Chapter I: Front Matter

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STORY-TELLING BALLADS

STORY-TELLING BALLADS

Selected and Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the Boys’ and Girls’ Own Reading

by

FRANCES JENKINS OLCOTT

Boston and New York Houghton Mifflin Company The Riverside Press Cambridge 1920

Copyright, 1920, by Frances Jenkins Olcott

All Rights Reserved

The Riverside Press Cambridge . Massachusetts U . S . A

TO MY SISTER

VIRGINIA OLCOTT

THE FOREWORD

Here are 77 story-telling ballads and narrative poems, that will make the heart beat faster and the pulse bound, of any boy or girl from twelve to fifteen years of age.

They offer a feast of good things--romances, hero-tales, Faërie legends, and adventures of Knights and lovely Damsels. They sing of proud and wicked folk, of gentle and loyal ones, of Laidley Worms, Witches, Mermaids with golden combs, sad maidens, glad ones and fearless lovers, moss-troopers, border-rievers, and Kings in disguise. All their doings are related in the stirring, leaping, joyous--or at times martial and mournful-ballad measure.

The ancient ballads are here presented exactly as when in days of old they were sung by minstrels and recited by gaffers and gammers. No alterations are made in the texts of the ballad-collectors and collators, except the changing of a few objectionable words. Two or three of the less well-known ballads are done into modern spelling. A number, not hitherto found in children’s collections, will be delightfully new to young people. Some popular ballads, like “King John and the Abbot of Canterbury,” and “The King and the Miller of Mansfield,” are omitted because they are in _Story-Telling Poems_.

A goodly number of famous modern ballads are included; and at the end of the volume are 10 short narrative poems of “Pilgrimage and Souls so Strong.”

At the end of the book are a Glossary and Indexes of subjects, authors, titles, and first lines.

TEACHERS, STORY-TELLERS, AND BALLADS

Since great care has been taken to choose authoritative texts (see Acknowledgments, page xv and Suggestions for Teachers, page 363), the teacher will find this collection helpful when instructing classes in early English literature or in ballad structure and measure.

The Glossary for classroom use is placed at the back of the book, not in footnotes, because children who are reading for enjoyment easily learn new words from the context.

The collection may be used for story-hours; or, as older boys and girls prefer being read aloud to, in it may be found an abundance of material for weekly poetry hours and for memorizing.

YOUTH IN THE BALLADS

Ballads are the natural heritage of every boy and girl. Ballads are tuned to the very pulse of Youth. They are red-blooded: joyous with the freshness of Springtime, and robust with the early Summer of Life. They appeal with peculiar delight to growing boys and girls, satisfying, as do no other poems, their craving for emotional expression in quick, rhythmic form.

Ballads not only feed the romantic spirit of young people, but teach them much homely wisdom. They are essentially democratic and human. In them Kings and tinkers, Knights and shepherds, meet, talk, and feast together like comrades.

And because the vigour of Youth so animates the old ballads, young folk read them eagerly, learn them almost without effort, and recite them with gusto. The wild, free life in the good greenwood, the chivalry, mystery, pathos, heroic deeds, and thrilling experiences--in fact, Life itself running the whole gamut of human emotions--enthrall the ever eager, questioning, shifting moods of boys and girls.

HOW THE BALLADS GREW

The human and universal in the ancient ballads, their eternal youthful appeal, are rooted deepset in the daily life of the People. Their very meter and airs are natural growths like the sheath of a wildflower. For in those good old ballad-making days, minstrels, the welcome guests of rich and poor, wandered from castle to cot and inn, from eyrie-like retreats of Highland chiefs to fortified border-towers of the Lowland or “North Contraye.” And as the minstrels rested their harps or bagpipes on the earthen floors of cottages, or while they sat feasting with nobles in baronial halls, they heard peasants, working-folk, servitors, squires, ladies, and returned Crusaders, telling of their adventures on land and sea, in fights, battles, border-raids, in abductions of lovely maidens, in combats with Saracens and with Laidley monsters, in meetings with Faërie Knights and Elfin Queens all under the greenwood-shade. They heard, also, tales of changelings and visits to Fairyland; stories of Ghosts, Ghouls, and Witches; legends of the sea; and traditions of national heroes.

This material, so varied, so freshly spontaneous and imaginative, the minstrels shaped into ballads, setting them to music now wild and weird, now tragic and mournful, now sweet and debonair. So they played and sang the ballads in cottage, bower, and hall, moulding them to the delight and humours of their hearers, changing them to suit time and place. Thus there grew up many versions of a single ballad.

