap ower in twa.
D
Kinloch MSS, I, 276; from Alexander Kinnear, of Stonehaven.
1 ‘My father he locks the doors at nicht, My mither the keys carries ben, ben; There’s naebody dare gae out,’ she says, ‘And as few dare come in, in, And as few dare come in.’
2 ‘I will mak a lang ladder, Wi fifty steps and three, I will mak a lang ladder, And lichtly come doun to thee.’
3 He has made a lang ladder, Wi fifty steps and three, He has made a lang ladder, And lichtly come doun the lum.
4 They had na kissd nor lang clappit, As lovers do whan they meet, Till the auld wife says to the auld man, I hear somebody speak.
5 ‘I dreamed a dreem sin late yestreen, And I’m feard my dream be true; I dreamd that the rottens cam thro the wa, And cuttit the covering blue.
6 ‘Ye’ll rise, ye’ll rise, my auld gudeman, And see gin this be true;’ ‘If ye’re wanting rising, rise yoursel, For I wish the auld chiel had you.’
7 ‘I dreamed a dream sin late yestreen, And I’m feard my dream be true; I dreamd that the clerk and our ae dother War rowed in the covering blue.
8 ‘Ye’ll rise, ye’ll rise, my auld gudeman, And see gin this be true:’ ‘If ye’re wanting rising, rise yoursel, For I wish the auld chiel had you.’
9 But up she raise, and but she gaes, And she fell into the gin; He gied the tow a clever tit, That brought her out at the lum.
10 ‘Ye’ll rise, ye’ll rise, my auld gudeman, Ye’ll rise and come to me now, For him that ye’ve gien me sae lang till, I fear he has gotten me now.’
11 ‘The grip that he’s gotten, I wish he may haud, And never let it gae, For atween you and your ae dother I rest neither nicht nor day.’
* * * * *
=A.=
1^1. May (not may).
Dixon says: In the present impression some trifling typographical mistakes are corrected, and the phraseology has been rendered uniform throughout.
In 6^2, he prints, Tho late, late was the hour; 6^4, dochter’s bower; 10^4, by our; 13^2, hinny, do; 13^3, wished me at.
=B.=
1^1, 2^1, 7^3. May (not may).
1^4. by and bye.
15^1. She cries aye, It’s oh.
282
JOCK THE LEG AND THE MERRY MERCHANT
Buchan’s Ballads of the North of Scotland, II, 165.
Jock the Leg and a merchant (packman, pedlar) put up at the same tavern. Jock makes free to order a good supper at the merchant’s expense; the packman gives notice that he will not pay a penny beyond his own shot. They go to bed in rooms separated by a locked door, but before the merchant is well asleep Jock appears at his feet and rouses him; it is more than time that they were on their road. The merchant will not stir a foot till daylight; he cannot go by Barnisdale or Coventry for fear that Jock the Leg should take his pack. His self-imposed comrade promises to see him safely through these places, but when they come to dangerous ground avows himself as Jock the Leg, and demands the pack. The merchant puts his pack under a tree, and says he will fight for it till daylight; they fight; the robber finds a more than equal match, cries Hold! and begs the boon of a blast on his horn, to which the merchant contemptuously accedes. Four-and-twenty bowmen come to Jock’s help. The merchant offers to give up his pack if the six best of these, and Jock, the seventh, can drive him one foot from it. The seven make the attempt and fail. The merchant, holding his pack in one hand, slays five of the six with his broadsword, and knocks over the other. Jock declares him to be the boldest swordsman he has ever fought with; if he were equally good with the bow, he should have service with Jock’s master in the greenwood. The merchant would not join a robber-band. Jock proposes a barter of deerskins for fine linen. The merchant wants no stolen deerskins. ‘Take your pack,’ says Jock, ‘and wherever we meet we shall be good comrades.’ ‘I’ll take my pack,’ says the uncompromising merchant, ‘and wherever we meet I’ll call thee a rank thief.’
This piece, but for names (and Jock the Leg is only a thin shrouding for Little John), might have gone with the Robin Hood ballads. It was composed, probably, in the last half of the eighteenth century, and for hawkers’ purposes, but it is a better ballad, imitation as it is, than some of the seventeenth-century broadsides of the same class (which is indeed saying very little). The fight for the pack, 13, 14, 20, we have in ‘The Bold Pedlar and Robin Hood’ (also a late ballad), No 132, 6, 7, 10; the “asking” of a blast on the horn and the scornful reply, 16, 17, in ‘Robin Hood and the Shepherd,’ No 135, 15, 16, with verbal similarity in the first case. (17 is all but a repetition of No 123, =B= 26, and No 140, =B= 25.)
1 As Jock the Leg and the merry merchant Came from yon borrow’s town, They took their budgets on their backs, And fieldert they were boun.
2 But they came to a tavern-house, Where chapmen used to be: ‘Provide, provide,’ said Jock the Leg, ‘A good supper for me.
3 ‘For the merry merchant shall pay it a’, Tho it were good merks three;’ ‘But never a penny,’ said the merry merchant, ‘But shot, as it fa’s me.
4 ‘A bed, a bed,’ said the merry merchant, ‘It’s time to go to rest;’ ‘And that ye shall,’ said the good goodwife, ‘And your covrings o the best.’
5 Then Jock the Leg in one chamber was laid, The merchant in another, And lockfast door atween them twa, That the one might not see the other.
6 But the merchant was not well lain down, Nor yet well fa’en asleep, Till up it starts him Jock the Leg, Just at the merchant’s feet.
7 ‘Win up, win up,’ said Jock the Leg, ‘We might hae been miles three;’ ‘But never a foot,’ said the merry merchant, ‘Till day that I do see.
8 ‘For I cannot go by Barnisdale, Nor yet by Coventry; For Jock the Leg, that common thief, Would take my pack from me.’
9 ‘I’ll hae you in by Barnisdale, And down by Coventry, And I’ll guard you frae Jock the Leg Till day that ye do see.’
10 When they were in by Barnisdale, And in by Coventry, ‘Repeat, repeat,’ said Jock the Leg, ‘The words ye ance tauld me.’
11 ‘I never said aught behind your back But what I’ll say to thee; Are ye that robber, Jock the Leg, Will take my pack frae me?’
12 ‘O by my sooth,’ said Jock the Leg, ‘You’ll find that man I be; Surrender that pack that’s on your back, Or then be slain by me.’
13 He’s ta’en his pack down frae his back, Set it below yon tree; Says, I will fight for my good pack Till day that I may see.
14 Then they fought there in good greenwood Till they were bloody men; The robber on his knees did fall, Said, Merchant, hold your hand.
15 ‘An asking, asking,’ said Jock the Leg, ‘An asking ye’ll grant me;’ ‘Ask on, ask on,’ said the merry merchant, ‘For men to asking are free.’
16 ‘I’ve dune little harm to you,’ he said, ‘More than you’d been my brother; Give me a blast o my little wee horn, And I’ll give you another.’
17 ‘A blast o your little wee horn,’ he said, ‘Of this I take no doubt; I hope you will take such a blast Ere both your eyes fly out.’
18 He set his horn to his mouth, And he blew loud and shrill, And four-and-twenty bauld bowmen Came Jock the Leg until.
19 ‘Ohon, alas!’ said the merry merchant, ‘Alas! and woe is me! Sae many, a party o common thiefs, But nane to party me!
20 ‘Ye’ll wile out six o your best bowmen, Yourself the seventh to be, And, put me one foot frae my pack, My pack ye shall have free.’
21 He wiled six o his best bowmen, Himself the seventh to be, But [him] frae his pack they couldna get, For all that they could dee.
22 He’s taen his pack into one hand, His broadsword in the other, And he slew five o the best bowmen, And the sixth he has dung over.
23 Then all the rest they gae a shout, As they stood by the tree; Some said they would this merchant head, Some said they’d let him be.
24 But Jock the Leg he then replied, To this I’ll not agree; He is the boldest broadsword-man That ever I fought wi.
25 ‘If ye could wield the bow, the bow As ye can do the brand, I would hae you to good greenwood, To be my master’s man.’
26 ‘Tho I could wield the bow, the bow As I can do the brand, I would not gang to good greenwood, To join a robber-band.’
27 ‘O give me some of your fine linen, To cleathe my men and me, And ye’se hae some of my dun deers’ skins, Below yon greenwood-tree.’
28 ‘Ye’se hae nane o my fine linen, To cleathe your men and thee, And I’ll hae nane o your stown deers’ skins, Below yon greenwood-tree.’
29 ‘Ye’ll take your pack upon your back, And travel by land or sea; In brough or land, wherever we meet, Good billies we shall be.’
30 ‘I’ll take my pack upon my back, And go by land or sea; In brough or land, wherever we meet, A rank thief I’ll call thee.’
283
THE CRAFTY FARMER
=a.= ‘The Crafty Farmer,’ Logan, A Pedlar’s Pack, p. 126, from a chap-book of 1796; ‘The Crafty Miller,’ Maidment, Scotish Ballads and Songs, 1859, p. 208, from a Glasgow stall-copy; a stall-copy, printed by M. Randall, Stirling.
=b.= ‘The Yorkshire Farmer,’ Kidson, Traditional Tunes, p. 140, from The Manchester Songster, 1792.
=c.= ‘Saddle to Rags,’ Dixon, Ancient Poems, etc., p. 126, Percy Society, vol. xvii., taken down from the recitation of a Yorkshire yeoman in 1845.
=d.= ‘The Thief Outwitted,’ Notes and Queries, Fourth Series, XI, 112, 1873, taken down by E. McC., Guernsey, “from the recitation of an old woman now in her eighty-second year, who learnt it in her childhood from her father, a laborer from the neighborhood of Yeovil.”
=e.= ‘The Silly Old Man,’ Baring-Gould and Sheppard, Songs and Ballads of the West, 3d ed., No 18, Part I, p. 38, as sung by the Rev. E. Luscombe, a Devonshire man, about 1850 (Part IV, p. xviii).
=f.= ‘The Silly Old Man,’ Miss M. H. Mason’s Nursery Rhymes and Country Songs, p. 43, as sung in Devonshire.
An old farmer who is on his way to pay his rent imparts the fact to a gentlemanlike highwayman who overtakes him. The highwayman cautions him not to be too communicative, since there are many thieves on the roads. The old man has no fear; his money is safe in his saddle-bags. At the right time and place the thief bids him stand and deliver. The farmer throws his saddle over a hedge; the thief dismounts to fetch it, and gives his horse to the farmer to hold; the farmer mounts the thief’s horse and rides off. The thief hacks the saddle to pieces to get at the bags. Arrived at his landlord’s, the farmer opens the thief’s portmanteau, and finds in it six hundred pounds. The farmer’s wife is made very happy by her husband’s report of his performances; the thief’s money will help to enlarge her daughter’s marriage portion.
This very ordinary ballad has enjoyed great popularity, and is given for that reason and as a specimen of its class. There is an entirely similar one, in which a Norfolk (Rygate, Cheshire) farmer’s daughter going to market to sell corn is substituted for the farmer going to pay his rent: ‘The Norfolk Maiden,’ in The Longing Maid’s Garland, of the last century, without place or date;[98] ‘The Maid of Rygate,’ Logan’s Pedlar’s Pack, p. 133; ‘The Highwayman Outwitted,’ Leigh’s Ballads and Legends of Cheshire, p. 267. Another variety is of a Yorkshire boy sent to a fair to sell a cow: ‘Yorkshire Bite,’ etc., The Turnip-Sack Garland (like The Longing Maid’s Garland, one of a collection of Heber’s);[98] ‘The Yorkshire Bite,’ “from a collection of ballads circa 1782,” Logan’s Pedlar’s Pack, p. 131; ‘The Crafty Ploughboy,’ Ingledew’s Ballads and Songs of Yorkshire, p. 209.
For certain ballads in which a country girl, beset by an amorous gentleman, mounts his horse and makes off with his valise or the like, see II, 483, and the page preceding.
‘The Politick Squire, or, The Highwaymen catch’d in their own play,’ is a ballad of a gentleman who, having been robbed by five highwaymen that then purpose to shoot him, tells them that he is the Pretender, and is taken by them as such to a justice. The squire makes explanations, four of the thieves are hanged, and the fifth, who had shown some mercy, is transported.[99]
* * * * *
1 The song that I’m going to sing, I hope it will give you content, Concerning a silly old man, That was going to pay his rent.
2 As he was riding along, Along all on the highway, A gentleman-thief overtook him, And thus to him did say.
3 ‘Well overtaken!’ said the thief, ‘Well overtaken!’ said he; And ‘Well overtaken!’ said the old man, ‘If thou be good company.’
4 ‘How far are you going this way?’ Which made the old man for to smile; ‘By my faith,’ said the old man, ‘I’m just going two mile.
5 ‘I am a poor farmer,’ he said, ‘And I farm a piece of ground, And my half-year’s rent, kind sir, Just comes to forty pound.
6 ‘And my landlord has not been at home, I’ve not seen him this twelvemonth or more, Which makes my rent be large; I’ve to pay him just fourscore.’
7 ‘Thou shouldst not have told any body, For thieves there’s ganging many; If any should light on thee, They’ll rob thee of thy money.’
8 ‘O never mind,’ said the old man, ‘Thieves I fear on no side, For the money is safe in my bags, On the saddle on which I ride.’
9 As they were riding along, The old man was thinking no ill, The thief he pulled out a pistol And bid the old man stand still.
10 But the old man provd crafty, As in the world there’s many; He threw his saddle oer the hedge, Saying, Fetch it, if thou’lt have any.
11 The thief got off his horse, With courage stout and bold, To search for the old man’s bag, And gave him his horse to hold.
12 The old man put’s foot i the stirrup And he got on astride; To its side he clapt his spur up, You need not bid the old man ride.
13 ‘O stay!’ said the thief, ‘O stay! And half the share thou shalt have;’ ‘Nay, by my faith,’ said the old man, ‘For once I have bitten a knave.’
14 The thief he was not content, But he thought there must be bags; He out with his rusty old sword And chopt the old saddle in rags.
15 When he came to the landlord’s house, This old man he was almost spent; Saying, Come, show me a private room And I’ll pay you a whole year’s rent.
16 ‘I’ve met a fond fool by the way, I swapt horses and gave him no boot; But never mind,’ said the old man, ‘For I got the fond fool by the foot.’
17 He opend this rogue’s portmantle, It was glorious to behold; There were three hundred pounds in silver, And three hundred pounds in gold.
18 And as he was riding home, And down a narrow lane, He espied his mare tied to a hedge, Saying, Prithee, Tib, wilt thou gang hame?
19 When he got home to his wife And told her what he had done, Up she rose and put on her clothes, And about the house did run.
20 She sung, and she sung, and she sung, She sung with a merry devotion, Saying, If ever our daughter gets wed, It will help to enlarge her portion.
* * * * *
=a.=
There are some slight verbal differences in the three copies, but none worthy of notice.
=b.=
1 A song I will sing unto you, A song of a merry intent, It is of a silly old man That went to pay his rent, That went to pay his rent.
2 And as he was riding along, A riding along the highway, A gentleman-thief steps before the old man And thus unto him he did say.
3 ‘My friend, how dare you ride alone? For so many thieves there now be; If any should but light on you, They’d rob you of all your money.’
4 ‘If that they should light upon me, I’m sure they’d be very ill-sped, For, to tell you the truth, my kind sir, In my saddle my money I’ve hid.’
5 So as they were riding along, And going down a steep hill, The gentleman-thief slipped before the old man And quickly he bid him stand still.
6 The old man, however, being cunning, As in this world there are many, He threw the saddle right over the hedge, Saying, Fetch it if thou wouldst have any.
7 The thief being so greedy of money-- He thought that of it there’d been bags-- Whipt out a rusty old sword And chopped the saddle to rags.
8 The old man put his foot in the stirrup And presently he got astride; He put the thief’s horse to the gallop, You need not bid the old man ride.
9 ‘Nay, stay! nay, stay!’ says the thief, ‘And half the money thou shalt have;’ ‘Nay, by my troth,’ says the old man, ‘For once I have cheated a knave.’
10 And so the old man rode along, And went with a merry devotion, Saying, If ever I live to get home, ‘Twill enlarge my daughter’s portion.
11 And having arrived at home, And got there with merry intent, Says he, Landlord, show me a room, And I’ll pay you your half-year’s rent.
12 They opened the thief’s portmanteau, And from it they took out so bold A hundred pounds in silver And a hundred pounds in gold.
=c-f=, the traditional copies, were beyond doubt all derived originally from print. =c= is from =a=; =d-f= are from another edition, not recovered, resembling =b=. This had variations, especially at the beginning and end, of which some specimens will suffice.
=d.=
1 Oh ’tis I that will sing you a song, A song of merry intent; ’Tis about a silly old man That was going to pay his rent.
2 And as he was riding along, Along and alone in a lane, A gentleman-thief overtook him, And said, Well overtaken, old man!
3 ‘You’re well overtaken, old man, You’re well overtaken by me;’ ‘Nay, further go,’ said the old man, ‘I’m not for thy company.’
4, 6 are wanting, as also in =e=, =f=, (and in =b=).
8^{2-4} ‘He shall but poorly speed, For all the money I have In my old saddle ’tis hid.’
19, 20 Oh, when that he came home, His daughter she looked like a duchess, And his old woman capered for joy, And danced him a gig on her crutches.
=e.=
1 Aw come now, I’ll sing you a song, ’Tis a song of right merry intent, Concerning a silly old man Who went for to pay his rent.
2 And as this here silly old man Was riding along the lane, A gentleman-thief overtook him, Saying, Well overtaken, old man!
3 ‘What, well overtaken, do’y say?’ ‘Yes, well overtaken,’ quoth he; ‘No, no,’ said the silly old man, ‘I don’t want thy company.’
8^{2-4} ‘Why, badly the thief would be sped, For the money I carry about me In the quilt o my saddle is hid.’
19, 20 Aw, when to his home he were come, His daughter he dressd like a duchess, And his ol woman kicked and she capered for joy, And at Christmas danced jigs on her crutches.
=f.= Resembles =d=, =e= in the passages cited.
FOOTNOTES:
[98] Also among the garlands collected by J. Bell, Newcastle, British Museum: the first, 11621. c. 2 (36), and 4 (13); the other, c. 2 (70). The garlands in 4 were printed, according to Bell, by J. White, †1769, or by T. Saint, †1788.Return to reference 1 Return to reference 2
[99] Douce Ballads, III, fol. 78 b., London, Printed and sold at Sympson’s Warehouse, in Stonecutter-Street, Fleet-Market.Return to passage
284
JOHN DORY
Ravenscroft’s Deuteromelia, London, 1609; No 1 of Freemen’s Songs, sig. B.
John Dory goes to Paris and offers King John, in return for a pardon asked for himself and his men, to bring the French king all the churls in England in bonds. Nicholl, a Cornish man, fits out a good bark, has an encounter with John Dory, and after a smart fight takes him prisoner.
This ballad had a remarkable popularity in the seventeenth century, as is evinced by the numerous cases of its being cited which Chappell has collected, Popular Music, p. 67 f.[100]
As to the history of the transactions set forth in the ballad, I am not aware that anything has been added to the account given by Carew in his Survey of Cornwall, 1602, p. 135, which Ritson has quoted in the second edition of his Ancient Songs, II, 57, an account which is likely to have been taken from the ballad, with the specification from tradition that Nicholl was “son to a widow near Foy.”
“Moreover, the prowess of one Nicholas, son to a widow near Foy, is descanted upon in an old three-man’s song, namely, how he fought bravely at sea with John Dory (a Genowey, as I conjecture), set forth by John, the French king, and, after much bloodshed on both sides, took, and slew him, in revenge of the great ravine and cruelty which he had fore committed upon the Englishmen’s goods and bodies.” (Page 316 of the edition of 1813.)
The king in the ballad would be John II, the Good, who was taken prisoner at Poitiers, and died in 1364. No John Doria is mentioned as being in his service.
1 As it fell on a holy-day, And vpon an holy-tide-a, Iohn Dory bought him an ambling nag, To Paris for to ride-a.
2 And when John Dory to Paris was come, A little before the gate-a, John Dory was fitted, the porter was witted To let him in thereat-a.
3 The first man that John Dory did meet Was good king John of France-a; John Dory could well of his courtesie, But fell downe in a trance-a.
4 ‘A pardon, a pardon, my liege and my king, For my merie men and for me-a, And all the churles in merie England, I’le bring them all bound to thee-a.’
5 And Nicholl was then a Cornish man, A little beside Bohide-a, And he mande forth a good blacke barke, With fiftie good oares on a side-a.
6 ‘Run vp, my boy, vnto the maine top, And looke what thou canst spie-a:’ ‘Who ho! who ho! a goodly ship I do see, I trow it be John Dory[-a.’]
7 They hoist their sailes, both top and top, The meisseine and all was tride-a, And euery man stood to his lot, What euer should betide-a.
8 The roring cannons then were plide, And dub-a-dub went the drumme-a; The braying trumpets lowde they cride To courage both all and some-a.
9 The grappling-hooks were brought at length, The browne bill and the sword-a, John Dory at length, for all his strength, Was clapt fast vnder board-a.
FOOTNOTES:
[100] The song “I cannot eat but little meat,” introduced into Gammer Gurton’s Needle, which was acted in 1566, was sung to ‘John Dory,’ says Mr Chappell, as above; but there is nothing to show that this was the original tune.Return to passage
285
THE GEORGE ALOE AND THE SWEEPSTAKE
=a.= Percy Papers, “from an ancient black-letter copy in Ballard’s collection.”
=b.= Rawlinson, 566, fol. 183, 4^o.
=c.= Roxburghe, III, 204, in Ebsworth, Roxburghe Ballads, VI, 408.
March 19, 1611, there were entered to Richard Jones, “Captayne Jenninges his songe, whiche he made in the Marshalsey,” etc., and “the second parte of the George Aloo and the Swiftestake, beinge both ballades:” Arber, III, 456. The second part of the George Aloo must needs mean a second ballad, not the printers’ second half (which begins in =c= at the stanza here numbered 14). In ‘The Two Noble Kinsmen,’ printed in 1634, and perhaps earlier, the Jailer’s Daughter sings the two following stanzas (Dyce, XI, 386):
The George Alow came from the south, From the coast of Barbary-a, And there he met with brave gallants of war, By one, by two, by three-a.
Well haild, well haild, you jolly gallants, And whither now are you bound-a? Oh, let me have your company Till [I] come to the sound-a.
These verses, whether accurately reported or not, certainly seem to belong to another ballad. Whether they are from the first part or the second part, we have no means of assuring ourselves. It is to be observed that in the ballad before us the George Aloe and the Sweepstake are sailing for Safee, and in the other case the George Aloe is coming from the south, from the coast of Barbary, so that the adventure, whatever it was, may have occurred in the homeward voyage; but the circumstance is not decisive.[101]
The George Aloe and the Sweepstake, merchantmen, are bound for Safee. The George Aloe anchors, the Sweepstake keeps on, is taken by a French rover, and her crew thrown overboard. The George Aloe hears of this, and sets out to take the Frenchman. Her second shot carries away the enemy’s mainmast; the Frenchmen cry for mercy. The English ask what they did with the crew of the Sweepstake; the Frenchmen confess that they threw them into the sea. Such mercy as you shewed such mercy shall you have, say the English, and deal with the French accordingly.
‘Aboard,’ 6^2, 16^2, I suppose to mean alongside. ‘Amain,’ 7^1, 16^1, is strike (sails) in sign of surrender. The French use the word derived from their own language; the English say, strike. ‘Gallant’ Englishmen in 7^1, after ‘English dogs’ in 6^1, is unlikely courtesy, and is not found in 16^1.
‘The Swepstacke’ is a king’s ship in 1545, and ‘The Sweepstakes’ apparently again in 1666: Historical MSS Commission, 12th Report, Appendix, Part VII, pp. 8, 45.
1 The George Aloe and the Sweepstakes too, With hey, with ho, for and a nony no They were two merchant-men, a sailing for Safee. And along the course of Barbary
2 [The George Aloe to anchor came, But the jolly Sweepstake kept on her way.]
3 They had not sayled leagues two or three Before they spyed a sail upon the sea.
4 ‘O hail, O hail, you lusty gallants, From whence is your good ship, and whither is she bound?’
5 ‘O we are some merchant-men, sailing for Safee:’ ‘And we be French rebels, a roving on the sea.
6 ‘O hail, O hail, you English dogs, [hail!]’ ‘The[n] come aboard, you French dogs, and strike down your sail!’
7 ‘Amain, amain, you gallant Englishmen!’ ‘Come, you French swades, and strike down your sails!’
8 They laid us aboard on the starboard side, And they overthrew us into the sea so wide.
9 When tidings to the George Aloe came That the jolly Sweepstakes by a Frenchman was tane,
10 ‘To top, to top, thou little ship-boy, And see if this French man-of-war thou canst descry.’
11 ‘A sail, a sail, under your lee, Yea, and another under her bough.’
12 ‘Weigh anchor, weigh anchor, O jolly boatswain, We will take this Frenchman if we can.’
13 We had not sailed leagues two or three But we met the French man-of-war upon the sea.
14 ‘All hail, all hail, you lusty gallants, Of whence is your fair ship, and whither is she bound?’
15 ‘O we are merchant-men, and bound for Safee;’ ‘And we are Frenchmen, roving upon the sea.
16 ‘Amain, amain, you English dogs!’ ‘Come aboard, you French rogues, and strike your sails!’
17 The first good shot the George Aloe shot, It made the Frenchmen’s hearts sore afraid.
18 The second shot the George Aloe did afford, He struck the main-mast over the board.
19 ‘Have mercy, have mercy, you brave English[men].’ ‘O what have you done with our brethren on [shore]?’ As they sail[ed].
20 ‘We laid them aboard on the starboard side, And we threw them into the sea so wide.’
21 ‘Such mercy as you have shewed unto them, Even the like mercy shall you have again.’
22 We laid them aboard on the larboard side, And we threw them into the sea so wide.
23 Lord, how it grieved our hearts full sore To see the drowned Frenchmen float along the shore!
24 Now, gallant seamen all, adieu, With hey, with ho, for and a nony no This is the last news that I can write to you. To England’s coast from Barbary
* * * * *
=a.= The Seamans only Delight: Shewing the brave fight between the George Aloe, the Sweepstakes, and certain French Men at sea. Tune, The Sailor’s Joy, etc. (No printers given in the transcript.)
=b.= The Saylors only Delight: Shewing the brave fight between the George-Aloe, the Sweepstake, and certain Frenchmen at sea. To the tune of The Saylors Joy. London, Printed for F. Coles, T. Vere and J. [Wright] (torn). 1655-80, Chappell.
=c.= The Sailors onely Delight: Shewing the brave fight between George-Aloe, the Sweep-stakes, and certain French-men at sea. To the tune of The Saylor’s Joy. Printed for F. Coles, J. Wright, Tho. Vere, and W. Gilbertson. The earliest known ballad by the four together is dated 1655, Chappell. (See No 273, Appendix, III, =b=.)
=a.=
1, 24. Burden^1. anony.
1. Burden^2. course should probably be coast.
2. Wanting; supplied from =b=, =c=.
4^1. O hail, oh.
5^1, 6^1, 15^1. Oh.
