14, their bonheur.
82. to kill.
111. boy wanting: see b.
112. And will.
191. and that.
261. did stand.
b.
11. Childe Vyet, and always.
13, 23. Had... loves.
14, honour.
31, 33, 41, 51, 53. the Lady.
71. He said wanting.
73. he wanting.
82. to sell. 93. I'd be.
103. Will run.
111. I am the boy, says one.
112. Will win.
131. to Vyet's.
141. line that Childe Vyet read.
143. line that he.
145, 6, 151, 2, as 15.
153. Take four and twenty bucks and ewes.
164. was wi wean.
171. about the.
182. with gold.
183, 193. keep the lady.
184. the mould.
201. bells were.
211. upon their.
214. Says he, You are with bairn.
222. came as my wooer.
223. your one.
231. so did I.
261. start him.
281, 291. for the.
283, 293. All was for Lady.
301. O get to me.
31. For ae.
313. All for the honourable marriage that.
B.
13. Their laid.
22. womb.
12, 13 make one stanza in the MS.
15, 16 are written together in three long lines.
18 did not belong where it stands, cf. A 31, E 43, 44, but as the text now runs, cannot well change place.
C.
Herd's copies differ little except in spelling.
64. cannell (cinnamon). I have thought it best to risk cammer, for camerik, cambric, though I have not found the word in English: Danish kammer-dug.
103. second copy omits on.
112. due (?).
13, 14 are written in one stanza.
195. second copy hidies.
251. men, Wayets: uncle in second copy.
26-28 precede 23-25.
D.
42. that paid: cf. E 62. 10 follows 6 in MS.
E.
312, 352. belted and a brand.
[93] This stanza, which comes in here with flagrant impropriety, is a commonplace, or movable passage. It occurs, as a feature in the ceremony of a brilliant wedding, in 'Fair Mary of Wallington,' E 6, 7, and in some copies of 'Lord Thomas and Fair Annet:' see that ballad, note to A.
[94] These citations, which might easily be extended, are many of them repeated from Grimm's Rechtsalterthümer, pp. 168-70 of the second edition. Sir Walter Scott has pointed out that on the occasion of the marriage of Maria of Burgundy with the Archduke Maximilian, in 1477, the marriage being by proxy, Ludwig, Pfalzgraf of Vendelz, the bridegroom's representative, was formally bedded with the bride, a naked sword being laid between them. Scott also refers to a play called The Jovial Crew, acted in 1641, in which one of the characters, to enrage another, proposes to be his proxy, marry his love for him, and lay a naked cudgel betwixt them: Sir Tristrem, p. 439, ed. 1833. In an Italian ballad the sword is reduced to a straw: Wolf, Volkslieder aus Venetien, No 95, Bolza, No 56, Ferraro, C. p. monferrini, No 76. In the Spanish and Portuguese romances of 'Gerineldo,' the sultan or king, having found the page asleep with the infanta, lays his sword between the two and retires: Duran, Nos 320, 321; Hardung, I, 101.
[95] Some of the Norse examples were derived from notes of Grundtvig, three others from Liebrecht. Grundtvig cites an ordinance of Frederic II of Denmark, dated 1586, to this effect: Whereas a custom has come in of having a dance during a wedding-repast, which dance those that sit behind the tables are asked to as well as others, and therefore are obliged to step on the tables, on which the victuals are still standing, and whereas this, indecorous of itself, might even prove dangerous to women-folk, and others, who should attempt to jump over the tables, now therefore dancing during meal-time is forbidden until dishes and tables shall have been cleared away: IV, 754. The table-jumping above is mostly done under great excitement, and at weddings, in order that the right parties may come together; but nimble young men in England seem to have taken this short way to their places habitually in old times. Liebrecht cites this curious passage from the Jests of Scogin, Hazlitt's Shakespeare Jest-Books, II, 105: "Scogin did mark the fashions of the court, and among all other things he did mark how men did leap over the table in the king's hall to sit down at dinner and supper, which is not used now." The first edition of Scogin's Jests is of 1565.
A. 'Glasgerion,' Percy MS., p. 94; Hales and Furnivall, I, 248.
B. 'Glenkindie,' Jamieson's Popular Ballads, I, 93.
C. Kinloch MSS, III, 139.
'Glasgerion' was first printed in Percy's Reliques, III, 43, 1765, and was not thought by the editor to require much correction. Certainly the English ballad is one which it would be hard to mend. Scottish B is mainly of good derivation (a poor old woman in Aberdeenshire), and has some good stanzas, but Jamieson unfortunately undertook to improve a copy in which the story was complete, but "the diction much humbled," by combining with it a fragment of another version. Dr John Hill Burton seems, in turn, to have compounded a portion of the ballad as printed by Jamieson with a fragment from tradition (C): Kinloch MSS, III, 147.
