[Pg i]

THE ENGLISH AND SCOTTISH
POPULAR BALLADS

[Pg iii]

THE
ENGLISH AND SCOTTISH
POPULAR BALLADS

EDITED BY
FRANCIS JAMES CHILD

IN FIVE VOLUMES
VOLUME II

NEW YORK
DOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC.

[Pg iv]

This Dover edition, first published in 1965, is an unabridged and unaltered republication of the work originally published by Houghton, Mifflin and Company, as follows:

• Vol. I—Part I, 1882; Part II, 1884
• Vol. II—Part III, 1885; Part IV, 1886
• Vol. III—Part V, 1888; Part VI, 1889
• Vol. IV—Part VII, 1890; Part VIII, 1892
• Vol. V—Part IX, 1894; Part X, 1898.

This edition also contains as an appendix to Part X an essay by Walter Morris Hart entitled "Professor Child and the Ballad," reprinted in toto from Vol. XXI, No. 4, 1906 [New Series Vol. XIV, No. 4] of the Publications of the Modern Language Association of America.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 65-24347

Manufactured in the United States of America

Dover Publications, Inc. 180 Varick Street New York, N.Y. 10014

[Pg v]

ADVERTISEMENT TO PART IV

NUMBERS 83-113

Upon concluding this Fourth Part, I have to express warm thanks to Mr James Barclay Murdoch for a punctilious recollation of Motherwell's manuscript, and to Mr Malcolm Colquhoun Thomson for again granting the use of the volume. Miss Mary Fraser Tytler, to remove a doubt about a few readings, has generously taken the trouble to make a fac-simile copy of Alexander Fraser Tytler's Brown manuscript. Mr Macmath, whose accuracy is not surpassed by photographic reproduction, has done me favors of a like kind, and of many kinds. Rev. Professor Skeat, with all his engagements, has been prompt to render his peculiarly valuable help at the libraries of Cambridge; and Mr F. H. Stoddard, late of Oxford, now of the University of California, has allowed me to call upon him freely for copies and collations at the Bodleian Library. The notes which Dr Reinhold Köhler, Professor Felix Liebricht, Professor C. R. Lanman, and Mr George Lyman Kittredge have contributed, in the way of Additions and Corrections, will speak for themselves. Miss Isabel Florence Hapgood, translator of the Epic Songs of Russia, has given me much assistance in Slavic popular poetry, and Lieutenant-Colonel W. F. Prideaux, of Calcutta, Mr Frank Kidson, of Leeds, and Mr P. Z. Round, of London, have made obliging communications as to English ballads.

F. J. C.

November, 1886.

[Pg vii]

CONTENTS OF VOLUME II

[Pg 1]

54
THE CHERRY-TREE CAROL

The proper story of this highly popular carol is derived from the Pseudo-Matthew's gospel, chapter xx; Tischendorf, Evangelia Apocrypha, p. 82; Thilo, Codex Apocryphus Novi Testamenti, Historia de Nativitate Mariæ et de Infantia Salvatoris, p. 395. What succeeds, after A 9, B 8, C 7, D 6, is probably founded on the angel's words to the shepherds in Luke ii, and on Jesus's predictions in the authentic gospels. This latter portion is sometimes printed as an independent carol, under the title of 'Joseph and the Angel.'[1]

On the third day of the flight into Egypt, Mary, feeling the heat to be oppressive, tells Joseph that she will rest for a while under a palm-tree. Joseph helps her to light from her beast, and Mary, looking up from under the tree, and seeing it full of fruit, asks for some. Joseph somewhat testily expresses his surprise that she should think of such a thing, considering the height of the tree: he is much more concerned to get a supply of water. Then Jesus, sitting on his mother's lap, bids the palm to bow down and refresh his mother with its fruit. The palm instantly bends its top to Mary's feet.

The truly popular carol would be sure to adapt the fruit to its own soil. In English the tree is always a cherry. We have the story also in the fifteenth of the Coventry Mysteries, ed. Halliwell, p. 146 (not omitting Joseph's quip in A 5, etc.), with the addition of a little more miracle: for it is not the season for cherries, and Mary's wish is anticipated by the tree's blooming before she has uttered it. In Catalan and Provençal the tree is an apple. On the way from Bethlehem to Nazareth, Mary and Joseph come upon a gardener who is climbing an apple-tree, and Mary asks for an apple. He politely gives her leave to pluck for herself. Joseph, who this time has not been disobliging, tries, but the branches go up; Mary tries, and the branches come to her:[2] Milá, Romancerillo, p. 3, No 4. Also p. 63, No 55, where again Joseph is molt felló, very crusty; further, Briz, III, 228; Arbaud, Chants populaires de la Provence, 'Lou premier Miracle,' I, 23, and 'La Fuito en Egypto,' II, 237 f. In other legendary ballads, not so entirely popular, the palm-tree is preserved: Meinert, p. 262; Böhme, p. 628, No 523=Weinhold, Weihnachtspiele, p. 385; Lexer, Kärntisches Wörterbuch, p. 310; Feifalik, Die Kindheit Jesu, pp 101, 106=Pailler, Weihnachtlieder aus Oberösterreich, No 314, p 338 f; Pailler, p. 332, No 310; Hoffmann, Horæ Belgicæ, Part Ten, p. 59; Alberdingk Thijm, I, 212. In Schmitz, Sitten und Sagen des Eifler Volkes, I, 116, and Pailler, as above, No 311, we have a fig-tree.[Pg 2] Some of these are very imperfect, or have even lost chief points in the story.

There are many narratives of the childhood of Jesus, based on the apocryphal gospels, in which this legend must needs be found: as, Cursor Mundi, ed. Morris, II, 668 f, v. 11,657 ff; Horstmann, Altenglische Legenden, 1875, p. 6, 1878, pp 102, 112; Stephens, Fornsvenskt Legendarium, p. 71; Pitré, Canti popolari siciliani, II, 333.[3]

A

B

C

D

A. b.

B. b.

c.

d.

D.

The first stanza is said to have this variation in Worcestershire:

Notes and Queries, Fourth Series, III, 75.

[Pg 7]

55
THE CARNAL AND THE CRANE

Mr Husk, who had access to a remarkably good collection of carols, afterwards unfortunately dispersed, had met with no copy of 'The Carnal and the Crane' of earlier date than the middle of the last century. Internal evidence points us much further back. The carol had obviously been transmitted from mouth to mouth before it was fixed in its present incoherent and corrupted form by print.[5]

The well-informed Crane instructs his catechumen, the Crow, in several matters pertaining to the birth and earliest days of Jesus: the Immaculate Conception; the Nativity; the conference of Herod with the Wise Men, including the miracle of the roasted cock; the Flight into Egypt, with the Adoration of the Beasts and the Instantaneous Harvest; the Massacre of the Innocents. Of the apocryphal incidents, the miracle of the cock, sts 10, 11, has been spoken of under No 22. The adoration of the beasts, sts 15, 16, is derived from the Historia de Nativitate Mariæ, etc. (Pseudo-Matthæi Evangelium), c. 19, Thilo, p. 394, Tischendorf, p. 81, and is of course frequent in legendaries of the infancy of the Saviour,[6] but is not remarkable enough to be popular in carols. The miraculous harvest, by which the Holy Family evade Herod's pursuit, is, on the contrary, a favorite subject with popular poetry, as also, like the bowing of the palm-tree, with pictorial art. I do not know where and when this pretty and clever legend was invented. In the Greek Gospel of Thomas, ch. 12, Jesus sows one grain of wheat, in the Latin Gospel of Thomas, ch. 10, and ch. 34 of the Pseudo-Matthew, a very little, and reaps an immense crop at harvest time; Tischendorf, pp 143 f, 165 f, 97: but this passage would hardly even suggest the miracle in question.[7] In a Swedish carol, 'Staffans-Visan,' reprinted from a recent broadside, in Dansk Kirketidende, 1861, cols 35, 36, by Professor George Stephens, and afterwards by Grundtvig, Danmarks Folkeviser, III, 882, the legend of the Cock and that of the Sower are combined, as here. The legend of the Sower is followed by that of the Palm-tree, and others, in La Fuito en Egypto, Arbaud, Chants p. de la Provence, II, 235. Another Provençal version of the Sower is given by Briz, IV, 70; a Catalan at pp 65 and 68, 'Lo rey Herodes;' ten Catalan versions by Milá, 'Herodes,' Romancerillo, pp 6-9, No 10. To these add: 'La Fuite en Égypte,' Poésies p. de la France, MS., I, fol. 226, 'Le roi Hérode,' VI, 192; 'De Vlucht naar Egypten,' Lootens et Feys, p. 32, No 20, Hoffmann von Fallersleben, Horæ Belgicæ, Part Ten, p. 22, No 4; 'Die Flucht Maria's,' Haupt und Schmaler, Volkslieder der Wenden, I, 275, No 283; Bezsonof, Kalyeki Perekhozhie, II, 116, No 319. The legend of the Sower occurs also in Le Geu des Trois Roys,[Pg 8] Jubinal, Mystères inédits du 15^e Siècle, II, 117-131.

