VOLUME II.

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

[Pg ii]

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

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

[Pg iii]

CONTENTS OF VOLUME SECOND.

[Pg 1]

BOOK II.

[Pg 3]

GLASGERION.

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

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

13, him fall.

77, MS. litle.

[Pg 8]

GLENKINDIE.

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

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

Arwidsson, No. 149.

Grundtvig, No. 40.

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

J.

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

J.

64, at the chin. Sic.

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

[Pg 15]

THE OLD BALLAD OF LITTLE MUSGRAVE AND THE LADY BARNARD.

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

Act V. Scene 3.

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

A Scottish version, furnished by Jamieson, is given in the Appendix to this volume, and another, extend[Pg 16]ing to forty-eight stanzas, in Scottish Traditional Versions of Ancient Ballads, Percy Society, vol. xvii. p. 21.

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

8, lady.

10, pale.

11, Bernards.

22, geight.

23, wed.

29, With that he heard: tyne.

34, sinn.

37, or wake.

55, And ever.

108, see.

[Pg 22]

LORD RANDAL (A).

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

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

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

The lines supplied by Jamieson have been omitted.

Allan Cunningham's "improved" version of the Bonny Birdy may be seen in his Songs of Scotland, ii. 130.[Pg 23]

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

[Pg 28]

GIL MORRICE.

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

"If any reliance is to be placed on the traditions of that part of the country where the scene of the ballad is laid, we will be enforced to believe that it is founded on facts which occurred at some remote period of Scottish History. The 'grene wode' of the ballad was the ancient forest of Dundaff, in Stirlingshire, and Lord Barnard's Castle is said to have occupied a precipitous cliff, overhanging the water of Carron, on the lands of Halbertshire. A small burn, which joins the Carron[Pg 29] about five miles above these lands, is named the Earlsburn, and the hill near the source of that stream is called the Earlshill, both deriving their appellations, according to the unvarying traditions of the country, from the unfortunate Erle's son who is the hero of the ballad. He, also, according to the same respectable authority, was 'beautiful exceedingly,' and especially remarkable for the extreme length and loveliness of his yellow hair, which shrouded him as it were a golden mist. To these floating traditions we are, probably, indebted for the attempts which have been made to

improve and embellish the ballad, by the introduction of various new stanzas since its first appearance in a printed form.

"In Percy's Reliques, it is mentioned that it had run through two editions in Scotland, the second of which appeared at Glasgow in 1755, 8vo.; and that to both there was prefixed an advertisement, setting forth that the preservation of the poem was owing 'to a lady, who favoured the printers with a copy, as it was carefully collected from the mouths of old women and nurses,' and requesting that 'any reader, who could render it more correct or complete, would oblige the public with such improvements.' This was holding out too tempting a bait not to be greedily snapped at by some of those 'Ingenious Hands' who have corrupted the purity of legendary song in Scotland by manifest forgeries and gross impositions. Accordingly, sixteen additional verses soon appeared in manuscript, which the Editor of the Reliques has inserted in their proper places, though he rightly views them in no better light than that of an ingenious interpolation. Indeed, the whole ballad of Gil Morice, as the writer of the present notice has been politely informed by the learned and elegant Editor of[Pg 30]

the Border Minstrelsy, underwent a total revisal about the period when the tragedy of Douglas was in the zenith of its popularity, and this improved copy, it seems, embraced the ingenious interpolation above referred to. Independent altogether of this positive information, any one, familiar with the state in which traditionary poetry has been transmitted to the present times, can be at no loss to detect many more 'ingenious interpolations,' as well as paraphrastic additions, in the ballad as now printed. But, though it has been grievously corrupted in this way, the most scrupulous inquirer into the authenticity of ancient song can have no hesitation in admitting that many of its verses, even as they now stand, are purely traditionary, and fair, and genuine parcels of antiquity, unalloyed with any base admixture of modern invention, and in nowise altered, save in those changes of language to which all oral poetry is unavoidably subjected, in its progress from one age to another." Motherwell.

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

The sets of Gil Morrice in the collections of Herd, Pinkerton, Ritson, &c., are all taken from Percy.[Pg 31]

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

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

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

95, mazer.

109

122, slaited.

125

153. Stall copy, And first she kissed.

157

[Pg 40]

CHILD NORYCE.

From Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. 282.

