ENGLISH AND SCOTTISH BALLADS.

EDITED BY FRANCIS JAMES CHILD.

VOLUME VIII.

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

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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1858, by Little, Brown and Company, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

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

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CONTENTS OF VOLUME EIGHTH.

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BOOK VIII.

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KING JOHN AND THE ABBOT OF CANTERBURY.

Stories resembling that contained in the following ballad are to be met with in the literature of most of the nations of Europe; for example, in the Gesta Romanorum, (No. XIX. and [XXXV.] of Madden's Old English Versions,) in the amusing German tale Der Phaffe Amis, 98-180, in Eulenspiegel, (Marbach, p. 28,) and the English Owlglass (31st Adventure in the recent edition), in the Grimm's Kinder-und-Haus-marchen, No. 152, in Sacchetti's Novels, No. 4, the Patrañuelo of Juan Timoneda, Alcala, 1576 (Ritson, Anc. Songs, ii. 183), the Contes à rire, i. 182, (Gent. Mag. 65, i. 35,) etc., etc. King John and the Abbot, says Grundtvig (ii. 650), is universally known in Denmark in the form of a prose tale; and a copy is printed in Gamle danske Minder (1854) No. 111, The King and the Miller.

Wynken de Worde, printed in 1511, a little collection of riddles, translated from the French, like those propounded by King John to the Abbot, with the title Demaundes Joyous. By this link the present ballad is connected with a curious class of compositions, peculiar to the Middle Ages—the Disputations, or Wit-Combats, of which the dialogues of Salomon and Marcolf (existing in many languages) are the most familiar, and those of Salomon and Saturn (in Anglo-Saxon) the oldest preserved specimens. These dialogues, in their earlier shape grave contests for[Pg 4] superiority in knowledge and wisdom, underwent a change about the twelfth century, by which they became essentially comic. The serious element, represented by Salomon, was retained after this, merely to afford material, or contrast, for the coarse humor of Marcolf, whose part it is, under the character of a rude and clownish person, "facie deformis et turpissimus," to turn the sententious observations of the royal sage into ludicrous parodies.[1]

The hint, and possibly a model, for these disputations may have been found in Jewish tradition. We learn from Josephus, (Antiquities, Book VIII. ch. v.) that Hiram of Tyre and Solomon sent one another sophistical puzzles and enigmas to be solved, on condition of forfeiting large sums of money in case of failure, and that Solomon's riddles were all guessed by Abdæmon of Tyre, or by Abdimus, his son, for authorities differ. This account coincides with what we read in Chronicles, (Book II. ch. ii. 13, 14,) of the man sent by Hiram to Solomon, who, besides a universal knowledge of the arts, was skilful "to find out every device that might be put to him" by cunning men—that is, apparently, "hard questions," such as the Queen of Sheba came to prove Solomon with,[Pg 5] (1 Kings, x. i.) some account of which is given in the Talmud.—See, on the whole subject, Kemble's masterly essay on Salomon and Saturn, printed by the Ælfric Society: also Grässe, Sagenkreise des Mittelalters, p. 406-471; the Grimms' Kinder-und-Hausmärchen, vol. iii. p. 236, ed. 1856; F. W. V. Schmidt,

Taschenbuch deutscher Romanzen, p. 82.

Examples of the riddle-song pure and simple will be found under Captain Wedderburn's Courtship.

This ballad is taken from Percy's Reliques, ii. 329. The copy in Durfey's Pills to Purge Melancholy, iv. 29, or A Collection of Old Ballads, ii. 49, is vastly inferior to the present.

"The common popular ballad of King John and the Abbot," says Percy, "seems to have been abridged and modernized about the time of James I., from one much older, entitled King John and the Bishop of Canterbury. The Editor's folio MS. contains a copy of this last, but in too corrupt a state to be reprinted; it however afforded many lines worth reviving, which will be found inserted in the ensuing stanzas.

"The archness of the following questions and answers hath been much admired by our old ballad-makers; for besides the two copies above mentioned, there is extant another ballad on the same subject, (but of no great antiquity or merit,) entitled King Olfrey and the Abbot. [Old Ball. ii. 55.] Lastly, about the time of the civil wars, when the cry ran against the bishops, some puritan worked up the same story into a very doleful ditty, to a solemn tune, concerning King Henry and a Bishop; with this stinging moral:

[1] Among those nations who originated and developed the character of Marcolf (the German and the French) his fame has declined, but in Italy, where the legend was first introduced towards the end of the sixteenth century, his shrewd sayings, like the kindred jests of the Eulenspiegel in Germany, have an undiminished popularity, and his story, both in the form of a chap-book and of a satirical epic, (the Bertoldo,) is circulated throughout the length and breadth of the country, whence it has also been transplanted into Greece.