It is ordinarily Mary, and not Jesus, who operates the miracle; in the French mystery it is perhaps Joseph.[8] In the Provençal and Catalan ballads the Virgin commonly hides behind a sheaf or a stack, and does not pass on.[9]

a.

b.

c.

56
DIVES AND LAZARUS

A ballet "of the Ryche man and poor Lazarus" was licensed to Master John Wallye and Mistress Toye, 19 July, 1557-9 July, 1558. W. Pekerynge pays his license for printing "of a ballett, Dyves and Lazarus," 22 July, 1570-22 July, 1571. Arber, Registers of the Company of Stationers, I, 76, 436. A fiddler in Fletcher's Monsieur Thomas, printed 1639, says he can sing The merry ballad of Diverus and Lazarus: Act 3, Scene 3, Dyce, VII, 364. The name Diverus is preserved in C, and F. S. L., who contributed this copy to Notes and Queries, had heard only Diverus, never Dives. Dr Rimbault, Notes and Queries, as above, p. 157, had never met with Diverus. Hone cites two stanzas, a 10, b 11, nearly, in his Ancient Mysteries, p. 95, and Sandys the last three stanzas, nearly as in a, in Notes and Queries, p. 157, as above. A copy in Bramley and Stainer's Christmas Carols, p. 85, seems to have been made up from Sylvester's and another copy. The few variations are probably arbitrary.

The subject could not escape the popular muse: e. g., Socard, Noëls et Cantiques imprimés à Troyes, Histoire de Lazare et du Mauvais Riche, p. 118 ff; 'El mal rico,' Milá, Romancerillo, p. 16, No 16, A-F; 'Lazarus,' Des Dülkener Fiedlers Liederbuch, p. 53, No 63; 'Lazar a bohatec,' Sušil, Moravské Národní Písnĕ, p. 19, No 18, Wenzig, Bibliothek Slavischer Poesien, p. 114; Bezsonof, Kalyeki Perekhozhie, I, 43-97, Nos 19-27.

There is a very beautiful ballad, in which the Madonna takes the place of Lazarus, in Roadside Songs of Tuscany, Francesca Alexander and John Ruskin, 'La Madonna e il Riccone,' p. 82.

[Pg 11]

A

B

A. a.

b.

B.

[Pg 13]

57
BROWN ROBYN´S CONFESSION

The only known version of 'Brown Robyn's Confession' is the one printed in Ballads of the North of Scotland, the copy in Motherwell's MS. having been derived from Buchan.

The ballad, as we have it in English, celebrates a miracle of the Virgin, and is our only example of that extensive class of legends, unless we choose to include 'The Jew's Daughter,' and to take Robin Hood's view of the restoration of his loan, in the fourth Fit of the Little Gest. Of rescues on the sea, by which Mary "vere maris stella indiciis evidentissimis comprobatur," we have two in most of the collections of the Virgin's miracles, e. g., Vincent of Beauvais, 1. VII, cc 88,89, Gautier de Coincy, ed. Poquet, pp 515, 605. The deliverance, however, is for honor done to Mary, and not for a fair confession.

A fine ballad, very common in Sweden, and preserved by tradition also in Denmark and Norway, has the same story with a tragical termination for the hero, saving a single instance, in which there is also a supernatural interference in his behalf.

Swedish. 'Herr Peders Sjöresa.' A, Afzelius, II, 31, No 36, new ed. No 30, from oral traditions, compared with a printed copy of the date 1787. B, Atterbom's Poetisk Kalender, 1816, p. 52, apparently from Gyllenmärs' Visbok, after which it is given by Bergström, Afzelius, II, 158. C, Arwidsson, II, 5, No 67, one of three closely resembling copies. D, 'Herr Peder,' Wigström, Folkdiktning, I, 43, No 21. E, Fagerlund, p. 194, No 4. F, G, Aminson, IV, 20, 22.

Norwegian. 'Unge herr Peder pá sjöen,' Landstad, p. 617, No 82.

Danish. A, manuscript of the fifteenth century, in a copy communicated by Professor Grundtvig. B, 'Jon Rimaardssøns Skriftemaal,' Vedel, 1591, It Hundrede udvaalde Danske Viser, p. 3, No 2 (Bergström); Danske Viser, II, 220, No 92. C, 'Lodkastningen,' Kristensen, I, 16, No 6. D, 'Sejladsen,' the same, p. 322, No 119.

Swedish C-E, the Norwegian version, Danish C, D, are all from recent oral tradition.

With a partial exception of Danish A, B,[10] the story of these ballads is this. Sir Peter asks his foster-mother what death he shall die. You are not to die in your bed, she says, and not in fight, but beware of the waves. Peter cares not for the waves, and builds a splendid ship, the hulk and masts of whalebone (elm, Swedish D; walnut, Norwegian, Danish D), the flags of gold (oars, Danish A). Let us drink to-day, while we have ale, says Peter; to-morrow we will sail where gain shall guide. The skipper and helmsman push off, forgetful of God the Father, God's Son, and the Holy Ghost. They sail a year or two on the boiling sea, and when they come where water is deepest the masts begin to go, Swedish A; the ship stops, Swedish C, D, F, Norwegian, Danish A, C, D;[11] will not mind her helm, Danish B. They cast lots to see who is the[Pg 14] sinner; the skipper and captain do this while Peter is in his cabin sleeping,[12] in Swedish D, Norwegian, Danish C, D. The lot falls on Peter. He makes his shrift, since there is no priest, before the mast (which, with the yard, forms a cross), Swedish A, B, Norwegian, Danish B, C; before an oar, on which Our Lord stands written, Danish A. "Churches have I plundered, and convents have I burned, and stained the honor of many a noble maid. I have roamed the woods and done both robbery and murder, and many an honest peasant's son buried alive in the earth:" Swedish A. He then says his last words, Danish C, D, and nearly all.

In Swedish C, D, Danish C, they throw Peter over, on the larboard in the first, and the ship resumes her course; in Swedish D, F, he wraps a cloak round him and jumps in himself; in Swedish A the ship goes down. In Danish B Jon Rimaardssøn binds three bags about him, saying, He shall never die poor that will bury my body.[14] It was a sad sight to see when he made a cross on the blue wave, and so took the wild path that lay to the sea's deep bottom. Sir Peter, in Danish A, made this cross and was ready to take this path; but when he reached the water the wild sea turned to green earth.

No explanation is offered of this marvel. In the light of the Scottish ballad, we should suppose that Sir Peter's deliverance in Danish A was all for the fair confession he made upon the sea.[16]

Saxo relates that, in the earlier part of Thorkill's marvellous voyage, the crews of his three ships, when reduced almost to starving, coming upon an island well stocked with herds, would not heed the warning of their commander, that if they took more than sufficed to mitigate their immediate sufferings they might be estopped from proceeding by the local divinities, but loaded the vessels with carcasses. During the night which followed,[Pg 15] the ships were beset by a crowd of monsters, the biggest of whom advanced into the water, armed with a huge club, and called out to the seafarers that they would not be allowed to sail off till they had expiated the offence they had committed by delivering up one man for each ship. Thorkill, for the general safety, surrendered three men, selected by lot, after which they had a good wind and sailed on. Book VIII; p. 161, ed. 1644.

King Half on his way home from a warlike expedition encountered so violent a storm that his ship was nigh to foundering. A resolution was taken that lots should be cast to determine who should jump overboard. But no lots were needed, says the saga (implying, by the way, that a vicarious atonement was sufficient), for the men vied with one another who should go overboard for his comrade. Fornaldar Sögur, Rafn, II, 37 f.[17]

A very pretty Little-Russian duma, or ballad, also shows the efficacy of confession in such a crisis: 'The Storm on the Black Sea,' Maksimovitch, Songs of Ukraine, p. 14, Moscow, 1834, p. 48, Kief, 1849; translated by Bodenstedt, Die poetische Ukraine, p. 118. The Cossack flotilla has been divided by a storm on the Black Sea, and two portions of it have gone to wreck. In the third sails the hetman. He walks his deck in sombre composure, and says to the sailors, Some offence has been done, and this makes the sea so wild: confess then your sins to God, to the Black Sea, and to me your hetman; the guilty man shall die, and the fleet of the Cossacks not perish. The Cossacks stand silent, for no one knows who is guilty, when lo, Alexis, son of the priest of Piriatin, steps forth and says, Let me be the sacrifice; bind a cloth round my eyes, a stone about my neck, and throw me in; so shall the fleet of the Cossacks not perish. The men are astounded: how can a heavy sin be resting on Alexis, who reads them the sacred books, whose example has kept them from wickedness! Alexis left home, he says, without asking his father's and mother's blessing, and with an angry threat against his brother; he wrenched the last crust of bread from his neighbors; he rode along the street wantonly spurning the breasts of women and the foreheads of children; he passed churches without uncovering, without crossing himself: and now he must die for his sins. As he makes this shrift the storm begins to abate; to the amazement of the Cossacks, the fleet is saved, and not one man drowned.

