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DEATH AND BURIAL LORE
IN THE
ENGLISH AND SCOTTISH POPULAR BALLADS
By LOWRY CHARLES WIMBERLY, Ph.D.

EDITORIAL COMMITTEE

Lovist Pounp, Ph.D., Department of English
HARTLEY ALEXANDER, Ph.D., Department of Philosophy
Fioyp C..Harwoop, Ph.D., Department of English Languages

Lincoln, Nebraska
1927A ET tt I Pen ee mse TOD ANN

 

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LOWRY CHARLES WIMBERLY, Pu.D.

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A THESIS

PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF
THE GRADUATE COLLEGE OF THE UNIVERSITY
OF NEBRASKA
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS
FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

LINCOLN, NEBRASKA
1927PREFACE

In this study I have attempted to make for the English
and Scottish popular ballads an exhaustive survey of those
matters that relate to death and burial. The available
materials have fallen under such sectional headings as blood
revenge, barbarous practices, the ordeal, capital punishment,
death omens and dreams, the ‘“ dead-bell,’ mourning, the
lyke-wake, and the grave. I have not in this investigation
considered the ballad revenant, a subject to which I have
devoted a chapter in another and more extensive work on
religion and magic in the English ballads, a work to be pub-
lished in the near future.

That popular ballads or folksongs are repositories of
beliefs and customs that in many instances belong to early
and even primitive culture has long been recognized, but as
yet no one has undertaken the task of making a searching ©
analysis of the ballads from this angle of approach. In his
great work The English and Scottish Popular Ballads Profes-
sor Child has, to be sure, taken into account much of the folk-
lore embodied in British balladry, but his observations and
conclusions are so scattered throughout his collection that
they are not readily available. Moreover, he has, probably for
some excellent reason, left out of account many items of
popular custom and belief that ought to be drawn together
‘in one place with those matters of which he has taken
cognizance. A number of dissertations on particular phases
of the folklore in British balladry followed hard upon the
completion of Child’s work, but these studies, passable though
some of them are, fall short in point of exhausting the
materials that they purport to treat. In his Das Geistermotiv
in den schottisch-englischen Volksballaden (Marburg, 1914)
Konrad Ehrke examines our baker’s dozen of ghost ballads
without, however, taking into account significant material
that occurs sporadically in pieces that are not to be classified
as ghost ballads, A study more nearly related to the present
investigation is Walter Jaehde’s Religion, Schicksalsglaube,
Vorahnungen, Triume, Geister und Ritsel in den Englisch-ee eee

Schottischen Volksballaden (Halle, 1905), but here again
there are obvious gaps since the writer has, for one thing,
failed to examine all the Child variants of the ballads that he
uses.

The present study is based on Child’s English and Scottish
Popular Ballads, a work that may fairly be called definitive.
I have, however, in order to make my investigation as repre-
sentative as possible, consulted a great number of ballad
collections that have appeared from time to time since the
publication of Child’s monumental anthology. But these
anthologies, valuable though they are, do not, in the way of
folklore, yield much beyond what may be found in the Child
pieces. Perhaps the most significant of these recent collec-
tions is that of the late Gavin Greig, Last Leaves of Tradt-
tional Ballads and Ballad Airs (University of Aberdeen
Studies, 1925), a work admirably edited by Alexander Keith.
Among other important collections consulted in the present
investigation are the following: Gavin Greig, Folk-Song of
the North-East; Olive Dame Campbell and Cecil J. Sharp,
English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians; Louise
Pound, American Ballads and Songs; John Harrington. Cox,
Folk-Songs of the South; Cecil J. Sharp and Rev. Charles L.
Marson, Folk Songs from Somerset. I have also examined
the many excellent texts recorded in the various numbers of
the Journal of the Folk-Song Society and in the Journal of
American Folk-Lore. The foregoing works, along with other
anthologies that I have consulted, are included in the bibliog-
raphy at the end of this study.

Throughout the preparation of this study as well as of my
study of religion and magic in the English ballads, an investi-
gation referred to earlier in this preface, I have felt my in-
debtedness, for encouragement and direction, to Hutton
Webster, Professor of Social Anthropology at the University
of Nebraska, and Louise Pound, Professor of the English
Language at the University of Nebraska.

University of Nebraska LOWRY CHARLES WIMBERLYCONTENTS

I. INTRODUCTION
1. Blood Revenge
2. Barbarities

3. The Paths to Death

IJ. THE ORDEAL AND THE GALLOWS TREE
1. The Ordeal
2. Capital Punishment
3. The Blood-Fine

III. FEY FOLK AND PREMONITIONS OF DEATH
1. Fey Folk
2. Dreams
3. Omens
4. Death Taboos
5. The Test for Death and the Return to Life

IV. BURIAL

The Dead-Bell

The Lyke-Wake
Graveclothes, Coffin, and Bier
Grief and Mourning

The Funeral Procession

The Grave

Pa ee Ae

BIBLIOGRAPHY

35
35
43
54

59
59
62
69
TT
82

87
88
92
29
103
114
117

135os RR PAB rie roe nets NR CN ~ a enamel
— a4 _
Ce ee
ee EeDEATH AND BURIAL LORE
IN THE
ENGLISH AND SCOTTISH POPULAR BALLADS

I
INTRODUCTION

In its tragic moments English and Scottish balladry recalls
inevitably such early Northern poetry as Beowulf, certain of
the Eddic lays, and the Nibelungenlied. That is, in mood or |
spirit, at least, a song like Earl Brand or Child Maurice or,
again, The Cruel Brother may be regarded as a précis of the
Nibelungen Lay. With the exception that in the ballads we
have little of the mythological, there is the same play of
elemental human forces, the same basic motives, the same
direct coming to grips with life, the same clash of man with
destiny, the same sombre, fatalistic outlook, the same crush-
ing imminence of death and disaster. And it is noteworthy
that this grim mood or philosophy of the Teutonic ballad, its
awareness of and insistence upon the darker side of human
experience, is seldom brightened by Christian thought.
Indeed, Christianity seldom enters the ballads legitimately.
As a rule, where it does enter, it is readily detected as a super-
imposition on the basically pagan character of folksong. This
is well borne out in supernatural ballads, songs with which,
however, we have no particular concern here. It is strikingly
evidenced, moreover, in songs of love and death, especially,
songs of vengeance, and in the frankly barbarous customs
through which this vengeance manifests itself. This study is
concerned in part with such matters as death omens, dreams,
and taboos, the lyke-wake, mourning customs, and the grave,
but by way of approaching these subjects and in order to
reveal something of the tragic and even ferocious mood of
certain ballads we cannot do better than to dwell for a time
upon the revenge motive and the concomitant practices.*
PiThe sacredness of revenge is likewise evidenced in Danish balladry.
Notable instances are those in the excellent songs Hxvnersverdet,
Inden Engel, and Ung Villum, the last-named. piece a close analogue of

the British ballad Fause Foodrage (89). On the revenge motive in
Hevnersverdet see infra, p. 8, note 4.8 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

Blood Revenge. Whether or not vengeance taken for the
death of relatives is evidential of the cult of the family manes,
we find that blood revenge carries in balladry somewhat of
its ancient obligation. In Johnie Armstrong, Hughie Grame,
and The Baron of Brackley this sacred obligation is voiced
by a child still “by his nurses knee.” News of his father’s
having been treacherously slain has been brought young
Armestrong: °

Newes then was brought to young Ionné Armestrong,
As he stood by his nurses knee,

Who vowed if ere he live’d for to be a man,
O the treacherous Scots revengd hee’d be.

Or better, in another version: *

“If ever I live for to be a man,4
My fathers blood revenged shall be.”

In much the same language and by a child no less precocious °
revenge is threatened in Hughie Grame and The Baron of
Brackley.®

The ties of kinship are no less strong in Fause Foodrage,
according to which a son, before he comes to manhood, slays
his father’s murderer: *

2No. 169 A 17.

3B 24,

* Cf. the Danish ballad Hxvnersverdet, translation, Alexander Prior,
Prior, Ancient Danish Ballads, I, 273:

Up spake the child in cradle lain,
“So vengest thou a father slain?

“The vengeance, thou has wreak’d for thine,
Grant God I live to take for mine! ”

“T’ve well avenged a father. dead,
To vengeance thou shalt not be bred.”

With that the threatening brat he slew,
With one blow cut him through and through.

* Commenting on the passage in Johnie Armstrong (169 A 17, B 24),
Professor Child (English and Scottish Popular Ballads, III, 367)
observes: “Not infrequently, in popular ballads, a very young (even
unborn) child speaks, by miracle, to save a life, vindicate innocence,
or for other kindly occasion; sometimes again to threaten revenge, as
here.” On the occurrence of this incident in various literatures see
Child, ibid., III, 367 and n.

6 Nos. 191 E 15, H 14 (Child, Ballads, IV, 519) < 208: A 49.

7No. 89 B 18.

a el a ceosx

DEATH AND BURIAL LORE 9

“Thou murdered my father dear,§
When scarse conceived was I;
Thou murdered my father dear,
When scarse conceived was me: ”’
So then he slew that Eastmure king,
Beneath that garden tree.

The related ballad of Jellon Grame, one text of which pre-
serves the ancient trait of the precocious child,® recounts a
story of a youth who takes similar vengeance on his mother’s
murderer. This song preserves, too, the superstition of the
guilt of blood — where innocent blood has been shed the grass
will not grow:
“O how is this,’”’ the youth cried out,
“Tf it to you is known,

How all this wood is growing grass,
And on that small spot grows none? ”
““Since you do wonder, bonnie boy,
I shall tell you anon;
That is indeed the very spot
I killed your mother in.”

He catched hold of Henry’s brand,!!
And stroked it ower a strae,
And thro and thro Hind Henry’s sides
He made the cauld metal gae.
In another ballad, Karl Rothes, Lady Ann’s youthful brother
threatens that when he is “able a sword to carry” he will
thrust it through Earl Rothes’ body for using his “ sister sae

8 Cf. A 34.
* No. 90 C 18:
He grew as big in ae year auld
As some boys woud in three.
And upon being sent to “squeel-house,” “he learnd as muckle in ae
year’s time as some boys would in five.” Cf. B15. “It is interesting,”

says Child (II, 303), “to find an ancient and original trait preserved
in so extremely corrupted a version as C.” Child quotes the following
lines from the somewhat analogous Norse ballad (Bugge, Norske
Folkeviser, p.'118, st. 17):

Mei voks unge Ingelbrett
i dei maanar tvaa

hell hine smaabonni
vokse paa aatte aar.

Cf. the boy champion in Sir Aldingar (59), and for further examples
see Child, V, 492: “ Precocity of ete.”

10B 19 ff.

11 Cf. A 20 ff.10 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

basely.” 12 The uncle-nephew relationship, a kinship reflected
in balladry by the specific phrase “ his sister’s son,” ** actuates
blood revenge in The Lads of Wamphray. Willy, the nephev,
lives to carry out his oath of vengeance: **

“But if ever I live Wamphray to see,
My uncle’s death revenged shall be!”

And later:

“For every finger o the Galiard’s hand,!°
I vow this day I’ve killed a man.”

The “farewell” ** in The Death of Parcy Reed reaches its
climax in the dying man’s claim upon his followers to re
member the treachery of the “ Ha’s” and the “fate o the
laird Troughend.” Like Hughie Grame in the ballad of that
name, Parcy Reed wills to his avengers not only the deed but}
the weapons of vengeance: **

“The laird o Clennel bears my bow,!®
The laird o Branden bears my brand;
Wheneer they ride i the Border-side,
They’ll mind the fate o the laird Troughend.”’

 

’

“And ye may tell my kith and kin,” says the dying hero in
the Johnson copy of Hughie Grame, “I never did disgrace
their blood.” '® In other texts he names Johnny Armstrong
to carry on the death feud: *°

12 No. 297, st. 8.

13 The nephew in this ballad is not, however, spoken of specifically as
a “sister’s son.” On the sister’s son in the ballads see F. B. Gummere,
“The Sister’s Son,” An English Miscellany, the Furnivall Memorial
Volume (Oxford, 1901). See also Gummere, The Popular Ballad, pp.
121, 125, 183 f., 200.

14 No. 184, st. 22.

15 St. 35.

16 On Good-Nights in balladry see Gummere, The Popular Ballad, pp.
211 ff. See Child ballads: nos. 169 C, 187 A, 195, 208, 305. Lord
Mazxwell’s Last Goodnight (195 A) reads in part:

 

“ Adue, madam my mother dear,
But and my sister[s] two!
Fair well, Robin in the Orchet!
Fore the my heart is wo.”

17 No. 193 B 41.

18 Cf. A 18, and text, Child, IV, 521, st. 21.
a9 No. 191° B14.

20A 23.DEATH AND BURIAL LORE 11

“ Here, Johnny Armstrong, take thou my sword,?!
That is made of the mettle so fine,
And when thou comst to the border-side,
Remember the death of Sir Hugh of the Grime.”

Bitter and ancient feud literally flames up in the burning
of a castle and its inmates in Captain Car,”* a ballad of cruelty
and mutilations, and so, too, in The Fire of Frendraught.%*
Not found in the Child versions, there occurs in Gavin Greig’s
variant of this latter piece a stanza according to which the
mother is admonished to train her young son up to venge-
ance: 74

“ An’ bid her train her young son up
That when a man he’d be,
Upon this hoose for this cruel deed
Avenged he will be.”

The terrible revenge in Lamkin does not belong here, nor,
perhaps, the fatal penalty inflicted by slighted fraternal
authority upon the sister in The Cruel Brother,” although
lesser offenses in balladry cry for vengeance.?7 We may now
turn our attention to those ferocious practices through which
vengeance makes itself felt.

Barbarities. The barbarous or savage practices now to
be detailed, such as cutting out an enemy’s heart or tongue,
striking off an enemy’s head and sticking it upon a pike, or

21 Cf. C 16, D 15, H 13, and-¥ 11 ¢€Child, FV, 519 £.).

22No. 178. Cf. The Bonny House o Airlie (199).

23 No. 196.

*4 Gavin Greig, Last Leaves of Traditional Ballads and Ballad Airs,
edited by Alexander Keith, p. 122, st. 16.

25 No. 98. See infra, pp. 14 f.

*6 No. 11. Cf. Barry’s text, Journal of American Folk-Lore, XXVIII,
300, and Barry’s comment on the motive for the crime or rather the
slaying of the bride: ‘ The texts hitherto known — excluding, of course,
those obviously defective — agree, in that the bride is killed by her
brother because his consent to the wedding has not been sought. In
the present version the situation is unique, the brother acting as the
agent of his wife’s ill will. A motive for the curse in the final stanza
is thus clear.”

27 Writing in 1803, Sir Walter Scott says: ‘‘Two generations have
not elapsed since the custom of drinking deep, and taking deadly revenge
for slight offences, produced very tragical events on the Border; to
which the custom of going armed to festive meetings contributed not a
little.” (Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, ed. T. F. Henderson, III,
76.) See nos. 211 and 214 B, GC, D,_B, ete.EEO

12 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

severing the hands and feet, are not to be explained as inci-
dents conjured up by the narrator to lend horrific embellish-
ment to a tale. However late they may have entered the
ballad story or however recently the ballad may have been
recorded, these customs reflect modes of life that could spring
only from a wild and savage culture.”®

Vengeance has not forgotten how to cut out the heart of
an enemy in Sir James the Rose, an historical ballad: *°

Now they have taken out his heart,?°
And stuck it on a spear,

And took it to the House of Marr,
And gave it to his dear.

A similar incident is related in Captain Car, the Cotton
Manuscript, a ballad that records an actual occurrence of the
sixteenth century. The Lady of Crecynbroghe will not yield
her castle, but she would save her “ eldest sonne,” the “ ayre”’
of all her land. So she gives him over to her enemy, who,
proving himself a perjured knight, cuts out the youth’s
tongue and heart: **

He cut his tonge out of his head,*
His hart out of his brest.

*8 Interpreting certain incidents in Irish legend, G. L. Gomme, in his
Ethnology in Folklore, pp. 148 f., expresses the point of view of these
pages: “The story of Bran’s head being cut off by the seven survivors
of his army and taken with them to their own country, where they
preserved it and feasted with it, is still more to the point in illustration
of savage custom rather than of mythic thought, while the story of
Lomna’s head struck off and stuck upon a pike while his slayers cooked
their food goes still further in the same direction, because of the
implied custom connected with the plot of the story of placing some
food in the mouth of the dead man’s head.”

29 No. 213, st. 20.

® Cf. readings: bh, ¢, d, e, f, g (Child, IV, 158 f.).

31 No. 178 A 16 f.

82 Cf. D 18 f.: it is the daughter who is let down, and on “ the point
of Edom’s speir she gat a deadly fa.” The striking passage in a sub-
sequent stanza (20) deserves quotation here:

 

Then wi his speir he turnd hir owr;
O gin her face was wan!

He said, You are the first that eer
I wist alive again.

