Divided in the Museum into 45-1/2 four-line stanzas, without heed to rhyme or reason, 35,6 making a stanza with 41,2, etc.
31. has belted.
42. Tom, elsewhere Tam.
174. brie.
342. burning lead.
B.
"An Old Song called Young Tom Line." Written in twenty-six stanzas of four [three, two] long, or double, lines.
193. yon bonny babes.
262. and do right sae.
264. and let them gae. See 36.
26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33 stand in MS. 31, 26, 27, 32, 28, 29, 33, 30.
D.
b has 26 stanzas, c has 12. The first 12 stanzas of a and b and the 12 of c, and again the first 22 stanzas of a, and b, are almost verbally the same, and a 23 == b 24. b has but 26 stanzas.
a. 15 stands 24 in MS.
171. Miles Cross: b, Moss.
173. the holy.
192. So(?)clad: b, is clad.
221. twa.
251. ride.
b. 44. let abeene.
64. I'll ask no.
78. her down.
104. gotten in.
111. to me.
113. at a.
124. his land.
153. and through.
165. if that.
166. Rides Cross, as in a.
178. Take holy.
204. next the.
After 23:
c. 13, and always, Chester's wood.
31. the seam.
44. let alane.
61. will pluck.
64. ask no.
94. has been.
111. me, Tom o Lin.
124. his land.
E.
18, 19, 20 are not written out. We are directed to understand them to be "as in preceding stanzas, making the necessary grammatical changes."
F.
112, 152. ass, somebody's blunder for ask.
G.
212. elfin gray, Motherwell, but see H, 72.
261. Ay.
311. began.
582. Motherwell: far's the river Tay.
584. Motherwell: she gained.
Motherwell, as usual, seems to have made some slight changes in copying.
I.
Scott's copy having been "prepared from a collation of the printed copies," namely, those in Johnson's Museum and Herd's Scottish Songs, "with a very accurate one in Glenriddell's MS., and with several recitals from tradition," what was not derived from tradition, but from the Museum, Glenriddell, and Herd, is printed in smaller type.
a. 3, 20, not in b.
After 31 are omitted five stanzas of the copy obtained by Scott "from a gentleman residing near Langholm," and others, of the same origin, after 46 and 47.
404. buy me maik, a plain misprint for the be my maik of b 57.
46. After this stanza are omitted:
47. After this stanza are omitted:
b 6-12 is a fragment of 'The Broomfield-Hill,' introduced by a stanza formed on the sixth, as here given:
After the fragment of 'The Broomfield-Hill' follows:
And then these two stanzas, the first altered from Herd's fragment of 'The Broomfield Hill,' 'I'll wager, I'll wager,' p. 310, ed. 1769, and the second from Herd's fragment, 'Kertonha,' or version C of this ballad:
Instead of a 10, 11, b has:
Instead of 14 of a, b has something nearer to A, B 9:
After 21 of a follows in b a copy of 'The Wee Wee Man,' 32-39, attached by these two stanzas, which had been "introduced in one recital only:"
Instead of 22, which had been used before, we have in b:
b has in place of a 28-30:
b 49 has A 24 instead of a 37, I 32.
b 612 == a 492 == I 442 has toad, and so has C 92, from which the stanza is taken. Tod is an improvement, but probably an editorial improvement.
[323] These are the concluding verses, coming much nearer to the language of this world than the rest. They may have a basis of tradition:
[324] "Tamlane: an old Scottish Border Ballad. Aberdeen, Lewis and James Smith, 1862. "I am indebted for a sight of this copy, and for the information as to the editor, to Mr Macmath.
[325] Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, II, 221-24, ed. 1802.
[326] Restoration from enchantment is effected by drinking blood, in other ballads, as Grundtvig, No 55, II, 156, No 58, II, 174; in No 56, II, 158, by a maid in falcon shape eating of a bit of flesh which her lover had cut from his breast.
[327] Volksleben der Neugriechen, pp 115-17, "from Chourmouzis, [Greek: Krêtika], p. 69 f, Athens, 1842." Chourmouzis heard this story, about 1820 or 1830, from an old Cretan peasant, who had heard it from his grandfather.