The rich merchant Sadko, the very entertaining hero of several Russian popular epics, is nowhere more entertaining than when, during one of his voyages, his ship comes to a stop in the sea. He thinks he has run upon a rock or sand-bank, and tries to push off, but the vessel is immovable. Twelve years we have been sailing, says Sadko, and never paid tribute to the king of the sea. A box of gold is thrown in as a peace-offering, but floats like a duck. It is clear that the sea-king wants no toll; he requires a man. Every man is ordered to make a lot from pine-wood and write his name on it. These lots are thrown into the sea. Every one of them swims like a duck but Sadko's, and his goes down like a stone. That is not the proper wood for a lot, says Sadko: make lots of fir-wood. Fir lots are tried: Sadko's goes down like a stone, the rest swim like ducks. Fir is not right, either; alder, oak, are tried with the same result. We are quite wrong, says Sadko; we must take cypress, for cypress was the wood of the cross. They try cypress, and still Sadko's lot sinks, while all the others float. I am the man, says Sadko. He orders his men to get for him an oblation of silver, gold, and pearls, and with this, taking an image of St Nicholas in one hand and his gusli in the other, commits himself to the sea, and goes down like a stone. But not to drown. It was quite worth his while for the rare adventures that followed.[18]

[Pg 16]

The casting of lots to find out the guilty man who causes trouble to a ship occurs in William Guiseman, Kinloch's Ancient Scottish Ballads, p. 156, Kinloch MSS, V, 43, a copy, improved by tradition, of the "lament" in 'William Grismond's Downfal,' a broadside of 1650, which is transcribed among the Percy papers, from Ballard's collection.

Captain Glen is thrown overboard without a lot, on the accusation of the boatswain, and with the happiest effect; broadside in the Roxburghe collection, Logan's Pedlar's Pack, p. 47, Kinloch MSS, V, 278.

Translated by Gerhard, p. 66, Knortz, L. u. R. Altenglands, p. 155, No 40. Swedish A by the Howitts, Literature and Romance of Northern Europe, I, 276; Danish B by Prior, II, 227.

[Pg 17]

58
SIR PATRICK SPENS

Stanzas of E and of L, a little altered, are given by Motherwell in his Introduction, pp xlv, xlvi. The ballad in the Border Minstrelsy, H, was made up from two versions, the better of which was G, and five stanzas, 16-20, recited by Mr Hamilton, sheriff of Lanarkshire. Mr Hamilton is said to have got his fragment "from an old nurse, a retainer of the Gilkerscleugh family," when himself a boy, about the middle of the last century.[19] The copy in Finlay's Scottish Ballads, I, 49, is Scott's, with the last stanza exchanged for the last of A, and one or two trifling changes. The imperfect copies K, stanzas 6-10, M 1, 3, show admixture with the more modern ballad of 'Young Allan.' L 1, with variations, is found in 'Fair Annie of Lochroyan,' Herd, 1776, I, 150, and may not belong here. But ballad-ships are wont to be of equal splendor with Cleopatra's galley: see, for a first-rate, the Scandinavian 'Sir Peter's Voyage,' cited in the preface to 'Brown Robyn's Confession.'[20]

This admired and most admirable ballad is[Pg 18] one of many which were first made known to the world through Percy's Reliques. Percy's version remains, poetically, the best. It may be a fragment, but the imagination easily supplies all that may be wanting; and if more of the story, or the whole, be told in H, the half is better than the whole.

The short and simple story in A-F is that the king wants a good sailor to take command of a ship or ships ready for sea. Sir Patrick Spens[21] is recommended, and the king sends him a commission. This good sailor is much elated by receiving a letter from the king, but the contents prove very unwelcome.[22] He would hang the man that praised his seamanship, if he knew him, B; though it had been the queen herself, she might have let it be, F; had he been a better man, he might ha tauld a lee, D. The objection, as we learn from A 5, C 5, is the bad time of year. Percy cites a law of James III, forbidding ships to be freighted out of the realm with staple goods between the feast of Simon and Jude and Candlemas, October 28-February 2. There is neither choice nor thought, but prompt obedience to orders. The ship must sail the morn, and this without regard to the fearful portent of the new moon having been seen late yestreen with the auld moon in her arm. They are only a few leagues out when a furious storm sets in. The captain calls for a boy to take the steer in hand while he goes to the topmast to spy land, B; or, more sensibly, sends up the boy, and sticks to the rudder, C, E. The report is not encouraging, or is not waited for, for the sea has everything its own way, and now the nobles, who were loath to wet their shoes, are overhead in water, and now fifty fathoms under. It would be hard to point out in ballad poetry, or other, happier and more refined touches than the two stanzas in A which portray the bootless waiting of the ladies for the return of the seafarers.[23]

In G-J we meet with additional circumstances. The destination of the ship is Norway. The object of the voyage is not told in G; in H it is to bring home the king of Norway's daughter; in J to bring home the Scottish king's daughter; in I to take out the Scottish king's daughter to Norway, where she is to be queen. The Scots make the passage in two days, or three, G, H, I. After a time the Norwegians begin to complain of the expense caused by their guests, G, H; or reproach the Scots with staying too long, to their own king's cost, I. Sir Patrick tells them that he brought money enough to pay for himself and his men, and says that nothing shall induce him to stay another day in the country. It is now that we have the omen of the new moon with the old moon in her arm, in G, H. In I this comes before the voyage to Norway,[24] and in G the stanza expressing apprehension of a storm, without the reason, occurs twice,[25] before the voyage out as well as before the return voyage. In J, as in A-F, the ship is lost on the voyage out. In G, therefore, and I as well, two different accounts may have been blended.

Whether there is an historical basis for the shipwreck of Scottish nobles which this ballad sings, and, if so, where it is to be found,[Pg 19] are questions that have been considerably discussed. A strict accordance with history should not be expected, and indeed would be almost a ground of suspicion.[26] Ballad singers and their hearers would be as indifferent to the facts as the readers of ballads are now; it is only editors who feel bound to look closely into such matters. Motherwell has suggested a sufficiently plausible foundation. Margaret, daughter of Alexander III, was married, in 1281, to Eric, King of Norway. She was conducted to her husband, "brought home," in August of that year, by many knights and nobles. Many of these were drowned on the return voyage,[27] as Sir Patrick Spens is in G, H, I.

Margaret, Eric's queen, died in 1283, leaving a newly born daughter; and Alexander III, having been killed by being thrown from his horse, in 1286, the crown fell to the granddaughter. A match was proposed between the infant Margaret, called the Maid of Norway, and the eldest son of Edward I of England. A deputation, not so splendid as the train which accompanied the little maid's mother to Norway, was sent, in 1290, to bring the Princess Margaret over, but she died on the way before reaching Scotland. The Scalacronica speaks of only a single envoy, Master Weland, a Scottish clerk. If "the chronicle will not lie," the Maid of Norway and the Scottish clerk perished, we must suppose in a storm, on the coasts of Boghan[28] (Buchan?). This is not quite enough to make the ballad out of, and there is still less material in the marriage of James III with the daughter of the king of Norway in 1469, and no shipwreck chronicled at all.

No such name as Patrick Spens is historically connected with any of these occurrences. Spens has even been said not to be an early Scottish name. Aytoun, however, points to a notable exploit by one Spens as early as 1336, and Mr Macmath has shown me that the name occurred in five charters of David II, therefore between 1329 and 1370. We might allege that Spens, though called Sir Patrick in later days, was in reality only a skeely skipper,[29] and that historians do not trouble themselves much about skippers. But this would be avoiding the proper issue. The actual name of the hero of a ballad affords hardly a presumption as to who was originally the hero. This ballad may be historical, or it may not. It might be substantially historical though the command of the ship were invariably given to Sir Andrew Wood, a distinguished admiral, who was born a couple of centuries after the supposed event; and it might be substantially historical though we could prove that Patrick Spens was only a shipmaster, of purely local fame, who was lost off Aberdour a couple of hundred years ago. For one, I do not feel compelled to regard the ballad as historical.