Cf. text, Greig, Last Leaves of Traditional Ballads, p. dit Cf; Child’s
G 29 f.: the babe “ gat a deidlie fa” “on the point o Gordon’s sword.”
In other texts vengeance stops at burning the inmates of the castle.

an enema een eee en ee TYDEATH AND BURIAL LORE 13

He lapt them in a handkerchief,
And knet it of knotes three,

And cast them ouer: the castell-wall,
At that gay ladye.

Legendary history of Irish warriors furnishes examples ot
the practice of cutting off the point of a slain enemy’s
tongue,** and, on the whole, Captain Car is not far removed
from the savage warrior who consumes or cherishes as
trophies parts of his enemy’s body. In Lady Diamond, a
ballad that is “one of a large number of repetitions of Boc-
caccio’s tale of Guiscardo and Ghismonda,” *4 a lover’s heart
is cut out and sent in a cup of gold to his mistress, the king’s
daughter.*°

The head is legitimate spoil in balladry, and in a song of
tragic mistake Child Maurice loses his to John Steward: *¢

Then hee pulled fforth his bright browne sword,
And dryed itt on his sleeue,

And the ffirst good stroke Iohn Stewart stroke,
Child Maurice head he did cleeue.

And then Child Maurice’s head is “ pricked ” on a “ swords
poynt,” to be borne as a trophy by the victor:

And he pricked itt on his swords poynt,37
Went singing there beside,

33 Whitley Stokes, Revue Celtique, I, 261; V, 232.

34 Child, Ballads, V, 29.

35 No. 269. Cf. texts, Greig, op. cit., pp. 218 f.: the “bonnie boy’s
heart” is put “on a plate o gold” or “stuck” on a spear.

36 No. 83 A 27.

87 Cf. D 20 ff.: the slayer puts the head “on a spear” and bears
it to his victim’s mother in a “braid basin.” E 25 dishonors Chield
Morrice more completely. His severed head is borne by the “meanest
man” in all Lord Barnard’s train:

Then he’s taen up that bloody head,
And stuck it on a spear,

And the meanest man in a’ his train
Gat Chield Morice head to bear.

The foregoing is the reading in an Aberdeenshire version, Greig, op.
cit., p. 65, st. 32. According to Child’s F 33, the head “cum trailing
to the toun.” In B, C, D Lord Barnard threw “the head into her lap,
saying, Lady, there’s a ball!” E 27: “he’s taen up this bluidy head,
and dashed it gainst the wa: ‘Come down, come down, you ladies
fair, and play at this foot-ba.’” In B 16, C 21, C 25, E 28, F 38 the
lady took up the bloody head and “kissed it frae cheek to chin.”8 eee

14 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

In only one of the Child texts of Little Musgrave and Lady
Barnard does the hero suffer decapitation.**

Various motives, wanton cruelty or outraged love, account

for the head severing in Babylon, Lizie Wan, Lamkin, and

. Lord Thomas and Fair Annet. Decapitation in the first of

these pieces is expeditious enough even though the instru-

g

ment is a pen-knife and the block a “ staff’: *

“It’s lean your head upon my staff,’’ 40
And with his pen-knife he has cutted it aff.’

The brother-lover in Lizie Wan is not content with cutting
off his sister’s head. He must also cut her body in three: *!

And he has cutted aff Lizie Wan’s head.
And her fair body in three.

There is similar cleaving of the body in an American text of
Lord Thomas and Fair Annet, an added mutilation that does
not occur in the Child versions of this piece.‘2 In two of the
Child copies Lord Thomas, for his infidelity to Faire Ellinor,
makes horrible amends by cutting off his brown bride’s head,
throwing it “against the wall,” and then falling upon his
own sword.**

The cruel vengeance of the mason in Lamkin is perhaps
without parallel in ballad story. In one text only, however,
does Lamkin cut off his victim’s head. He then hangs it up

 

Poa. 81-0. {Childs TV, 478). In: American texts it is the lady who
is beheaded: Campbell and Sharp, English Folk Songs from the
Southern Appalachians, De ST, at-15;' J. Cox: Folk-Songs of the
South, p. 95, st. 9.

39 No. 14 C 5.

40 In certain Swedish analogues of Babylon, a ballad “ familiar to
all the branches of the Scandinavian race,’ the murderers cut off the

. girls’ heads on the trunk of a birch. See Child, Ballads, I, 171 ff.
P UNG. 61 A 6. CF. Ro.

42 Campbell and Sharp, op. cit., p. 58: “He cut this brown girl’s
head smooth off and cleaved the body apart.”

#2) No. 73 D 18, D e(Child, II, 196). This incident does not occur in
the other Child texts but it is present in the following variants recovered
since Child: Journal of the Folk-Song Society, II, 105 ff., fourth and
fifth versions; Ella M. Leather, Folk-Lore of Herefordshire, pp. 200 is
Journal of American Folk-Lore, XVIII, 128; XIX, 258: ff.,. a, b, cs
XX, 254 f.; Campbell and Sharp, op. cit., pp. 55 ff., A, B, C; Josephine
McGill, Folk Songs of the Kentucky Mountains, pp. 26 f.; Louise
Pound, American Ballads and Songs, pp. 27 ff.; Mackenzie, The Quest
of - Ballad, pp. 97 ff.; Cox, op. cit., pp. 46 fA, 8.0.3, Bor a

ney pee ee NR an i a LE Ee —
ia iecanieDEATH AND BURIAL LORE 15

in the kitchen where it gives off a supernatural light such as
that shed in other texts of this piece by mantles or smock
and in other ballads by sword or rings: **

Then he cut aff her head
from her lily breast-bane,

And he hung’t up in the kitchen,
it made a’ the ha shine.

In Lord Ingram and Chiel Wyet a terrible stroke by one
lover sends the head of his rival flying “ fifty feet oer a
burken buss.” 4® But to conclude this matter of severed
heads, that of Andrew Barton is borne home to England as
proof of Lord Haward’s prowess: *

The pyrates head he brought along 4%
For to present unto our king.

This same ballad gives a hint of cannibalistic feasting in the
incident of the “ thirtie”’ heads of his enemies that Andrew
Barton sent home “to eate with breade ”: *

‘Once I met with the Portingaills,
Yea, I met with them, ye, I indeed;
I salted thirtie of their heades,
And sent them home to eate with breade.”

Professor Child regards this incident as “a ferocious addi-
tion of the ballad,” °° but it is no doubt an addition suggested
by actual practice *t as we may conclude from the somewhat
analogous case detailed by Sir Walter Scott in his notes on
the poem Lord Soulis. “ The tradition regarding the death
of Lord Soulis, however singular,” says Scott, “is not with-
out parallel in the real history of Scotland. The same extra-
ordinary mode of cookery was actually practised (horresco

44Qn this incident of objects that give off supernatural light see
F. B. Gummere, The Popular Ballad, pp. 302 f.

45 No. 93 B 22.

46 No. 66 D 8.

47 Sir Andrew Barton (167 B 57).

48 Cf. A 71: “with his head they sayled into England againe.” See
also text, Child, IV, 506, st. 73.

49 Child, IV, 505, st. 42.

50 Ballads, IV, 502 b.

51“ Tt would appear, then,” says Gomme (Ethnology in Folklore, p.
192), “that cannibal rites were continued in these islands until historic

times.”16 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

referens) upon the body of a sheriff of the Mearns.” * In
this connection we should not overlook our ballad evidence
of the ancient practice of blood-drinking as refiected in The
| Braes o Yarrow: *

She kissed his cheek, she kaimd his hair,”
As oft she did before, O;

She drank the red blood frae him ran,
On the dowy houms o Yarrow.

In The Earl of Westmoreland, a ballad imitative in part of
“stale old romance,” *’ the hero, like the victor in Little
Musgrave and Lady Barnard, decapitates his enemy and bears
the head triumphantly about: *°

Hee tooke the head vpon his sword-poynt,°*
And carryed it amongst his host soe fayre;

Mutilating the face and cutting off the hands and feet of
an enemy are practices recorded in Robin Hood and Guy of
Gisborne, The Death of Parcy Reed, Brown Adam, and other
pieces. Robin Hood, invoking the Virgin’s aid, slays Sir Guy,
his ancient foe, cuts off his head, sticks it on his “ bowes
end,” and with an “Trish kniffe” nicks the face beyond
recognition: °§

He tooke Sir Guys head by the hayre,
And sticked itt on his bowes end:

“Thou hast beene traytor all thy liffe,
Which thing must haue an ende.”

Robin pulled forth an Irish kniffe,
And nicked Sir Guy in the fface,
That hee was neuer on a woman borne
7 | Cold tell who Sir Guye was.

| *

*2 See Scott’s full account, Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border ed.
Henderson, IV, 242 f.

53 No. 214 E 12.

54 Cf. F, G, M.

55 Child, III, 417.

HOENO2 Wits St. LT.

ov |... head-hunting and other indications of savage culture did
—— with the advent of civilising influences.” (Gomme, op. cit.,
p. ;

38 No. 118, sts. 41 f.

nga rene eneeereeremmenmnemeernerrraearmnee  ere i 5. ce ee e eDEATH AND BURIAL LORE 17

In The Death of Parcy Reed, a ballad that records an his-
torical occurrence probably of the sixteenth century, Parcy’s
enemies, not content with giving him “thirty-three ”
wounds,*® mutilate his dead body, hacking off his hands and
feet; °°

They fell upon him all at once,®!
They mangled him most cruellie;
The slightest wound might caused his deid,
And they hae gien him thirty-three;
They hacket off his hands and feet,
And left him lying on the lee.

Are these savage actions to be accredited solely to vengeance,
or may there not be an additional motive, that of disabling
the ghost of an enemy by mutilating his body?” “ Spoiling ”
an enemy is found in both the Maidment and the Buchan copy
of Bonny John Seton, a mediocre piece: *

They took from him his armour clear,*+
His sword, likewise his shield;

Yea, they have left him naked there,
Upon the open field.

“The laird of the Lag from my faither fled when the
Jhohnstones struek of his hand.” So reads the Percy version
of Lord Maxwell’s Last Goodnight, an historical piece.’ In

oo “ Thirty-three’ or “thirty-and-three” is a popular number in
balladry, occurring over fifty times in the Child pieces, often with
reference to steeds.

60 No. 193 B 30.

61 Local tradition, according to White, cited by Child, DV, 24-75
preserves the barbarity found in the ballad: “ Accordingly the Crosiers
instantly put him to death; and so far did they carry out their
sanguinary measures, even against his lifeless body, that tradition says
the fragments thereof had to be collected together and conveyed in
pillow-slips home to Troughend.” The omens assigned by tradition to
Reed’s wife do not appear in the ballad: “His wife had some strange
dreams anent his safety on the night before his departure, and at break-
fast, on the following morning, the loaf of bread from which he was
supplied chanced to be turned with the bottom upwards, an omen which
is still accounted most unfavorable all over the north of England.”

62 On this superstition see Edward B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, I, 451.

63 No. 198 A 12.

‘4 Cf. B 12 f.: “the shoes frae aff his feet,” “the garters frae his
knee, likewise the gloves upon his hands.” The rings would not come
off the swelled fingers but they “cutted the grips out o his ears, took
out the gowd signots.’’ “The spoiling of John Seaton... . is not
noticed by Gordon and Spalding.” (Child, IV, 51.)

° No. 195 A 9. Cf. B 5. On the historicity of the severed hand see
Child, IV, 35, citing Spottiswood.*

 

nett te batt Det

18 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

the ballad of Brown Adam, a song that bears some resem-
blance to the Danish piece Den afhugne Haand from sixteenth
century manuscripts, Adam adds to the ballad lore of the
right hand“ by cutting off his rival’s four fingers as a
pledge: °

He’s gard him leave a better pledge,
Four fingers o his right han.

According to Buchan’s copy of this piece, ‘‘ he’s taen anither
wad, his sword and his sword-hand.” * In The Twa Knights,
a song with a traditional analogue in Greece,®® we learn of
a squire who, as proof of his conquest of a lady, takes both
her ring and ring-finger.”

In the Danish ballad Sir Buris and Christine the penalty
for adultery is the loss of the eyes, a foot, and the right
hand." The mutilation here is not to be matched exactly in
English folksong, but a punishment equally horrible and re-
flecting an ancient penalty for incontinence is recorded in
Tittle Musgrave and Lady Barnard, Old Robin of Portingale,
and Gil Brenton. In these pieces, however, the offender is a

>

woman. The incident under consideration is not, we should
point out, to be taken as reflecting a practice of mere ruthless
private vengeance but rather as illustrating justice admin-
istered in a private way. The punishment inflicted by the

66 On the right hand in balladry see infra, p. 77 and note 120.

67 No. 98 A 16.

68 C 39. Cf. Aberdeenshire text, Greig, Traditional Ballads, poe
“The neist thing that the knicht he lost was his sword an’ his sword-
hand.”

Cf. the supernatural piece Sir Cawline (61, sts. 23, 28): Sir Cawline
with an “aukeward stroke” took off the elf-king’s hand, and then to
the king’s daughter he presented “the hand, and then the sword.”

69 No. 268, st. 42; known in Scotland, perhaps, “ only through print.”
(Child, V, 21.)

The “ring-finger ”’ of the substituted niece, of course.

1 Translation, Prior, Ancient Danish Ballads, II, 109 f.:

Torn from his head were both his eyes
Despite the queen his sister’s cries.
They lopp’d him off the stirrup foot,
They lopp’d the dexter hand to boot;

On the foregoing custom as it occurs in other traditions see Prior, ibid.,
II, 111, and the note, ibid., III, 373, on a similar incident in Sir Helmer
Blaa: “The loss of a hand and a foot seems to have been the usual
penalty demanded for the seduction of a sister.”

72“ Among the Germans, infidelity on the part of the wife met swift
and ruthless punishment, often death.” (Gummere, Germanic Origins,

p. 138.) As illustrative of such punishment Gummere cites our ballad
evidence.

aan Rnemmnenm ice eee men SL ne ee ae ETDEATH AND BURIAL LORE 19

injured husband in Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard is
that of cutting the paps from the breasts of his guilty wife:

He cuts her paps from off her brest;
Great pity it was.to see

That some drops of this ladie’s heart’s blood
Ran trickling downe her knee.

We cannot agree with Child when he says that “it is an
improvement that the lady should die by the stroke of steel
as in C, E, H, J, K, L, in exchange for the barbarity of A.” 7
It is noteworthy that this barbarity is approximated in
American variants of this ballad.** The stroke of steel may
be an improvement where the lady is concerned. As a death-
blow it is comparable to the tender mercies of Othello’s dag-
ger, but, after all, version A, so far as reflecting actual custom
is concerned, may be nearer the truth.

Not appeased by the penalty exacted in the foregoing
ballad, the husband in Old Robin of Portingale goes further
and cuts off the ears of his unfaithful wife: “

Hee cutt the papps beside he[r] brest,
And bad her wish her will;

And he cutt the eares beside her heade,
And bade her wish on still.

‘

It is among the “customs” of Gil Brenton’s “ country ” to
mete out such punishment to an inconstant wife, and since
our hero has wedded “seven king’s daughters’ we may re-
gard his as a practiced hand: ™

73 No. 81 A 26.

“4 Ballads, II, 248. Strangely enough, Child is prone to question the
validity or naturalness of certain strikingly primitive incidents in our
ballads. See, for example, his observation on the blood-drinking in
The Braes 0 Yarrow (214), Ballads, IV, 162 n. For excellent parallels
to this incident see George Henderson, Survivals in Belief among the
Celts, pp. 29 ff.

The wife’s head is severed or split in twain: J A F L, XXX, 309
ff., texts II and III; Campbell and Sharp, Folk Songs from the Southern
Appalachians, p. 81, text B, p. 87, F; Mackenzie, The Quest of the
Ballad, p. 17; Cox, Folk-Songs of the South, p. 95.

76 No. 80, st. 29. Remorseful, Old Robin, by way of penance (st. 32),
“shope the crosse in his right sholder, of the white flesh and the redd,
and went him into the holy land, whereas Christ was quicke and dead.”
On this incident and its reflection of general custom see Child, II, 246.

T7No. 5 A 15 ff.20 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
e
“ But, bonny boy, tell to me *8
What is the customs o your country.”
i ‘i “The custom o’t, my dame,” he says,
, | at “Will ill a gentle lady please.
i

‘‘ Seven king’s daughters has our king wedded,
An seven king’s daughters has our king bedded.

4 ‘‘ But he’s cutted the paps frae their breast-bane,
: An sent them mourning hame again.”

4 Plucking out the eyes of a murderer is the punishment to be
4 inflicted by the two brothers in Young Benjie — this by way
of avenging the death of their sister: “°

“Ye mauna Benjie head, brothers,®°
Ye mauna Benjie hang,
But ye maun pike ‘out his twa grey een,
And punish him ere he gang.”’

