The English and Scottish popular ballads, volume 1 (of 5)

Chapter II: Part 2

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The publication of the Percy MS. not only put a large amount of trustworthy material at the disposal of Mr Child; it exposed the full enormity of Bishop Percy's sins against popular tradition. Some shadow of suspicion inevitably fell on all other ballad collections. It was more than ever clear to Mr Child that he could not safely take anything at second hand, and he determined not to print a line of his projected work till he had exhausted every effort to get hold of whatever manuscript material might be in existence. His efforts in this direction continued through many years. A number of manuscripts were in private hands; of some the whereabouts was not known; of others the existence was not suspected. But Mr Child was untiring. He was cordially assisted by various scholars, antiquaries, and private gentlemen, to whose coöperation ample testimony is borne in the Advertisements prefixed to the volumes in the present work. Some manuscripts were secured for the Library of Harvard University--notably Bishop Percy's Papers, the Kinloch MSS, and the Harris MS.,[8]--and of others careful copies were made, which became the property of the same library. In all these operations the indispensable good offices of Mr William Macmath, of Edinburgh, deserve particular mention. For a long series of years his services were always at Mr Child's disposal. His self-sacrifice and generosity appear to have been equalled only by his perseverance and wonderful accuracy. But for him the manuscript basis of The English and Scottish Popular Ballads would have been far less strong than it is.

Gradually, then, the manuscript materials came in, until at last, in 1882, Mr Child felt justified in beginning to print. Other important documents were, however, discovered or made accessible as time went on. Especially noteworthy was the great find at Abbotsford (see the Advertisement to Part VIII). In 1877 Dr David Laing procured, "not without difficulty," leave to prepare for Mr Child a copy of the single manuscript of ballads then known to remain in the library at Abbotsford. This MS., entitled "Scottish Songs," was so inconsiderable, in proportion to the accumulations which Sir Walter Scott had made in preparing his Border Minstrelsy, that further search seemed to be imperatively necessary. In 1890 permission to make such a search, and to use the results, was given by the Honorable Mrs Maxwell-Scott. The investigation, made by Mr Macmath, yielded a rich harvest of ballads, which were utilized in Parts VII-IX. To dwell upon the details would be endless. The reader may see a list of the manuscript sources at pp. 397 ff. of the fifth volume; and, if he will observe how scattered they were, he will have no difficulty in believing that it required years, labor, and much delicate negotiation to bring them all together. One manuscript remained undiscoverable, William Tytler's Brown MS., but there is no reason to believe that this contained anything of consequence that is not otherwise known.[9]

Meanwhile, concurrently with the toil of amassing, collating, and arranging texts, went on the far more arduous labor of comparative study of the ballads of all nations; for, in accordance with Mr Child's plan it was requisite to determine, in the fullest manner, the history and foreign relations of every piece included in his collection. To this end he devoted much time and unwearied diligence to forming, in the Library of the University, a special collection of "Folk-lore," particularly of ballads, romances, and _Märchen_. This priceless collection, the formation of which must be looked on as one of Mr Child's most striking services to the university, numbers some 7000 volumes. But these figures by no means represent the richness of the Library in the departments concerned, or the services of Mr Child in this particular. Mediæval literature in all its phases was his province, and thousands of volumes classified in other departments of the University Library bear testimony to his vigilance in ordering books, and his astonishing bibliographical knowledge. Very few books are cited in the present collection which are not to be found on the shelves of this Library.

In addition, Mr Child made an effort to stimulate the collection of such remains of the traditional ballad as still live on the lips of the people in this country and in the British Islands. The harvest was, in his opinion, rather scanty; yet, if all the versions thus recovered from tradition were enumerated, the number would not be found inconsiderable. Enough was done, at all events, to make it clear that little or nothing of value remains to be recovered in this way.

To readers familiar with such studies, no comment is necessary, and to those who are unfamiliar with them, no form of statement can convey even a faint impression of the industry, the learning, the acumen, and the literary skill which these processes required. In writing the history of a single ballad, Mr Child was sometimes forced to examine hundreds of books in perhaps a dozen different languages. But his industry was unflagging, his sagacity was scarcely ever at fault, and his linguistic and literary knowledge seemed to have no bounds. He spared no pains to perfect his work in every detail, and his success was commensurate with his efforts. In the Advertisement to the Ninth Part (1894), he was able to report that the three hundred and five numbers of his collection comprised the whole extant mass of this traditional material, with the possible exception of a single ballad.[10]

In June, 1896, Mr Child concluded his fiftieth year of service as a teacher in Harvard College. He was at this time hard at work on the Tenth and final Part, which was to contain a glossary, various indexes, a bibliography, and an elaborate introduction on the general subject. For years he had allowed himself scarcely any respite from work, and, in spite of the uncertain condition of his health,--or perhaps in consequence of it,--he continued to work at high pressure throughout the summer. At the end of August he discovered that he was seriously ill. He died at Boston on the 11th day of September. He had finished his great work except for the introduction and the general bibliography. The bibliography was in preparation by another hand and has since been completed. The introduction, however, no other scholar had the hardihood to undertake. A few pages of manuscript,--the last thing written by his pen,--almost illegible, were found among his papers to show that he had actually begun the composition of this essay, and many sheets of excerpts testified to the time he had spent in refreshing his memory as to the opinions of his predecessors, but he had left no collectanea that could be utilized in supplying the Introduction itself. He was accustomed to carry much of his material in his memory till the moment of composition arrived, and this habit accounts for the fact that there are no jottings of opinions and no sketch of precisely what line of argument he intended to take.

