PROFESSOR CHILD AND THE BALLAD
In the course of his insistence upon the necessity of a continued recognition of the popular ballad as a distinct literary type, Professor Gummere points out the value of a collection of Professor Child’s critical remarks on the ballad and an attempt to determine their general drift.[134]Such is the purpose of the present paper. Aside from the article in theUniversal Cyclopædia, Professor Child’s comments are mereobiter dicta, based upon no underlying principle and forming no part of a set purpose. They are, therefore, not easy to classify; the attempt to reduce them to order can be only partially successful, and any arrangement must appear more or less arbitrary. Yet some arrangement has seemed advisable and they have been roughly grouped under the following headings: (1) Authorship and Transmission; (2) Subject-Matter; (3) Technique; (4) A Comparison of theBalladsof 1857-1859 andThe English and Scottish Popular Balladsof 1882-1898; (5) A Collection of General Comments upon Specific Ballads; (6) Summary.
In that article in theUniversal Cyclopædiawhich Professor Child “wished to be neither quoted nor regarded as final,”[135]but which must here be combined with other tentative or fragmentary statements, he defined thepopular balladas “a distinct and very important species of poetry. Its historical and natural place,” he said, “is anterior to the appearance of the poetry of art, to which it has formed a step, and by which it has been regularly displaced, and, in some cases, all but extinguished. Whenever a people in the course of its development reaches a certain intellectual and moral stage, it will feel an impulse to express itself, and the form of expression to which it is first impelled is, as is well known, not prose, but verse, and in fact narrative verse. The condition of society in which a truly national or popular poetry appears explains the character of such poetry. It is a condition in which the people are not divided by political organization and book-culture into markedly distinct classes, in which consequently there is such community of ideas and feelings that the whole people form an individual. Such poetry, accordingly, while it is in its essence an expression of our common human nature, and so of universal and indestructible interest, will in each case be differenced by circumstances and idiosyncrasy. On the other hand, it will always be an expression of the mind and heart of the people as an individual, and never of the personality of individual men. The fundamental characteristic of popular ballads is therefore the absence of subjectivity and of self-consciousness. Though they do not ‘write themselves,’ as William Grimm has said, though a man and not a people has composed them, still the author counts for nothing, and itis not by mere accident, but with the best reason, that they have come down to us anonymous. Hence, too, they are extremely difficult to imitate by the highly civilized modern man, and most of the attempts to reproduce this kind of poetry have been ridiculous failures.
“The primitive ballad, then, is popular, not in the sense of something arising from and suited to the lower orders of a people. As yet, no sharp distinction of high and low exists, in respect to knowledge, desires, and tastes. An increased civilization, and especially the introduction of book-culture, gradually gives rise to such a division; the poetry of art appears; the popular poetry is no longer relished by a portion of the people, and is abandoned to an uncultivated or not over-cultivated class—a constantly diminishing number.”
But “the popular ballad is not originally the product or the property of the lower orders of the people. Nothing, in fact, is more obvious than that many of the ballads of the now most refined nations had their origin in that class whose acts and fortunes they depict—the upper class—though the growth of civilization has driven them from the memory of the highly polished and instructed, and has left them as an exclusive possession to the uneducated. The genuine popular ballad had its rise in a time when the distinctions since brought about by education and other circumstances had practically no existence. The vulgar ballads of our day, the ‘broadsides’ which were printed in such large numbers in England and elsewhere in the sixteenth century or later, belong to a different genus; they are products of a low kind ofart, and most of them are, from a literary point of view, thoroughly despicable and worthless.
“Next it must be observed that ballads which have been handed down by long-repeated tradition have always departed considerably from their original form. If the transmissionhas been purely through the mouths of unlearned people, there is less probability of willful change, but once in the hands of professional singers there is no amount of change which they may not undergo. Last of all comes the modern editor, whose so-called improvements are more to be feared than the mischances of a thousand years. A very old ballad will often be found to have resolved itself in the course of what may be called its propagation into several distinct shapes, and each of these again to have received distinct modifications. When the fashion of verse has altered, we shall find a change of form as great as that in theHildebrandslied, from alliteration without stanza to stanza with rhyme. In all cases the language drifts insensibly from ancient forms, though not at the same rate with the language of every-day life. The professional ballad-singer or minstrel, whose sole object is to please the audience before him, will alter, omit, or add, without scruple, and nothing is more common than to find different ballads blended together.
“There remains the very curious question of the origin of the resemblances which are found in the ballads of different nations, the recurrence of the same incidents or even of the same story, among races distinct in blood and history, and geographically far separated.” It is not necessary to go back to a common ancestry to explain these resemblances. “The incidents of many ballads are such as might occur anywhere and at any time; and with regard to agreements that can not be explained in this way we have only to remember that tales and songs were the chief social amusement of all classes of people in all the nations of Europe during the Middle Ages, and that new stories would be eagerly sought for by those whose business it was to furnish this amusement, and be rapidly spread among the fraternity. A great effect was undoubtedly produced by the crusades, which both brought the chief European nationsinto closer intercourse and made them acquainted with the East, thus facilitating the interchange of stories and greatly enlarging the stock.”