“The regular penalty for incontinence in an unmarried
' woman, if we are to trust the authority of romances, is burn-
ing,’ observes Professor Child, and notes that in the southern

ballad Dona Ausenda the father in person superintends the

preparation of the pile.*' The best instance for British

balladry is that given in Lady Maisry. A Scotch lass, having
: gone contrary to the wishes of her relatives in the matter of
her betrothal or amour, is accused, condemned, and executed
by her relatives. According to certain texts of the ballad,
father and brother are the executioners. Sister and mother,
in other copies, lend a hand. A Motherwell version reads: *

‘ | bh Her father is gone to the fire,®*
| Her brother to the whin,
=e To kindle up a bold bonfire,

To burn her body in.”

According to the Campbell text as well as several other
copies of our ballad, the culprit’s entire family — father,

A Ss

(SCL B 11 te:

7 No. 86 A 20.

80 Cf. B 11.

81 Ballads, II, 113 and n.

82 No. 65 B 18.
_ §3 Cf. C 12. It should be borne in mind that Maisry’s offence consists
in part, at least, in her having given her love to an Englishman rather
than to a man of her own country. See A 13 f.

pce cr ik ni . x? Re
SE SSS es TEDEATH AND BURIAL LORE ot

mother, sister, brother — take or have the law in their own
hands. The father orders the “ bale-fire’’: *4

““O who will put of the pot,®°
O who will put of the pan?
And who will build a bale-fire,
To burn her body in.”

The other members of the household, whether they would or
not, must obey this command:

The brother took of the pot,
The sister took of the pan,

And her mother builded a bold bale-fire,8¢
To burn her body in.

In Sir Aldingar the queen, falsely accused of infidelity,
escapes death at the stake only when her innocence is proved
by ordeal of battle." In Young Hunting the ordeal by fire
and that of the bleeding corpse serve to discover the
murderess.**

These matters bid fair to carry us into a study of justice,
both private and public, as depicted in balladry, a study which,
completely worked out, would be of no mean proportions.*?
Death at the hands of her brother, whose authority has been
slighted, is the fate of the bride in The Cruel Brother, and
so of another maiden in the ballad of Andrew Lammie. In
this latter piece a girl would marry against her relatives’
wishes. She is punished by flagellation. The brother, taking
his turn after father and mother, deals the deathblow:

84D 8.
8° The brother alone is judge, jury, and executioner in A 11 ff., LT:
- ff., but the lover (sts. 30 f.) will take vengeance upon the entire
amily.
86In E 6 the mother sits in a “golden chair to see her daughter
burn,” asin F 10, Cf. G2 f., H 14 ff... 1 10; 1 a-b, J 8, K 12. See the
“golden chair ” test for chastity in Gil Brenton (5 A 19, C 31, D 21).
87 No. 59 A 14, B 18. A 14: “And brent our queene shalbee.” Cf.
the Danish ballad Medelwold and Sidselille, trans. Prior; op. ¢it.,: 431,
Br st. Se
“Then high on gallows hang shall he,
And blaze below the pile for thee.”
88 No. 68.
‘? I have drawn out from the ballads all those matters relating to
judicial procedure and shall present them in a later study.
JOENO, We
*l No, 233 A 16. Cf. C 38. See also text, Greig, Traditional Ballads,
DD LiG. St a8.=— ———————EE none een aaaeemaeneemam ae

22 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

Her brother beat her cruellie,
Till his straiks they werena canny;

He brak her backe, and he beat her sides,
For the sake o Andrew Lammie.

In the German ballad Graf Hans von Holstein und seine
Schwester Annchristine,.a song with points of resemblance
to Fair Janet, a girl from whose breasts milk comes is beaten
by her brother until liver and lungs spring from her body.*

The Paths to Death. ‘“ Of the various paths to death,”
observes Gummere in his Germanic Origins, “ old age had
the worst adjectives,” such as “ odious age” in Beowulf, and
death for the German was “ nowhere so dreaded as where it
found him in his bed,— the ‘ straw-death,’ as he called it.” %
As for “odious age” in balladry the foregoing pages are
proof that in Jaques’ seven-part drama the hero of folksong
seldom lives to play any act beyond that of the lover or that
of the soldier. Some few old men there are in balladry, but
as a rule they are “ silly auld ” men,°®* who not infrequently,
however, have something sinister about them. They have a
way, like Carl Hood, the ballad representative of Odin,” of
coming “for ill, but never for good.” °° On the whole, they
merit the evil wish pronounced by the hero in the fine song of
Johnie Cock: ‘ Oh wae befa thee, silly auld man, an ill death
may thee dee!”

Besides the kinds of death already surveyed in the pre-
ceding pages, the ballads picture other stock ways of dying,
but death is an experience, the commonplaceness of which,
even in folk poetry, does not strip it of terror. Suicide can
hardly be styled dishonorable in folksong. It is a matter of

‘s frequent occurrence and nowhere does anything of oppro-

*2 Karl Miillenhof, Sagen, Mérchen und Lieder der Herzogthiimer
Schleswig-Holstein und Lauenburg, p. 492, no. 48.

‘3 Pp. 305 f. See also “Old Age,” Encye. Religion and Ethies, IX,
480: Teutonic.

*4 See, for example, no. 114, D 10 f., 20; BE 9 £,:.G 9. -Ch ¥ 9:
“silly auld carle;”' H 11 f.: “a stane-auld man.”

“5 See Child, Ballads, I, 95 n.

°6 Farl Brand (7 A 7).

97 No. 114 D 20.

reer ene ee EanDEATH AND BURIAL LORE 23

brium seem to attach to the act of self-destruction.®* Falling
upon one’s sword often suffices, as in that song of sworn
brotherhood Bewick and Graham. Grahame has given his
“bully Bewick” a mortal wound but will, in keeping with
his vow, “be the first that die.” According to the ancient
manner, he leaps upon his sword: °°

Then he stuck his sword in a moody-hill,
Where he lap thirty good foot and three;
First he bequeathed his soul to God,
And upon his own sword-point lap he.

The “outlyer” brother in a Motherwell copy of Babylon
rushes upon his knife for reasons even more tragic: 1°

He stuck his knife then into the ground,1!01
He took a long race, let himself fall on;

And Gil Viett cannot survive Lady Ingram’s preference for
her slain husband: 1°

Gil Viett took a long brand,
An stroakd it on a stro,10

An through and thro his own bodie
He made it come and go.

98 On suicide as practiced by the early Teutonic peoples see Gummere,
Germanic Origins, pp. 208, 232, 306.

99 No. 211, st. 48.

100 No. 14 D 22.

101 Cf, Little Musgrave (81 G 382): “He leand the halbert on the
ground, the point o’t to his breast.” So in Young Johnstone (88 D 34).
See also Glasgerion (67 A 23): “He sett the swords poynt till his
brest, the pummill till a stone; . . 3°’ Lord Thomas and Fair Annet
73 A 28, D 18, D e, Child, I, 197). Cf American texts of no. 73:
Campbell and Sharp, Folk Songs from the Southern Appalchians, pp.
55, 58; Cox, Folk-Songs of the South, pp. 45 ff., all texts except F.
Cf. British text, Leather, Folk-Lore of Herefordshire, p. 202.

102 No. 66 B 19.

103 This stroking or whetting of the sword on straw, grass, a stone,
or the ground, or wiping or drying it on the sleeve or the grass before
using it is a ballad commonplace. For its occurrence see nos. 67 A 22;
69 A 15,-C 13, D 8, G17; 70 B 19; 73 B 36; 83 A 26, F 30; 81 FE 18,
Resk2 82, st; 15; 90 B 21, C 14, and text, Child, Ae 226 £3 sts. Sea
09: A goes struck it across the plain;” N 28: ‘oer a stane; ” T 11
(Child, IV, 491): “slate it on the plain; ” as in text, Child, V, 235, st.
jos Lin A 10, and text, Child, II, 492, sts. 11 f.; 269 D 8. On this com-
monplace see Child, II, 243 f.ee,

 

 

24 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

The epithet ‘‘ wee ” that is used in balladry to describe the
penknife *°* makes somewhat of a verbal paradox in view of
the tragic situations in which this weapon figures. Can
“wee pen-knife,” as someone has suggested, be a corruption
of “weapon knife.” !°° According to the Child ballads, the
penknife may be “ sharp and sma,” '** “long and sharp,
or “full three quarters long.’ '°* In folksong the penknife
is a woman’s as well as a man’s weapon.'”? The cruel mother
murders her “ bonie babe” with her “little pen-knife.” +”
The brown bride in Lord Thomas and Fair Annet takes re-
venge for the fairness of Annie by means of a little penknife
““ which she kept secret there.” ''' According to several texts
of The Bonnie Banks o Fordie, Baby Lon has taken “ out his
wee pen-knife, and he’s twyned himsel o his ain sweet life.” +”
In one version he beheads two of his sisters with this same
“diminutive instrument.” ''® And the cruel brother, whose
consent to his sister’s betrothal has not been asked, admin-
isters ancient justice by drawing “a little penknife” and

9? 107

104 The penknife appears to be an ideal weapon for murder or suicide.
See Sidgwick, Popular Ballads of the Olden Time, First Series, p. 35.
See also Stempel, A Book of Ballads, p. 217, on the penknife: ‘It has
been suggested that the undue prominence of wee pen-knives in ballads
shows the influence of female tradition.”

105 On the passage in Beowulf, 11. 2703 f., “ war-knife drew, a biting
blade by his breastplate hanging,” Gummere (Oldest English Epic, p.
140) has this note: “In the ballads this useful dagger or short sword
is often a ‘wee pen-knife that hangs low down by the gare; but the
a penknife now and then is described as ‘ three-quarters [of a yard]
ong.”

106 No. 49 B 3.

107 No. 73 D 15.

108 No. 114 A 8.

109 Wooing and wedding customs provide the ladies of balladry with
this ready weapon. No. 10 H 2, I 3: ‘“ He courted the eldest with a
penknife.”’ See also nos. 5 A 65, C 74; 10 B, C, D, Q.

110 The Cruel Mother (20 B, C, D, E, F, L). The murderous pen-
Roe sppeers In pos. 41: B.C, I,.Ls:44 AY BoC. Dp, Ey 40-8,
73. B 32, D 15, D e (Child, II, 197); 16 B 4; 52 B 9; 114 A 8. The
foregoing references are, of course, by no means exhaustive. The pen-
knife is retained in American variants: No. 49 in Campbell and Sharp,
op. cit., pp. 33 ff.; McGill, Folk Songs of the Kentucky Mountains, p.
82; Mackenzie, Quest of the Ballad, p. 104. No. 73 in Campbell and
Sharp, op. cit., p. 56; Cox, op. cit., pp. 46 ff., A, D, E, F, G, I; B 13:
* pocket-knife.’’

111 No. 73 B 32.

192, No. 14 A 18. Cf. B, C,.D, E,

113, ¢ 5, 10.

a enDEATH AND BURIAL LORE 25

reaving “the fair maid o her life.” ** In the hands of a
woman a “ bodkin”’ serves to inflict death in Lord Thomas
and Fair Annet*** as well as in Lamkin.** One recalls
Hamlet’s “ bare bodkin.”’

A study of the weapons and armor mentioned in folksong
would not be without value, but such an investigation lies
outside our present purposes. We cannot refrain, however,
from giving in a footnote a list of some of these weapons, a
list.similar to the catalogue for Eddic poetry in Vigfusson
and Powell’s Corpus Poeticum Boreale.* ‘No suffimen,”
says Aubrey, “is a greater fugator of phantosmes than gun-
powder,” but fortunately this “fugator” has not put the
ballad ghost utterly to flight nor reduced the ballad lord to
the level of his meanest retainer. Pistol, powder-horn, long
guns, “ powther ” and lead, are unheard of in the best of our
folksongs,’'* and have not displaced the ‘ bright brown”
swords of the ancient warrior or the ‘“ glaive,”’ the “ clay-
more,” the ‘“ pole-axe,”’ the ‘‘ broad-mouthed axe,” or the
bows of yew and the “ broode-headed arrow.” The swords of
balladry retain something still of ancient magic, and when
guns do appear, as in Sir Andrew Barton, it is English
archery that decides the issue.’'® But lack of space forbids
our dwelling longer on these matters and footnote references
must suffice.'”°

14 No. 11 B11. In F 10 he uses ‘a “dagger: ” in A 17 @ “knife; ”
in H and I a penknife again.

119 No. 73 A 25.

1146No. 93 E 11. Cf. D 11: “a silver bolt.” In other texts a pen-
knife is used.

117 Vol. II, 700. See also Gummere, Germanic Origins, chap. viii.

118 See no. 167 A 43: cannon loaded with “ chaine yeards nine, besids
other great shott lesse and more.” See also nos. 178 B 9, C 2, G 3;
ise A 9, B 11; 193° A 5, B 14; 198 A 44; 223, at. 3s 245 © oo: foe ne

119 No. 167.

120“ Bright brown” or “brown” swords (on brown and bright
swords see Gummere, Old English Ballads, p. 345; and Child, V, 319,
glossary, “ brown sword.”): in ballads — Nos. 67 A 223 80, st. 24; 83
A 26; “nut-brown,”— 69 C 18; 112 A 10; “two edged sword,”— 88 C
27; “too honde sworde,”— 119, st. 26; 185, st. 33; “ broad sword,’’— 99
G 19; 128, st. 10; 183 B 2; 228 C 8; “lang braid-swords,’’— 103 B 49;
“longe sword,”—123 A 9; 159, st. -9; “small sword,”—73 D e 18
(II, 197); see “ hand-sword,’’ Cox, Folk-Songs of the South, p. 47;
“small sword,” again, 102 B 14; “ basket-hilt. sword,”— 149 st. 11;
“ swerd bent,”— 121, st. 15; “sword bent in the middle clear,” in “the
middle brown,’—191 B 11, 12; falchion,—129, st. 46; 186, st. 5;26 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

To return. to modes of dying, if the wee penknife and the
sword do not offer a way out, poison in various forms is not
ineffective. Nor is there in balladry an antidote for or safe-
guard against it, such as that prescribed in the Edda: “ And
cast a leek in the cup; (For so I know thou never shalt see thy
mead with evil mixed.)” *** Our principal poison ballads are
Lord Randal, Katharine Jaffray, with its closing threat,
Prince Robert, and Queen Eleanor’s Confession, not to in-
clude the measures taken for. abortion in Tam Lin and Mary
Hamilton.

“The substitution of some venomous reptile for food, or
putting it into liquor, was anciently supposed,” observes Sir
Walter Scott in his preface to Lord Randal, “to be a com-
mon mode of administering poison; .... ” And Scott goes
on to cite a MS. chronicle of England, according to which the

“ halbert,”— 81 G 32; 88 D 34; “glaive,” 120 A 20; 99 T 11 (IV, 491);
99, st. 22 (V, 235); “ claymore,’— 222 A 39; 225 B 13, G 9, H 6; 240
A.11; “rapier,”— 106, st. 8; 112 C 87; 181 B 3; 207A 6; 214 A 10,
K 4; “spear,”— 109 A 36; 158 B 13; 185, st. 39; 162 A 11, “long spear
shod with metal free; ” 167 C 7; “lance,”— 129, st. 38; 186, st. 10;
190, st. 38; “launsgay,”— 117, st. 184; sword of “fyne collayne,”’—
161 A 50; sword of “fyn myllan,”— 162 A 31; dirk,— 49 E 3; 134, st.
53; 228 C 8; “dag-durk,’— 4 A 12; dagger,— 11 F 10; 149, st. 11; 73
A 27; 118, st. 7; 174, st. 6; “Irish kniffe,”— 118, st. 42; “ bill,”— 136,
st. 5; 159, st. 48; 162 A 11; 180, st. 3; “ pole-axe,’”— 116, sts. 25, 89;
208 B 8; “ broad-mouthed axe,’’— 208 I 14; “ battell-axe,”— 159, st. 39.
Bows and arrows: “ broode-headed arrow,’’— 167, st. 56; ‘‘ browd aros,”
autGe Az 6-167 A 66; 116>-st. 9; 125, st. 82-144, st. 37s- ied, -st.42;
arrow with “ swane-feathars,”— 162 A 42; with “grey goose-wing,’—
162 B 46; 125, st. 8; “steel-headed arrow,”’— 159, st. 29; “ bearing
arrow,’— 167 A 53; 116, st. 150; 145 B 338; (see glossary, Child, V,
313, “bearing arrow”); “sheaf of arrows,”’—114 A 5; see “shaft
arrows on the wa’,”— 189, st. 16; a prize arrow: 117, st. 285,—“ shaft
of syluer whyte, the hede and the feders of ryche rede golde;” see
also 152, st. 7; see description of “ bowes,” “ strynges,” and “ arrowes,”
—'117, sts. 131, 132; bow with golden string,— 114 J 6; bowstrings of
silk,— 116, st. 83; “long bow,”—125, st. 35; 1381, st. 16; 140 B 6;
149, st. 3; bow of yew,— 141, st. 7; 114 A 18; bow of “ trusti-tree,”—
162 A 44; B 45; “ benbowe,” “ bent bow,” (see glossary, V, 315),— 124
B 5; 114 A 5,.J 6; 148, st. 18; ef. commonplace, “ bent his bow and
swam; ’” (see Child, V, 474, 1st col.) ; quarter-staff,— 131, st. 18; pike-
staff,— 126, st. 2; “ oken staves,’”— 137, st. 18; “ crab-tree staff,’’— 127,
st. 15; “ staffe,’—122 A 7; 125, st. 11. See “ browne bill,’”’— 284, st. 9.
Armor: Nos. 161 A 51;.186, st. 10; 262, st. 15; 186, st. 17; 187 B 5;
ize: 12: 167, st. 62 t1V,.506) + 190, st: 24: 211; at. 22: 179, af. 18;
146, st. 24; 121, st. 15; 136, st. 8; 159, st. 11g 213, st..16; 243 B 13;
165. A. 165-262. st. 15.