Mr Child's sudden death was felt as a bitter personal loss, not only by an unusually large circle of attached friends in both hemispheres, but by very many scholars who knew him through his works alone. He was one of the few learned men to whom the old title of "Master" was justly due and freely accorded. With astonishing erudition, which nothing seemed to have escaped, he united an infectious enthusiasm and a power of lucid and fruitful exposition that made him one of the greatest of teachers, and a warmth and openness of heart that won the affection of all who knew him. In most men, however complex their characters, one can distinguish the qualities of the heart, in some degree, from the qualities of the head. In Professor Child no such distinction was possible, for all the elements of his many-sided nature were fused in his marked and powerful individuality. In his case, the scholar and the man cannot be separated. His life and his learning were one; his work was the expression of himself.

As an investigator Professor Child was at once the inspiration and the despair of his disciples. Nothing could surpass the scientific exactness of his methods and the unwearied diligence with which he conducted his researches. No possible source of information could elude him; no book or manuscript was too voluminous or too unpromising for him to examine on the chance of its containing some fact that might correct or supplement his material, even in the minutest point. Yet these qualities of enthusiastic accuracy and thoroughness, admirable as they undoubtedly were, by no means dominated him. They were always at the command of the higher qualities of his genius,--sagacity, acumen, and a kind of sympathetic and imaginative power in which he stood almost alone among recent scholars. No detail of language or tradition or archæology was to him a mere lifeless fact; it was transmuted into something vital, and became a part of that universal humanity which always moved him wherever he found it, whether in the pages of a mediæval chronicle, or in the stammering accents of a late and vulgarly distorted ballad, or in the faces of the street boys who begged roses from his garden. No man ever felt a keener interest in his kind, and no scholar ever brought this interest into more vivifying contact with the technicalities of his special studies. The exuberance of this large humanity pervades his edition of the English and Scottish ballads. Even in his last years, when the languor of uncertain health sometimes got the better, for a season, of the spirit with which he commonly worked, some fresh bit of genuine poetry in a ballad, some fine trait of pure nature in a stray folk-tale, would, in an instant, bring back the full flush of that enthusiasm which he must have felt when the possibilities of his achievement first presented themselves to his mind in early manhood. For such a nature there was no old age.

From this ready sympathy came that rare faculty--seldom possessed by scholars--which made Professor Child peculiarly fit for his greatest task. Few persons understand the difficulties of ballad investigation. In no field of literature have the forger and the manipulator worked with greater vigor and success. From Percy's day to our own it has been thought an innocent device to publish a bit of one's own versifying, now and then, as an "old ballad" or an "ancient song." Often, too, a late stall-copy of a ballad, getting into oral circulation, has been innocently furnished to collectors as traditional matter. Mere learning will not guide an editor through these perplexities. What is needed is, in addition, a complete understanding of the "popular" genius, a sympathetic recognition of the traits that characterize oral literature wherever and in whatever degree they exist. This faculty, which even the folk has not retained, and which collectors living in ballad-singing and tale-telling times have often failed to acquire, was vouchsafed by nature herself to this sedentary scholar. In reality a kind of instinct, it had been so cultivated by long and loving study of the traditional literature of all nations that it had become wonderfully swift in its operations and almost infallible. A forged or retouched piece could not deceive him for a moment; he detected the slightest jar in the genuine ballad tone. He speaks in one place of certain writers "who would have been all the better historians for a little reading of romances." He was himself the better interpreter of the poetry of art for this keen sympathy with the poetry of nature.

Constant association with the spirit of the folk did its part in maintaining, under the stress of unremitting study and research, that freshness and buoyancy of mind which was the wonder of all who met Professor Child for the first time, and the perpetual delight of his friends and associates. It is impossible to describe the charm of his familiar conversation. There was endless variety without effort. His peculiar humor, taking shape in a thousand felicities of thought and phrase that fell casually and as it were inevitably from his lips, exhilarated without reaction or fatigue. His lightest words were full of fruitful suggestion. Sudden strains of melancholy or high seriousness were followed, in a moment, by flashes of gaiety almost boyish. And pervading it all one felt the attraction of his personality and the goodness of his heart.

Professor Child's humor was not only one of his most striking characteristics as a man; it was of constant service to his scholarly researches. Keenly alive to any incongruity in thought or fact, and the least self-conscious of men, he scrutinized his own nascent theories with the same humorous shrewdness with which he looked at the ideas of others. It is impossible to think of him as the sponsor of some hypotheses which men of equal eminence have advanced and defended with passion; and, even if his goodness of nature had not prevented it, his sense of the ridiculous would not have suffered him to engage in the absurdities of philological polemics. In the interpretation of literature, his humor stood him in good stead, keeping his native sensibility under due control, so that it never degenerated into sentimentalism. It made him a marvelous interpreter of Chaucer, whose spirit he had caught to a degree attained by no other scholar or critic.

To younger scholars Professor Child was an influence at once stimulating and benignant. To confer with him was always to be stirred to greater effort, but, at the same time, the serenity of his devotion to learning chastened the petulance of immature ambition in others. The talk might be quite concrete, even definitely practical,--it might deal with indifferent matters; but, in some way, there was an irradiation of the master's nature that dispelled all unworthy feelings. In the presence of his noble modesty the bustle of self-assertion was quieted and the petty spirit of pedantic wrangling could not assert itself. However severe his criticism, there were no personalities in it. He could not be other than outspoken,--concealment and shuffling were abhorrent to him,--yet such was his kindliness that his frankest judgments never wounded; even his reproofs left no sting. With his large charity was associated, as its necessary complement in a strong character, a capacity for righteous indignation. "He is almost the only man I know," said one in his lifetime, "who _thinks no evil_." There could be no truer word. Yet when he was confronted with injury or oppression, none could stand against the anger of this just man. His unselfishness did not suffer him to see offences against himself, but wrong done to another roused him in an instant to protesting action.

