a. Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of the Peasantry of England, edited by Robert Bell, p. 250. b. Mr Robert White's papers.
Allies, Antiquities of Worcestershire, p. 120.
A.
31. MS. And as thé.
62. MS. had bee.
111. MS. I wilt.
121. MS. miste.
162. MS. awaw.
171. MS. vnbethought ... while.
19. Between 19 and 20 half a page of the MS. is wanting.
201. a[fter]: MS. blotted.
361. MS. bidds eue.
39. Half a page of the MS. is wanting.
B.
The stanzas are doubled in Christie, to suit the air.
C.
a. 31, 42, 72. D. 21, 32, 6. John Cole, who had heard an old man sing the ballad fifty years before (Allies, p. 115), could recollect only so much:
a 5, 6 stand thus in Allies:
5 has been completed from the corresponding stanza in D, and the two verses of 6, separated above, are put together.
b.
11. Old Sir Robert.
12. was Sir Ryalas.
22. Till in a tree-top.
31. dost thee.
32. The wild boar's killed my lord and has thirty men gored.
Burden2. And thou beest.
41. for to see.
51. As in Allies (see above), except full in his den.
52. then heard him full in his den.
61. As in Allies (see above), but 62 supplied by Bell.
72. Thrashed down the trees as he ramped him along.
81. 'Oh, what dost thee want of me, wild boar.'
Burden2. the jovial.
91. summer.
92. have got him.
102. cut the boar's head off quite.
112. Oh, my pretty spotted pig thou hast slew.
Burden2. for thou beest.
121. I demand them of thee.
131. dost ask.
141. long locks.
142. to tear him through.
Burden2. Though he was.
152. into twain.
161. the knight he doth lie.
162. And the wild boar's head is pictured thereby.
D.
5, 6. In Allies thus:
Stanza 5 has been completed from stanza vi of Allies' other ballad, and 6 duly separated from the first line of 5.
82, 9. In Allies' copy thus:
What stanza 8 should be is easily seen from C 10.
C 16, D 11. As imperfectly remembered by Allies (p. 114):
E.
b. "Fragment found on the fly-leaf of an old book." Mr R. White's papers.
12, one of these three.
13. wide countrie.
Burden2. He was.
21. was in woods.
23. With a bloody river running near she.
31. He said, 'Fair lady what are you doing there?'
33. killed my lord.
4. wanting.
[180] The friar might also be borrowed from 'The Felon Sow and the Friars of Richmond,' but this piece does not appear to have been extensively known.
The Leisure Hour, February 14, 1880, No 1468: Folk-Lore from Unst, Shetland, by Mrs Saxby, p. 109.
Mr Edmondston, from whose memory this ballad was derived, notes that though stanzas are probably lost after the first which would give some account of the king in the east wooing the lady in the west, no such verses were sung to him. He had forgotten some stanzas after the fourth, of which the substance was that the lady was carried off by fairies; that the king went in quest of her, and one day saw a company passing along a hill-side, among whom he recognized his lost wife. The troop went to what seemed a great "ha-house," or castle, on the hillside. Stanzas after the eighth were also forgotten, the purport being that a messenger from behind the grey stane appeared and invited the king in.
We have here in traditional song the story of the justly admired mediæval romance of Orpheus, in which fairy-land supplants Tartarus, faithful love is rewarded, and Eurydice (Heurodis, Erodys, Eroudys) is retrieved. This tale has come down to us in three versions: A, in the Auchinleck MS., dating from the beginning of the fourteenth century, Advocates Library, Edinburgh, printed in Laing's Select Remains of the Ancient Popular Poetry of Scotland, 'Orfeo and Heurodis,' No 3; B, Ashmole MS., 61, Bodleian Library, of the first half of the fifteenth century, printed in Halliwell's Illustrations of Fairy Mythology, 'Kyng Orfew,' p. 37; C, Harleian MS., 3810, British Museum, printed by Ritson, Metrical Romancëes, II, 248, 'Sir Orpheo.' At the end of the Auchinleck copy we are told that harpers in Britain heard this marvel, and made a lay thereof, which they called, after the king, 'Lay Orfeo.' The other two copies also, but in verses which are a repetition of the introduction to 'Lay le Freine,' call this a Breton lay.
