"English and Scottish Ballads"

No incident is more common in romantic fiction, than the employment of some magical contrivance as a test of conjugal fidelity, or of constancy in love. In some romances of the Round Table, and tales founded upon them, this experiment is performed by means either of an enchanted horn, of such properties that no dishonoured husband or unfaithful wife can drink from it without spilling, or of a mantle which will fit none but chaste women. The earliest known instances of the use of these ordeals are afforded by the Lai du Corn, by Robert Bikez, a French minstrel of the twelfth or thirteenth century, and the Fabliau du Mantel Mautaillé, which, in the opinion of a competent critic, dates from the second half of the thirteenth century, and is only the older lay worked up into a new shape. (Wolf, Ueber die Lais, 327, sq., 342, sq.) We are not to suppose, however, that either of these pieces presents us with the primitive form of this humorous invention. Robert Bikez tells us that he learned his story from an abbot, and that "noble ecclesiast" stood but one further back in a line of tradition which curiosity will never follow to its source. We shall content ourselves with noticing the most remarkable cases of the use of these and similar talismans in imaginative literature.

In the Roman de Tristan, a composition of unknown antiquity, the frailty of nearly all the ladies at the court of King Marc is exposed by their essaying a draught from the marvellous horn, (see the English Morte Arthur, Southey's ed. i. 297.) In the Roman de Perceval, the knights, as well as the ladies, undergo this probation. From some one of the chivalrous romances Ariosto adopted the wonderful vessel into his Orlando, (xlii. 102, sq., xliii. 31, sq.,) and upon his narrative La Fontaine founded the tale and the comedy of La Coupe Enchantée. In German, we have two versions of the same story,—one, an episode in the Krone of Heinrich vom Türlein, thought to have been borrowed from the Perceval of Chrétien de Troyes, (Die Sage vom Zauberbecher, in Wolf, Ueber die Lais, 378,) and another, which we have not seen, in Bruns, Beiträge zur kritischen Bearbeitung alter Handschriften, ii. 139; while in English, it is represented by the highly amusing "bowrd," which we are about to print, and which we have called The Horn of King Arthur. The forms of the tale of the Mantle are not so numerous. The fabliau already mentioned was reduced to prose in the sixteenth century, and published at Lyons, (in 1577,) as Le Manteau mal taillé, (Legrand's Fabliaux, 3d ed., i. 126,) and under this title, or that of Le Court Mantel, is very well known. An old fragment (Der Mantel) is given in Haupt and Hoffmann's Altdeutsche Blätter, ii. 217, and the story is also in Bruns Beiträge. Lastly, we find the legends of the horn and the mantle united, as in the German ballad Die Ausgleichung, (Des Knaben Wunderhorn, i. 389,) and in the English ballad of The Boy and The Mantle, where a magical knife is added to the other curiosities. All three of these, by the way, are claimed by the Welsh as a part of the insignia of Ancient Britain, and the special property of Tegau Eurvron, the wife of Caradog with the strong arm. (Jones, Bardic Museum, p. 49.)

In other departments of romance, many other objects are endowed with the same or an analogous virtue. In Indian and Persian story, the test of innocence is a red lotus-flower; in Amadis, a garland, which fades on the brow of the unfaithful; in Perceforest, a rose. The Lay of the Rose in Perceforest, is the original (according to Schmidt) of the much-praised tale of Senecé, Camille, ou la Manière de filer le parfait Amour, (1695,)—in which a magician presents a jealous husband with a portrait in wax, that will indicate by change of color the infidelity of his wife,—and suggested the same device in the twenty-first novel of Bandello, (Part First,) on the translation of which in Painter's Palace of Pleasure, (vol. ii. No. 28,) Massinger founded his play of The Picture. Again, in the tale of Zeyn Alasman and the King of the Genii, in the Arabian Nights, the means of proof is a mirror, that reflects only the image of a spotless maiden; in that of the carpenter and the king's daughter, in the Gesta Romanorum, (c. 69,) a shirt, which remains clean and whole as long as both parties are true; in Palmerin of England, a cup of tears, which becomes dark in the hands of an inconstant lover; in the Fairy Queen, the famous girdle of Florimel; in Horn and Rimnild (Ritson, Metrical Romances, iii. 301,) as well as in one or two ballads in this collection, the stone of a ring; in a German ballad, Die Krone der Königin von Afion, (Erlach, Volkslieder der Deutschen, i. 132,) a golden crown, that will fit the head of no incontinent husband. Without pretending to exhaust the subject, we may add three instances of a different kind: the Valley in the romance of Lancelot, which being entered by a faithless lover would hold him imprisoned forever; the Cave in Amadis of Gaul, from which the disloyal were driven by torrents of flame; and the Well in Horn and Rimnild, (ibid.) which was to show the shadow of Horn, if he proved false.