Professor Child's publications, despite their magnitude and importance, are no adequate measure either of his acquirements or of his influence. He printed nothing about Shakspere, for example, yet he was the peer of any Shaksperian, past or present, in knowledge and interpretative power. As a Chaucer scholar he had no superior, in this country or in Europe: his published work was confined, as we have seen, to questions of language, but no one had a wider or closer acquaintance with the whole subject. An edition of Chaucer from his hand would have been priceless. His acquaintance with letters was not confined to special authors or centuries. He was at home in modern European literature and profoundly versed in that of the Middle Ages. In his immediate territory,--English,--his knowledge, linguistic and literary, covered all periods, and was alike exact and thorough. His taste and judgment were exquisite, and he enlightened every subject which he touched. As a writer, he was master of a singularly felicitous style, full of individuality and charm. Had his time not been occupied in other ways, he would have made the most delightful of essayists.

Fortunately, Professor Child's courses of instruction in the university--particularly those on Chaucer and Shakspere--gave him an opportunity to impart to a constantly increasing circle of pupils the choicest fruits of his life of thought and study. In his later years he had the satisfaction to see grow up about him a school of young specialists who can have no higher ambition than to be worthy of their master. But his teaching was not limited to these,--it included all sorts and conditions of college students; and none, not even the idle and incompetent, could fail to catch something of his spirit. One thing may be safely asserted: no university teacher was ever more beloved.

And with this may fitly close too slight a tribute to the memory of a great scholar and a good man. Many things remain unsaid. His gracious family life, his civic virtues, his patriotism, his bounty to the poor,--all must be passed by with a bare mention, which yet will signify much to those who knew him. In all ways he lived worthily, and he died having attained worthy ends.

G. L. KITTREDGE.

[1] C. E. Norton, 'Francis James Child,' in the Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, XXXII, 334, 335; reprinted, with some additions, in the Harvard Graduates' Magazine, VI, 161-169 (Boston, 1897). I have used this biographical sketch freely in my brief account of Professor Child's boyhood.

[3] The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser. The text carefully revised, and illustrated with notes, original and selected, by Francis J. Child. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company. 1855. 5 vols.

[4] The Canterbury Tales of Geoffrey Chaucer. A new text, with illustrative notes. Edited by Thomas Wright. London, printed for the Percy Society, 1847-51. 3 vols.

[5] The paper entitled Observations on the Language of Chaucer was laid before the American Academy of Arts and Sciences on June 3, 1862, and was published in the Memoirs of the Academy, Vol. VIII, pt. ii, 445-502 (Boston, 1863). The second paper, entitled Observations on the Language of Gower's Confessio Amantis, was laid before the Academy on January 9, 1866, and appeared in Memoirs, IX, ii, 265-315 (Boston, 1873). A few copies of each paper were struck off separately, but these are now very hard to find. Mr Ellis's rearrangement and amalgamation of the two papers, which is by no means a good substitute for the papers themselves, may be found in Part I of his Early English Pronunciation, London, 1869, pp. 343-97.

[6] English and Scottish Ballads. Selected and edited by Francis James Child. Boston, 1857-58.

[7] How inseparable were the services of Dr Furnivall and those of Professor Child in securing this devoutly wished consummation may be seen by comparing Dr Furnivall's Forewords (I, ix, x), in which he gives much of the credit to Mr Child, with Mr Child's Dedication (in vol. I of the present collection), in which he gives the credit to Dr Furnivall.

[8] Since Mr Child's death the important "Buchan original MS" has been secured for the Child Memorial Library of the University,--a collection endowed by friends and pupils of the dead master.

[9] See V, 397 b.

[10] This is 'Young Betrice,' No 5 in William Tytler's lost Brown MS. (V, 397), which "may possibly be a version of 'Hugh Spencer's Feats in France'" (see II, 377; III, 275).

RIDDLES WISELY EXPOUNDED

#A. a.# 'A Noble Riddle Wisely Expounded; or, The Maid's
Answer to the Knight's Three Questions,' 4to, Rawlinson,
566, fol. 193, Bodleian Library; Wood, E. 25, fol. 15,
Bod. Lib. #b.# Pepys, III, 19, No 17, Magdalen College,
Cambridge. #c.# Douce, II, fol. 168 b, Bod. Lib. #d.# 'A
Riddle Wittily Expounded,' Pills to Purge Melancholy, IV,
129, ed. 1719. "II, 129, ed. 1712."

#B.# 'The Three Sisters.' Some Ancient Christmas Carols
... together with two Ancient Ballads, etc. By Davies
Gilbert, 2d ed., p. 65.

#C.# 'The Unco Knicht's Wowing,' Motherwell's MS., p. 647.

#D.# Motherwell's MS., p. 142.

The four copies of #A# differ but very slightly: #a#, #b#, #c# are broadsides, and #d# is evidently of that derivation, #a# and #b# are of the 17th century. There is another broadside in the Euing collection, formerly Halliwell's, No 253. The version in The Borderer's Table Book, VII, 83, was compounded by Dixon from others previously printed.

Riddles, as is well known, play an important part in popular story, and that from very remote times. No one needs to be reminded of Samson, Œdipus, Apollonius of Tyre. Riddle-tales, which, if not so old as the oldest of these, may be carried in all likelihood some centuries beyond our era, still live in Asiatic and European tradition, and have their representatives in popular ballads. The largest class of these tales is that in which one party has to guess another's riddles, or two rivals compete in giving or guessing, under penalty in either instance of forfeiting life or some other heavy wager; an example of which is the English ballad, modern in form, of 'King John and the Abbot of Canterbury.' In a second class, a suitor can win a lady's hand only by guessing riddles, as in our 'Captain Wedderburn's Courtship' and 'Proud Lady Margaret.' There is sometimes a penalty of loss of life for the unsuccessful, but not in these ballads. Thirdly, there is the tale (perhaps an offshoot of an early form of the first) of The Clever Lass, who wins a husband, and sometimes a crown, by guessing riddles, solving difficult but practicable problems, or matching and evading impossibilities; and of this class versions #A# and #B# of the present ballad and #A-H# of the following are specimens.

