Chapter XI: Appendix: The Jolly Juggler

+The Text+ is from a manuscript at Balliol College, Oxford, No. 354, already referred to in the First Series (p. 80) as supplying a text of _The Nut-brown Maid_. The manuscript, which is of the early part of the sixteenth century, has been edited by Ewald Flügel in _Anglia_, vol. xxvi., where the present ballad appears on pp. 278-9. I have only modernised the spelling, and broken up the lines, as the ballad is written in two long lines and a short one to each stanza.

No other text is known to me. The volume of _Anglia_ containing the ballad was not published till 1903, some five years after Professor Child's death; and I believe he would have included it in his collection had he known of it.

+The Story+ narrates the subjugation of a proud lady who scorns all her wooers, by a juggler who assumes the guise of a knight. On the morrow the lady discovers her paramour to be a churl, and he is led away to execution, but escapes by juggling himself into a meal-bag: the dust falls in the lady's eye.

It would doubtless require a skilled folk-lorist to supply full critical notes and parallels; but I subjoin such details as I have been able to collect.

In _The Beggar Laddie_ (Child, No. 280, v. 116) a pretended beggar or shepherd-boy induces a lassie to follow him, 'because he was a bonny laddie.' They come to his father's (or brother's) hall; he knocks, four-and-twenty gentlemen welcome him in, and as many gay ladies attend the lassie, who is thenceforward a knight's or squire's lady.

In _The Jolly Beggar_ (Child, No. 279, v. 109), which, with the similar Scottish poem _The Gaberlunzie Man_, is attributed without authority to James V. of Scotland, a beggar takes up his quarters in a house, and will only lie behind the hall-door, or by the fire. The lassie rises to bar the door, and is seized by the beggar. He asks if there are dogs in the town, as they would steal all his 'meal-pocks.' She throws the meal-pocks over the wall, saying, 'The deil go with your meal-pocks, my maidenhead, and a'.' The beggar reveals himself as a braw gentleman.

A converse story is afforded by the first part of the Norse tale translated by Dasent in _Popular Tales from the Norse_, 1888, p. 39, under the title of _Hacon Grizzlebeard_. A princess refuses all suitors, and mocks them publicly. Hacon Grizzlebeard, a prince, comes to woo her. She makes the king's fool mutilate the prince's horses, and then makes game of his appearance as he drives out the next day. Resolved to take his revenge, Hacon disguises himself as a beggar, attracts the princess's notice by means of a golden spinning-wheel, its stand, and a golden wool-winder, and sells them to her for the privilege of sleeping firstly outside her door, secondly beside her bed, and finally in it. The rest of the tale narrates Hacon's method of breaking down the princess's pride.

Other parallels of incident and phraseology may be noted:--

4.1 'well good steed'; 'well good,' a commonplace = very good; for 'well good steed,' cf. _John o' the Side_, 34.3 (p. 162 of this volume).

7.1 'Four-and-twenty knights.' The number is a commonplace in ballads; especially cf. _The Beggar Laddie_ (as above), Child's text A, st. 13:

'Four an' tuenty gentelmen
They conved the beager ben,
An' as mony gay ladës
Conved the beager's lassie.'

12.4 For the proper mediæval horror of 'churl's blood,' see _Glasgerion_, stt. 12, 19 (First Series, pp. 4, 5).

13.3 'meal-pock.' The meal-bag was part of the professional beggar's outfit; see _Will Stewart and John_, 78.3 (Child, No. 107, ii. 437). For blinding with meal-dust, see _Robin Hood and the Beggar_, ii. 77, 78 (Child, No. 134, iii. 163). The meal-pock also occurs in _The Jolly Beggar_, as cited above.

THE JOLLY JUGGLER

Draw me near, draw me near,
Draw me near, ye jolly jugglere!

1.
Here beside dwelleth
A rich baron's daughter;
She would have no man
That for her love had sought her.
_So nice she was!_

2.
She would have no man
That was made of mould,
But if he had a mouth of gold
To kiss her when she would.
_So dangerous she was!_

3.
Thereof heard a jolly juggler
That laid was on the green;
And at this lady's words
I wis he had great teen.
_An-ang'red he was!_

4.
He juggled to him a well good steed
Of an old horse-bone,
A saddle and a bridle both,
And set himself thereon.
_A juggler he was!_

5.
He pricked and pranced both
Before that lady's gate;
She wend he [had] been an angel
Was come for her sake.
_A pricker he was!_

6.
He pricked and pranced
Before that lady's bower;
She wend he had been an angel
Come from heaven tower.
_A prancer he was!_

7.
Four-and-twenty knights
Led him into the hall,
And as many squires
His horse to the stall,
_And gave him meat_.

8.
They gave him oats
And also hay;
He was an old shrew
And held his head away.
_He would not eat._

9.
The day began to pass,
The night began to come,
To bed was brought
The fair gentlewoman,
_And the juggler also_.

10.
The night began to pass,
The day began to spring;
All the birds of her bower,
They began to sing,
_And the cuckoo also_!