10^2. Frenchman of war.
13^2. French Men of War.
17^2. French Mens.
19. Ends torn away. Percy gives, after english, =A=, which may be the first half of an =M=; after on, fl, which may possibly be a wrong reading of sh. Shore is not what we should expect. Defects supplied from =b=, =c=.
23^2. French Men.
=b.=
1. Burden^1. a nony. Burden^2. alongst the cost.
1^1, 9^2. Sweepstake.
1^2. O they were marchant men and bound.
3^2. But they met with a Frenchman of war upon.
4^1. All hayl, all hayl.
4^2. Of whence is your fair ship, whether are you bound.
5^1. We are Englishmen and bound.
5^2. Of whence is your fair ship, or whether are you bound.
6. Wanting.
7^2. swads.
10^2. Frenchman.
11^1. our lee.
11^2. under her obey.
13^2. Frenchman.
14^2. is it.
15^2. I, and we are Frenchmen and war.
16^2. strike down.
17^2. He made: heart.
18^2. strook.
19^1. brave Englishmen.
19^2. brethen on shore.
Burden^2. As they sayled into Barbary.
23^1. greives.
23^2. swim along.
=c.=
4^2. or whither.
7^1. Englishman.
7^2. sayle.
14^2. whither are you.
16^2. rogue.
17^2. hearts.
18^2. struck their.
19^2. brethren on shore. Burden^2. sayled in.
21^2. Then the. Variations otherwise as in =b=.
FOOTNOTES:
[101] There is an entry, July 31, 1590, of A Ditty of the fight upon the seas the fourth of June last in the Straits of Gibraltar between the George and the Thomas Bonaventure and eight galleys with three frigates (Arber, II, 557), but it is likely that there were Georges many, and only one George Aloe.Return to passage
Mr Ebsworth has pointed out that a ballad called The Sailor’s Joy, the name of the tune to which ‘The George Aloe and the Sweepstake’ was to be sung, was entered in the Stationers’ Registers, January 14, 1595: Arber, II, 669.
286
THE SWEET TRINITY (THE GOLDEN VANITY)
=A.= ‘Sir Walter Raleigh sailing in the Low-lands,’ etc., Pepys Ballads, IV, 196, No 189 (1682-85).
=B. a.= ‘The Goulden Vanitie,’ Logan’s Pedlar’s Pack, p. 42; Mrs Gordon’s Memoir of John Wilson, II, 317. =b.= As sung by Mr G. Du Maurier, sent me by J. R. Lowell, =c.= ‘The French Galley,’ Motherwell’s MS., p. 420. =d.= Communicated by Mrs Moncrieff, of London, Ontario. =e.= ‘The Lowlands Low,’ Findlay MSS, I, 161. =f.= Sharpe’s Ballad Book, 1880, p. 160, notes of Sir Walter Scott.
=C. a.= ‘Golden Vanity, or, The Low Lands Low,’ Pitts, Seven Dials, in Logan’s Pedlar’s Pack, p. 45; Ebsworth, Roxburghe Ballads, VI, 419. =b.= ‘The Lowlands Low,’ Long, Dictionary of the Isle of Wight Dialect, p. 145. =c.= ‘Low in the Lowlands Low,’ Christie, I, 238. =d.= ‘The Golden Vanity,’ Baring-Gould and Sheppard,’Songs of the West,’ No 64. =e.= ‘The French Gallio,’ ‘The French Gallolee,’ Buchan MSS, II, 390, 414. =f.= ‘The Turkish Galley,’ Motherwell’s MS., p. 392, and Note-Book, p. 50. =g.= ‘The Lowlands Low,’ Macmath MS., p. 80.
=A= also in Euing, No 334, Crawford, No 1073, Huth, II, No 134; all by the same printer, 1682-85.
Motherwell enters the first stanza of another copy of ‘The Turkish Galley’ in his Note-Book, p. 10, and refers to three copies more, besides =B d=, at p. 51.
There is a retouched copy of =C= in English County Songs, Lucy E. Broadwood and J. A. Fuller Maitland, p. 182.
=B=, =C=, are probably traditional variations of the broadside =A=. The conclusion of the broadside is sufficiently inadequate to impel almost any singer to attempt an improvement, and a rather more effective catastrophe is the only signal difference besides names. It is, however, not quite impossible that the ultimate source of the traditional copies may be as old as the broadside.
=A.= ‘The Sweet Trinity,’ a ship built by Sir Walter Raleigh, has been taken by a galley of a nationality not specified. The master of some English ship asks what seaman will take the galley and redeem The Sweet Trinity. A ship-boy asks what the reward shall be; the reward shall be gold and fee, and the master’s eldest daughter. The ship-boy, who is possessed of an auger which bores fifteen holes at once, swims to the galley, sinks her, and releases The Sweet Trinity; then swims back to his ship and demands his pay. The master will give gold and fee, but not his daughter to wife. The ship-boy says, Farewell, since you are not so good as your word.
=B.= No ship has been taken by an enemy. The Golden Vanity, Golden Victorie, =e=, falls in with a French galley, which a cabin-boy undertakes to sink for a reward. The reward is to be, =a=, =b=, an estate in the North Country; =c=, half the captain’s lands in the South Country, meat and fee, and the captain’s eldest daughter; =e=, gold and fee, and the captain’s daughter. The boy is rolled up in a bull-skin and thrown over the deck-board (a corruption, see =C=). He takes out an instrument, and bores thirty holes at twice, =a=; a gimlet, and bores sixty holes and thrice, =b=; he struck her with an instrument, bored thirty holes at twice, =c=; threescore holes he scuttled in a trice, =d=; struck her wi an auger, thirty three and thrice, =e=. After sinking the galley he calls to the Golden Vanity to throw him a rope, take him on board, and be as good as their word, all which is refused. He threatens to serve them as he has the galley, =a=, =b=, =d=; they take him up and prove better than their word, =a=, =d=, or as good, =b=. (Of =f= very little was remembered by Scott, and the ballad was besides confounded with ‘The George Aloe.’[102])
=C.= The distinguishing feature is that the boy dies after he is taken up from the water, and is sewed up in a cow’s hide and thrown overboard, ‘to go down with the tide.’ The Golden Vanity, =a-d=, The Gold Pinnatree, =e=, The Golden Trinitie, =g=, is in danger from a Turkish galleon, =a=, =f=, =g=, a Spanish, =b=, =c= (pirate Targalley), =d=, French, =e=. The captain of the English ship promises the cabin-boy gold, fee, and daughter, if he will sink the enemy. The boy has, and uses, an auger, to bore two holes at twice, =a=, that bores twenty holes in twice, =b=, to bore two holes at once, =c=; a case of instruments, ca’s fifty holes and drives them a’ at once, =e=; an instrument, and bores nine holes in her water-sluice, =f=; an auger fitted for the use, and bores in her bottom a watery sluice, =g=. The master will not take him on board, will kill him, shoot him, sink him, =a-d=; will not keep his bargain, ‘for as you’ve done to her, so would you do to me,’ =e= (compare the threat in =B= 13). The boy is taken up by his mess-mates and dies on the deck, =a=, =c=, =d=; is sewed in a cow-hide and thrown overboard, =a=, =c-g=; in =b= sinks from exhaustion and drowns.
A
Pepys Ballads, IV, 196, No 189.
1 Sir Walter Rawleigh has built a ship, In the Neatherlands Sir Walter Rawleigh has built a ship, In the Neather-lands And it is called The Sweet Trinity, And was taken by the false gallaly. Sailing in the Low-lands
2 ‘Is there never a seaman bold In the Neather-lands Is there never a seaman bold In the Neather-lands That will go take this false gallaly, And to redeem The Sweet Trinity?’ Sailing, etc.
3 Then spoke the little ship-boy; In the Neather-lands Then spoke the little ship-boy; In the Neather-lands ‘Master, master, what will you give me And I will take this false gallaly, And release The Sweet Trinity?’ Sailing, etc.
4 ‘I’ll give thee gold, and I’le give thee fee, In the Neather-lands I’ll give thee gold and I’le give thee fee, In the Neather-lands And my eldest daughter thy wife shall be.’ Sailing, etc.
5 He set his breast, and away he did swim, Until he came to the false gallaly.
6 He had an augor fit for the [n]once, The which will bore fifteen good holes at once.
7 Some ware at cards, and some at dice, Until the salt water flashd in their eyes.
8 Some cut their hats, and some cut their caps, For to stop the salt-water gaps.
9 He set his breast, and away did swim, Until he came to his own ship again.
10 ‘I have done the work I promised to do, For I have sunk the false gallaly, And released The Sweet Trinity.
11 ‘You promised me gold, and you promised me fee, Your eldest daughter my wife she must be.’
12 ‘You shall have gold, and you shall have fee, But my eldest daughter your wife shall never be.’ For sailing, etc.
13 ‘Then fare you well, you cozening lord, Seeing you are not so good as your word.’ For sailing, etc.
14 And thus I shall conclude my song, Of the sailing in the Low-lands Wishing all happiness to all seamen both old and young. In their sailing in the Low-lands
B
=a.= Logan’s Pedlar’s Pack, p. 42, as sung about 1840 by Mr P. S. Fraser, of Edinburgh, and obtained by him orally. =b.= As sung by Mr George Du Maurier to Mr J. R. Lowell, 1884. =c.= Motherwell’s MS., p. 420; from Mr John Cleland, marble-cutter, Glasgow, who had it of Mr Forrester, Stirling. =d.= Communicated by Mrs Moncrieff, as taught to a relative of hers by an old Scottish lady about 1830. =e.= Findlay MSS, I, 161, “from Strang, Divinity Student, 1868.” =f.= Sharpe’s Ballad Book, 1880, p. 160, note by Sir Walter Scott.
1 There was a gallant ship, and a gallant ship was she Eck iddle du, and the Lowlands low And she was called The Goulden Vanitie. As she sailed to the Lowlands low
2 She had not sailed a league, a league but only three, Eck, etc. When she came up with a French gallee. As she sailed, etc.
3 Out spoke the little cabin-boy, out spoke he; ‘What will you give me if I sink that French gallee?’ As ye sail, etc.
4 Out spoke the captain, out spoke he; ‘We’ll gie ye an estate in the North Countrie.’ As we sail, etc.
5 ‘Then row me up ticht in a black bull’s skin, And throw me oer deck-buird, sink I or swim.’ As ye sail, etc.
6 So they’ve rowed him up ticht in a black bull’s skin, And have thrown him oer deck-buird, sink he or soom. As they sail, etc.
7 About, and about, and about went he, Until he cam up with the French gallee. As they sailed, etc.
8 O some were playing cards, and some were playing dice, When he took out an instrument, bored thirty holes at twice. As they sailed, etc.
9 Then some they ran with cloaks, and some they ran with caps, To try if they could stap the saut-water draps. As they sailed, etc.
10 About, and about, and about went he, Until he cam back to The Goulden Vanitie. As they sailed, etc.
11 ‘Now throw me oer a rope and pu me up on buird, And prove unto me as guid as your word.’ As ye sail, etc.
12 ‘We’ll no throw you oer a rope, nor pu you up on buird, Nor prove unto you as guid as our word.’ As we sail, etc.
13 Out spoke the little cabin-boy, out spoke he; Then hang me, I’ll sink ye as I sunk the French gallee. As ye sail, etc.
14 But they’ve thrown him oer a rope, and have pu’d him up on buird, And have proved unto him far better than their word. As they sailed, etc.
C
=a.= Stall-copy, Pitts, Seven Dials, Logan’s Pedlar’s Pack, p. 45. =b.= Long’s Dictionary of the Isle of Wight Dialect, p. 145. =c.= Christie, Traditional Ballad Airs, I, 238, compounded from the recitation of an old woman of Buckie, Banffshire, and a chap-book copy. =d.= Baring-Gould and Sheppard, Songs of the West, No 64, Part III, p. 24, Part IV, p. xxxi, taken down from James Olver, Launceston (an improved copy). =e.= Buchan’s MSS, II, 390, 414. =f.= Motherwell’s MS., p. 392, and Note-Book, p. 50, from the recitation of Agnes Lyle, 24th August, 1825. =g.= Macmath MS., p. 80, from the recitation of Miss Agnes Macmath, 1893; learned at Airds of Kells, Kirkcudbrightshire.
1 ‘I have a ship in the North Countrie, And she goes by the name of The Golden Vanity; I’m afraid she will be taken by some Turkish gallee, As she sails on the Low Lands Low.’
2 Then up starts our little cabin-boy, Saying, Master, what will you give me if I do them destroy? ‘I will give you gold, I will give you store, You shall have my daughter when I return on shore, If ye sink them in the Low Lands Low.’
3 The boy bent his breast and away he jumpt in; He swam till he came to this Turkish galleon, As she laid on the Low Lands Low.
4 The boy he had an auger to bore holes two at twice; While some were playing cards, and some were playing dice, He let the water in, and it dazzled in their eyes, And he sunk them in the Low Lands Low.
5 The boy he bent his breast and away he swam back again, Saying, Master take me up, or I shall be slain, For I have sunk them in the Low Lands Low.
6 ‘I’ll not take you up,’ the master he cried; ‘I’ll not take you up,’ the master replied; ‘I will kill you, I will shoot you, I will send you with the tide, I will sink you in the Low Lands Low.’
7 The boy he swam round all by the starboard-side; They laid him on the deck, and it’s there he soon died; Then they sewed him up in an old cow’s-hide, And they threw him overboard, to go down with the tide, And they sunk him in the Low Lands Low.
* * * * *
=A.=
Sir Walter Raleigh sailing in the Low-lands: Shewing how the famous ship called The Sweet Trinity was taken by a false gally, and how it was again restored by the craft of a little sea-boy, who sunk the galley: as the following song will declare. To the tune of The Sailing of the Low-land.
(End.) This may be printed. R. L. S. (Sir R. L’Estrange was licenser from 1663 to 1685.)
Printed for J. Conyers at the Black-Raven, the first shop in Fetter-Lane next Holborn. (J. Conyers, 1682-91. Chappell.)
=a.=
7^1. at somt dice.
=B. a.=
8^1. Oh.
=b.=
The variations are but trifling.
7. And awa, and awa, and awa swam he, Till he swam up to.
8^2. He just took out a gimlet and bored sixty holes and thrice.
9^2. But they couldna run awa from the saltwater drops.
10. Then awa, and awa, and awa swam he, Till he swam back to.
12^1. I’ll na: rope, I’ll na.
12^2. I’ll na: unto thee: my word.
13. An ye na throw me oer a rope an ye na pull me up aboard, I’ll just sink ye.
14^2. And they proved unto him as good as their word.
=c.=
1 There was an auncient ship, and an auncient ship was she, Eee eedle ee, in the Lowlands so low And the name of the ship was The Golden Vanitie. As she sailed from the Lowlands so low
2 She had not sailed a league, no, not a league but three, Until that shee spied a French galley.
3 ‘It’s master, O master, what’ll ye gie me, If I go and sink yon French galley?’
4 O then said the master, I will gie till ye The half of my lands in the South Countrie.
5 ‘It’s I’ll gie ye meat, and I’ll gie ye fee, And my eldest daughter your bride for to be.’
6 ‘It’s wrap me up tight in a gude bull’s-skin, And throw me over deck-board, sink I or swim.’
7 So they wrapt him tight in a gude bull’s-skin, And they’ve thrown him over deck-board, sink he or swim.
8 And about, and about, and about went he, Until that he came to the French galley.
9 It’s some were playing at cards, and some were playing at dice, But he struck her with an instrument, bored thirty holes at twice.
10 Some ran wi hats, and some ran wi caps, All for to stop the salt-waters draps. As they, etc.
3^1, 4^1. oh, Oh.
=d.=
1 There was an ancient ship, and an ancient ship was she, Italy and the Lowlands low And her name it was The Golden Vanity. As she sailed for the Lowlands low
2 She had not sailed a mile, a mile but barely three, When she hove in sight of a French galley.
3 Up spak the prentice-boy; What’ll ye gie me, If I gang and sink yon French galley? As she sails, etc.
4 Up spak the captain; What’ll I gie ye, . . . . . . . . As she sails, etc.
5 forgotten.
6 ‘It’s row me up in a tough bull’s-skin, And throw me overboard, let me sink or swim.’ As we sail, etc.
7 They’ve rowed him up tight in a tough bull’s-skin, And they’ve thrown him overboard, let him sink or swim. As they sailed, etc.
8 Then about, and about, and about went he, Until that he reached that French galley. As she sailed, etc.
9 . . . . . . . . . And three-score holes he scuttled in a trice. As she sailed, etc.
10 ‘Now throw me owre a rope and pull me up on board, And prove unto me as gude as yere word.’ As we sail, etc.
11 ‘I’ll not throw ye owre a rope, nor pull ye up on board, Nor prove unto ye as guid as my word.’ As we sail, etc.
12 ‘Throw me owre a rope and pull me up on board, Or I’ll do to ye as I did the French galley.’ As she sailed, etc.
13 Then they threw him owre a rope and pulled him up on board, And proved unto him far better than their word. As they sailed, etc.
=e.=
1 O she was an English ship, an an English ship was she, Hey diddie dee for the Lowlands low And her name it was The Golden Victorie. As she sailed for the Lowlands low.
2 . . . . . . . . And she fell in wi a French galee. As she sailed, etc.
3 ‘O what’ll ye gie me, captain, what’ll ye gie me, If I go an sink yon French galee?’ As she sails, etc.
4 ‘O I’ll gie thee goud, an I’ll gie thee fee, An my eldest daughter your wife shall be.’ As we sail, etc.
5 ‘Then wrap me up tight in tough bull-hide, An to sink or swim ye’ll pitch me ower the side.’ As we sail, etc.
6 They wrapt him up tight in tough bull-hide, An to sink or swim they pitchd him ower the side, As they sailed, etc.
7 He swam, an he swam, an he better swam, Until he to the French galley cam. As she sailed, etc.
8 O some were playin cards, an some were playin dice, But he struck her wi an auger thirty three and thrice. As she sailed, etc.
9 Aboot, an aboot, an aboot went she, Until she cam to the bottom of the sea. As she sailed, etc.
=f.=
Sir Walter Scott’s recollections here seem not trustworthy, and of this he was himself aware.
1 The George-a-Low eame down the strait, Hey low and the Lowlands so low And she will be lost, both vessel and freight, For the chasing of a French galerie O
5 ‘Row me in a good bull-skin, And fling me overboard, for to sink or to swim,’ For the sinking of yon French galerie O
6 They row him, etc.
8 Some were playing at cards and dice, When the sea came gushing in a trice. For the sinking, etc.
=C.= =b.=
1 Our ship she was called The Golden Vanitie; We had sailed from our port about miles fifty-three, When up came with us a Spanish gallee, To sink us in the Lowlands low.
2 Our master wrung his hands, but our little cabin-boy Said, What will you give me, master, if I do them destroy? ‘Oh I will give you gold, and my daughter too, with joy, If you sink them,’ etc.
3 The boy gave a nod, and then jumped into the sea, And he swam till he came to the Spanish gallee; He climbed up aboard, and below to work went he, To sink them, etc.
4 For this boy he had an auger that bored twenty holes in twice, And while some were playing cards, and some were playing dice, Through the bottom of the ship he bored it in a trice, And he sunk them, etc.
5 The galley she went down, but the boy swam back again, Crying, Master, pick me up, or I shall soon be slain; Pray heave to me a rope, or I shall sink in the main; For I’ve sunk them, etc.
6 ‘I will not pick you up,’ the master loudly cried, ‘I will not heave a rope,’ the master he replied; ‘I will kill you, I will sink you, I will leave you in the tide, I will sink you,’ etc.
7 The boy he swam around the ship from side to side, But he could not get aboard, so he sank, and he died, And they left him where he was, to go down with the tide; So they sunk him, etc.
=c.=
1 There was a good ship from the North Countrie, Sailing low in the Lowlands low There was, etc. And that ship’s name was The Golden Vanity. Sailing low in the Lowlands, low in the sea, Sailing low in the Lowlands low
The master said, I fear for my good ship Vanity, Oh, I fear for my good ship, The Golden Vanity, That she will be taken by the pirate Targalley, As she sails in, etc.
2^2 ‘Oh, master, good master, what will you give me If I sink yon Targalley low in the sea?’
10 stanzas.
=d.=
1 A ship I have got in the North Country, And she goes by the name of The Golden Vanity; O I fear she’ll be taken by a Spanish Galalie, As she sails by the Lowlands low.
8 stanzas.
=e.= Buchan; MSS, II, 390.
1 Our ship sailed to the North Country, Sing, How the Lowlands lo[w] Our ship sailed on to the North Countrie, And the name o her was The Gold Pinnatree, She was as fine a vessel as ever sailed the sea, And she sails by the Lowlands lo[w]
2 We hadna sailed leagues but only three, Till the captain from the maindeck fixed an ee; He spied a lofty frigate was sailing closely tee, And her name was The French Gallio.
3 Then out it speaks the pilot, by the mainyard did stand, Says, O my pretty boys, we are all undone; We must prepare to fight or be sunk to the sand, For yonder comes the French gallio.
4 Then spoke the little cabin-boy, [where stood he,] Said, O my loving master, what will ye gie me And I will sink this proud Gallio in the sea, And I will sink the French gallio?
5 ‘I will gie you gold, boy, and I will gie you fee, Besides a rarer gift that I will give thee; Ye’se have my eldest daughter your wedded wife to be, If ye will sink the French gallio.’
6 The boy bent his breast, and away swam he, And took a bold venture thro the stormy sea, And cam close by his enemy, as sly as he could be, It was to sink the French gallio.
7 Some there were at cards, and some there were at dice, But the little cabin-boy was at the best device, He was sinking the French gallio in the sea, He was sinking the French gallio.
8 This boy had a case o fine instruments, He ca’d fifty holes, and drove them a’ at once, And he soon sank the French gallio in the sea, And he soon sank the French gallio.
9 Then the boy bent his breast, and back swam he, Till that he cam to The Gold Pinnatree; Says, Now, my loving master, what will ye gie me? For I have sunk the French gallio.
10 ‘Now give to me my gold, master, [give to me my fee,] Or give to me the other rare gifts ye promised me; It was your eldest daughter, my wedded wife to be; For the sinking o the French gallio.’
11 ‘Ye shall have no gold, boy, ye shall have no fee; I wadna ware my daughter on ony such as thee; For as you’ve done to her, boy, so wad you do to me, By the sinking o the French [gallio].’
12 Then they put out their long-boat and catched him by the side, And rowed him into ane auld cow’s-hide, And tossed him overboard, to float on the tide, For sinking the French gallio.
Gallio may be surmised to be properly galley O.
The other copy in Buchan’s MSS, II, 414, is only the foregoing a little retouched or regulated. It has throughout Gallolee for Gallio. The first line of the burden is, Sing, Low, the Lowlands low.
4^1. where stood he.
6^3. could dee.
10^1. give to me my fee.
=f.=
1 I spied a ship, and a ship was she, Sing, Oh, the low and the Lowlands low And she was called the Turkish Galley, She was sailing in the Lowlands, low, low, low, She was sailing in the Lowlands low.
2 ‘Master, master, what wud ye gie me Gin I wud sink yon Turkish galley? She’s sailing, etc.’
3 ‘I’ll gie you gold, I’ll gie you fee, Gin ye wud sink yon Turkish galley, That is sailing,’ etc.
4 He bent his breast, and awa swam he, Till he cam to yon Turkish galley, That’s sailing, etc.
5 He had an instrument, made for the use, He bored nine holes in her water-sluice, Left her sinking, etc.
6 Some took their hats, and some took their caps, All for to stop her watery leaks. She was sinking, etc.
7 They took him up by their ship-side, They sewed him in an auld cow’s-hide, Left him sinking, etc.
Motherwell sent this copy to C. K. Sharpe in a letter dated October 8, 1825, in which he says: I also send rather a curious song, which perchance you may have seen, entitled ‘The Turkish Galley,’ the air of which pleased me much. But as I learn there are two other different sets of the words more complete than my copy, and with different airs, I shall defer sending the musick till I can send also that which belongs to the other copies.
=g.=
1 There was a ship of the North Countrie, And the name of the ship was The Golden Trinitie. She was sailing in the Lowlands low, low, low, She was sailing in the Lowlands low.
2 . . . . . . . . . . And the name of the ship was The Turkish Gallee, And she was sailing in the Lowlands low, low, low, She was sailing, etc.
3 ‘O captain, O captain,’ said the young cabin-boy, ‘What will you give me if yon ship I do destroy? And sink her in,’ etc.
4 ‘I’ll give you gold, and I’ll give you fee, And my eldest daughter your wedded wife shall be, If you sink her in,’ etc.
5 The boy bent his bow, and away swam he, Until that he came to the Turkish gallee. She was sailing in, etc.
6 The boy had an auger, right fitted for the use, And into her bottom he bored a watery sluice. She is sinking in, etc.
7 The boy bent his bow, and back swam he, Until that he came to the Golden Trinitie. She is sailing in, etc.
8 ‘O captain, O captain, take me on board, And O be as good, as good as your word, For I’ve sunk her in the Lowlands low, low, low, I’ve sunk,’ etc.
9 They threw him a rope oer the larboard side, And sewed him up in an auld cow’s-hide, And threw him out to a fair wind and tide, And sunk him in, etc.
FOOTNOTES:
[102] Scott says at the end, “I will not swear to the accuracy of the above.”Return to passage
287
CAPTAIN WARD AND THE RAINBOW
Bagford Ballads, I, 65.
Other black-letter copies are Pepys, IV, 202, No 195; Roxburghe, III, 56; Euing, No 108; British Museum, 112. f. 44 (19). This copy is printed in Halliwell’s Early Naval Ballads, p. 59, Bell’s Early Ballads, p. 167, Ebsworth’s Roxburghe Ballads, VI, 426.
There are Aldermary Churchyard copies, as Roxburghe Ballads, III, 652, 861; Scottish stall-copies, as Greenock, W. Scott, Stirling, M. Randall; English, by Pitts, Seven Dials, one of which is printed in Logan’s Pedlar’s Pack, p. 1.
A copy in Buchan’s MSS, II, 245, is nearly the old broadside; another, II, 417, is the stall-copy. Kinloch, MSS, V, 109, II, 265, has the stall-copy from oral transmission (with Weir for Ward). Rev. S. Baring-Gould has recently taken down this ballad (much changed by tradition) in the west of England.
Captain Ward, a famous rover, wishes to make his peace with the king, and offers thirty ton of gold as “ransom” for himself and his men. The king will not trust a man who has proved false to France and to Spain, and sends the Rainbow, with five hundred men, against Ward. The Rainbow has easy work with Dutch, Spaniards, and French, but her fifty brass pieces have no effect on Ward; though the Rainbow is brass without, he is steel within, 8^2 (suggested by ‘Sir Andrew Barton,’ =A= 27^1, =B= 25^1, ‘He is brass within and steel without).’ The Rainbow retires, and reports to the king that Ward is too strong to be taken. The king laments that he has lost three captains, any one of whom would have brought Ward in: George Clifford, Earl of Cumberland, †1605, Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy, †1606 (both of whom had a part in the defeat of the Armada), and Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, †1601.
