A Collection of Ballads Part 37

NOTES

SIR PATRICK SPENS

Mr. Child finds the first published version of "the grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spens," as Coleridge calls it, in Bishop Percy's Reliques. Here the name is "Spence," and the middle rhyme- -

"Haf owre, haf owre to Aberdour,"

is not of early date. The "Cork-heeled Shoon," too, cannot be early, but ballads are subject, in oral tradition, to such modern interpolations. The verse about the ladies waiting vainly is antic.i.p.ated in a popular song of the fourteenth century, on a defeat of the n.o.blesse in Flanders--

"Their ladies them may abide in bower and hall well long!"

If there be historical foundation for the ballad, it is probably a blending of the voyage of Margaret, daughter of Alexander III., to wed Eric, King of Norway, in 1281 (some of her escort were drowned on their way home), with the rather mysterious death, or disappearance, of Margaret's daughter, "The Maid of Norway," on her voyage to marry the son of Edward I., in 1290. A woman, who alleged that she was the Maid of Norway, was later burned at the stake. The great number and variety of versions sufficiently indicate the antiquity of this ballad, wherein exact history is not to be expected.

THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN

From The Border Minstrelsy, Sir Walter Scott's latest edition of 1833: the copy in the edition of 1802 is less complete. The gentle and joyous pa.s.sage of arms here recorded, took place in August 1388. We have an admirable account of Otterburn fight from Froissart, who revels in a gallant encounter, fairly fought out hand to hand, with no intervention of archery or artillery, and for no wretched practical purpose. In such a combat the Scots, never renowned for success at long bowls, and led by a Douglas, were likely to prove victorious, even against long odds, and when taken by surprise.

Choosing an advantage in the discordant days of Richard II., the Scots mustered a very large force near Jedburgh, merely to break lances on English ground, and take loot. Learning that, as they advanced by the Carlisle route, the English intended to invade Scotland by Berwick and the east coast, the Scots sent three or four hundred men-at-arms, with a few thousand mounted archers and pikemen, who should harry Northumberland to the walls of Newcastle.

These were led by James, Earl of Douglas, March, and Murray. In a fight at Newcastle, Douglas took Harry Percy's pennon, which Hotspur vowed to recover. The retreat began, but the Scots waited at Otterburn, partly to besiege the castle, partly to abide Hotspur's challenge. He made his attack at moonlight, with overwhelming odds, but was hampered by a marsh, and incommoded by a flank attach of the Scots. Then it came to who would pound longest, with axe and sword. Douglas cut his way through the English, axe in hand, and was overthrown, but his men protected his body. The Sinclairs and Lindsay raised his banner, with his cry; March and Dunbar came up; Hotspur was taken by Montgomery, and the English were routed with heavy loss. Douglas was buried in Melrose Abbey; very many years later the English defiled his grave, but were punished at Ancram Moor. There is an English poem on the fight of "about 1550"; it has many a.n.a.logies with our Scottish version, and, doubtless, ours descends from a ballad almost contemporary. The ballad was a great favourite of Scott's. In a severe illness, thinking of Lockhart, not yet his son-in-law, he quoted--

"My wound is deep, I fain would sleep, Take thou the vanguard of the three."

Mr. Child thinks the command to

"yield to the bracken-bush"

unmartial. This does not seem a strong objection, in Froissart's time. It is explained in an oral fragment--

"For there lies aneth yon bracken-bush Wha aft has conquered mair than thee."

Mr. Child also thinks that the "dreamy dream" may be copied from Hume of G.o.dscroft. It is at least as probable that G.o.dscroft borrowed from the ballad which he cites. The embroidered gauntlet of the Percy is in the possession of Douglas of Cavers to this day.

TAM LIN, OR TAMLANE

Burns's version, in Johnson's Museum (1792). Scott's version is made up of this copy, Riddell's, Herd's, and oral recitations, and contains feeble literary interpolations, not, of course, by Sir Walter. The Complaint of Scotland (1549) mentions the "Tale of the Young Tamlene" as then popular. It is needless here to enter into the subject of Fairyland, and captures of mortals by Fairies: the Editor has said his say in his edition of Kirk's Secret Commonwealth. The Nereids, in Modern Greece, practise fairy cantrips, and the same beliefs exist in Samoa and New Caledonia.