The story is this (A). Orfeo was a king [and so good a harper never none was, B]. One day in May his queen went out to a garden with two maidens, and fell asleep under an "ympe" tree. When she waked she shrieked, tore her clothes, and acted very wildly. Her maidens ran to the palace and called for help, for the queen would go mad. Knights and ladies went to the queen, took her away, and put her to bed; but still the excitement continued. The king, in great affliction, besought her to tell him what was the matter, and what he could do. Alas! she said, I have loved thee as my life, and thou me, but now we must part. As she slept knights had come to her and had bidden her come speak with their king. Upon her refusal, the king himself came, with a company of knights and damsels, all on snow-white steeds, and made her ride on a palfrey by his side, and, after he had shown her his palace, brought her back and said: Look thou be under this ympe tree tomorrow, to go with us; and if thou makest us any let, we will take thee by force, wherever thou be. The next day Orfeo took the queen to the tree under guard of a thousand knights, all resolved to die before they would give her up: but she was spirited away right from the midst of them, no one knew whither.
The king all but died of grief, but it was no boot. He gave his kingdom in charge to his high steward, told his barons to choose a new king when they should learn that he was dead, put on a sclavin and nothing else, took his harp, and went barefoot out at the gate. Ten years he lived in the woods and on the heath; his body wasted away, his beard grew to his girdle. His only solace was in his harp, and, when the weather was bright, he would play, and all the beasts and birds would flock to him. Often at hot noon-day he would see the king of fairy hunting with his rout, or an armed host would go by him with banners displayed, or knights and ladies would come dancing; but whither they went he could not tell. One day he descried sixty ladies who were hawking. He went towards them and saw that one of them was Heurodis. He looked at her wistfully, and she at him; neither spoke a word, but tears fell from her eyes, and the ladies hurried her away. He followed, and spared neither stub nor stem. They went in at a rock, and he after. They alighted at a superb castle; he knocked at the gate, told the porter he was a minstrel, and was let in. There he saw Heurodis, sleeping under an ympe tree.
Orfeo went into the hall, and saw a king and queen, sitting in a tabernacle. He kneeled down before the king. What man art thou? said the king. I never sent for thee, and never found I man so bold as to come here unbidden. Lord, quoth Orfeo, I am but a poor minstrel, and it is a way of ours to seek many a lord's house, though we be not welcome. Without more words he took his harp and began to play. All the palace came to listen, and lay down at his feet. The king sat still and was glad to hear, and, when the harping was done, said, Minstrel, ask of me whatever it be; I will pay thee largely. "Sir," said Orfeo, "I beseech thee give me the lady that sleepeth under the ympe tree." "Nay," quoth the king, "ye were a sorry couple; for thou art lean and rough and black, and she is lovely and has no lack. A lothly thing were it to see her in thy company." "Gentle king," replied the harper, it were a fouler thing to hear a lie from thy mouth." "Take her, then, and be blithe of her," said the king.
Orfeo now turned homewards, but first presented himself to the steward alone, and in beggar's clothes, as a harper from heathendom, to see if he were a true man. The loyal steward was ready to welcome every good harper for love of his lord. King Orfeo made himself known; the steward threw over the table, and fell down at his feet, and so did all the lords. They brought the queen to the town. Orfeo and Heurodis were crowned anew, and lived long afterward.
The Scandinavian burden was, perhaps, no more intelligible to the singer than "Hey non nonny" is to us. The first line seems to be Unst for Danish
The sense of the other line is not so obvious. Professor Grundtvig has suggested to me,
The Leisure Hour, February 14, 1880, No 1468, p. 109. Obtained from the singing of Andrew Coutts, an old man in Unst, Shetland, by Mr Biot Edmondston.
A. Herd's MSS, I, 132, II, 191. Herd's Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs, 1776, II, 237.
B. a. 'Fine Flowers in the Valley,' Johnson's Museum, p. 331. b. Scott's Minstrelsy, III, 259 (1803).
C. 'The Cruel Mother,' Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. 161.
D. a. Kinloch MSS, V, 103. b. 'The Cruel Mother,' Kinloch, Ancient Scottish Ballads, p. 46.
E. 'The Cruel Mother.' a. Motherwell's MS., p. 390. b. Motherwell's Note-Book, p. 33.
F. 'The Cruel Mother.' a. Buchan's MSS, II, 98. b. Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, II, 222.
G. Notes and Queries, 1st S., VIII, 358.
H. 'The Cruel Mother,' Motherwell's MS., p. 402.
I. 'The Minister's Daughter of New York.' a. Buchan's MSS, II, 111. b. Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, II, 217. c. 'Hey wi the rose and the lindie O,' Christie, Traditional Ballad Airs, I, 106.
J. a. 'The Rose o Malindie O,' Harris MS., f. 10. b. Fragment communicated by Dr T. Davidson.
K. Motherwell's MS., p. 186.
L. 'Fine Flowers in the Valley,' Smith's Scottish Minstrel, IV, 33.
M. From Miss M. Reburn, as learned in County Meath, Ireland, one stanza.
Two fragments of this ballad, A, B, were printed in the last quarter of the eighteenth century; C-L were committed to writing after 1800; and, of these, E, H, J, K are now printed for the first time.