[328] The silence of the Cretan fairy, as B. Schmidt has remarked, even seems to explain Sophocles calling the nuptials of Peleus and Thetis "speechless," [Greek: aphthongous gamous]. Sophocles gives the transformations as being lion, snake, fire, water: Scholia in Pindari Nemea, III, 60; Schmidt, as before, p. 116, note. That a firm grip and a fearless one would make any sea-god do your will would appear from the additional instances of Menelaus and Proteus, in Odyssey, IV, and of Hercules and Nereus, Apollodorus, II, 5, 11, 4, Scholia in Apollonii Argonaut., IV, 1396. Proteus masks as lion, snake, panther, boar, running water, tree; Nereus as water, fire, or, as Apollodorus says, in all sorts of shapes. Bacchus was accustomed to transform himself when violence was done him, but it is not recorded that he was ever brought to terms like the watery divinities. See Mannhardt, Wald- und Feldkulte, II, 60-64, who also well remarks that the tales of the White Ladies, who, to be released from a ban, must be kissed three times in various shapes, as toad, wolf, snake, etc., have relation to these Greek traditions.
[329] The significance of the immersion in water is shown by Mannhardt, Wald-u. Feldkulte, II, 64 ff. The disorder in the stanzas of A at this place has of course been rectified. In Scott's version, I, transformations are added at random from C, after the dipping in milk and in water, which seems indeed to have been regarded by the reciters only as a measure for cooling red-hot iron or the burning gleed, and not as the act essential for restoration to the human nature.
[330] Possibly the holy water in D 17, G 32, is a relic of the water-bath.
[331] In the MS. of B also the transformation into a het gad of iron comes just before the direction to dip the object into a stand of milk; but we have the turning into a mother-naked man several stanzas earlier. By reading, in 331, I'll turn, and putting 33 after 34, we should have the order of events which we find in A.
That Tam Lin should go into water or milk as a dove or snake, or in some other of his temporary forms, and come out a man, is the only disposition which is consistent with the order of the world to which he belongs. Mannhardt gives us a most curious and interesting insight into some of the laws of that world in Wald-u. Feldkulte, II, 64-70. The wife of a Cashmere king, in a story there cited from Benfey's Pantschatantra, I, 254, § 92, is delivered of a serpent, but is reported to have borne a son. Another king offers his daughter in marriage, and the Cashmere king, to keep his secret, accepts the proposal. In due time the princess claims her bridegroom, and they give her the snake. Though greatly distressed, she accepts her lot, and takes the snake about to the holy places, at the last of which she receives a command to put the snake into the water-tank. As soon as this is done the snake takes the form of a man. A woman's giving birth to a snake was by no means a rare thing in Karst in the seventeenth century, and it was the rule in one noble family that all the offspring should be in serpent form, or at least have a serpent's head; but a bath in water turned them into human shape. For elves and water nymphs who have entered into connections with men in the form of women, bathing in water is equally necessary for resuming their previous shape, as appears from an ancient version of the story of Melusina: Gervasius, ed. Liebrecht, p. 4 f, and Vincentius Bellovacensis, Speculum Naturale, 2, 127 (from Helinaudus), cited by Liebrecht, at p. 66.
A lad who had been changed into an ass by a couple of witches recovers his shape merely by jumping into water and rolling about in it: William of Malmesbury's Kings of England, c. 10, cited by Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum Naturale, iii, 109; Düntzer, Liebrecht's Dunlop, p. 538. Simple illusions of magic, such as clods and wisps made to appear swine to our eyes, are inevitably dissolved when the unrealities touch water. Liebrecht's Gervasius, p. 65.
[332] Cf. 'Allison Gross.'
Skene MSS, No 8, p. 25. Sharpe's Ballad Book, ed. Laing, p. 169.
We see from this pretty fragment, which, after the nature of the best popular ballad, forces you to chant and will not be read, that a woman had been carried off, four days after bearing a son, to serve as nurse in the elf-queen's family. She is promised that she shall be permitted to return home if she will tend the fairy's bairn till he has got the use of his legs. We could well have spared stanzas 10-12, which belong to 'Thomas Rymer,' to know a little more of the proper story.