The metamorphoses are found in the Odyssey, Book iv., in the winning of Thetis, the Nereid, or Fairy Bride, by Peleus, in a modern Cretan fairy tale, and so on. There is a similar incident in Penda Baloa, a Senegambian ballad (Contes Populaires de la Senegambie, Berenger Ferand, Paris, 1885). The dipping of Tamlane has precedents in Old Deccan Days, in a Hottentot tale by Bleek, and in Les Deux Freres, the Egyptian story, translated by Maspero (the Editor has already given these parallels in a note to Border Ballads, by Graham R. Thomson). Mr. Child also cites Mannhardt, "Wald und Feldkulte," ii. 64-70. Carterhaugh, the scene of the ballad, is at the junction of Ettrick and Yarrow, between Bowhill and Philiphaugh.

THOMAS RYMER

From The Border Minstrelsy; the original was derived from a lady living near Erceldoune (Earlston), and from Mrs. Brown's MSS. That Thomas of Erceldoune had some popular fame as a rhymer and soothsayer as early as 1320-1350, seems to be established. As late as the Forty Five, nay, even as late as the expected Napoleonic invasion, sayings attributed to Thomas were repeated with some measure of belief. A real Thomas Rymer of Erceldoune witnessed an undated deed of Peter de Haga, early in the thirteenth century.

The de Hagas, or Haigs of Bemersyde, were the subjects of the prophecy attributed to Thomas,

"Betide, betide, whate'er betide, There will aye be a Haig in Bemersyde,"

and a Haig still owns that ancient chateau on the Tweed, which has a singular set of traditions. Learmont is usually given as the Erceldoune family name; a branch of the family owned Dairsie in Fifeshire, and were a kind of hereditary provosts of St. Andrews.

If Thomas did predict the death of Alexander III., or rather report it by dint of clairvoyance, he must have lived till 1285. The date of the poem on the Fairy Queen, attributed to Thomas, is uncertain, the story itself is a variant of "Ogier the Dane." The scene is Huntly Bank, under Eildon Hill, and was part of the lands acquired, at fantastic prices, by Sir Walter Scott. His pa.s.sion for land was really part of his pa.s.sion for collecting antiquities. The theory of Fairyland here (as in many other Scottish legends and witch trials) is borrowed from the Pre-Christian Hades, and the Fairy Queen is a late refraction from Persephone. Not to eat, in the realm of the dead, is a regular precept of savage belief, all the world over. Mr. Robert Kirk's Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns, and Fairies may be consulted, or the Editor's Perrault, p. x.x.xv.

(Oxford, 1888). Of the later legends about Thomas, Scott gives plenty, in The Border Minstrelsy. The long ancient romantic poem on the subject is probably the source of the ballad, though a local ballad may have preceded the long poem. Scott named the glen through which the Bogle Burn flows to Chiefswood, "The Rhymer's Glen."

SIR HUGH

The date of the Martyrdom of Hugh is attributed by Matthew Paris to 1225. Chaucer puts a version in the mouth of his Prioress. No doubt the story must have been a mere excuse for Jew-baiting. In America the Jew becomes "The Duke" in a version picked up by Mr.

Newells, from the recitation of a street boy in New York. The daughter of a Jew is not more likely than the daughter of a duke to have been concerned in the cruel and blasphemous imitation of the horrors attributed by Horace to the witch Canidia. But some such survivals of pagan sorcery did exist in the Middle Ages, under the influence of "Satanism."

SON DAVIE

Motherwell's version. One of many ballads on fratricide, instigated by the mother: or inquired into by her, as the case may be. "Edward" is another example of this gloomy situation.

THE WIFE OF USHER'S WELL

Here

"The c.o.c.k doth craw, the day doth daw,"

having a middle rhyme, can scarcely be of extreme antiquity.

Probably, in the original poem, the dead return to rebuke the extreme grief of the Mother, but the poem is perhaps really more affecting in the absence of a didactic motive. Scott obtained it from an old woman in West Lothian. Probably the reading "fashes,"

(troubles), "in the flood" is correct, not "fishes," or "freshes."

The mother desires that the sea may never cease to be troubled till her sons return (verse 4, line 2). The peculiar doom of women dead in child-bearing occurs even in Aztec mythology.

THE TWA CORBIES