This account of authorship and transmission may be illustrated and supplemented byobiter dictafromThe English and Scottish Popular Ballads. “The author counts for nothing;” the ballad is essentially anonymous: that Expliceth quod Rychard Sheale means merely thatThe Hunting of the Cheviot(162) “was of course part of his stock as minstrel; the supposition that he was the author is preposterous in the extreme.”[136]
Ballads are at their best when “the transmission has been purely through the mouths of unlearned people,” when they have come down by domestic tradition, through knitters and weavers.Glasgerion(67, B) “is mainly of good derivation (a poor old woman in Aberdeenshire).”[137]And “no Scottish ballads are superior in kind to those recited in the last century by Mrs Brown, of Falkland.”[138]Yet even upon Mrs Brown printed literature may have had some influence: inFause Foodrage(89), “the resemblance in the verse in A 31, ‘The boy stared wild like a gray gose-hawke,’ to one in ‘Hardyknute,’ ‘Norse een like gray goss-hawk stared wild,’ struck Sir Walter Scott as suspicious,” and “it is quite possible that Mrs Brown may unconsciously have adopted this verse from the tiresome and affected Hardyknute, so much esteemed in her day.”[139]A literary treatment of a ballad theme may affect the traditional versions of that ballad. In the case ofChild Maurice(83) “the popularity of the play [Home’sDouglas] seems to have given vogue to the ballad. The sophisticated copy passed into recitation, and may very likely have more or less infected those which were repeated from earlier tradition.”[140]A whole ballad may even be completely derived from print, and yet, in the course of time, revert to the popular form. Of this same ballad,Child Maurice, “Mr Aytoun considers that E is only the copy printed in the middle of the last century purged, in the process of oral transmission, of what was not to the popular taste, ‘and altered more.’ There is no doubt that a copy learned from print may be transformed in this way, but it is certain that old tradition does not come to a stop when a ballad gets into print.”[141]
Not only the possible influence of print is to be taken into account; much depends on the material to which the reciter was exposed and upon his selection. “It will not ... help the ballad [Young Bearwell(302)] much that it was not palmed off on Buchan in jest or otherwise, or even if it was learned from an old person by Mr Nicol in his youth. The intrinsic character of the ballad remains, and old people have sometimes burdened their memory with worthless things.”[142]Editors were not the only interpolators; ofThe Twa Sisters(10), A, a, 11-13, need not have been written, but “might easily be extemporized by any singer of sufficiently bad taste.”[143]The varying memory of reciters, too, was a cause of unintentional change. Thus “Mrs Brown was not satisfied with A b [ofBonny Baby Livingston(222)], which Jamieson had taken down from her mouth, and after a short time she sent him A a. The verbal differences are considerable. We need not suppose that Mrs Brown had heard two ‘sets’ or ‘ways,’ of which she blended the readings; the fact seems to be that, at the time when she recited to Jamieson, she was not in goodcondition to remember accurately.”[144]In general, however, the folk memory is remarkable for its tenacity. “Most of the [Danish] versions [ofEarl Brand(7)] from recitation are wonderful examples and proofs of the fidelity with which simple people ‘report and hold’ old tales: for, as the editor has shown, verses which never had been printed, but which are found in old manuscripts, are now met with in recited copies; and these recited copies, again, have verses that occur in no Danish print or manuscript, but which nevertheless are found in Norwegian and Swedish recitations, and, what is more striking, in Icelandic tradition of two hundred years’ standing.”[145]
The ballad does not remain in the possession of the simple folk, or of reciters of Mrs Brown’s instinctive good taste. Its best fortune is then perhaps to fall into the hands of children, likeThe Maid Freed From the Gallows(95), of which “F had become a children’s game, the last stage of many old ballads.”[146]Again, “it is interesting to find the ballad [The Twa Brothers(49)] still in the mouths of children in American cities,—in the mouths of the poorest, whose heritage these old things are.”[147]Sir Hugh(155) in the form ofLittle Harry Hughes and the Duke’s Daughter, was heard, says Mr Newell, “from a group of colored children, in the streets of New York city,” and traced “to a little girl living in one of the cabins near Central Park.”[148]
Less happy is the fate of the ballad when it falls into the hands of professional singers,—the Minstrel Ballad is to be considered presently,—or when it falls into the hands of amateurs of various sorts, who corrupt and debase it.Hind Etin(41) “has suffered severely by the accidents oftradition. A has been not simply damaged by passing through low mouths, but has been worked over by low hands. Something considerable has been lost from the story, and fine romantic features, preserved in Norse and German ballads, have been quite effaced.”[149]OfThe Clerk’s Twa Sons o Owsenford(72) “D has some amusing dashes of prose, evidently of masculine origin. [Examples follow]. We have here a strong contrast with both the blind-beggar and the housemaid style of corruption; something suggesting the attorney’s clerk rather than the clerk of Owsenford, but at least not mawkish.”[150]The “blind beggar” is, of course, Buchan’s collector, and whether he or the editor was responsible for the corruptions is not always clear. The blind beggar himself, however, comes in for special condemnation in the comment onThe Bent Sae Brown(71): “The introduction and conclusion, and some incidental decorations, of the Scottish ballad will not be found in the Norse, but are an outcome of the invention and the piecing and shaping of that humble but enterprising rhapsodist who has left his trail over so large a part of Buchan’s volumes.”[151]InBrown Robin(97) “the story undoubtedly stops at the right point in A, with the escape of the two lovers to the wood. The sequel in C is not at all beyond the inventive ability of Buchan’s blind beggar, and some other blind beggar may have contrived the cane and the whale, the shooting and the hanging, in B.”[152]As type of the housemaid style of corruption may, perhaps, standLizie Lindsay(226). “Leezie Lindsay from a maid-servant in Aberdeen,” wrote Jamieson to Scott of A b.[153]And, “in his preface to B, Kinloch remarks that the ballad is very popular in the North, ‘and few milk-maids in that quarter but can chaunt it.’”[154]“Ballads of this description [a young lord o the Hielands, pretending that he is the son of an auld shepherd and an auld dey, persuades a young lady of Edinburgh to fly with him to the Highlands, where he at length reveals his identity]—ballads of this description are peculiarly liable to interpolation and debasement, and there are two passages, each occurring in several versions, which we may, without straining, set down to some plebeian improver.”[155]
