a. Buchan's MSS, II, 98. b. Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, II, 222.
Notes and Queries, 1st S., VIII, 358. From Warwickshire, communicated by C. Clifton Barry.
Motherwell's MS., p. 402. From Agnes Laird, Kilbarchan, August 24, 1825.
a. Buchan's MS., II, 111. b. Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, II, 217. c. Christie, Traditional Ballad Airs, I, 106.
a. Harris MS., fol. 10, "Mrs Harris and others." b. Fragment communicated by Dr T. Davidson.
Motherwell's MS., p. 186.
Smith's Scottish Minstrel, IV, 33, 2d ed.
Communicated by Miss Margaret Reburn, as learned in County Meath, Ireland, about 1860.
A.
Superscribed, "Fragment to its own tune. Melancholy." Against the first line of the burden is written in the margin, "perhaps alas-a-day," and this change is adopted in Herd's printed copy. Scott suggested well-a-day.
42. MSS and ed. 1776 have ze ... ze'll.
B. b.
"A fragment [of 5 stanzas] containing the following verses, which I have often heard sung in my childhood." Scott, III. 259. No burden is given.
11. She set her back against.
12. young son born.
21. O smile nae sae.
3, 4, wanting.
51. An when that lady went.
52. She spied a naked boy.
61. O bonnie boy, an ye.
62. I'd cleed ye in the silks.
72. To me ye were na half.
Cunningham, Songs of Scotland, I, 340, says: "I remember a verse, and but a verse, of an old ballad which records a horrible instance of barbarity," and quotes the first two stanzas of Scott's fragment literally; from which we may infer that it was Scott's fragment that he partly remembered. But he goes on: "At this moment a hunter came—one whose suit the lady had long rejected with scorn—the brother of her lover:
Cunningham's recollection was evidently much confused. This last stanza, which is not in the metre of the others, is perhaps from some copy of 'Edom o Gordon.'
D. a.
62. I was.
b.
Kinloch makes slight changes in his printed copy, as usual.
41. until a brier.
51. out she 's tane.
62. She seemd the lealest maiden amang.
81. O an thae.
E.
11, 111. Lurk may be a corruption of York, which is written in pencil (by way of suggestion?) in the MSS.
a.
161. on your.
b.
41, 141. upon a thorn.
52. twind wanting.
61. sattins wanting.
13, 14, 15, 16, 17 are not written out in the note-book.
181. the heavens.
192. but there is none.
F. a.
9 stands last but one in the MS.
142. Here.
b.
42. has her.
72. sweet is omitted.
Printed as from the MS. in Dixon's Scottish Traditional Versions, etc., p. 46. Dixon has changed baby to babies in 4, 5, 6, 8, and indulges in other variations.
H.
The ballad had been heard with two different burdens; besides the one given in the text, this:
7 'Lady Mary Ann,' Johnson's Museum, No 377, begins:
I. a, b.
141, 161. fool, i.e. fowl spelt phonetically.
a.
31. greenwoods
b.
22. it did.
82. with white.
112. wear'd.
132. maun die.
c.
"Epitomized" from Buchan, II, 217, "and somewhat changed for this work, some of the changes being made according to the way the Editor has heard it sung." Note by Christie, p. 106.
Burden, It 's hey with the rose, etc.
71. As a lady was looking.
72. She spied twa.
112. Nor wore we a.
122. What sort of pain for you I must drie.
132. What sort of pain for us you must drie.
142. And seven.
Printed as from the MS. in Dixon's Scottish Traditional Versions of Ancient Ballads, p. 50, 'The Minister's Dochter o Newarke,' with a few arbitrary changes.
J. a.
91. You.
b has stanzas corresponding to a 1, 3, 4, 6, and, in place of 2,
Burden1. Hey i the rose o Mylindsay O.
11, until a thorn.
12. An syne her twa bonnie boys was born.
31. As she leukit oer her father's.
32. bonnie boys.
41. an ye were mine.
42. bread.
62. claithe ye in.
L.
8 looks like an interpolation, and very probably the ballad was docked at the beginning in order to suit the parlor better.