That elves and water-spirits have frequently solicited the help of mortal women at lying-in time is well known: see Stewart's Popular Superstitions of the Highlands, p. 104; Grimm, Deutsche Sagen, Nos 41, 49, 68, 69, 304; Müllenhoff, Nos 443, 444; Thiele, Danmarks Folkesagen, 1843, II, 200, Nos 1-4; Asbjørnsen, Norske Huldre-Eventyr, 2d ed., I, 16; Maurer, Isländische Volkssagen, p. 6 f; Keightley's Fairy Mythology, pp 122, 261, 275, 301, 311, 388, 488.[333] They also like to have their offspring suckled by earthly women. It is said, writes Gervase of Tilbury, that nobody is more exposed to being carried off by water-sprites than a woman in milk, and that they sometimes restore such a woman, with pay for her services, after she has nursed their wretched fry seven years. He had himself seen a woman who had been abducted for this purpose, while washing clothes on the bank of the Rhone. She had to nurse the nix's son under the water for that term, and then was sent back unhurt. Otia Imperialia, III, 85, Liebrecht, p. 38. Choice is naturally made of the healthiest and handsomest mothers for this office. "A fine young woman of Nithsdale, when first made a mother, was sitting singing and rocking her child, when a pretty lady came into her cottage, covered with a fairy mantle. She carried a beautiful child in her arms, swaddled in green silk. 'Gie my bonnie thing a suck,' said the fairy. The young woman, conscious to whom the child belonged, took it kindly in her arms, and laid it to her breast. The lady instantly disappeared, saying, 'Nurse kin', an ne'er want.' The young mother nurtured the two babes, and was astonished, whenever she awoke, at finding the richest suits of apparel for both children, with meat of most delicious flavor. This food tasted, says tradition, like loaf mixed with wine and honey," etc. Cromek, Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song, p. 302.
11. an a bonnie cow low, with an crossed out.
22. yon fall: fauld in margin.
64. auld not in MS., supplied from 94.
73. Christend.
81. she says is probably the comment of the singer or reciter.
[333] Many of these instances are cited by Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, 1875, I, 378. In Thiele's first example the necessity of having Christian aid comes from the lying-in woman being a Christian who had been carried off by an elf. In Asbjørnsen's tale, the woman who is sent for to act as midwife finds that her own serving-maid is forced, without being aware of it, to work all night in the elfin establishment, and is very tired with double duty.
A. 'Young Akin,' Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, I, 6. Motherwell's MS., p. 554.
B. 'Hynde Etin,' Kinloch's Ancient Scottish Ballads, p. 228.
C. 'Young Hastings,' Buchan, Ballads of the North of Scotland, II, 67. 'Young Hastings the Groom,' Motherwell's MS., p. 450; Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. 287.
It is scarcely necessary to remark that this ballad, like too many others, has suffered severely by the accidents of tradition. A has been not simply damaged by passing through low mouths, but has been worked over by low hands. Something considerable has been lost from the story, and fine romantic features, preserved in Norse and German ballads, have been quite effaced.
Margaret, a king's daughter, A, an earl's daughter, B, a lady of noble birth, C, as she sits sewing in her bower door, hears a note in Elmond's wood and wishes herself there, A. The wood is Amon-shaw in C, Mulberry in B: the Elmond (Amond, Elfman?) is probably significant. So far the heroine resembles Lady Isabel in No 4, who, sewing in her bower, hears an elf-horn, and cannot resist the enchanted tone. Margaret makes for the wood as fast as she can go. The note that is heard in A is mistaken in B for nuts: Margaret, as she stands in her bower door, spies some nuts growing in the wood, and wishes herself there. Arrived at the wood, Margaret, in A as well as B, immediately takes to pulling nuts.[334] The lady is carried off in C under cover of a magical mist, and the hero in all is no ordinary hind.
Margaret has hardly pulled a nut, when she is confronted by young Akin, A, otherwise, and correctly, called Etin in B, a hind of giant strength in both, who accuses her of trespassing, and stops her. Akin pulls up the highest tree in the wood and builds a bower, invisible to passers-by, for their habitation. B, which recognizes no influence of enchantment upon the lady's will, as found in A, and no prepossession on her part, as in C, makes Hind Etin pull up the biggest tree in the forest as well, but it is to scoop out a cave many fathoms deep, in which he confines Margaret till she comes to terms, and consents to go home with him, wherever that may be. Hastings, another corruption of Etin, carries off the lady on his horse to the wood, "where again their loves are sworn," and there they take up their abode in a cave of stone, C 9. Lady Margaret lives with the etin seven years, and bears him seven sons, A 9; many years, and bears seven sons, B; ten years, and bears seven bairns, C 6, 8, 9.[335]
Once upon a time the etin goes hunting, and takes his eldest boy with him. The boy asks his father why his mother is so often in tears, and the father says it is because she was born of high degree, but had been stolen by him; "is wife of Hynde Etin, wha ne'er got christendame," B 15. The etin, who could pull the highest tree in the wood up by the roots, adds in A 15 that when he stole his wife he was her father's cup-bearer! and that he caught her "on a misty night," which reminds us of the mist which Young Hastings, "the groom," cast before the lady's attendants when he carried her off.