Not mere corruption, but serving-man authorship, even, is suggested forTom Potts(109): “Such events [unequal matches] would be celebrated only by fellows of the yeoman or of the foot-boy, and surely in the present case the minstrel was not much above the estate of the serving-man. Lord Jockey’s reckless liberality throughout, and Lord Phoenix’s in the end, is a mark of the serving-man’s ideal nobleman.”[156]Again as mere corrupter, rather than author, appears the ostler in one version ofBewick and Graham, (211). In the 1833 edition ofThe Border Minstrelsy“deficiencies were partly supplied and some different readings adopted ‘from a copy obtained by the recitation of an ostler in Carlisle.’” g “is shown by internal evidence to be the ostler’s copy. Both copies [g and h] were indisputably derived from print, though h may have passed through several mouths, g agrees with b—f closely as to minute points of phraseology which it is difficult to believe that a reciter would have retained. It looks more like an immediate, though faulty, transcript from print.”[157]Contrasting styles are suggested in the comment onThe Broomfield Hill(43): “The editor [of the broadside, “differing as to four or five@@ words only from F”] remarks that A is evidently taken@ from F; from which it is clear that the pungent buckishness of the broadside does not necessarily make an impression.A smells of the broom; F suggests the groom.”[158]Perhaps not to be classed with these non-professional corrupters or interpolators is the bänkelsänger who is responsible for one of the German versions ofLady Isabel and the Elf Knight(4): “M smacks decidedly of the bänkelsänger, and has an appropriate moral at the tail:animi index cauda!”[159]Perhaps he is to be regarded as a humble sort of minstrel; to the comments on this class we may now turn our attention.
It does not appear from Professor Child’s remarks whether he thought of the minstrel as composing his ballads,—or making them over,—orally or in writing. Perhaps we are to suppose that he followed now one method, now the other. Rychard Sheale may be supposed to have affixed his “expliceth” to his written copy of Chevy Chase; yet it is “quodRychard Sheale” as if the manuscript had been written by another from his singing. But whether the ballad passed through the minstrel’s mouth or through his hands, it received some peculiar and characteristic modifications. Thus TheBoy and the Mantle(29),King Arthur and King Cornwall(30), andThe Marriage of Sir Gawain(31) “are clearly not of the same rise, and not meant for the same ears, as those which go before. They would come down by professional rather than by domestic tradition, through minstrels rather than knitters and weavers. They suit the hall better than the bower, the tavern or public square better than the cottage, and would not go to the spinning-wheel at all. An exceedingly good piece of minstrelsy ‘The Boy and the Mantle’ is, too; much livelier than most of the numerous variations on the somewhat overhandled theme.”[160]Crow and Pie(111), likewise, “is not a purely popular ballad, but rather of that kind which,for convenience, may be called the minstrel-ballad. It has, however, popular features, and markedly in stanzas 13, 14,”[161]—the damsel’s demanding the name of the man who has wronged her, a feature found inThe Bonny Hind(50) and its continental parallels.[162]The termminstrelmay, perhaps, be more loosely used in the passage which describesThe Rising in the North(175) as “the work of a loyal but not unsympathetic minstrel;”[163]in the statement concerningNorthumberland Betrayed by Douglas(176), that “the ballad-minstrel acquaints us with circumstances concerning the surrender of Northumberland;”[164]and in the statement to the effect that, in the case ofTom Potts(109), “the minstrel was not much above the estate of the serving-man.”[165]
We may now attempt to construct an account of the vicissitudes to which the ballad was subject when, in the course of transmission, it sometimes found its way into writing and into print. Version B ofThe Hunting of the Cheviot(162) “is a striking but by no means a solitary example of the impairment which an old ballad would suffer when written over for the broadside press. This very seriously enfeebled edition was in circulation throughout the seventeenth century, and much sung ... despite its length. It is declared by Addison, in his appreciative and tasteful critique ... to be the favorite ballad of the common people of England.”[166]Similarly, in the case ofSir Andrew Barton(167), “a collation of A and B will show how ballads were retrenched and marred in the process of preparing them for the vulgar press.”[167]“B begins vilely, but does not go on so ill. The forty merchants coming ‘with fifty sail’ to King Henry on a mountain top ... requires to be taken indulgently.”[168]Though a broadside differswidely from a true ballad, it is not to be supposed that,—at least in the examples included by Professor Child,—some general traits or special features peculiar to the popular or traditional matter or manner did not survive. Thus, although the ballad ofThe Twa Knights(268) “can have had no currency in Scotland, and perhaps was known only through print,” yet “a similar one is strictly traditional in Greece, and widely dispersed, both on the mainland and among the islands.”[169]Again, there are two broadsides ofKing John and the Bishop(45), which Professor Child does not include, “both inferior even to B, and in a far less popular style.”[170]There are, then, degrees of departure from the popular style. There are degrees of departure from the popular matter, also, and the broadside preserves sometimes but a single popular feature. Version M ofYoung Beichan(53) “was probably a broadside or stall copy, and is certainly of that quality, but preserves a very ancient traditional feature.”[171]The broadside version ofThe Broomfield Hill(43) is distinguished by a “pungent buckishness,” which is not found in A, and which “suggests the groom.”