11.
'Where be ye, my merry maidens,
That ye come not me to?
The jolly windows of my bower
Look that you undo,
_That I may see_!

12.
'For I have in mine arms
A duke or else an earl.'
But when she looked him upon,
He was a blear-eyed churl.
_'Alas!' she said._

13.
She led him to an hill,
And hanged should he be.
He juggled himself to a meal-pock;
The dust fell in her eye;
_Beguiled she was_.

14.
God and our Lady
And sweet Saint Joham
Send every giglot of this town
Such another leman,
_Even as he was_!

[Annotations:
2.3: 'But if,' unless.
3.4: 'teen,' wrath.
5.3, 6.3: 'wend,' thought.
5.3: 'had' omitted in the manuscript.
8.3: 'He': the manuscript reads '&.'
13.3: 'meal-pock,' meal-bag.
14.3: 'giglot,' wench.]

INDEX OF TITLES
PAGE

Baron of Brackley, The, 122
Battle of Harlaw, The, 194
Battle of Otterburn, The, 16
Bessy Bell and Mary Gray, 133
Bewick and Grahame, 101
Braes of Yarrow, The, 34

Captain Car, 62
Clyde's Water, 140

Death of Parcy Reed, The, 93
Dick o' the Cow, 75
Durham Field, 181

Earl Bothwell, 177

Fire of Frendraught, The, 112
Flodden Field, 71

Gardener, The, 153
Geordie, 118
Gipsy Laddie, The, 129

Heir of Linne, The, 170
Hunting of the Cheviot, The, 1

Jamie Douglas, 164
John o' the Side, 156
Johnie Armstrong, 30
Jolly Juggler, The, 211

Katharine Jaffray, 145
Kinmont Willie, 49

Laird of Knottington, The, 200
Laird o' Logie, The, 58
Lizie Lindsay, 148
Lord Maxwell's Last Goodnight, 206

Mary Hamilton, 44

Outlyer Bold, The, 40

Sir Hugh in the Grime's Downfall, 89
Sir James the Rose, 135
Sir Patrick Spence, 68

Twa Brothers, The, 37
Waly, waly, gin love be bonny, 168
Whummil Bore, The, 204

INDEX OF FIRST LINES
PAGE

Adiew, madam my mother dear, 207
As I cam in by Dunidier, 195

God send the land deliverance, 94
Good Lord John is a hunting gone, 89

Here beside dwelleth, 214

I dreamed a dreary dream this night, 34
Inverey cam doun Deeside, whistlin' and playin', 123
It befell at Martynmas, 63
It's of a young lord o' the Hielands, 148
I will sing, if ye will hearken, 59

King Jamie hath made a vow, 72

Lordings, listen and hold you still, 182

Now Liddisdale has long lain in, 76

O Bessie Bell and Mary Gray, 134
Of all the lords in fair Scotland, 171
O have ye na heard o' the fause Sakelde, 50
O heard ye of Sir James the Rose, 135
Old Grahame he is to Carlisle gone, 101
O waly, waly up the bank, 168

Peter o' Whifield he hath slain, 157

Seven lang years I hae served the king, 204

The eighteenth of October, 113
The gardener stands in his bower-door, 153
The king sits in Dumferling toune, 69
The Persë owt off Northombarlonde, 3
There cam singers to Earl Cassillis' gates, 130
There dwelt a man in faire Westmerland, 30
There liv'd a lass in yonder dale, 145
There was a battle in the north, 118
There was a troop of merry gentlemen, 200
There were three sisters, they lived in a bower, 40
There were twa brethren in the north, 37

Waly, waly up the bank, 165
Woe worth thee, woe worth thee, false Scotland, 177
Word's gane to the kitchen, 46

Ye gie corn unto my horse, 141
Yt fell abowght the Lamasse tyde, 18

Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty
at the Edinburgh University Press

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Errata:

Bewick and Grahame
[Stanza 33.]
But if thou be a man, as I trow thou art,
_text reads "he a man"_
Durham Field
_"Crecy" consistently written with cedilla_
Lord Maxwell's Last Goodnight
[editor's introduction]
As for Lord Maxwell's 'lady and only joy,'
_close quote missing_