Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth Part 20

22.

'And ay, at every seven years' end, Ye'll tak him to the linn; For that's the penance he maun drie, To scug his deadly sin.'

[Annotations: 2.4: 'plea,' quarrel.

7.3: 'sets,' befits.

9.4: 'linn,' stream.

10.3: 'dang,' overcome.

15.3: 'streikit,' stretched out.

15.4: 'wake,' watch.

16.4: 'thraw,' twist.

22.4: 'scug,' expiate.]

THE LYKE-WAKE DIRGE

+The Text+ is given _verbatim et literatim_ from John Aubrey's MS. of his _Remains of Gentilisme & Judaisme_ (1686-7) in the Lansdowne MSS., No. 231, folio 114 _recto_ and _verso_. This text has often been printed before (see Appendix), but always with errors. The only change made here is the placing of Aubrey's marginal notes among the footnotes: the spelling is Aubrey's spelling. The present version was obtained by Aubrey in 1686 from an informant whose father had heard it sung sixty years previously.

Sir Walter Scott's text, better known than Aubrey's, presents very few variations, the chief being 'sleete' for 'fleet' in 1.3 (see below).

This would seem to point to the fact that Scott obtained his version from a ma.n.u.script, and confused the antique '?' (= s) with 'f.'

A collation, incomplete and inexact, of the two texts is given by T. F.

Henderson in his edition of the _Minstrelsy_ (1902), vol. iii. pp.

170-2.

+The Story.+--This dirge, of course, is not a ballad in the true sense of the word. But it is concerned with myths so widespread and ancient, that as much could be written about the dirge as almost any one of the ballads proper. I have added an Appendix at the end of this volume, to which those interested in the subject may refer. For the present, the following account may suffice.

Ritson found an ill.u.s.tration of this dirge in a ma.n.u.script letter, written by one signing himself 'H. Tr.' to Sir Thomas Chaloner, in the Cotton MSS. (Julius, F. vi., fols. 453-462). The date approximately is the end of the sixteenth century (Sir Thomas Chaloner the elder, 1521-1565; the younger, 1561-1615). The letter is concerned with antiquities in Durham and Yorks.h.i.+re, especially near Guisborough, an estate of the Chaloner family. The sentence referring to the Lyke-Wake Dirge was printed by Scott, to whom it was communicated by Ritson's executor after his death. It is here given as re-transcribed from the ma.n.u.script (f. 461 _verso_).

'When any dieth, certaine women singe a songe to the dead body, recytinge the iorney that the partie deceased must goe, and they are of beleife (such is their fondnesse) that once in their liues yt is good to giue a payre of newe shoes to a poore man; forasmuch as after this life they are to pa.s.s barefoote through a greate launde full of thornes & furzen, excepte by the meryte of the Almes aforesaid they have redeemed their forfeyte; for at the edge of the launde an aulde man shall meete them with the same shoes that were giuen by the partie when he was liuinge, and after he hath shodde them he dismisseth them to goe through thicke and thin without scratch or scalle.'

The myth of h.e.l.l-shoon (Norse, _helsko_) appears under various guises in many folklores. (See Appendix.)

Sir Walter Scott, in printing 'sleete' in 1.3, said: 'The word _sleet_, in the chorus,[1] seems to be corrupted from _selt_, or salt; a quant.i.ty of which, in compliance with a popular superst.i.tion, is frequently placed on the breast of a corpse.' It is true that a superst.i.tion to this effect does exist: but 'fleet' is doubtless the right reading.

Aubrey glosses it as 'water'; but Murray has shown (_New English Dictionary, s.v._), by three quotations from wills dated between 1533 and 1570, that 'fire and flet' is an expression meaning simply 'fire and house-room.' 'Flet,' in short, is our modern 'flat' in an unspecialised and uncorrupted form.

[Footnote 1: Scott repeats the first stanza at the end of his version.]

THE LYKE-WAKE DIRGE

(Lansdowne MS., 231, fol. 114 _recto_.)