A mermaid appears to the navigators in J, L, P, Q, and informs them, J, that they will never see dry land, or are not far from land, L, P, Q, which, coming from a mermaid, they are good seamen enough to know means the same thing. The appearance of a mermaid to seamen is a signal for despair in a brief little ballad, of no great antiquity to all seeming, given further on under the title of 'The Mermaid.' If nothing worse, mermaids at least bode rough weather, and sailors do not like to see them: Faye, Norske Folke-Sagn, ed. 1844, p. 55 (Prior). They have a reputation for treachery: there is in a Danish ballad, Grundtvig, II, 91, No 42, B 14, one who has betrayed seven ships.

The place where the ship went down was half owre to Aberdour, A, C, F?; ower by Aberdour, I, J, N; forty miles off Aberdeen, G, H (H may only repeat G); nore-east, nore-[Pg 20]west frae Aberdeen, D; between Leith and Aberdeen, K. B and E transfer the scene to St Johnston (Perth), and P to the Clyde, down below Dumbarton Castle. We may fairly say, somewhere off the coast of Aberdeenshire, for the southern Aberdour, in the Firth of Forth, cannot be meant.

The island of Papa Stronsay is said to be about half way between Aberdour in Buchan and the coast of Norway, half owre to Aberdour; and on this island there is a tumulus, which Mr Maidment informs us is known now, and has always been known, as the grave of Sir Patrick Spens. Nothing more has been transmitted, we are assured, but only the name as that of a man buried there: Maidment, Scotish Ballads and Songs, Historical and Traditionary, I, 31 f. "The Scottish ballads were not early current in Orkney, a Scandinavian country," says Aytoun, "so it is very unlikely that the poem could have originated the name." With regard to this Orcadian grave of Patrick Spens, it may first be remarked that Barry, who, in 1808, speaks of the Earl's Knowe in Papa Stronsay, says not a word of the tradition now affirmed to be of indefinite long-standing (neither does Tudor in 1883). The ballad has been in print for a hundred and twenty years. There are Scots in the island now, and perhaps there "always" have been; at any rate, a generation or two is time enough for a story to strike root and establish itself as tradition.[30]

A a is translated by Herder, Volkslieder, I, 89, Bodmer, I, 56, Döring, p. 157, Rosa Warrens, Schottische Volkslieder, No 16, 1; G, by Loève-Veimars, p. 340; H, by Grundtvig, Engelske og skotske Folkeviser, No 2, Schubart, p. 203, Wolff, Halle der Völker, I, 60, Fiedler, Geschichte der schottischen Liederdichtung, I, 13; I, by Gerhard, p. 1. Aytoun's ballad, by Rosa Warrens, Schottische Volkslieder, No 16, 2.

A

B

[Pg 22]

C

[Pg 23]

D

E

F

G

H

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59
SIR ALDINGAR

This ballad, one of the most important of all that the Percy manuscript has saved from oblivion, was first given to the world in the Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, II, 48, ed. 1765, II, 49, ed. 1767, with conjectural emendations by the editor, and the insertion of some stanzas to complete the story. A second version, very much humbled in diction, and otherwise corrupted, but of indubitable antiquity, as Scott remarks, was published in the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border in 1803, as communicated by Mr Williamson Burnet, of Monboddo, from the recitation of an old woman. The story which this version relates was then, we are informed, universally current in the Mearns, and was supposed to be authenticated by the sword of the hero, preserved nearly down to that time by his reputed descendants.

Tales of the same general description—of a noble lady accused to her husband of infidelity, believed by him to be guilty, and in process of time demonstrated to have been faultless, to his entire conviction—are, as might be expected, extremely often to be met with in ballad, romance, chronicle, or saga; nor is the number small of those which have the special traits that the accusation is made by a trusted officer of the husband, who has attempted to seduce the lady, and has failed, and that the wife is cleared by a judgment of God. Our ballad belongs with a very distinct Scandinavian variety of these last, but has adopted one characteristic trait from another source.

The English version, as written down about the middle of the seventeenth century, narrates that Sir Aldingar, steward of King Henry, repulsed by the queen whom he has sought to make his paramour, cannot rest till he has revenge. He takes a lazar that happens to come to the king's gates, and lays him in the queen's bed, promising that in two hours the blind and lame shall be whole and sound; he then goes to fetch the king. The king, convinced by his eyes, says he will hang the lazar and burn his wife, and immediately proceeds to tell the queen his discovery. The queen sees the hand of Aldingar in this, and also the meaning of a dream she has had: how a vulture, or griffin, had carried her crown away, and would have taken her to his nest[31] had it not been for a merlin, a little hawk, that came flying from the east and struck the big bird down. She claims the right to maintain her innocence by battle, and the king gives her forty days to provide herself with a champion, which failing she shall be burnt. No man in all the south country will undertake her cause, but a messenger who rides into the east meets what seems to be a child, who interrogates him, and, getting a slow answer, bids the queen by him to remember her dream and be of good cheer, for when bale is highest boot shall be nighest. The days of grace being out, and no champion found, the queen is put into a tun to burn, and looks only for death. At this moment a child is seen riding from the east, who, when he comes to the fire, or[Pg 34]ders the brands to be withdrawn and Aldingar to be produced. Aldingar, a very large man, would not have minded fifty such. The child claims the first stroke, and if Aldingar can give a second he need not spare him. Aldingar's legs are cut off at the knee with this stroke. Aldingar asks for a priest to shrive him, confesses everything, and begs the queen's forgiveness. The child enjoins King Harry to take back his wife and love her, for she is true as stone; the lazar under the gallows becomes a sound man at the same instant, and is made steward in Aldingar's place.

The Scottish ballad repeats the main part of this story, dropping all that is miraculous save the simple judgment of God. Rodingham, who represents Aldingar, does not cajole the leper with the promise of being restored to health, but intoxicates him with sweet liquors, and lays him asleep in the queen's bed. The king wishes to believe the queen guiltless, and proposes that she shall find a champion. The champion is an ordinary knight; the leper is neither better nor worse for the part he is made to play; and the knight is rewarded with a gift of lands. That the Scottish ballad is the original of the English is a singularly unhappy idea of Sir Walter Scott's, and it is hard to conceive what suggested such a notion, unless it were the allegation that the sword with which Sir Hugh defended the queen's honor was until a late day producible by his posterity, whereas no one pretends to have the other. But Sir Walter could not seriously have credited this tradition, for he himself observes that there is no instance in history in which the honor of a queen of Scotland was committed to the chance of a duel.

Cousin to the English ballad is the Scandinavian 'Ravengaard og Memering,' Grundtvig, No 13, I, 177-213, 426 f, II, 640-45, III, 779-82, IV, 722-31. There are eleven versions in all, besides a Norwegian copy, extant at the end of the last century, of which now only the story is at our command. Eight of the eleven texts are Danish, A-C, G-L. A is from a manuscript of the middle of the sixteenth century, and so a hundred years older than 'Sir Aldingar.' The other Danish copies are from recent tradition,[32] and so are Färöe D, E. An Icelandic version, F, is from a seventeenth-century manuscript.

The old Danish ballad affords the following story. Gunild [Gunder] lives at Spire, and many nobles from all quarters of the compass sue for her hand, which Henry, Duke of Brunswick and Schleswig, obtains. Henry, going to the wars, commits to Ravengaard the protection of his land, and especially of his wife. But no sooner is the duke fairly away than Ravengaard goes to "the queen," and demands of her the sword Adelring, which she has in keeping. This being refused, Ravengaard threatens that he will tell false tales of her, but the lady is not intimidated. The duke comes home, and asks Ravengaard how things are. The country remains as it was, but Gunild has been acting ill. The duke will not believe anything wrong of Gunild; but Ravengaard affirms that he has seen the archbishop with her with his own eyes. Henry, after repeating this charge to Gunild, beats her severely, and nobody dares come to the rescue, or to speak for her, save two ladies of the court, who maintain that Ravengaard has lied. Then let her find a man who will fight with him, says the duke. Bare-headed and bare-foot Gunild goes to the hall where the knights are drinking. They all rise; but when she asks, Is there anybody here who will fight for a woman? there is no response except from Memering. He had served her father fifteen years; never had he seen her so wretched, bare-shouldered, bare-foot. Ravengaard had had more of her father's bounty than anybody, and he has been the first to betray her. Memering had always been last when gifts were giving; but he will go into the lists for her if he can have the sword Adelring, and this Gunild promises him. A ring[Pg 35] is marked on the ground for the fight. Ravengaard requires Memering to swear that he knows not of the sword Adelring. Memering (who has thrust the blade into the earth) swears that he does not know of more than the hilt being above ground, and exacts in turn that Ravengaard shall swear that he has no knowledge of the sword Sudevind [Saadering], to which Ravengaard makes oath without qualification. With the first blow Ravengaard cuts Memering's sword in two. This shows, says the duke, what deeds you have been doing. Memering strikes, and cuts Ravengaard's sword in two. Ravengaard asks his adversary to wait a moment till he can tie his shoe, stoops, and picks up the sword Sudevind; for which perjury, says Memering, thy foul soul is lost. Ravengaard now cuts a second sword of Memering's in two. Memering asks for time to tie his shoe, stoops down, and produces the sword Adelring; for which perjury, says Ravengaard, thy foul soul is lost. But Memering had been careful to swear with circumstance: he had sworn that he knew of nothing but the hilt being above ground. With one stroke he cuts Sudevind in two, and with a second Ravengaard's neck. And now Gunild may say to the duke, You see Ravengaard lied. Henry begs forgiveness. Memering, who has a broken head and leg, demands nothing more than bread the rest of his days, but Gunild says she will herself be his leech, and he shall have both bread to eat and scarlet to wear.