Cunningham, Songs of Scotland, II, 32, has fused Percy's and Jamieson's copies, as Motherwell remarks, "in a flux of his own which has disfigured and quite changed the features of each."
The grete Glascurion is joined in Chaucer's House of Fame, III, 113-118, with the harpers Orpheus, Orion (Arion), and Chiron, and with Orpheus again by Gavin Douglas, copying Chaucer, in his Palice of Honour, I, 21, vv 15, 16, ed. Small.
Y Bardd Glas Keraint, in English Keraint the Blue Bard (Blue Bard being an appellation of a chief bard, who wore an official robe of blue), is recorded, as Mr Edward Williams informs us, to have been an eminent poet of distinguished birth, son of Owain, Prince of Glamorgan. The English name Glasgerion, Mr Williams further remarks, differs not half so much from Glasgeraint as most Welsh names, as written by Englishmen, do from their true orthography. There is, therefore, at least no absurdity in the suggestion that the Glascurion of Chaucer and the Glasgerion of the ballad may represent the Welsh Glas Keraint.[96]
A peasant lad, tailor's lad, who had overheard the troth-plight of a knight and lady, anticipates the lover in 'Den fule Bondedreng,' Kristensen, II, 25-27; 'Torpardrängen,' Hazelius, Ur de Nordiska Folkens Lif, p. 138; 'Die Betrogene,' Norrenberg, Des dülkener Fiedlers Liederbuch, p. 79. The adventure is jocosely treated in the first two, and does not amount to a tragedy in the other. A groom forestalls Agilulf, King of the Lombards, in the Decameron, III, 2, again without a bloody conclusion.
The marvellous power of the harp in B 2, C 1 is precisely paralleled in the Scandinavian 'Harpans Kraft,' Arwidsson, No 149, II, 311-17; Afzelius, No 91, III, 144-47; Grundtvig, No 40, II, 65-68; Landstad, No 51, p. 475; Íslenzk Fornkvæði, No 3, p. 18 f. In these the fish is harped out of the water, the young from folk and from fee, the bairn from its mother's womb, the water from the brook, the hind from the wood, the horns from the hart's head, the bark from the tree, the dead out of the mould, etc., etc. These effects are of the same nature as those produced by the harp of Orpheus, and it is to be observed that in the ballad of 'Harpans Kraft' the harper is a bridegroom seeking (successfully) to recover his bride, who has been carried down to the depths of the water by a merman. We have had something like these effects in the 'Twa Brothers,' No 49, B 10, I, 439, where Lady Margaret harps the small birds off the briers and her true love out of the grave.[97] There is a fisherman in the Gesta Romanorum who has a harp so sweet that all the fish in the water come to his hand: Oesterley, No 85, p. 413, Madden, No 35, p. 116, No 8, p. 293. Equally potent is pipe, flute, or song in many ballads of various nations; the fish come up from below, the stars are stopped, the brook rises, the pines vail their top, the deer stops in its leap, etc., the musician being sometimes an elf, sometimes an inspired mortal: 'Hr. Tönne af Alsö,' Grundtvig, No 34, II, 15, 19, Afzelius, No 7, I, 33, 128; 'Elvehöj,' Grundtvig, No 46, II, 107-109, Afzelius, No 95, III, 170, Arwidsson, No 147, II, 301; Kudrun, ed. Bartsch, sts 379, 381, 388; the Roumanian 'Salga,' 'Mihu Copilul,' 'Vidra,' Stanley, p. 29, Alecsandri, pp 58, 66, 98 f, the same, Ballades et Chants populaires, pp 118, 168, Murray, pp 44, 53 f, 83; 'El Poder del Canto,' Milá, Romancerillo, No 207, p. 165, Nigra, Rivista Contemporanea, XX, 78; 'Conde Arnaldos,' Wolf and Hofmann, No 153, II, 80. For the soporific effect of such music, as shown in B 5, C 2, there are parallels in 'Albred Lykke,' who sings a ballad which sets everybody asleep but the young bride who had been stolen from him, Kristensen, I, 281, No 105, sts 11, 12, II, 259 f, No 76, sts 13, 14; 'Den fortryllende Sang,' Grundtvig, No 243, IV, 470, Danish A 12, 473, Swedish G 25, 26; 'El Rey marinero,' Milá, No 201, p. 151, Briz, I, 117, IV, 15, V, 75; Campbell's West Highland Tales, I, 291 f.