A-H differ only slightly, but several of these versions are very imperfect. A young woman, who passes for a leal maiden, gives birth to two babes [A, B, one, H, three], puts them to death with a penknife, B-F, and buries them, or, H, ties them hand and feet and buries them alive. She afterwards sees two pretty boys, and exclaims that if they were hers she would treat them most tenderly. They make answer that when they were hers they were very differently treated, rehearse what she had done, and inform or threaten her that hell shall be her portion, C, D, E, F, H. In I the children are buried alive, as in H, in J a strangled, in J b and L killed with the penknife, but the story is the same down to the termination, where, instead of simple hell-fire, there are various seven-year penances, properly belonging to the ballad of 'The Maid and the Palmer,' which follows this.
All the English ballads are in two-line stanzas.[181]
Until 1870 no corresponding ballad had been found in Denmark, though none was more likely to occur in Danish. That year Kristensen, in the course of his very remarkable ballad-quest in Jutland, recovered two versions which approach surprisingly near to Scottish tradition, and especially to E: Jydske Folkeviser, I, 329, No 121 A, B, 'Barnemordersken.' Two other Danish versions have been obtained since then, but have not been published. A and B are much the same, and a close translation of A will not take much more space than would be required for a sufficient abstract.
A ballad is spread all over Germany which is probably a variation of 'The Cruel Mother,' though the resemblance is rather in the general character than in the details. A, 'Höllisches Recht,' Wunderhorn, II, 202, ed. of 1808, II, 205, ed. 1857. Mittler, No 489, p. 383, seems to be this regulated and filled out. B, Erlach, 'Die Rabenmutter,' IV, 148; repeated, with the addition of one stanza, by Zuccalmaglio, p. 203, No 97. C, 'Die Kindsmörderinn,' Meinert, p. 164, from the Kuhländchen; turned into current German, Erk's Liederhort, p. 144, No 41c. D, Simrock, p. 87, No 37a, from the Aargau. E, 'Das falsche Mutterherz,' Erk u. Irmer, Heft 5, No 7, and 'Die Kindesmörderin,' Erk's Liederhort, p. 140, No 41, Brandenburg. F, Liederhort, p. 142, No 41a, Silesia. G, Liederhort, p. 143, 41b, from the Rhein, very near to B. H, Hoffmann u. Richter, No 31, p. 54, and I, No 32, p. 57, Silesia. J, Ditfurth, Fränkische V. 1., II, 12, No 13. K, 'Die Rabenmutter,' Peter, Volksthümliches aus Österreichisch-Schlesien, I, 210, No 21. L, 'Der Teufel u. die Müllerstochter,' Pröhle, Weltliche u. geistliche V. 1., p. 15, No 9, Hanoverian Harz. Repetitions and compounded copies are not noticed.
The story is nearly this in all. A herdsman, passing through a wood, hears the cry of a child, but cannot make out whence the sound comes. The child announces that it is hidden in a hollow tree, and asks to be taken to the house where its mother is to be married that day. There arrived, the child proclaims before all the company that the bride is its mother. The bride, or some one of the party, calls attention to the fact that she is still wearing her maiden-wreath. Nevertheless, says the child, she has had three children: one she drowned, one she buried in a dung-heap [the sand], and one she hid in a hollow tree. The bride wishes that the devil may come for her if this is true, and, upon the word, Satan appears and takes her off; in B, G, J, with words like these:
A Wendish version, 'Der Höllentanz,' in Haupt and Schmaler, I, 290, No 292, differs from the German ballads only in this, that the bride has already borne nine children, and is going with the tenth.
A combination of B, C, D, F is translated by Grundtvig, Engelske og skotske Folkeviser, No 43, p. 279, and I, from the eighth stanza on, p. 282. C is translated by Wolff, Halle der Völker, I, 11, and Hauschatz, p. 223; Allingham's version (nearly B a) by Knortz, L. u. R. Alt-Englands, p. 178, No 48.
Herd's MSS, I, 132, II, 191: Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs, 1776, II, 237.
a. Johnson's Museum, p. 331. b. Scott's Minstrelsy, 1803, III, 259, preface.
Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. 161.
a. Kinloch's MSS, V, 103, in the handwriting of James Beattie. b. Kinloch's Ancient Scottish Ballads, p. 46: from the recitation of Miss C. Beattie.
a. Motherwell's MS., p. 390. b. Motherwell's Note-Book, p. 33. From the recitation of Agnes Lyle, Kilbarchan, August 24, 1825.