The trick of reserving a peculiarly formidable sword is a commonplace in northern sagas,[33] and we are not obliged to suppose that it belonged to the ballad from the beginning. No trace of it is found in the other Scandinavian versions.

The Danish versions from recent oral tradition, B, C, G-L, relate that Henry, going off on an expedition, commits Gunild to the care of Ravnlil, who forthwith demands that she shall do his will, otherwise he will tell a great lie about her. She trusts in the triumph of honesty, and defies him. Henry comes back, and inquires of Ravnlil about his wife, and Ravnlil tells his great lie: Gunild spares neither monk nor priest; he has seen the archbishop with her, C. Henry seizes Gunild by the hair, throws her to the ground and beats her; thus shall she be served till she find a kemp that will fight for her. Gunild goes to the kemp-house, and asks if there is any man that will fight for a woman. None who will fight for a whore, H, K. Memering jumps over the table, B, G, I, and offers to be her champion. At the first shock in the lists Memering's horse is brought to his knees; in the second encounter Memering takes off Ravnlil's head. Henry offers tons of gold to redeem Gunild. Shame befall him that sells her, says Memering, and rides off with Gunild, leaving Henry wringing his hands.

K, like A, represents that Gunild was wooed from all quarters before she was won by Henry. Memering, who sits lowest at the board, says to Gunild, as in A 20-23, that he had served her father eleven years, and never seen her with bare feet. In C Memering finds Gunild weeping, and, learning the reason, asks the loan of her father's horse, receives horse and armor of proof, goes where the kemps are drinking, and challenges the slanderer. The burly villain says he will take him in his left hand and chuck him out of the country, crush all his limbs with his little finger. After the fight, Memering presents Gunild with "the head that has belied her," and she carries it to Henry, who asks in wonder, Who in all my land has hewn down a man so big? Memering, the least of men, she says. Henry offers him his Sudselille, his Strudselille, his[Pg 36] Spire, but will have Gunild for his own. Memering bids him keep his gifts; he will not resign Gunild, whom he has won. The diminutive size of Memering is noted also in B, H, I, K, and the hugeness of Ravnlil in B, G, I. In H Memering knocks off his opponent's hat in the first bout, and the head follows in the second. Now we will ride off, says Memering to Gunild; but Gunild will not budge till she has had vengeance on Henry.

The Norwegian story has lost the beginning, but agrees well with the Danish so far as it goes. Gunild goes into the kemps' hall, and asks if any man dare fight for a woman against huge Ronnegaar. All are silent but Mimmer, smallest of Christian men, who offers himself. Gunild holds him cheap for his low stature, and says he had better stay at home and keep his sheep; but he, not rebuffed, mounts his horse, seeks out Ronnegaar, and, after a three days' fight, vanquishes him and cuts off his head, which he ties to his saddle-bow and brings back in triumph.

The Icelandic ballad is in accord with the Danish until we come to the judicium dei, and then an ordeal by hot iron takes the place of the combat. So with the two Färöe copies, which, however, mix both forms, and inconsistently bring in Memering, with nothing for him to do. King Diderik replaces Henry in all three, but Spire remains the place of the action. When the returning king asks after Gunild, he is told that the archbishop has been seen lying with her, or the bishop's brother, and others besides. He seizes her by the hair and drags her from her bed, F, beats her for two days, E, F, and a third, and no one dares interfere. At last two of his children beg him to stop, D, E; ask what their mother has done, F. She has been untrue. Then let her carry iron and walk on steel. Nine times she carries iron and ten times she walks on steel, F. The conclusion is very much injured in all these copies. In the Icelandic, F, "all her iron bands fall off;" her accuser goes to infernal punishment, and she to heaven. In D, E, after the children have asked for the ordeal by fire, Gunild goes to the strand, or along the street, and meets Mimmering, smallest of Christian men, E, who says he has served her father eight years, and never saw her in such wretched plight. She then goes to another land, D; Mimmering takes her from heathen land (which at least makes him of some use), E; when she enters a church her iron bands burst. She is making gifts of a Yule day, and gives her traducer a red ring, meaning a rope round his neck.

The names of the four actors in the Scandinavian versions are: Henry, as in English, in all the Danish copies,[34] replaced by King Diderik in Färöe D, E, Icelandic F; Gunild, or Gunder, Gunni, Gunde, in all copies, including the Norwegian; Memering, Mimmering, in all but the Norwegian and Danish H, which have the slight modifications Mimmer, Nimmering, these last, as also Färöe D, E, adding the suffix Tand. There is considerable variety, always with some likeness, in the fourth name: Raffuengaard, Danish A; Röngård, H; Ronnegaar, the Norwegian; Ravnlil, B, G, K, L, Ravnhild, I; Rundkrud Hagensgaard, C; Roysningur, Färöe D, E; Rögnvaldr, Icelandic F. Ravengaard, Röngård, Ronnegaar, with the Anglo-Latin Rodingar, presently to be mentioned, are evidently the forerunners of the English Aldingar (Sir Raldingar) and Rodingham.[35] The English Eleanor is probably a later substitution for Gunild, become unfamiliar. Eleanor may have been meant or understood for Henry Second's queen (less likely for Henry Third's, though she went into a monastery), but considering how freely the name is dealt with in English ballads, the question is hardly worth raising, and assuredly it never was raised except by editors.[36]

Memering is of diminutive size in B-E,[Pg 37] H-K, the smallest of Christian men in E, and also in the Norwegian copy.[37] The large size of his antagonist is noted in B, C, G, I, and the Norwegian copy. His representative in English A seems no more in a man's likeness than a child of four years old. Aldingar would not have recked had there been half a hundred such; and Aldingar is as big as a fooder, "a tun of man," like Falstaff, though not so unwieldy.

Gunhild, daughter of Cnut the Great and Emma, was married in 1036 to King Henry, afterwards the Emperor Henry III, and died of the plague at Ravenna two years later, never having had any trouble with her husband. William of Malmesbury, who died only a little more than a hundred years after Gunhild, 1142 or 1143, writes of her as follows: She was a girl of extraordinary beauty, and had been sighed for in vain by many suitors before her hand was bestowed upon Henry. She was attended to the ship which was to take her to her husband by a procession so splendid that it was still in William's day the theme of popular song. After many years of married life she was denounced for adultery, and offered as her champion against her accuser (who was a man of gigantic bulk), others refusing, a mere boy that she had brought with her from England, who by miracle hamstrung her defamer. Gunhild then could not be induced by threats or blandishments to live longer with her husband, but took the veil, and passed the remainder of a long life in the service of God.[38]

It will be recognized that we have in this narrative many points of the English and Danish ballad: the beauty of the queen, English A 2; her numerous suitors, Danish A, K; the youth or under size of the queen's champion, who had previously been in the service of her family, and the huge dimensions of the other party; the triumph of weakness and innocence, and Gunhild's separating herself from Henry, Danish B, C, G-L. Nor can we well doubt that William of Malmesbury was citing a ballad, for the queen's wonderful deliverance in so desperate an extremity would be even more likely to be celebrated in popular song than her magnificent wedding, and a ballad is known to have been made upon a similar and equally fabulous adventure which is alleged in chronicle to have occurred to Gunhild's mother.

Malmesbury does not mention the names of the combatants, though he may very well have known them. These names are supplied by a French metrical life of Edward the Confessor, "translatée du Latin," of which the manuscript must have been written before 1272, and may, perhaps, be dated as early as 1245. In this poem we are told that Gunhild, having been calumniated to her husband, the Emperor Henry, was obliged by the custom of the empire to purge herself by battle, and with difficulty could find a champion, because her accuser was of gigantic size. But a dwarf, whom she had brought up, by name Mimecan,[39] undertook to fight for her, hamstrung the giant at the first blow, and at the second cut off his feet, "as the history says." The lady, thus acquitted, declined to have the emperor for her lord. The other name is given in verses describing a picture of the combat, one of many illustrations which adorn the manuscript: How the dwarf Mimecan, to redeem the honor of his mistress, fights with the huge old Rodegan, and cuts off his feet; where Rodegan is, perhaps, an adaptation of Rodingar, for rhyme's sake;[40] but we have Rodyngham in English B.