121. A. Bellows, “ Sigrdrifumol,” The Poetic Edda, p. 392.DEATH AND BURIAL LORE 27

death of King John was brought about by administering to
him the venom of a toad.’*? Whoever may be the agent of
the crime in Lord Randal,'** the hero comes to his death by
eating “eels boild in broo” or a “ four-footed fish.” Ana-
logues of this ballad are known all over Europe, and in certain
of these, as in a Danish parallel, it is clear that originally the
fish and eels of the story were a snake served as food.!24 A
Motherwell copy of the British ballad reads: 32°

“What gat ye to your supper, King Henry, my son?
What gat ye to your supper, my pretty little one? ”

“T gat fish boiled in broo; mother, mak my bed soon,
For I’m sick to the heart, and I fain wald lie down.” -

According to nearly all the Child versions, Lord Randal
“gat” “eels boiled in broo’’!”° or “‘a wee fishie;” 127 in one
text, a “speckled trout,’ 728 in another, a “ four-footed
fish.” °° The original snake is found in one of the Child
texts,‘*° and is clearly implied in another where the ‘“‘ wee
fish”? was found near ‘ the edder-flowe ” or adder morass.!**
The reading is ‘‘ paddocks ” in a copy from the Journal of the
Folk-Song Society.‘** In one Child text we finda ‘‘ cup of
strong poison,’ *** in another, “deadly poison.” '** When
the reading is not corrupt American variants usually have
“eels.” or “ fish.” 1%

122 Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, III, 51 f.

123 On the agent of the crime see Child, I, 154 f.

124 Twelve snakes in the Danish analogue, an adder in German F. See
analyses of foreign texts, Child, II, 152 ff.

125 No. 12 C 2.

i2%A,C,.D, BE, G, i tbe g PS:

171 BJ, KK, Ke; Oy BR.

128. Cf. N: “spreckled fishie.” See descriptions of the fish (eel)
mA 3,1 4, O 3, ete.

129M 3.

130] ¢ (Child, I, 166): “dead snake.”

131 U 2 (Child, IV, 450).

132 Vol. III, 438.

133 2.

134 F 9.

135 To cite only a few of these: J A F L, XVI, 258 ff., “ale” (for
eel), “three little silver fishes; XXIV, 345, “bread, meat, and
poison; ”’ Campbell and Sharp, op. cit., p. 23, “cold pie and cold coffee ”
(probable corruption of “ poison” to “pie and”); ibid., p. 25, “ cup
of cold poison; ” Cox, Folk-Songs of the South, pp. 23 ff., “eels” in
A, B, C, D; “poison” in E. Cf. British texts: Journal of the Folk-
Song Society, V, 118, “wee, wee blue fish; ” V, 122, “three drops of
strong poison; ” IV, 248, Italian version, “leaf of salad.”28 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

In the closing lines of Katharine Jaffray, the model for
Seott’s Lochinvar, a threat flung at any Southron who would
venture to court a Scottish lass, keeps clear the distinction
between “fish” and venomous “ frogs”: **°

They haik ye up and settle ye by,'®*"
Till on your wedding day,

And gie ye frogs instead o fish,
And play ye foul, foul play.

Whether or not the family of folksong may be described as
matripotestal,** it is certain that in matters of love the
ballad son goes counter at his peril to the wishes of his
mother.*® Hence Prince Robert, whose marriage has not met
with maternal approval, must drink — to a sort of ritualistic
doggerel —a cup of poison administered by his mother’s
hand.”

 

He has put it to his bonny mouth,!*!
And to his bonny chin,

He’s put it to his cherry lip,
And sae fast the rank poison ran in.

The foregoing lines occur in the inferior pieces Lord Thomas
and Lady Margaret and Lady Isabel,’*? and represent a
ballad commonplace, a “ foolish one,” thinks Child.'*

Queen Eleanor’s Confession tells a story, known in several
sets of tales,'** of a husband who impersonates a shrift-father
in order to hear his wife’s confession. Among other things
confessed by the queen is that of making a box of “ poyson
strong, to poyson King Henry,” a libelous incident so far as

the historical queen is concerned.'*® A broadside version of
the ballad reads: 14°

€ 136 No, 221 A 13.

tte B27 CO 17, D 19," 20; ete.

138 See F. B. Gummere, “ The Mother-in-Law,” Kittredge Anniversary
Papers, pp. 15-24.

eo for example, nos. 215, 216 and note the réle of the mother in
nos. 5, 6.

140 No. 87 A 5.

141 Cf. B 4, D 5. See also Lady Alice (85 B 2).

142 Nos. 260. A 17,-B 16; 261, st. 21. Cf no. 222 B 9,

143 Ballads, IV, 431.

144 See ibid., III, 257 f.

145 See ibid., III, 257.

146 No. 156 A 12.DEATH AND BURIAL LORE 29

“The next vile thing that_ere I did 147
To you I’ll.not deny;
I made a box of poyson strong,
To poyson King Henry.”

She then confesses that she “ poysoned Fair Rosamond, all
in fair Woodstock bower.” A poem given by Child in the
appendix to King James and Brown tells of a “ posset,” a
“noysoned thing,” that was prepared for another king.**s
The “ poisond lake” of Kinloch’s Babylon is probably
akin to the snake-pen found in the Danish ballad Karl and
Kragelille,*® an enclosure, as described by Dr. Prior, “ filled
with thorns and venomous reptiles, into which criminals, and
especially pirates were thrown.” **° Some such punishment
must be suffered by the murderer in the British ballad: **+

“Then for their life ye sair shall dree;
Ye sall be hangit on a tree,

. Or thrown into the poisond lake,
To feed the toads and rattle-snake.”’

The “ poisond lake ” here, thinks Prior, has no reference to
the “ancient snake-pen ” and betrays its modern origin in
the mention of “ rattle-snakes.” 1°? It might as well be said that
the “pistol” in an American text of Little Musgrave and
Lady Barnard betrays the modern origin of the homicide in
that piece.'*? This concludes the matter of death by poison-
ing unless we choose to make reference to a Norwegian ana-
logue of Clerk Colvill, according to which the unwilling lover
is given by his elfin sweetheart a drink with an atter-corn, a
poison grain, floating in it.'**

Death by drowning occurs in a number of ballads: in Lady
Isabel and the Elf-Knight, where a clever lass turns the

147 Cf. B 11: “I keepit poison in my bosom seven years; ” also C 11,
: 9,E 12,F 16. E12: “penknife;” F 16: “ poisoned a lady of noble
lood.”’

148 Op. cit., III, 446.

149 Grundtvig, I, 335.

150 Ancient Danish Ballads, I, 261. For the occurrence of the snake-
pen elsewhere see ibid., ibid.

151 No. 14 E 18.

152 Op. cit; 1,202.

153 Campbell and Sharp, op. cit., p. 83. :

154 For analyses of this version and other foreign texts in which
poison figures see Child, I, 375 and n.30 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

tables on her would-be slayer, who has drowned “ seven
king’s daughters” in the “water o Wearie’s Well,” that is,
the Devil’s Well; ** in The Twa Sisters, where a jealous
maiden is guilty of sororicide; ‘*° in Sir Patrick Spens and
The Mermaid as a result of seeing the mermaid — this accord-
’ ing to certain texts of the former piece,’™ all of the latter; ™
in The Lass of Roch Royal, through the machinations of a
witch mother or at least as a consequence of her duplicity.’™
Death by drowning occurs also in The Water 0 Gamrve where,
according to three texts, a mother’s curse or the absence of
her blessing sends the hero to a watery grave.’ A similar
story is told in The Mother’s Malison with which ought to
square those texts in the former piece that send the son away
with his mother’s blessing rather than with her curse. In
The Mother’s Malison the hero, because he insists on seeing
his true-love, receives his mother’s curse, and instead of
prospering in his suit goes to his death in Clyde’s Water: ™
““Gin ye winna stay, my son Willie,!°
This ae bare night wi me,
Gin Clyde’s water be deep and fu o flood,!®
My malisen drown ye!”
The Clyde is popular. in balladry.*** We find it again in
Young Hunting, a song with several primitive traits. Death
here is not by drowning but this piece preserves the super-
stition that a drowned body may be discovered by means of
burning candles, a procedure suggested’ in the ballad by a
talking and helpful bird: **

“Leave aff your ducking on the day,1%
And duck upon the night;
Whear ever that sakeless knight lys slain,
The candels will shine bright.”

155 No. 4 B 10 ff. Cf. Child’s other texts.

156 No. 10.

157. No. 58 J, L, P, Q.

158 No. 289.

159 No. 76 D 26 ff., E 21 ff., E a 24, and text, Child, IV, 472 f.

160 No. 215 E 9, F 4, G 2.

161 No. 216 A 6.

162 Cf. B 4, C 7.

163 Cf. the curse in The Wife of Usher’s Well (79 A).

164 Jt is found, for example, in nos. 9 G; 42 C; 63 B, C, G,,.J33 68 A,

Bit oy BG 91 F, G; 110 B, M, N; 216 A, B, G; 217 L.
163 No, 68 A 22.DEATH AND BURIAL LORE Si

In another ballad of superstition, Young Benjie, a lover
throws his sweetheart “ oer the linn,” that is, over the bank
into the torrent, where she drowns.'** In a number of texts
of the ballad that bears her name Mary Hamilton throws her
newborn babe into the sea, thus furnishing possibly an ex-
ample of the old custom of infant exposure. This hint of
an old custom is noticed by Professor Gummere: “ Child-
murder led to the death of Russian Mary Hamilton; but the
ballad is thinking of the old exposure or ‘exposition’ of
infants.” ‘°° In certain versions Mary kills her babe outright
but in one of Scott’s texts she sends it afloat upon the sea: *°°

“T put it in a bottomless boat 17
And bad it sail the sea.”

*

According to other copies, Mary puts her babe in a “ piner-
pig,’ ? in a basket,’ or “rows” it in a handkerchief and
throws it into the sea.‘ According to another text, she
apparently smothers it.17* In Maidment’s version it is ex-
pressly said that she strangles it.1”

Death by strangulation occurs in several ballads. In the
Harris Manuscript of The Cruel Mother the murderess
strangles her babes: 1%

166 On this incident see Child, II, 142.

167 No. 86 A, B.

168 Old English Ballads, p. 335. See also the same author, The
Popular Ballad, p. 242. In his essay on the mother-in-law in the Eng-
lish ballads (Kittredge Anniversary Papers, p. 17 n.) Gummere takes
note of the proportion in popular poetry of many brothers, often seven,
to one sister, the “ ae sister,” as in Clerk Saunders (69 A 10). “ This
‘ae sister’ with many brothers,” observes Gummere, “ may dimly recall
the times when exposure of female infants (the Gunnlaugssaga was
contemporary with the last of the practice) made the proportion. The
stories of naval foundlings began in that stage of culture; and of
course the example of a husband preferred to brothers was set by the
new and prevalent version of the Nibelungenlied.”

169 Y°5 (Child, IV, 512).

170 Cf. U 14 (Child, IV, 509): “I pat that bonny babe in a box, and
set it on the sea; o sink ye, swim ye, bonny babe! Ye’s neer get mair

7: an earthen vessel for keeping money.
28 3 (Child, IV, 508).
2 C. 4°) 9oe K 4, Oy kes,
E 9: ee between the bolster and the bed.’”’ Found beneath the bed:
EBs Neo3 Wes
M 4: “there strangled lay, a lovely baby sweet.”
176 No. 20 J 2. Cf. American text, Campbell and Sharp, op. cit., p. 20:
binds them with her yellow hair but kills them with a penknife.32 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

She taen the ribbon frae her head,
An hankit their necks till they waur dead.

According to all copies of The Laird of Wariston, a ballad
that rests on fact, the lord is killed by strangulation — the
lady and the nurse committing the deed in two texts,” the
nurse alone in one version,'** with the foul fiend himself in
the best copy personally knotting the tether.’*° In one version
of The Braes o Yarrow the heroine commits Suicide by
strangling herself with her long hair.1*°

Not out of place among other matters associated with
death in balladry is the remarkable use to which hair is put
in The Braes 0 Yarrow and Rare Willie Drowned in Yarrow,
In the former of these pieces, the Murison Manuscript, the
heroine ties her hair about her slain lover and carries him
home. Long hair is put to similar uses elsewhere in popular
song, in foreign analogues, for example, of Lady Isabel and
the Elf-Knight*** or in a Slovak ballad affiliated with The

Maid Freed from the Gallows.* The Braes o Yarrow
reads: 188

She’s taen three lachters 0 her hair,
That hung doon her Side sae bonny,

An she’s tied them roon his middle tight,
An she’s carried him hame frae Yarrow.

According to several texts, the hair is the man’s, not the
maiden’s, and, as Miss Gilchrist observes, speaking of
Veitch’s text,'** this ig probably the “ earlier and more likely
form of the incident.” Miss Gilchrist explains this reversal
of the sexes by Saying that “ when men ceased to wear long
hgie 22... this attraction was transferred to the lady in-
stead.” **° Professor Child’s Synopsis of the various textual
readings may be given: “ Her hair is five quarters long; she
twists it round his hand and draws him home, C; ties it round

177 No, 194 A, B,

178 G ai Be

179 A 7,

100: No. 214 A 15.

181 See Child, I, 40 b, 486 b.

182 See ibid., III, 516 b.

183, No, 214 B 14.

SAL th Of J 16, & 12,

185 Journal of the Folk-Song Society, V, 116.DEATH AND BURIAL LORE 33

his middle and carries him home, D. She takes three lachters
of her hair, ties them tight round his middle and carries him
home, Bb. His hair is five quarters long! she ties it to her
horse’s mane and trails him home, K.'** The carrying strikes
one as unpractical, the trailing as barbarous. In L, after the
lover is slain, the surviving lords and her brother trail him
by the heels to Yarrow water and throw him into a whirl-
pool."** .... His hair, which we must suppose to float, is
five quarters long;.she twines it round her hand and draws
him out.” *** Harp or fiddle strings are made from a drowned
maiden’s hair in The Twa Sisters and reveal or denounce the
murderess.'*®

It may not be amiss to include here a barbarous practice
depicted in certain versions of Young Beichan. The hero of
our song wandered to “ strange countries,’ and was “ taen
by a savage Moor, who handld him right cruely ”:

For thro his shoulder he put a bore,!91
An thro the bore has pitten a tree,
An he’s gard him draw the carts o wine,
Where horse and oxen had wont to be.

According to an old tradition in Liddesdale, Lord Soulis —
the Lord Soulis of the ballad of that name — “ put bores in
the shoulders of his vassals, the better to yoke them to the
Sledges, wherewith they dragged forward materials for

 

186 At this point Child (IV, 162 n.) has this note: “The reciters of
A and J, whether they gave what they had received, or tried to avoid
the material difficulties about the hair, graze upon absurdity. Her hair
was three quarters long, she tied it round ‘her’ (for his?) white hause-
bane — and died, A 15. His hair was three quarters long, she’s wrapt
it round her middle— and brought it home, J 16. The hair comes in
again in the next two ballads, and causes difficulty. Wonderful things
are done with hair in ballads and tales.”

187 The drowning incident in this text belongs, thinks Child (IV, 162
f.), with the following ballad, no.. 215.

188 Ballads, IV, 162 f. See also ibid., IV, 179, for Child’s analysis of
the similar incident in no. 215.

189 No. 10.

Pe No. 5S AS:

191 As in B, D, E, H, I, and two other texts, Child, IV, 461; V, 218.
Cf. L 3: “chained all by the middle” to a “tree” that grew in the
prison. Cf. American variants: J A F L, XXVIII, 149 ff., Campbell
and Sharp, op. cit., pp. 38, 42; Pound, American Ballads and Songs, p.
33. According to the foregoing variants, Beichan is bound or nailed
fast unto a tree. On this incident in American texts see Kittredge,
J A F L, XXX, 295. Cf. text, Greig, Traditional Ballads, p. 41:
“put him in a vault o stone.”34 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

i
"| building the castle. This account of ancient feudal custom,
strange to say, is not quite singular. The same occurs in the
i ballad of ‘ Young Beichan.’” **? Of American texts that |
. have examined those recorded in Dr. J. H. Cox’s Folk-Songs
: of the South have best preserved the incident in question.
Lines from Jellon Grame may serve to bring to a close our
chapter of horrors. Lillie Flower, with “ bairn” to Jellon,
goes to “Silver Wood ” to meet her lover, ‘only to find that
he has made for her a grave beneath a green oak tree. Lillie
pleads for mercy but Jellon slays her for fear that her father
will, through the birth of the child, learn of their illicit love,
The babe is born at the moment of the mother’s death and lies
“‘weltring in her blude”’: '%4

He felt nae pity for that ladie,19
Tho she was lying dead;

But he felt some for the bonny boy,
Lay weltring in her blude.