[Pg 6]

"The following is chiefly printed from an ancient black-letter copy, to the tune of Derry-down."

85, Meaning probably St. Botolph.

CAPTAIN WEDDERBURN'S COURTSHIP.

The two following ballads, in connection with the foregoing, will serve as specimens of the anciently highly-popular class of riddle songs. No ballad, says Motherwell, is even now more frequently met with on the stalls than Captain Wedderburn's Courtship. It was first published in The New British Songster, Falkirk, 1785, and afterwards in Jamieson's Popular Ballads, ii. 154, from which the present copy is taken. Chambers gives a few different readings from a copy furnished by Mr. Kinloch—Scottish Ballads, p. 331.

A fragment of this piece is given in Minstrelsy of the English Border, p. 230, under the title of The Laird of Roslin's Daughter. Riddles like those in the following ballads are found in Proud Lady Margaret, p. 83 of this volume, The Courteous Knight, in the Appendix, and The Bonny Hind Squire, in Scottish Traditional Versions of Ancient Ballads, p. 42, Percy Society, vol. xvii.—three varieties of one original: and in Gifts from over Sea, Appendix, p. 290. Also, in several of the ancient Norse poems; in the ancient Danish ballad Svend Vonved, Grundtvig, No. 18; in Sven Svanehvit, Svenska F. V., No. 45; Hammershaimb's Færöiske Kvæder, ii. No. 4; Landstad's[Pg 12] Norske Folkeviser, p. 369; Erk's Liederhort, No. 153; Uhland, No. 1, 2, 3; Erlach, iii. 37; Wunderhorn, ii. 407; Tschischka and Schottky, Oesterreichische Volksl. p. 28; Haupt and Schmaler, Volksl. der Wenden, i. No. 150, ii. No. 74; Talvj, Volksl. der Serben, ii. 77; Goetze, Stimmen des russischen Volkes, p. 163; etc., etc. See especially Grundtvig, i. 237, ii. 648, from whom we have borrowed some of these references.

"The following copy was furnished from Mr. Herd's MS. by the editor of the Border Minstrelsy, and the present writer has supplied a few readings of small importance from his own recollection, as it was quite familiar to him in his early youth." Jamieson.

78. The peasants in Scotland say that the dove that was sent out of the Ark by Noah flew till she burst her gall, and that no dove since that time ever had a gall. J.

[Pg 18]

LAY THE BENT TO THE BONNY BROOM.

From Durfey's Pills to Purge Melancholy, iv. 129, with the title A Riddle wittily expounded. The same in Jamieson's Popular Ballads, ii. 155, and in The Borderer's Table Book, vii. 83. A fragment of this ballad, called The Three Sisters, is printed in Gilbert's Ancient Christmas Carols, (2d ed.) p. 65, and has a different burden. It begins

9. youngest.

25. i.e. the milky way.

35. "Vergris is greener than the grass." C. W.'s Courtship, v. 97.

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KING EDWARD FOURTH AND THE TANNER OF TAMWORTH.

The next two ballads belong to a class of tales extremely numerous in England, in which the sovereign is represented as conversing on terms of good fellowship with one of his humbler subjects who is unacquainted with the royal person. In several of the best of these stories, the monarch is benighted in the forest, and obliged to demand hospitality of the first man he meets. He is at first viewed with suspicion and treated with rudeness, but soon wins favor by his affability and good humor, and is invited to partake of a liberal supper, composed in part of his own venison. In due time the king reveals his true character to his astonished and mortified host, who looks to be punished alike for his familiarity and for deer-stealing, but is pardoned for both, and even handsomely rewarded for his entertainment.

The earliest of these stories seems to be that of King Alfred and the Neatherd, in which the herdsman's wife plays the offending part, and the peasant himself is made Bishop of Winchester. Others of very considerable antiquity are the tales of Henry II. and the Cistercian Abbot in the Speculum Ecclesiæ of Giraldus Cambrensis, (an. 1220,) printed in Reliquiæ Antiquæ, i. 147; King Edward and the Shepherd, and The King [Edward] and the Hermit, in Hartshorne's Metrical Tales, (p. 35, p. 293, the latter previously in The British Bibliographer, iv. 81;) Rauf Coilzear, how he harbreit King Charlis, in Laing's Select Remains; John the Reeve,[Pg 22] an unprinted piece in the Percy MS., founded on an adventure between King Edward I. and one of his bailiffs, which is highly commended by Dr. Percy "for its genuine humor, diverting incidents, and faithful picture of rustic manners;" and The King and the Barker, the original of the present ballad. (See also the seventh and eighth fits of the Little Gest of Robin Hood.) More recent specimens are the two pieces

here given, and others mentioned by Percy: King Henry and the Soldier, King Henry VIII. and the Cobbler, King James I. and the Tinker, King William and the Forester, &c. It is obvious that a legend of immemorial antiquity has been transferred by successive minstrels or story-tellers to the reigning monarch of their own times. An anecdote of the same character is related by Mr. Wright of Prince George of Denmark, and a poor artisan of Bristol, (Essays, ii. 172.)