The Rainbow was the name of one of Drake’s four ships in his expedition against Cadiz in 1587. The Rainbow is mentioned very often from 1589; as in The Manuscripts of the Earl Cowper, vol. i, Hist. MSS Commission, XIIth Report, Appendix, Part I; Index in Part III of the same, p. 296.
John Ward, an Englishman of Kent, is said to have commenced ‘rover’ about 1604, by inducing the crew of a king’s ship in which he had some place to turn pirates under his command. His race, though eventful, was, naturally enough, not long. He seems not to be heard of after 1609, in which year Ward and his colleague, Dansekar, are spoken of as the “two late famous pirates.” See Mr Ebsworth’s preface to the ballad, VI, 423 ff., founded on Andrew Barker’s book about Ward and Dansekar, published in the year last named.
Two other ballad-histories, ‘The Seamen’s Song of Captain Ward’ and ‘The Seamen’s Song of Dansekar’ (i. e. Dansekar and Ward), entered in the Stationers’ Registers July 3, 1609, are given by Mr Ebsworth, VI, 784, 423.
1 Strike up, you lusty gallants, with musick and sound of drum, For we have descryed a rover, upon the sea is come; His name is Captain Ward, right well it doth appear, There has not been such a rover found out this thousand year.
2 For he hath sent unto our king, the sixth of January, Desiring that he might come in, with all his company: ‘And if your king will let me come till I my tale have told, I will bestow for my ransome full thirty tun of gold.’
3 ‘O nay! O nay!’ then said our king, ‘O nay! this may not be, To yield to such a rover my self will not agree; He hath deceivd the French-man, likewise the King of Spain, And how can he be true to me that hath been false to twain?’
4 With that our king provided a ship of worthy fame, Rainbow she is called, if you would know her name; Now the gallant Rainbow she rowes upon the sea, Five hundred gallant seamen to bear her company.
5 The Dutch-man and the Spaniard she made them for to flye, Also the bonny French-man, as she met him on the sea: When as this gallant Rainbow did come where Ward did lye, ‘Where is the captain of this ship?’ this gallant Rainbow did cry.
6 ‘O that am I,’ says Captain Ward, ‘there’s no man bids me lye, And if thou art the king’s fair ship, thou art welcome unto me:’ ‘I’le tell thee what,’ says Rainbow, ‘our king is in great grief That thou shouldst lye upon the sea and play the arrant thief,
7 ‘And will not let our merchants ships pass as they did before; Such tydings to our king is come, which grieves his heart full sore.’ With that this gallant Rainbow she shot, out of her pride, Full fifty gallant brass pieces, charged on every side.
8 And yet these gallant shooters prevailed not a pin, Though they were brass on the out-side, brave Ward was steel within; ‘Shoot on, shoot on,’ says Captain Ward, ‘your sport well pleaseth me, And he that first gives over shall yield unto the sea.
9 ‘I never wrongd an English ship, but Turk and King of Spain, For and the jovial Dutch-man as I met on the main. If I had known your king but one two years before, I would have savd brave Essex life, whose death did grieve me sore.
10 ‘Go tell the King of England, go tell him thus from me, If he reign king of all the land, I will reign king at sea.’ With that the gallant Rainbow shot, and shot, and shot in vain, And left the rover’s company, and returnd home again.
11 ‘Our royal king of England, your ship’s returnd again, For Ward’s ship is so strong it never will be tane:’ ‘O everlasting!’ says our king, ‘I have lost jewels three, Which would have gone unto the seas and brought proud Ward to me.
12 ‘The first was Lord Clifford, Earl of Cumberland; The second was the Lord Mountjoy, as you shall understand; The third was brave Essex, from field would never flee; Which would a gone unto the seas and brought proud Ward to me.’
* * * * *
The Famous Sea-Fight between Captain Ward and the Rainbow. To the tune of Captain Ward, etc. Licensed and entered.
London, Printed by and for W. Onley, and are to be sold by the Booksellers of Pye-corner and London-bridge. Dated at the British Museum 1680 at the earliest.
11^3. Everlasting shame, in the Scottish stall-copies.
A collation of Roxburghe, III, 56, shows only variations too trivial to note.
288
THE YOUNG EARL OF ESSEX’S VICTORY OVER THE EMPEROR OF GERMANY
=A.= ‘Queen Elizabeth’s Champion, or, Great Britain’s Glory,’ etc. =a.= Douce Ballads, III, fol. 80 b. =b.= Roxburghe, III, 416, in Ebsworth’s Roxburghe Ballads, VI, 405.
=B.= ‘Earl of Essex’, Kinloch MSS, I, 113.
=A= is printed also in Evans’s Old Ballads, 1777, II, 110, with slight variations from both Douce and Roxburghe.
No printer’s name is given in either copy of =A=. From the use of a peculiar ornament between the columns in =a= (and perhaps in =b=), such as occurs in ballads printed at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, by John White, the broadside may plausibly be attributed to him. White died in 1769.
=A.= Queen Elizabeth fits out a powerful fleet to go in search of a vast navy under command of the emperor of Germany. The fleets sight each other after a week or ten days. The emperor, amazed at the splendid show made by the English, asks his officers who this can be that is sailing toward him, and is told that it is the young Earl (third earl) of Essex, the queen’s lieutenant. The emperor has heard enough of the father to make him fear a fight with the son, and proposes to tack and sail away; but the son asks his father to put the ships into his hands and let him fight with Essex. The emperor consents with a warning; if the young Essex shall prove like his father, farewell to their honor. Young Essex takes the emperor’s son prisoner; the emperor offers as a ransom three keys of gold, one of which shall be the key of High Germany. Essex cares not for the three keys; the emperor’s son must go to England and be exhibited to the queen. The emperor declares that, if it must be so, his fifty good ships shall go as well for company.
All this is, no doubt, as foolish as it is fictitious, but the ballad-maker’s independence, in fact unconsciousness, of history and common sense, beginning with the title, in which young Essex is made Queen Elizabeth’s champion, is amusing and not unpleasing. The ballad belongs undoubtedly to the eighteenth century, when High Germany had become familiar to the humble English.
=B.= The traditional copy begins with a prologue of half a dozen stanzas in the form of a colloquy between Billy, who is to be of the expedition, and Nelly, his sweetheart. This prologue must be derived from some other ballad or song. Nelly reminds her lover of the fate of old Benbow, who lost at least one of his legs in a fight with a French fleet in 1702, and died of the consequences, and of that of “proud Shawfield, that honoured knight,” under which name is disguised Sir Cloudesley Shovell, “who came with his navy to the Spanish shore” in 1705, and whose ship went on the rocks off the Scilly Isles (‘Salem’), and sank with all on board, some eight hundred men, in 1707. We then make connection with the broadside.
A
=a.= Douce Ballads, III, fol. 80 b. =b.= Roxburghe, III, 416, in Ebsworth’s Roxburghe Ballads, VI, 405.
1 Come, sound up your trumpets and beat up your drums, And let’s go to sea with a valiant good cheer, In search of a mighty vast navy of ships, The like has not been for these fifty long year. Raderer two, tandaro te, Raderer, tandorer, tan do re.
2 The queen she provided a navy of ships, With sweet flying streamers, so glorious to see, Rich top and top-gallants, captains and lieutenants, Some forty, some fifty, brass-pieces and three.
3 They had not saild past a week on the seas, Not passing a week and days two or three, But they were aware of the proud emperor, Both him and all his proud company.
4 When he beheld our powerful fleet, Sailing along in their glory and pride, He was amazed at their valour and fame, Then to his warlike command[er]s he cry’d.
5 These were the words of the old emperor: Pray who is this that is sailing to me? If he be king that weareth a crown, Yet I am a better man than he.
6 ‘It is not a king, nor lord of a crown, Which now to the seas with his navy is come, But the young Earl of Essex, the Queen’s lieutenant, Who fears no foes in Christendom.’
7 ‘Oh! is that lord then come to the seas? Let us tack about and be steering away; I have heard so much of his father before That I will not fight with young Essex today.’
8 O then bespoke the emperor’s son, As they were tacking and steering away, ‘Give me, royal father, this navy of s[h]ips, And I will go fight with Essex today.’
9 ‘Take them with all my heart, loving son, Most of them are of a capital size; But should he do as his father has done, Farewel thine honour and mine likewise.’
10 With cannons hot and thundering shot, These two gallants fought on the main, And as it was young Essex’s lot, The emperor’s son by him was taen.
11 ‘Give me my son,’ the emperor cry’d, ‘Who you this day have taken from me, And I’ll give to the[e] three keys of gold, The one shall be of High Germany.’
12 ‘I care not for thy three keys of gold, Which thou hast profferd to set him free, But thy son he shall to England sail, And go before the queen with me.’
13 ‘Then have I fifty good ships of the best, As good as ever were sent to the sea, And eer my son into England sail, They shall go all for good company.’
14 They had not fought this famous battle, They had not fought it hours three, But some lost legs, and some lost arms, And some lay tumbling in the sea.
15 Essex he got this battle likewise, Tho’t was the hotest that ever was seen; Home he returnd with a wonderful prize, And brought the emperor’s son to the queen.
16 O then bespoke the prentices all, Living in London, both proper and tall, In a kind letter, sent straight to the queen, For Essex’s sake they would fight all.
B
Kinloch MSS, I, 113. From Mary Barr, June, 1827.
1 ‘’Tis, old England, old England, I bid thee adieu, The drums and the trumpets command me frae shore; And you lusty fellows, both valiant and true, Will you venture with me where loud cannons roar?’
2 ‘O Billy, O Billy, talk not of the seas, But stay at home with me on the shore; I’ll do my endeavour thy fancy to please, And there’s others to go where loud cannons roar.’
3 ‘O Nelly, O Nelly, I must to the seas, For there is no gold to be had upon shore; There’s honour, and gold, and riches likewise, To the man that doth die where loud cannons roar.’
4 ‘Remember the winds, love, remember the waves, Remember the dangers that are upon seas; Remember there is neither coffin nor grave To the man that doth die where loud cannons roar.’
5 ‘Remember old Benbow, and think on his blows; Remember the dangers he felt upon seas; He lost both his legs by one shot of his foes; He lost his sweet life, yet his honour’s the more.’
6 ‘Remember proud Shawfield, that honoured knight, Who came with his navy to the Spanish shore; At the rock of Salem his life took a flight, And with him there died some hundreds more.’
7 ‘Our queen she has builded a navy of ships, And they are arrayed all right gloriously; With top and top-gallant, with captain, lieutenant, Some fifty, some sixty, brass pieces and three.’
8 ‘Well, since you’ll go, may my blessing advance, And carry you safely from Flanders to Spain; And when you’ve conquered that tyrant in France, Then my blessing return you to old England again.’
9 They had not sailed one hour upon sea, Not one hour passing days two or three, Till up came the bold emperour, The bold emperour of High Germanie.
10 ‘O who is this?’ the bold emperour cries, ‘Who is this that comes sailing to me? I’m sure he’s a knight, or a king of crown, Or I’m sure I am a far better fellow than he.’
11 ‘I am neither a knight, nor a king of a crown, But here, with my navy, on board I am come; For I am Lord Essex, the Queen’s lieutenant, Who never feard foe in all Christendom.’
12 Out and spoke the bold emperour’s son, All as they were mounting and hyeing away; ‘O father, lend me your navy of ships, And I’ll go fight with Lord Essex today.’
13 ‘O son, I’ll lend thee my navy of ships, And they are all of a capable size; But if he be as good as his old father was, Adieu to your honour, and mine likewise.’
14 O they have fought on at a terrible rate, Until it drew nigh to the cool of the day, And as it fell in young Essex’s lot, The bold emperour’s son he’s taen prisoner away.
15 ‘O give me my son,’ the bold emperour cried, ‘O give me my son thou hast taken from me, And you shall have three keys of gold, And one of them opens High Germanie.’
16 ‘What value I thy three keys of gold, Or any proud offer thou canst give to me? For up to old England thy son he must go, And stand before our queen’s high majesty.’
17 ‘’T is I have fifteen ships of the best, And other fifteen distant on sea; Since up to old England my son he must go, Then we’ll all go together for good companie.’
=A.= =a.=
Queen Elizabeth’s Champion, or, Great Britain’s Glory, Being a victory obtained by the young Earl of Essex over the old emperor of Germany by a fight at sea in which he took the emperor’s son and brought him a prisoner to Queen Elizabeth.
=b.=
omits Being after Glory and a before prisoner.
=a.=
Burden ran do re in second line after stanza 1. tandato in first line after stanza 2. Rederer, after 7. Raderer two for Raderer in second line after 9.
1^4. years.
8^1. Oh.
=b.=
1^2. gallant good.
1^4. for this.
4^4. commanders.
5^2. Praying.
5^3. be a.
14^2. hours but.
289
THE MERMAID
=A.= ‘The Seamen’s Distress,’ the second piece in The Glasgow Lasses Garland, British Museum, 11621. c. 3 (68). “Newcastle, 1765?”
=B. a.= ‘The stormy winds do blow,’ Chappell’s Popular Music of the Olden Time, p. 742. =b.= The same, p. 743. =c.= Notes and Queries, 6th Series, VII, 276.
=C.= Communicated by Mr Chappell. Now printed in Old English Ditties, Oxenford and Macfarren, ‘The Mermaid,’ I, 206.
=D.= ‘The Mermaid.’ =a.= Long, Dictionary of the Isle of Wight Dialect, 1886, p. 42. =b.= Broadside, H. Such, 177 Union St., Boro’.
=E. a.= Motherwell’s MS., p. 145. =b.= ‘The Bonnie Mermaid,’ Motherwell’s Minstrelsy, Appendix, p. xxiii, No XXX, one stanza.
=F.= ‘Greenland,’ Kinloch MSS, VII, 245.
This is the ballad referred to under ‘Sir Patrick Spens,’ II, 19. It is still common as a broadside.
=E a= 6 has taken a burlesque turn. It is scarcely worth while to attempt to account for the vagaries of =F=, in which ‘the kemp o the ship’ takes the place of the mermaid, and the kaim and glass are exchanged for the bottle and glass. The first stanza of =F= may not belong here, or possibly (but not probably) a voyage to Greenland may have been lost from the other copies.
In =B=, =C=, =D=, the ship sails on Friday, against all good rules.
‘The Sailor’s Caution,’ the third piece in The Sailing Trade, Glasgow, Printed by J. and M. Robertson, Saltmarket, 1801, begins like =A=, has a stanza (the fifth) representing =A= 4, 5, and concludes thus, after a stanza (the sixth) resembling =A= 3:
The mermaid on the rock doth sit, With comb and glass in hand: ‘Cheer up, cheer up, bold mariners, You are not far from land.
‘So now cheer up, bold mariners, Or smother in the deep; All this I do for a sailor’s sake, Whilst losing of my sleep.
‘Here is a token, bold mariners, A token of good will, And if ever that you come this way, ’Tis here you’ll find me still.’
British Museum, 11621. b. 13 (15).
A
The Glasgow Lasses Garland, the second piece, British Museum, 11621. c. 3 (68). “Newcastle, 1765?”
1 As we lay musing in our beds, So well and so warm at ease, I thought upon those lodging-beds Poor seamen have at seas.
2 Last Easter day, in the morning fair, We was not far from land, Where we spied a mermaid on the rock, With comb and glass in hand.
3 The first came up the mate of our ship, With lead and line in hand, To sound and see how deep we was From any rock or sand.
4 The next came up the boatswain of our ship, With courage stout and bold: ‘Stand fast, stand fast, my brave lively lads, Stand fast, my brave hearts of gold!’
5 Our gallant ship is gone to wreck, Which was so lately trimmd; The raging seas has sprung a leak, And the salt water does run in.
6 Our gold and silver, and all our cloths, And all that ever we had, We forced was to heave them overboard, Thinking our lives to save.
7 In all, the number that was on board Was five hundred and sixty-four, And all that ever came alive on shore There was but poor ninety-five.
8 The first bespoke the captain of our ship, And a well-spoke man was he; ‘I have a wife in fair Plymouth town, And a widow I fear she must be.’
9 The next bespoke the mate of our ship, And a well-bespoke man was he; ‘I have a wife in fair Portsmouth, And a widow I fear she must be.’
10 The next bespoke the boatswain of our ship, And a well-bespoke man was he; ‘I have a wife in fair Exeter, And a widow I fear she must be.’
11 The next bespoke the little cabbin-boy, And a well-bespoke boy was he; ‘I am as sorry for my mother dear As you are for your wives all three.
12 ‘Last night, when the moon shin’d bright, My mother had sons five, But now she may look in the salt seas And find but one alive.’
13 ‘Call a boat, call a boat, you little Plymouth boys, Don’t you hear how the trumpet[s] sound? [For] the want of our boat our gallant ship is lost, And the most of our merry men is drownd.’
14 Whilst the raging seas do roar, And the lofty winds do blow, And we poor seamen do lie on the top, Whilst the landmen lies below.
B
=a.= Chappell’s Popular Music of the Olden Time, p. 742. =b.= The same, p. 743, one stanza and the burden, contributed by Mr Charles Sloman, in 1840. =c.= Notes and Queries, 6th Series, VII, 276, communicated from memory by Mr Thomas Bayne, Helensburgh, N. B., stanzas 1, 6.
1 One Friday morn when we set sail, Not very far from land, We there did espy a fair pretty maid With a comb and a glass in her hand, her hand, her hand, With a comb and a glass in her hand. While the raging seas did roar, And the stormy winds did blow, While we jolly sailor-boys were up into the top, And the land-lubbers lying down below, below, below, And the land-lubbers lying down below.
2 Then up starts the captain of our gallant ship, And a brave young man was he: ‘I’ve a wife and a child in fair Bristol town, But a widow I fear she will be.’ For the raging seas, etc.
3 Then up starts the mate of our gallant ship, And a bold young man was he: ‘Oh! I have a wife in fair Portsmouth town, But a widow I fear she will be.’ For the raging seas, etc.
4 Then up starts the cook of our gallant ship, And a gruff old soul was he: ‘Oh! I have a wife in fair Plymouth town, But a widow I fear she will be.’
5 And then up spoke the little cabin-boy, And a pretty little boy was he; ‘Oh! I am more grievd for my daddy and my mammy Than you for your wives all three.’
6 Then three times round went our gallant ship, And three times round went she; For the want of a life-boat they all went down, And she sank to the bottom of the sea.
C
Communicated by Mr W. Chappell, as noted down by him from the singing of men dressed as sailors, on Tower Hill. Subsequently printed, with a few variations, in Old English Ditties, Oxenford and Macfarren, I, 206.
1 One Friday morn as we’d set sail, And our ship not far from land, We there did espy a fair mermaid, With a comb and a glass in her hand, her hand, her hand, With a comb and a glass in her hand. While the raging seas did roar, And the stormy winds did blow, And we jolly sailor-boys were up, up aloft, And the landsmen were lying down below, And the landlubbers all down below, below, below, And the landlubbers all down below.
2 Then up spoke the captain of our gallant ship, Who at once did our peril see; I have married a wife in fair London town, And tonight she a widow will be.’
3 And then up spoke the litel cabin-boy, And a fair-haired boy was he; ‘I’ve a father and mother in fair Portsmouth town, And this night she will weep for me.’
4 Now three times round goes our gallant ship, And three times round went she; For the want of a life-boat they all were drownd, As she went to the bottom of the sea.
D
=a.= Long, A Dictionary of the Isle of Wight Dialect, London, 1886, p. 142. =b.= H. Such, 177 Union St., Boro’.
1 ’Twas a Friday morning when we set sail, And our ship was not far from land, When there we spied a fair pretty maid, With a comb and a glass in her hand. Oh, the raging seas they did roar, And the stormy winds they did blow, While we poor sailor-boys were all up aloft, And the land-lubbers lying down below, below, below, And the land-lubbers lying down below.
2 Then up spoke the captain of our gallant ship, And a mariner good was he; ‘I have married a wife in fair London town, And this night a widow she will be.’
3 Then up spoke the cabin-boy of our gallant ship, And a brave little boy was he; ‘I’ve a father and a mother in old Portsmouth town, And this night they will both weep for me.’
4 Then up spoke a seaman of our gallant ship, And a well-spoken man was he; ‘For want of a long-boat we shall all be drowned, And shall sink to the bottom of the sea.’
5 Then three times round went that gallant ship, And down like a stone sank she; The moon shone bright, and the stars gave their light, But they were all at the bottom of the sea.
E
=a.= Motherwell’s MS., p. 145. =b.= Motherwell’s Minstrelsy, Appendix, p. xxiii, No XXX, the first stanza.
1 Up and spoke the bonny mermaid, Wi the comb and the glass in her hand; Says, Cheer up your hearts, my mariners all, You are not very far from the land. And the raging seas do foam, foam, And the stormy winds do blow, While we poor sailors must mount to the top, When the landsmen they lye low.
2 Out and spoke the captain of our ship, And a fine little man was he; ‘O I’ve a wife in fair London town, And a widow this night she shall be.’
3 Out and spoke the mate of our ship, And a tight little man was he; ‘O I’ve a wife in Dublin city, And a widow this night she shall be.’
4 Out and spoke our second mate, And a clever little man was he; ‘Oh I have a wife in Greenock town, And a widow this night she shall be.’
5 Out and spoke our little prentice boy, And a fine little boy was he; ‘Oh I am sorry for my mother,’ he said, ‘As you are for your wives all three.’
6 Out and spoke the cook of our ship, And a rusty old dog was he; Says, I am as sorry for my pats and my pans As you are for your wives all three.
F
Kinloch MSS, VII, 245. From the recitation of a little boy from Glasgow, who sang it in Grove St., Edinburgh, July, 1826.
1 Greenland, Greenland, is a bonny, bonny place, Whare there’s neither grief nor flowr, Whare there’s neither grief nor tier to be seen, But hills and frost and snow.
2 Up starts the kemp o the ship, Wi a psalm-book in his hand: ‘Swoom away, swoom away, my merry old boys, For you’ll never see dry land.’
3 Up starts the gaucy cook, And a weil gaucy cook was he; ‘I wad na gie aw my pans and my kettles For aw the lords in the sea.’
4 Up starts the kemp o the ship, Wi a bottle and a glass intil his hand; ‘Swoom away, swoom away, my merry old sailors, For you’ll never see dry land.’
5 O the raging seas they row, row, row, The stormy winds do blow, As sune as he had gane up to the tap, As. .. .. low.
* * * * *
=A.=
6^2. Qy, that ever we did have?
7^{3,4}. Qy, And in all, there was but poor ninety-five That ever came alive on shore.?
14^1. Whilst we in the raging seas do blow.
14^2. And there lofty minds.
=B. b.=
2^1. Then up spoke.
2^{3,4}. I have sixty gallant seamen aboard of my ship, But none half so gallant as he, as he, as he, But there’s none half so gallant as he.
Burden:
While the vivid lightnings flash, And the stormy winds do blow, While we poor seamen are up, up aloft, And the landsmen are all down below, below, below, And the landsmen are all down below.
=c.=
1^2. And our ship not far.
6^3. we all.
6^4. And sank.
=C.=
1^3. Var., a fair pretty maid.
In Old English Ditties, etc. (perhaps Oxenford’s changes):
1^1. when we set.
1^3. a fair pretty maid.
2^4. this night.
3^4. they will.
4^1. Then three times round went.
4^3. they both went down.
4^4. As she sunk to.
Burden:
4. And the land-lubbers lying down below, below, below.
5. And the landsmen were all down below.
6. Wanting.
=D. b.=
1 On Friday morning as we set sail, It was not far from land, O there I espy’d a fair pretty girl, With the comb and the glass in her hand. O the stormy winds they did blow, And the raging seas did roar, While we poor sailors go up to the top, And the land-lubbers lie down below.
2 Then up spoke a boy of our gallant ship, And a well-spoken boy was he; ‘I’ve a father and mother in fair Portsmouth town, And this night they will weep for me.’
3 Then up spoke a man of our gallant ship, And a well-spoken man was he; ‘I have married a wife in fair London town, And this night a widow she shall be.’
4 Then up spoke the captain of our gallant ship, And a valiant man was he; ‘For want of a long-boat we shall all be drowned,’ So she sunk to the bottom of the sea.
5 The moon shone bright, and the stars gave light, And my mother is looking for me; She might look, she might weep, with watery eyes, She might look to the bottom of the sea.
A broadside by Birt, otherwise like Such’s, adds:
Three times round went our gallant ship, And three times round went she; Three times round went our gallant ship, Then she sunk to the bottom of the sea. British Museum, 11621. k. 5 (167).
=E. b.=
1 O up and spak the bonnie mermaid, Wi the glass and the kaim in her hand; ‘Reek about, reek about, ye mariners all, For ye’re not very far from the land.’
=F.=
3^2. was she.
290
THE WYLIE WIFE OF THE HIE TOUN HIE
=A.= ‘My lady ye shall be,’ “Scotch Ballads, Materials for Border Minstrelsy,” Thomas Wilkie’s MS., p. 74, Abbotsford.
=B.= John Struthers, The British Minstrel, 1821, I, XXV.
=C.= ‘The Bonnie Lass o the Hie Toun End.’ Communicated by Mr David Louden, of Morham, Haddington, 1873.
=D.= ‘The Flowers of Edinburgh,’ Gibb MS., No 14, p. 57.
This ballad, which Motherwell pronounces to be “of some antiquity and of considerable popularity,” is of the same pernicious tenor as ‘The Broom o Cowdenknows,’ with the aggravation of treachery. The dénoûment is similar in ‘The Dainty Downby,’ Herd’s MSS, I, 45, printed in his Scottish Songs, 1776, II, 232, ‘The Laird o the Dainty Downby,’ Kinloch MSS, V, 145, and in ‘The Laird o Keltie,’ Kinloch MSS, I, 363, ‘The Young Laird o Keltie,’ III, 107, Motherwell MS., p. 21, both of one pattern, and that quite trashy.
A
“Scotch Ballads, Materials for Border Minstrelsy,” No 72, Thomas Wilkie’s MS., 1813-15, p. 74, Abbotsford; taken down from the recitation of a female friend, who sang it to a lively air.
1 It fell about the Martinmas, When the gentlemen were drinking there wine, And a’ the discourse that they had Was about the ladies they gude fine.
2 It’s up an spake a tall young man, The tallest o the companie; ‘The bonniest lass that I ken off She lives into the hee toun hee.
3 ‘O I would give a guinea of gold, A guinea and a pint of wine, I would give it to the hostler’s wife, For to wile that bonny lassie in.’
4 The hostler’s wife gaed down the stair, And she’s looked hersell round near by, And there she spied the bonny handsom girl, Coming walking down the hee town high.
5 ‘Come in, come in, my bonny handsom girl, Come speak one word with me; Come taste a little of our wine, For it’s new come out of Italie.’
6 So willillie she wil’d her up, And so willillie she wil’d her in, And so cunningly she’s locked the door, And she’s comd down the stair again.
7 One of them took her by the milk-white hand, And he’s laid her body on the ground, And aye she sightd, and said, Alass, ’Tis a sin to do me wrong!
8 ‘But since ye hae done sae muckle to me, And brought me to so muckle shame, O wad ye be so kind to me As to tell to me your name.’
9 ‘O if I tell to you my name, It’s a thing I never did to none; But I will tell to the, my dear; I am the Earl of Beaton’s son.’