The old folk, too, the gaffers and gammers by the fireside, learned the ballads and recited or sung them to the children; who in their turn, when they became old, told them to other children. Thus the old songs were passed along by word of mouth from generation to generation, from countryside to countryside, and even from one land to another.

MAKING A COLLECTION FOR CHILDREN

As was natural in those coarse old times, much that was unsuitable for children was woven into the ballads; which to-day makes it a difficult task to compile a representative juvenile collection. For, as Spenser so aptly put it when writing of Irish bards, they “seldom use to choose unto themselves the doings of good men for the arguments of their poems, but whomsoever they find to be ... most bold and lawless in his doings, most dangerous and desperate in all parts of disobedience and rebellious disposition, him they set up and glorify in their rhymes, him they praise to the people, and to young men make an example to follow.”

But Spenser’s criticism of the Irish bards is far too violent a stricture on all Scottish and English ballad literature. For there are Scottish and English ones, clean, merry, and nobly heroic; fine and wholesome reading for our boys and girls.

For Sir Walter Scott’s romantic tastes and his interest in Highland and Border life were awakened and fired, when he was a boy, by reading ballads. And Sir Philip Sydney wrote in his _Defence of Poetry_, “Certainly, I must confess mine own barbarousness; I never heard the old song of Percy and Douglas, that I found not my heart moved more than with a trumpet; and yet it is sung but by some blind crowder, with no rougher voice than rude style ... In Hungary I have seen it the manner at all feasts, and all other such-like meetings, to have songs of their ancestors’ valour, which that right soldier-like nation think one of the chiefest kindlers of brave courage.”

But in making a collection of ballads for modern boys and girls, it is not enough to choose those that will arouse only the higher emotions. The interests of young people have to be consulted; while nothing in extremely difficult Scottish dialect may be included, nor in very old English.

Then there are many versions of individual ballads to choose from. Of “Hynd Horn” there are eight or more; of “Young Beichan and Susie Pye,” fourteen or more; and of other ballads many versions. Next, authoritative texts must be found, for some transcribers have made mistakes or have altered the originals. So it may be seen what a painstaking task it is to compile a collection of ballads for educational purposes as well as for the boys’ and girls’ own reading.

As for this volume, it covers so wide a range of fascinating subjects that it will surely entrance any lad or lass who, opening its pages for pleasure-reading, steps with Valentine and Ursine, Robin Hood and Clorinda, and the brave outlaw Murray, into

_The gude green-wood amang the lily flower_.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My thanks are due Messrs. Houghton Mifflin Company for the use of the following modern ballads, “The Ballad of the Oysterman,” by Oliver Wendell Holmes; “The Luck of Edenhall,” “The Three Kings,” and “The Skeleton in Armour,” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; “The Singing Leaves,” by James Russell Lowell; “Barclay of Ury,” by John Greenleaf Whittier.

Among the authoritative texts from which I have taken ancient and popular ballads, are Bell’s _Early Ballads and Songs of the Peasantry of England_; Bishop Percy’s _Reliques of Ancient English Poetry_, and his _Folio Manuscript, edited by Hales and Furnivall_; _A Collection of Old Ballads_, London, 1723-25; Dixon’s _Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs of the Peasantry of England_ (Percy Society); Jamieson’s _Popular Ballads and Songs_; Monk Lewis’s _Tales of Wonder_; Motherwell’s _Minstrelsy, Ancient and Modern_; Nicholson’s _Historical and Traditional Tales ... Connected with the South of Scotland_; Ritson’s _Robin Hood_; Sir Walter Scott’s _Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_; Sheldon’s _Minstrelsy of the English Border_; also the scholarly collection of _English and Scottish Popular Ballads_, compiled and edited by Professor Francis James Child, for the use of which my acknowledgments are due its publishers, Messrs. Houghton Mifflin Company.

The best texts available have been followed for the original ballads by Sir Walter Raleigh, George Herbert, Hogg, Scott, Lover, Kingsley, Tennyson, Campbell, and Keats.

CONTENTS

THE SALT BLUE SEAS

THE STORMY WINDS DO BLOW 2

SIR PATRICK SPENS 3

THE DÆMON LOVER 7

THE MERMAID _Dr. John Leyden_ 10

A-HARROWING O’ THE BORDER

THE GALLOWAY RAID 20

THE MORE MODERN BALLAD OF CHEVY-CHASE 21

THE BALLAD OF MEIKLE-MOUTHED MEG 32

BELTED WILL _Frederick Sheldon_ 47

BRAVE HEARTS AND PROUD

EARL HALDAN’S DAUGHTER _Charles Kingsley_ 58

LADY CLARE _Alfred, Lord Tennyson_ 59

PROUD LADY MARGARET 62

THE FAMOUS FLOWER OF SERVING-MEN 65

COCHRANE’S BONNY GRIZZY 70

THE GREETING OF KYNAST _Charles T. Brooks, from Rückert_ 74

LAYS O’ FAËRIE

THE FAIRY TEMPTER _Samuel Lover_ 80

ALICE BRAND _Sir Walter Scott_ 81

THE ERL-KING _Sir Walter Scott, from Goethe_ 86

THE FAIRY THORN _Samuel Ferguson_ 87

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI _John Keats_ 91

THOMAS THE RHYMER 93

THE KELPIE OF CORRIEVRECKAN _Charles Mackay_ 97

KILMENY _The Ettrick Shepherd_ 101

LAYS O’ WONDER

THE WEE WEE MAN 114

THE EARL OF MAR’S DAUGHTER 115

KEMP OWYNE 122

THE LADY OF SHALOTT _Alfred, Lord Tennyson_ 124

THE SINGING LEAVES _James Russell Lowell_ 131

THE LUCK OF EDENHALL _Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, from Uhland_ 135

MAY OF THE MORIL GLEN _The Ettrick Shepherd_ 138

THE LAIDLEY WORM O’ SPINDLESTON-HEUGHS 148

MERRY GESTES

A TRAGIC STORY _William Makepeace Thackeray, from Chamisso_ 158

LITTLE BILLEE _William Makepeace Thackeray_ 159

BRIAN O’LINN 160

DICKY OF BALLYMAN 162

THE BALLAD OF THE OYSTERMAN _Oliver Wendell Holmes_ 164

THE CINDER KING _Modern, anon._ 167

THE FROLICKSOME DUKE; OR, THE TINKER’S GOOD FORTUNE 169

KING JAMES THE FIRST AND THE TINKLER 173

KING ALFRED AND THE SHEPHERD 176

SAD GESTES

THE SANDS OF DEE _Charles Kingsley_ 190

FAIR ANNY OF ROCH-ROYAL 191

THE CRUEL SISTER 196

BARBARA ALLEN’S CRUELTY 201

SONG: EARL MARCH LOOKED ON HIS DYING CHILD _Thomas Campbell_ 203

LORD LOVEL 204

PRETTY MAYS AND KNIGHTS SO BOLD

THE NOBLE RIDDLE 208

BLANCHEFLOUR AND JELLYFLORICE 209

GLENARA _Thomas Campbell_ 212

THE BEGGAR-MAID _Alfred, Lord Tennyson_ 214

LOCHINVAR _Sir Waller Scott_ 215

THE GAY GOSS-HAWK 218

BONNY BABY LIVINGSTON 224

HYND HORN 231

YOUNG BEICHAN AND SUSIE PYE 237

THE CHILD OF ELLE 244

FOR HALLOWEEN AND MIDSUMMER EVE

THE SPELL _John Gay_ 254

THE YOUNG TAMLANE 255

THE WIFE OF USHER’S WELL 263

SIR ROLAND 265

THE SKELETON IN ARMOUR _H. W. Longfellow_ 270

SWEET WILLIAM’S GHOST 276

THE EVE OF ST. JOHN _Sir Walter Scott_ 279

ALL UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE

THE BIRTH O’ ROBIN HOOD 290

ROBIN HOOD AND LITTLE JOHN 291

ROBIN HOOD AND CLORINDA 297

SONG OF THE OUTLAW MURRAY 301

VALENTINE AND URSINE 314

O’ PILGRIMAGE AND SOULS SO STRONG

THE PILGRIM _John Bunyan_ 332

THE HEART OF THE BRUCE _William Edmondstoune Aytoun_ 333

BARCLAY OF URY _John Greenleaf Whittier_ 341

THE TOUCHSTONE _William Allingham_ 347

SIR GALAHAD _Alfred, Lord Tennyson_ 348

PILGRIMAGE _Sir Walter Raleigh_ 351

THE ROYAL COURT _Modern, anon._ 353

TRUE VALOUR _John Bunyan_ 355

PEACE _George Herbert_ 356

THE THREE KINGS _Henry Wadsworth Longfellow_ 357