Ballads like our 1, #A#, #B#, 2, #A-H#, are very common in #German#. Of the former variety are the following:

#A.# 'Räthsellied,' Büsching, Wöchentliche Nachrichten, I, 65, from the neighborhood of Stuttgart. The same, Erlach, III, 37; Wunderhorn, IV, 139; Liederhort, p. 338, No 153; Erk u. Irmer, H. 5, p. 32, No 29; Mittler, No 1307 (omits the last stanza); Zuccalmaglio, II, 574, No 317 [with change in st. 11]. A knight meets a maid on the road, dismounts, and says, "I will ask you a riddle; if you guess it, you shall be my wife." She answers, "Your riddle shall soon be guessed; I will do my best to be your wife;" guesses eight pairs of riddles, is taken up behind him, and they ride off. #B.# 'Räthsel um Räthsel,' Wunderhorn, II, 407 [429, 418]==Erlach, I, 439. Zuccalmaglio, II, 572, No 316, rearranges, but adds nothing. Mittler, No 1306, inserts three stanzas (7, 9, 10). This version begins: "Maid, I will give you some riddles, and if you guess them will marry you." There are seven pairs, and, these guessed, the man says, "I can't give you riddles; let's marry;" to which she gives no coy assent: but this conclusion is said not to be genuine (Liederhort, p. 341, note). #C.# 'Räthsellied,' Erk, Neue Sammlung, Heft 3, p. 64, No 57, and Liederhort, 340, No 153^a two Brandenburg versions, nearly agreeing, one with six, the other with five, pairs of riddles. A proper conclusion not having been obtained, the former was completed by the two last stanzas of #B#, which are suspicious. #C# begins like #B#. #D.# 'Räthselfragen,' Peter, Volksthümliches aus Österreichisch-Schlesien, I, 272, No 83. A knight rides by where two maids are sitting, one of whom salutes him, the other not. He says to the former, "I will put you three questions, and if you can answer them will marry you." He asks three, then six more, then three, and then two, and, all being answered, bids her, since she is so witty, build a house on a needle's point, and put in as many windows as there are stars in the sky; which she parries with, "When all streams flow together, and all trees shall fruit, and all thorns bear roses, then come for your answer." #E.# 'Räthsellied,' Tschischka u. Schottky, Oesterreichische Volkslieder, 2d ed., p. 28, begins like #B#, #C#, has only three pairs of riddles, and ends with the same task of building a house on a needle's point. #F.# 'Räthsellied,' Hocker, Volkslieder von der Mosel, in Wolf's Zeits. für deutsche Myth., I, 251, from Trier, begins with the usual promise, has five pairs of riddles, and no conclusion. #G.# 'Räthsel,' Ditfurth, Fränkische V. L., II, 110, No 146, has the same beginning, six pairs of riddles, and no conclusion.

Some of the riddles occur in nearly all the versions, some in only one or two, and there is now and then a variation also in the answers. Those which are most frequent are:

Which is the maid without a tress? #A-D#, #G#.
And which is the tower without a crest? #A-D#, #F#, #G#.
(Maid-child in the cradle; tower of Babel.)
Which is the water without any sand? #A#, #B#, #C#, #F#, #G#.
And which is the king without any land? #A#, #B#, #C#, #F#, #G#.
(Water in the eyes; king in cards.)
Where is no dust in all the road? #A-G.#
Where is no leaf in all the wood? #A-G.#
(The milky way, or a river; a fir-wood.)
Which is the fire that never burnt? #A#, #C-G#.
And which is the sword without a point? #C-G.#
(A painted fire; a broken sword.)
Which is the house without a mouse? #C-G.#
Which is the beggar without a louse? #C-G.#
(A snail's house; a painted beggar.)[11]

A ballad translated in Ralston's Songs of the Russian People, p. 356, from Buslaef's Historical Sketches of National Literature and Art, I, 31, resembles very closely German #A#. A merchant's son drives by a garden where a girl is gathering flowers. He salutes her; she returns her thanks. Then the ballad proceeds:

'Shall I ask thee riddles, beauteous maiden?
Six wise riddles shall I ask thee?'
'Ask them, ask them, merchant's son,
Prithee ask the six wise riddles.'
'Well then, maiden, what is higher than the forest?
Also, what is brighter than the light?
Also, maiden, what is thicker than the forest?
Also, maiden, what is there that's rootless?
Also, maiden, what is never silent?
Also, what is there past finding out?'
'I will answer, merchant's son, will answer,
All the six wise riddles will I answer.
Higher than the forest is the moon;
Brighter than the light the ruddy sun;
Thicker than the forest are the stars;
Rootless is, O merchant's son, a stone;
Never silent, merchant's son, the sea;
And God's will is past all finding out.'
'Thou hast guessed, O maiden fair, guessed rightly,
All the six wise riddles hast thou answered;
Therefore now to me shalt thou be wedded,
Therefore, maiden, shalt thou be the merchant's wife.'[12]

Among the Gaels, both Scotch and Irish, a ballad of the same description is extremely well known. Apparently only the questions are preserved in verse, and the connection with the story made by a prose comment. Of these questions there is an Irish form, dated 1738, which purports to be copied from a manuscript of the twelfth century. Fionn would marry no lady whom he could pose. Graidhne, "daughter of the king of the fifth of Ullin," answered everything he asked, and became his wife. Altogether there are thirty-two questions in the several versions. Among them are: What is blacker than the raven? (There is death.) What is whiter than the snow? (There is the truth.) 'Fionn's Questions,' Campbell's Popular Tales of the West Highlands, III, 36; 'Fionn's Conversation with Ailbhe,'Heroic Gaelic Ballads, by the same, pp. 150, 151.