10 When two years were past and gone, This gentleman came walking by, And there he spied the bonny handsome girl, Coming walking down the hie town high.
11 ‘To whom belongs that pretty child, That blinks with its pretty eye?’ ‘His father’s from home and has left me alone, And I have been at the fold milking my ky.’
12 ‘You lie, you lie, my bonny handsome girl, So loudlie I hear you lie; O do not you mind that happie day When ye was drinking the wine wi me?’
13 He’s lighted off his milk-white steed, He’s kissd her both cheeck and chin; He’s made a’ the servants in Beaton castle To welcome this fair lady in.
B
Struthers’s British Minstrel, I, XXV., from recitation.
1 It fell about the Martinmas time, When the nobles were drinking wine, And the matter of their discourse it was, ‘O the ladies they go fine:’
2 Up then spake a brave gentleman, The best in the companie; ‘The bonniest lass that eer I saw, She dwells in the hie town hie.
3 ‘I wad give a guinea of red gold, Sae wad I a pint of wine, To onie of the hostler-wives That wad wyle to me the bonnie lassie in.’
4 Up then spake the hostler’s wife, And an ill death may she die! ‘An ye’ll gie me a guinea of gold, I will wyle the bonnie lassie in to thee.’
5 The hostler’s wife stood on the stair-head, To see what she could see, And there she saw this fair creature, Coming down frae the hie town hie.
6 ‘Come in, come in, my bonnie, bonnie lass, Come in and speak with me; Come in and drink a glass of wine, That’s new come aff the raging sea.’
7 ‘My father’s out upon the plain, And I am waiting his incoming; And I’m a girl so neat and trim That I’m afraid of your merry men.’
8 ‘My merry men are all gone out, And they will not be in till nine, And, if ye would my favour win, Come in and drink a glass of wine.’
9 Sae cunningly she wyld her in, And sae cunningly she led her round, Till she wyld her to the room where he was, And she locked the door the bonnie lass behind.
10 First he kissd her cherry cheeks, And than he kissd her cherry chin, And than he kissd her ruby lips, Saying, Indeed ye’re a weel-faurd thing.
* * * * * * * *
11 ‘O since ye’ve got your will o me, And brought me unto public shame, I pray, kind sir, ye’ll marry me, Or that ye’ll tell me what’s your name.’
12 ‘If I tell my name to you, bonnie lassie, It’s mair than ever I telld ane; But I will tell to you, bonnie lassie; I am an earl’s second son.
13 ‘I am an earl’s second son, My father has more children than me; My eldest brother he heirs the land, And my father he sent me to the sea.’
14 He put his hand into his pocket, And he gave her sixty guineas and three, Saying, Fare thee weel, my lovely young creature, Ye’ll never get mair of me.
15 As she went down through Edinburgh streets, The bonnie bells as they did ring, ‘Farewell, fareweel, my bonnie, bonnie lassie, Ye’ve got the clod that winna cling.’
* * * * * * * *
16 He hadna been ae week at the sea, Not a week but only five, Till the king made him a captain sae brave, And he made the bonnie lassie his wife.
C
Communicated, February, 1873, by Mr David Louden, of Morham, Haddington, as recited by Mrs Richard Dodds, Morham, Loanhead, “aged over seventy.”
1 In Edinburgh, on a summer evening, Our gentlemen sat drinking wine, And every one to the window went, To view the ladies, they went so fine.
2 They drank the wine, and they spilt the beer, So merrily as the reel went round, And a’ the healths that was drucken there Was to the bonnie lass o the hie toun end.
3 Up then spoke a young squire’s son, And as he spoke it all alone; ‘Oh, I would give a guinea of gold, And so would I a pint of wine, And I would make them their licence free That would welcome this bonnie lassie in.’
4 The ostler’s wife, on hearin this, So nimbly down the stairs she ran, And the first toun’s-body that she met Was the bonnie lass o the hie toun end.
5 ‘Mistress, ye maun gang wi me And get a cup o oor claret wine; It’s new come oer the ragin sea, Awat it is baith gude and fine.’
6 ‘To gang wi you I daurna stay, My mither’s wearyin for me in; I am so beautiful and fine I am a prey to all young men.’
7 Wi sattin slippers on her feet, So nimbly up the stair she ran, And wha so ready as this young squire To welcome the bonny lassie in.
8 He[’s] taen her by the milk-white hand, He’s gently led her through the room, And aye she sighed, and aye she said, It would be a pity to do me wrong.
9 ‘Now, since you’ve taken your will o me, I pray, kind sir, tell me your name;’ ‘Oh yes, my dear, indeed,’ he said ‘But it’s more than I ever did to one.
10 ‘I am a squire and a squire’s son, My faither has fifty ploughs o land, And I’m a man in the militrie, And I must away and rank up my men.
11 ‘And Jamie Lumsdaine is my name, From the North Countrie, love, I really came.’
12 About a twelvemonth after that, He sent a letter owre the main, And muckle writin was therein, To the bonnie lass o the hie toun end.
13 About a twelvemonth after that, He himsel cam owre the main; He made her Duchess o Douglas Dale, And to him she’s had a fine young son.
D
Gibb MS., No 14, p. 57. From the recitation of Eppie Fraser, daughter of a tramp, and unable to read, about 1840.
1 All the soldiers in Edinburgh town Were sitting drinking at the wine, An all the toasts that were among them Was a health to the lassie that goes sae fine.
2 Up then spake an officier, The bravest in the company; ‘To every one I will give a guinea, A guinea and a pint of wine, To the ostler’s wife I wald double it a’, If she’d entice that young lassie in.’
3 The old wife tripped down the stair, And aye she said, ‘A good morrow, dame!’ And aye she said, an the maid replied, ‘What is your will wi me, madam?’
4 ‘It’s not to do you any harm, Or yet your body any ill, But, if you would my favour gain, Come up an taste one glass of wine.’
5 ‘My father stands on the stair-head, Just lookin for me to come in; I am so proper and so tall I’m much afraid of your merry men.’
6 ‘My merry men, they are all gone out, An they will not be in till dine; So, if you would my favour gain, Come up an taste a glass of wine.’
7 The fair maid tripped up the stair, The old wife bolted the door behind; He’s tane her in his arms twa, Says, O but ye are a bonny thing!
8 Twenty times he kissed her cheek, An twenty times her bonny chin, An twenty times her ruby lips: ‘O but ye are a bonny thing!’
* * * * * * * *
9 ‘Noo, since ye’ve got your wills o me, What is your name, I pray you tell; . . . . . . . . . . . . where you dwell.’
10 . . . . . . . . ‘My eldest brother, he heirs the land; I was forced to be a highwayman, Or else a soldier, as I am.’
11 An aye the lassie she sat an grat, An aye thae words spak them atween, An aye the lassie she sat an grat, And cursed the auld wife that brocht her in.
12 They had na been in Edinburgh A month, a month but only nine, When they have got the royal commission For to march to Aberdeen.
13 An aye the lassie she sat an grat, An aye thae words spak them atween, An aye the lassie she sat an grat, And cursed the auld wife that brocht her in.
14 They had na been in Aberdeen A month, a month but only one, When he got on the captain’s coat, An made her lady o his land.
15 An aye the lassie she sat an sang, An aye thae words spak them atween, An aye the lassie she sat an sang, An hersed the auld wife that brocht her in.
* * * * *
=A.=
1^4. Qy, gade?
3^1. Written and af pint gold, with pint struck out (anticipation of the next line).
5^4. now come.
=B.=
Motherwell, Minstrelsy, p. xci, supplies, from a recited version, after 15:
Aye she sat, and aye she grat, And kaimd her yellow hair, And aye she cursd the hostler’s wife, That wysit her in at the door.
And after 16:
Aye she sat, and aye she sang, And kaimd her yellow hair, And aye she blessd the hostler’s wife, That wysit her in at the door.
Compare =D= 13, 15.
291
CHILD OWLET
‘Childe Owlet,’ Buchan’s Ballads of the North of Scotland, I, 27; Motherwell’s MS., p. 572.
Lady Erskine invites Child Owlet to be her paramour. Child Owlet revolts at the suggestion; he is sister’s son to Lord Ronald. The lady cuts herself with a penknife sufficiently to draw blood; Lord Ronald hears her moaning, comes in, and asks what blood this is; his wife gives him to understand that Child Owlet has offered her violence. A council is held upon the case, and the youth is condemned to be torn by four horses. There was not a twig or a rush on the moor that was not dropping with his blood.
The chain of gold in the first stanza and the penknife below the bed in the fourth have a false ring, and the story is of the tritest. The ballad seems at best to be a late one, and is perhaps mere imitation, but, for an imitation, the last two stanzas are unusually successful.
1 Lady Erskine sits in her chamber, Sewing at her silken seam, A chain of gold for Childe Owlet, As he goes out and in.
2 But it fell ance upon a day She unto him did say, Ye must cuckold Lord Ronald, For a’ his lands and ley.
3 ‘O cease! forbid, madam,’ he says, ‘That this shoud eer be done! How would I cuckold Lord Ronald, And me his sister’s son?’
4 Then she’s ta’en out a little penknife, That lay below her bed, Put it below her green stay’s cord, Which made her body bleed.
5 Then in it came him Lord Ronald, Hearing his lady’s moan; ‘What blood is this, my dear,’ he says, ‘That sparks on the fire-stone?’
6 ‘Young Childe Owlet, your sister’s son, Is now gane frae my bower; If I hadna been a good woman, I’d been Childe Owlet’s whore.’
7 Then he has taen him Childe Owlet, Laid him in prison strong, And all his men a council held How they woud work him wrong.
8 Some said they woud Childe Owlet hang, Some said they woud him burn; Some said they woud have Childe Owlet Between wild horses torn.
9 ‘There are horses in your stables stand Can run right speedilie, And ye will to your stable go, And wile out four for me.’
10 They put a foal to ilka foot, And are to ilka hand, And sent them down to Darling muir, As fast as they coud gang.
11 There was not a kow in Darling muir, Nor ae piece o a rind, But drappit o Childe Owlet’s blude And pieces o his skin.
12 There was not a kow in Darling muir, Nor ae piece o a rash, But drappit o Childe Owlet’s blude And pieces o his flesh.
292
THE WEST-COUNTRY DAMOSEL’S COMPLAINT
=a.= Douce Ballads, II, fol. 254 b; Roxburghe Ballads, II, 499, Ebsworth, VI, 635. =b.= Douce Ballads, II, 245 b.
Also, Crawford Ballads, No 1331, Euing, 384. All the five: Printed for P. Brooksby, at the Golden-Ball in West-Smithfield, neer the Hospital-gate. (1672-95.)
A maid entreats her lover, William, to marry her or put an end to her life. He unfeelingly bids her go to the wood and live on hips and haws. She leads this life for three months; then, exhausted with the hardship, goes to her sister’s house and begs an alms of food. The sister (who is her rival, st. 18) orders her men to hunt away the wild doe, and they drive her back to the forest, where she lies down and dies. Sweet William comes, stands at her head and her feet, kisses her, gives vent to his repentance and admiration in intense and elaborate expressions, then lies down by her side and dies.
The first eleven stanzas are in a fairly popular tone. It will be observed that the first and third verses rhyme in 12-24, but not in 1-11. The whole may be one man’s work, who may have thought that an elegy should properly be more artificial, both in form and in style, than a story, but I incline to think that the lament is a later attachment.
1 ‘When will you marry me, William, And make me your wedded wife? Or take you your keen bright sword And rid me out of my life.’
2 ‘Say no more so then, lady, Say you no more then so, For you shall into the wild forrest, And amongst the buck and doe.
3 ‘Where thou shalt eat of the hips and haws, And the roots that are so sweet, And thou shalt drink of the cold water, That runs underneath [thy] feet.’
4 Now she had not been in the wild forrest Passing three months and a day, But with hunger and cold she had her fill, Till she was quite worn away.
5 At last she saw a fair tyl’d-house, And there she swore by the rood That she would to that fair tyl’d-house, There for to get her some food.
6 But when she came unto the gates, Aloud, aloud she cry’d, An alms, an alms, my own sister! I ask you for no pride.
7 Her sister calld up her merry men all, By one, by two, and by three, And bid them hunt away that wild doe, As far as ere they could see.
8 They hunted her ore hill and dale, And they hunted her so sore That they hunted her into the forrest, Where her sorrows grew more and more.
9 She laid a stone all at her head, And another all at her feet, And down she lay between these two, Till death had lulld her asleep.
10 When sweet Will came and stood at her head, And likewise stood at her feet, A thousand times he kist he[r] cold lips, Her body being fast asleep.
11 Yea, seaven times he stood at her feet, And seaven times at her head, A thousand times he shook her hand, Although her body was dead.
12 ‘Ah wretched me!’ he loudly cry’d, ‘What is it that I have done? O woud to the powers above I’de dy’d, When thus I left her alone!
13 ‘Come, come, you gentle red-breast now, And prepare for us a tomb, Whilst unto cruel Death I bow, And sing like a swan my doom.
14 ‘Why could I ever cruel be Unto so fair a creature? Alas! she dy’d for love of me, The loveliest she in nature!
15 ‘For me she left her home so fair To wander in this wild grove, And there with sighs and pensive care She ended her life for love.
16 ‘O constancy, in her thou’rt lost! Now let women boast no more; She’s fled unto the Elizium coast, And with her carryd the store.
17 ‘O break, my heart, with sorrow filld, Come, swell, you strong tides of grief! You that my dear love have killd, Come, yield in death to me relief.
18 ‘Cruel her sister, was’t for me That to her she was unkind? Her husband I will never be, But with this my love be joynd.
19 ‘Grim Death shall tye the marriage-bands, Which jealousie shan’t divide; Together shall tye our cold hands, Whilst here we lye side by side.
20 ‘Witness, ye groves, and chrystial streams, How faithless I late have been, But do repent with dying leaves Of that my ungrateful sin;
21 ‘And wish a thousand times that I Had been but to her more kind, And not have let a virgin dye Whose equal there’s none can find.
22 ‘Now heaps of sorrow press my soul; Now, now’t is she takes her way; I come, my love, without controule, Nor from thee will longer stay.’
23 With that he fetchd a heavy groar Which rent his tender breast, And then by her he laid him down, When as death did give him rest.
24 Whilst mournful birds, with leavy boughs, To them a kind burial gave, And warbled out their love-sick vows, Whilst they both slept in their grave.
* * * * *
The West-Country Damosels Complaint,
or,
The Faithful Lovers Last Farewel.
Being the relation of a young maid who pined herself to death for the love of a young man, who, after he had notice of it, dyed likewise for grief.
Careless young men, by this a warning take How you kind virgins, when they love, forsake; Least the same fate oretake you, and you dye For breach of vows and infidelity. Be kind, but swear not more then what you mean, Least comick jests become a trajeck scean.
To the tune of Johnny Armstrong.
* * * * *
=a.=
20^3. leaves (so in all) seems doubtful, but I can conjecture nothing better. gleams is just possible.
=b.=
2^3. thou shalt unto.
3^4. runs beneath thy.
11^2. times stood.
20^4. that wanting.
22^4. will no longer.
293
JOHN OF HAZELGREEN
=A.= Elizabeth Cochrane’s MS., p. 126.
=B.= ‘Jock o Hazelgreen,’ Kinloch MSS, VII, 135; Kinloch’s Ancient Scottish Ballads, p. 206.
=C.= ‘John o Hazelgreen,’ Kinloch MSS, I, 319.
=D. a.= ‘John o Hazelgreen,’ Buchan’s Ballads of the North of Scotland, II, 253. =b.= ‘Jock of Hazelgreen,’ Chambers, Scottish Ballads, p. 319.
=E. a.= Fragmentary verses obtained by Mr Pringle, Kinloch MSS, I, 321. =b.= Kinloch MSS, VII, 2, one stanza.
=A= is found, with the doubtless accidental variation of three words, in a folio volume at Abbotsford labelled Miscellanies, article 43, having been transcribed by C. K. Sharpe for Sir W. Scott “from a 4to MS., in a female hand, written probably about one hundred years ago, sold at one Inglis’s roup at the West Port, Edinburgh, now in the possession of David Laing” (that is, Elizabeth Cochrane’s MS.). =D b= was compounded from =D a= and =B=, “omitting,” says Chambers, “many of the coarser stanzas of both, and improving a few by collation with a third version which I took down from recitation, and another which has been shown to me in manuscript by Mr Kinloch” (=C=). =D b= is, after all, mainly =D a= with omissions; the improvements from the recited copy (or the variations from Buchan and Kinloch) are not remarkable in amount or quality. =E= is given on Kinloch’s authority. Alexander Campbell, when on a tour on the borders of Scotland to collect Scottish airs, is said to have received the first stanza from Mr Thomas Pringle, who derived it from his mother’s singing. (Chappell, Popular Music, p. 575.) Upon this traditional stanza was built Scott’s ‘Jock of Hazeldean,’ first printed in Campbell’s Albyn’s Anthology, I, 18, 1816.
=A.= A gentleman overhears a damsel making a moan for Sir John of Hazelgreen. After some compliment on his part, and some slight information on hers, he tells her that Hazelgreen is married; then there is nothing for her to do, she says, but to hold her peace and die for him. The gentleman proposes that she shall let Hazelgreen go, marry his eldest son, and be made a gay lady; she is too mean a maid for that, and, anyway, had rather die for the object of her affection. Still she allows the gentleman to take her up behind him on his horse, and to buy clothes for her at Biggar, though all the time dropping tears for Hazelgreen. After the shopping they mount again, and at last they come to the gentleman’s place, when the son runs out to welcome his father. The son is young Hazelgreen, who takes the maid in his arms and kisses off the still-falling tears. The father declares that the two shall be married the next day, and the young man have the family lands.
The other versions have the same story, but the clothes are bought at Edinburgh, and the Hazelgreen estate seems to be in the neighborhood.
In a preface to =C=, Kinloch, following either =D= 5 or some foolish popular gloss, remarks that the lady is presumed to have seen young Hazelgreen only in a dream, which left so deep an impression on her mind as to cause her to fall in love with his image. To improve upon this, =D= 15 makes the young man also to have seen the maid in a dream.
A
Elizabeth Cochrane’s MS., p. 126.
1 Into a sweet May morning, As the sun clearly shone, I heard a propper damsell Making a heavy moan; Making a heavy moan, I marvelled what she did mean, And it was for a gentleman, Sir John of Hasillgreen.
2 ‘What aileth thee now, bony maid, To mourn so sore into the tide? O happy were the man,’ he sayes, ‘That had thee to his bride, To ly down by his side; Then he were not to mean;’ But still she let the tears down fall For pleasant Hasilgreen.
3 ‘Oh what for a man is Hasillgreen? Sweet heart, pray tell to me.’ ‘He is a propper gentleman, Dwels in the South Countrie; With shoulders broad and arms long, And comely to be seen; His hairs are like the threeds of gold, My pleasant Hasilgreen.’
4 ‘Now Hasilgreen is married, Let all this talking be.’ ‘If Hasilgreen be married, This day then woe to me; For I may sigh and sob no more, But close my weeping een, And hold my peace and cry no more, But dy for Hasilgreen.’
5 ‘Will you let Hasilgreen alone, And go along with me? I’ll marry you on my eldest son, Make you a gay lady.’ ‘Make me a gay lady?’ she sayes, ‘I am a maid too mean; I’ll rather stay at home,’ she cries, ‘And dy for Hasilgreen.’
6 He takes this pretty maid him behind And fast he spurred the horse, And they’re away to Bigger toun, Then in to Biggar Cross. Their lodging was far sought, And so was it foreseen; But still she let the tears doun fall For pleasant Hasillgreen.
7 He’s ta’en this pretty maid by the hand, And he is doun the toun; He bought for her a pettycoat, Yea, and a trailing goun; A silken kell fitt for her head, Laid oer with silver sheen; But still she let the tears doun fall For pleasant Hasilgreen.
8 He’s taen this bony mey him behind, And he is to the Place, Where there was mirth and merryness, And ladyes fair of face; And ladyes fair of face, Right seemly to be seen, But still she let the tears doun fall For pleasant Hasilgreen.
9 Young Hasilgreen ran hastilie To welcome his father dear; He’s ta’en that pretty maid in his arms, And kist off her falling tear: ‘O bony mey, now for thy sake I would be rent and rien; I would give all my father’s lands To have thee in Hasilgreen.’
10 ‘O hold your tongue now, son,’ he sayes, ‘Let no more talking be; This maid has come right far from home This day to visit thee. This day should been your wedding-day, It shall be thy bridall-een, And thou’s get all thy father’s lands, And dwell in Hasillgreen.’
B
Kinloch’s MSS, VII, 135; from the recitation of Jenny Watson, Lanark, 24 April, 1826.
1 It was on a morning early, Before day-licht did appear, I heard a pretty damsel Making a heavy bier; Making a heavy bier, I wonderd what she did mean; But ay the tears they rappit doun, Crying, O Jock o Hazelgreen!
2 ‘O whare is this Hazelgreen, maid? That I may him see.’ ‘He is a ticht and a proper man, Lives in the South Cuntree. His shoulders broad, his arms lang, O he’s comely to be seen!’-- But ay the tears they drappit doun For Jock o Hazelgreen.
3 ‘Will ye gang wi me, fair maid? . . . . . . . And I’ll marry ye on my son,’ . . . . . . . ‘Afore I’d go along wi you, To be married on your son, I’d rather choose to stay at hame, And die for Hazelgreen.’
4 But he has tane her up behind, And spurred on his horse, Till ance he cam to Embro toun, And lichted at the corss. He bought to her a petticoat, Besides a handsome goun; He tied a silver belt about her waist, Worth thrice three hunder pund.
5 And whan he cam to Hazelyetts, He lichted doun therein; Monie war the brave ladies there, Monie ane to be seen. She lichted doun amang them aw, She seemed to be the queen; But ay the tears they rappit doun For Jock o Hazelgreen.
6 Young Hazelgreen took her by the hand And led her out and in: Said, Bonnie lady, for your sake, I could be baith rent and rien; I wad gie aw my lands and rents, Tho I had kingdoms three, If I could hae the great pleasure To enjoy thy fair bodie.
7 ‘No more of this,’ his father said, ‘Of your mourning let abee; I brought the damsel far frae hame, She’s thrice as wae for thee. The morn is your bridal-day, The nicht is your bridal-een, And I’ll gie you aw my lands and rents, My pleasing son, Hazelgreen.’
C
Kinloch MSS, I, 319.
1 As I gaed out in a May morning, Afore that I could see, And there I heard a pretty fair may Making sweet melodie. She was making sic melodie, I wonderd what she could mean; But ay she sang and sang about Sweet John o Hazelgreen.
2 ‘O what na man is Hazelgreen? Fair may, pray tell to me.’ ‘He is a stout and a tall young man As in a’ the South Countrie. He is a stout and a tall young man, And comely to be seen; But still O I maun weep and wail For John o Hazelgreen.’
3 ‘Hold your tongue, fair maid,’ he says, ‘And let your weeping alane; I’ll marry you to my eldest son, And you shall be ca’d my dame.’
4 He has tane her on ahint him, And fast he spurred the steed; For Edinbro town he there was bound, Where they soon came wi speed.
7 He’s tane her to the Luckenbooths, Coft her a braw new gown, A handsome feather for her hat, And a pair o silken shoon.
8 He has tane the fair may up again, And fast awa rode he; For Hazelgreen now he was bound, Her lodging there to be.
9 She jumped aff frae ahint him, As fair as any queen; ‘Come down, come down, Lord John,’ he says, ‘And welcome your lady hame.
10 ‘It is the tall and comely youth, Sweet John o Hazelgreen; If we canna see it bridal-day, It shall be bridal-een.’
D
=a.= Buchan’s Ballads of the North of Scotland, II, 253. =b.= Chambers, Scottish Ballads, p. 319.
1 As I went forth to take the air Intill an evening clear, And there I spied a lady fair, Making a heavy bier; Making a heavy bier, I say, But and a piteous meen, And aye she sighd, and said, Alas, For John o Hazelgreen!
2 The sun was sinking in the west, The stars were shining clear, When thro the thickets o the wood, A gentleman did appear. Says, Who has done you the wrong, fair maid, And left you here alane? Or who has kissd your lovely lips, That ye ca Hazelgreen?
3 ‘Hold your tongue, kind sir,’ she said, ‘And do not banter so; How will ye add affliction Unto a lover’s woe? For none’s done me the wrong,’ she said, ‘Nor left me here alane; Nor none has kissd my lovely lips, That I ca Hazelgreen.’
4 ‘Why weep ye by the tide, lady? Why weep ye by the tide? How blythe and happy might he be Gets you to be his bride! Gets you to be his bride, fair maid, And him I’ll no bemean; But when I take my words again, Whom call ye Hazelgreen?
5 ‘What like a man was Hazelgreen? Will ye show him to me?’ ‘He is a comely, proper youth I in my sleep did see; Wi arms tall, and fingers small, He’s comely to be seen;’ And aye she loot the tears down fall For John o Hazelgreen.
6 ‘If ye’ll forsake young Hazelgreen, And go along with me, I’ll wed you to my eldest son, Make you a lady free.’ ‘It’s for to wed your eldest son I am a maid oer mean; I’ll rather stay at home,’ she says ‘And die for Hazelgreen.’
7 ‘If ye’ll forsake young Hazelgreen, And go along with me, I’ll wed you to my second son, And your weight o gowd I’ll gie.’ ‘It’s for to wed your second son I am a maid oer mean; I’ll rather stay at home,’ she says, ‘And die for Hazelgreen.’
8 Then he’s taen out a siller comb, Combd down her yellow hair; And lookëd in a diamond bright, To see if she were fair. ‘My girl, ye do all maids surpass That ever I have seen; Cheer up your heart, my lovely lass, And hate young Hazelgreen.’
9 ‘Young Hazelgreen he is my love, And ever mair shall be; I’ll nae forsake young Hazelgreen For a’ the gowd ye’ll gie.’ But aye she sighd, and said, Alas! And made a piteous meen, And aye she loot the tears down fa For John o Hazelgreen.
10 He lookëd high, and lighted low, Set her upon his horse; And they rode on to Edinburgh, To Edinburgh’s own cross. And when she in that city was, She lookd like ony queen: ‘’Tis a pity such a lovely lass Shoud love young Hazelgreen.’
11 ‘Young Hazelgreen, he is my love, And ever mair shall be; I’ll nae forsake young Hazelgreen For a’ the gowd ye’ll gie.’ And aye she sighd, and said, Alas! And made a piteous meen, And aye she loot the tears down fa For John o Hazelgreen.
12 ‘Now hold your tongue, my well-fard maid, Lat a’ your mourning be, And a’ endeavours I shall try To bring that youth to thee, If ye’ll tell me where your love stays, His stile and proper name.’ ‘He’s laird o Taperbank,’ she says, ‘His stile, Young Hazelgreen.’
13 Then he has coft for that lady A fine silk riding-gown, Likewise he coft for that lady A steed, and set her on; Wi menji feathers in her hat, Silk stockings and siller sheen, And they are on to Taperbank, Seeking young Hazelgreen.
14 They nimbly rode along the way, And gently spurrd their horse, Till they rode on to Hazelgreen, To Hazelgreen’s own close. Then forth he came, young Hazelgreen, To welcome his father free: ‘You’re welcome here, my father dear, And a’ your companie.’