In conclusion, we will barely allude to the singular anecdote related by Herodotus, (ii. 111,) of Phero, the son of Sesostris, in which the experience of King Marc and King Arthur is so curiously anticipated. In the early ages, as Dunlop has remarked, some experiment for ascertaining the fidelity of women, in defect of evidence, seems really to have been resorted to. "By the Levitical law," (Numbers v. 11-31,) continues that accurate writer, "there was prescribed a mode of trial, which consisted in the suspected person drinking water in the tabernacle. The mythological fable of the trial by the Stygian fountain, which disgraced the guilty by the waters rising so as to cover the laurel wreath of the unchaste female who dared the examination, probably had its origin in some of the early institutions of Greece or Egypt. Hence the notion was adopted in the Greek romances, the heroines of which were invariably subjected to a magical test of this nature, which is one of the few particulars in which any similarity of incident can be traced between the Greek novels and the romances of chivalry." See DUNLOP, History of Fiction, London, 1814, i. 239, sq.; LEGRAND, Fabliaux, 3d ed., i. 149, sq., 161; SCHMIDT, Jahrbücher der Literatur, xxix. 121; WOLF, Ueber die Lais, 174-177; and, above all, GRAESSE'S Sagenkreise des Mittelalters, 185, sq.

The Boy and the Mantle was "printed verbatim" from the Percy MS., in the Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, iii. 38.

This amusing piece was first published entire in Hartshorne's Ancient Metrical Tales, p. 209, but with great inaccuracies. It is there called The Cokwolds Daunce. A few extracts had previously been given from the MS., in the Notes to Orfeo and Heurodis, in Laing's Early Popular Poetry of Scotland. Mr. Wright contributed a corrected edition to Karajan's Frühlingsgabe für Freunde älterer Literatur. That work not being at the moment obtainable, the Editor was saved from the necessity of reprinting or amending a faulty text, by the kindness of J.O. Halliwell, Esq., who sent him a collation of Hartshorne's copy with the Oxford manuscript.

This is one of the few ballads contained in the Percy MS., which we have the pleasure of possessing as it is there written. Having first submitted an improved copy, "with large conjectural supplements and corrections," Percy added this old fragment at the end of the volume: "literally and exactly printed, with all its defects, inaccuracies, and errata," in order, as he triumphantly remarks, "that such austere antiquaries as complain that the ancient copies have not been always rigidly adhered to, may see how unfit for publication many of the pieces would have been, if all the blunders, corruptions, and nonsense of illiterate reciters and transcribers had been superstitiously retained, without some attempt to correct and amend them."

"This ballad," the Editor of the Reliques goes on to say, "has most unfortunately suffered by having half of every leaf in this part of the MS. torn away; and, as about nine stanzas generally occur in the half-page now remaining, it is concluded that the other half contained nearly the same number of stanzas." The story may be seen, unmutilated and in an older form, in Madden's Syr Gawayne, p. 298, The Weddynge of Syr Gawen and Dame Ragnell.

The transformation on which the story turns is found also in Chaucer's Wife of Bath's Tale, in Gower's tale of Florent and the King of Sicily's Daughter; (Confessio Amantis, Book I.) in the ballad of King Henry (page 147 of this volume); and in an Icelandic saga of the Danish king Helgius, quoted by Scott in his illustrations to King Henry, Minstrelsy, iii. 274.

Voltaire has employed the same idea in his Ce qui plaît aux Dames, but whence he borrowed it we are unable to say.

Worked over by some ballad-monger of the sixteenth century, and of course reduced to dish-water, this tale has found its way into The Crown Garland of Golden Roses, Part I. p. 68 (Percy Society, vol. vi.), Of a Knight and a Faire Virgin.