 

4 192 John Leyden, Poems and Ballads, p. 217. See Scott, Minstrelsy,
ae LY, 224 and n.
- we ee pp. 26 7.: A 3 B 3: & A 2 readss Through his left

shoulder a hole they bore, and through the same a rope was tied, and
he was made’to drag cold iron, till he was sick and like to died.”

194 No. 90 A 14. Cf. no. 81 F 25, K 13.

195 Cf, B10: “lay swathed amang her bleed; ” C 15: “lay spartling
by her side.” According to D, Jellon slays the babe also:

ea:

And he’s taen the baby out of her womb
And thrown it upon a thorn.

With the foregoing incident compare stanza of an old ballad from Cun-
ningham’s recollection (Child, I, 226):

He took the babe on his spear point,
And threw it upon a thorn.

Cf. the incident in Captain Car (178 C 18 ff.).t
THE ORDEAL AND THE GALLOWS TREE

Properly to be treated only in an exhaustive study of
justice, both private and collective, as reflected in British
balladry, the ordeal and modes of capital punishment will be
considered here chiefly as they bear upon the general subject
of death and as they illustrate the more or less primitive and
barbarous customs encountered in folksong.

The Ordeal. _If we include certain of their foreign ana-
logues, the British ballads exemplify several types of the
ordeal, a form of judgment that has its origin in a remote
heathendom.' In the following survey we shall encounter the
ordeal by fire, the ordeal of the bier or the bleeding-corpse,
the ordeal by battle, and a special kind of test by the dance
in the ballad of Fair Janet, particularly as portrayed in Norse
versions of this ballad.” ee

“The ancient ceremony or ordeal of passing through a fire
or leaping over burning brands,” observes Tylor, “ has been
kept up so vigorously in the British Isles, that Jamieson’s
derivation of the phrase ‘to haul over the coals’ from this
rite appears in no way far-fetched.” * Fortunately, the ballad
evidence does not rest on a mere phrase. Young Hunting
has been slain by his jilted mistress, who, when the “ wyte ”
or blame is put on her, accuses May Catheren. By the
judicitum ignis the. crime is fixed upon the real culprit: ‘

O thay ha sent aff men to the wood
To hew down baith thorn an fern,
That they might get a great bonefire
To burn that lady in.
“Put na the wyte on me,” she says,
“It was her May Catheren.”

 

1 Jacob Grimm, Deutsche Rechtsalterthiimer, 909.

*In citing foreign analogues I shall refer the reader directly to Child’s
analyses of these pieces, analyses which, for our purpose, are more
serviceable than the best translations or than the original transcripts
since they carry with them Child’s observations and conclusions.

° Primitive Culture, I, 85, citing Jamieson, Scottish Dictionary.

4 Young Hunting (68 A 25 ff.).36 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

Whan thay had tane her May Catheren,
In the bonefire set her in;

It wad na take upon her cheeks,
Nor yet upon her chin,

Nor yet upon her yallow hair,
To healle the deadly sin.

Out they hae tain her May Catheren,°
And they hay put that lady in;

O it took upon her cheek, her cheek,
An it took on her chin,

An it took on her fair body,
She burnt like hoky-gren.

“ But it tuke on the cruel hands that pat Young Redin in,”
is the reading in the Kinloch text. In Faroese and Icelandic
analogues of Sir Aldingar ‘ the heroine, in order to exonerate
herself from the charge of incontinence, resorts to the trial
by fire, the particular procedure of which is walking on hot
steel and carrying hot iron.* In the Danish ballad Ordeal by
Fire a maiden frees herself from a similar charge by means
of a like judicium dei: °®

His trulove rais’d that cruel knight,!°
And on the faggots laid;

The flame shrunk back, and left unscath’d
The good and gentle maid.

There, as amid the fire she stood,
Aloud fair Kirstin cried;

‘‘ Believe you now, my father dear,

How much on me they lied?” —

5 Virtually the same reading occurs in J 29, K 38.

eR 24, Cl. 0.24%.

7No. 59.

8 See analyses, Child, II, 36, 38, 40.

9 Translation, Prior, Ancient Danish Ballads, II, 60.

10 On the occurrence of the ordeal by fire in chronicle and literature
see Prior, ibid., II, 56 ff. Child (Ballads, II, 37 ff., 43 f.) notes its
occurrence in the legendary history of St. Cunigund, whose story, by
reason of similarity in names, has probably been attached to Gunhild,
wife of the Emperor Henry III. Malmesbury’s account of Gunhild has
many points in common with our ballad [Sir Aldingar], both in its
Norse and British variants. A still earlier account of such a miraculous
exoneration is given of Richarda, wife of the Emperor Charles III, 887.
Arthurian romance yields an example when Arthur’s queen, to clear
herself from the suspicion of wrongdoing, says that she is ready to be
thrown into a fire of thorns by way of testing the verity of the charge.DEATH AND BURIAL LORE SF

According to a Faroese version of Sir Aldingar, the sus-
pected lady is vindicated not only through the trial by fire
but through the ordeal by water also, tests met with in the
Spanish prose romance of Oliva and the French chanson de
geste of Doon |’Alemanz.'"' This trial by water recalls that
description of a heathen ordeal in Eddic poetry where Gudrun
purges herself from the charge of incontinence: ‘‘ She dipped
her white hand to the bottom [of the cauldron] and took out
the precious stones. ‘See now, men, how the cauldron boils!
I am proved guiltless according to the holy custom.’ Atli’s
heart laughed in his breast when he saw Gudrun’s hands
whole. ‘Now Herkia must go to the cauldron, she that im-
puted guilt to Gudrun.’

“He has never seen a pitiful sight that did not see how
Herkia’s hands were scalded that day. They led the maid to
a foul slough.”

The British ballad of Sir Aldingar, in keeping with its
Norse cousins under the title Ravengaard og Memering,®
puts the queen’s honor to trial by means of judicial combat
or the ordeal by battle. Accused of unchastity by the false
steward, the queen demands the trial of battle to vindicate
her innocence: 4

“Seeing I am able noe battell to make,!®
You must grant me, my leege, a knight,
To fight with that traitor, Sir Aldingar,
To maintaine me in my right.”
“Tle giue thee forty dayes,” said our king,
“To seeke thee a man therin;
If thou find not a man in forty dayes,
In a hott fyer thou shall brenn.”

11. Cited by Child, II, 40.

12 Vigfusson-Powell, Corpus Poeticum Boreale, I, 322 f.

13 Grundtvig, no. 18. See Child’s excellent abstract of the Danish
and Norwegian songs, Ballads, II, 34 ff.

14, No. 59 A 23 f.

15 Cf. B 19 ff.38 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

As the story goes, the queen finds her champion and is com-
pletely exonerated.’* In another British song James Hatley
proves himself guiltless of theft by overthrowing his accuser
in combat."’

The ordeal of the bier or the bleeding-corpse, known in
Germany as the bahr-recht,'* is found in the Nibelungenlied
when the wounds of the dead Siegfried break open at the
approach of Hagen.'® It furnishes a dramatic incident in
Shakespeare’s Richard III,”° and formerly it played a part in
criminal trials.2' In balladry it is strikingly illustrated by
Young Hunting where it precedes the ordeal by fire. “ That
the body of a murdered man will emit blood upon being
touched, or even approached, by the murderer is a belief of
ancient standing, and evidence of this character was formerly
admitted in judicial investigations.” 2? According to the Kin-
loch and the Harris text of our ballad, the mere approach of
the murderess produces the effect that Gloucester’s presence
has upon dead Henry’s wounds: *°

O white, white war his wounds washen,
' As white as a linen clout;
But as the traitor she cam near,

His wounds they gushit out.

“It’s surely been my bouer-woman,
O ill may her betide!
I neer wad slain him Young Redin,
And thrown him in the Clyde.”

But the bower-woman, falsely accused by her mistress, is
completely vindicated in the succeeding ordeal by fire. “ But

'6 Child (II, 37, 39) cites other accounts of exculpation by means of
battle or duel, accounts both historical and traditional, among them that
given in an early French metrical life of Edward the Confessor,
“translatée de Latin,” and that related of Gundeberg, wife of the
Lombard king Arioald, circa 630.

17 No. 244 A, B, C.

'S See Scott, Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, ed. T. F. Henderson,
III, 241. Scott cites instances from the Scottish criminal courts. “ at
the short distance of one century.”

19 Karl Bartsch, 11. 1043-45.

Act ts. 2.

21See Pitcairn, Criminal Trials in Scotland, III, 182-99; William
Henderson, Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties, p. 57; Crawley,

Ordeal,” Encyclopxdia ef Religion and Ethics, TX. 5325

*2 Child, Ballads, II, 143. See also ibid., IV, 468 a.

23 No. 68 B 21 f.DEATH AND BURIAL LORE 39

sune’s the traitor stude afore, then oot the red blude sprang.”
So reads the Harris copy.** In Scott’s version the corpse is
touched by both women: *°

The maiden touchd the clay-cauld corpse,
A drap it never bled;

The ladye laid her hand on him,
And soon the ground was red.

Is some sort of test or ordeal to be inferred from an inci-
dent preserved by a Motherwell version of .The Twa Sisters?
The Miller has brought the maiden’s drowned body to dry
land. He then lays it on a “ brume buss to dry, to see what
was the first wad pass her by”: 7

He laid her on a brume buss to dry,??
To see wha was the first wad pass her by.

This is perhaps in keeping with the many superstitions having
to do with certain effects associated with the first person,
animal, or thing that one encounters.

When compared with foreign pieces, Norse, German, Bre-
ton, and Magyar, with which it has points in common, the
ballad of Fair Janet is found to preserve a peculiar kind of
test, a sort of ordeal by dancing, the idea being to prove
whether or not the young woman of,the story has borne a
child. It should be observed that according to the foreign
ballads as well as the Scottish piece the young lady is re-
quired, in the course of the story, to take a journey on horse-
back, a ride which she is especially ill fitted to undergo, and
which in the best preserved of the German versions is actually
designed as a test.2* Before quoting the British ballad it will
be well to give Professor Child’s synopsis of the Norse texts
of the related piece, Kong Valdemar og hans Séster: “Accord-
ing to the Scandinavian story; a king is informed by his
queen, her inexorable enemy, that Kirstin, his sister, has just
borne a child. The king sends for Kirstin, who is at some

2£C 23.

25 J 28.

26 No. 10 F 16.

*7 Cf. G 12 f.: “They have tane her out till yonder thorn, and she
has lain till Monday morn.”

*8 See Child, II, 102.4

 

itll we

 

AO STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

distance, to come to him immediately. She is obliged to make
the journey on horseback. Upon her arrival the king puts
her to a variety of tests, among these a long dance. Kirstin
comes off so well that her brother says the queen has belied ’
her. The queen then bares Kirstin’s breast and makes milk
flow from it. The king hereupon sends for heavy whips, and ,
flogs his sister to the point of death. In the Icelandic and
Faroe versions Kirstin dies of the dance, in her brother's
arms. In the Swedish versions and in Danish I the king is
Kirstin’s father, not her brother. .... In Swedish A Kir.
stin dances with four, dances with five, dances with all the
men of the court, and in Swedish C, H she tires out succes-
sively all the courtiers, the king, and the queen.” *°

In all those versions of Fair Janet in which the dance
occurs, it is clearly a test. In all but one copy, the heroine,
suspected and even accused of having borne a bairn, is asked
to dance by various members of the wedding party — by her
brothers, her father, the bridegroom man, and by the bride-
groom himself. She makes excuses to all but will dance with
Willie, her true-love, though her heart should break in three.
Her loathness to dance is of course significant in view of the
probationary character of the ceremony. In Buchan’s copy
she asks: *°

‘Is there nae ane amang you 2’
Will dance this dance for me?’

Good reason she has to ask for a substitute. In this same
copy the dance is called a ‘‘shamefu reel.” ** The accusa-
tion ** and the test are given in Herd’s copy as follows: *

O then spake the norland lord,
And blinkit wi his ee:

‘I trow this lady’s born a bairn,’
Then laucht loud lauchters three.

cd For abstracts of the incident in the German, Breton, and Magyar
pieces see Child, II, 102 f.

30 No. 64 F 29,

31 St. 28: “the first reel that is danced with the bride, her maiden,
and two young men; called the Shame Spring or Reel, because the bride
chooses the tune. Buchan.” (Child, V, 373.)

84 See A 22, C 14, D 10, E 11, F 25.

Sr

neuen naan ee TDDEATH AND BURIAL LORE Al

And up then spake the brisk bridegroom,
And he spake up wi pryde:
‘Gin I should pawn my wedding-gloves,
I will dance wi the bryde.’

‘Now had your tongue, my lord,’ she said,
‘Wi dancing let me be;
I am sae thin in flesh and blude,
Sma dancing will serve me.’

But she’s taen Willie be the hand,
The tear blinded her ee:

‘But I wad dance wi my true-luve,
But bursts my heart in three.’

It is noteworthy that in two texts of this piece the accused
attempts to clear herself by an oath. In still another copy
her lover swears for her. In the two former texts the oath
precedes the dance, which does not occur at all in the latter
version. The Kinloch copy reads: **

O whan they cam to Merrytown,
And lighted on the green,
Monie a bluidy aith was sworn

That our bride was wi bairn.

Out and spake the bonny bride,
And she swore by her fingers ten: ®°
‘If eer I was wi bairn in my life,
I was lighter sin yestreen.’

Speaking of the trial by battle, Gummere says respecting
the oath and the ordeal: ‘‘ Oaths, too, must have been taken,
along with an appeal to heaven, when the combat was of a
judicial nature. In Scandinavia, the accused as well as the
accuser grasped the holy ring stained with sacrificial blood,
and made oath; while a late survival caused the same persons

to swear upon the boar’s head.” ** It is not impossible that
830 14 ff.

3411 f.

35 Cf. F 26 f.,G11. F 26: “She’s taen out a Bible braid, and deeply
has she sworn;....” G 11: here Willie takes the oath —“ And

Willie swore a great, great oath, and he swore by the thorn, that she
was as free o a child that night as the night that she was born.A2 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

in Fair Janet there is some such relation between the swear-
ing and the probation by dancing.*’

This is not the place to discuss the various other tests
found in balladry, many of them designed to try or prove a. :
woman’s: virtue. ‘Such a probation occurs in the old ballad
of Gil Brenton, where the king’s mother, with authority
enough to furnish a good argument for the matripotestal ©
family, superintends the ceremony of putting her son’s suc-
cessive wives to a “golden chair” test. In the golden chair
none but a maiden. will sit until bidden.** Blankets and
sword play a similar réle in another copy of this piece, and
in The Boy and the Mantle the wearing of a magic mantle,
the carving of a “bores head,” and drinking from a horn,
serve as divinatory means to prove who among the lords and
knights is a “ cuckolde.” *® Standing on a stone, in Willie o
Winsbury, is designed as a test whereby a father inquires
into the progress of a daughter’s amour.*? In Hind Horna
magic ring by changing color indicates the infidelity of
Horn’s mistress.‘' But these are matters to be treated more
in full in a study of marriage customs as illustrated by pop-
ular poetry, a study which must take into account not only
the foregoing instances but many other examples of the

 

36 Germanic Origins, p. 301. See also “ Ordeal,” Encyclopedia of
Religion and Ethics, IX, 507 ff.

37 British balladry instances a great many oaths, some of them of an
ancient and primitive character. Swearing by the hilt of the sword,
“bright bronde,” or top of spear: nos. 156 C 5; 199 B 4, C 7; 200 A 4,
C 7; 117, st. 202. More primitive yet, such as oaths by oak, ash, thorn,
grass, corn, etc.: nos. 64 G 11; 67 A 18; 68 A 16, K 26; 11 L 18; 142
A 4; 68 D 21, G 7; 147, st. 21. Oaths by sun, moon, stars, mould, etc.:
nos.44, st. 4; 110° Hh 105.35, st. 85 68 A 17; 110 BE -12;-200 B 9, te
156 F 6; 99, st. 8 (Child, V, 234). Swearing by the body or parts of
the body: nos. 64 E 12, and text (Child, IV, 465); 104 B 2, 3; 140 A
1%, BT, 16; 145A 24; 149. ‘st. 33; 161 A368; 186, ‘st. 7s 176, soe
190, st. 81. Swearing by the truth of the right hand, as in no. 100 A,
is a ballad commonplace. Swearing by the Bible, the book, a “ bok”:
nos:.64 F 26;°92 A-G;.109 A 25, B 26; 138, st. 13: 271 A 73---Swearme
by the Deity, the Virgin Mary, by Him that died on tree, etc.: nos.
9 C4; 116, st. 146; 165, st. 8; 48, st. 15; 39 B 20; 80, st. 14; 177, stm
359; 305 A 6; 116, st. 60; 305 B 17; 89 A 32; 21 A 7; 159, st. 38; 116,
st. 155; 80, st. 8; 142 A 2; 156 E 6, 7.