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

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

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

[Pg 45]

CLERK SAUNDERS.

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

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

An inferior copy of Clerk Saunders, published by Jamieson, is inserted in the Appendix, for the sake of[Pg 46] a few valuable stanzas. It resembles the Swedish ballad of The Cruel Brother, (Svenska Folk-Visor, iii. 107,) which, however, is much shorter. The edition of Buchan, (i. 160,) is entirely worthless. A North-Country version of the First Part is given by Kinloch, Ancient Scottish Ballads, 233.

PART FIRST.

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

PART SECOND.

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

33. Chrisom.

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

[Pg 53]

SWEET WILLIE AND LADY MARGERIE.

From Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. 370.

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

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

[Pg 57]

WILLIE AND LADY MAISRY.

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

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

[Pg 63]

THE CLERK'S TWA SONS O' OWSENFORD.

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

"The editor has been induced to divide this ballad into two parts, on account of the great superiority of what follows over what goes before, and because the latter portion is in a great measure independent of the other, so far as sense is concerned. The first part is composed of the Peeblesshire version, mingled with that of the northern editor: the second is formed of the Peeblesshire version, mingled with the fragment called The Wife of Usher's Well."[Pg 64]

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

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

PART SECOND.

[Pg 72]

CHILDE VYET.

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

4. The less was their bonheur. Motherwell.

70, she was neen. Motherwell.

76, gold.

78, mould. N. C. G.

LADY MAISRY.

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

In Lady Maisry we seem to have the English form of a tragic story which, starting from Denmark, has spread over almost all the north of Europe, that of King Waldemar and his Sister. Grundtvig's collection gives seven copies of the Danish ballad upon this subject (Kong Valdemar og hans Söster, No. 126), the oldest from a manuscript of the beginning of the 17th century. Five Icelandic versions are known, one Norse, one Faroish, five Swedish (four of them in Arwidsson, No. 53, Liten Kerstin och Fru Sofia), and several in German, as Graf Hans von Holstein und seine Schwester Annchristine, Erk, Liederhort, p. 155;[Pg 79] Der Grausame Bruder, Erk, p. 153, and Hoffmann, Schlesische Volkslieder, No. 27; Der Grobe Bruder, Wunderhorn, ii. 272; Der Pfalzgraf am Rhein, id. i. 259, etc.; also a fragment in Wendish. The relationship of the English ballad to the rest of the cycle can perhaps be easiest shown by comparison with the simplified and corrupted German versions.

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

The Icelandic and Faroe ballads have nothing of this horrible ferocity, but contain a story which is much nearer to probability, if not to historical truth. While King Waldemar is absent on an expedition against the Wends, his sister Kristín is drawn into a liaison with her second-cousin, the result of which is the birth of two children. Sofía, the Queen, maliciously makes the state of things known to the king the moment he returns (which is on the very day of Kristín's lying in, according to the Danish ballad), but he will not believe the story,—all the more because the accused parties are within prohibited degrees of[Pg 80] consanguinity. Kristín is summoned to come instantly to her brother, and obeys the message, though she is weak with childbirth, and knows that the journey will cost her her life. She goes to the court on horseback (in the Danish ballads falling from the saddle once or twice on the way), and on her arrival is put to various tests to ascertain her condition, concluding with a long dance with the king, to which, having held out for a

considerable time, she at last succumbs, and falls dead in her brother's arms.

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

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

[Pg 86]

FAIR JANET.

From Sharpe's Ballad Book, p. 1.

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

Herd gave an imperfect version of this ballad under the title of Willie and Annet, in his Scottish Songs, i. 219; repeated after him in Ritson's Scottish Songs, and in Johnson's Museum. Finlay's copy, improved, but made up of fragments, follows the present, and in the Appendix is Sweet Willie and Fair Maisry, from Buchan's collection. We have followed Motherwell by inserting (in brackets) three stanzas from Willie and Annet and Sweet Willie, which contribute slightly to complete Sharpe's copy. None of these ballads is satisfactory, though Sharpe's is the best. Touching the relation of Fair Janet to the Danish ballad of King Waldemar and his Sister, the reader will please look at the preface to the preceding ballad.[Pg 87]

[Pg 93]

SWEET WILLIE.

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

93. Sic Herd. Finlay, then sweet Willie.

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

[Pg 98]

FAIR ANNIE OF LOCHROYAN.