[172]A broadside may itself become tradition. The English version ofLord Thomas and Fair Annet(73) “is a broadside of Charles the Second’s time.... This copy has become traditional in Scotland and Ireland. The Scottish traditional copy ... is far superior, and one of the most beautiful of our ballads, and indeed of all ballads.”[173]The tradition lives, even after a ballad has found its way into print, and may influence and modify later versions of the printed form. OfPrince Heathen(104) “the fragment A ... is partly explained by B, which is no doubt some stall-copy, reshaped from tradition.”[174]OfThe Baffled Knight(112) “E is, in all probability, a broadside copy modified by tradition.”[175]In origin, in any case, the broadsides inThe English and Scottish Popular Balladsare popular.[176]“There is a Scottish ballad [similar toThe Baffled Knight] in which the tables are turned.... This, as being of comparatively recent, and not of popular, but of low literary origin, cannot be admitted here.”[177]
“Last of all comes the modern editor,” and from Professor Child’s comments and skilful undoing of much of their work one might put together fairly complete accounts of the methods of Percy, Scott, Jamieson, Buchan, and the rest. We are concerned, however, not so much with the editors as with the results of their editing, with the kinds of change that the ballad suffered in their hands. It was often lengthened, in many cases by the combination of several versions. Thus Scott’s version ofTam Lin(39, I), “as he himself states, was compounded of the Museum copy, Riddell’s, Herd’s, and ‘several recitals from tradition.’”[178]Of this use of materials from recitation examples are very numerous. Ballads were lengthened also by the interpolation of new stanzas. After Scott’s edition, in theMinstrelsy, ofThe Twa Sisters(10), “Jamieson followed ... with a tolerably faithful, though not, as he says,verbatim,[179]publication of his copy of Mrs Brown’s ballad,somewhat marred, too, by acknowledged interpolations.”[180]King Henry(32) was increased by Jamieson’s interpolations from twenty-two to thirty-four stanzas.[181]Scott’s version ofFair Annie(62, A) “was obtained ‘chiefly from the recitation of an old woman,’ but we are not informed who supplied the rest. Herd’s fragment, D, furnished stanzas 2-6, 12, 17, 19. A doubt may be hazarded whether stanzas 8-10 came from the old woman.”[182]Interpolation and combination are here both illustrated. Scott’s later edition ofTam Lin(39) “was corrupted with eleven new stanzas, which are not simply somewhat of a modern cast as to diction, as Scott remarks, but of a grossly modern invention, and as unlike popular verse as anything can be.”[183]Of his version ofJellon Grame(90) Scott says: “‘Some verses are apparently modernized.’” “The only very important difference between Scott’s version and Mrs Brown’s is its having four stanzas of its own, the four before the last two, which are evidently not simply modernized, but modern.”[184]
But the editor did not merely combine or interpolate; more vaguely, he “improved.” Version E ofThe Fair Flower of Northumberland(9), “a traditional version from the English border, has unfortunately been improved by some literary pen.”[185]Or he “retouched,”[186]or “altered,”[187]or “emended.” Scott confesses to some emendation ofKinmont Willy(186); “it is to be suspected that a great deal more emendation was done than the mangling of reciters rendered absolutely necessary. One would like, for example, to see stanzas 10-12 and 31 in their mangled condition.”[188]In general, no changes or additions are “in so glaring contrast with the groundwork as literary emendationsof traditional ballads.”[189]“Variations,” also, are to be noted: inaccuracies inThe Fire of Frendraught(196) are acknowledged by Motherwell; “the implication is, or should be, that these variations are of editorial origin.”[190]OfSweet William’s Ghost(77, A and B), “Percy remarks that the concluding stanza seems modern. There can be no doubt that both that and the one before it are modern; but, to the extent of Margaret’s dying on her lover’s grave, they are very likely to represent original verses not remembered in form.”[191]
Certain general results of transmission, of whatever kind, are to be noted. As a ballad passes from one country to another the nationality of the hero may be changed. InHugh Spencer’s Feats in France(158) “Hugh is naturally turned into a Scotsman in the Scottish version, C.”[192]The hero’s name is not more stable than his nationality. “In the course of transmission [ofJohn Thomson and the Turk(266)], as has ever been the wont, names were changed, and also some subordinate circumstances.”[193]Again, “the actual name of the hero of a ballad affords hardly a presumption as to who was originally the hero.”[194]Even the part that he plays the hero may exchange with another character. “Robin Hood’s rescue of Little John, in Guy of Gisborne, after quarrelling with him on a fanciful provocation, is a partial offset for Little John’s heart-stirring generosity in this ballad. [Robin Hood and the Monk(119).] We have already had several cases of ballads in which the principal actors exchange parts.”[195]The ballad, again, is not constant in its attachment to one locality, and “the topography of traditional ballads frequently presents difficulties, both because it is liable to be changed, wholly, or, what is moreembarrassing, partially, to suit a locality to which a ballad has been transported, and again because unfamiliar names, when not exchanged, are exposed to corruption.”[196]Thus, “in the ballad which follows this [Rare Willie Drowned in Yarrow(215)], a western variety of the same story, Willie is drowned in the Clyde.”[197]
The corruption of names is but one phase of the change to which all unfamiliar ballad diction is exposed. “At every stage of oral transmission we must suppose that some accidental variations from what was delivered would be introduced, and occasionally some wilful variations. Memory will fail at times; at times the listener will hear amiss, or will not understand, and a perversion of sense will ensue, or absolute nonsense,—nonsense which will be servilely repeated, and which repetition may make more gross.... Learned words do not occur in ballads; still an old native word will be in the same danger of metamorphosis. But, though unfamiliarity naturally ends in corruption, mishearing may have the like effect where the original phrase is in no way at fault....
“It must be borne in mind, however, that as to nonsense the burden of proof rests always upon the expositor. His personal inability to dispose of a reading is not conclusive; his convictions may be strong, but patience and caution are his part and self-restraint as to conjectures.”[198]
In transmission, then, and even in the best of it, the ballad ordinarily fares but ill, “departs from the original form,” becomes less typically ballad; and, generally speaking, the older it is, the earlier it is caught and fixed in print, the better. Professor Child has thus special praise for those Robin Hood ballads which “have come down to us in comparatively ancient form.”[199]Robin Hood’s Death(120, B)is “in the fine old strain.”[200]Robin Hood and the Beggar(134, II), “by far the best of the Robin Hood ballads of the secondary, so to speak cyclic, period,” is “a composition of some antiquity,”[201]Thomas Rymer(37) “is an entirely popular ballad as to style, and must be of considerable age.”[202]One is not to expect in a late or modern ballad the excellence found in an early or ancient one.Robin Hood’s Chase(146) “is a well-conceived ballad, and only needs to be older.”[203]Walter Lesly(296) is “a late, but life-like and spirited ballad.”[204]The Hunting of the Cheviot(162, B) “is a striking ... example of the impairment which an old ballad would suffer when written over for the broadside press.”[205]Version M ofYoung Beichan(53) “was probably a broadside or stall copy, and is certainly of that quality, but preserves a very ancient traditional feature.”[206]The “ridiculous ballad” ofJohn Thomson and the Turk(266) finds a place in the collection because it is “a seedling from an ancient and very notable story.”[207]The Knight’s Ghost(265) “has not a perceptible globule of old blood in it, yet it has had the distinction of being more than once translated as a specimen of Scottish popular ballads.”[208]Scott’s later edition ofTam Lin(39) “was corrupted with eleven new stanzas, which are not simply somewhat of a modern cast as to diction, as Scott remarks, but of a grossly modern invention, and as unlike popular verse as anything can be.”[209]Scott’s version ofJellon Grame(90) has four stanzas of its own, “which are evidently not simply modernized, but modern.”[210]Certain stanzas in version B b ofArchie o Cawfield(188) “are indifferent modern stuff.”[211]The “modernballad” on the subject ofThe Heir of Linne(267) is “an inexpressibly pitiable ditty.”[212]
Certain counterfeits, imitations, or “spurious” ballads, wholly or almost wholly the work of editors or modern writers, are included in Professor Child’s collection.Robin Hood and the Tinker(127) is a “contemptible imitation of imitations.”[213]Buchan’s version ofYoung Waters(94) is, for the most part, “a counterfeit of the lowest description. Nevertheless it is given in an appendix; for much the same reason that thieves are photographed.”[214]Young Ronald(304) is an example of the “spurious” ballad, and the reasons for its inclusion are given at some length. “If any lover of ballads should feel his understanding insulted by the presentation of such a piece as this, I can have no quarrel with him. There is certainly much in it that is exasperating.... In this and not a very few other cases, I have suppressed disgust, and admitted an actually worthless and manifestly—at least in part—spurious ballad, because of a remote possibility that it might contain relics, or be a debased representative, of something genuine and better. Such was the advice of my lamented friend, Grundtvig, in more instances than those in which I have brought myself to defer to his judgment.”[215]For the same reason is includedThe Laidley Worm of Spindleston Heughs: “This composition of Mr. Lamb’s—for nearly every line of it is his[216]—is not only based on popular tradition, but evidently preserves some small fragments of a popular ballad, and for this reason is given in an Appendix.”[217]
From what has been said it is clear that, as a rule, the ballad is at its best, is most typically ballad, when its subject-matter is of purely popular origin. TheGestand the earliest Robin Hood ballads “are among the best of all ballads,” and Robin Hood “is absolutely a creation of the popular muse. The earliest mention we have of him is as the subject of ballads.”[218]“Absolutely a creation of the popular muse” would seem to imply that the ballad is not,—or that these ballads at least are not,—based either upon a formless popular tradition or upon definite prose tales. Local traditions follow the ballad, as attempts to explain it; they do not supply the story. “In places where a ballad has once been known, the story will often be remembered after the verses have been wholly or partly forgotten, and the ballad will be resolved into a prose tale, retaining, perhaps, some scraps of verse, and not infrequently taking up new matter, or blending with other traditions. Naturally enough, a ballad and an equivalent tale sometimes exist side by side.”[219]
The existence of foreign traditional parallels is one evidence of popular origin.The Bent Sae Brown(71) has close resemblances with Norse ballads; “but the very homeliness of the Scottish ballad precludes any suspicion beyond tampering with tradition. The silliness and fulsome vulgarity of Buchan’s versions often enough make one wince or sicken.... But such correspondences with foreign ballads as we witness in the present case are evidence of a genuine traditional foundation.”[220]Less complete, yet even more striking, are the foreign versions of the theme ofTam Lin(39).