In The Chronica Majora of Matthew Paris, I, 515, ed. Luard, manuscript of the beginning of the fourteenth century, the passage in Malmesbury is repeated, with additions from other sources. The name of Gunhild's cham[Pg 38]pion is given as Mimecan, and the dwarf is further said to have cut off the giant's head, as in the Norwegian version of the ballad and Danish C, and to have presented it to his mistress, as in Danish C. Brompton's Chronicle, of the second half of the fourteenth century, reiterates the story of the duel, giving the names of both combatants, Mimecan (misprinted or misread Municon) and Roddyngar.[41]

It is highly probable that this story became connected with Gunhild, wife of Henry III, in consequence of her bearing the name Cunigund after her marriage, owing to which circumstance she might become confused with the consort of the Emperor St Henry II, St Cunigund, in whose legendary history there is a passage essentially similar. St Cunigund's married life extended from 1002 to 1024. After Henry's death she retired to a nunnery, and she died "in the service of God," 1033, which corresponds with what Malmesbury says of Gunhild. Notwithstanding the mutual asceticism of the imperial pair, reports obtained, instigated by the devil, that Cunigund had doubly broken her vows, nor did these fail to make an impression on her husband's mind. To justify herself, Cunigund offered to walk barefoot over red-hot ploughshares, or, according to another account, to carry red-hot iron in her hands, and she went through the test without injury.[42] This form of ordeal is of the nature of what is suggested in the Färöe and the Icelandic ballad, and executed in the latter, where Gunild both walks over hot steel and carries hot iron in her hands.

Emma, Gunhild's mother, had the misfortune to be subjected to the same aspersions as her daughter and the Empress Cunigund, and was favored with the like glorious vindication. Accused of having a bishop for her lover, she asked to be submitted to the ordeal of hot iron, and walked over nine glowing ploughshares, in the church of St Swithin, Winchester, not only without injury, but even without the consciousness of what she had done.[43] We are expressly informed that a ballad on the subject was sung by a minstrel in the hall of the prior of St Swithin on the occasion of a visit of the Bishop of Winchester in 1338, in conjunction with another about the giant Colbrand.[44]

Earlier instances of a miraculous exoneration, under similar circumstances, are those of Richarda, or Richardis, wife of the Emperor Charles III, 887, and of Gundeberg, wife of the Lombard king Arioald, c. 630.

Richarda, accused of adultery with a bishop, protests, like Cunigund, not only her innocence of crime, but her intact virginity after a marriage of ten or twelve years, and offers herself to the judgment of God, either by duel or hot ploughshares; or actually proves her integrity by some form of ordeal, divino [aquino] judicio, or by passing through fire in[Pg 39] a waxed shift, or donning a wax shift, which is set on fire at her hands and feet. Disculpated thus, she goes, like Cunigund, into a monastery for the rest of her days.[45]

Gundeberg happening to praise a certain nobleman's figure, he solicited her in shameless style, and was most contemptuously rejected. Upon this he tells the king that Gundeberg means to poison her husband and take another man, and the queen is put under confinement. Remonstrance is made by the king of the Franks, to which race Gundberg belongs, and Arioald consents to allow her to clear herself by a champion. One Pitto (otherwise Carellus) fights with the accuser and kills him.[46] If Pitto, as Bugge has suggested, and as seems more than plausible, be Little (old Italian pitetto, etc.), then the root of the Scandinavian-English story is found in the early part of the seventh century. The name Carellus may also be a significant diminutive.

Henry, in the Scandinavian ballad, accepts the testimony of the man in whose charge he had left Gunild, without asking for proof. Circumstantial evidence is offered in the English ballad; the false steward shows the king a leper lying in the queen's bed. Aldingar induces the leper to conform to his orders by promising that he shall be a sound man in two hours. Rodyngham gives the leper a drink, and lays him in the bed asleep. The queen, to the advantage of good taste, but to the detriment of the proof, is not there in either case.

We have here a link with the story of Oliva, or Sibilla, in the Charlemagne cycle of fictions. We may begin with the second section of the Karlamagnus saga, because we know that it was translated from an English copy brought home by a Norseman resident in Scotland in 1287.

Olif is here sister to Charles, and married to King Hugo. Going to the chase, Hugo leaves his wife in the care of his steward, Milon, who had long had a passion for her, and takes advantage of this occasion to declare it. The queen threatens to have him hanged. Milon goes home, puts a potion in a mazer, returns to the queen, and, pretending that what he had said was only a jest and meant to try her virtue, asks her, in token of reconciliation, to drink the cup with him. He feigns to begin; the queen follows in earnest, and falls into a dead sleep. He lays her in her bed, administers the same drink to a black beggar, and, when it has had its effect, lays him by the queen, putting the arms of each about the other's neck. When the king comes back he wonders that his wife does not come to meet him, and asks where she is. The steward answers, as in A 8, that the queen has taken a new love, and conducts the king to his chamber. Hugo cuts off the black man's head. Every drop of his blood turns to a burning candle, which makes the king think that he has killed a holy man. But the steward says, Not so; rather she is a witch, that can make stones float and feathers sink, and urges the king, now that his sword is out, to take off the queen's head, too. The king refuses. Olif wakes, and is astounded at what her eyes behold. What means this black man in her bed! God wot, says Milon, he has long been your leman. The queen demands an ordeal, according to the law of the land; and successively proposes that she shall be put naked into a copper over a hot fire, or be thrown from a high tower on sword and spear points, or be taken in a boat out of sight of land and thrown into the water. The king is each time disposed to let her have her way, but is always dissuaded by Milon, who tells him that no such trial would signify anything with a witch of her powers. Hereupon a knight leaps up and knocks Milon down for a liar, and offers to fight him on these terms: Milon to be fully armed and on his best horse,[Pg 40] and the challenger to have no armor, a mule for a steed, and a wooden wand for a weapon. Milon is immediately thrown, but the king is still induced to think this to be more of his wife's magic, calls his best men to council, and bids them determine what death she shall die. There is no further resemblance to our ballad. Karlamagnus Saga, Af Fru Olif ok Landres, Unger, p. 51.

A Färöe ballad, 'Óluvu kvæði,' Hammershaimb, in Antiquarisk Tidsskrift, 1846-48, p. 281, repeats this story with variations, and as we are informed by Grundtvig, I, 201, so do Icelandic rimes, 'Landres rímur,' as yet unprinted. In the Färöe ballad, after Óluva's champion (who had come with her from home, like Memering) has unhorsed her accuser, she passes the ordeal of water and fire triumphantly, and still another.

In the Spanish prose romance of Oliva (printed in 1498) and the French chanson de geste of Doon l'Alemanz (fifteenth-century manuscript), the heroine, who is now Pepin's sister, becomes the victim of slander, not in consequence of her having rebuffed an overweening lover, but because the father or uncle of the arch-traitor Ganelon had been thwarted in his plan to match his daughter or sister with the nobleman upon whom Pepin has bestowed Oliva. It is an ordinary young lad who is put into the lady's bed, and no loathsome leper or beggar. The injured woman asks for the ordeal of fire or of water, and, in the Spanish romance, when these are refused her, to be thrown from a tower. After much difficulty this right is conceded in the latter, and, like Richardis,[47] she walks through a blazing fire, in simple shift, without singeing hair or thread. But all this helps her not. F. Wolf, Ueber die neuesten Leistungen der Franzosen, u. s. w., p. 98 ff; C. Sachs Beiträge, u. s. w., p. 2 ff.

According to other forms of the same story, it is Sibilla, wife of Charles the Great, that is temporarily repudiated by her husband, owing to a false suspicion of unfaithfulness, seemingly justified by an ugly dwarf being found in bed with her. A French romance, which narrated this story, is described in the Chronicle of Alberich, a monk of the cloister of Trois Fontaines, in the diocese of Liége, writing in the first half of the thirteenth century.[48] A fragment of the latter half of such a romance, and of the same age, is preserved. A complete tale is extant in a variety of forms: Hystoria de la reyna Sebílla, in Spanish prose, French by origin, of which a full analysis is given by Ferdinand Wolf, Ueber die neuesten Leistungen, u. s. w., p. 124 ff, from a printed copy dated 1532;[49] a Dutch volksbuch, also from the French, printed not far from the same time, of which an ample account is also given by Wolf in Denkschriften der kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Phil. Hist. Classe, VIII, 180 ff; Macaire, a French romance in verse, of the thirteenth or fourteenth century, Mussafia, Altfranzösische Gedichte aus venezianischen Handschriften, II, Guessard, Les Anciens Poëtes de la France; a German metrical tale of uncertain date, 'Diu Künigin von Frankrich und der ungetriuwe Marschalk,' found in many manuscripts, von der Hagen, Gesammtabenteuer, I, 169, Meyer und Mooyer, Altdeutsche Dichtungen, p. 52; a meisterlied, 'Die Kunigin von Frankreich, dy der marschalk gegen dem Kunig versagen wart,' u. s. w., printed in the fifteenth century, and lately in Wolff's Halle der Völker, II, 255.[50] The king and queen are nameless in the last two, and the queen bears the name of Blançiflor in 'Macaire.' In the two German versions the false marshal repeats the part of the false steward in the English and Norse story; having failed with the queen, he[Pg 41] lays a sleeping dwarf in her bed. The dwarf is principal in the Spanish and Dutch story, and after a discomfiture in which he loses some of his teeth at the vigorous hand of the queen, creeps into her bed while she is asleep. He does the same in the Venetian-French romance, thinking to get vengeance for rough handling from his mistress when acting as Pandarus for Macaire, of whose spite against the queen for rebuking his inordinate passion he is all the while the tool.