The next time Akin goes hunting he leaves his young comrade behind, and the boy tells his mother that he heard "fine music ring" when he was coming home, on the other occasion. She wishes she had been there. He takes his mother and six brothers, and they make their way through the wood at their best speed, not knowing in what direction they are going. But luckily they come to the gate of the king, the father and grandfather of the band. The mother sends her eldest boy in with three rings, to propitiate the porter, the butler-boy, who acts as usher in this particular palace, and the minstrel who plays before the king. His majesty is so struck with the resemblance of the boy to his daughter that he is blinded with tears. The boy informs his grandfather that his mother is standing at the gates, with six more brothers, and the king orders that she be admitted. He asks her to dine, but she can touch nothing till she has seen her mother and sister. Admitted to her mother, the queen in turn says, You will dine with me; but she can touch nothing till she has seen her sister. Her sister, again, invites her to dine, but now she can touch nothing till she has seen her "dear husband." Rangers are sent into the wood to fetch Young Akin, under promise of a full pardon. He is found tearing his yellow hair. The king now asks Akin to dine with him, and there appears to have been a family dinner. While this is going on the boy expresses a wish to be christened, "to get christendoun;" in all his eight years he had never been in a church. The king promises that he shall go that very day with his mother, and all seven of the boys seem to have got their christendoun; and so, we may hope, did Hind Etin, who was, if possible, more in want of it than they; B 15, 19.
In this story A and B pretty nearly agree. C has nothing of the restoration of the lady to her parents and home. The mother, in this version, having harped her seven bairns asleep, sits down and weeps bitterly. She wishes, like Fair Annie, that they were rats, and she a cat, to eat them one and all. She has lived ten years in a stone cave, and has never had a churching. The eldest boy suggests that they shall all go to some church: they be christened and she be churched. This is accomplished without any difficulty, and, as the tale stands, we can only wonder that it had not been attempted before.
The etin of the Scottish story is in Norse and German a dwarf-king, elf-king, hill-king, or even a merman. The ballad is still sung in Scandinavia and Germany, but only the Danes have versions taken down before the present century.
Danish. 'Jomfruen og Dværgekongen,' Grundtvig, No 37, A-C from manuscripts of the sixteenth century. A-G, Grundtvig, II, 39-46; H, I, III, 806-808; K-T, IV, 795-800, P-S being short fragments. K previously in "Fylla," a weekly newspaper, 1870, Nos 23, 30; L-O, Q, R, 'Agnete i Bjærget,' in Kristensen's Jyske Folkeviser, II, 72, 77, 349, 74, I, xxxi, II, 79; U, a short fragment, Danske Viser, V, x, xi.
Swedish. 'Den Bergtagna,' A, B, Afzelius, I, 1, No 1, II, 201. C, 'Bergkonungen,' Afzelius, II, 22, No 35. D, E, 'Herr Elver, Bergakonungen,' Arwidsson, II, 277, No 141 B, II, 275, No 141 A. F, 'Jungfrun och Bergakonungen,' Arwidsson, II, 280, No 142. G, 'Agneta och Bergamannen,' Wigström, Folkdiktning, p. 13. H, 'Jungfrun och Bergamannen,' the same, p. 21. I, K, L, in Cavallius and Stephens' manuscript collection (K, L, fragments), given by Grundtvig, IV, 803. M, F. L. Borgströms Folkvisor, No 11, described by Grundtvig, IV, 802. N, Werner's Westergötlands Fornminnen, p. 93 f, two stanzas.