“This fine ballad stands by itself, and is not, as might have been expected, found in possession of any people but the Scottish. Yet it has connections, through the principal feature in the story, the retransformation of Tam Lin, with Greek popular tradition older than Homer.”[221]“We come ... surprisingly near to the principal event of the Scottish ballad in a Cretan fairy-tale ... [1820-1830].” And this “Cretan tale does not differ from the one repeated by Apollodorus from earlier writers a couple of thousand years ago more than two versions of a story gathered from oral tradition in these days are apt to do. Whether it has come down to our time from mouth to mouth through twenty-five centuries or more, or whether, having died out of the popular memory, it was reintroduced through literature, is a question that cannot be decided with certainty; but there will be nothing unlikely in the former supposition to those who bear in mind the tenacity of tradition among people who have never known books.”[222]The Suffolk Miracle(272) has “impressive and beautiful”[223]European parallels, and therefore finds a place in Professor Child’s collection. Other debased or counterfeit or spurious ballads are present for the same reason, or because, likeTam Lin, they contain some purely popular or traditional feature. Certain features are expressly declared to be popular or to be common in ballads; among these are the quibbling oaths and the unbosoming oneself to an oven or stove, inThe Lord of Lorn and the False Steward(271);[224]the miraculous harvest inThe Carnal and the Crane(55);[225]the childbirth in the wood inLeesome Brand(15) and inRose the Red and White Lily(103);[226]the presence of three ladies, “that the youngest may be preferred to the others;” the unpardonable “offencegiven by not asking a brother’s assent to his sister’s marriage” inThe Cruel Brother(11);[227]the testament inThe Cruel Brother,Lord Randal,Edward, etc.;[228]the riddles inRiddles Wisely Expounded(1), etc.;[229]and certain stanzas inCrow and Pie(111).[230]“Heroic sentiment” is a characteristic of the earlier Robin Hood ballads; in the later it is gone.[231]It may be that in his appreciation of certain other features Professor Child is thinking not merely of their excellence but of their peculiarly popular quality as well. Thus he speaks of “the fine trait of the ringing of the bells without men’s hands, and the reading of the books without man’s tongue,”[232]inSir Hugh(155); and thinks that “perhaps the original conception [ofThe Twa Sisters(10)] was the simple and beautiful one which we find in English B and both the Icelandic ballads, that the king’s harper, or the girl’s lover, takes three locks of her yellow hair to string his harp with.”[233]
The ballad does not always go to ancient tradition, or draw upon the stock of popular themes and motives; occasionally, in more modern times, it tells the story of some actual occurrence; it is based on fact. But the balladist feels himself under no obligation of loyalty to the fact. “A strict accordance with history should not be expected, and indeed would be almost a ground of suspicion [“or a pure@ accident”]. 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.”[234]InJohnie Armstrong(169) “the ballads treat facts with the customary freedom and improve upon them greatly.”[235]Bonny John Seton(198) “is accurate as to the date, not commonly a good sign for such things.”[236]“A balladtaken down some four hundred years after the event will be apt to retain very little of sober history.”[237]Yet, in the case ofThe Hunting of the Cheviot(162), at least, “the ballad can scarcely be a deliberate fiction. The singer is not a critical historian, but he supposes himself to be dealing with facts; he may be partial to his countrymen, but he has no doubt that he is treating of a real event.”[238]Part ofThe Earl of Westmoreland(177) “has an historical substratum, though details are incorrect.”[239]InNorthumberland Betrayed by Douglas(176) “the ballad-minstrel acquaints us with circumstances concerning the surrender of Northumberland which are not known to any of the historians.”[240]Local tradition would seem to be even less authentic than the ballad; “in such cases” asThe Coble o Cargill(242) it “seldom means more than a theory which people have formed to explain a preëxisting ballad.”[241]
We have already seen how a ballad derived from print tends to revert to the popular form; the same tendency is evident in the ballad derived from a romance. OfGude Wallace(157) “Blind Harry’s Wallace ... is clearly the source.” “But the portions of Blind Harry’s poem out of which these ballads were made were perhaps themselves composed from older ballads, and the restitution of the lyrical form may have given us something not altogether unlike what was sung in the fifteenth, or even the fourteenth, century.”[242]Thomas Rymer(37) is derived from the romance, yet it is “an entirely popular ballad as to style.”[243]These are the only cases where Professor Child admits without question the derivation of a ballad from a romance; in other cases, where ballad and romance tell the same story, he insists that the possibility of the priority of the ballad mustbe considered. Thus the ballad ofHind Horn(17) has close affinity with the later English romance, but no filiation. “And were filiation to be accepted, there would remain the question of priority. It is often assumed, without a misgiving, that oral tradition must needs be younger than anything that was committed to writing some centuries ago; but this requires in each case to be made out; there is certainly no antecedent probability of that kind.”[244]Fair Annie(62) is not derived from the lay; they “have a common source, which lies further back, and too far for us to find.”[245]InGil Brenton(5) “the artifice of substituting waiting-woman for bride has been thought to be derived from the romance of Tristan.... Grundtvig truly remarks that a borrowing by the romance from the popular ballad is as probable a supposition as the converse.”[246]The ballad does sometimes go to the romance for details. Thus, inThe Earl of Westmoreland(177) “what follows [stanza 15] is pure fancy work, or rather an imitation of stale old romance.”[247]The Kitchie-Boy(252) is a modern adaptation of King Horn, but, “in the particular of the hero’s having his choice of two women, it is more like thegestof ‘King Horn,’ or ‘Horn Childe and Maiden Rimnild;’ but an independent invention of the Spanish lady is not beyond the humble ability of the composer of ‘The Kitchie-Boy.’”[248]In the “worthless and manifestly—at least in part—spurious ballad” ofYoung Ronald(304), “the nicking with nay and the giant are borrowed from romances.”[249]Though theGest, finally, “as to all important considerations, is eminently original, absolutely so as to the conception of Robin Hood, some traits and incidents, as might be expected, are taken from what we may call the general stock of mediævalfiction.”[250]Thus “Robin Hood will not dine until he has some guest that can pay handsomely for his entertainment.... This habit of Robin’s seems to be a humorous imitation of King Arthur, who in numerous romances will not dine till some adventure presents itself.”[251]