"The subject of this ballad is evidently taken from the old romance Morte Arthur, but with some variations, especially in the concluding stanzas; in which the author seems rather to follow the traditions of the old Welsh Bards, who 'believed that King Arthur was not dead, but conveied awaie by the Fairies into some pleasant place, where he should remaine for a time, and then returne againe and reign in as great authority as ever.' (Holinshed, B. 5, c. 14.) Or, as it is expressed in an old chronicle printed at Antwerp, 1493, by Ger. de Leew: 'The Bretons supposen, that he [King Arthur] shall come yet and conquere all Bretaigne, for certes this is the prophicye of Merlyn, He sayd, that his deth shall be doubteous; and sayd soth, for men thereof yet have doubte, and shullen for ever more,—for men wyt not whether that he lyveth or is dede.' See more ancient testimonies in Selden's Notes on Polyolbion, Song 3.

"This fragment, being very incorrect and imperfect in the original MS., hath received some conjectural emendations, and even a supplement of three or four stanzas composed from the romance of Morte Arthur." PERCY.

"We have here a short summary of King Arthur's History as given by Jeff. of Monmouth and the old Chronicles, with the addition of a few circumstances from the romance Morte Arthur.—The ancient chronicle of Ger. de Leew (quoted above in p. 40,) seems to have been chiefly followed: upon the authority of which we have restored some of the names which were corrupted in the MS., and have transposed one stanza, which appeared to be misplaced: viz., that beginning at v. 49, which in the MS. followed v. 36.

This ballad first occurs in the Garland of Good Will, and is attributed to Thomas Deloney, whose career as a song-writer extends from about 1586 to 1600. It is merely a rhymed version of a passage in the Morte D'Arthur, (Book vi. ch. 7, 8, 9, of Southey's ed.) The first two lines are quoted in the Second Part of Henry IV., A. ii. sc. 4.

The present text is nearly that of the Garland of Good Will (Percy Society, vol. xxx. p. 38), and differs considerably from that of Percy, (Reliques, i. 215.) The same, with very trifling variations, is found in Old Ballads, (1723,) ii. 21; Ritson's Ancient Songs, ii. 188; Evans's Old Ballads, ii. 5.

"Published from an ancient MS. copy in the Editor's old folio volume, collated with two printed ones, one of which is in black-letter in the Pepys collection." PERCY.

An inferior copy is printed in Ritson's Ancient Songs and Ballads, ii. 193.

From an essay on the romance of Sir Guy, read by Mr. Wright before the British Archæological Association during its meeting at Warwick, we extract the following remarks in illustration of the history of the present ballad, and other similar popular heroic traditions.

"As the Teutonic tribes progressed in their migrations, and settled in new lands—and especially when they received a new faith, and made advances in civilization,—the mythic romances of their forefathers underwent remarkable modifications to adapt them to new sentiments and new manners. Among people who had forgotten the localities to which they referred, they received a new location and became identified with places and objects with which people were better acquainted, and in this manner they underwent a new historical interpretation. It would be no uninteresting task to point out how many romantic tales that are soberly related of individuals of comparatively modern history, are merely new applications of these early myths.

"Among the romances of the Anglo-Danish cycle by no means the least celebrated is that of GUY OF WARWICK. It is one, of the few, which has been preserved in its Anglo-Norman form, since which it has gone through an extraordinary number of versions, and Chaucer enumerated it among the romances of pris, or those which in the fourteenth century were held in the highest estimation. It is doubtless one of those stories in which an ancient mythic romance has undergone the series of modifications I have been describing; a legend which had become located by popular traditions in the neighbourhood we are now visiting, in which the contests between northern chieftains are changed into tilts and tournaments, but in which the combats with dragons and giants are still preserved. Whatever may have been the name of the original hero, that which he now bears, Guy, is a French name, and could not have been given till Norman times.

"From the Anglo-Norman poem, so great was its popularity, two or three different English metrical versions were made, which are still found in manuscripts, and the earliest of which, that of the well-known Auchinlech manuscript, has been printed in a very expensive form by one of the Scottish Antiquarian clubs. It was next transformed into French prose, and in that form was popular in the fifteenth century, and was printed by some of the earlier printers. It was finally reduced to a popular chap-book in prose and a broadside ballad in verse, and in these forms was hawked about the streets until a very recent period. Such has in general been the fate of the romantic literature of the middle ages; a remarkable proof of the tenacity with which it has kept its hold on the popular mind." Gentleman's Magazine, Sept. 1847, p. 300.