Sibilla appears again as Sisibe, daughter of a Spanish king, married to Sigmundr, father of Sigurðr Fáfnisbani. The king, summoned to arms, entrusts her to two of his nobles, one of whom, Hartvin, proposes that she shall accept him as a husband, and is threatened with the gallows. The two represent to the king, on his return, that the queen has had a handsome thrall for her partner during his absence. Hartvin advises that she be relegated to a desolate forest and have her tongue cut out, to which Sigmundr assents. Þiðriks Saga, Unger, p. 159 ff, cc 156-59; Hyltén-Cavallius, p. 115, cc 149-51.

The first part of the English romance of Sir Triamour, or a little more than 600 verses, is derived from some French form of Sibilla. A king going on a crusade to the holy land commits his queen to the care of his steward; the steward sues the queen to accept him as a paramour, and is threatened with hanging; the steward pretends that he has only been proving her, but when the king comes home tells him that he has seen a man lying with the queen, and has slain the traitor; the king is minded to burn his wife, but is advised by the steward rather to banish her; three days are allowed the queen to quit the country, and if found after that she is to die in the fire. Percy Society, vol. XVI, ed. Halliwell; Percy MS., ed. Hales and Furnivall, II, 78; Utterson, Select Pieces of Early Popular Poetry, I, 5.

In like manner, Genoveva's husband is persuaded by the false Golo, who has been charged with the care of her and has abused his trust, that his wife has admitted a cook to her favor; and Octavian's mother, in the English romance, excites her son's resentment against his innocent queen by inducing a scullion, "lothly of face," to get into the empress's bed: Weber, III, 163, v. 153 ff.[51]

Another series of tales, that has likeness in parts with the story of Gunhild and of Sibilla, is represented in English by the pleasing romance of The Erl of Tolous,[52] dating from about 1400.

We read in this lay of Britain, as it is called in the last stanza, that Barnard, Earl of Toulouse, has become enamored of the Empress of Germany, with whose lord he is at strife, and has excited a certain interest in the mind of the lady. The emperor selects two knights to guard his wife; these conceive a violent passion for her, and declare it, one after the other, after having obtained from her a promise of secrecy. She tells the first that he is a traitor and deserves to be hanged, and the second that he should be hanged had she not hight to hold counsel. These knights, who have been in collusion from the first, think themselves unsafe, notwithstanding the empress's promise, and conspire to be her ruin. They induce a young gentleman, for a jest, to strip himself all but bare, and hide behind a curtain in her chamber while she is sleeping; then summon "lords of bed" to help take a traitor who is with their lady in her bower, find the young man where they had put him, and bear him through the body. The lady is cast into prison. Her husband, who is far off, has a dream of two wild bears tearing his wife to pieces, and returns home with all haste. The knights tell their story. A council is called the next day, and it is decided that the empress must die (be burned). An old knight calls attention to the circumstance that the young man's tongue is stopped, and that none ever found a fault in the lady before; he advises that proclamation be made for a champion, to which the king, who loves his wife[Pg 42] tenderly, gladly assents. The Earl of Toulouse hears of the lady's peril, and resolves to go to Germany and fight for her. This, as being on hostile terms with the emperor, he must do in disguise. By the help of an abbot, who is the empress's uncle, he obtains admission to the lady in a monk's dress, hears her shrift, and assures himself of her innocence; and then, monk as he seems, offers to do battle with the accusers. One is run through, the other yields as recreant and confesses the plot, and both are burned. The monk is revealed by the abbot, under a pledge that he shall receive no injury, to be Sir Barnard of Toulouse. The emperor treats his late foe graciously, and rewards him, even to the extent of dying in three years, when the earl is chosen his successor and weds the empress.

Of this story the following are repetitions, with variations: (1) Miracle de la Marquise de Gaudine, MS. of about 1400, Paris et Robert, Miracles de Notre Dame, II, 121 ff; (2) the German Volksbuch, Eine schöne und liebliche History vom edlen und theuren Ritter Galmien, printed 1539 or earlier, upon which Hans Sachs founded his play Der Ritter Galmi mit der Hertzogin auss Britanien, Keller, VIII, 261; (3) the Danish poem Den kydske Dronning, by Jeppe Jensen, 1483, Brandt, Romantisk Digtning, II, 89 ff; (4) a tale of Bandello, Second Part, No 44, Amore di Don Giovanni di Mendozza e della Duchessa di Savoia, printed 1554; (5) the French prose-romance L'Histoire de Palanus, Comte de Lyon, ed. A. de Terrebasse, 1833, put before 1539. In (1) a dwarf is made to conceal himself in the lady's chamber; in (2) a scullion to boast that he is the object of her passion; in (3) a servitor is the instrument of treachery; in (4) a young gentleman; in (5) this machinery is dropped, and a slanderous letter does the mischief. In none of these is the lady a German empress; in (5) she is an English queen; in (2) of British birth. In all there is a reciprocal predilection on the part of the lady and her champion.

Spanish and Provençal chroniclers and a Spanish ballad relate a story substantially according with what we find in The Earl of Toulouse, the injured heroine being an empress of Germany, and her champion a count, in all cases but one Count Ramon of Barcelona.

In the Spanish ballad 'Romance de cómo el conde don Ramon de Barcelona libró á la emperatriz de Alemaña que la tenian para quemar,' Duran, Romancero, II, 210, No 1228, Wolf y Hofmann, Primavera, II, 102, from the Silva de Romances of 1550, two knights, with no motive given but their own wickedness, tell the emperor that they have seen the empress toying with her chamberlain. The empress is imprisoned, and casts about for two knights to defend her life against the accusers. In all the chivalry of the court there is none that will venture against appellants so redoubtable, and she is to be burned in three days. The Count of Barcelona hears the distressing intelligence, and sets out to the rescue. No one being admitted to the lady except her confessor, the count makes known to the holy father that he has come for the defence, and begs, if possible, that he may first have a word with her majesty. He has an interview, in the guise of a monk, and is properly welcomed by the empress, who expresses her confidence that he will succeed in establishing her innocence, but will not permit him even to kiss hands. Asking only to take his adversaries one at a time, the count speedily disposes of the first, when the other surrenders. The emperor, delighted with the result, wishes to show due honor to the champion, who, however, is not to be found, having returned to his estates immediately after the fight; nor is the empress at liberty to tell who he is until the third day. He is then revealed to be the flower of chivalry, the lord of Catalonia. The empress, with the approval of her husband, goes to Barcelona, attended by a magnificent train and under conduct of two cardinals, to express her gratitude in person, and is very splendidly received and entertained.

The oldest of the chroniclers, the Catalan Bernart Desclot, writing about 1300, ascribes the misfortune of the empress to a harmless partiality for a young nobleman, which was misrepresented to the emperor by two of his[Pg 43] councillors, out of envy and spite.[53] The empress is allowed a year and a day to find a champion, in default of which she is to be burned. None of the knights to whom she has shown kindness dare offer themselves in her cause, on account of the high favor in which her accusers, who engage to make good their charge by battle, stand with their master. But a minstrel attached to the court takes it in hand to find her a defender, goes to Barcelona, and so interests the count in the case that he sets out immediately for Germany. Carbonell, c. 1500, Beuter, c. 1530, and Pujades, † 1635, all of whom rely in part on popular tradition, make the count to be Ramon Berengar III, and Beuter says that, according to the Catalans, the empress was Matilda, daughter of Henry I of England, who was married to the emperor Henry V in 1114.[54]

Provençal chronicles, Cæsar de Nostradamus's Histoire et chronique de Provence, 1614, and La Royalle Couronne des Roys d'Arles, 1641, return to the baffled steward or maître d'hôtel and his revenge. The empress is Matilda in Nostradamus, as in Beuter, and the steward simply accuses her of adultery, and offers to sustain the charge by battle. No one dares to defend the lady, because the accuser is un fort rude et dangereux champion. The steward is hanged after his defeat. In La Royalle Couronne des Roys d'Arles the emperor is said to be Henry III and the empress Matilde, fille de Camet, qui avoit esté roy de Dannemarc et estoit roy d'Angleterre. The emperor Henry V was as king of Arles Henry III. Camet, whether miswritten or not, can mean only Canut, and there is an obvious confusion between Gunild, daughter of Cnut, wife of Henry III of Germany, and Matilda, daughter of Henry I of England, wife of Henry III of Arles and V of Germany.[55] This may be an historical blunder, pure and simple, or may have been occasioned by a knowledge of the tradition concerning Gunild.