Not only from ancient tradition, from fact, from romance or the sources of romance may the ballad derive its subject-matter; it may also turn back upon itself, and as late ballads counterfeit or imitate the style of earlier ones, so late ballads go to earlier ones for their subject-matter as well. ThusThe Battle of Otterburn(161) “is likely to have been modernized from ... a predecessor.”[252]Part ofThe King’s Disguise, and Friendship with Robin Hood(151) “is a loose paraphrase, with omissions, of the seventh and eighth fits of the Gest.”[253]The Brown Girl(295) “recalls ‘Lord Thomas and Fair Annet,’ ‘Sweet William’s Ghost,’ ‘Clerk Saunders,’ ‘The Unquiet Grave,’ ‘Bonny Barbara Allen,’ and has something of all of them.... Still it is not deliberately and mechanically patched together (as are some pieces in Part VIII), and in the point of the proud and unrelenting character of the Brown Girl it is original.”[254]“Deliberately and mechanically put together” were the pieces of Part VIII which follow.Auld Matrons(249) “was made by someone who had acquaintance with the first fit of ‘Adam Bell.’ The anonymous ‘old wife’ becomes ‘auld Matrons;’ Inglewood, Ringlewood. The conclusion is in imitation of the rescues in Robin Hood ballads.”[255]Henry Martyn(250) “must have sprung from the ashes of ‘Andrew Barton,’ of which name Henry Martyn would be no extraordinary corruption.”[256]The Kitchie-Boy(252) is “a modern ‘adaptation’ of ‘King Horn’ ... from whichA 33, 34, B 47, D 7, 8, are taken outright.”[257]The first half ofWillie’s Fatal Visit(255) “is a medley of ‘Sweet William’s Ghost,’ ‘Clerk Saunders,’ and ‘The Grey Cock,’”[258]OfBroughty Wa’s(258), “Stanza 9, as it runs in b, is a reminiscence of ‘Bonny Baby Livingston,’ and 13 recalls ‘Child Waters,’ or ‘The Knight and the Shepherd’s Daughter.’”[259]A large part ofThe New-Slain Knight(263) “is imitated or taken outright from very well known ballads.”[260]Like some of these later ballads theGest of Robyn Hodegoes back to earlier ballads for its subject-matter. “The Gest is a popular epic, composed from several ballads by a poet of a thoroughly congenial spirit. No one of the ballads from which it was made up is extant in a separate shape, and some portions of the story may have been of the compiler’s own invention. The decoying of the sheriff into the wood, stanzas 181-204, is of the same derivation as the last part of Robin Hood and the Potter, No 121, Little John and Robin Hood exchanging parts; the conclusion, 451-56, is of the same source as Robin Hood’s Death, No 120.”[261]Some of the Middle-English forms “may be relics of the ballads from which this little epic was made up; or the whole poem may have been put together as early as 1400, or before.”[262]It is noteworthy that theGestwas composedfrom, notof, several ballads; it was not made up of unchanged ballads, “deliberately and mechanically put together.”
The motives or features characteristic of subject-matter derived from pure popular tradition have already been noted; we may now note those traits which Professor Child declares or implies to be not characteristic of such subject-matter. Extravagance would seem to be one of these: the extravagance ofHughie Grame(191, A, 16) “it is to behoped is a corruption.”[263]InMary Hamilton(173) “there are not a few spurious passages. Among these are the extravagance of the queen’s bursting in the door, F 8; the platitude,[264]of menial stamp, that the child, if saved, might have been an honor to the mother, D 10, L 3, O 4.”[265]Exaggeration is another non-traditional trait: “It is but the natural course of exaggeration that the shepherd, having beaten Robin Hood, should beat Little John. This is descending low enough, but we do not see the bottom of this kind of balladry here”[266][Robin Hood and the Shepherd(165)].Robin Hood and Queen Katherine(145) is “a very pleasant ballad, with all the exaggeration.”[267]The true ballad is not prosaic: inFause Foodrage(89) “the ... king kills his successful rival on his wedding-day. According to the prosaic, not at all ballad-like, and evidently corrupted account in A, there is a rebellion of nobles four months after the marriage, and a certain False Foodrage takes it upon himself to kill the king.”[268]The true ballad is not over-refined: inThe Braes of Yarrow(214, C, 2) “the brothers have taken offence because their sister was not regarded as his equal by her husband, which is perhaps too much of a refinement for ballads, and may be a perversion.”[269]The true ballad is not cynical:The Twa Corbiessounds “something like a cynical variation of the tender little English ballad,”[270]and it is not printed as a ballad in Professor Child’s collection. The true ballad is not sophisticated: it was the influence of the play, Home’sDouglas, that gave vogue to the ballad,Child Maurice(83), and “the sophisticated copy passed into recitation.”[271]The true ballad is not sentimental: inMary Hamilton(173), “there are not a few spuriouspassages,” among them, “the sentimentality of H 3, 16.”[272]Jamieson publishedChild Waters(63, B a) with “the addition of three sentimental stanzas to make Burd Ellen die just as her enduring all things is to be rewarded.”[273]The true ballad does not append a moral: a German version ofLady Isabel and the Elf-Knight(4) “smacks decidedly of the bänkelsänger, and has an appropriate moral at the tail.”[274]A certain degree of probability or naturalness is to be expected of the true ballad story: inJellon Grame(90), “one day, when the boy asks why his mother does not take him home, Jellon Grame (very unnaturally) answers, I slew her, and there she lies: upon which the boy sends an arrow through him.”[275]Finally, the plot of the true ballad is not trite. InChild Owlet(291) “the chain of gold in the first stanza and the penknife below the bed in the fourth have a false ring, and the story is of the tritest. The ballad seems at best to be a late one, and is perhaps mere imitation.”[276]
It is clear that to Professor Child’s mind it was necessary that the ballad should tell a story. “The wordballadin English signifies a narrative song, a short tale in lyric verse.”[277]Thus the English versions ofGeordie(209) are said to be mere ‘goodnights,’ whereas “the Scottish ballads have a proper story, with a beginning, middle, and end, and (save one late copy), a good end, and they are most certainly ... independent of the English.”[278]Dugall Quin(294) is a “little ballad, which has barely story enough to be socalled.”[279]To the “English ‘ditty’ (not a traditional ballad) ... there is very little story.”[280]
Necessary as the story is, however, it is seldom completely told in the ballad; something is left to the hearers’ imagination. Sometimes the close of the story is omitted: “it is not said (except in the spurious portions of E) that the lady was carried back by her husband, but this may perhaps be inferred from his hanging the gypsies. In D and K we are left uncertain as to her disposition.”[281]Transitions are usually abrupt,—“abrupt even for a ballad” inWillie’s Lady(6) from stanza 33 to stanza 34.[282]Jamieson, in printingThe Bonny Birdy(82), introduced several stanzas ‘to fill up chasms.’ “But the chasms, such as they are, are easily leapt by the imagination, and Jamieson’s interpolations are mere bridges of carpenter’s work.”[283]OfSir Patrick Spens(58), “Percy’s version [A] 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[284]than the whole.”[285]These abrupt transitions do not, then, result in incoherence, which accompanies corruption and is a sign of degeneracy. ThusThe Carnal and the Crane(55) “had obviously been transmitted from mouth to mouth before it was fixed in its present incoherent and corrupted form by print.”[286]Young Bearwell(302) is “one of not a few flimsy and unjointed ballads found in Buchan’s volumes, the like of which is hardly to be found elsewhere.”[287]After an attempt to make the story ofThe White Fisher(264) hang together, ProfessorChild concludes: “But we need not trouble ourselves much to make these counterfeits reasonable. Those who utter them rely confidently upon our taking folly and jargon as the marks of genuineness.”[288]Coherence, on the contrary, is a characteristic of the true ballad, an important phase of ballad excellence. “I am persuaded that there was an older and better copy of this ballad [Bewick and Graham(211)] than those which are extant. The story is so well composed, proportion is so well kept, on the whole, that it is reasonable to suppose that certain passages (as stanzas 3, 4, 50) may have suffered some injury.”[289]Introductions, not closely connected with the ballad story, are not characteristic. “The narrator in the Ever Green poem reports at second hand: as he is walking, he meets a man who, upon request, tells him the beginning and the end. Both pieces have nearly the same first line. The borrowing was more probably on the part of the ballad, for a popular ballad would be likely to tell its tale without preliminaries.”[290]
Brevity is a characteristic of the true ballad, and it may be, in this respect, profitably contrasted with Buchan’s versions. Version C ofBrown Adam(98) “has the usual marks of Buchan’s copies, great length, vulgarity, and such extravagance and absurdity as are found in stanzas 23, 26, 29.”[291]“Buchan, who may generally be relied upon to produce a longer ballad than anybody else, has ‘Young Waters’ in thirty-nine stanzas, ‘the only complete version which he had ever met.’”[292]His version ofThe Gay Goshawk(96, G) is “vilely dilated and debased,”[293]and that ofJellon Grame(90, C) “has nearly the same incidents as B, diluted and vulgarized in almost twice as many verses.”[294]
The action is seldom carefully localized: the compiler ofA Gest of Robyn Hodewas careless of geography.[295]The New England copy ofArchie o Cawfield(188, F) “naturally enough, names no places.” “The route in C is not described[2] there is no reason, if they start from Cafield (see 23), why they should cross the Annan, the town being on the eastern side. All difficulties are escaped in D by giving no names.”[296]The attention given to the setting in some of the Robin Hood ballads is, then, exceptional. OfRobin Hood and the Monk(119), “the landscape background of the first two stanzas has often been praised, and its beauty will never pall. It may be called landscape or prelude, for both eyes and ears are addressed, and several others of these woodland ballads have a like symphony or setting: Adam Bell, Robin Hood and the Potter, Guy of Gisborne, even the much later ballad of The Noble Fisherman. It is to be observed that the story of the outlaw Fulk Fitz Warine, which has other traits in common with Robin Hood ballads, begins somewhat after the same fashion.”[297]
In dealing with the supernatural the way of the true ballad is to omit description or explanation. InJames Harris(243), “to explain the eery personality and proceedings of the ship-master, E-G, with a sort of vulgar rationalism, turn him into the devil.... D (probably by the fortunate accident of being a fragment) leaves us to put our own construction upon the weird seaman; and, though it retains the homely ship-carpenter, is on the whole the most satisfactory of all the versions.”[298]InJohnie Scot(99) “the champion is described in A 31 as a gurious (grugous, gruous?) ghost; in H 27 as a greecy (frightful) ghost; in L 18 he is a fearsome sight, with three women’s spans between his brows and three yards between his shoulders; in the Abbotsford copy of A, 29, 30, a grisly sight, with aspan between his eyes, between his shoulders three and three, and Johnie scarcely reaching his knee. These points are probably taken from another and later ballad, which is perhaps an imitation, and might almost be called a parody, of Johnie Soot.”[299]Ghosts, though not thought sufficiently strange to demand special treatment, should, nevertheless, “have a fair reason for walking.... In popular fictions, the motive for their leaving the grave is to ask back plighted troth, to be relieved from the inconveniences caused by the excessive grief of the living, to put a stop to the abuse of children by stepmothers, to repair an injustice done in the flesh, to fulfil a promise; at the least, to announce the visitant’s death.”[300]