1.

This ean night, this ean night, eve[r]y night and awle: Fire and Fleet and Candle-light and Christ recieve thy Sawle.

2.

When thou from hence doest pa.s.s away every night and awle To Whinny-moor thou comest at last and Christ recieve thy [thy silly poor] Sawle.

3.

If ever thou gave either hosen or shun every night and awle Sitt thee downe and putt them on and Christ recieve thy Sawle.

4.

But if hosen nor shoon thou never gave nean every night &c: The Whinnes shall p.r.i.c.k thee to the bare beane and Christ recieve thy Sawle.

5.

From Whinny-moor that thou mayst pa.s.s every night &c: To Brig o' Dread thou comest at last and Christ &c: [fol. 114 _verso_]

no brader than a thread.

6.

From Brig of Dread that thou mayst pa.s.s every night &c: To Purgatory fire thou com'st at last and Christ &c:

7.

If ever thou gave either Milke or drinke every night &c: The fire shall never make thee shrink and Christ &c:

8.

But if milk nor drink thou never gave nean every night &c: The Fire shall burn thee to the bare bane and Christ recive thy Sawle.

[Annotations: 1.1: 'ean,' one.

1.3: 'Fleet,' water. --_Aubrey's marginal note._ See above.

2.3: Whin is a Furze. --_Aubrey_.

2.4: This line stands in the MS. as here printed.

3.1: Job cap. x.x.xi. 19. If I have seen any perish for want of cloathing, or any poor without covering: 20. If his loyns have not blessed me, and if he were not warmed with the fleece of my sheep, &c. --_Aubrey_.

3.3: There will be hosen and shoon for them. --_Aubrey_.

4.3: 'beane.' The 'a' was inserted by Aubrey after writing 'bene.'

6.1: 'no brader than a thread.' Written by Aubrey as here printed over the second half of the line. Probably it indicates a lost stanza. See Appendix.

8.3: 'bane' might be read 'bene.']

THE BONNY EARL OF MURRAY

+The Text+ is given from Allan Ramsay's _Tea-Table Miscellany_, where it first appeared in the tenth edition (1740) in vol. iv. pp. 356-7. Child had not seen this, and gave his text from the eleventh edition of 1750.

There is, however, scarcely any difference.

+The Story+ of the murder of the Earl of Murray by the Earl of Huntly in February 1592 is found in several histories and other accounts:-- _The History of the Church of Scotland_ (1655) by John Spottiswoode, Archbishop of Glasgow and of St. Andrews: _History of the Western Highlands and Isles of Scotland_ (1836) by Donald Gregory: _The History and Life of King James_ (the Sixth), ed. T. Thomson, Bannatyne Club, (1825): _Extracts from the Diarey of R[obert] B[irrel], Burges of Edinburgh_ (? 1820): and Sir Walter Scott's _Tales of a Grandfather_.

The following condensed account may suffice:--James Stewart, son of Sir James Stewart of Doune ('Down,' 6.2), Earl of Murray by his marriage with the heiress of the Regent Murray, 'was a comely personage, of a great stature, and strong of body like a kemp,' whence he was generally known as the Bonny Earl of Murray. In the last months of 1591, a rumour reached the King's ears that the Earl of Murray had a.s.sisted in, or at least countenanced, the attack recently made on Holyrood House by Stewart, Earl of Bothwell; and Huntly was commissioned to arrest Murray and bring him to trial. Murray, apprehended at Donibristle (or Dunnibirsel), his mother the Lady Doune's house, refused to surrender to his feudal enemy the Earl of Huntly, and the house was fired. Murray, after remaining behind the rest of his party, rushed out and broke through the enemy, but was subsequently discovered (by the plumes on his headpiece, which had caught fire) and mortally wounded. Tradition says that Huntly was compelled by his followers to incriminate himself in the deed, and struck the dying Murray in the face, whereat the bonny Earl said, 'You have spoiled a better face than your own.'

THE BONNY EARL OF MURRAY

1.