The following rhymed legend, which, like several other pieces in this Book, can be called a ballad only by an objectionable, though common, extension of the term, was printed by Percy (with some alterations) from two "ancient" black-letter copies in the Pepys collection.

Real popular ballads on St. George's victory over the Dragon exist in several languages, though not in English. [2] Such a ballad is known to have been sung by the Swedes at the battle of Brunkeberg in 1471, and one is still sung by the people both of Denmark and Sweden. Grundtvig gives three copies of the Danish ballad, two of the 16th and 17th centuries, and one of the present. Four versions of the Swedish have been published, of various ages (e.g. Svenska Folkvisor, ii. 252). A German ballad is given by Meinert, Altdeutsche Volkslieder, p. 254; after him by Erlach, iv. 258; and Haupt and Schmaler have printed two widely different versions of the ballad in Wendish, Volkslieder der Wenden, vol. i. No. 285, ii. No. 195. These are all the proper traditional ballads upon this subject which are known to be preserved, unless we include a piece called Jürg Drachentödter in Zuccalmaglio's Deutsche Volkslieder, No. 37, which is of suspicious authenticity. The piece called Ritter St. Georg, in Des Knaben Wunderhorn, i. 151, is not a proper ballad, but a rhymed legend, like the one here printed, though intended to be sung.

The hero of these ballads, St. George of Cappadocia, is said to have suffered martyrdom during the persecution in Syria, in the year 303. In the 6th century he was a recognized saint both in the western and the eastern churches, and his reputation was limited to this character until the 13th. Reinbot von Dorn, (1231-53,) in his poem Der Heilige Georg, (Von der Hagen and Büsching's Deutsche Gedichte des Mittelalters,) and Vincent de Beauvais (died 1262) in his Speculum Historiale (XII. 131-32), content themselves with recounting his martyrdom, and appear to know nothing about his fight with the Dragon. The first known writer who attributes this exploit to St. George is Jacobus a Voragine (died 1298), in the Golden Legend. Of course it does not follow that the story originated there. It is probable that the legend of the Dragon arose at the time of the Crusades, and indeed was partly occasioned by them, though we ought not hastily to admit, what has been suggested, that it was founded upon some tradition which the Crusaders heard in Syria.

The Byzantians had long before ascribed various miracles to St. George, but it was the Normans, who, so to say, first pressed him into active military service. It was he that commanded the heavenly host that came to the help of the Crusaders against the Turks, under the walls of Antioch, in the year 1098, on which occasion he was seen on his white horse, bearing the white banner with the red cross. He manifested himself again at the storming of Jerusalem in the following year, and a hundred years later was seen to fight in the front rank against the Moors in Spain, and for Frederic Barbarossa, in his crusade in 1190. But though he had entered into the service of the German emperor, this did not prevent his aiding the orthodox William of Holland in taking Aix-la-Chapelle from the excommunicated Emperor Frederic in 1248.—The most various races have contended for his protection. His feast was in 1222 ordered to be kept as a holiday throughout all England: from the beginning of the 14th century, or since the Mongol dominion was shaken off, he has been one of the guardian saints of Russia: in 1468, the Emperor Frederic III. founded the Austrian Order of St. George for the protection of the Empire against the Turks, and a few years later, in 1471, at the momentous battle of Brunkeberg, his name was the war-cry of both parties, Swedes and Danes.

That the subjugation of the Dragon (a symbolical mode of representing the extinction of Evil common to all times and peoples) should be attributed to St. George, would seem to be sufficiently explained by his having become the Christian Hero of the Middle Ages. A special reason may, however, be alleged for his connection with such a legend. Long before the Crusades, he was depicted by the artists of the Oriental Church as the Great Martyr, with the Dragon (Anti-Christ or the Devil) at his feet, and a crowned virgin (the Church) at his side. In like manner had Constantine the Great had himself drawn, and many other saints are represented in the same way, as Theodore, Victor, and Margaret. This symbolic representation would naturally lead to the Crusaders making St. George the hero in an achievement which was well known in connection with other names: and it would then not be too much to assume that the Normans (who, as already said, were the first to recognize his presence in battle),—the same Normans who were properly the creators of the romantic poetry of the Middle Ages,—were also the first to connect St. George with the conquest of the Dragon.

But however we may account for St. George's being introduced into such a legend, so much is sure; that from the 14th century on, the story and the hero have been inseparable: all the legendaries and all the pictures of him exhibit him as the conqueror of the Dragon: his martyrdom is nearly lost sight of, and in ballads is entirely forgotten.—As to the place which was the scene of the fight, there are many opinions. Some have fixed it in Cappadocia, others in Lybia, others in Syria, and some European nations have assigned the adventure to a locality within their own bounds. Thus the Wallachians lay the scene at Orwoza, one of the Wendish ballads at Berlin, the Germans at Leipsic, the Dutch at Oudenarde, and—the people of the island of Funen at Svendborg!

The Famous Historie of the Seven Champions of Christendom, is the work of Richard Johnson, a ballad maker of some note at the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th century. All that is known of him may be seen in Chappel's Introduction to the Crown Garland of Golden Roses, of which Johnson was the compiler or the author. (Percy Society, vol. vi.) "The Story of St. George and the Fair Sabra," says Percy, "is taken almost verbatim from the old poetical legend of Sir Bevis of Hampton."

The Seven Champions is twice entered on the Stationers' Registers in the year 1596. It is here reprinted from A Collection of Old Ballads, 1723, vol. i. 28. The same copy is in Evans's collection, i. 372.

This beautiful tale is transferred to these pages from Mr. Laing's Select Remains of the Ancient Popular Poetry of Scotland. The two "fytts" of prophecies which accompany it in the manuscripts, are omitted here, as being probably the work of another, and an inferior, hand. From the exordium by which the story is introduced, it might be concluded that the author was an Englishman. Indeed, all the poems and prophecies attributed to Thomas the Rhimer which remain to us, are preserved in English manuscripts and an English dress; but, in the judgment of Mr. Jamieson, the internal evidence still almost amounts to proof that the romance itself was of Scottish origin, although no indubitably Scottish copy is now known to be in existence.

The hero of this legend is believed to have lived through nearly the whole of the 13th century. He derived his territorial appellation from the village of Erceldoune, in the county of Berwick, lying on the river Leader, about two miles above its junction with the Tweed. The Huntly bank on which the meeting of Thomas with the Queen of Fairy took place, is situated, according to Mr. Laing, on one of the Eldoun hills, but the same distinction is claimed for another place of like name, which, together with an adjoining ravine, called from time immemorial the Rymer's Glen, was included in the domain of Abbotsford. (See Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, iv. 110. v. 1.)

"During the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries, to get up a prophecy in the name of Thomas the Rhymer appears to have been found a good stroke of policy on many occasions. Thus was his authority employed to countenance the views of Edward III. against Scottish independence, to favor the ambitious views of the Duke of Albany in the minority of James V., and to sustain the spirits of the nation under the harassing invasions of Henry VIII. A small volume containing a collection of the rhymes thus put into circulation was published by Andro Hart in Edinburgh, in 1615."—CHAMBERS, Pop. Rhymes of Scotland, p. 6.

"This poem," says Mr. Laing, "is preserved in three ancient manuscripts, each of them in a state more or less mutilated, and varying in no inconsiderable degree from the others. A portion of it was first printed in the Border Minstrelsy, [iv. 122,] from the fragment in the British Museum, among the Cotton MSS.; and the one which Mr. Jamieson adopted in his collection of Popular Ballads and Songs [ii. 11,] was carefully deciphered from a volume of no ordinary curiosity, in the University Library, Cambridge, written in a very illegible hand, about the middle of the 15th century. It is now printed from the other copy, as it occurs in a volume, compiled at a still earlier period, which is preserved in the Cathedral Library of Lincoln. On comparison, it will be readily perceived, that the text is in every respect preferable to that of either of the other manuscripts.... An endeavor has been made to fill up the defective parts from the Cambridge copy, though in some instances, as will be seen, without success."—Mr. Halliwell has republished the Cambridge text in his Fairy Mythology, (p. 58,) and he cites a fourth manuscript, which, however, appears to be of slight importance.

Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, (iv. 117.) "Given from a copy obtained from a lady residing not far from Ercildoune, corrected and enlarged by one in Mrs. Brown's MSS."

The Tayl of the Yong Tamlene is mentioned in the Complaynt of Scotland, (1548,) and the dance of Thom of Lyn is noticed in the same work. A considerable fragment of this ballad was printed by Herd, (vol. i. 215,) under the title of Kertonha', a corruption of Carterhaugh; another is furnished in Maidment's New Book of Old Ballads, (p. 54,) and a nearly complete version in Johnson's Museum, (p. 423,) which, with some alterations, was inserted in the Tales of Wonder, (No. 58.) The present edition, prepared by Sir Walter Scott from a collation of various copies, is longer than any other, but was originally disfigured by several supposititious stanzas here omitted. Another version, with Maidment's fragment, will be found in the Appendix to this volume.

"Carterhaugh is a plain, at the conflux of the Ettrick and Yarrow in Selkirkshire, about a mile above Selkirk, and two miles below Newark Castle; a romantic ruin which overhangs the Yarrow, and which is said to have been the habitation of our heroine's father, though others place his residence in the tower of Oakwood. The peasants point out, upon the plain, those electrical rings, which vulgar credulity supposes to be traces of the Fairy revels. Here, they say, were placed the stands of milk, and of water, in which Tamlane was dipped, in order to effect the disenchantment; and upon these spots, according to their mode of expressing themselves, the grass will never grow. Miles Cross, (perhaps a corruption of Mary's Cross,) where fair Janet awaited the arrival of the Fairy train, is said to have stood near the Duke of Buccleuch's seat of Bow-hill, about half a mile from Carterhaugh."—(SCOTT'S Minstrelsy, ii. 334, at the end of a most interesting essay, introductory to this tale, on the Fairies of Popular Superstition.)

V. 157-168, v. 208-214. The same process of disenchantment is found in the Danish ballad Nattergalen, st. 20-22, Grundtvig, No. 57 (also Svenska Folk-visor, No. 41). The comparison with the transformations of Proteus is curious.

Odyssey, iv. 454-59.

Georgics, iv. 405-12.

This ballad will be found, in forms slightly varying, in Herd, (i. 156;) Caw's Poetical Museum, (p. 348;) Motherwell's Minstrelsy, (p. 343;) and Buchan's Ancient Ballads, (i. 263.) It bears some resemblance to the beginning of the remarkable poem, Als Y Yod on ay Mounday, (see Appendix). The present version is from the Poetical Museum.

Reprinted from A Collection of Curious Old Ballads and Miscellaneous Poetry, Edinburgh. David Webster, 1824.

Other versions are given in Motherwell's Minstrelsy, (see the Appendix to this volume;) Kinloch's Ancient Scottish Ballads, (p.145;) Buchan's Ancient Ballads, (ii. 296.)

Similar collections of impossibilities in The Trooper and Fair Maid, Buchan, i. 230; Robin's Tesment, id., i. 273, or Aytoun, 2d ed. ii. 197; As I was walking under a grove, Pills to purge Melancholy, v. 370. See also post, vol. ii. 224, 352, vol. iv. 132, 287; and in German, Von eitel unmöglichen Dingen, Erk's Liederhort, p. 334-37; Uhland, Eitle Dinge, No. 4, A, B; Wunderhorn, ii. 410.

A fragment of this ballad was printed in Herd's Collection, ("I'll wager, I'll wager," i. 226.) The present version is from the Border Minstrelsy, (iii. 28,) and we have added another from Kinloch's Ancient Scottish Ballads. A somewhat longer copy is given in Buchan's Ballads, (ii. 291,) and a modernized English one, of no value, (The West Country Wager,) in Ancient Poems, &c., Percy Society, vol. xvii. p. 116.

Brume, brume on hil, is mentioned in the Complaynt of Scotland, and formed part of Captain Cox's well-known collection.

A Danish ballad exhibits the same theme, though differently treated: Sövnerunerne, Grundtvig, No. 81.

The stanzas below are from an American version of this ballad called The Green Broomfield, printed in a cheap song-book. (Graham's Illustrated Magazine, Sept. 1858.)

This ballad was first printed in the Border Minstrelsy, (vol. iii. p. 230,) "chiefly from Mrs. Brown's MS. with corrections from a recited fragment." Motherwell furnishes a different version, from recitation, (Minstrelsy, p. 374,) which is subjoined to the present, and the well-known ditty of the Laidley Worm of Spindleston-Heugh, upon the same theme, will be found in the Appendix to this volume.

"Such transformations as the song narrates," remarks Sir Walter Scott, "are common in the annals of chivalry. In the 25th and 26th cantos of the second book of the Orlando Inamorato, the Paladin, Brandimarte, after surmounting many obstacles, penetrates into the recesses of an enchanted palace. Here he finds a fair damsel, seated upon a tomb, who announces to him, that, in order to achieve her deliverance, he must raise the lid of the sepulchre, and kiss whatever being should issue forth. The knight, having pledged his faith, proceeds to open the tomb, out of which a monstrous snake issues forth, with a tremendous hiss. Brandimarte, with much reluctance, fulfils the bizarre conditions of the adventure; and the monster is instantly changed into a beautiful Fairy, who loads her deliverer with benefits."

Jomfruen i Ormeham, in Grundtvig's Danmarks Gamle Folkeviser, ii. 177, is essentially the same ballad as Kempion. The characteristic incident of the story (a maiden who has been transformed by her step-mother into a snake or other monster, being restored to her proper shape by the kiss of a knight) is as common in the popular fiction of the North as Scott asserts it to be in chivalrous romance. For instances, see Grundtvig, l.l., and under the closely related Lindormen, ii. 211.

The name Kempion is itself a monument of the relation of our ballads to the Kæmpeviser. Pollard of Pollard Hall, who slew "a venomous serpent which did much harm to man and beast," is called in the modern legend a Champion Knight.

Kemp Owyne, says Motherwell, "was, no doubt, the same Ewein or Owain, ap Urien the king of Reged, who is celebrated by the bards, Taliessin and Llywarch-Hen, as well as in the Welsh historical Triads. In a poem of Gruffyd Llwyd, A.D. 1400, addressed to Owain Glyndwr, is the following allusion to this warrior. 'Thou hast travelled by land and by sea in the conduct of thine affairs, like Owain ap Urien in days of yore, when with activity he encountered the black knight of the water.' [3] His mistress had a ring esteemed one of the thirteen rarities of Britain, which, (like the wondrous ring of Gyges) would render the wearer invisible." Minstrelsy, p. lxxxiii.

The copy of Kemp Owyne printed in Buchan's Ancient Ballads, (ii. 78,) is the same as the following.

A modernized copy of King Henry was published in the Tales of Wonder, (No 57,) under the title of Courteous King Jamie. It first appeared in an ancient dress in the Border Minstrelsy, (iii. 274,} but a version preferable in some respects was given by Jamieson in his Popular Ballads, (ii. 194,) which is here printed, without the editor's interpolations. For a notice of similar legends, see the Marriage of Sir Gawaine, at page 28 of this volume.

This ballad, which is still very popular, is known under various other names, as Bothwell, Child Brenton, Lord Dingwall, We were Sisters, We were Seven, &c. Scott's version was derived principally from recitation, but some of the concluding stanzas were taken from Herd's. Herd's copy, which must be regarded as a fragment, is given in connection with the present, and Buchan's in the Appendix to this volume. Another edition, of a suspicious character, may be seen in Cromek's Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song, (p. 205.) All the principal incidents of the story are found in Ingefred og Gudrune, Danske Viser, No. 194, translated by Jamieson, Illustrations p. 340. More or less imperfect versions of the same are Riddar Olle, Svenska Folk-Visor, ii. p. 217, 59, 56, 215, and Herr Äster och Fröken Sissa, p. 50. The substitution of the maid-servant for the bride, occurs also in Torkild Trundesön, Danske V., No. 200, or Thorkil Troneson, Arwidsson, No. 36. This idea was perhaps derived from Tristan and Isold: see Scott's Sir Tristrem, II. 54, 55.

Printed from Mrs. Brown's MS., in the Border Minstrelsy, vol. iii. p. 170. Another copy is given in Jamieson's Popular Ballads, (ii. 367,) and versions, enlarged and altered from the ancient, in the same work, (ii. 179,) and in Tales of Wonder, No. 56. This ballad bears a striking resemblance to Sir Stig and Lady Torelild, translated from the Danish by Jamieson, Illustrations of Northern Antiquities, p. 344. This is the eighth (marked H) of nine Danish ballads given by Grundtvig, under the title Hustru og Mands Moder, vol. ii. 404. Three Swedish versions have been printed: two in Arwidsson's Fornsånger, Liten Kerstins Förtrollning, ii. 252, and another (Grundtvig) in Cavallius and Stephens's Svenska Folksagor.