The familiar ballad-knight of #A#, #B# is converted in #C# into an "unco knicht," who is the devil, a departure from the proper story which is found also in #2 J#. The conclusion of #C#,

As soon as she the fiend did name,
He flew awa in a blazing flame,

reminds us of the behavior of trolls and nixes under like circumstances, but here the naming amounts to a detection of the Unco Knicht's quiddity, acts as an exorcism, and simply obliges the fiend to go off in his real character. #D# belongs with #C#: it was given by the reciter as a colloquy between the devil and a maiden.

The earlier affinities of this ballad can be better shown in connection with No 2.

Translated, after #B# and #A#, in Grundtvig's Engelske og skotske Folkeviser, p. 181: Herder, Volkslieder, I, 95, after #A d#.

#a.# Broadside in the Rawlinson collection, 4to, 566, fol. 193, Wood, E. 25, fol. 15. #b.# Pepys, III, 19, No 17. #c.# Douce, II, fol. 168 b. #d.# Pills to Purge Melancholy, IV, 130, ed. 1719.

1
There was a lady of the North Country,
Lay the bent to the bonny broom
And she had lovely daughters three.
Fa la la la, fa la la la ra re

2
There was a knight of noble worth
Which also lived in the North.

3
The knight, of courage stout and brave,
A wife he did desire to have.

4
He knocked at the ladie's gate
One evening when it was late.

5
The eldest sister let him in,
And pin'd the door with a silver pin.

6
The second sister she made his bed,
And laid soft pillows under his head.

7
The youngest daughter that same night,
She went to bed to this young knight.

8
And in the morning, when it was day,
These words unto him she did say:

9
'Now you have had your will,' quoth she,
'I pray, sir knight, will you marry me?'

10
The young brave knight to her replyed,
'Thy suit, fair maid, shall not be deny'd.

11
'If thou canst answer me questions three,
This very day will I marry thee.'

12
'Kind sir, in love, O then,' quoth she,
'Tell me what your [three] questions be.'

13
'O what is longer than the way,
Or what is deeper than the sea?

14
'Or what is louder than the horn,
Or what is sharper than a thorn?

15
'Or what is greener than the grass,
Or what is worse then a woman was?'

16
'O love is longer than the way,
And hell is deeper than the sea.

17
'And thunder is louder than the horn,
And hunger is sharper than a thorn.

18
'And poyson is greener than the grass,
And the Devil is worse than woman was.'

19
When she these questions answered had,
The knight became exceeding glad.

20
And having [truly] try'd her wit,
He much commended her for it.

21
And after, as it is verifi'd,
He made of her his lovely bride.

22
So now, fair maidens all, adieu,
This song I dedicate to you.

23
I wish that you may constant prove
Vnto the man that you do love.

Gilbert's Christmas Carols, 2d ed., p. 65, from the
editor's recollection. West of England.

1
There were three sisters fair and bright,
Jennifer gentle and rosemaree
And they three loved one valiant knight.
As the dew flies over the mulberry tree

2
The eldest sister let him in,
And barred the door with a silver pin.

3
The second sister made his bed,
And placed soft pillows under his head.

4
The youngest sister, fair and bright,
Was resolved for to wed with this valiant knight.

5
'And if you can answer questions three,
O then, fair maid, I will marry with thee.

6
'What is louder than an horn,
And what is sharper than a thorn?'

7
'Thunder is louder than an horn,
And hunger is sharper than a thorn.'

8
'What is broader than the way,
And what is deeper than the sea?'

9
'Love is broader than the way,
And hell is deeper than the sea.'

* * * * * * *

10
. . . . . . .
'And now, fair maid, I will marry with thee.'

Motherwell's MS., p. 647. From the recitation of Mrs
Storie.

1
There was a knicht riding frae the east,
Sing the Cather banks, the bonnie brume
Wha had been wooing at monie a place.
And ye may beguile a young thing sune

2
He came unto a widow's door
And speird whare her three dochters were.

3
The auldest ane's to a washing gane,
The second's to a baking gane.

4
The youngest ane's to a wedding gane,
And it will be nicht or she be hame.

5
He sat him doun upon a stane,
Till thir three lasses came tripping hame.

6
The auldest ane's to the bed making,
And the second ane's to the sheet spreading.

7
The youngest ane was bauld and bricht,
And she was to lye with this unco knicht.

8
'Gin ye will answer me questions ten,
The morn ye sall be made my ain.

9
'O what is heigher nor the tree?
And what is deeper nor the sea?

10
'Or what is heavier nor the lead?
And what is better nor the breid?

11
'O what is whiter nor the milk?
Or what is safter nor the silk?

12
'Or what is sharper nor a thorn?
Or what is louder nor a horn?

13
'Or what is greener nor the grass?
Or what is waur nor a woman was?'

14
'O heaven is higher nor the tree,
And hell is deeper nor the sea.

15
'O sin is heavier nor the lead,
The blessing's better nor the bread.

16
'The snaw is whiter nor the milk,
And the down is safter nor the silk.

17
'Hunger is sharper nor a thorn,
And shame is louder nor a horn.

18
'The pies are greener nor the grass,
And Clootie's waur nor a woman was.'

19
As sune as she the fiend did name,
He flew awa in a blazing flame.

Motherwell's MS., p. 142.

1
'O what is higher than the trees?
Gar lay the bent to the bonny broom
And what is deeper than the seas?
And you may beguile a fair maid soon

2
'O what is whiter than the milk?
Or what is softer than the silk?

3
'O what is sharper than the thorn?
O what is louder than the horn?

4
'O what is longer than the way?
And what is colder than the clay?

