Embed Doc
Copy Link
Readcast
Collections

CommentGo Back

Download

A Bundle of BalladsEdited by Henry MorleyCONTENTS.INTRODUCTIONCHEVY CHASECHEVY CHASE (the later version)THE NUT-BROWN MAIDADAM BELL, CLYM OF THE CLOUGH, AND WILLIAM OF CLOUDESLIEBINNORIEKING COPHETUA AND THE BEGGAR MAIDTAKE THY OLD CLOAK ABOUT THEEWILLOW, WILLOW, WILLOWTHE LITTLE WEE MANTHE SPANISH LADY'S LOVEEDWARD, EDWARDROBIN HOODKING EDWARD IV. AND THE TANNER OF TAMWORTHSIR PATRICK SPENSEDOM O' GORDONTHE CHILDREN IN THE WOODTHE BEGGAR'S DAUGHTER OF BETHNAL GREENTHE BAILIFF'S DAUGHTER OF ISLINGTONBARBARA ALLEN'S CRUELTYSWEET WILLIAM'S GHOSTTHE BRAES O' YARROWKEMP OWYNEO'ER THE WATER TO CHARLIEADMIRAL HOSIER'S GHOSTJEMMY DAWSONWILLIAM AND MARGARETELFINLAND WOODCASABIANCAAULD ROBIN GRAYGLOSSARYINTRODUCTION BY THE EDITOR.Recitation with dramatic energy by men whose business it was to travel from onegreat house to another and delight the people by the way, was usual among us from

the first. The scop invented and the glee-man recited heroic legends and othertales to our Anglo-Saxon forefathers. These were followed by the minstrels andother tellers of tales written for the people. They frequented fairs andmerrymakings, spreading the knowledge not only of tales in prose or ballad form,but of appeals also to public sympathy from social reformers.As late as the year 1822, Allan Cunningham, in publishing a collection of"Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry," spoke from his ownrecollection of itinerant story-tellers who were welcomed in the houses of thepeasantry and earned a living by their craft.The earliest story-telling was in recitative. When the old alliteration passed oninto rhyme, and the crowd or rustic fiddle took the place of the old "gleebeam"for accentuation of the measure and the meaning of the song, we come to theballad-singer as Philip Sidney knew him. Sidney said, in his "Defence of Poesy,"that he never heard the old song of Percy and Douglas, that he found not his heartmoved more than with a trumpet; and yet, he said, "it is sung but by some blindcrowder, with no rougher voice than rude style; which being so evil apparelled inthe dust and cobweb of that uncivil age, what would it work trimmed in thegorgeous eloquence of Pindar?" Many an old ballad, instinct with natural feeling,has been more or less corrupted, by bad ear or memory, among the people upon whoselips it has lived. It is to be considered, however, that the old broaderpronunciation of some letters developed some syllables and the swiftness of speechslurred over others, which will account for many an apparent halt in the music ofwhat was actually, on the lips of the ballad-singer, a good metrical line."Chevy Chase" is, most likely, a corruption of the French word chevauchee, whichmeant a dash over the border for destruction and plunder within the English pale.Chevauchee was the French equivalent to the Scottish border raid. Close relationsbetween France and Scotland arose out of their common interest in checkingmovements towards their conquest by the kings of England, and many French wordswere used with a homely turn in Scottish common speech. Even that national sourceof joy, "great chieftain of the pudding-race," the haggis, has its name from theFrench hachis. At the end of the old ballad of "Chevy Chase," which reads thecorrupted word into a new sense, as the Hunting on the Cheviot Hills, there is anidentifying of the Hunting of the Cheviot with the Battle of Otterburn:--"Old men that knowen the ground well enough call it the Battle of Otterburn.At Otterburn began this spurn upon a Monenday; There was the doughty Douglasslain, the Percy never went away."The Battle of Otterburn was fought on the 19th of August 1388. The Scots were tomuster at Jedburgh for a raid into England. The Earl of Northumberland and hissons, learning the strength of the Scottish gathering, resolved not to oppose it,but to make a counter raid into Scotland. The Scots heard of this and dividedtheir force. The main body, under Archibald Douglas and others, rode forCarlisle. A detachment of three or four hundred men-at-arms and two thousandcombatants, partly archers, rode for Newcastle and Durham, with James Earl ofDouglas for one of their leaders. These were already pillaging and burning inDurham when the Earl of Northumberland first heard of them, and sent against themhis sons Henry and Ralph Percy. In a hand-to-hand fight between Douglas and HenryPercy, Douglas took Percy's pennon. At Otterburn the Scots overcame the Englishbut Douglas fell, struck by three spears at once, and Henry was captured in fightby Lord Montgomery. There was a Scots ballad on the Battle of Otterburn quoted in1549 in a book--"The Complaynt of Scotland"-- that also referred to the Hunttis ofChevet. The older version of "Chevy Chase" is in an Ashmole MS. in the Bodleian,from which it was first printed in 1719 by Thomas Hearne in his edition of Williamof Newbury's History. Its author turns the tables on the Scots with the

suggestion of the comparative wealth of England and Scotland in men of the stampof Douglas and Percy. The later version, which was once known more widely, isprobably not older than the time of James I., and is the version praised byAddison in Nos. 70 and 74 of "The Spectator.""The Nut-Brown Maid," in which we can hardly doubt that a woman pleads for women,was first printed in 1502 in Richard Arnold's Chronicle. Nut-brown was the oldword for brunette. There was an old saying that "a nut-brown girl is neat andblithe by nature.""Adam Bell, Clym of the Clough, and William of Cloudeslie" was first printed byCopland about 1550. A fragment has been found of an earlier impression. Laneham,in 1575, in his Kenilworth Letter, included "Adam Bell, Clym of the Clough, andWilliam of Cloudeslie" among the light reading of Captain Cox. In the books ofthe Stationers' Company (for the printing and editing of which we are deeplyindebted to Professor Arber), there is an entry between July 1557 and July 1558,"To John kynge to prynte this boke Called Adam Bell etc. and for his lycense hegiveth to the howse." On the 15th of January 1581-2 "Adam Bell" is included in alist of forty or more copyrights transferred from Sampson Awdeley to JohnCharlewood; "A Hundred Merry Tales" and Gower's "Confessio Amantis" being amongthe other transfers. On the 16th of August 1586 the Company of Stationers "Alowedvnto Edward white for his copies these fyve ballades so that they be tollerable:"four only are named, one being "A ballad of William Clowdisley, never printedbefore." Drayton wrote in the "Shepheard's Garland" in 1593:--"Come sit we down under this hawthorn tree, The morrow's light shalllend us day enough-- And tell a tale of Gawain or Sir Guy, Of RobinHood, or of good Clem of the Clough."Ben Jonson, in his "Alchemist," acted in 1610, also indicates the currentpopularity of this tale, when Face, the housekeeper, brings Dapper, the lawyer'sclerk, to Subtle, and recommends him with--"'slight, I bring you No cheating Clim o' the Clough orClaribel.""Binnorie," or "The Two Sisters," is a ballad on an old theme popular inScandinavia as well as in this country. There have been many versions of it. Dr.Rimbault published it from a broadside dated 1656. The version here given is SirWalter Scott's, from his "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," with a few touchesfrom other versions given in Professor Francis James Child's noble edition of "TheEnglish and Scottish Popular Ballads," which, when complete, will be the chiefstorehouse of our ballad lore."King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid" is referred to by Shakespeare in "Love'sLabour's Lost," Act iv. sc I; in "Romeo and Juliet," Act ii. sc. I; and in "II.Henry IV.," Act iii. sc. 4. It was first printed in 1612 in Richard Johnson's"Crown Garland of Goulden Roses gathered out of England's Royall Garden. Beingthe Lives and Strange Fortunes of many Great Personages of this Land, set forth inmany pleasant new Songs and Sonnets never before imprinted.""Take thy Old Cloak about thee," was published in 1719 by Allan Ramsay in his"Tea-Table Miscellany," and was probably a sixteenth century piece retouched byhim. Iago sings the last stanza but one--"King Stephen was a worthy peer," etc.--in "Othello," Act ii. sc. 3.In "Othello," Act iv. sc. 3, there is also reference to the old ballad of "Willow,willow, willow."