The meeting of King Richard with Friar Tuck in Ivanhoe, was suggested by the tale of King Edward and the Hermit. "The general tone of the story," says Scott, "belongs to all ranks and to all countries, which emulate each other in describing the rambles of a disguised sovereign, who, going in search of information or amusement into the lower ranks of life, meets with adventures diverting to the reader or hearer, from the contrast betwixt the monarch's outward appearance and his real character. The Eastern tale-teller has for his theme the disguised expeditions of Haroun Alraschid, with his faithful attendants Mesrour and Giafar, through the midnight streets of Bagdad, and Scottish tradition dwells upon the similar exploits of James V., distin[Pg 23]guished during such excursions by the travelling name of the Goodman of Ballengeigh, as the Commander of the Faithful, when he desired to be incognito, was known by that of Il Bondocani."

The King and the Barker is printed in Ritson's Anc. Pop. Poetry, p. 61; the modern ballad of King Alfred and the Shepherd, in Old Ballads, i. 41; King James and the Tinkler, in Richardson's Borderer's Table Book, vii. 8, and in the Percy Soc. Publications, vol. xvii., Ancient Poems, &c. p. 109.

"The following text is selected (with such other corrections as occurred) from two copies in black letter. The one in the Bodleian library, entitled A merrie, pleasant, and delectable historie betweene King Edward the Fourth, and a Tanner of Tamworth, &c., printed at London by John Danter, 1596. This copy, ancient as it now is, appears to have been modernized and altered at the time it was published; and many vestiges of the more ancient readings were recovered from another copy (though more recently printed) in one sheet folio, without date, in the Pepys collection." Percy's Reliques, ii. 87.

The old copies, according to Ritson, contain a great many stanzas which Percy "has not injudiciously suppressed." King Henry the Fourth and the Tanner of Tamworth stands in the Registers of the Stationers' Company, as licensed in 1564-5. The Tanner of Tamworth is introduced into the First Part of Heywood's play of Edward the Fourth.

16. In the reign of Edward IV. Dame Cecill, lady of Torboke, in her will dated March 7, A.D. 1466, among many other bequests, has this: "Also I will that my sonne Thomas of Torboke have 13s. 4d. to buy him an horse." Vide Harleian Catalogue, 2176, 27.—Now if 13s. 4d. would purchase a steed fit for a person of quality, a tanner's horse might reasonably be valued at four or five shillings.—Percy.

56. i. e. hast no other wealth, but what thou carriest about thee.—Percy.

176. This stanza is restored from a quotation of this ballad in Selden's Titles of Honour, who produces it as a good authority to prove, that one mode of creating Esquires at that time, was by the imposition of a collar. His words are, "Nor is that old pamphlet of the Tanner of Tamworth and King Edward the Fourth so contemptible, but that wee may thence note also an observable passage, wherein the use of making Esquires, by giving collars, is expressed." (Sub. Tit. Esquire; & vide in Spelmanni Glossar. Armiger.) This form of creating Esquires actually exists at this day among the Sergeants at Arms, who are invested with a collar (which they wear on Collar Days) by the King himself.

This information I owe to Samuel Pegge, Esq., to whom the public is indebted for that curious work, the Curialia, 4to.—Percy.

THE KING AND MILLER OF MANSFIELD.

"The following is printed, with corrections from the Editor's folio MS. collated with an old black-letter copy in the Pepys collection, entitled A pleasant ballad of King Henry II. and the Miller of Mansfield, &c."—Percy's Reliques, iii. 22.

Other copies, slightly different, in A Collection of Old Ballads, i. 53, and Ritson's Ancient Songs, ii. 173.

PART THE SECONDE.

57. for good hap: i. e. for good luck; they were going on a hazardous expedition. P.

60. Maid Marian in the Morris dance, was represented by a man in woman's clothes, who was to take short steps in order to sustain the female character. P.

[Pg 45]

GERNUTUS THE JEW OF VENICE.

Percy's Reliques, i. 224.