SSAN Os Oe 19.31 D1 7,

web. 2v, ss. 0 f., 37 1. 43 ff.

40 No. 100 A 4.

41 No. 17 A, B, C, etc. Cf. Bonny Bee Hom (92 A, B).DEATH AND BURIAL LORE 43

chastity test noted by Professor Child in connection with
British folksong.*

Capital Punishment. British folksong furnishes an im-
posing catalogue of crimes and punishments, a catalogue more
extensive than that made by F. York Powell for Eddic
poetry,** and comparable to that given by Gummere for the
early Germans,** and even paralleling pretty closely any list
that might be made for primitive society in general.*’ Sever-
ing the head, the hands, the feet, the ears, cutting out the
heart, the tongue, and cutting off the breasts, plucking out
the eyes and hacking the face, as well as burning, strangula-
tion, and drowning, have been surveyed as acts of individual
retaliation or as growing out of the blood-feud. In the
present section we shall be concerned with collective rather
than private vengeance.

The unusual punishments of half-hanging, quartering,
seething in boiling lead, cutting the joints asunder, occur,
along with burning, in The Lord of Lorn and the False
Steward, a ballad founded, it seems, on the romance of Ros-
wall and Lillian, which, in turn, belongs with a group of pop-
ular tales represented by the Grimms’ Goose Girl.*° Having
personated the Lord of Lorn, the false steward merits a
traitor’s death: **

First they tooke him and h[a]ngd him halfe,
And let him downe before he was dead,
And quartered him in quarters many,
And sodde him a boyling lead.

 

 

42 See Ballads, V, 472, at “‘ Chastity.”

43 Vigfusson-Powell, Corpus Poeticum Boreale, II, 700: “ Execution.”

44 Germanic Origins, pp. 298 ff.

45 See J. A. MacCulloch, “ Crimes and Punishments,” Encyclopedia
of Religion and Ethics, 1V: “ Methods of death vary; they include
decapitation, strangulation, hanging, stebbing or spearing, cudgelling
or flagellation, empalement, crucifixion, drowning, burning, flaying
alive, burying alive, throwing from a height, sending the criminal to
sea in a leaky canoe, cutting in two, lopping off the limbs.”

One may consult the evidence surveyed in the present study to see
how closely in these matters folksong parallels primitive practices.

46 See Child, Ballads, V, 42 ff.

47No. 271 A 103 f. Cf. B 59: half hanging and boiling in molten
lead.Sr naar na: aan eae oe eee aeons

44 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

And then they tooke him out againe,
And cutten all his ioyntes in sunder,

And burnte him eke vpon a hyll;
I-wis thé did him curstlye cumber.

a In Lamkin the homicide is punished by being boiled in lead: *

And Rankin was boiled 4”
in a pot full of lead.

Death by boiling appears “to have been in use among the
English at a very late period.” °°

Tearing by wild horses is a punishment mentioned in Young
Johnstone and Child Owlet. The former piece reads: *

“To be torn at the tail o wild horses
Is the death I weet ye’ll die.”

Child Owlet’s unmerited death is given in gruesome detail;
a single stanza may be quoted: *

They put a foal to ilka foot,
And ane to ilka hand,

And sent them down to Darling muir,
As fast as they coud gang.

 

“ Rolling in a spiked barrel is well known as a popular
form of punishment,” remarks Child in his introduction to
The Laird of Wariston, and cites its occurrence in balladry,
romance, and Mdrchen.** Wariston’s lady has strangled her
lord, and at the command of her father —a matter worthy
of note — is ordered to be rolled in a ‘‘ barrel o pikes”: *

Word has gane to her father, the grit Dunipace,
And an angry man was he;

Cries, Gar mak a barrel o pikes,

a ‘ bib . And row her down some lea!

48 No. 93 D 30.

AO eg | 14: “And the fause nourice burnt in the caudron was she.”
Cf. text, Child, V, 230, sts. 18 £,

°° Scott, Minstrelsy, IV, 244, citing Stowe’s Chronicle. See also Child,

II, 321 n., on boiling to death as a penalty for coiners and poisoners
51 No, 88 D 13. ae ere ed tacks:

oa No. 291, st. 10.
52 Op. cit., IV, 30 n.
54 No. 194 B 8,

EDDEATH AND BURIAL LORE 45

In a Norse analogue of Young Waters,” a Percy ballad, an
innocent knight is rolled down a hill in a tun set with
knives, and according to the Grimms’ story Die Ginsemagd,
which has affiliations with The Lord of Lorn, a maiden is
dragged through the streets in a similarly contrived instru-
ment of torture.*’

Burning as a punishment for unchastity is found in Lady
Maisry and Sir Aldingar, ballads considered earlier in this
study.°> This type of punishment is suggested or actually
carried out in still other pieces: The Twa Sisters,°? Ed-
ward, Young Hunting,“ Lamkin,” The Laird of Wariston,°*
and Child Owlet.*t It should be observed that with the ex-
ception of the victim in Child Owlet the culprit in all these
pieces, as in Lady Masry, is a woman, the crime being that
of homicide, save in Lady Maisry and Sir Aldingar. In this
last-named piece the queen escapes Lady Maisry’s death at
the stake only by the ordeal of battle. The wicked stepmother
in The Laily Worm and the Machrel of the Sea is burned for
witchcraft: °°

He has sent to the wood
For whins and for hawthorn,

An he has taen that gay lady,
An there he did her burn.

The burning of the false nurse, the mason’s abettor in Lam-
kin, will be considered shortly in connection with the place
of execution. “Put my mantle oer my head,” pleads the

55 No. 94.

56 Grundtvig, III, 691, no. 178. See Child, II, 343. Translated, Prior,
Ancient Danish Ballads, II, 163, st. 22. Cf. a German ballad, Hoffman,
Niederlindische Volkslieder, p. 19, trans. Prior, op. cit., II, 243: “But
hanging they deem’d not. pain enough, would wring him with sevenfold
torture more: in spikeset barrel they closed him up,....” Then
“three days they were rolling him to and fro.”

57 See Child, V, 48.

58 Supra, pp. 20 f.

59 No. 10 V 23 and text, Child, IV, 449.

60 No. 18 A 12: “fire o coals to burn her.”

61 No. 68.

62 No. 938.

63 No. 194 A 9.

64 No. 291, st. 8.

65 No. 36, st. 15.46 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

murderess in The Laird of Wariston, “for the fire I downa
see.” °

° “The punishment of the gallows,’ observes Gummere,
“ wag widely used by our earliest ancestors, and finds a varied
expression in the older literature,— chiefly in Scandinavian
poetry. It was by no means so ignoble an exit from life as
it is now, and indicated no absolute disgrace like the vile
indignities of the hurdle and the swamp.” The gallows-
tree or simply “tree ” offers, with the exception of the sword,
the most common exit from life so far as the ballads are con-
cerned. “Gallage-tree,” “gallou-tree,” or ‘‘ galla-tree,” ®
it may be called, but there are no picturesque circumlocutions
for it such as are found in old Norse poetry: ‘“* wolf-tree,”
“high-shouldered flax-steed,’ or ‘“‘corse-ridden steed of
Wingi.” °° Nor can we find in our ballads a parallel for Odin’s
self-related experience of hanging on the gallows-tree nine
whole nights,” a possible Norse version of the Crucifixion.

Robin Hood, his noble master, says Will Stutly, “ nere had
man that yet was hangd on the tree.’ "' But death by hang-
ing, actually put into effect, threatened, or at least be-
queathed in dying testaments, occurs in many songs. The
malefactor may be man or women, the crimes, poisoning,
drowning, infanticide, homicide in other forms, stealing the
king’s deer, and adultery, not to extend the list.

Not according to the ballad, but as Bishop Lesley relates
it, John Armstrong with forty-eight of the most notable
thieves — marauders of the Scottish marches — were, with-
out judicial process, all hanged upon growing trees.”
Babylon, guilty of sororicide, has the choice of being “ hangit
on a tree,” or of being thrown into a poisoned lake.** The
clerks two sons of Owsenford, in the ballad of that name,
offenders in an unhappy amour, are hanged on a tree: ™

 

66 No, 194 A 9.

oF Op. cit., p. 240.

ie ee V, 387: “ Gallow-tree.”

9 Vigfusson-Powell, op. cit., I, 56, 247, 252.

70 Ibid., I, 24. ae

1 No. 141, st. 19.

72 John Lesley, The History of Scotland :
73 No. 14 E 18. y of Scotland, p. 148.
Ns. 77 At:DEATH AND BURIAL LORE AT

O he’s taen out these proper youths,7
And hangd them on a tree,

The “tree”? here may, perhaps, be taken literally and not as
meaning the usual gallows structure.*¢

To her brother, from whose knife she has got her death
stroke, the maiden in The Cruel Brother wills to her murderer
the “ gallows-tree,”“* “ gallows-pin,’ “® “rope and_ gal-
lows,” ** or “the highest gallows.” * In similar fashion,
Lord Randal wills to his poisoner, ‘“‘ tow and halter for to hang
on yon tree,” *'—a clear case of hanging on trees —“ the
highest hill to hang her on,” *? “ gallows and plenty to hang
her,” ** “a halter to hang her,” ** “ gallows tree,” * “ high,
high gallows.” **° Speaking through a harp, viol, or fiddle,
made from her body, a drowned maiden demands that her
murderess be hanged.**

Marriage with the maiden he has wronged, or death on the
gallows tree, is, by royal mandate, the only choice left Sweet
William in. The Knight and Shepherd’s Daughter: *

‘O whether will ye marry the bonny may,®®
Or hang on the gallows-tree? ’

In this text, as in others, there is no way out but hanging,
in case William is a “ married man.” °°

For the crime of infanticide, Mary Hamilton must mount
the gallows stair, a fate which, with death upon her, she
describes in poetic lines: “this gallows tree to tread,”
“tread this gallows stair,” ‘the gallows-tows to wear,” the

Cf. D 9: “Both hanging.on the tree.’
6 On hanging on trees see Gummere, op. cit., pp. 240 f.

ENO. 11 A 25;.C 19-24 eM 22:

3B 25,117.

79 F 19.

a is, 3 13.

1No. 12 B10. Cf. text, Greig, Traditional Ballads, p. 14.
82C 7,

83H 10.

17, 8.6

85 P 10.
86Q 8.

et No. 10D: 17520. R13 os

88 No. 110 B 20.

Cf. A 14, F 27, G 12. 3 16, & 9, MY. -Saiply “tree. a
Cf. E 29, H 9.

90 See A 14, etc.tema

48 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

“ gallows to be my heir; ” °-passages which, like euphemisms
for death and dying, illustrate the ballad tendency for peri-
phrasis.°” The “ greenwood gallows tree’ occurs in two texts
of this piece,®® simply “hanged,” “ gallows-tree,” or “ tree,’
in other copies.*t Robin Hood and his merry men are of
course liable at all times as ornaments for the gallows, but
the outlaw chief knows how to retaliate upon his enemies,
the ‘“ sheriffe of Nottingham,” for example, in heroic threats
like the following: *

‘Thou shalt be the first man ”®
Shall flower this gallow-tree.’

Hanging, along with beheading, plucking out the eyes, and
shooting at with arrows, is, according to Young Benjie, a
way of satisfying blood-vengeance.** The false nurse, accord-
ing to certain texts of Lamkin, and the mason, according to
others, suffer death by hanging.’® The traitorous steward in
Sir Aldingar, belongs to the same tradition as the false nurse
in Lamkin and other ballads, and pays for his perfidy on the
gallows-tree,”® a tree, standing beneath which, makes the
leper of the story whole.’ Enough here to mention the title
of another ballad, The Maid Freed from the Gallows,'*' one
of our best traditional pieces, and a text of which has been
found as a children’s game,’ “the last stage of many old
ballads.” *°*

 

 

No. 174. 8 20, 121, C 17, N 8, T-18, AA 1.
92 See infra, pp. 81 f.
“ ts 20, V 9. See also The Maid Freed from the Gallows (95 E 5,

Ny bt A 17, D 22. H 17; 8 9, U 14, W 9, X 14 f£,: ¥.2, BRz, and text,

Curd, v; 240 ft. ‘sts. 17; 18,°20, 23 f.
95 No. 140 A 17.

ee a 96 Cf. B 29: “They took the gallows from the slack, they set it in
the glen.”

ST No. 86: A 19 f., B 10 f.

98 No. 93: the nurse, C 23, Q 14; the mason, B 27, F 23, I 14, @
(Child, II, 341), and text, Child, V, 295.

99 No. 59 A 53, B 382.

100 A 53. On the gallows and the hangman’s rope in folk medicine
see John Aubrey, Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme, pp. 118, 198,
241; W. G. Black, Folk-Medicine, p. 100.

101 No. 95.

102 BF.

103 Child, op. cit., II, 8346. See also ibid., V, 480: ‘ Games.”

SSSDEATH AND BURIAL LORE A9

According to English and American variants of the ballad
Geordie, variants recovered since the Child collection, the
hero is to be hanged by a silken cord or in golden chains be-
cause of his nobility. In one American version he is to be
“hung in a white silk robe” because he was “of royal
peo >. ”’.*°*

Georgie he was hung in a white silk robe,
Such robes there was not many,
Because he was of that royal blood
And was loved by a virtuous lady.

This reading may be compared with that in an English copy
from Somerset: 1°°
Let Goerdie hang in golden chains,
His crimes were never many,
Because he came from the royal blood
And courted a virtuous lady.

Other British and American texts have virtually the same
passage,'’® but this incident is found in only one of the Child
copies.?°"

Decapitation as an act of private revenge has already been
treated.’°* It appears again in this light in Young Benjie.”
As an act of public justice it occurs in the following pieces:
Young Waters, The Laird of Wariston, Mary Hamilton, Lord
Derwentwater, and Geordie. The offense in Young Waters is
that of a young man’s finding favor in the eyes of a queen;
in The Laird of Wariston and Mary Hamilton, murder; in
Lord Derwentwater, high treason; in Geordie, stealing fifteen
of the king’s horses and selling them in Bohemia." Block,

4 J AF L, XXXII, 504.

105 Sharp and Marson, Folk-Songs from Somerset, First Series, p. 5.

106 Campbell and Sharp, English Folk Songs from the Southern
Appalachians, p. 118: “white silk cord.” So in the Journal of the
Folk-Song Society, I, 164 f. Lucy Broadwood, English Traditional
Songs and Carols, p. 33: with a “silken cord.” R. V. Williams, Folk-
Songs of England, Book II, 49: in “chains of gold’ because of his
royalty. So in the Journal of the Folk-Song Society, II, 27 f., two texts,
and ibid., IV, 89. J. H. Cox, Folk-Songs of the South, p. 186: ‘“ Georgie
he was hung in a white silk robe, such robes there was not many, be-
cause he was of that royal blood and was loved by a virtuous lady.’

107 Given in an appendix, Ballads, IV, 142, st. 16.

18Supra, pp. 13 ff.

109 No. 86 A 19, B 10.

110 No, 209 F 2. See Child, IV, 124 f.— Sa ee =
Se TST <r ce 9 Let A nN

50 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

EI
| axe, headsman, headsman’s fee, all find depiction in Lord
Derwentwater — the axe, according to different texts of the
; ballad, being a “* pole-axe,” a “braid axe,” or a “ broad-

J mouthed axe;”’'™ the executioner, an “old gray-headed
. ~~ man,” a “ good old man,” a “brave” or “ grave” old man.™

: On the tolbooth-stairs, Geordie’s lady, who has come to ran-
som her husband, is confronted with the “ fatal block,” the
| “ six to head him,” and Geordie himself with “ bands o airn
. upon him,” or in other copies with the “napkin” tied
over his face.***

The “ heiding hill,” found in Young Waters, The Laird of
Wariston, and Mary Hamilton, deserves brief consideration
here, since the hill is mentioned as a place of execution in
other incidents of death by burning or hanging. Along with
him to the “ heiding-hill”’ go Young Waters’ lady, his young
son, and his horse.’ ‘“‘ Headin-hill ” and ‘“ gallow-tree,”
according to stanzas in one text of Mary Hamilton, may be
mentioned together.!*® One text of The Laird of Wariston
gives Lady Wariston’s punishment as burning, another copy
as rolling in a spiked barrel, Buchan’s version as decapita-
tion: ="

 

They’ve taen her out at nine at night,
Loot not the sun upon her shine,
And had her to yon heading-hill,
And headed her baith neat and fine.

‘

| The instrument of execution here is probably the “ maiden,”
i i a sort of guillotine formerly in use in Scotland.'’®

t) The “ highest hill’ is the place for hanging designated in
one copy of Lord Randal; ™° the “ head o yon hill,” or the

| “high hill,” in two variants of Mary Hamilton. The ex-

 

 

rn | oe Plo. 205-b 6.) 9, b12. 11, 1 t4. J) 10;
_ 112 Qld men in balladry are usually described as “ silly ” (harmless,
innocent? OE sezlig), but they often have something sinister about them.
See supra, p. 22.