[181] All the genuine ones. 'Lady Anne,' in Scott's Minstrelsy, III, 259, 1803, is on the face of it a modern composition, with extensive variations, on the theme of the popular ballad. It is here given in an Appendix, with a companion piece from Cromek's Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song.
"This ballad was communicated to me by Mr Kirkpatrick Sharpe of Hoddom, who mentions having copied it from an old magazine. Although it has probably received some modern corrections, the general turn seems to be ancient, and corresponds with that of a fragment [B b], which I have often heard sung in my childhood." Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, III, 259, ed. 1803.
Buchan, Gleanings, p. 90, has an additional stanza between 8 and 9 of Scott's, whether from the old magazine or not, it would not be worth the while to ascertain.
Cunningham, Songs of Scotland, I, 339, has rewritten even 'Lady Anne.'
Translated by Schubart, p. 170, and by Gerhard, p. 92.
"There are many variations of this affecting tale. One of them appears in the Musical Museum, and is there called 'Fine Flowers of the Valley,' of which the present is either the original or a parallel song. I am inclined to think it is the original." Cromek's Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song, p. 267.
This is translated by Talvj, Versuch, p. 571.
A. Percy MS., p. 461. 'Lillumwham,' Hales and Furnivall, IV, 96.
B. Sharpe's Ballad Book, ed. Laing, p. 157.
The only English copy of this ballad that approaches completeness is furnished by the Percy manuscript, A. Sir Walter Scott remembered, and communicated to Kirkpatrick Sharpe, three stanzas, and half of the burden, of another version, B.
There are three versions in Danish, no one of them very well preserved. A,'Maria Magdalena,' is a broadside of about 1700, existing in two identical editions: Grundtvig, No 98, II, 530; B, ib., was written down in the Färöe isles in 1848, by Hammershaimb; C was obtained from recitation by Kristensen in Jutland in 1869, Jydske Folkeviser, I, 197, No 72, 'Synderinden.'
A Färöe version, from the end of the last century or the beginning of this, is given in Grundtvig's notes, p. 533 ff.
Versions recently obtained from recitation in Norway are: 'Maria,' Bugge's Gamle Norske Folkeviser, No 18; A, p. 88; B, p. 90, a fragment, which has since been completed, but only two more stanzas printed, Grundtvig, III, 889; C, Bugge, p. 91. D, E are reported, but only a stanza or two printed, Grundtvig, III, 889f; F, printed 890 f, and G, as obtained by Lindeman, 891: all these, D-G, communicated by Bugge. C, and one or two others, are rather Danish than Norwegian.
This is, according to Afzelius, one of the commonest of Swedish ballads. These versions are known: A, "a broadside of 1798 and 1802," Grundtvig, II, 531, Bergström's Afzelius, I, 335; B, 'Magdalena,' Atterbom's Poetisk Kalender for 1816, p. 20; C, Afzelius, II, 229; D, Arwidsson, I, 377, No 60; E, Dybeck's Svenska Visor, Häfte 2, No 6, only two stanzas; F, G, "in Wiede's collection, in the Swedish Historical and Antiquarian Academy;" H, "in Cavallius and Stephens' collection, where also A, F, G are found;" I, Maximilian Axelson's Vesterdalarne, p. 171; J, 'Jungfru Adelin,' E. Wigström's Folkdiktning, No 38, p. 76; K, 'Jungfru Maja,' Album utgifvet af Nyländingar, VI, 227. A-F are printed in Grundtvig's notes, II, 533 ff, and also some verses of G, H.
The ballad is known to have existed in Icelandic from a minute of Arne Magnusson, who cites the line, "Swear not, swear not, wretched woman," but it has not been recovered (Grundtvig, III, 891, note d).
Finnish, 'Mataleenan vesimatka,' Kanteletar, ed. 1864, p. 240.
The story of the woman of Samaria, John, iv, is in all these blended with mediæval traditions concerning Mary Magdalen, who is assumed to be the same with the woman "which was a sinner," in Luke, vii, 37, and also with Mary, sister of Lazarus. This is the view of the larger part of the Latin ecclesiastical writers, while most of the Greeks distinguish the three (Butler, 'Lives of the Saints,' VII, 290, note). It was reserved for ballads, as Grundtvig remarks, to confound the Magdalen with the Samaritan woman.