5
'O what is greener than the grass?
And what is worse than woman was?'

6
'O heaven's higher than the trees,
And hell is deeper than the seas.

7
'And snow is whiter than the milk,
And love is softer than the silk.

8
'O hunger's sharper than the thorn,
And thunder's louder than the horn.

9
'O wind is longer than the way,
And death is colder than the clay.

10
'O poison's greener than the grass,
And the Devil's worse than eer woman was.'

* * * * *

#A. a.#

_Title._ A Noble Riddle wisely Expounded: or, The Maids answer
to the Knights Three Questions.

She with her excellent wit and civil carriage,
Won a young Knight to joyn with him in marriage;
This gallant couple now is man and wife,
And she with him doth lead a pleasant Life.

Tune of Lay the bent to the bonny broom.

#c.# Knights questions. Wed a knight ... with her in
marriage.

#a.# Printed for F. Coles, T. Vere, I. Wright, and I. Clarke.

#b.# Printed for W. Thackeray, E.M. and A.M.

#c.# Licens'd according to Order. London. Printed by Tho.
Norris, at the L[o]oking glass on London-bridge. And sold by
J. Walter, in High Holborn.

_In Rawlinson and Wood the first seven lines are in Roman and
Italic type; the remainder being in black letter and Roman.
The Pepys copy has one line of the ballad in black letter
and one line in Roman type. The Douce edition is in Roman
and Italic._

#A.#

1^1, #c#, i' th' North: #d#, in the.

3^1. #c#, This knight.

5^1. #a#, #b#, #c#, #d#, The youngest sister.

7^1. #b#, #d#, The youngest that same. #c#, that very same.

7^2. #a#, with this young knight.

9^2. #d#, sir knight, you marry me.

_After 10, there is a wood-cut of the knight and the maid in
#a#; in #b# two cuts of the knight._

11^2. #c#, I'll marry. #d#, I will.

12^1. #c# _omits_ in love.

12^2. #b#, #c#, #d#, three questions.

14^1. #d#, a horn.

_After 15_: #a#, Here follows the Damosel's answer to the
Knight's Three Questions: #c#, The Damsel's Answers To The
Knight's Questions: #d#, The Damsel's Answer to the Three
Questions.

17, 18. #b#, #c#, #d#, thunder's, hunger's, poyson's, devil's.

18^2. #d#, the woman.

19^1. #c#, those.

20. #a#, #b# _omit_ truly.

21^1. #b#, #c#, #d#, as 't is.

#B.#

_The burden is printed by Gilbert, in the text, "~Jennifer
gentle and Rosemaree~." He appears to take ~Jennifer~ and
~Rosemaree~ to be names of the sisters. As printed under the
music, the burden runs,_

Juniper, Gentle and Rosemary.

_No doubt, ~juniper and rosemary~, simply, are meant; ~Gentle~
might possibly be for ~gentian~. In #2 H# the burden is,_

Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme:

_curiously varied in #I# thus:_

Every rose grows merry wi thyme:

_and in #G#,_

Sober and grave grows merry in time.

#C.#

18. "_~Vergris~ in another set._" M.

#D.#

_MS. before st. 1, "~The Devil speaks~;" before st. 6, "~The
maiden speaks~."_

FOOTNOTES:

[11] #D# 4, What is green as clover? What is white as milk? comes near to English #A# 15, #C# 13, #D# 5, What is greener than grass? #C# 11, #D# 2, What is whiter than milk? We have again, What is greener than grass? in 'Capt. Wedderburn's Courtship,' #A# 12; What is whiter than snow? What is greener than clover? in 'Räthselfragen,' Firmenich, Germaniens Völkerstimmen, III, 634; in 'Kranzsingen,' Erk's Liederhort, p. 342, 3; 'Traugemundslied,' 11; 'Ein Spiel von den Freiheit,' Fastnachtspiele aus dem 15n Jahrhundert, II, 555; Altdeutsche Wälder, III, 138. So, What is whiter than a swan? in many of the versions of Svend Vonved, Grundtvig, III, 786; IV, 742-3-7-8; Afzelius, II, 139, etc.; and Sin is blacker than a sloe, or coal (cf. C 15, Sin is heavier nor the lead), Grundtvig, I, 240, 247; IV, 748, 9; Afzelius, II, 139. The road without dust and the tree without leaves are in 'Ein Spiel von den Freiheit,' p. 557; and in Meier, Deutsche Kinderreime, p. 84, no doubt a fragment of a ballad, as also the verses in Firmenich. The question in German, #A# 4, Welches ist das trefflichste Holz? (die Rebe) is in the Anglo-Saxon prose Salomon and Saturn: Kemble, Sal. and Sat. 188, No 40; 204; see also 287, 10. Riddle verses with little or no story (sometimes fragments of ballads like #D#) are frequent. The Traugemundslied, Uhland, I, 3, and the Spiel von den Freiheit, Fastnachtspiele, II, 553, have only as much story as will serve as an excuse for long strings of riddles. Shorter pieces of the kind are (Italian) Kadeu, Italiens Wunderhern, p. 14; (Servian) 'The Maid and the Fish,' Vuk, I, 196, No 285, Talvj, II, 176, Goetze, Serbische V. L., p. 75, Bowring, Servian Popular Poetry, p. 184; (Polish) Wojcicki, I, 203; (Wendish) Haupt and Schmaler, I, 177, No 150, II, 69, No 74; (Russian) Wenzig, Bibliothek Slav. Poesie, p. 174; (Esthonian) Neus, Ehstnische V. L., 390 ff, and Fosterländskt Album, I, 13, Prior, Ancient Danish Ballads, II, 341.

[12] 'Capt. Wedderburn's Courtship,' 12: What's higher than the tree? (heaven). Wojcicki, Pieśni, I, 203, l. 11, 206, l. 3; What grows without a root? (a stone).

THE ELFIN KNIGHT

#A.# 'A proper new ballad entituled The Wind hath blown my
Plaid away, or, A Discourse betwixt a young [Wo]man and
the Elphin Knight;' a broadside in black letter in the
Pepysian library, bound up at the end of a copy of Blind
Harry's 'Wallace,' Edin. 1673.

#B.# 'A proper new ballad entitled The Wind hath blawn my
Plaid awa,' etc. Webster, A Collection of Curious Old
Ballads, p. 3.

#C.# 'The Elfin Knicht,' Kinloch's Anc. Scott. Ballads, p.
145.

#D.# 'The Fairy Knight,' Buchan, II, 296.

#E.# Motherwell's MS., p. 492.

#F.# 'Lord John,' Kinloch MSS, I, 75.

#G.# 'The Cambrick Shirt,' Gammer Gorton's Garland, p. 3,
ed. 1810.

#H.# 'The Deil's Courtship,' Motherwell's MS., p. 92.

#I.# 'The Deil's Courting,' Motherwell's MS., p. 103.

#J.# Communicated by Rev. Dr Huntington, Bishop of Western
New York, as sung at Hadley, Mass.

#K.# Halliwell's Nursery Rhymes of England, p. 109, No
171, 6th ed.

#L.# Notes and Queries, 1st S., VII, 8.

Pinkerton gave the first information concerning #A#, in Ancient Scotish Poems ... from the MS. collections of Sir Richard Maitland, etc., II, 496, and he there printed the first and last stanzas of the broadside. Motherwell printed the whole in the appendix to his Minstrelsy, No I. What stands as the last stanza in the broadside is now prefixed to the ballad, as having been the original burden. It is the only example, so far as I remember, which our ballads afford of a burden of this kind, one that is of greater extent than the stanza with which it was sung, though this kind of burden seems to have been common enough with old songs and carols.[13]

The "old copy in black letter" used for #B# was close to #A#, if not identical, and has the burden-stem at the end like #A#. 'The Jockey's Lamentation,' Pills to Purge Melancholy, v, 317, has the burden,

'Tis oer the hills and far away [_thrice_],
The wind hath blown my plaid away.

The 'Bridal Sark,' Cromek's Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song, p. 108, and 'The Bridegroom Darg,' p. 113, are of modern manufacture and impostures; at least, they seem to have imposed upon Cromek.

A like ballad is very common in German. A man would take, or keep, a woman for his love or his wife [servant, in one case], if she would spin brown silk from oaten straw. She will do this if he will make clothes for her of the linden-leaf. Then she must bring him shears from the middle of the Rhine. But first he must build her a bridge from a single twig, etc., etc. To this effect, with some variations in the tasks set, in #A#, 'Eitle Dinge,' Rhaw, Bicinia (1545), Uhland, I, 14, No 4 A, Böhme, p. 376, No 293. #B.# 'Van ideln unmöglichen Dingen,' Neocorus († c. 1630), Chronik des Landes Ditmarschen, ed. Dahlmann, p. 180==Uhland, p. 15, No 4 B, Müllenhof, p. 473, Böhme, p. 376, No 294. #C.# Wunderhorn, II, 410 [431]==Erlach, I, 441, slightly altered in Kretzschmer [Zuccalmaglio], II, 620. #D.# 'Unmöglichkeiten,' Schmeller, Die Mundarten Bayerns, p. 556. #E.# Schlesische Volkslieder, p. 115, No 93. #F.# 'Liebes-Neckerei,' Meier, Schwäbische V. L., p. 114, No 39. #G.# 'Liebesspielereien,' Ditfurth, Fränkische V. L., II, 109, No 144. #H.# 'Von eitel unmöglichen Dingen,' Erk's Liederhort, p. 337, No 152^b. #I.# 'Unmögliches Begehren,' V. L. aus Oesterreich, Deutsches Museum, 1862, II, 806, No 16. #J.# 'Unmögliche Dinge,' Peter, Volksthümliches aus Österreichisch-Schlesien, I, 270, No 82. In #K#, 'Wettgesang,' Meinert, p. 80, and #L#, Liederhort, p. 334, No 152, there is a simple contest of wits between a youth and a maid, and in #M#, Erk, Neue Sammlung, #H.# 2, No 11, p. 16, and #N#, 'Wunderbare Aufgaben,' Pröhle, Weltliche u. geistliche Volkslieder, p. 36, No 22 B, the wit-contest is added to the very insipid ballad of 'Gemalte Rosen.'

'Store Fordringar,' Kristensen, Jydske Folkeviser, I, 221, No 82, and 'Opsang,' Lindeman, Norske Fjeldmelodier, No 35 (Text Bilag, p. 6), closely resemble German #M#, #N#. In the Stev, or alternate song, in Landstad, p. 375, two singers vie one with another in propounding impossible tasks.

A Wendish ballad, Haupt and Schmaler, I, 178, No 151, and a Slovak, Čelakowsky, II, 68, No 12 (the latter translated by Wenzig, Slawische Volkslieder, p. 86, Westslavischer Märchenschatz, p. 221, and Bibliothek Slavischer Poesien, p. 126), have lost nearly all their story, and, like German #K#, #L#, may be called mere wit-contests.

The Graidhne whom we have seen winning Fionn for husband by guessing his riddles, p. 3, afterwards became enamored of Diarmaid, Fionn's nephew, in consequence of her accidentally seeing a beauty spot on Diarmaid's forehead. This had the power of infecting with love any woman whose eye should light upon it: wherefore Diarmaid used to wear his cap well down. Graidhne tried to make Diarmaid run away with her. But he said, "I will not go with thee. I will not take thee in softness, and I will not take thee in hardness; I will not take thee without, and I will not take thee within; I will not take thee on horseback, and I will not take thee on foot." Then he went and built himself a house where he thought he should be out of her way. But Graidhne found him out. She took up a position between the two sides of the door, on a buck goat, and called to him to go with her. For, said she, "I am not without, I am not within; I am not on foot, and I am not on a horse; and thou must go with me." After this Diarmaid had no choice. 'Diarmaid and Grainne,' Tales of the West Highlands, III, 39-49; 'How Fingal got Graine to be his wife, and she went away with Diarmaid,' Heroic Gaelic Ballads, p. 153; 'The Death of Diarmaid,' ib., p. 154. The last two were written down c. 1774.

In all stories of the kind, the person upon whom a task is imposed stands acquitted, if another of no less difficulty is devised which must be performed first. This preliminary may be something that is essential for the execution of the other, as in the German ballads, or equally well something that has no kind of relation to the original requisition, as in the English ballads.

An early form of such a story is preserved in Gesta Romanorum, c. 64, Oesterley, p. 374. It were much to be wished that search were made for a better copy, for, as it stands, this tale is to be interpreted only by the English ballad. The old English version, Madden, XLIII, p. 142, is even worse mutilated than the Latin. A king, who was stronger, wiser, and handsomer than any man, delayed, like the Marquis of Saluzzo, to take a wife. His friends urged him to marry, and he replied to their expostulations, "You know I am rich enough and powerful enough; find me a maid who is good looking and sensible, and I will take her to wife, though she be poor." A maid was found who was eminently good looking and sensible, and of royal blood besides. The king wished to make trial of her sagacity, and sent her a bit of linen three inches square, with a promise to marry her if she would make him a shirt of this, of proper length and width. The lady stipulated that the king should send her "a vessel in which she could work," and she would make the shirt: "michi vas concedat in quo operari potero, et camisiam satis longam ei promitto." So the king sent "vas debitum et preciosum," the shirt was made, and the king married her.[14] It may be doubted whether the sagacious maid did not, in the unmutilated story, deal with the problem as is done in a Transylvanian tale, Haltrich, Deutsche Volksmärchen, u.s.w., No 45, p. 245, where the king requires the maid to make a shirt and drawers of two threads. The maid, in this instance, sends the king a couple of broomsticks, requiring that he should first make her a loom and bobbin-wheel out of them.

The tale just cited, 'Der Burghüter und seine kluge Tochter,' is one of several which have been obtained from tradition in this century, that link the ballads of The Clever Lass with oriental stories of great age. The material points are these. A king requires the people of a parish to answer three questions, or he will be the destruction of them all: What is the finest sound, the finest song, the finest stone? A poor warder is instructed by his daughter to reply, the ring of bells, the song of the angels, the philosopher's stone. "Right," says the king, "but that never came out of your head. Confess who told you, or a dungeon is your doom." The man owns that he has a clever daughter, who had told him what to say. The king, to prove her sagacity further, requires her to make a shirt and drawers of two threads, and she responds in the manner just indicated. He next sends her by her father an earthen pot with the bottom out, and tells her to sew in a bottom so that no seam or stitch can be seen. She sends her father back with a request that the king should first turn the pot inside out, for cobblers always sew on the inside, not on the out. The king next demanded that the girl should come to him, neither driving, nor walking, nor riding; neither dressed nor naked; neither out of the road nor in the road; and bring him something that was a gift and no gift. She put two wasps between two plates, stripped, enveloped herself in a fishing net, put her goat into the rut in the road, and, with one foot on the goat's back, the other stepping along the rut, made her way to the king. There she lifted up one of the plates, and the wasps flew away: so she had brought the king a present and yet no present. The king thought he could never find a shrewder woman, and married her.

Of the same tenor are a tale in Zingerle's Tyrolese Kinder u. Hausmärchen, 'Was ist das Schönste, Stärkste und Reichste?' No 27, p. 162, and another in the Colshorns' Hanoverian Märchen u. Sagen, 'Die kluge Dirne,' No 26, p. 79. Here a rich and a poor peasant [a farmer and his bailiff] have a case in court, and wrangle till the magistrate, in his weariness, says he will give them three questions, and whichever answers right shall win. The questions in the former tale are: What is the most beautiful, what the strongest, what the richest thing in the world? In the other, What is fatter than fat? How heavy is the moon? How far is it to heaven? The answers suggested by the poor peasant's daughter are: Spring is the most beautiful of things, the ground the strongest, autumn the richest. And the bailiff's daughter answers: The ground is fatter than fat, for out of it comes all that's fat, and this all goes back again; the moon has four quarters, and four quarters make a pound; heaven is only one day's journey, for we read in the Bible, "Today shalt thou be with me in Paradise." The judge sees that these replies are beyond the wit of the respondents, and they own to having been prompted by a daughter at home. The judge then says that if the girl will come to him neither dressed nor naked, etc., he will marry her; and so the shrewd wench becomes a magistrate's wife.

'Die kluge Bauerntochter,' in the Grimms' K. u. H. märchen, No 94, and 'Die kluge Hirtentochter,' in Pröhle's Märchen für die Jugend, No 49, p. 181, afford another variety of these tales. A peasant, against the advice of his daughter, carries the king a golden mortar, as he had found it, without any pestle. The king shuts him up in prison till he shall produce the pestle [Grimms]. The man does nothing but cry, "Oh, that I had listened to my daughter!" The king sends for him, and, learning what the girl's counsel had been, says he will give her a riddle, and if she can make it out will marry her. She must come to him neither clothed nor naked, neither riding nor driving, etc. The girl wraps herself in a fishing net [Grimms, in bark, Pröhle], satisfies the other stipulations also, and becomes a queen.[15]

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The English and Scottish popular ballads, volume 1 (of 5)Chapter II: Part 2

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