113 No. 209 A 6.

i14B 10, C 7%. ‘See also D 11 ff., F 18 £., H 14; 1 23, 3 20. F tee
speaks of the “ Gallows Wynd,” the gallows lane.

115 No. 94, sts. 13 f.

116 No. 173 F 24.

117 No. 194 C 24 ff.

118 See Child, IV, 30.

119 No; 12 C 7.

120 EF 20, F 23; lines borrowed from no. 95.DEATH AND BURIAL LORE 51

pression, “head o yon hill” is probably the original reading
for “headin-hill” found in another copy of the latter
ballad.*** Two versions of The Cruel Brother bequeath the
“highest gallows” to the slayer or his wife.*2? Respecting
this reading, the Child glossary has the following: ‘one
elevated above a triangular framework, for special offenders;
der hochste Galgen; . . . . Perhaps simply the highest that
is to be had.” '** This of course is quite in keeping with the
phrase, “hanged higher than Haman,” ?2* but. it may have
reference to the “hill” as a place of execution. “To save
me from the head o yon hill, yon greenwood gallows-tree,”
occurs in one copy of The Maid Freed from the Gallows, and
with “high hill” and “ gallow-tree,” 2° is the original of
similar readings in Mary Hamilton.2* Other versions of the
former ballad have “high, high gallows tree,” and ‘“ high
gallous tree.’ +2"

The mason in one copy of Lamkin is hanged “ out over the
gate;” *’* the miller in The Twa Sisters, “ on his high gate,”
or “at his mill-gate.” +*° The sister, the proper murderer of
the drowned maiden, is according to one version of this piece
to be hanged at “ the bonny bows o London.” 1*° The “ Hang-
ing Well” of Rookhope Ryde may or may not be a well near
a place of execution."** Hanging on a gallows pin, “ out oer
a pin,” or “on a pin” “before my ain bower-door,” are
found in The Cruel Brother, Mary Hamilton, Gude Wallace,
and The Twa Knights,'*? the expression “ pin ” having ref-
erence to the projecting or horizontal beam of the gallows,
or any projection upon which a rope could be fastened.!*

121 24,

122No, 11 G 18, J 13.

123 Ballads, V, 337, citing Grimm’s Deutsches Worterbuch.

124 Cf. “hangit hie,” no. 93 I 14; “high hangit,” no. 110 A 14, B 15,
etc.

125 No. 95 D 5, E 5.

126 No. 173 E 20: 23.

27H b (Child, II, 355), K 2 (Child; -V;-283-&) = €fino. 98. -h: 23;

28No. 98 B 27. Cf. Q (Child, II, 341): “before Lord Weir’s gate

=. - ON the tree,’’

129No. 10 R 13, S 5.

'80 F 20 f.: see Child, V, 318, “arches of a bridge? windings of a
river? ”

13) No. 179, st. 17. On “hanging well” see Child, V, 343.

82 Nos. 11 B 25, 1 17; 173 D 18, F 18, and text, Child, V, 247, st. 18;
157 B 18; 268, st. 15.52 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

Just where the Gipsies in The Gypsy Laddie are “ putten
down,” ***—a euphemism for “ hanged ”— is not clear.’

Burning as a punishment for incontinence, murder, or
treason, takes place on the head of a hill or mountain in Lady
Maisry, Lamkin, and The Lord of Lorn. For abetting Lam.
kin, who expiates his crime by being “ boiled in a pot full of
lead,” the false nurse suffers death by burning: *°°

The false nurse was burnt
on the mountain hill-head.

“ And on the head o yon high hill,’ Lady Maisry meets a
like fate at the hands of her relatives.**7 As for the false
steward in The Lord of Lorn, his executioners, after they
had inflicted upon him every conceivable variety of torture,
“burnte him eke vpon a hyll.” *°*

But to conclude this matter of crimes and penalties, there
are, in addition to the foregoing, several other modes of
capital punishment: by drowning in The Twa Sisters; by
starving, in Johnie Scot; with a possible instance in Kdward
and Lizie Wan, of sending a criminal to sea in a leaky boat.
Johnie Scot is another story of an English maiden with a
Scottish lover. With bairn to Jack, the little Scott, this
king’s daughter must be “ hungerec ” “till she die,” a
punishment suggested by her mother, according to a Mother-
well text of the ballad: **°

 

‘But if she be with child,’ her mother said,1*9
‘As woe forbid it be,

I’ll put her intil a dungeon dark,
And hunger. her till she die.’

A similar punishment is meted out to the false nurse in an
American text of Lamkin: '**

133 See Child, V, 364 f.: “ pin, gallows-pin.”

184No, 200 A 10, F 13.

185 Cf. “gae, gang, go down” for hanged. See Child, V, 337.
136 No. 93 D 30.

1837 No. 65 H 14.
138 No. 271 A 104.
139 No. 99 C 4.

40 Cf, A.4, B 5 (*hang” for “hunger”’), F 4, G 2, J 2, K2
( yunish 1.3, M 5,.N 4, RS, 8 5,°2
141 No. 938 (Child, V, 296).DEATH AND BURIAL LORE 53

And the nurse she was chained
In a dungeon to die.
The barbarities practiced upon Young Beichan in the Moorish
prison have already been noted.!*
The lex taltonis or Priest’s Code of the Israelites demands
that the murderess in The Twa Sisters be drowned, this ac-
cording to Buchan’s copy: 1%

The firstand spring the fiddle did play,
Said, ‘‘ Ye’ll drown my sister, ag she’s dune me.”’

The punishment of sending a malefactor to sea in a leaky
boat, a punishment found among the early Germans and
among savages,'** is not impossibly reflected in the ballads
of Edward and Lizie Wan, both of them murder pieces. The
hero of the first song has slain his brother and is- questioned
by his mother as to what death he wishes to die. Strangely
enough, as in similar crises in ballad story, the father does
not enter here: !*°

“What death dost thou desire to die,
Son Davie, son Davie?

“Tl set my foot in a bottomless ship,
Mother lady, mother lady:
T’ll set my foot in a bottomless ship,
And ye’ll never see mair o me.”

In the foregoing incident, as we point out elsewhere in this
study, Gummere sees a hint of the old custom of ship-
burial..*° This interpretation does not necessarily, however,
_conflict with the view that we are dealing here, as in Lizie
Wan, with the operation of an early type of penal code. This
latter song tells the story of a brother who, in barbarous
fashion, slays his sister because she is with child to him.
There is evidence in this piece of the ancient idea of paternal
authority, and Geordy Wan foresees that upon the arrival of

142 Supra, pp. 33 f.

143. No. 10 O 18.

144 See Gummere, Germanic Origins, pp. 298 ff.; “Crimes and
Punishments,” Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, IV.

145 No. 18 A 8f. Cf. B 5: the slain man is the “ fadir.”

146 See infra, pp. 122 and note 223.I

eee ; Mi oa aga a aoe ee eee

54 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

his father he will be brought to quick judgment and be made
to pay the extreme penalty: **

‘©Q what wilt thou do when thy father comes hame,"*®
O my son Geordy Wan? ”

“ T’]] set my foot in a bottomless boat,
And swim to the sea-ground.”

The Blood-Fine. One regrets that limitations of space for-
bid an extended discussion of the ballad idea of justice, but
we must give here some consideration to the crime or blood-
fine? “ While many penalties of mutilation occur,” remarks
Gummere, with respect to the Anglo-Saxon laws, “ most of
the punishments are in terms of money paid as fine and
wergild.” 1° Fines had not, of course, always to be paid in
money. Among the Germans, for example, we are told by
Tacitus, fines were assessed in terms of cattle.**°

Mindful of Tacitus’ cattle, and the Anglo-Saxon wite, but
with no hope of matching the pledge exacted by Thor of the
giant Egil, the pledge, namely, of both Egil’s children,’” we
may proceed to survey the various examples of ransom to be
found in balladry. Ransoming or “ borrowing ”’ is well illus-
trated by the following pieces: Jock o the Side, Hughie
Grame, Fause Foodrage, by reference to a Danish analogue,
The Clerk’s Twa Sons o Owsenford, The Knght and
Shepherd’s Daughter, Geordie, The Laird of Wariston, The
Maid Freed from the Gallows, and Young Beichan. There is
an exchange of military prisoners in Otterburn.'*?

Young William, a Danish parallel of Fause Foodrage,”
affords an excellent example of the wergild. The hero, who’
gives the ballad its name, discovers that one, Svend, has
years ago slain his father. According to ancient Teutonic

 

ist No. 51 A 11,
148 Cf. B13 f£.
1 Op. ott, p. 299.
150 Germania, xii.
«au! See Vigfusson-Powell, C. P. B., I, 225. See also ibid., II, 700:
Ransom.”
152 No. 161 A 69.
152 No. 89.DEATH AND BURIAL LORE 55

custom, there is but one of two things for William to do —
to avenge his father’s death or exact a fine for it.°>* Sum-
moned by Young William to the Assize, Svend refuses to pay
the blood-fine and is slain by his enemy:
Then forth young William boldly stepp’d,155
No softness he betray’d;

“My father thou hast foully slain,
“And fine hast never paid.”

“No,” answer’d Swend of Voldislef,
And spirted up the earth;

“Nor for thy father shalt thou get
“Penny or penny’s worth.”’

Svend’s death follows, and Young William is in turn called
to court to answer, for his deed, to Svend’s brother, Sir Nilus.
In lieu of paying the blood-fine which Sir Nilus demands,
William offers to marry Sir Nilus’ sister. Sir Nilus scorns
the proposal and is slain in a fight with William, who, ob-
taining the king’s mercy, rides home to his mother. A
similar situation motivates the story in another Danish
ballad, Liden Engel, which is closely related to Young
William. Little Engel’s uncle has slain the hero’s father and
has failed to pay the fine. With the sanction and the support
of the king, who recognizes the law in these matters, Little
Engel burns his uncle and all his people in a stone chamber
in which they had taken refuge.'**

Silver, gold, jewels, or a definite sum of money figure as
ransom in the British texts of The Maid Freed from the
Gallows,’*’ but in the foreign variants, which are more per-
fect than the English, we find not only gold and jewels but
horses, oxen, cows, sheep, and even castles.’** The fidelity
of Border clansmen finds expression in Jock o the Side, one
of the best of ballads, when Jock’s friends — lords and ladies
_ 154 To exact the blood-fine was as honorable as to take vengeance. See
Elton-Powell, Saxo, p. 136.

195 Translation, Prior, op. cit., III, 428. See Child, II, 297 f.
156 See translation, Prior, III, 379:
“My father thou hast murder’d,
And never paid the fine,
And darest thus upbraid me!

But vengeance now is mine.”
157 No. 95, A, B, C, ete.
158 See Child, II, 346 ff., 514; III, 516; V, 231 ff., 296.

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56 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

__pbethink themselves of ways and means of delivering him
from Newcastle, where he is held for killing Peeter a
Whifeild. Droves of kine, oxen, and “troopes.” of sheep, all
go for Iohn a Side: *””
‘But wee’le goe sell our droues of kine,
And after them our oxen sell,

And after them our troopes of sheepe,
But wee will loose him out of the New Castell.’

But the kine, oxen, and sheep, are in the foregoing ballad
to be sold, and not, apparently, to be given directly as pay-
ment of a fine. In other texts of this piece, however, no ex-
press mention is made of selling,’*® and in the excellent
ballad of Hughie Grame we have a clear parallel for Tacitus’
system of fines which were assessed in terms of cattle.
Sir Hugh of the Grime has been tried and convicted of the
capital offense of stealing the Bishop’s mare. According to
certain texts of the ballad it is money —“ five hundred
pieces” or “five hundred measures” of gold — which is
offered as ransom,’ but other texts have “five hundred
white stots,” ‘twenty white owsen,” or a “ hundred steeds.”
The Johnson copy reads:

 

Up then bespake the brave Whitefoord,!®
As he sat by the bishop’s knee:

‘Five hundred white stots I’ll gie you,
If ye’ll let Hughie Graham gae free.’

The practice among savages of meeting various obligations
by giving animals of one kind or another, is too well known
to necessitate citing examples.

Sir Charlie Hay has been slain and the “‘ wyte” or blame
laid on Geordie Gordon. While the condemned man is on
his way to the block, his lady appears and with money col-
lected in part at least from the bystanders, redeems her

159 No. 187 A 5.

160B 4: “Tl part wi them a’ ere Johnie shall die.” C 4: “And I'll
gie them a’ before my son Johny die.”

161 See supra, p. 54.

162. No. 191 A 14, 16; C 10: “A peck of white pennies; ’’ as in D 6.
B 6: “five hundred white pence.” E 4: “a thousand pounds.”

163 No. 191 B 4. C8: “Twenty white owsen, my gude lord, if you'll
grant Hughie the Graeme to me.” D9: “A yoke of fat oxen I'll give
to my lord, if ete.” E 6: “A hundred steeds, my lord, I’ll gie, if ete.”DEATH AND BURIAL LORE 57

lord’s life by paying the king a fine of five thousand or five
hundred pounds, ten thousand or one thousand crowns, ac-
cording to the several versions of the ballad.'** Young Beichan,
deep in a Moorish dungeon, would give cities, lands, and
castles, among other considerations, if some lady would “ bor-
row” him.'® There is something made of ransom in one
copy of The Laird of Wariston and in Sir John Butler.*

To conclude this matter of compensation exacted for cer-
tain offenses in the form of blood, money, or cattle, brief
attention may be given the ballad of The Knight and Shep-
herd’s Daughter along with the Norse analogue of this piece.
According to the British story, best given in its Scottish
variants, a knight is accused before the king of having
wronged a shepherd lass, his accuser being the lass herself.
Confronted with the royal command that he marry the in-
jured maiden, the knight attempts to buy himself free from
the obligation. His offer of “full forty pound ty’d up in a
glove,” “a purse of gold weel locked in a glove,” '** and so
on, according to the several texts of the ballad, is summarily
rejected by the lass, who eventually turns out to be of royal
or of noble blood. The Baron of Leys in another song, in
order to set matters right, has the choice of marriage, death,
or the payment of ten thousand crowns; *** and Child Waters
promises, in case her child is by him, to settle upon Faire
Ellen both Cheshire and Lancashire.*®®

Turning now to the tragic ballad of Hbbe Galt, the Danish
analogue of The Knight and Shepherd’s Daughter, we come
upon an excellent illustration of the old custom of buying off
a criminal. Ebbe Galt, the king’s nephew —the uncle;
nephew relationship was sacrosanct in early times — has
violated a farmer’s wife and killed three swains. Tried and
convicted before the king, Ebbe is sentenced to death, in

a4 No. 209 A 1

3, B 26, C 10 f., D 16 f., F 13 (with no help from the
bystanders), G 8 f., H 12 f., 1 19 ff., J 30 ff., K 2.
165 No. 53 A 5, 6, 6 4D S: etc,

166 Nos. 194 C 17 ff.; 165, st. 6.

167 No. 110 A 16, B 21. C17: takes her up to a “hie towr-head ”
and offers her “ hunder punds in a glove.” D 6: “hundred pounds weel
lockit in a glove.” E 32, 34, 36: “a purse of gold” told “on a stane,”
“in a glove,” “on his knee.” Cf. G 16, H 12, K 12, M 21, 23; N 22, 24.

168 No, 241 A 9, B 6, C 16.

169 No. 63 A 4,SS aA ae

 

 

58 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

spite of the handsome redemption price offered by his father,
a compensation which, had justice permitted, the king him-
self would have tripled out of regard for his nephew:

Uprose Sir Peter, Ebbé’s sire,170
A hero strong and bold;
“I bid my horse for Ebbé’s life,
And a thousand marks of gold.”

But answered him the Danish king,

“For judgment here he stood;

I’d give myself three thousand marks,
Release him if I cou’d.”

Ebbe is taken away to a “ bushy field,” his head “ chopp’d”
off, and laid on his shield. “ This offer to buy off a criminal,”
observes Prior in his notes on the foregoing ballad, “ was
agreeable to the age. So in Layamon’s Brut King Arthur
threatens that if again any one quarrels at his table neither
gold nor fine horse shall ransom him from death.” '™ In con-
nection with the ransom as illustrated in The Maid Freed
from the Gallows should have been mentioned those stanzas
found in three texts of Mary Hamilton,’ which are clearly
borrowed from the former ballad. The incident of the re-
demption price is present, however, in several other texts of
the latter piece and seems in these copies not to have come
from The Maid Freed from the Gallows: *™

‘But if my father and mother kend
The death that I maun die,

O mony wad be the good red guineas
That wad be gien for me.’