The traditional Mary Magdalen was a beautiful woman of royal descent, who derived her surname from Magdalum, her portion of the great family estate. For some of her earlier years entirely given over to carnal delights, "unde jam, proprio nomine perdito, peccatrix consueverat appellari," she was, by the preaching of Jesus, converted to a passionate repentance and devotedness. In the course of the persecution of the church at Jerusalem, when Stephen was slain and the Christians widely dispersed, Mary, with Lazarus, her brother, Martha, and many more, were set afloat on the Mediterranean in a rudderless ship, with the expectation that they would find a watery grave. But the malice of the unbelieving was overruled, and the vessel came safe into port at Marseilles. Having labored some time for the christianizing of the people, and founded churches and bishoprics, Mary retired to a solitude where there was neither water, tree, nor plant, and passed the last thirty years of her life in heavenly contemplation. The cave in which she secluded herself is still shown at La Sainte Baume. The absence of material comforts was, in her case, not so great a deprivation, since every day at the canonical hours she was carried by angels to the skies, and heard, with ears of the flesh, the performances of the heavenly choirs, whereby she was so thoroughly refected that when the angels restored her to her cave she was in need of no bodily aliment. (Golden Legend, Græsse, c. 96.) It is the practical Martha that performs real austerities, and those which are ascribed to her correspond too closely with the penance in the Scandinavian ballads not to be the original of it: "Nam in primis septem annis, glandibus et radicibus herbisque crudis et pomis[182] silvestribus corpusculum sustentans potius quam reficiens, victitavit.... Extensis solo ramis arboreis aut viteis, lapide pro cervicali capiti superposito subjecto, ... incumbebat." (Vincent of Beauvais, Spec. Hist., ix, 100.)
The best-preserved Scandinavian ballads concur nearly in this account. A woman at a well, or a stream, is approached by Jesus, who asks for drink. She says she has no vessel to serve him with. He replies that if she were pure, he would drink from her hands. She protests innocence with oaths, but is silenced by his telling her that she has had three children, one with her father, one with her brother, one with her parish priest: Danish A, B, C; Färöe; Swedish C, D, F, I, J, K; Norwegian A, C, F, G. She falls at his feet, and begs him to shrive her. Jesus appoints her a seven years' penance in the wood. Her food shall be the buds or the leaves of the tree [grass, worts, berries, bark], her drink the dew [brook, juice of plants], her bed the hard ground [linden-roots, thorns and prickles, rocks, straw and sticks]; all the while she shall be harassed by bears and lions [wolves], or snakes and drakes (this last in Swedish B, C, D, I, K, Norwegian A). The time expired, Jesus returns and asks how she has liked her penance. She answers, as if she had eaten daintily, drunk wine, slept on silk or swan's-down, and had angelic company [had been listening to music].[183] Jesus then tells her that a place is ready for her in heaven.
The penance lasts eight years in Swedish C, F, J, Norwegian A; nine in the Färöe ballad; fifteen in Danish B; and six weeks in Danish C. It is to range the field in Danish A, Swedish F; to walk the snows barefoot in the Färöe ballad and Norwegian B; in Norwegian D to stand nine years in a rough stream and eight years naked in the church-paths.
The names Maria, or Magdalena, Jesus, or Christ, are found in most of the Scandinavian ballads. Swedish E has 'Lena (Lilla Lena); Swedish H He-lena; J, Adelin; K, Maja. Norwegian A gives no name to the woman, and Danish A a name only in the burden; Norwegian B has, corruptly, Margjit. In Danish C, Norwegian B, G, Jesus is called an old man, correspondingly with the "old palmer" of English A, but the old man is afterwards called Jesus in Norwegian G (B is not printed in full), and in the burden of Danish C. The Son is exchanged for the Father in Swedish D.
Stanzas 4, 5 of Swedish A, G, approach singularly near to English A 6, 7:
Swedish A: