Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth Part 24

11.

She's ta'en her mantle her about, Her coffer by the hand, And she's gane out to seek her son, And wander'd o'er the land.

12.

She's doen her to the Jew's castell, Where a' were fast asleep: 'Gin ye be there, my sweet Sir Hugh, I pray you to me speak.'

13.

She's doen her to the Jew's garden, Thought he had been gathering fruit: 'Gin ye be there, my sweet Sir Hugh, I pray you to me speak.'

14.

She near'd Our Lady's deep draw-well, Was fifty fathom deep: 'Whare'er ye be, my sweet Sir Hugh, I pray you to me speak.'

15.

'Gae hame, gae hame, my mither dear.

Prepare my winding sheet, And at the back o' merry Lincoln The morn I will you meet.'

16.

Now Lady Maisry is gane hame, Made him a winding sheet, And at the back o' merry Lincoln The dead corpse did her meet.

17.

And a' the bells o' merry Lincoln Without men's hands were rung, And a' the books o' merry Lincoln Were read without man's tongue, And ne'er was such a burial Sin Adam's days begun.

THE DaeMON LOVER

+The Text+ is from Kinloch's MSS., 'from the recitation of T. Kinnear, Stonehaven.' Child remarks of it that 'probably by the fortunate accident of being a fragment' it 'leaves us to put our own construction upon the weird seaman; and, though it retains the homely s.h.i.+p-carpenter, is on the whole the most satisfactory of all the versions.'

+The Story+ is told more elaborately in a broadside, and resembles _Enoch Arden_ in a certain degree. James Harris, a seaman, plighted to Jane Reynolds, was captured by a press-gang, taken overseas, and, after three years, reported dead and buried in a foreign land. After a respectable interval, a s.h.i.+p-carpenter came to Jane Reynolds, and eventually wedded her, and the loving couple had three pretty children.

One night, however, the s.h.i.+p-carpenter being on a three days' journey, a spirit came to the window, and said that his name was James Harris, and that he had come to take her away as his wife. She explains that she is married, and would not have her husband know of this visit for five hundred pounds. James Harris, however, said he had seven s.h.i.+ps upon the sea; and when she heard these 'fair tales,' she succ.u.mbed, went away with him, and 'was never seen no more.' The s.h.i.+p-carpenter on his return hanged himself.

Scott's ballad in the _Minstrelsy_ spoils its own effect by converting the spirit into the devil. An American version of 1858 tells the tale of a 'house-carpenter' and his wife, and alters 'the banks of Italy' to 'the banks of old Tennessee.'

THE DaeMON LOVER

1.

'O whare hae ye been, my dearest dear, These seven lang years and more?'

'O I am come to seek my former vows, That ye promis'd me before.'

2.

'Awa wi' your former vows,' she says, 'Or else ye will breed strife; Awa wi' your former vows,' she says, 'For I'm become a wife.

3.

'I am married to a s.h.i.+p-carpenter, A s.h.i.+p-carpenter he's bound; I wadna he ken'd my mind this nicht For twice five hundred pound'

4.

She has put her foot on gude s.h.i.+p-board, And on s.h.i.+p-board she's gane, And the veil that hung oure her face Was a' wi' gowd begane.

5.

She had na sailed a league, a league, A league but barely twa, Till she did mind on the husband she left, And her wee young son alsua.

6.

'O haud your tongue, my dearest dear, Let all your follies abee; I'll show whare the white lillies grow, On the banks of Italie.'

7.

She had na sailed a league, a league, A league but barely three, Till grim, grim grew his countenance, And gurly grew the sea.

8.

'O haud your tongue, my dearest dear, Let all your follies abee; I'll show whare the white lillies grow, In the bottom of the sea.'

9.

He's tane her by the milk-white hand, And he's thrown her in the main; And full five-and-twenty hundred s.h.i.+ps Perish'd all on the coast of Spain.

[Annotations: 4.4: 'begane,' overlaid.

7.4: 'gurly,' tempestuous, lowering.]

THE BROOMFIELD HILL

+The Text+ is taken from Scott's _Minstrelsy_ (1803). It would be of great interest if we could be sure that the reference to 'Hive Hill' in 8.1 was from genuine Scots tradition. In Wager's comedy _The Longer thou Lived the more Fool thou art_ (about 1568) Moros sings a burden:--

'Brome, brome on hill, The gentle brome on hill, hill, Brome, brome on Hive hill, The gentle brome on Hive hill, The brome stands on Hive hill a.'

Before this date 'Brume, brume on hil' is mentioned in _The Complaynt of Scotlande_, 1549; and a similar song was among Captain c.o.x's 'ballets and songs, all auncient.'

+The Story+, of a youth challenging a maid, and losing his wager by being laid asleep with witchcraft, is popular and widespread. In the _Gesta Romanorum_ is a story of which this theme is one main incident, the other being the well-known forfeit of a pound of flesh, as in the _Merchant of Venice_. Ser Giovanni (_Pecorone_, IV. 1) tells a similar tale, and other variations are found in narrative or ballad form in Iceland, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, and Germany.

Grimm notes the German superst.i.tion that the _rosenschwamm_ (gall on the wild rose), if laid beneath a man's pillow, causes him to sleep until it be taken away.

THE BROOMFIELD HILL

1.

There was a knight and a lady bright, Had a true tryste at the broom; The ane gaed early in the morning, The other in the afternoon.

2.

And ay she sat in her mother's bower door, And ay she made her mane: 'O whether should I gang to the Broomfield Hill, Or should I stay at hame?