15 But when he lookd oer his shoulder, A light laugh then gae he; Says, If I getna this lady, It’s for her I must die. I must confess this is the maid I ance saw in a dream, A walking thro a pleasant shade, As fair’s a cypress queen.
16 ‘Now hold your tongue, young Hazelgreen, Lat a’ your folly be; If ye be wae for that lady, She’s thrice as wae for thee. She’s thrice as wae for thee, my son, As bitter doth complain; Well is she worthy o the rigs That lie on Hazelgreen.’
17 He’s taen her in his arms twa, Led her thro bower and ha: ‘Cheer up your heart, my dearest dear, Ye’re flower out-oer them a’. This night shall be our wedding-een, The morn we’ll say, Amen; Ye’se never mair hae cause to mourn, Ye’re lady o Hazelgreen.’
E
=a.= “Got in the South County by Mr Pringle:” Kinloch’s MSS, I, 321. =b.= Kinloch’s MSS, VII, 2.
1 ‘Why weep ye by the tide, ladye? Why weep ye by the tide? I’ll wed ye to my youngest son, And ye sall be his bride. And ye sall be his bride, ladye, Sae comely to be seen;’ But aye she loot the tears down fa For John o Hazelgreen.
2 ‘O whaten a man is Hazelgreen? I pray thee tell to me.’ ‘O there’s not a handsomer gentleman In a’ the South Countrie. His arms are long, his shoulders broad, Sae comely to be seen!’ And aye she loot the tears down fa For John o Hazelgreen.
* * * * *
=A.=
1^5. she meant.
Sharpe’s transcript reads:
1^1. In for Into.
5^2. come for go.
8^6. Most for Right.
=B.=
5^2. thereat; changed to therein in printing. The line is run through in pencil.
6^4. raving. Cf. =A= 9^6.
Kinloch made some changes in printing.
=C.=
Written throughout in stanzas of four verses.
=D. b.=
Since Chambers in some measure adjusted phraseology with a view to “literary” effect, it is impossible to make out which of the variations in his ballad came from the copy which he took down from recitation. Upon extracting all his variations, they have not turned out to be important. A few, which seem the most likely to have belonged to his recited copy, are subjoined.
1^3. I spied a lady in a wood.
2^4. An auld knicht.
7^{3,5}. youngest for second.
10^{5-8}. And he has coft her silken claes Garred her look like a queen: ‘Ye surely now will sick nae mair For Jock o Hazelgreen.’
13^7. And they have ridden far athort.
After 15. For her sake I did vow a vow I neer should wed but she; Should this fair lady cruel prove, I’ll lay me doun and dee.
16^{3,4,5}. sick for wae.
16^{7,8}. And a’ she wants to heal her woe Is Jock o Hazelgreen.
17^4. Ye’re lady ower.
=E. b.=
2. ‘What like a man is Haselgreen? Lady, tell to me.’ ‘He’s a handsome, proper youth As ever my eyes did see. With shoulders broad and arms long, Most comely to be seen;’ And still she lout the tears doun fa For Jock of Haselgreen.
294
DUGALL QUIN
‘Dugall Quin,’ The Old Lady’s MS. Collection, No 27.
In this little ballad, which has barely story enough to be so called, Dugald Quin, a Highlander, who seems to give himself out as a man in very humble circumstances, induces Lizzie Menzies, a young lady who appears to have nine maids at her command, to follow him, regardless of her father’s opposition. She cannot resist his merry winking eyes. After she has cast in her lot with his, he promises her nine mills (to match the nine maids), and to make her lady of Garlogie. The old lady minutes at the end of her copy that “it was the Marquis of Huntly.”
One version of ‘Rob Roy,’ No 225, I, 8, has a stanza like 2.
‘What think ye o my coal-black hair, But and my twinkling een, lady, A little bonnet on my head, And cocket up aboon, lady?’
I suppose the Farie of 6^2, 9^2, to stand for a locality on the way north to Boggie (Strathbogie); I cannot, however, identify the place. ‘Tempeng chiss of farie,’ 6^4, 9^4, 10^4, may be a tempting fairy treasure. ‘Chis’ is Gaelic for tribute, but I am at present unable, making whatever allowance for the capricious spelling of the manuscript, to suggest any satisfying explanation of this important phrase.
Sir Walter Scott makes this note: “How the devil came Dugald Gunn [so he chooses to read Quin] to be identified with the Marquis of Huntly? I never saw the song before; it has some spunk in it.” Sharpe’s Ballad Book, ed. 1880, p. 154.
1 Dugall Quin came to the toun, An he’s ben lang awaa, An he is one to Lissie’s bed, Tartan, trues, an a’.
2 ‘Hou wad ye leak me, Lisie,’ he says, ‘Gin that I war yer ain, We raged cot apon my back, An singel-soled sheen, A littel we bonnet on my head, An tua merry wenking ean?’
3 ‘Well wad I leak ye, Dugall,’ she says, ‘Gin that ye war my ain, We ragged coat upon yer back, An singel-soled sheen, A littel we bonnet on yer head, An tua merry wenking eyn.
4 ‘Hou wad ye leak me, Dugall,’ she says, ‘Gin I wer yer ain, We silken sneed upon my head, An gold fann in my hand, An madins ning, a’ clead in green, To be att my comand?’
5 ‘Well wad I leak ye, Lisie,’ he says, ‘Gin ye wer my ain, We silken sneed upon yer head, An a goud fan in yer hand, An madins nine, a’ clad in green, To be att yer command.
6 ‘Follou me nou, Lisie,’ he says, ‘Follou me throu Farie, An reap the boddoms of my pakets, An ye’ll gett tempeng chiss of farei.’
7 Outspak her father, says, Lissie, I widna wish ye, For gin ye gay we this young man They will say I ha bat lost ye.
8 ‘O had yer toung, my father dear, For a’ that winne brake me; For I will gaa we this young man, Since it’s his will to take me.’
9 ‘Follou me nou, Lissë,’ he says, ‘An follou me throu Farie, An reap the boddom of my poket, An ye’ll gett tempeng chess of farie.’
10 ‘Wea matt worth yer well-fared face, Alas that ever I saa ye! The first an thing that ever ye gaa to me Was the tempen chess of farie.’
11 Dugall Quin read doun the toun, Upon Dumfarling’s horses, An Lisie Meanes folloued him, For a’ her father’s forces.
12 ‘Follou me nou, Lisie,’ he says, ‘An follou me our Boggie; I ill make ye lady of ning mills, An lady of bonny Garlogë.’
13 She has folloued her trou-love [An folloued him] our Boggie, An she has marred Dugall Quin, An lives belou Strathbogy.
* * * * *
2^5. bomnet.
4^5, 12^3. ning: a frequent spelling of the old lady’s, conceived, perhaps, as nign. We have nine in 5^5.
12^3. ill; MS. aill.
Note at the end: it was the markes of Huntly.
295
THE BROWN GIRL
=A.= ‘The bonny Brown Girl,’ ‘The Brown Girl,’ The Brown Girl’s Garland, British Museum, 11621. c. 3 (10).
=B.= As lately taken down in Devon by Rev. S. Baring-Gould.
A young man who has been attached to a girl sends her word by letter that he cannot fancy her because she is so brown (he has left her for another maid in =B=). She sends a disdainful reply. He writes again that he is dangerously ill (he is love-sick in =B=), and begs her come to him quickly and give him back his faith. She takes her time in going, and when she comes to the sick man’s bedside, cannot stand for laughing. She has, however, brought a white wand with her, which she strokes on his breast, in sign that she gives him back the faith which he had given her. But as to forgetting and forgiving, that she will never do; she will dance upon his grave.
This little ballad recalls ‘Lord Thomas and Fair Annet’ (‘Lord Thomas and Fair Ellinor, with the downfall of the Brown Girl’), ‘Sweet William’s Ghost,’ ‘Clerk Saunders,’ ‘The Unquiet Grave,’ ‘Bonny Barbara Allan,’ and has something of all of them. Compare No 73; No 77, =A= 4, =B= 2, 9, =C= 6, 14, =D= 4, 13, =E= 6, 14; No 84 (for the laughing, =B= 12); No 69, =A= 20-22, =D= 11, 14, =E= 17-20, =G= 23-25; No 78, =B= 2, =E= 2, =F= 2. Still it is not deliberately and mechanically patched together (as are some pieces in Part VIII), and in the point of the proud and unrelenting character of the Brown Girl it is original.
A
The Brown Girl’s Garland, British Museum, 11621. c. 3 (10), n. d., before 1788.
1 ‘I am as brown as brown can be, My eyes as black as a sloe; I am as brisk as a nightingale, And as wilde as any doe.
2 ‘My love has sent me a love-letter, Not far from yonder town, That he could not fancy me, Because I was so brown.
3 ‘I sent him his letter back again, For his love I valu’d not, Whether that he could fancy me Or whether he could not.
4 ‘He sent me his letter back again, That he lay dangerous sick, That I might then go speedily To give him up his faith.’
5 Now you shall hear what love she had Then for this love-sick man; She was a whole long summer’s day In a mile a going on.
6 When she came to her love’s bed-side, Where he lay dangerous sick, She could not for laughing stand Upright upon her feet.
7 She had a white wand all in her hand, And smoothd it all on his breast; ‘In faith and troth come pardon me, I hope your soul’s at rest.
8 ‘I’ll do as much for my true-love As other maidens may; I’ll dance and sing on my love’s grave A whole twelvemonth and a day.’
B
Taken down lately by Rev. S. Baring-Gould from a blacksmith, parish of Thrushleton, Devon.
1 ‘I am as brown as brown can be, And my eyes as black as sloe; I am as brisk as brisk can be, And wild as forest doe.
2 ‘My love he was so high and proud, His fortune too so high, He for another fair pretty maid Me left and passed me by.
3 ‘Me did he send a love-letter, He sent it from the town, Saying no more he loved me, For that I was so brown.
4 ‘I sent his letter back again, Saying his love I valued not, Whether that he would fancy me, Whether that he would not.
5 ‘When that six months were overpassd, Were overpassd and gone, Then did my lover, once so bold, Lie on his bed and groan.
6 ‘When that six months were overpassd, Were gone and overpassd, O then my lover, once so bold, With love was sick at last.
7 ‘First sent he for the doctor-man: ‘You, doctor, me must cure; The pains that now do torture me I can not long endure.’
8 ‘Next did he send from out the town, O next did send for me; He sent for me, the brown, brown girl Who once his wife should be.
9 ‘O neer a bit the doctor-man His sufferings could relieve; O never an one but the brown, brown girl Who could his life reprieve.’
10 Now you shall hear what love she had For this poor love-sick man, How all one day, a summer’s day, She walked and never ran.
11 When that she came to his bedside, Where he lay sick and weak, O then for laughing she could not stand Upright upon her feet.
12 ‘You flouted me, you scouted me, And many another one; Now the reward is come at last, For all that you have done.’
13 The rings she took from off her hands, The rings by two and three: ‘O take, O take these golden rings, By them remember me.’
14 She had a white wand in her hand, She strake him on the breast: ‘My faith and troth I give back to thee, So may thy soul have rest.’
15 ‘Prithee,’ said he, ‘forget, forget, Prithee forget, forgive; O grant me yet a little space, That I may be well and live.’
16 ‘O never will I forget, forgive, So long as I have breath; I’ll dance above your green, green grave Where you do lie beneath.’
* * * * *
=A.=
Heading. The Brown Girl; to an excellent tune.
=B.=
From A right merry book of Garlands. Collected by J. Bell, on the Quay, Newcastle upon Tyne. A slip inserted after the 6th Garland bears these words: The old garlands in these volumes [11621. c. 3, c. 4] are printed by J. White, who died in 1769, and by T. Saint, who died in 1788.... Letter of J. Bell.
The Brown Girl’s Garland, composed of four extraordinary new songs.
The bonny Brown Girl, etc., etc.
4^4. his Eilk.
296
WALTER LESLY
‘Walter Lesly,’ Buchan’s Ballads of the North of Scotland, II, 139.
A late, but life-like and spirited ballad.
Walter Lesly steals a girl, not for her beauty or blood, but for her mother’s dollars, of which he has need. She is tied on to a horse, taken to an ale-house, and put to bed. Lesly, weary with hard riding, falls asleep; the girl gets up and runs over moss, moor, hill and dale, barefoot. Lesly’s men pursue, but the road is full of pools and tires the men out. The girl effects her escape.
1 On the second of October, a Monday at noon, In came Walter Lesly, to see his proper one; He set a chair down by her side, and gently sat her by, Says, Will ye go to Conland, this winter-time to lye?
2 He’s taen a glass into his hand, inviting her to drink, But little knew she his meaning, or what the rogue did think; Nor what the rogue did think, to steal the maid away; ‘Will ye go to Conland, this winter-time to lye?’
3 When they had taen a glass or two, and all were making merry, In came Geordy Lesly, and forth he did her carry; Then upon high horseback sae hard’s he did her tye, ‘Will ye go to Conland, this winter-time to lye?’
4 Her mother she came to the door, the saut tears on her cheek, She coudna see her daughter, it was for dust and reek; It was for dust and reek, the swords they glancd sae high; ‘And will ye go to Conland, this winter-time to lye?’
5 When they came to the ale-house, the people there were busy; A bridal-bed it was well made, and supper well made ready; When the supper down was set, baith plum-pudding and pie, ‘And will ye go to Conland, this winter-time to lye?’
6 When they had eaten and well drunken, and a’ man bound for bed, The laddie and the lassie in ae chamber were laid; He quickly stript her to the smock, and gently laid her bye, Says, Will ye go to Conland, this winter-time to lye?
7 But Walter being weary, he fell fast asleep, And then the lassie thought it fit to start up till her feet; To start up till her feet, and her petticoats to tye, ‘We’ll go no more to Conland, the winter-time to lye.’
8 Then over moss and over muir sae cleverly she ran, And over hill and over dale, without stockings or shoon; The men pursued her full fast, wi mony shout and cry, Says, Will ye go to Conland, the winter-time to lye.
9 ‘Wae to the dubs o Duffus land, that eer they were sae deep; They’ve trachled a’ our horsemen and gart our captain sleep; And gart our captain sleep, and the lassie win away, And she’ll go no more to Conland, the winter-time to lye.’
10 ‘I’d rather be in Duffus land, selling at the ale, Before I was wi Lesly, for a’ his auld meal; For a’ his auld meal, and sae mony comes to buy; I’ll go no more to Conland the winter-time to lye.
11 ‘I’d rather be in Duffus land, dragging at the ware, Before I was wi Lesly, for a’ his yellow hair; For a’ his yellow hair, and sae well’s he can it tye; I’ll go no more to Conland, this winter-time to lye.’
12 It was not for her beauty, nor yet her gentle bluid, But for her mither’s dollars, of them he had great need; Of them he had great need, now he maun do them by, For she’ll go no more to Conland, this winter-time to lye.
* * * * *
Printed in stanzas of eight short lines.
297
EARL ROTHES
‘Earl Rothes,’ Kinloch MSS, I, 333.
Lady Ann has an adulterous connection with Earl Rothes, and her youthful brother seeks to sunder it. He offers to pay a tocher for her if she will forsake the earl’s company; to keep her in his castle till she is safely brought to bed, and make her a marquis’s lady; she rejects all his offers with scorn. The boy declares that when he is old enough to wear a sword he will thrust it through Earl Rothes for using his sister so badly.
1 ‘O Earl Rothes, an thou wert mine, And I were to be thy ladie, I wad drink at the beer, and tipple at the wine, And be my bottle with any.’
2 ‘Hold thy tongue, sister Ann,’ he says, ‘Thy words they are too many; What wad ye do wi sae noble a lord, When he has so noble a ladie?
3 ‘O I’ll pay you your tocher, Lady Ann, Both in gear and money, If ye’ll forsake Earl Rothes’s companie, And mind that he has a ladie.’
4 ‘I do not value your gold,’ she says, ‘Your gear it’s no sae readie; I’ll neer forsake Earl Rothes’s companie, And I don’t gie a fig for his ladie.’
5 ‘I’ll keep ye i the castle, Lady Ann, O servants ye shall hae monie; I’ll keep ye till ye’re safely brocht to bed, And I’ll mak you a marquis’s ladie.’
6 ‘I do not value your castle,’ she says, ‘Your servants are no sae readie; Earl Rothes will keep me till I’m brocht to bed, And he’ll mak me a marquis’s ladie.’
7 ‘Woe be to thee, Earl Rothes,’ he says, ‘And the mark o the judge be upon thee, For the using o this poor thing sae, For the using my sister so badly.
8 ‘When I’m come to the years of a man, And able a sword to carry, I’ll thrust it thro Earl Rothes’ bodie For the using my sister sae basely.
9 ‘Fare thee well, Lady Ann,’ he says, ‘No longer will I tarry; You and I will never meet again, Till we meet at the bonny town o Torry.’
298
YOUNG PEGGY
‘Young Peggy,’ Kinloch’s Ancient Scottish Ballads, p. 153.
Peggy has been seen in the garden with Jamie late in the night, for which her mother calls her to account. She does not deny the fact; she takes the blame on herself; the thing will happen again. But going to her bower, where Jamie is attending her, she tells him they must meet no more. He makes a tryst with her in the greenwood at midnight, she keeps it and goes off with her lover. Her father pursues them, but they are married before he gets to the top of the hill.
1 ‘O whare hae ye been, Peggy? O whare hae ye been?’ ‘I the garden amang the gilly-flowrs, Atween twal hours and een.’
2 ‘Ye’ve na been there your leen, Peggy, Ye’ve na been there your leen; Your father saw you in Jamie’s arms, Atween twal hours and een.’
3 ‘Tho my father saw me in Jamie’s arms, He’ll see me there again; For I will sleep in Jamie’s arms When his grave’s growin green.’
4 ‘Your Jamie is a rogue, Peggy, Your Jamie is a loun, For trysting out our ae dochter, And her sae very young.’
5 ‘Lay no the wyte on Jamie, mither, The blame a’ lies on me; For I will sleep in Jamie’s arms When your een winna see.’
6 Now she has to her ain bouer gane; He was waiting there him leen: ‘I’m blythe to see ye, Jamie, here, For we maunna meet again.’
7 She’s tane the wine-glass in her hand, Pourd out the wine sae clear; Says, Here’s your health and mine, Jamie, And we maun meet na mair.
8 She has tane him in her arms twa, And gien him kisses five; Says, Here’s your health and mine, Jamie, I wish weel mote ye thrive.
9 ‘Your father has a bonnie cock, Divides the nicht and day, And at the middle watch o the nicht In greenwud ye’ll meet me.’
10 Whan bells war rung, and mass was sung, And a’ men boun for bed, She’s kilted up her green claithing, And met Jamie in the wud.
11 Whan bells war rung, and mass was sung, About the hour o twa, It’s up bespak her auld father, Says, Peggy is awa!
12 ‘Ga saddle to me the black, the black, Ga saddle to me the grey;’ But ere they wan to the tap o the hill The wedding was a’ bye.
299
TROOPER AND MAID
=A.= ‘The Trooper and Fair Maid,’ Buchan’s Ballads of the North of Scotland, I, 230.
=B.= ‘The Trooper,’ Motherwell’s MS., p. 27.
=C.= Jamieson’s Scottish Ballads, II, 158.
A trooper comes to the house of his mistress in the evening and is kindly received. They pass the night together and are wakened by the trumpet. He must leave her; she follows him some way, he begging her to turn back. She asks him repeatedly when they are to meet again and marry. He answers, when cockle shells grow siller bells, when fishes fly and seas gang dry, etc.: see I, 168, 437.
There are several other ballads of a trooper and a maid (Peggy). In ‘The Bonnie Lass o Fyvie,’ Christie, I, 276, Murison MS., p. 50, Kinloch MSS, VII, 339, Buchan MSS, II, 270, ‘Irish Dragoons,’ Motherwell’s MSS, p. 428, a captain falls in love with a Peggy and dies thereof; but in another copy, ‘Pretty Peggy,’ Gibb MS., No 13, p. 53, all is made to end well. A dragoon very constant and liberal to Peggy, and she very fond to him, are happily married in ‘The Dragoon and Peggy,’ Maidment, Scotish. Ballads and Songs, 1859, p. 98, from a Glasgow copy of the date 1800. The first half of this ballad is found under the title of ‘The Laird of Kellary’ in Kinloch MSS, I, 359. In an English broadside which is perhaps of the first half of the seventeenth century, a married Peggy leaves her husband to follow a soldier over sea, but returns and is forgiven: ‘The Soldier and Peggy,’ Roxburghe collection, I, 370 (also Pepys, Euing, Douce), Chappell, The Roxburghe Ballads, II, 475. ‘Peggie is over the sie with the souldier’ is the title of a tune (No 95) in the Skene MSS, which date from the first quarter of the seventeenth century. A correspondent of C. K. Sharpe sent him one stanza of a Scottish ballad upon this theme:
Peggie’s gane oer the seas, a’ dressed in red, An Peggie’s come back again, beggin her bread. The landladie looked wi the tail o her ee: ‘O foul fa ye, Peggie, for leaving o me.’
There is also a ballad of a valiant trooper and a pretty Peggy who, at first inconstant, turns out a loving wife, in Pepys, IV, 40, No 37.
=A= is translated by Gerhard, p. 189.
A
1 One evening as a maid did walk, The moon was shining clearly, She heard a trooper at the gates, She thought it was her dearie. She’s taen his horse then by the head, And led him to the stable, And gien to him baith corn and hay, To eat what he was able. Bonny lass, gin I come near you, Bonny lass, gin I come near you, I’ll gar a’ your ribbons reel, Bonny lass, or eer I lea you.
2 She’s taen the trooper by the hand, And led him to the table, And furnishd him wi bread and cheese, To eat what he was able. She’s taen the wine-glass in her hand, Poured out the wine sae clearly; ‘Here is your health an mine,’ she cried, ‘And ye’re welcome hame, my deary!
3 ‘A glass o wine for gentlemen, And bonny lads for lasses, And bread and cheese for cavaliers, And corn and hay for asses.’ Then she went but and made his bed, She made it like a lady, And she coost aff her mankie gown, Says, Laddie, are you ready?
4 Then he coost aff his big watch-coat, But and his silken beaver, A pair o pistols frae his side, And he lay down beside her. ‘Bonny lassie, I am wi you now, Bonny lassie I am wi you, But I’ll gar a’ your ribbons reel, Bonny lassie, ere I lea you.’
5 The trumpet sounds thro Birldale, Says, Men and horse, make ready; The drums do beat at Staneman hill, ‘Lads, leave your mam and daddie.’ The fifes did play at Cromley banks, ‘Lads, leave the lewes o Fyvie;’ And then the trooper he got up, Says, Lassie, I must lea you.
6 ‘Bonny lassie, I maun lea you now, Bonny lassie, I maun lea you; But if ever I come this road again, I will come in and see you.’
7 She’s taen her gown out-ower her arms, And followed him to Stirling, And aye the trooper he did say, O turn ye back, my darling. ‘O when will we twa meet again? Or when will you me marry?’ ‘When rashin rinds grow gay gowd rings, I winna langer tarry.’
8 ‘O when will we twa meet again? Or when will you me marry?’ ‘When heather-knaps grow siller taps, I winna langer tarry.’ ‘O when will we twa meet again? Or when will you me marry?’ ‘When heather-cows grow owsen-bows, I winna langer tarry.’
9 ‘O when will we twa meet again? Or when will you me marry?’ ‘When cockle-shells grow siller bells, I winna langer tarry.’ ‘O when will we twa meet again? Or when will you me marry?’ ‘When apple-trees grow in the seas, I winna langer tarry.’
10 ‘O when will we twa meet again? Or when will you me marry?’ ‘When fishes fly, and seas gang dry, I winna langer tarry.’ ‘O when will we twa meet again? Or when will you me marry?’ ‘When frost and snaw shall warm us a’, I winna langer tarry.’
11 ‘Yestreen I was my daddie’s dow, But an my mamy’s dawtie; This night I gang wi bairn to you, Wae’s me that I eer saw thee!’ ‘Yestreen ye were your daddie’s dow, But an your mammie’s dawtie; But gin ye gang wi bairn to me, Ye may rue that eer ye saw me.
12 ‘O turn back, my bonny lass, And turn back, my dearie; For the Highland hills are ill to climb, And the bluidy swords woud fear ye.’
B
Motherwell’s MS., p. 27; from the recitation of Widow Nicol.
1 There cam a trooper frae the West, And of riding he was weary; He rappit at and clappit at, In calling for his dearie. By chance the maid was in the close, The moon was shining clearly, She opened the gates and let him in, Says, Ye’re welcome hame, my dearie.
2 She took the horse by the bridle-reins And led him to the stable; She gave him corn and hay to eat, As much as he was able. She up the stair and made the bed, She made it fit for a lady, Then she coost aff her petticoat, Said, Trooper, are ye ready?
3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ‘There’s bread and cheese for musqueteers, And corn and hay for hor[s]es, Sack and sugar for auld wives, And lads for bonnie lasses.’
4 He coost aff his gude buff coat, His boots, likewise his beaver, He drew his rapier frae his side, And streekit him down beside her. ‘Bonnie lass, I trew I’m near the[e] now, Bonnie lass, I trew I’m near thee, And I’ll gar a’ thy ribbons reel, Bonnie lassie, or I lea thee.’
5 They had but spoken little a while Till of speaking they were weary; They sleeped together in each other’s arms Till the sun was shining clearly. The very first sound the trumpet gave Was, Troopers, are ye ready? Away you must to London town, Or else for Londonderry.
6 She took the bottle in her hand, The glass into the other, She filled it up with blood-red wine, Until it ran quite over. She drank a health to her love on the stair, Saying, When shall we two marry? Or when shall we two meet again, On purpose for to marry?
7 ‘O when shall we two meet again? Or when shall we two marry?’ ‘When cockle-shells grow siller bells; No longer must I tarry.’
C
Jamieson, Popular Ballads, II, 158, as often heard by him in Morayshire.
1 There cam a trooper frae the west, And he’s ridden till his deary; ‘It’s open and lat me in,’ he says, For I am wet and weary.’
* * * * * * *
2 ‘O whan sall we be married, love? O whan sall we be married?’ ‘Whan heather-cows turn owsen-bows, It’s then that we’ll be married.’
3 ‘O whan sall we be married, love? O when sall we be married?’ ‘When cockle-shells turn siller bells, It’s then that we’ll be married.’
4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ‘Whan the sun and moon dance on the green, It’s then that we’ll be married.’
* * * * *
=A.=
5^6. Lewas.
5^8. lea you now.
=B.=
4^3. threw? Motherwell.
4^7. gard.
=C.=
The verses are given incidentally in a preface to another ballad. Between 1 and 2: The kind fair one puts his horse into the stable and takes himself to her bower, where she gives him ‘the good white bread and blood-red wine,’ and a part of her bed. In the morning, when he proposes to depart, she naturally enough asks [as in st. 2].
300
BLANCHEFLOUR AND JELLYFLORICE
‘Blancheflour and Jellyflorice,’ Buchan’s Ballads of the North of Scotland, I, 125; Motherwell’s MS., p. 588.