There is little or nothing in all these tales that can be historically authenticated, and much that is in plain contradiction with history.[56] Putting history out of the question, there is no footing firmer than air for him who would essay to trace the order of the development. Even if we exaggerate the poverty of[Pg 44] human invention so far as to assume that there must have been a single source for stories so numerous and so diversified in the details, a simple exposition of the subject-matter, with subordinate connections, seems all that it is safe, at present, to attempt.[57]

A is translated, according to Percy's Reliques, by Bothe, p. 175, and by Knortz, Lieder u. Romanzen Altenglands, No 68; B by Gerhard, p. 71. The old Danish ballad, Grundtvig's A, by Dr Prior, I, 151.

A

B

C

A.

B.

[Pg 49]

60
KING ESTMERE

'King Estmere' occurred at page 249 of Percy's folio manuscript, but the three leaves on which it was written were "unfortunately torn out" by Percy to send to the press, and the genuine form of the ballad thereby put beyond recovery. In the second and later editions of the Reliques the editor professes to give the ballad from two copies ("containing very great variations," 1794), one of them being that of the folio. But here and elsewhere Percy employs a singular periphrasis, as he has explained to us in the preface to the Reliques, and means only that he has amended his original more or less. Notwithstanding the seemingly explicit language, there is no second copy at all.[58]

We are told by Percy, in a note to stanza 63, that though liberties have been taken with that portion of the ballad which follows, yet wherever the fourth edition differs from the preceding ones it has been brought nearer to the folio.[59] Some notes of readings of the folio are also furnished in the fourth edition (and are here restored), which were not given in the others. While we cannot but be vexed that so distinguished a ballad, not injured much, so far as we can see, by time, should not come down to us as it came to Percy, our loss must not be exaggerated. The changes made by the editor, numerous enough, no doubt, cannot be very material until we approach the end. Stanzas 63-66 are entirely suspicious, and it may even be questioned whether the manuscript contained a word that is in them.

The name of Bremor, son of the king of Spain, and "a heathen hound" (if this be not Percy's interpolation), taken with certain resemblances in the story, very naturally suggested to Professor Sophus Bugge (Grundtvig, IV, 704) a connection between this ballad and 'Young Orm and Bermer-Giant,' 'Orm Ungersvend og Bermer-Rise.'[60] The giant, who is described as a rabid berserker, presents himself at the Danish court (Grundtvig, A), and demands that the king shall give him his daughter and half his land, or find a man who will fight in the ring with him. The king refuses daughter and land, and says he will find a champion. He offers the chance of winning so fair a may to his men, and no one dares say a word except Young Orm, who sits low[Pg 50]est at the board: he will be the man. But first Orm provides himself with an irresistible sword, which is buried in his father's tomb, and is yielded by the dead man only upon the condition that his son shall take the revenge due for his death. With this sword Orm, like the child in 'Sir Aldingar,' cuts the giant through at the knees, being, he says, not tall enough to strike higher. He then goes to Iceland, and fights three days with the men who had slain his father, but without prevailing. A mermaid, from the sea-bottom, cries out to him that his sword is under a spell, and that he must whirl it three times round his head and then stick the point in the ground. This done, he has no difficulty in despatching his foes. He returns to the Danish court, and marries the princess.

The likeness between the English ballad and the Danish (which represents well enough the other Norse poems) is that a youthful champion wins a king's daughter by killing a truculent competitor, who has nearly the same name in both (Bremor, Bermer).

Further consideration led Bugge to maintain that the proper subject of 'King Estmere' is rather the story of Hjalmar, Odd and Anganty, and that the English ballad is better represented by the tragic Färöe ballad of 'Arngrim's Sons' than by 'Orm and Bermer-Giant,' which last he regards as a free reconstruction of an earlier and fuller form of 'Arngrim's Sons' than has come down to us. The points in which the story of Hjalmar, Odd and Anganty[61] is like 'King Estmere,' in contrast with the Orm ballad, are that the hero does not fight single-handed with the giant, but has the help of Odd (Adler); that the king's daughter chooses her husband for herself; that the bride is not won by a sword taken from a father's grave. The argument is, however, much too intricate and too long to be repeated here, even had the subtle and accomplished advocate shown full confidence in the conclusion.

But this confidence he does not feel, for, as he conceives, King Estmere again exhibits resemblances to 'Ogier le Danois,' the basis of the Danish ballad 'Holger Danske og Burmand,' Grundtvig, No 30.[62] The name Adler, says Bugge, is about as near to Ogier, Oddgeir, as to Oddr. Adler's brother, Estmere, might be the chivalrous paynim Karaheus, despite the unlike name, and King Adland's daughter the amiral's daughter Gloriande, the beloved of Karaheus. Brunamons of Majorca, to whom the amiral offers his daughter after the defection of Karaheus, may be Bremer of Spain. Ogier, like Adler (in Percy's edition), kills the hateful interloper, and Karaheus, like Estmere, gets the lady, but without taking part in the fight. If this hypothesis is not quite so satisfactory as the other, we may combine both. The English ballad may have been derived from some form of 'Arngrim's Sons,' but have been modified under the influence of 'Ogier le Danois.'[63]

A brief statement of these speculations may suffice in view of their inconclusiveness, which is the greater by reason of our not knowing to what extent Percy interfered with his manuscript.

The names Adler and Estmere appear again in a short romance in the Percy manuscript, Hales and Furnivall, II, 296. The story is that of Hugdietrich in the Heldenbuch: von der Hagen, I, 169, ed. 1855, Amelung and Jänicke, I, 167; given by Weber in Illustrations of Northern Antiquities, p. 63. Adler is a king, and, like Estmere in the ballad, is exacting in the matter of a wife. In the Heldenbuch it is not the young man who is so difficult to suit, but his guardian. Estmere (v. 11, where there is corruption or defect) appears to be Adler's messenger to King Ardine, the father of a lady who answers all require[Pg 51]ments, and who, as it turns out, likes Adler, but is not to be had on easy terms.[64]

'King Estmere' begins very much like the Danish ballad, 'Den farlige Jomfru,' Grundtvig, No 184, and especially like version D.

For knights and others to ride into hall, and up to the high board, is quite according to use. Every one will remember the passage in Chaucer's Squire's Tale, vv 30 ff. So again in Sir Perceval, Thornton Romances, p. 19, xxxi; Sir Degrevant, the same, p. 227, lxxvi; Libius Disconius, Percy MS., Hales and Furnivall, II, 486, v. 1951 (Skeat); Madden's Syr Gawayne, p. 8 ff, p. 111, v. 332; Perceval le Gallois, ed. Potvin, II, 125, vv 12,640-50; Messire Gauvain, p. 27, p. 146; Mabinogion, I, 70, 303 f, II, 257; Stowe's Survey of London (vol. II, book VI, p. 48, ed. 1720, following Walsingham), cited by Percy in his Essay on the Ancient Minstrels, Reliques, I, xli, lxxxvii, ed. 1794; Warton's History of English Poetry, II, 172, note d, ed. 1840.

The champion of England formerly rode into Westminster Hall in the coronation ceremony, but this part of the spectacle was omitted from the two last coronations.

King Estmere stables his steed at the hall board. Here again the minstrel is within the bounds of custom. "On voyait au moyen âge, dans la salle des chefs gallois, d'énormes crampons de fer, fixés au pavé de distance en distance, qui servaient aux chevaliers pour attacher leurs chevaux, car ils y entraient souvent avec eux; quelques-uns les conduisaient même jusque dans leur chambre à coucher:" Villemarqué, Les Romans de la Table Ronde, etc., 1860, p. 416 (cited by Liebrecht).

For bribing to secrecy with an arm-ring, stanza 47, see, also, Grundtvig, No 82, A 14, 15, B 20, 21; No 95, D 16, 17, Kristensen, I, No 96, 16; Grundtvig, No 233, A 18, B 12, D 13; No 274, A 21.

Translated by Grundtvig, Engelske og skotske Folkeviser, p. 1; by Bodmer, I, 27; Herder, I, 195; Knortz, L. u. R. Alt-Englands, No 14.

a.

b.