The oath by oak, ash, and thorn, A 18, is a relic or trait of high antiquity. We have an oath by the thorn in 'Fair Janet,' G 13, 'Young Hunting,' K 26; by corn, grass sae green and corn, in 'Young Hunting,' A 16, D 19, G 7. It is to be supposed that the tree, thorn, corn, was touched while swearing, a sod taken up in the hand. See Grimm's Rechtsalterthümer, 2d ed., p. 896 f, p. 117 f.
For drying the sword on the sleeve, A 22, see 'Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard.'
Translated by Bodmer, I, 73, after Percy; by Knortz, Lieder und Romanzen Alt-Englands, No 59, after Allingham, p. 358.
Percy MS., p. 94; Hales and Furnivall, I, 248.
Jamieson's Popular Ballads, I, 93, taken from the recitation of an old woman by Professor Scott, of Aberdeen, and "somewhat improved" by a fragment communicated by the Rev. William Gray, of Lincoln.
Kinloch's MSS, III, 139, in the handwriting of John Hill Burton.
A.
14. cappe... yoode.
15, 6, 21, 2 make a stanza in the MS.
33. this harpe.
41. him fall?
43. 7 yeere.
61. whom then.
102. pinn: one stroke of the n is left out, as frequently, in the MS. Furnivall.
112. nor noe.
144. times.
164. him im.
171. you you.
173. you are.
214. killed 3.
223. head: there is a tag to the d as if for s. Furnivall.
234. these 3.
B.
13, 4, 2 are cited by Jamieson in the Scots Magazine, October, 1803, p. 698, as the beginning of a fragment [Gray's], with only this variation:
He has, therefore, combined the two versions here.
Stanza 4, as published, is the first of "another copy [Scott's], in which the story is complete, but, it having been written from the recitation of a poor old woman in Aberdeenshire, the diction has been much humbled. It begins:
(Robe is misprinted rolu).
After 4 follows this stanza, which, with but a word or two of difference, is the first of 'Brown Robin,' where, no doubt, it belongs, but not here:
10 may not be in the right place, and should, perhaps, be put just before Gib gets his deserts. Some such stanza would come in well between 20 and 21 of A.
After 25 follows 29, manifestly with no right. If this commonplace is retained, it must come at the end.
After 29 (27 in Jamieson) follow these three stanzas, the first a superfluous and very improbable repetition; the second altered by Jamieson, "to introduce a little variety, and prevent the monotonous tiresomeness of repetition," the last as little in traditional style as the second.
C.
8 follows 2 in the MS.
A fragment in Kinloch MSS, III, 147, sixteen stanzas, in the writing of John Hill Burton, is thus made up: B 1, 2, C 2, B 6, 7, C 4, 5, B 11, C 6, B 14, C 7, 8, B 17, 18, B 191-3 and C 94, B 20; with the following variations, probably arbitrary.
Variations from
B 11. a gude harper.
13, he was the.
14. on string.
21. o the sea-flood.
22. o the.
23. And milk.
C 23. Except it was.
B 74. streek down.
C 43. Untill.
C 51. Now might.
C 52. a man had slain=B 102.
C 53. Indeed ye micht.
B 111. Jock my man.
113. And but ye.
C 71. And he's.
C 81. bower-door.
C 83. and away.
[96] See The Cambrian Journal, September, 1858, pp 192-194, communicated to me by the kind courtesy of Rev. Professor D. Silvan Evans. As to Glasgerion's being a king's son, ballad titles count for little.
[97] In C 18, p. 440,
A. 'Young Hunting.' a. Herd's MSS, I, 182. b. The same, II, 67.
B. 'Young Redin,' Kinloch MSS, VII, 7, Kinloch's Ancient Scottish Ballads, p. 1.
C. 'Young Riedan,' Harris MS., fol. 8.
D. Motherwell's MS., p. 377.
E. 'Lord William,' Scott's Minstrelsy, III, 265, 1803.
F. 'Earl Richard.' a. Motherwell's MS., p. 61, Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. 218. b. Motherwell's Minstrelsy, Appendix, p. xvii, one stanza.