A maid who has been some years in a lady’s service aspires to something higher; she seeks and obtains a place with a queen, ‘to sew the seams of silk.’ The queen warns her to keep herself from the young prince, but the pair become familiar, and the queen has her mounted on a wild horse without a bridle, expecting to dispose of her summarily in this way. But the prince takes her from the horse and declares that he will marry her within the month.
Buchan suspects that some “poetaster” has remodelled the story of the romance of Florice and Blancheflour, “modernizing it to suit the climate of his time,” that is, perhaps, turning a princess into a sempstress. The only thing in the romance that is even remotely like what we find in the ballad is that Florice saves Blancheflour from the death which his father had contrived for her in order to part the lovers, and this passage does not occur in the English versions of the romance.
There is a Flemish ballad, so to call it, composed from the romance: Coussemaker, p. 177, No 51, Baecker, Chansons historiques de la Flandre, p. 121; Oude Liedekens in Bladeren, L. van Paemel, Gend, No 17.
1 There was a maid, richly arrayd, In robes were rare to see, For seven years and something mair She servd a gay ladie.
2 But being fond o a higher place, In service she thought lang; She took her mantle her about, Her coffer by the band.
3 And as she walkd by the shore-side, As blythe’s a bird on tree, Yet still she gaz’d her round about, To see what she could see.
4 At last she spied a little castle, That stood near by the sea; She spied it far and drew it near, To that castle went she.
5 And when she came to that castle She tirled at the pin, And ready stood a little wee boy To lat this fair maid in.
6 ‘O who’s the owner of this place, O porter-boy, tell me;’ ‘This place belongs unto a queen O birth and high degree.’
7 She put her hand in her pocket, And gae him shillings three: ‘O porter, bear my message well Unto the queen frae me.’
8 The porter’s gane before the queen, Fell low down on his knee: ‘Win up, win up, my porter-boy, What makes this courtesie?’
9 ‘I hae been porter at your yetts, My dame, these years full three, But see a ladie at your yetts The fairest my eyes did see.’
10 ‘Cast up my yetts baith wide and braid, Lat her come in to me, And I’ll know by her courtesie Lord’s daughter if she be.’
11 When she came in before the queen, Fell low down on her knee: ‘Service frae you, my dame the queen, I pray you grant it me.’
12 ‘If that service ye now do want, What station will ye be? Can ye card wool, or spin, fair maid, Or milk the cows to me?’
13 ‘No, I can neither card nor spin, Nor cows I canno milk, But sit into a lady’s bower And sew the seams o silk.’
14 ‘What is your name, ye comely dame? Pray tell this unto me:’ ‘O Blancheflour, that is my name, Born in a strange countrie.’
15 ‘O keep ye well frae Jellyflorice-- My ain dear son is he-- When other ladies get a gift, O that ye shall get three.’
16 It wasna tald into the bower Till it went thro the ha, That Jellyflorice and Blancheflour Were grown ower great witha.
17 When the queen’s maids their visits paid, Upo the gude Yule-day, When other ladies got horse to ride, She boud take foot and gae.
18 The queen she calld her stable-groom, To come to her right seen; Says, Ye’ll take out yon wild waith steed And bring him to the green.
19 ‘Ye’ll take the bridle frae his head, The lighters frae his een; Ere she ride three times roun the cross, Her weel-days will be dune.’
20 Jellyflorice his true-love spy’d As she rade roun the cross, And thrice he kissd her lovely lips, And took her frae her horse.
21 ‘Gang to your bower, my lily-flower, For a’ my mother’s spite; There’s nae other amang her maids, In whom I take delight.
22 ‘Ye are my jewel, and only ane, Nane’s do you injury; For ere this-day-month come and gang My wedded wife ye’se be.’
301
THE QUEEN OF SCOTLAND
‘The Queen of Scotland,’ Buchan’s Ballads of the North of Scotland, I, 46; Motherwell’s MS., p. 577.
A queen in the king’s absence invites young Troy Muir to her bower and bed; he declines, and the queen resolves to do him an ill turn. She tells him that if he will lift a stone in the garden he will find in a pit under the stone gold enough to buy him a dukedom. The next morning Troy Muir lifts the stone, and a long-starved serpent winds itself round his middle. A maid comes by and allays the serpent’s rage by cutting off her pap for him. Troy Muir is immediately released and the wound in the maid’s breast heals in an hour. Troy Muir marries the maid the same day; she bears him a son, and by heaven’s grace recovers her pap thereupon.
The insipid ballad may have been rhymed from some insipid tale. Motherwell conjectured that Troy Muir stands for Triamour, but the story here has no sort of resemblance to the romance.
1 ‘O Troy Muir, my lily-flower, An asking I’ll ask thee; Will ye come to my bigley bower And drink the wine wi me?’
2 ‘My dame, this is too much honour You have conferrd on me; I’m sure it’s mair than I’ve deservd Frae sic a one as thee.’
3 ‘In Reekie’s towers I hae a bower, And pictures round it set; There is a bed that is well made, Where you and I shall sleep.’
4 ‘O God forbid,’ this youth then said, ‘That ever I drie sic blame As ever to touch the queen’s bodie, Altho the king’s frae hame.’
5 When that he had these words spoken, She secretly did say, Some evil I shall work this man, Before that it be day.
6 Whan a’ her maids were gane to bed, And knights were gane frae hame, She calld upon young Troy Muir, To put fire in her room.
7 ‘An asking, asking, Troy Muir, An asking ye’ll grant me;’ ‘O, if it be a lawful thing, My dame it’s granted be.’
8 ‘There is a stane in yon garden, Nae are lifts it for me; But if that ye woud lift the same, A brave man I’ll ca thee.
9 ‘Under yon stane there is a pit, Most dreary for to see, And in it there’s as much red gowd As buy a dukedom to thee.’
10 ‘O if I had ae sleep in bed, And saw the morning sun, As soon’s I rise and see the skies, Your will it shall be done.’
11 When birds did sing, and sun did rise, And sweetly sang the lark, Troy Muir to the garden went, To work this dreary wark.
12 He’s taen the stane then by a ring, And lifted manfullie; A serpent that lang wanted meat Round Troy Muir’s middle did flee.
13 ‘How shall I get rid o this foul beast? It’s by it I must dee; I never thought the queen, my friend, Woud work this mischief to me.’
14 But by there came a weelfaird may, As Troy Muir did tauk, The serpent’s furious rage to lay, Cut aff her fair white pap.
15 As soon as she the same had done, Young Troy Muir was set free, And in ane hour the wound was heald, That nae mair pain had she.
16 Says Troy Muir, My lily-flower, Ye hae releasëd me; But before I see another day, My wedded wife ye’se be.
17 He married her on that same day, Brought her to his ain hame; A lovely son to him she bare, When full nine months were gane.
18 As heaven was pleasd, in a short time, To ease her first sad pain, Sae was it pleasd, when she’d a son, To hae a pap again.
302
YOUNG BEARWELL
‘Young Bearwell,’ Buchan’s Ballads of the North of Scotland, II, 75; Motherwell’s MS., p. 456, derived from Buchan; Motherwell’s Minstrelsy, p. 345.
This is one of half a dozen pieces sent Buchan by Mr Nicol of Strichen, “who wrote them from memory as he had learned them in his earlier years from old people.” It is also one of not a few flimsy and unjointed ballads found in Buchan’s volumes, the like of which is hardly to be found elsewhere, that require a respectable voucher, such as Mr Nicol undoubtedly was, for the other five pieces communicated by him were all above suspicion, and have a considerable value. It will not, however, help the ballad much that it was not palmed off on Buchan in jest or otherwise, or even if it was learned from an old person by Mr Nicol in his youth. The intrinsic character of the ballad remains, and old people have sometimes burdened their memory with worthless things.
Young Bearwell and a mayor’s daughter are lovers. Seeing him coming along one day, the lady tells him that there are such reports in circulation about him that he will have to sail the sea beyond Yorkisfauld, which may be beyond Ultima Thule for aught we know. Bearwell’s life is in danger where he is, and the lady has had the forethought to build him a ship, in which she sends him off. By the process of sailing both east and west and then meeting wind from the north, he is blown to a land where the king and court, who pass their time mostly in playing ball, put a harp into the hand of every stranger and invite him to stay and play. Bearwell stays, and perhaps plays, twelve months. During this time the lady is so beset with suitors that she feels constrained to apply to a young skipper named Heyvalin to fetch her true-love back. To do this he must sail first east, then west, and then have a blast of north wind to blow him to the land. All this comes to pass; the king and court are playing ball, but immediately put a harp into Heyvalin’s hand and urge him to stay and play. Skipper though he be, he falls to playing, and finds Bearwell the first man in all the company.
“From circumstances,” which do not occur to me, Motherwell would almost be inclined to trace this piece to a Danish source, “or it may be an episode of some forgotten metrical romance.” It may also, and more probably, be the effort of some amateur ballad-monger in northern Scotland whose imagination was unequal to the finishing of the inane story which he had undertaken.
1 When two lovers love each other well, Great sin it were them to twinn; And this I speak from Young Bearwell; He loved a lady young, The Mayor’s daughter of Birktoun-brae, That lovely, leesome thing.
2 One day when she was looking out, When washing her milk-white hands, That she beheld him Young Bearwell, As he came in the sands.
3 Says, Wae’s me for you, Young Bearwell, Such tales of you are tauld; They’ll cause you sail the salt sea so far As beyond Yorkisfauld.
4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . ‘O shall I bide in good greenwood, Or stay in bower with thee?’
5 ‘The leaves are thick in good greenwood, Would hold you from the rain; And if you stay in bower with me You will be taken and slain.
6 ‘But I caused build a ship for you Upon Saint Innocent’s day; I’ll bid Saint Innocent be your guide, And Our Lady, that meikle may. You are a lady’s first true-love, God carry you well away!’
7 Then he sailed east, and he sailed west, By many a comely strand; At length a puff of northern wind Did blow him to the land.
8 When he did see the king and court, Were playing at the ba; Gave him a harp into his hand, Says, Stay, Bearwell, and play.
9 He had not been in the king’s court A twelvemonth and a day, Till there came lairds and lords anew To court that lady gay.
10 They wooed her with brooch and ring, They nothing could keep back; The very charters of their lands Into her hands they pat.
11 She’s done her down to Heyvalin, With the light of the moon; Says, Will ye do this deed for me, And will ye do it soon?
12 ‘Will ye go seek him Young Bearwell, On seas wherever he be? And if I live and bruik my life Rewarded ye shall be.’
13 ‘Alas, I am too young a skipper, So far to sail the faem; But if I live and bruik my life I’ll strive to bring him hame.’
14 So he has saild east and then saild west, By many a comely strand, Till there came a blast of northern wind And blew him to the land.
15 And there the king and all his court Were playing at the ba; Gave him a harp into his hand, Says, Stay, Heyvalin, and play.
16 He has tane up the harp in hand, And unto play went he, And Young Bearwell was the first man In all that companie.
* * * * * * *
303
THE HOLY NUNNERY
‘The Holy Nunnery,’ Buchan’s Ballads of the North of Scotland, I, 193.
Willie’s father and mother have vowed that he shall never marry Annie. Annie resolves that she will be a nun, asks her father’s consent and obtains it readily. At the nunnery-gate there is a maiden porter ‘wi gowd upon her hat,’ who would not have been quite out of place at the wicket of the garden of the Rose. Porter though she be, she seems to exercise the authority of a mother-superior. Annie asks admission, ‘there to live or die,’ and is allowed to come in on terms: never to kiss a young man’s mouth, and to work hard; conditions not surprising, but there is another which is unusual, never to go to church (or is it Kirk that is meant?) Annie is seven years in the nunnery, all which time Willie lies languishing. His mother asks him if there is nothing that would help him; there is nothing, he says, but his love Annie. They dress him up like a lady, in silk and gold, he goes to the nunnery-gate, and the maiden porter ‘wi gowd upon her hat’ makes no difficulty about letting him in. Annie knows him, and says, Come up, my sister dear. Willie essays to kiss her lips, but she whispers, This I dare not avow. The rest is wanting, and again we may doubt whether the balladist had not exhausted himself, whether a story so begun could be brought to any conclusion.
1 Fair Annie had a costly bower, Well built wi lime and stane, And Willie came to visit her, Wi the light o the meen.
2 When he came to Annie’s bower-door, He tirled at the pin: ‘Ye sleep ye, wake ye, Fair Annie, Ye’ll open, lat me come in.’
3 ‘O never a fit,’ says Fair Annie, ‘Till I your errand ken;’ ‘My father’s vowd a vow, Annie, I’ll tell you when I’m in.
4 ‘My father’s vowed a rash vow, I darena marry thee; My mither’s vowed anither vow, My bride ye’se never be.’
5 ‘If ye had tauld me that, Willie, When we began to woo, There was naithing in this warld wide Shoud drawn my love to you.
6 ‘A nun, a nun,’ said Fair Annie, ‘A nun will I be then;’ ‘A priest, a priest,’ said Sweet Willie, ‘A priest will I be syne.’
7 She is gane to her father, For mither she had nane; And she is on to her father, To see if she’d be a nun.
8 ‘An asking, asking, father dear, An asking ye’ll grant me; That’s to get to the holy nunnery, And there to live or die.’
9 ‘Your asking’s nae sae great, daughter, But granted it shall be; For ye’se won to the holy nunnery, There to live or die.’
10 Then they gaed on, and farther on, Till they came to the yate; And there they spied a maiden porter, Wi gowd upon her hat.
11 ‘An asking, asking, maiden porter, An asking ye’ll grant me; If I’ll won to the holy nunnery, There to live or die.’
12 ‘Your asking’s nae sae great, lady, But granted it shall be; For ye’se won to the holy nunnery, There to live or die.
13 ‘But ye maun vow a vow, lady, Before that ye seek in; Never to kiss a young man’s mouth That goes upon the grun.
14 ‘And ye must vow anither vow, Severely ye must work; The well-warst vow that ye’re to vow, Is never to gang to kirk.’
15 ‘I will vow a vow,’ she said, ‘Before that I seek in; I neer shall kiss a young man’s mouth That goes upon the grun.
16 ‘And I will vow anither vow, Severely I will work; The well-warst vow that I’m to vow Is never to gang to kirk.’
17 For seven years now Fair Annie, In the holy nunnery lay she, And seven years Sweet Willie lay, In languish like to die.
18 ‘Is there nae duke nor lord’s daughter, My son, can comfort thee, And save thee frae the gates o death? Is there nae remedie?’
19 ‘There is nae duke nor lord’s daughter, Mother, can comfort me, Except it be my love, Annie, In the holy nunnery lies she.’
20 They’ve dressd Sweet Willie up in silk, Wi gowd his gown did shine, And nane coud ken by his pale face But he was a lady fine.
21 So they gaed on, and farther on, Till they came to the yate, And there they spied a maiden porter, Wi gowd upon her hat.
22 ‘An asking, an asking, maiden porter, An asking ye’ll grant me; For to win in to the holy nunnery, Fair Annie for to see.’
23 ‘Your asking’s nae sae great, lady, But granted it shall be; Ye’se won into the holy nunnery, Fair Annie for to see.
24 ‘Be she duke’s or lord’s daughter, It’s lang sin she came here:’ Fair Annie kent her true love’s face; Says, Come up, my sister dear.
25 Sweet Willie went to kiss her lips, As he had wont to do; But she softly whispered him, I darena this avow.
304
YOUNG RONALD
Buchan’s Ballads of the North of Scotland, II, 282; Motherwell’s MS., p. 601, derived from Buchan.
Young Ronald, a noble squire, but still school-boy (11, 29), lays his love on the daughter of the king of Linne, a locality which, as it occurs several times in ballads, we are glad to learn is not far from Windsor. In the course of an interview with the lady in her garden, she tells him that though she entirely feels the honor he has done her, she must be subject to her father’s will. Ronald’s father and mother are greatly concerned for their son, seeing that the lady has already rejected many suitors. He pays his love a second visit, and protests that for her sake he would fight long and hard. Be not too hasty, she answers; you must buckle with a more dangerous foe than you wot of, ere you win me by war. She proceeds to explain that her father will have to go to war the next day with a giant who has been very troublesome, and then to make him various offers with the view of enlisting him in the affair; among which are two standard rings, one of which will stanch the blood of any of his men who may be hurt, the other prevent the drawing of his own blood.
Young Ronald reports to his father the encouragement which he has received from his love, the impending contest with the giant, and the gifts which she has made him; and the father, on his part, promises him a company of a hundred well-armed men. Supported by these, and invigorated by a third meeting in the garden, Ronald rides proudly to the field. The giant, who is handicapped with three heads on his neck, and three more on his breast, challenges the king of Linne to combat, and the king offers his daughter and a third of his lands to any champion who will undertake the giant. Ronald is ready, and, according to the rule in such cases, disdains the offer of any reward but the daughter. The thought of her gives him a lion’s courage, and such potency to his arm that he cuts off all the six heads of the giant at one sweep.
If any lover of ballads should feel his understanding insulted by the presentation of such a piece as this, I can have no quarrel with him. There is certainly much in it that is exasperating,--the greeters in the school, the lifting of the hat, and, most of all, perhaps, the mint in meadows. These are, however, the writer’s own property; the nicking with nay and the giant are borrowed from romances. In this and not a very few other cases, I have suppressed disgust, and admitted an actually worthless and a manifestly--at least in part--spurious ballad, because of a remote possibility that it might contain relics, or be a debased representative, of something genuine and better. Such was the advice of my lamented friend, Grundtvig, in more instances than those in which I have brought myself to defer to his judgment.
1 It fell upon the Lammas time, When flowers were fresh and green, And craig and cleugh was covered ower With cloathing that was clean.
2 ’Twas at that time a noble squire, Sprung from an ancient line, Laid his love on a lady fair, The king’s daughter o Linne.
3 When cocks did craw, and day did daw, And mint in meadows sprang, Young Ronald and his little wee boy They rode the way alang.
4 So they rode on, and farther on, To yonder pleasant green, And there he spied that lady fair, In her garden alane.
5 These two together lang they stood, And love’s tale there they taul; The glancing o her fair color Did Ronald’s own impale.
6 He lifted’s hat, and thus he spake; O pity have on me! For I could pledge what is my right, All for the sake of thee.
7 ‘Ye’re young amo your mirth, kind sir, And fair o your dull hours; There’s nae a lady in a’ London But might be your paramour.
8 ‘But I’m too young to wed, kind sir, You must not take it ill; Whate’er my father bids me do, I maun be at his will.’
9 He kissd her then and took his leave, His heart was all in pride, And he is on to Windsor gone, And his boy by his side.
10 And when he unto Windsor came, And lighted on the green, There he spied his mother dear, Was walking there alane.
11 ‘Where have ye been, my son, Ronald, From gude school-house, this day?’ ‘I hae been at Linne, mother, Seeing yon bonny may.’
12 ‘O wae’s me for you now, Ronald, For she will not you hae; For mony a knight and bauld baron She’s nickd them a’ wi nae.’
13 Young Ronald’s done him to his bower, And he took bed and lay; Nae woman could come in his sight, For the thoughts o this well-fard may.
14 Then in it came his father dear, Well belted in a brand; The tears ran frae his twa gray eyes, All for his lovely son.
15 Then Ronald calld his stable-groom To come right speedilie; Says, Ye’ll gang to yon stable, boy, And saddle a steed for me.
16 ‘His saddle o the guid red gowd, His bits be o the steel, His bridle o a glittering hue; See that ye saddle him weel.
17 ‘For I’ve heard greeters at your school-house, Near thirty in a day; But for to hear an auld man greet, It passes bairns’ play.’
18 When cocks did craw, and day did daw, And mint in meadows sprang, Young Ronald and his little wee boy The way they rode alang.
19 So they rode on, and further on, To yonder pleasant green, And there they saw that lady fair, In her garden alane.
20 And twenty times before he ceasd He kissd her lips sae clear, And said, Dear lady, for your sake, I’ll fight fell lang and sair.
21 ‘Full haste, nae speed, for me, kind sir,’ Replied the lady clear; ‘Far better bucklings ye maun bide Or ye gain my love by weir.
22 ‘King Honour is my father’s name, The morn to war maun fare, And that’s to fight a proud giant, That’s wrought him muckle care.
23 ‘Along wi him he is to take Baith noble knights and squires; I woud wish you as well-dressd a knight As ony will be there.
24 ‘And I’ll gie you a thousand crowns, To part amang your men; A robe upon your ain body, Weel sewd wi my ain hand.
25 ‘Likewise a ring, a royal thing, The virtue it is gude; If ony o your men be hurt, It soon will stem their blude.
26 ‘Another ring, a royal thing, Whose virtue is well known; As lang’s this ring your body’s on, Your bluid shall neer be drawn.’
27 He kissd her then, and took his leave, His heart was all in pride, And he is on to Windsor gone, And his boy by his side.
28 And when he unto Windsor came, And lighted on the green, There he saw his auld father, Was walking him alane.
29 ‘Where hae ye been, my son, Ronald, From gude school-house the day?’ ‘O I hae been at Linne, father, Seeking yon bonny may.’
30 ‘O wae’s me for you now, Ronald, For she will not you hae; Mony a knight and bauld baron She’s nickd them a’ wi nay.’
31 ‘O had your tongue, my father dear, Lat a’ your folly be; The last words that I wi her spake, Her love was granted me.
32 ‘King Honour is her father’s name, The morn to war maun fare, And that’s to fight a proud giant, That’s wrought him muckle care.
33 ‘Alang wi him he means to take Baith knights and noble squires; And she wishes me as well drest a knight As ony will be there.
34 ‘And she’s gaen me a thousand crowns, To part amang my men; A robe upon my ain body, Weel sewd wi her ain hand.
35 ‘Likewise a ring, a royal thing, The virtue it is gude; If ony o my men be hurt, It soon will stem their blude.
36 ‘Another ring, a royal thing, Whose virtue is unknown; As lang’s this ring my body’s on, My blude will neer be drawn.’
37 ‘If that be true, my son, Ronald, That ye hae tauld to me, I’ll gie to you an hundred men, To bear you companie.
38 ‘Besides as muckle gude harness As carry them on the lee; It is a company gude enough For sic a squire as thee.’
39 When cocks did craw, and day did daw, And mint in meadows spread, Young Ronald and his merry young men Were ready for to ride.
40 So they rode on, and farther on, To yonder pleasant green, And there they spied that lady fair, In her garden, sair mourning.
41 These twa together lang they stood, And love’s tale there they taul, Till her father and his merry young men Had ridden seven mile.
42 He kissd her then, and took his leave, His heart was all in pride, And then he sprang alang the road As sparks do frae the gleed.
43 Then to his great steed he set spur; He being swift o feet, They soon arrived on the plain, Where all the rest did meet.
44 Then flew the foul thief frae the west, His make was never seen; He had three heads upon ae hause, Three heads on ae breast-bane.
45 He bauldly stept up to the king, Seiz’d ’s steed in his right hand; Says, Here I am, a valiant man, Fight me now if ye can.
46 ‘Where is the man in a’ my train Will take this deed in hand? And he shall hae my daughter dear, And third part o my land.’
47 ‘O here am I,’ said young Ronald, ‘Will take the deed in hand; And ye’ll gie me your daughter dear, I’ll seek nane o your land.’
48 ‘I woudna for my life, Ronald, This day I left you here; Remember ye yon lady gay For you shed mony a tear.’
49 Fan he did mind on that lady That he left him behind, He hadna mair fear to fight Nor a lion frae a chain.
50 Then he cut aff the giant’s heads Wi ae sweep o his hand, Gaed hame and married that lady, And heird her father’s land.
* * * * *
5^3. collar.
5^4. one for own.
14^2. and a.
26^3. ring’s: cf. 36^3.
33^1. I mean: cf. 23^1.
36^2. Which: cf. 26^2.
305
THE OUTLAW MURRAY
=A.=
=a.= ‘The Sang of the Outlaw Murray,’ Herd’s MSS, II, fol. 76; ‘The Outlaw Murray,’ I, 255. =b.= ‘The Sang of the Outlaw Murray,’ Scott’s Minstrelsy, second edition, 1803, I, 1. =c.= ‘The Song of the Outlaw Murray,’ Aytoun’s Ballads of Scotland, 1859, II, 131, “from an old manuscript in the Philiphaugh charter-chest.” =d.= ‘The Sang of the Outlaw Murray,’ the copy now extant among the Philiphaugh papers.
=B.= ‘An old song called Outlaw Murray,’ Glenriddell MSS, XI, 61, 1791.
=C.= ‘Outlaw Murray, an antient historical ballad,’ fragments, “Scotch Ballads, Materials for Border Minstrelsy,” No 31, Abbotsford, in the handwriting of William Laidlaw.
First printed in Scott’s Minstrelsy, 1802, I, 1.
=A a=, =b=, =c= (disregarding Scott’s interpolations in =b=), do not differ more than transcripts of one original may be expected to do, remembering that copyists are apt to indulge in trivial verbal improvements.[103] =a= was sent David Herd, with a letter dated January 12, 1795, by Andrew Plummer, Sheriff-Depute of Selkirk, as received by carrier from a lady, who neglected to impart how she came by the copy. In this instance, contrary to what I believe to be the general rule, the second volume of Herd’s MSS seems to have the original text.[104] =a= was printed, but not with absolute fidelity, by Maidment, Scotish Ballads and Songs, 1868, II, 66. For =b=, “the copy principally resorted to,” says Scott, “is one, apparently of considerable antiquity, which was found among the papers of the late Mrs Cockburn of Edinburgh.” Scott made occasional use of Herd’s MS. and of Glenriddell’s, inserted some stanzas which he had received from Sheriff Plummer, and in the second edition (otherwise slightly altered) two stanzas from the recitation of Mungo Park. Mrs Cockburn’s MS. evidently agreed very nearly with the copy in Herd, so far as the latter goes. I much regret that exertions made to secure the Cockburn MS. did not result successfully. =c.= “From a note appended to the ballad, explanatory of its circumstances, in which reference is made to Lord Philiphaugh (a judge of Session) as being then alive,” says Aytoun, “the manuscript must have been written between the years 1689 and 1702.”[105] The original manuscript, unfortunately and inexplicably, is no longer in the Philiphaugh archives, and has not come to light after search. The text, if earlier transcribed, shows no internal evidence of superior age, and exhibits several inferior readings,--two that are highly objectionable.[106] =d=, the copy actually preserved among the Philiphaugh papers, is evinced by a watermark to be not older than 1848. It shows variations from Aytoun’s printed text which cannot be other than wilful alterations.
=B=, which is both defective, corrupted, and chargeable with flat repetition, and =C=, a few fragmentary verses, are all that have been retrieved from tradition, although Scott says that the ballad “has been for ages a popular song in Selkirkshire.”
A manuscript copy was understood to be in possession of the late Mr George Wilson, S. S. C., Edinburgh, but, as in the case of the original of the Philiphaugh MS. and in that of Mrs Cockburn’s copy, inquiry and search were fruitless.