"Those who wish to know how an incantation, or charm, of the distressing nature here described, was performed in classic days, may consult the story of Galanthis's Metamorphosis, in Ovid, or the following passage in Apuleius: 'Eadem (saga, scilicet, quædam) amatoris uxorem, quod in eam dicacule probrum dixerat, jam in sarcinam prægnationis, obsepto utero, et repigrato fœtu, perpetua prægnatione damnavit. Et ut cuncti numerant, octo annorum onere, misella illa, velut elephantum paritura, distenditur.' APUL. Metam. lib. i.

"There is a curious tale about a Count of Westeravia, whom a deserted concubine bewitched upon his marriage, so as to preclude all hopes of his becoming a father. The spell continued to operate for three years, till one day, the Count happening to meet with his former mistress, she maliciously asked him about the increase of his family. The Count, conceiving some suspicion from her manner, craftily answered, that God had blessed him with three fine children; on which she exclaimed, like Willie's mother in the ballad, "May heaven confound the old hag, by whose counsel I threw an enchanted pitcher into the draw-well of your palace!" The spell being found, and destroyed, the Count became the father of a numerous family. Hierarchie of the Blessed Angels, p. 474." SCOTT.

The beginning is to be compared with Lindormen, the whole ballad with Jomfruen i Ormeham, Grundtvig's Folkeviser, ii. 213, 177.

It is much to be regretted that this piece has not come down to us in a purer and more ancient form. Similar ballads are found in Danish, Swedish, and Faroish. Several forms of the Danish are given by Grundtvig (Ridderen i Fugleham, No. 68), who also cites many popular tales which have the same basis, e.g. the Countess d'Aulnoy's fairy story of The Blue Bird.

Mr. Kinloch printed a fragment of this ballad under the title of Hynde Etin. (See Appendix.) The story was afterwards given complete by Buchan, (Ballads of the North of Scotland, i. 6,) as here follows. Buchan had previously communicated to Motherwell a modernized version of the same tale, in which the Etin is changed to a Groom. (See post.)

This ancient ballad has suffered severely in the course of its transmission to our times. Still there can be no doubt that it was originally the same as The Maid and the Dwarf King, which is still sung in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and the Faroe Islands. Numerous copies of the Scandinavian ballad have been given to the world: seven Danish versions, more or less complete, four Norse, nine Swedish, one Faroish, and some other fragments (Grundtvig, ii. 37, and note, p. 655). One of the Swedish ballads (Bergkonungen, Afzelius, No. 35) is translated in Keightley's Fairy Mythology, 103, under the title of Proud Margaret. Closely related is Agnete og Havmanden, Grundtvig, ii. 48, 656, which is found in several forms in German (e.g. Die schöne Hannele in Hoffmann von Fallersleben's Schlesische Volkslieder, No. 1), and two in Slavic.

This ballad exemplifies a superstition deeply rooted in the belief of all the northern nations,—the desire of the Elves and Water-spirits for the love of Christians, and the danger of being exposed to their fascination. The object of their fatal passion is generally a bridegroom, or a bride, on the eve of marriage. See, in the Appendix, Sir Oluf and the Elf-King's Daughter, for further illustrations; also the two succeeding pieces.

Clerk Colvill was first printed in Herd's Scottish Songs, (i. 217,) and was inserted, in an altered shape, in Lewis's Tales of Wonder, (No. 56.)

The hero of the first of the two following ballads would seem to be an Elf, that of the second a Nix, or Merman, though the punishment awarded to each of them in the catastrophe, as the ballads now exist, is not consistent with their supernatural character. It is possible that in both instances two independent stories have been blended: but it is curious that the same intermixture should occur in Norse and German also. See Grundtvig's preface to Noekkens Svig, ii. p. 57. The conclusion in all these cases is derived from a ballad resembling May Colvin, vol. ii. p. 272.

We have had the Elf-Knight introduced under the same circumstances at page 128; indeed, the first three or four stanzas are common to both pieces.