G. Herd's MSS, I, 34; Herd's Scottish Songs, 1776, I, 148.
H. 'Clyde's Water,' Dr Joseph Robertson's Journal of Excursions, No 1, 1829.
I. 'Lord John,' Motherwell's MS., p. 189.
J. 'Earl Richard,' Scott's Minstrelsy, II, 42, 1802, and III, 184, 1833.
K. 'Young Hunting,' Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, I, 118.
J, Scott's version, and naturally the best known, is described by the editor as made up from the best verses of Herd's copies, A, G, with some trivial alterations adopted from tradition. This account is far from being exact, for there are many lines in the edition of 1802 which are not found in Herd's copies, and in the edition of 1833 four additional stanzas, 11, 12, 13, 28. Such portions of Scott's version as are not found in Herd are here distinguished by a larger type. K is perhaps a stall copy, and certainly, where it is not taken from other versions, is to a considerable degree a modern manufacture by a very silly pen.[98]
The copy in Pinkerton's Tragic Ballads, p. 84, is only the first five stanzas of G, a little altered.
A Scandinavian ballad begins somewhat like 'Young Hunting,' but ends like 'Elveskud' or 'Clerk Colvil.' A young man who has made up his mind to marry is warned by his mother against the wiles of a former mistress. He rides to his old love's house and is welcomed to beer and wine. He tells her that he is on the way to his bride. She wants a word with him, or a kiss, and as he leans over to her on his horse, stabs him to the heart. He rides home bleeding, pretends that he has hurt himself by running against a tree, asks that his bed may be made and a priest sent for, and dies. Danish, 'Frillens Hævn,' Grundtvig, IV, 203 f, No 208, A-D, A from a manuscript of the 17th century. Swedish, A, 'Herr Magnus,' Afzelius, No 13, I, 67, an imperfect copy; B, from Cavallius and Stephens' manuscript collection, C-H, fragments in the same collection, Grundtvig, IV, 203; I, 'Herr Samsing,' Eva Wigström, in Hazelius, Ur de nordiska Folkens Lif, p. 124. Norwegian, 'Herre Per og Gjöðalin,' a mixed form, Landstad, p. 564, No 68, and the first stanza in Lindeman, No 132, No 178.
The place where the dead body of the knight lies at the bottom of the river is discovered by candles burning bright, A 22 f, C 19 f, H 8, K 31, 35. Sir Walter Scott supposed these candles to mean "the corpse-lights... which are sometimes seen to illuminate the spot where a dead body is concealed." He had been informed that the body of a man drowned in the Ettrick had been discovered by means of these candles. Though the language in the ballad is not quite explicit, owing perhaps to the fact that the method of detection practised was more familiar formerly than now, the meaning is as likely to be that a candle, floated on the water, would burn brighter when it came to the spot where the body lay. A candle (a consecrated one in Catholic countries) stuck in a loaf of bread, or supported by cork, is still believed to be efficient for indicating the place of a drowned body; in England, Henderson, Notes on the Folk Lore of the Northern Counties, ed. 1879, p. 60; in Bohemia, Wuttke, Deutscher Volksaberglaube der Gegenwart, ed. 1869, p. 239, No 371; in Brittany, Blätter für literarische Unterhaltung, 1837, p. 892; in Portugal, Vasconcellos, Tradições Populares, p. 80, No 178.[99]
That the body of a murdered man will emit blood upon being touched, or even approached, by the murderer is a belief of ancient standing, and evidence of this character was formerly admitted in judicial investigations. See especially Grimm, Rechtsalterthümer, 1854, p. 930 f, Bahrgericht, who cites from literature the Nibelungenlied (1043-45, Bartsch) Hartmann's Iwein, 1355-64, Shakespeare's Richard III, I, 2, besides instances of legal or historical description; to which may be added others furnished by Sir W. Scott, Minstrelsy III, 190-93, ed. 1833, and Kinloch, Ancient Scottish Ballads, pp 10-12. See further Schmidt, Die Märchen des Straparola, pp 229, 346 ff, Holinshed's Chronicle of Scotland, p. 235, ed. 1808, Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, ed. Luard, II, 344 f, Brand's Antiquities, ed. Ellis, II, 542-44.[100]
There is a sort of judicium ignis in A 26-28, B 23 f, C 24, K 37 f: the fire which does not burn the innocent bower-woman consumes her guilty mistress.
For the oath by corn, A 16, D 21, grass and corn, G 7, thorn, K 26, see 'Glasgerion.'
E is translated by Schubart, p. 173; F by Wolff, Halle der Völker, I, 24, Hausschatz, p. 204; J by Schubart, p. 86, Gerhard, p. 134; Aytoun's copy by Rosa Warrens, Schottische Volkslieder, p. 46; Allingham's copy by Knortz, Lieder und Romanzen Alt-Englands, p. 42.