The king of Scotland is informed that there is an Outlaw in Ettrick Forest who makes no account of him; the king vows that he will be king of Ettrick Forest, or the Outlaw shall be king of Scotland. Earl Hamilton advises that an envoy be sent to the Outlaw to ascertain whether he is willing to do homage to the king and hold the forest of him; if the Outlaw should refuse, then they will proceed to extremities with him. The king sends Boyd, Earl of Arran, to announce his terms: the Outlaw is to do homage; otherwise he and his lands will be subjugated, his castle levelled, his wife made a widow, and his men be hanged. The messenger demands of the Outlaw, in the king’s name, of whom he holds his lands; the Outlaw replies that the lands are his own, won by himself from the Southron, and that he recognizes no king in Christendom. The messenger intimates that it will nevertheless be necessary for the Outlaw to do homage to the king of Scotland, under the penalties before mentioned. Many of the king’s nobles shall lie cold first, he replies. Boyd reports to his master that the Outlaw claims to hold the forest by his own right, which he will maintain against all kings in Christendom; the king prepares to enforce his sovereignty with five thousand men.
The Outlaw vows that the king shall pay dear for his coming, and sends for succor to three of his kinsmen, all of whom promise help. As the king approaches the forest, Hamilton ventures to give further advice: that the Outlaw should be summoned to come with four of his best men to meet the king and five earls; fire, sword, and forfeiture to follow upon refusal. The Outlaw bethinks himself of his children, and complies. He and his company fall on their knees and implore the king’s mercy; his mercy shall be the gallows, says the king. The Outlaw protests again that he won his lands from the enemy, and as he won them so will he keep them, against all kings in Christendom; but having indulged in this vaunt asks mercy again, and offers to give up the keys of his castle if the king will constitute him and his successors sheriffs of the forest. The king, on his part, is equally ready for a compromise. The Outlaw, on surrendering the keys of his castle, shall be made sheriff of Ettrick Forest, and shall never be forfeited as long as he continues loyal, and his men shall have pardon if they amend their lives. After all the strong language on both sides, the Outlaw has only to name his lands (but gives a very imperfect list), and the king (waiving complete particulars) renders him whatever he is pleased to claim, and makes him sheriff of Ettrick Forest while upwards grows the tree.
So far all the copies of =A= concur, as to the story, except that =c= 22, 33, by an absurd corruption, makes the Outlaw to have won his lands, not from the Soudron, the Soudronie, but from Soldan Turk, the Soldanie; in which respect =A c= is followed by =B= 26, =C= 3, 5. Between 52 and 53, =b= introduces this passage:
Then spak the kene laird of Buckscleuth, A stalworthye man and sterne was he: ‘For a king to gang an outlaw till Is beneath his state and his dignitie.
‘The man that wons yon foreste intill, He lives by reif and felonie; Wher_e_fore, brayd on, my sovereign liege, Wi fire and sword we’ll follow thee, Or, gif your courtrie lords fa back, Our borderers sall the onset gie.’
Then out and spak the nobil king, And round him cast a wilie ee: ‘Now haud thy tongue, Sir Walter Scott, Nor speik of reif nor felonie, For had everye honeste man his awin kye, A right puir clan thy name wad be.’[107]
=B= represents that the king, after appointing a meeting with the Outlaw ‘in number not above two or three,’ comes with a company of three hundred, which violation of the mutual understanding naturally leads the Outlaw to expect treachery. The king, however, not only proceeds in good faith, but, without any stipulations, at once makes the Outlaw laird of the Forest.
From the note, otherwise of no value, which accompanies the Philiphaugh MS., it is clear that the ballad was known before 1700; how much earlier it is to be put we can neither ascertain nor safely conjecture, but we may say that there is nothing in the language of the piece as it stands which obliges us to assign it a much higher antiquity.[108]
As to James Murray, laird of Traquair, whose lands the king had gifted lang syne, =A= 45^3, 48^1, Sheriff Plummer remarks in Herd’s MS.: “Willielmus de Moravia had forfeited the lands of ‘trakware’ ante annum 1464. As of that date I have a charter of these lands, proceeding upon his forfeiture, granted Willielmo Douglas de Cluny.” Thomas Boyd was created Earl of Arran after his marriage with the eldest sister of James III, 1467. The Earl of Hamilton is mentioned =A= 7^1, 50^1. Sheriff Plummer observes that there was an earl of that surname till 1503.
Scott, in his preface in the Border Minstrelsy, after professing himself unable to ascertain the foundation of the tale, goes on to state the following historical possibilities:
“This ballad ... commemorates a transaction supposed to have taken place betwixt a Scottish monarch and an ancestor of the ancient family of Murray of Philiphaugh in Selkirkshire.... It is certain that during the civil wars betwixt Bruce and Baliol the family of Philiphaugh existed and was powerful, for their ancestor, Archibald de Moravia, subscribes the oath of fealty to Edward I, A. D. 1296. It is therefore not unlikely that, residing in a wild and frontier country, they may have, at one period or other during these commotions, refused allegiance to the feeble monarch of the day, and thus extorted from him some grant of territory or jurisdiction. It is also certain that, by a charter from James IV, dated November 30, 1509, John Murray of Philiphaugh is vested with the dignity of heritable Sheriff of Ettrick Forest, an office held by his descendants till the final abolition of such jurisdictions by 28th George II, cap. 23. But it seems difficult to believe that the circumstances mentioned in the ballad could occur under the reign of so vigorous a monarch as James IV. It is true that the dramatis personæ introduced seem to refer to the end of the fifteenth or beginning of the sixteenth century; but from this it can only be argued that the author himself lived soon after that period. It may therefore be supposed (unless further evidence can be produced tending to invalidate the conclusion) that the bard, willing to pay his court to the family, has connected his grant of the sheriffship by James IV with some former dispute betwixt the Murrays of Philiphaugh and their sovereign, occurring either while they were engaged upon the side of Baliol, or in the subsequent reigns of David II and Robert II and III, when the English possessed great part of the Scottish frontier, and the rest was in so lawless a state as hardly to acknowledge any superior.
“At the same time, this reasoning is not absolutely conclusive. James IV had particular reasons for desiring that Ettrick Forest, which actually formed part of the jointure-lands of Margaret, his queen, should be kept in a state of tranquillity: Rymer, vol. xiii, p. 66. In order to accomplish this object, it was natural for him, according to the policy of his predecessors, to invest one great family with the power of keeping order among the rest. It is even probable that the Philiphaugh family may have had claims upon part of the lordship of Ettrick Forest, which lay intermingled with their own extensive possessions, and in the course of arranging, not, indeed, the feudal superiority, but the property of these lands, a dispute may have arisen of sufficient importance to be the groundwork of a ballad.
“It is farther probable that the Murrays, like other Border clans, were in a very lawless state, and held their lands merely by occupancy, without any feudal right. Indeed, the lands of the various proprietors in Ettrick Forest (being a royal demesne) were held by the possessors, not in property, but as the kindly tenants, or rentallers, of the crown.... This state of possession naturally led to a confusion of rights and claims. The kings of Scotland were often reduced to the humiliating necessity of compromising such matters with their rebellious subjects, and James himself even entered into a sort of league with Johnnie Faa, the king of the gypsies. Perhaps, therefore, the tradition handed down in this way may have had more foundation than it would at present be proper positively to assert.”
In the way of comment upon these surmises of Scott, which proceed mainly upon what we do not know, it may be alleged that we have a fairly good record of the relations of Selkirkshire to the Scottish crown during the fourteenth century, when this district was so often changing hands between the English and the Scotch, and that there is no indication of any Murray having been concerned in winning it from the Southron, as is pretended in the ballad, either then or at any time, so that this part of the story may be set down as pure invention.[109] Hardly less fictitious seems to be the dispute between the Scottish king and a Murray, in relation to the tenure. The Murrays first became connected with Selkirkshire in 1461. John de Moravia then acquired the lands of Philiphaugh, and was afterwards appointed Custos of Newark Castle, and came into possession of Hangingshaw and Lewinshope. All of these are attributed to the Outlaw in the ballad. This John Murray was a contemporary of Boyd, Earl of Arran, and of the forfeited Murray of Traquair, but, with all this, nobody has pitched upon him for the Outlaw; and it would not have been a happy idea, for he was on perfectly good terms, and even in great favor, with the court under James III. His grandson, John Murray, was in equal or greater favor with James IV, and was made hereditary Sheriff of Selkirk in 1509, and for this last reason has been proposed for the Outlaw, though “nothing could be more improbable than that this orderly, ‘circumspect,’ and law-enforcing officer of the crown should ever take up an attitude of rebellious defiance so diametrically opposed to all we really know of his character and conduct.”[110]
Scott thought that light might be thrown upon the history of the ballad by the Philiphaugh family papers. Mr Craig-Brown gave them the accurate examination which Scott suggested, and came to the same conclusion as Aytoun, that the story told in the ballad is, if not altogether fictitious, at least greatly exaggerated. He is inclined to think that “some clue to the date of the ballad lies in the minstrel’s animus against the house of Buccleuch” (shown only in =A b=). “James Murray, tenth laird,” he says, “is the last mentioned in the family MSS as possessor of Newark, which castle passed into the hands of Buccleuch either in his lifetime or that of his successor, Patrick Murray. After the death of James IV at Flodden, the Queen-Regent complained loudly of Buccleuch’s encroachment upon her dowry lands of Ettrick Forest, the Custos of which domain had Newark for a residence. Buccleuch continued to keep his hold, and, as he could only do so by displacing Murray, the ill-will of the latter family was a natural consequence. By way of showing the earlier and superior title of the Murrays, the ballad-writer has either invented the story in toto, or has amplified the tradition of an actual visit paid to a former Murray by the king. Both Sir Walter Scott and the compiler of the Family Records are of opinion that John Murray, eighth laird, is the presumptive Outlaw of the song; and, as he was undoubtedly in great favor with King James IV, nothing is more likely than that the young monarch may have ended one of his hunting-expeditions to the Forest by confirming John in his hereditary sheriffship, interrupted for a few years by the appointment of Lord Home. As a matter of fact, John Murray did in 1509 obtain a royal charter from his sovereign, of the sheriffship; but, as the office had been vacant since 1506, there is nothing improbable in the supposition that he had already claimed the family rights and taken possession of the castle. Indeed, in 1503, he acted as sheriff at the queen’s infeftment in her dowry-lands of Ettrick Forest. It would have been in thorough keeping with all that is known of James IV if his Majesty had taken the opportunity to give his favorite a half-jesting reproof for his presumption; but that Murray was ever seriously outlawed is out of the question. His king heaped honors on him; and only eighty years after his death his descendant obtained a feudal precept of his lands for gratuitous services rendered to the crown by his family, ‘without default at any time in their due obedience as became faithful subjects.’ So that, granted a royal progress to Newark, followed by Murray’s investiture with the sheriffship, the poet remains chargeable with considerable embellishment. A glorification of the family of Philiphaugh and a sneer at the rapacity of Buccleuch are the evident motives of his rhyme.”[111]
“The tradition of Ettrick Forest,” says Scott, Minstrelsy, 2d ed., 1803, I, 4, “bears that the Outlaw was a man of prodigious strength, possessing a batton or club with which he laid lee (i. e. waste) the country for many miles round, and that he was at length slain by Buccleuch or some of his clan.”[112] This account is not in keeping with the conception of the Outlaw given by the ballad, but indicates the ferocious robber and murderer, the Cacus of popular story, of whom no doubt the world was actually once very guilty, and of whom there are many specimens in British tradition as elsewhere.[113] As such he seems to turn up again in Galloway, where he haunts a forest of Kirkcudbrightshire, called the Black Morrow wood, from which he sallies out “in the neighboring country at night, committing horrible outrages.” Of this personage, Mactaggart, in his Gallovidian Encyclopedia, p. 73, says:
“Tradition has him a Blackimore, ... but my opinion is that he was no Blackimore; he never saw Africa; his name must have been Murray, and as he must have been, too, an outlaw and a bloody man, gloomy with foul crimes,[114] Black prefaced it, as it did Black Douglass, and that of others; so he became Black Murray.” And he adds that this pest was disposed of by the people pouring a barrel of spirits into a spring one night when he was out on his rambles, whereof drinking the next day, he was made drunk and fell asleep, in which condition his foes dirked him; or according to others, one of the McLellans of Kirkcudbright took to the wood single-handed, found the outlaw sleeping, and drove a dirk through his head, whence the head on the dagger in the McLellans’ coat of arms.[115]
2. The castle, says Scott, is supposed by the common people to have been the castle of Newark; but “this is highly improbable, because Newark was always a royal fortress.” The only important point, however, would seem to be who was the keeper of the castle. The Douglasses are spoken of as holding it from about 1326 to 1455; John de Moravia was Custos after 1462. The Outlaw’s five hundred men are shooting on Newark lee in =A b= 18^4, and Newark lee is twice mentioned elsewhere in that copy. Sheriff Plummer in his letter to Herd says: This I take to be the castle of New-wark, on the west end of which are the arms of Scotland supported by two unicorns. But in Scott’s preface we are told that Sheriff Plummer has assured the editor that he remembered the insignia of the unicorns, etc., so often mentioned in the ballad, in existence upon the old tower at Hangingshaw. Whether the etc. covers the picture of the knight and the lady bright, and Sheriff Plummer had therefore changed his opinion, does not appear.
15^3. “Birkendale brae, now commonly called Birkendailly [see =C= 2^1], is a steep descent at the south side of Minchmoor, which separates Tweed-dale from the Forest, at the top of which you come first in sight of New-wark Castle.” Plummer’s letter to Herd.
19. Mr MacRitchie, II, 141 ff., considers that the Lincoln green dresses of the Outlaw’s men, and perhaps the purple of the Outlaw and his wife, show that they were “gypsies,” not perhaps of a swarthy color, but still people “living a certain archaic ‘heathen’ life,” at any rate a “wild and lawless life,” and “refusing to follow the course of civilization.” This inference from the costume seems to be not quite necessary, unless, or even if, all outlaws are “gypsies.” Robin Hood, in ‘Robin Hood and Queen Katherine,’ is dressed in scarlet red, and his men in Lincoln green (III, 199, 201). But green is the regular attire for men who shoot with the bow, III, 76 f., 91. Johnie Cock, when going out to ding the dun deer down, puts on Lincoln green, III, 3 ff. Will Stewart, even, when only going to a ball-match, clothes his men in green, and himself in scarlet red, II, 434, 437.
51. “Penman’s core, generally called Perman’s core [Permanscore in Scott, ed. 1833], is a nick or hollow on the top of a high ridge of hills a little to the east of Minchmoor.” Plummer, as before. In =B= 50, poor man’s house; 52, poor man’s score.[116]
A
=a.= Herd’s MSS, II, fol. 76, I, 255, 1795. =b.= Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, 1803, I, 1; principally from a copy found among the papers of the late Mrs Cockburn, of Edinburgh. =c.= Aytoun’s Ballads of Scotland, 1859, II, 131; “from an old manuscript in the Philiphaugh charter-chest,” now not accessible. =d.= A copy among the Philiphaugh papers, transcribed not earlier than 1848.
1 Etrick Forest is a fair foreste, In it grows manie a semelie trie; The hart, the hynd, the dae, the rae, And of a’ [wylde] beastis grete plentie.
2 There’s a castell biggit with lime and stane, O gin it stands not pleasantlie! In the fore front o that castell fair Twa unicorns are bra to see.
3 There’s the picture of a knight and a ladye bright, And the grene hollin aboon their brie; There an Outlaw keepis five hundred men, He keepis a royalle companie.
4 His merrie men are in [ae] liverie clad, Of the Lincoln grene so fair to see; He and his ladie in purple clad, O if they live not royallie!
5 Word is gane to our nobell king, In Edinburgh where that he lay, That there was an Outlaw in Etterick forest Counted him nought and all his courtrie gay.
6 ‘I mak a vowe,’ then the goode king said, ‘Unto the man that dear bought me, I’se either be king of Etrick forest, Or king of Scotland that Outlaw’s bee.’
7 Then spak the erle hight Hamilton, And to the noble king said he; My sovereign prince, sum counsell tak, First of your nobles, syne of me.
8 ‘I redd you send yon bra Outlaw till And see gif your man cum will he; Desire him cum and be your man, And hald of you yon forest frie.
9 ‘And gif he refuses to do that, We’ll conquess both his lands and he, Or else we’ll throw his castell down, And mak a widowe of his gaye ladie.’
10 The king called on a gentleman, James Boyd, Erle of Arran; his brother was he; When James he came before the king He fell before him on his knie.
11 ‘Welcum, James Boyd,’ said our nobil king, ‘A message ye maun gang for me; Ye maun hie to Etrick forrest, To yon Outlaw, where dwelleth he.
12 ‘Ask hym of quhom he haldis his lands, Or, man, wha may his master be; Desyre him come and be my man, And hald of me yon forrest frie.
13 ‘To Edinburgh to cum and gang His safe-warrand I sall be; And, gif he refuses to do that, We’ll conquess baith his lands and he.
14 ‘Thou mayst vow I’ll cast his castell doun, And mak a widow of his gay ladie; I’ll hang his merrie men pair by pair In ony frith where I may them see.’
15 James Boyd took his leave of the nobill king, To Etrick forrest fair came he; Down Birkendale brae when that he cam, He saw the fair forest with his ee.
16 Baith dae and rae and hart and hynd, And of all wylde beastis grete plentie; He heard the bows that bauldly ring, And arrows whidderand near him by.
17 Of the fair castell he got a sight, The like he nere saw with his ee; On the fore front of that castell Twa unicorns were bra to see.
18 The picture of a knight and a ladie bright, And the grene hollin aboon their brie; Thereat he spy’d five hundred men, Shuting with bows upon the lee.
19 They a’ were in ae liverie clad, Of the Lincoln grene, sae fair to see; The knight and his ladye in purple clad; O gif they lived right royallie! Therefore he kend he was master-man, And served him in his ain degree.
20 ‘God mot thee save, brave Outlaw Murray, Thy ladie and a’ thy chivalrie!’ ‘Marry, thou’s wellcum, gentleman, Sum king’s-messenger thou seems to be.’
21 ‘The King of Scotland sent me hier, And, gude Outlaw, I’m sent to thee; I wad wat of whom ye hald your lands, Or, man, wha may thy master be.’
22 ‘Thir landis are mine,’ the Outlaw said, ‘I own na king in Christentie; Frae Soudron I this forest wan, When the king nor’s knights were not to see.’
23 ‘He desires you’l come to Edinburgh, And hald of him this forest frie; And gif you refuse to do this, He’ll conquess both thy landis and thee; He has vowd to cast thy castell down, And make a widow of thy gaye ladie.
24 ‘He’ll hang thy merrie men pair by pair, In ony frith where he may them finde;’ ‘Aye, by my troth,’ the Outlaw said, ‘Then wad I think me far behinde.
25 ‘Eere the king my fair countrie get, This land that’s nativest to me, Mony of his nobils sall be cauld, Their ladies sall be right wearie.’
26 Then spak his ladye fair of face, She said, Without consent of me That an outlaw shuld come before the king: I am right rad of treasonrie.
27 ‘Bid him be gude to his lordis at hame, For Edinburgh my lord sall never see:’ James tuke his leave of the Outlaw keene, To Edinburgh boun is he.
28 And when he came before the king, He fell before him on his knie: ‘Wellcum, James Boyd,’ said the nobil king, ‘What foreste is Etrick forest frie?’
29 ‘Etrick forest is the fairest forest That ever man saw with his ee; There’s the dae, the rae, the hart, the hynde, And of all wild beastis great plentie.
30 ‘There’s a prittie castell of lime and stone, O gif it stands not pleasauntlie! There’s on the fore side of that castell Twa unicorns sae bra to see.
31 ‘There’s the picture of a knight and [a] ladie bright, And the grene hollin aboon their brie; There the Outlaw keepis five hundred men, O gif they live not royallie!
32 ‘His merry men in [ae] liverie clad, O the Lincoln grene, so fair to see; He and his ladye in purple clad, O gif they live not royallie!
33 ‘He says yon forest is his ain, He wan it from the Soudronie; Sae as he won it, sae will he keep it, Contrair all kings in Christentie.’
34 ‘Gar ray my horse,’ said the nobil king, ‘To Etrick [forest] hie will I me;’ Then he gard graith five thousand men, And sent them on for the forest frie.
35 Then word is gane the Outlaw till, In Etrick forest where dwelleth he, That the king was cumand to his cuntrie, To conquess baith his lands and he.
36 ‘I mak a vow,’ the Outlaw said, ‘I mak a vow, and that trulie, Were there but three men to tak my part, Yon king’s cuming full deir suld be.’
37 Then messengers he called forth, And bade them haste them speedilie: ‘Ane of you go to Halliday, The laird of the Corehead is he.
38 ‘He certain is my sister’s son, Bid him cum quick and succour me; Tell Halliday with thee to cum, And shaw him a’ the veritie.’
39 ‘What news? what news,’ said Halliday, ‘Man, frae thy master unto me?’ ‘Not as ye wad; seeking your aid; The king’s his mortal enemie.’
40 ‘Aye, by my troth,’ quoth Halliday, ‘Even for that it repenteth me; For, gif he lose fair Ettrick forest, He’ll take fair Moffatdale frae me.
41 ‘I’ll meet him wi five hundred men, And surely mae, if mae may be:’ [The Outlaw calld a messenger, And bid him hie him speedily.]
42 ‘To Andrew Murray of Cockpool, That man’s a deir cousin to me; Desire him cum and make me aid, With all the power that he may be.
43 ‘The king has vowd to cast my castell down, And mak a widow of my gay ladye; He’ll hang my merry men pair by pair I[n] ony place where he may them see.’
44 ‘It stands me hard,’ quoth Andrew Murray, ‘Judge if it stands not hard with me, To enter against a king with crown, And put my lands in jeopardie.
45 ‘Yet, gif I cum not on the daye, Surelie at night he sall me see:’ To Sir James Murray, laird of Traquair, A message came right speedilie.
46 ‘What news? what news,’ James Murray said, ‘Man, frae thy master unto me?’ ‘What needs I tell? for well ye ken The king’s his mortal enemie.
47 ‘He desires ye’ll cum and make him aid, With all the powers that ye may be:’ ‘And, by my troth,’ James Murray said, ‘With that Outlaw I’ll live and die.
48 ‘The king has gifted my lands lang syne, It can not be nae war with me;’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
49 The king was cumand thro Cadden ford, And fiftene thousand men was he; They saw the forest them before, They thought it awsom for to see.
50 Then spak the erle hight Hamilton, And to the nobil king said he, My sovereign prince, sum counsell take, First at your nobles, syne at me.
51 ‘Desyre him meet you at Penman’s Core, And bring four in his cumpanie; Fyve erles sall gang yoursell before, Gude cause that you suld honord be.
52 ‘And, if he refuses to do that, Wi fire and sword we’ll follow thee; There sall never a Murray after him Have land in Etrick forest frie.’
53 The king then called a gentleman, Royal-banner-bearer then was he, James Hope Pringle of Torsonse by name; He came and knelit upon his knie.
54 ‘Welcum, James Pringle of Torsonse; Ye man a message gae for me; Ye man gae to yon Outlaw Murray, Surely where bauldly bideth he.
55 ‘Bid him meet me at Penman’s Core, And bring four of his companie; Five erles sall cum wi mysell, Gude reason I suld honord be.
56 ‘And if he refuses to do that, Bid him look for nae gude o me; There sall never a Murray after him Have land in Etric forest frie.’
57 James came before the Outlaw keene, And served him in his ain degree: ‘Wellcum, James Pringle of Torsonse, What tidings frae the king to me?’
58 ‘He bids you meet him at Penman’s Core, And bring four of your companie; Five erles will cum with the king, Nae more in number will he be.
59 ‘And gif you refuse to do that, I freely here upgive with thee, There will never a Murray after thee Have land in Etrick forest frie.
60 ‘He’ll cast your bonny castell down, And make a widow of your gay ladie, He’ll hang your merry men pair by pair In ony place where he may them see.’
61 ‘It stands me hard,’ the Outlaw said, ‘Judge if it stands not hard with me; I reck not of losing of mysell, But all my offspring after me.
62 ‘Auld Haliday, young Haliday, Ye sall be twa to gang wi me; Andrew Murray and Sir James Murray, We’ll be nae mae in cumpanie.’
63 When that they came before the king, They fell before him on their knee: ‘Grant mercy, mercy, royal king, Een for his sake who died on tre!’
64 ‘Sicken-like mercy sall ye have, On gallows ye sall hangit be;’ ‘God forbid!’ quo the Outlaw then, ‘I hope your Grace will better be.
65 ‘These lands of Etrick forest fair, I wan them frae the enemie; Like as I wan them, sae will I keep them, Contrair all kings in Christentie.’
66 All the nobilis said, the king about, Pitye it were to see him die: ‘Yet graunt me mercye, sovereign prince, Extend your favour unto me!
67 ‘I’ll give you the keys of my castell, With the blessing of my fair ladie; Mak me the sheriff of the forest, And all my offspring after me.’
68 ‘Wilt thou give me the keys of thy castell, With the blessing of thy fair ladye? I’ll mak the[e] shiryff of the forest, Surely while upwards grows the trie; If you be not traytour to the king, Forfaulted sall ye never be.’
69 ‘But, prince, what sall cum o my men? When I go back, traitour they’ll ca me; I had rather lose my life and land, Eer my merry men rebukëd me.’
70 ‘Will your merry men amend their lives And all their pardouns I grant thee: Now name thy landes whe’ere they be, And here I render them to thee.’
71 ‘Fair Philiphaugh, prince, is my awin, I biggit it wi lime and stane; The Tinnies and the Hangingshaw, My leige, are native steeds of mine.
72 ‘.. .. .. . . . . . . . . I have mony steeds in the forest shaw, But them by name I dinna knaw.’
73 The keys of the castell he gave the king, With the blessing of his fair ladye; He was made sheryff of Etrick forest, Surely while upward grows the trie; And, if he was not traytour to the king, Forfaulted he suld never be.
74 Wha ever heard, in ony tymes, Sicken an outlaw in his degree Sic favour get before a king As did the Outlaw Murray of the forest frie?
B
Glenriddell’s MSS, XI, 61, 1791.
1 Etterick Forest’s a pleasant land, And it grows mony a bonny tree; With buck and doe and a’ wild beast, A castle stands right bonnilie.
2 Yon castle has twa unicorns, The like I never saw wi my ee, The picture of a knight and lady bright, And the green hollin’s aboon her [bree].
3 Word is gane to Edinbro town . . . . . . . That there’s an Outlaw in Etterick forest That keeps as fine a court as he.
4 The king has sworn a solemn oath, And he has sworn by [the Virgin Mary], He would either be king of Etterick forest, Or king of Scotland the Outlaw should be.
5 He has ca’d up Mr James Boyd, A highland laird I’m sure was he: ‘Ye must gae to Etterick forest And see of wha he hads his land, And wha pays yon men meat and fee.’
6 He’s tane his leave o the king and court, Een as hard as he may dree; When he came in o’er Loudon edge, He viewed the forest wi his eee.
7 He thought it was as pleasant a land As ever his two eyes did see, But when he came in oer ..., They were a’ ranked on Newark lee.
8 O waly, but they were bonny to see! Five hundred men playing at the ba; They were a’ clad in the Lincoln green, And the Outlaw’s sell in taffety.
9 ‘Weel met you save, Outlaw,’ he says, ‘You and your brave companie; The King of Scotland hath sent me here, To see whom on you hold your lands, Or who pays thir men meat and fee.’