Norwegian. A, B,[336] C, 'Liti Kersti, som vart inkvervd,' Landstad, p. 431, No 42, p. 442, No 44, p. 446, No 45. D, 'Margit Hjuxe, som vart inkvervd,' the same, p. 451, No 46. E, F, 'Målfri,' 'Antonetta,' Grundtvig, IV, 801 f, the last evidently derived from Denmark. G-P, nine versions communicated to Grundtvig by Professor Sophus Bugge, and partially described in Danmarks gamle Folkeviser, III, 808-10. Lindeman gives the first stanza of A with airs No 214, No 262 of his Fjeldmelodier, and perhaps had different copies. Nos 323, 320 may also have been versions of this ballad. C, rewritten, occurs in J. M. Moe og Ivar Mortensen's Norske Fornkvæde og Folkevisur, p. 16. Mixed forms, in which the ballad proper is blended with another, Landstad, No 43 == Swedish, Arwidsson, No 145; eight, communicated by Bugge, Grundtvig, III, 810-13; two others, IV, 483 f.[337]
Färöe. A, B, Grundtvig, IV, 803 f.
Icelandic. 'Rika álfs kvæði,' Íslenzk fornkvæði, No 4.
Danish A, one of the three sixteenth-century versions, tells how a knight, expressing a strong desire to obtain a king's daughter, is overheard by a dwarf, who says this shall never be. The dwarf pretends to bargain with the knight for his services in forwarding the knight's object, but consults meanwhile with his mother how he may get the lady for himself.[338] The mother tells him that the princess will go to even-song, and the dwarf writes runes on the way she must go by, which compel her to come to the hill. The dwarf holds out his hand and asks, How came ye to this strange land? to which the lady answers mournfully, I wot never how. The dwarf says, You have pledged yourself to a knight, and he has betrayed you with runes: this eve you shall be the dwarf's guest. She stayed there the night, and was taken back to her mother in the morning. Eight years went by; her hand was sought by five kings, nine counts, but no one of them could get a good answer. One day her mother asked, Why are thy cheeks so faded? Why can no one get thee? She then revealed that she had been beguiled by the dwarf, and had seven sons and a daughter in the hill, none of whom she ever saw. She thought she was alone, but the dwarf-king was listening. He strikes her with an elf-rod, and bids her hie to the hill after him. Late in the evening the poor thing dons her cloak, knocks at her father's door, and says good-night to the friends that never will see her again, then sadly turns to the hill. Her seven sons advance to meet her, and ask why she told of their father. Her tears run sore; she gives no answer; she is dead ere midnight.
With A agrees another of the three old Danish copies, B, and three modern ones, D, M, N, have something of the opening scene which characterizes A. So also Swedish C, I, and the Icelandic ballad. In Swedish C, Proud Margaret, who is daughter of a king of seven kingdoms, will have none of her suitors (this circumstance comes too soon). A hill-king asks his mother how he may get her. She asks in return, What will you give me to make her come of herself to the hill? He promises red gold and chestfuls of pence; and one Sunday morning Margaret, who has set out to go to church, is made—by magical operations, of course—to take the way to the hill.
A second form begins a stage later: Danish C, G, K, Swedish D, E, K, Norwegian A, C, E, G, H, I (?), K, L, M (?), N (?), Färöe A, B. We learn nothing of the device by which the maid has been entrapped. Mother and daughter are sitting in their bower, and the mother asks her child why her cheeks are pale, why milk is running from her breasts. She answers that she has been working too hard; that what is taken for milk is mead. The mother retorts that other women do not suffer from their industry; that mead is brown, and milk is white. Hereupon the daughter reveals that she has been beguiled by an elf, and, though living under her mother's roof, has had eight or nine children (seven or eight sons and a daughter; fifteen children, Färöe A, B), none of whom she ever saw, since after birth they were always transferred to the hill (see, especially, Danish C, G, also A; Norwegian H, I; Färöe A, B). The mother (who disowns her, Danish C, G, Swedish D, E, Norwegian K), in several versions, asks what gifts she got for her honor. Among these was a harp [horn, Norwegian L], which she was to play when she was unhappy. The mother asks for a piece, and the first tones bring the elf, who reproaches the daughter for betraying him: had she concealed their connection she might still have lived at home, C; but now she must go with him. She is kindly received by her children. They give her a drink which makes her forget father and mother, heaven and earth, moon and sun, and even makes her think she was born in the hill, Danish C, G, Swedish D, Norwegian A, C.[339]
Danish G, K, Färöe A, B, take a tragic turn: the woman dies in the first two the night she comes to the hill. Danish C, one of the sixteenth-century versions, goes as far as possible in the other direction. The elf-king pats Maldfred's cheek, takes her in his arms, gives her a queen's crown and name.