In Douce's Illustrations of Shakespeare, (i. 278,) and Malone's Shakespeare, (v. 3, 154, ed. 1821,) we are referred to a great many stories resembling that of the present ballad. Two or three of these are found in the Persian, and there can be no doubt that the original tale is of eastern invention. The oldest European forms of the story are in the Gesta Romanorum, (Wright's Latin Stories, Percy Soc. viii. 114, Madden's Old English Versions, p. 130,) the French romance of Dolopathos (v. 7096, et seq.), and the Pecorone of Ser Giovanni Fiorentino, written in 1378, but not printed till 1558.

Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice is known to have been played before 1598, and there is some reason to believe that it was produced as early as 1594. The resemblance in many particulars between the play and the narrative in the Pecorone is conclusive to the fact that Shakespeare was acquainted with the Italian novel, directly or by a translation. In Gosson's School of Abuse, (1579,) mention is made of a play called The Jew, in which was represented "the greediness of worldly choosers, and bloody minds of usurers." It is possible that Shakespeare may have made use of the incidents of this forgotten piece in the construction of his plot, but as our knowledge of the older play amounts literally to the description of it given by Gosson, nothing positive is to be said on that[Pg 46] point. Silvayn's Orator, translated from the French by Anthony Munday in 1596, affords the earliest discovered printed notice, in English, of the bond and forfeiture, in a "Declamation, Of a Jew, who would for his debt have a pound of flesh of a Christian;" and a striking coincidence between the Jew's plea

for the execution of the contract, and the reasoning of Shylock before the Senate, may be regarded by some as of weight sufficient to offset the evidence presented to show that the Merchant of Venice was on the stage in 1594.

No dated copy of the ballad of Gernutus is known. It is on the whole more likely that the ballad is older than Shakespeare's comedy, but it may have been called forth by the popularity of that very piece. To judge by the first stanza alone, the writer had derived his materials from an Italian novel.

We give in the Appendix another ballad, presenting considerable diversity in the incidents, which we presume to be the one mentioned by Douce under the title of The Cruel Jews Garland.

In 1664, we are informed by Mr. Collier, Thomas Jordan made a ballad out of the story of the Merchant of Venice, in his Royal Arbor of Loyal Poesie, taking some liberties with the original plot.

The following was printed from an ancient black-letter copy in the Pepys collection, (compared with the Ashmole copy,) entitled,

"A new Song, shewing the crueltie of 'Gernutus, a Jewe,' who, lending to a merchant an hundred crowns, would have a pound of his fleshe, because he could not pay him at the time appointed. To the tune of Black and Yellow."

[Pg 47]

THE FIRST PART.

THE SECOND PART.

Of the Jews crueltie; setting foorth the mercifulnesse of the Judge towards the Marchant. To the tune of Black and Yellow.

61. griped, Ashmole copy.

THE FROLICKSOME DUKE; OR THE TINKER'S GOOD FORTUNE.

Percy's Reliques, i. 255.

The story of this ballad, like that of the preceding, was probably derived from the east. It is the same as the tale of The Sleeper Awakened in the Arabian Nights, and a like incident is found also in the tale of Xailoun in the Continuation of the Arabian Nights. Interpolations from European sources are said to have been made by the translators both of the Arabian Nights and of the Continuation, and it has been suggested that The Sleeper Awakened is one of these. (Gent. Mag. 64, I. 527.) It is even true that this story does not occur in the manuscript used by Galland. It is found, however, in one manuscript, and is accordingly admitted into the recent version.—Marco Polo relates that Ala-eddin, "the Old Man of the Mountain," was accustomed to employ a device resembling that of the ballad, to persuade his youthful votaries of his power to transport them to Paradise. (Chap. xxi. of Marsden's translation.) A similar anecdote is told as historically true by the Arabic writer El-Is-hakee, who printed his work in the early[Pg 55] part of the 17th century (Lane's Thousand and One

Nights, ii. 376), while in Europe the story is related of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, by Heuterus, Rerum Burgund. lib. iv.; of the Emperor Charles the Fifth, by Sir Richard Barckley, in A Discourse on the Felicitie of Man, 1598; and of the Marquess of Worcester, in The Apothegms of King James, King Charles, the Marquess of Worcester, &c. 1658. Warton had seen among Collins's books a collection of prose tales in black-letter, dated 1570, among which was this story. It was until lately, and no doubt is still, found in the stalls, under the title of The Frolicksome Courtier and the Jovial Tinker. (See Douce's Illustrations, and Malone's Shakespeare.)

Which of the many forms of the story was known to the author of the old play of The Taming of a Shrew, on which Shakespeare's comedy is founded, it would be more difficult than important to determine. Mr. Halliwell mentions a Dutch comedy, called Dronkken Hansje, (1657,) having the plot of the Induction to these plays.

This ballad was given from a black-letter copy in the Pepys collection.

[Pg 60]

THE HEIR OF LINNE.

Percy's Reliques, ii. 135.