10 The first ae man the answer made, It was the Outlaw he: ‘The lands they are all mine, And I pay thir men meat and fee, And as I wan them so will I lose them, Contrair the kings o Cristendie.
11 ‘I never was a king’s subject, And a king’s subject I’ll never be; For I wan them i the fields fighting, Where him and his nobles durst not come and see.’
12 O out bespeaks the Outlaw’s lady, I wot she spake right wisely; ‘Be good unto your nobles at home, For Edinbro mine shall never see;’ But meat and drink o the best I’m sure got he.
13 He has taen his leave o the Outlaw free, And een as hard as he may dree, While he came to the king’s court, Where he kneeld low down on his knee.
14 ‘What news? what news, James,’ he says, ‘Frae yon Outlaw and his company?’ ‘Yon forest is as fine a land As ever I did see.
15 ‘Yon Outlaw keeps as fine a court As any king in Cristendie; Yon lands they are here all his own, And he pays yon men meat and fee, And as he wan them so will he lose them, Contrair the kings of Cristendie.
16 ‘He never was a king’s subject, And a king’s subject he’ll never be; For he wan them in the fields fighting, Where the king and his nobles durst not come to see.’
17 The king has sworn a solemn oath, And he has sworn by the Virgin Mary, He would either be king of Etterick forest, Or king of Scotland the Outlaw should be.
18 The king has ca’d up Mr James Pringle, Laird of Torson[s]e at the time was he: ‘Ye must gae to Etterick forest, And see wha of he hads his land, And wha pays yon men meat and fee.’
19-25==6-12.
26 ‘And as I wan them so will I lose them, Contrair the kings o Cristendie; I wan them frae the Soudan Turk, When their cuckold king durst not come to see; For I wan them in the fields fighting, Where him and his nobles durst not come to see.’
27-32==12-17.
33 ‘Gar warn me Perthshire and Angus both, Fifeshire up and down, and Loudons three, For I fear of them we hae great need, . . . . . . . .’
34 Then word is come to the Outlaw then, ‘Our noble king comes on the morn, Landless men ye will a’ be;’ He’s called up his little foot-page, His sister’s son I trow was he.
35 ‘Ye must tak Etterick head Een as hard as ye can drie; Ye must gae to the Corhead and tell Andrew Brown this frae me.
36 ‘The noble king comes in the morn, And landless men we will a’ be; . . . . . . . And tell him to send me some supply.’
37 The boy has taen Etterick head, And een as hard as he may drie, Till he came to the Corhead, And he shouted out and cry’d well he.
38 ‘What news? what news, my little boy? What news has thy master to me?’ ‘The noble king comes in the morn, And landless then ye will a’ be.
39 ‘Ye must meet him on the morn, And mak him some supply;’ ‘For if he get the forest fair frae him, He’ll hae Moffat-dale frae me.
40 ‘I’ll meet him the morn wi five hundred men, And fifty mair, if they may be; And if he get the forest fair We’ll a’ die on the Newark lee.’
41 Word is gane to the Border then, To . . ., the country-keeper I’m sure was he: ‘The noble king comes in the morn, And landless men ye will a’ be.’
42 ‘I’ll meet him the morn wi five hundred men, And fifty mair, if they may be; And if he get the forest fair, We’ll a’ die on the Newark lee.’
43 Word is gane to Philiphaugh, His sister’s son I’m sure was he, To meet him the morn wi some supply, ‘For the noble king comes in the morn, And landless men ye will a’ be.’
44 ‘In the day I daur not be seen, For he took a’ my lands frae me And gifted me them back again; Therefore against him I must not be; For if I be found against him rebel, It will be counted great treason[rie].
45 ‘In the day I daur not be seen, But in the night he shall me find With five hundred men and fifty, if they may be, And before he get the forest fair We’ll a’ die on the Newark lee.’
46 When the king came in oer Loudon edge, Wi three thousand weel teld was he, And when he came in oer ... He viewd that forest wi his ee.
47 The Outlaw and his men were a’ Ranked on the Newark lee; They were a’ clad in the Lincoln green, And he himsell in the taffety.
48 An auld grey-haird knight has taen aff his cap, . . . . . . . ‘Pardon, pardon, my sovereign liege, Two or three words to speak wi you.
49 ‘If you please to send for the Outlaw, To see if he could with you agree, There’s not a man yon Outlaw has But of yours he’ll choose to be.’
50 The king he has taen af his cap, He held it on his majesty; ‘I’ll meet him the morn at the poor man’s house, In number not above two or three;’ The Outlaw says, I’ll hae as few as thee.
51 ‘There’s Andrew Brown, and Andrew Murray, And Mess James Murray shall gang wi me, . . . . . . . . And nae mae shall my number be.’
52 And when they came to the poor man’s core They waited two lang hours or three, And they were aware of the noble king coming. And hundreds three in his company.
53 ‘I wonder what the muckle Deel He’ll learned kings to lie, For to fetch me here frae amang my men Even like a dog for to die; But before I gang to Edinbro town Monny toom saddles shall there be.’
54 The king he has taen aff his cap; . . . . . . ‘It [were] great offence here,’ he says, ‘And great pity to see thee die.
55 ‘For thou shalt be laerd o this forest fair As lang as upwards grows the tree And downward the twa rivers run, If the steads thou can but rightly name to me.’
56 ‘There’s Hangingshaw high and Hangingshaw laigh, . . . . . . . The Tinis and the Tinis-burn, The Newark and the Newark lee.’
* * * * * * *
C
“Scotch Ballads, Materials for Border Minstrelsy,” No 31, Abbotsford; in the handwriting of William Laidlaw.
1 ‘Gae fetch to me James Pringle wi hast, An see that he come speedilie, For he maun on to Ettrick forest, An see whae pays yon men meat and fee.’
2 When James Pringle cam down oer Birkendalee, The hawks war yellin right loudlie, The hunds war rinnin oer hill and dale, As the bugle-horn soundit bonnilie.
3 ‘Gae tell yer king this land’s my ain, An to thir men I pay meat and fee; I took it thrae the Souden Turk, When nae sic cuckold king might be.
4 ‘Sae as I wan, sae will I lose, Spite o the kings in Christendie; I never was a king’s subject, Nor a king’s subject will I ever be.’
5 ‘Outlaw Murray says yon land’s his ain, And to yon men he pays meat and fee; He took it frae the Souden Turk, When you and your men durstna come and see.’
6 It was than the king he gat up in hast, An wow an angrie man was he! ‘I’se either be king o Ettrick forest, Or king o Scotland sal he be.
7 ‘Gar warn me Fife an a’ Lothian land, An Perth an Angus, to ride wi me, For gin we war five thousan strang Master and mair I fear he’ll be.’
8 When the king came oer be Birkendalee, He spy’d the forest wi his ee; There war daes an raes an monie wild beast, An a castle stannin right bonnilie.
9 An in that castle a unicorn, An, waly, but they war fair to see! A warlike knight and a lady bright, An the green halleen aboon her bree.
10 An Outlaw Murray an his merry men War a’ rankit up i the Newark lee, Well mountit on a milk-white steed; Waly, he rankit them bonnilie!
11 His men war a clad oer wi green, An he was clad i the taffatie, Wi belt an pistle by his side; O waly, but they war fair to see!
* * * * * * *
12 ‘Haliday young an Haliday auld, Ye ir the men that man ride wi me; But gin we war five hunder strang Master an mair I fear they’ll be.’
* * * * * * *
13 ‘Philliphaugh it is my ain, An Newark it belangs to me; Lewinshope an Hanginshaw Nae mortal man can claim thrae me.’
* * * * * * *
14 It was than James Boyd got up in hast, An to his merry men a’ spak he; . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
* * * * *
=A.=
=a.=
The division of stanzas as made in the MS. has been changed in 19^5-23^6, 68^5-73^6. Of course all the stanzas were originally of four verses, but in some cases it is not now possible to determine at what points verses have been lost. Two lines are in the MS. indicated (conjecturally, no doubt) to have dropped out after 41^2, 48^2, 70^4. 41^{3,4} have been supplied from the copy in Herd’s first volume. There are asterisks in Herd =I= after 52^4.
1^4. Cf. 16^2, 29^4, and =b=.
4^1, 32^1. Cf. 19^1 and =b=. But =c= agrees with =a=.
5^1. Side note in MS.: James II, 1454.
31^4. lived.
34^2. Cf. =b=, =c=.
Variations in Herd, I (not regarding spelling). 2^4, 4^1. are wanting. 3^2. the brie.
3^3. hundir.
5^4. his country.
6^1. then wanting.
11^4. he dwelleth he.
16^4. him near by.
17^3. fair front.
21^3. land.
31^1. and a.
31^3. keeps him: hunder.
35^1. Outlaws (wrongly).
41^{3,4}. As supplied in the text. Cf. =c=.
58^2. bring him four.
58^4. Nae mae.
62^4. nae mair.
63^4. sake that.
65^1. Thir.
68^3. mak thee.
68^4. upward.
=b.=
1^3. There’s hart and hynd and dae and rae.
1^4. wilde beastes.
2^1. a feir.
3^3. keeps.
4^1. are a’ in ae.
4^2. sae gaye.
4^4. gin they lived.
5^4. nor a’.
6^4. outlaw sall.
7^1, 50^1. the lord.
7^4. at your: at me.
8^1. ye.
9^1. And wanting.
9^2, 12^1, 13^4, 21^3, 35^4, 44^4, 48^1, 65^1, 70^3. landis.
10^1. then called a.
10^2. the erle.
10^4. He knelit.
11^4. where bydeth.
12^3. And desyre.
13^2. sall gie.
16^4. hym neir bi.
17^1. Of that.
17^3. castell feir.
17^4. were gaye.
18^4. on Newark lee.
19^1. were a’.
19^2. sae gaye.
19^4. 1802, gin. 1803, instead of 19^{3,4}:
His men were a’ clad in the grene, The knight was armed capapie, With a bended bow, on a milk-white steed, And I wot they ranked right bonilie.
19^5. Thereby Boyd.
20^4. seemis.
22^2. I ken.
22^4. his knightis.
23^3, 37^3, 58^1. ye.
23^5. hath.
25^3, 50^4. nobilis.
26^3. befor a.
27^3. James Boyd.
28^1. When James he.
28^2. He knelit lowlie on: seyd our.
30^3. in the forefront.
31^1. and a.
31^2. Wi the.
31^4. He keepis a royalle cumpanie.
32^1. in ae.
32^2. sae gaye.
32^4. gin.
33^2. frae the Southronie.
33^4, 65^4. kingis.
34.
‘Gar warn me Perthshire and Angus baith, Fife up and down and the Louthians three, (cf. =B= 33^{1,2}) And graith my horse,’ said the nobil king, ‘For to Ettricke Foreste hie will I me.’
35^3. 1803, cuming.
36^4. 1802, cumand.
37^2. hie them.
37^3, 69^2. gae.
38^{3,4}. The king cums on for Ettricke Foreste, And landless men we a’ will be. (Cf. =B= 34.)
40^1. said.
41^2. surely mair.
Between 41^{1,2} and 41^{3,4}:
And before he gets the Foreste feir, We a’ will die on Newark Lee. (Cf. =B= 40.)
41^{3,4}.
The Outlaw calld a messenger, And bid him hie him speedilye.
43. wanting.
44^1. Andrew Murray said.
44^2, 61^2. gif: na.
44^4. And set.
45^1. if.
45^3. laird wanting.
47^{1,2}. And now he is cuming (1802, cumand) to Ettricke Foreste, And landless men ye a’ will be. (Cf. =B= 41^{3,4}).
47^4. will I live.
48^2. 1802, canna: warse.
49^1. 1803, cuming.
49^2. full five.
49^3. the derke.
50^3. sovereign liege.
51^1. mete thee.
52^1, 56^1. gif.
52^2. We’ll conquess baith his landis and he.
52^4. Hald.
Between 52 and 53: Then spak the kene laird of Buckscleuth, A stalworthye man and sterne was he; ‘For a king to gang an Outlaw till Is beneath his state and his dignitie.
‘The man that wons yon Foreste intill, He lives by reif and felonie; Wherefore, brayd on, my sovereign liege, Wi fire and sword we’ll follow thee; (see =a= 52^2) Or, gif your courtrie lords fa back, Our borderers sall the onset gie.’
Then out and spak the nobil king, And round him cast a wilie ee; ‘Now haud thy tongue, sir Walter Scott, Nor speik of reif nor felonie, For, had everye honeste man his awin kye, A right puir clan thy name wad be.’
53^2. there was.
53^3. Hop.
54^2. A message ye maun gang.
55^2, 58^2. four in.
57^4. What message.
58^3. erles sall gang himsell befor.
59^{3,4}. He’ll cast yon bonny castle down, And mak a widowe o that gaye ladye.
60. He’ll loose yon bluidhound borderers Wi fire and sword to follow thee; There will nevir a Murray after thysell Have land in Ettricke Foreste frie.
61^3. Wha reck not losing.
After 61: My merryemen’s lives, my widowe’s teirs, There lies the pang that pinches me! When I am straught in bluidie eard, Yon castell will be right dreirie.
63^3. nobil king.
63^4. sake that.
64^3. Over God’s forbode, quoth.
After 64^4 (added in 1803): Else ere ye come to Edinburgh port I trow thin guarded sall ye be.
65^1. Thir.
65^2. from.
66^1. said wanting.
66^2. Said pitie.
67^1. give thee.
67^2, 68^2. gaye for fair.
67^3. Gin thoult mak me sheriffe of this.
68^3. I’se: of Ettricke Foreste.
68^6. sall thou.
70^3. they lie.
71. 1802.
Fair Philiphaugh, prince, is my ain, But and a part of the Newark lee, The Finnies and the Hangingshaw, My liege, are native steads to me.
1803. Fair Philiphaugh is mine by right, And Lewinshope still mine shall be; Newark, Foulshiells and Tinnies baith My bow and arrow purchased me.
72^{1,2}. 1803. And I have native steads to me The Newark lee and Hangingshaw;
73^4. upwards.
73^5. was na.
=c.=
This copy agrees closely, as to substance, with =a=. After 50^4 it has two lines, partially corrupted, which do not occur in =a=, and it lacks st. 60, which, it is to be observed, does not occur in the king’s instructions to Pringle, 54-56 (though found in the instructions to Boyd, 14), and was therefore not to be expected. Verbal differences are numerous, but in only a very few cases of the least importance, and in these for the worse.
1^4, 16^2, 29^4. wild beasts.
2^1. builded of.
2^3. There’s in.
2^4. is braw.
3^1. and lady.
3^{3,4}, 31^3. keeps.
4^1. men’s in livery.
4^2. is fair.
4^4. O gin.
5^4. country.
6^1. then wanting.
6^4. sall be.
7^1, 26^1. spoke.
7^4. good nobles, and syne.
8^2, 45^1, 59^1. if.
8^2. yon man.
8^3, 12^3, 42^3, 51^1, 55^1. him to.
9^1, 13^3, 19^4, 23^3, 30^2, 31^4, 32^4, 40^3. gin.
9^1, 13^3. refuse.
9^2, 13^4, 23^4, 35^4. conqueist.
9^3. we’ll cast.
9^4, 14^2, 23^6, 43^2. his (thy, my) fair.
10^2. and his brother-in-law.
11^1. said the.
11^2. gae.
11^3. to fair E.
12^1. holds.
12^4. yon fair forrest of me.
13^1, 15^2, 44^3. Till.
14^1. may: I’se.
16^3. There heard he bows did.
16^4. whithering him near by.
17^1. the great.
17^3. the castle he saw.
17^4. unicorns so braw.
19^1. They were all in ane.
19^4. not royallie.
19^5. he knew.
19^6. He served.
20^1. Good mot ye.
20^2. Thy fair lady and thy.
21^1. he sent.
21^4. may your.
22^1. lands is.
22^2. And I ken.
22^3. From Soldan Turk.
22^4. king and his men was.
23^1. ye, man, to come.
23^3. ye.
24^3. Then.
24^4. will I.
25^2. Thir lands.
25^3. they sall lie.
26^2. Said she.
26^3. That any: enter before a.
26^4. rad for.
27^1. lords.
27^3. leave at.
27^4. Unto: bound he.
29^1. is ane of the: forrests.
30^3. that fair c.
31^1. There’s wanting: and a.
31^3. There an.
31^4. live.
32^1. is in l.
32^2. is fair.
33^1. is truely his.
33^2. He says he: Soldanie.
33^3. Like as: he loss it.
34^2. In E. Forrest.
34^4. And made for.
35^1. to the.
35^2. where lay.
35^3. coming to this.
35^4. And ould.
36^3. Will: men take.
36^4. Your: sall.
37^2. speed them.
38^1. Be certain he.
38^2. And bid him come and.
38^3. Till Halliday till that he come.
38^4. You show.
39^3. Nought.
40^1, 44^1. said.
40^3, 69^3. loss.
41^2. if I.
41^{3,4} wanting.
42^1. Laird of.
42^4, 47^2. that wanting.
44^2, 61^2. O gin it.
45^2. in the night ye.
45^4. right hastilie.
46^3. needs me.
47^1. desired ye to.
48^1. he’s.
48^2. no worse for.
49^1. coming oer Cadron.
49^4. awfu.
50^2. Unto.
50^4. First of: and then of.
After 50^4: Yet I reid you send yon Outlaw till, And if you man them, come will he. (Repetition, with corruption, of 8^{1,2}.)
51^2. four of the best of.
51^3, 62^2. gae.
51^3, 55^3. aun sell.
51^4. Good reason you.
52^2. follow will we.
52^3. never after him again.
53^1. king he called.
53^2. bearer of Scotland.
53^3. Hoppringle.
53^4. on.
54^1, 57^3. Laird of.
54^{2,3}. Thou.
55^1. Desire.
55^2, 58^2. Bring four of the best of the (your).
55^4. reason in some part I.
56^2. good from.
57^4. What biddings.
58^1. desires you to.
58^4. Nae mae.
59^1. ye.
59^2. Truelie here I.
60 wanting.
61^3. What rack of the.
62^3. Sir wanting.
63^4. sake that.
64^1. Siccan mercie you sal.
64^2. sal you.
64^3. said the O. syne.
65^1. The.
65^2. from.
65^3. sae will I loss.
66^1. noblemen.
66^2. Pitie, Outlaw: see thee.
66^4. Let your favour be given to.
67^1. my fair.
67^3. Why, ye will make me sheriff: the fair.
68^1. Will ye: your.
68^2. of your.
68^3. of Ettrick Forrest.
68^5. If ye be not a: to your.
68^6. Forfeited.
69^1. But alace, prince: become.
69^3. lands.
70^1. thy.
70^2. grant I frie.
70^3. where.
71^4. Prince, they are native lands.
72^4. But well their names I do not.
73^3. He made him.
73^6. a traitor to the crown.
73^6. should he.
74^1. any time.
74^2. Sic ane Outlaw.
74^4. Outlaw in the Forrest.
=d.=
The MS. extant in the Philiphaugh archives exhibits, besides many differences of spelling, the following variations in reading from =c= as printed by Aytoun:
5^1. Side note: Jas the 2d, 1454.
17^4. is bra for so braw.
19^2. is fair for so fair.
21^4. mak for man, wrongly.
22^3. From Soudron for From Soldan Turk.
24^2. see for find.
26^2. said wanting, wrongly.
33^2. Soudonie for Soldanie.
33^3, 65^3. tyne for loss.
38^3. Tell for Till.
40^4. Mosaldale for Moffat-dale.
43^2. ane for a.
45^2. he for ye.
48^2. work for worse, wrongly.
50^4. syne for then.
51^1, 55^1, 58^1. Penman score, wrongly.
52^1, 56^1. refuse for refuses.
56^2. frae for from.
65^1. Thir for the.
73^2. With his for With the, wrongly.
=B.=
The division of stanzas has been rearranged.
5^2. “Reciters,” says Scott, “sometimes call the messenger the laird of Skene.”
21==8.
21^3. the wanting.
21^4. in the.
22==9.
22^4. land.
24==11.
24^4. come to.
35^3. Carhead.
50, 54. Passing over the king’s taking off his cap to an outlaw, which is monstrously ‘beneath his state and his dignitie,’ I can make nothing of the line which succeeds in each of these stanzas.
52^1. score for core.
=C.=
14. Displaced. James Boyd should of course come in before James Pringle.
FOOTNOTES:
[103] That the four copies of =a= are transcripts from writing, and not from oral recitation, will be obvious when we observe their correspondence. The first thirty stanzas of =a=, =b=, have the same lines in the same order, and with an approach to verbal agreement. There is not so close a concurrence after 30, but still a virtual concurrence, excepting that =b= inserts sixteen lines between 52 and 53 which the other copies lack. =c= has throughout the same lines as =a=, in the same order (with verbal differences), excepting that =c= introduces two lines after 50^4 (which are a repetition, with corruption, of 8^{1,2}), and that =a= repeats 43 at 60, which =c= does not. =d= has only a few verbal variations from =c=.Return to passage
[104] Plummer’s letter follows the ballad in the second volume, but is not given in the first.Return to passage
[105] Rather 1708. Sir James Murray was appointed an ordinary Lord of Session October 28, 1689, and took his seat as Lord Philiphaugh November 1. In 1702 he was appointed Lord Clerk Register, and this place he held, except a short interval, till his death, July 1, 1708. (T. Craig-Brown, History of Selkirkshire, II, 345 f.)Return to passage
[106] I mean Soldan Turk, =c= 22^3, for Soudron, =a=, =b=, =d=, and Soldanie, =c= 33^2, for Soudronie, Southronie, =a=, =b=. (Soudan Turk, also =B= 26^3, Souden Turk, =C= 3^3, 5^3.) Nothing is easier than the corruption of Soudron into Soudan, upon which change the addition of Turk would be all but inevitable. The corruption would be likely to be made by one who had heard of an irruption of Saracens (or, if you please, Moors) into Galloway. (See note, p. 190.) The winning of Ettrick Forest by and from the Southron is historical, and this pretends to be an historical poem.Return to passage
[107] “The feud betwixt the Outlaw and the Scots may serve to explain the asperity with which the chieftain of that clan is handled in the ballad.” Were it not for these words in Scott’s preface, I should have been inclined to think that this humorous episode came from the hand of the editor of ‘Kinmont Willie.’ It is quite in Scott’s way, and also in contrast with the tone of the rest of the narrative. If the author of the ballad was capable of this smartness, he ought to have been aware that the Outlaw (not to say the king), after all his bluster, cuts a ridiculously tame figure in the conclusion. I now observe that the line ‘Wi fire and sword we’ll follow thee’ is in =A a=, 52^2, and nearly the same in =c=; which suggests that something may have been lost in the MS.Return to passage
[108] =A= 22^{3,4} might be a reminiscence of ‘Johnie Armstrong,’ =C= 27^{3,4}, III, 371. =C= 3^{3,4} (from recitation) agrees strikingly with the stanza cited III, 363, note *; but this fact is of not the least importance. Mr Macmath notes that =A a= 1^3, ‘The hart, the hynd, the dae, the rac,’ occurs in Alexander Montgomerie’s Cherrie and the Slae, Edinburgh, 1597.Return to passage
[109] Mr David MacRitchie, in his very interesting Ancient and Modern Britons, a book full of novel matter and views, accepts the ballad as “partly true,” apparently to the extent “that this ‘outlaw’ was as yet an actual, independent king, and that modern Selkirkshire was not a part of Scotland:” and this whether the king of Scotland was James IV or an earlier monarch, II, 136-139. This is pitting the ballad against history.Return to passage
[110] Craig-Brown, II, 336-338.Return to passage
[111] History of Selkirkshire, II, 355-357; see also p. 338.Return to passage
[112] An account varying as to the place where the Outlaw was slain specifies Scott of Haining as the author of his death. John Murray, the Sheriff, was killed in 1510, and Andrew Ker and Thomas Scot were charged with the act, traditionally put to the account of Buccleuch and his clan, and, in particular, of Scott of Haining. (Craig-Brown, II, 338.)Return to passage
[113] See Mr MacRitchie’s Ancient and Modern Britons, I, 156 ff., 136 ff., for these monsters, often described as black, in which sense, it is maintained, Murray (Morrow, Moor) is frequently to be understood.Return to passage
[114] More of this Murray in Historical and Traditional Tales, Kirkcudbright, 1843, p. 112.Return to passage
[115] “Sometimes it [the crest] represents some valiant act done by the bearer; thus McClelland of Bombie did, and now Lord Kirkcudbright does, bear a naked arm supporting on the point of a sword a More’s head, because, Bombie being forfeited, his son killed a More who came in with some Sarazens to infest Galloway, to the killer of whom the king had promised the forfeiture of Bombie, and thereupon he was restored to his father’s land.” Sir George Mackenzie, The Science of Herauldry, 1680, p. 90. (This reference and those to Mactaggart and the Kirkcudbright Tales were given me by Mr W. Macmath in 1883.)Return to passage
[116] That it was not originally intended to insert ‘The Outlaw Murray’ in this collection will be apparent from the position which it occupies. I am convinced that it did not begin its existence as a popular ballad, and I am not convinced that (as Scott asserts) “it has been for ages a popular song in Selkirkshire.” But the “song” gained a place in oral tradition, as we see from =B=, =C=, and I prefer to err by including rather than by excluding.Return to passage
FRAGMENTS
“Dispersed thro Shakspere’s plays are innumerable little fragments of ancient ballads, the entire copies of which could not be recovered,” says Bishop Percy in his preface to ‘The Friar of Orders Gray.’ What he says of Shakspere is equally true of Beaumont and Fletcher, but it is not true, in either case, that there are many fragments of popular traditional ballads. Portions of ballads of one kind or another, and still more of songs, are introduced into the plays of these authors, though not so frequently as one would suppose from Percy’s words. Ten of the twenty-eight stanzas of ‘The Friar of Orders Gray’ are taken, mostly in part only, from Shakspere and Fletcher,[117] but the original verses are from songs, not properly from ballads. It is not, however, always easy to say whether an isolated stanza belonged to a ballad or a song. Some snatches from familiar ballads, which occur in Beaumont and Fletcher, have already been given at the proper places. A few bits from unknown pieces, which occur in Shakspere, or Beaumont and Fletcher (strictly, perhaps, Fletcher), will be given here. It is surprising that other dramatists have not furnished something.
A very meagre gathering of fragments from other sources follows those which have been gleaned from the dramatists, but it must be once more said that there is not an absolute certainty that all of these belong to ballads.
Some popular tales are interspersed with verses of a ballad character, and one or two cases have been incidentally noted already. Examples are ‘The Paddo,’ Chambers’s Popular Rhymes of Scotland, 1870, p. 87;[118] ‘The Red Etin,’ ib. p. 89; ‘The Black Bull of Norroway,’ ib. p. 95; ‘Child Rowland and Burd Ellen,’ Illustrations of Northern Antiquities, p. 397;[119] ‘The Golden Ball,’ see No 95, =H=, II, 353-55.
SHAKSPERE
From King Lear, Act iii, sc. 4, printed 1608.
Child Rowland to the darke tower came. His word was still, Fy, fo, and fumme! I smell the bloud of a British man.
1. So 1623: both quartos, darke towne come.