170 Prior, op. cit., II, 92.

171 Tbid., II, 93.

172 No. 173 E, F, X:

Hee tia. U 916. Cf. V'12-¥ 9.2 6,I

III
FEY FOLK AND PREMONITIONS OF DEATH

Moving as it does in the shadow of an inscrutable and all-
powerful destiny the action of our best traditional songs of
death is purely tragic. But the hero of folksong meets his
doom with a noble and stoic acquiescence. For him there is
no questioning of that which is to be or not to be. Uns
schooled in the procrastinative subleties of Hamlet, unac-
quainted, in the main, with the Christian belief that the hand
of God may avert his destiny, he sheds his “ heart’s-blude ”
without having first racked his brain over problems of free
will and fate. For him, indeed, there is no problem. The
mood of the ballad is not that of reflection but of action.
And it is largely this fatalistic mood lying at the heart of

balladry that gives our folksong its dramatic swiftness, its
direct thrust.

Fey Folk. In the expressions “‘ fey,’ ! meaning destined
to die, “ weird,” * “‘ ill dooms,” and “‘ destinye ” the characters
of folksong voice their awareness of that fate against which
they are powerless. “ There’ll nae man die but he that’s
fie,” cries the Laird’s Jock in Jock o the Side,? a belief ex-
pressed with equal assurance in Archie o Cawfield* and an-
nounced by Robin Hood with, one feels, a superfluous appeal
to his “ deere Lady ”: ®

“Ah, deere Lady!” sayd Robin Hoode,
“Thou art both mother .and may!
I thinke it was neuer mans destinye
To dye before his day.”

“I fear the day I’m fey,” says Rothiemay in The Fire of
Frendraught © and this with good reason, but the heroine of

1 Ballad variants in the Child texts: “fay,” “fae,” ‘“ fee,” “fie.”

* Variants in the Child texts: “wierd,” “ weer.”

3 No. 187 B 30, C 24.

4 No. 188 A 39, B 24, C 26. See also text in Gavin Greig, Folk-Song
of the North-East, art. LXXV.

° Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne, 118, st. 39.

®No. 196 A 4,

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60 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

the poor ballad Lady Isabel * is not aware that she is a “ fey
woman.”

In the song of Bonnie Annie,* a possible derivative of the
story of Jonah, a ship will not sail because some one on board
+s marked for death. To discover this fey person, the sailors,
by a kind of ceremonial appeal to the gods, cast “ black bullets
twice six and forty ”:

“ There’s fey fowk in our ship, she winna sail for me,
There’s fey fowk in our ship, she winna sail for me.”

They’ve casten black bullets twice six and forty,

And ae the black bullet fell on bonnie Annie.
The captain would save Annie, but still the ship “ winna
gail,” and so Annie is cast overboard. This incident of the
spellbound ship is not explicitly given in either of Child’s
two other texts of the ballad, but we have it well preserved
in a version recovered since Child: °

For O the ship was pixy-held 1°

And lots were cast for the cause on’t;

But every time the lot fell out

On her and her baby, on her and her baby.

Brown Robyn’s sin of incest in Brown Robyn’s Confes-
sion" is brought to light by the casting of “ kevels,” and the
sinner is thrown into the sea. Robyn’s monstrous sin was
such as to qualify him beyond redemption for the ranks of
fey folk, but a miracle of the Virgin saves him.

Although five of her sisters have met their doom in the
birth of their first child, the heroine in Fair Mary of Wall-
ington” goes to the marriage-bed — this, however, against
her own judgment, for she feels certain that she, like her
sisters, is destined to die in travail. In Captain Car’ the

eNOe 261,. sts 2.

8 No. 24 A.

® Sharp and Marson, Folk Songs from Somerset, First Series (1915),
p. 29. Cf. texts in the Journal of the Folk-Song Society, II, pp. 33siKs
Lit, pp. 292 f.

10 The incident of a ship’s refusing to sail is found also in The Cruel
Ship’s Carpenter, Sharp and Marson, op. cit., Fourth Series, pp. 11 £
Cf. two texts of Sir William Gower, Journal of the Folk-Song Society,

V, pp. 263 f. See also the incident of the intelligent ship in Young
Allan, Child, no. 245 A, B, C.
11 No. 57.

12.No. 91. See especially version A.
13 No. 178 D 22 f.DEATH AND BURIAL LORE 61

bonny face of the maiden whom he has slain causes Edom o
Gordon to guess “ill dooms.” One of his men scoffs at such
“freits,’ superstitious notions about omens, but in the end
Edom’s presentiment is shown to have been no idle one. All
but five of his fifty men are slain and he himself leaps into
the flames. Warned by the dream of a “ witch-woman ” that
he is fated to die, the knight in Lord Livingston meets his
death on the “ point o Seaton’s sword.” Of this event his
lady declares that she has had foreknowledge from her
marth: **

‘““My mother got it in a book,
The first night I was born,
I woud be wedded till a knight,
And him slain on the morn.”

The “ weird ” or fate of the ballad hero or heroine may be
heavy and hard. Thus in the old song of Gil Brenton a maiden
tells of her unhappy fortune. She and her six sisters cast
lots to see who should go to the greenwood. The “ cavil”
fell on her, and her “‘ wierd it was the hardest”: *°

“We keist the cavils us amang,
To see which shoud to the greenwood gang.

“ Ohone, alas! for I was youngest,
An ay my weird it was the hardest.

“The cavil it did on me fa,
Which was the cause of a’ my wae.”

But the story ends happily as does that of Kemp Owyne, a
ballad of transformation and retransformation, although at
the outset the “ weird ” of the maiden in this latter piece is
heavier even than that of the lass in Gil Brenton:

14 No, 262.

15 Cf, the “Book of Mable,” a book of prophecies, in The Earl of
Westmoreland, 177, sts. 61, 39; the “ booke,” probably a book of magic,
in Northumberland Betrayed by Douglas, 176, st. 25; the “litle booke ”
in King Arthur and King Cornwall, 30, sts. 46 f., with which Sir Bred-
beddle subdues a fire-breathing fiend. See also “ gramarye” in King
Estmere, 60, sts. 36, 41, 55, 68, and the Glossary, Child, Ballads, V,
040, at “ grammarye.” :

16No. 5 A 46 ff., 42; also B 37; C 6, 61; F 6. Cf. “ weirdless wicht,”
mo. 173 H 3.

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62 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

“Come here, come here, you freely feed,!*
An lay your head low on my knee;
The hardest weird I will you read
That eer war read to a lady.”

Finally released from her enchantment, by which she had
become a “ fiery beast,” the maiden lays as heavy a weird
upon the enchantress:

“© a heavier weird light her upon
Than ever fell on wile woman; ”

The Earl of Wigton’s eldest daughter in Richie Story is happy
in her lot and that which “ Providence” has ordered for
her.*®

Dreams. In British balladry, as in Eddic poetry,” dream
auguries are not uncommon. But little there is in folksong
that augurs well, and dreams and omens point almost in-
variably to death and misfortune — this chiefly by reason of
the generally tragic character of the ballad story. In such
dreams birds, animals, and plants usually figure. In the
Motherwell copy of Young Johnstone *® to dream of ravens
means “ the loss 0 a near friend ”’:

“T dreamd the ravens ate your flesh,
And the lions drank your blude.”

“To dream o ravens, love,” he said,?!
““Ts the loss o a near friend; ”

In this same text the hero’s mother dreams of red swine.
Such a dream, says Willie, ‘ bodeth meikle ill,’ but he is
thinking of the ‘‘ blude” rather than of the swine:

'T No. 34 B; cf. Bb 1. In Bb 3 “ weird” is used as a verb: “I weird
ye to a fiery beast.’’

18 No. 2382-A 11.

19 See Vigfusson-Powell, Corpus Poeticum Boreale, I, 347, 393, 413;
tt 410; 547:

sie No. 88 D.. The dream does not appear in other texts.
. 71 The raven prognosticates death, according to superstitions current
in Scotland and the North of England. See Swainson, The Folk-Lore
of British Birds, p. 89.DEATH AND BURIAL LORE 63

“JT dreamd a dream, son Willie,” she said,
““T doubt it bodes nae gude;
That your ain room was fu o red swine,?2
And your bride’s bed daubd wi blude.”’

“To dream o blude, mither,’”’ he said,
“It bodeth meikle ill;
And I hae slain a Young Caldwell,
And they’re seeking me to kill.”

That swine should appear in dreams is perhaps reminiscent
of an ancient swine cult.

Dreaming of swine likewise occurs in Clerk Saunders, in
three texts of Fair Margaret and Sweet William, and in Lord
Thomas Stuart. The dream portends death, or, as in Clerk
Saunders, is of a divinatory nature: 7°

““O I have dreamed a dream,” she said,

“And such an dreams cannot be good;

I dreamed my bower was full of swine,
And the ensign’s clothes all dipped in blood.

““T have dreamed another dream,
And such an dreams are never good;
That I was combing down my yellow hair,
And dipping it in the ensign’s blood.”

In another version of this ballad 24 the maiden dreams that
she was “cutting” her ‘“ yellow hair,?* and dipping it in the
wells o blood.” 2¢

The color of the swine varies according to different ballads.

In Young Johnstone it is red, as also in the Douce version of
Fair Margaret and Sweet William: 2"

“I dreamd my bower was full of red swine,
And my bride-bed full of blood.”

 

*2On dreaming of swine as an ill omen see W. Gregor, Folk-Lore of
the North-East of Scotland, p. 29; W. Henderson, Folk-Lore of the
Northern Counties, p. 327.

23 No. 69 E.

24 7),

*°The color “yellow” occurs well over two hundred times in the
Child ballads, nearly always descriptive of hair — man’s or woman’s;
eccasionally with reference to dress, gold, flowers, etc.

“6 Cf. the incident of a maiden’s drinking her slain lover’s blood in
The Braes o Yarrow, 214.

27 No. 74 A.

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!—————— EEE

 

64 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

The swine are white in the better of the Percy copies of the
foregoing song °° as well as in texts recovered since Child.
The reading in one Percy version,*® “ wild men’s wine,” is
corrupt, but makes sense when altered to “wild men and
« swine.” In Lord Livingston *' the swine have become “ milks
white swans.” They are retained in Lord Thomas Stuart,
but their color is not designated. In Sir John Butler the
dream of ill omen is of blood ‘‘ soe red ”’ only.*?

Dreaming of “ pu’ing the heather green” is premonitory
of death in ten versions of The Braes o Yarrow.**® In two
other copies, the heroine dreams of pulling the “ heather
bell; ” #4 in the Macmath Manuscript, “ apples green,” * and
in Herd’s version, “ the birk sae green.” °° The dream in the
Percy text is related by the heroine and read by her sister: *

“Sister, sister, I dreamt a dream —
You read a dream to gude, O!
That I was puing the heather green

On the bonny braes of Yarrow.’’

“Sister, sister, I’ll read your dream,
But alas! it’s unto sorrow;
Your good lord is sleeping sound,
He is lying dead on Yarrow.”

The color green is frequently associated with fairies, witches,

 

28 B.

*2C. J. Sharp, Folk-Songs of England, Book 1, p. 33; Journal of
ie a ae Folk-Lore, XIX, 281; J. H. Cox, Folk-Songs of the South,
oe:

30C, “Wild swine” is the reading in three American texts: Journal
of American Folk-Lore, XXX, 303; Campbell and Sharp, English Folk
Songs from the Southern Appalachians, p. 63; Josephine McGill, Folk
Songs of the Kentucky Mountains, p. 69. An English version, Journal
of the Folk-Song Society, III, 64 f.: “He dreamed his bowels were full
of wild swine.” Another American variant, J A F L, XXIII, 381 f.:

young science.”’

31 No. 262.

32 No. 165.

83 No. 214 A, C-F, I-M.

“40, S (Child, V, 255). This reading is found also in a recently
recovered text in the Journal of the Folk-Song Society, V, 113.

38 R (Child, IV, 523).

36 + rea di . . + j P
mage E This reading occurs also in a version recorded in the Rymow
Miscellanea, I, 44.

RE rrnerereeememreinnemnneen en een TT ST ADEATH AND BURIAL LORE 65

and the dead —this in balladry ** as elsewhere *°— and it is
for this reason, in all probability, that it is regarded as un-
lucky. Naturally enough it would appear in a dream of ill
omen. That this dream in the Macmath text should be of
“apples green’’ may be doubly significant by reason 1) of
the ill omen that attaches to green and 2) the magic character
of the apple and the apple tree in traditions the world over.*°
The same general observation may safely be made with re-
spect to the dream incident in Herd’s text of our ballad: *
“T dreamd I pu’d the birk sae green.” The sacred character
of the birch is illustrated in our best ballad of the super-
natural, The Wife of Usher’s Well,*? according to which three
dead sons return to their mother. Their hats were made of

37D. In R also the sister reads the dream; in B, J, K, Q, S, the
father; in I, L, the brother.

38To give some of the most notable of the ballad instances, the
fairies in The Wee Wee Man (38), Thomas Rymer (37 A), and Tam
Iin (39 D, M), are dressed in green; the mermaid’s sleeve in Clerk
Colvill (42 A 6) is “ sae green; ” the witch in Allison Gross (35) “ blaw
thrice on a grass-green horn; ” one of the ghost babes in The Cruel
Mother (20 H 9) is clad in green, and the spirit of the drowned maiden
in The Twa Sisters (10 Q) is called a “ ghaist sae green.” According
to Lord Thomas and Fair Annet (73 B 20) green is unlucky in “love
matters.

39 On green as an unlucky color see W. Henderson, Northern Counties,
pp. 34 f.; County Folk-Lore, VI, 81; VII, 36 ff.; A. Gilchrist in the
Journal of the Folk-Song Society, VI, 82-84, with reference to the Eng-
lish ballads and children’s singing-games; Child, Ballads, II, 181 f.;
IV, 162 n. On the symbolism of green see, for example, E. K. Chambers,
The Mediaeval Stage, I, 185 f.; for numerous instances of this colcr in
folklore see Kittredge, Gawain and the Green Knight, pp. 195 ff. and
passim; on green as a fairy color see, for example, W. Y. E. Wentz,
The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries, passim; on green in popular medi-
cine see W. G. Black, Folk-Medicine, p. 114. :

40 On the widespread lore of the apple tree see Rev. Hilderic Friend,
Flowers and Flower Lore, pp. 199 f., 205 f., 276, 286, and passim. The
magic apple is especially common in Celtic tradition; see, for example,
Meyer-Nutt, The Voyage of Bran, I, 3 ff., 150, 169, 189 f.

For English balladry we have the following: Tam Lin in the ballad
of that name (39 G 26, K 14) is captured by the fairies while sleeping
under an apple tree. The “ ympe-tree ” in the romance of Sir Orfeo —
represented in balladry by our King Orfeo (19) — sleeping under which
led to the queen’s being carried off by the fairies, and the “semely ”
(derne, cumly) tree beneath which Thomas of Erceldoune is lying when
he sees the fairy queen, are probably apple trees. See Child, Ballads,
I, 340; Kittredge, “Sir Orfeo,” American Journal of Philology, VII,
190.

410,

42No. 79 A 5, B 1.

Re

See

Be
4
i

Se

SET a

TS SIae ae

lees ee

66 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

“ birk ” that grew at the gates of Paradise.** In Gavin Greig’s
text of The Braes o Yarrow ** the maiden dreams of pulling
a “red, red rose,” possibly a meaningless substitution of rose
for the heather, apple, or birch of the Child pieces. It should
be remembered, however, that in the ballad of Tam Lin*®
roses are found in the elf’s enchanted wood and it is by
plucking them that Janet summons her fairy-lover.*

Other dreams that portend death or disaster are found in
Willie and Earl Richard’s Daughter: ** a dream of drowning;
in Captain Car: ** Lord Hamleton dreams that his hall is on
fire and his lady slain; and in Sheath and Knife: * a maiden
dreams that her grave will be at the “ rute o this tree.” Nor
must we overlook Douglas’s dream of his own death in The
Battle of Otterburn: °°

“But I have dreamed a dreary dream,”!
Beyond the Isle of Sky;
I saw a dead man win a fight,
And I think that man was I.”’

Still other ballads furnish dreams of ill omen. It is not

 

43 Qn the sacred character of the birch see Aubrey, Remaines of
Gentilisme and Judaisme, p. 119; Burne, Shropshire Folk-Lore, p. 350;
Folk-Lore Journal, VII, 106; Folk-Lore, XXI, 78; Journal of American
Folk-Lore, XXV, 73; XXIII, 205; XVII, 117; XI, 161; Frazer, Golden
Bough, II, 54; TX, 162; XI, 20 n., 162; W. Crooke, Popular Religion and
Folk-Lore of Northern India, II, 86, 114.

44 Folk-Song of the North-East, art. LVII.

ome. so A 78 f, BS f., C2 tf. 2 £:; ete.

46 This peculiar form of trespass, summoning the demon of the wood,
is found also in Hind Etin (41 A, B) where, however, the maiden pulls
“nuts” instead of roses or flowers as in Tam Lin. See also Babylon
(14 A, B, E). On this incident see Andrew Lang, “ Breaking the
Bough in the Grove of Diana,” Folk-Lore, XVIII, 89-91.

47 No. 102 A 12.

48 No. 178 A 24 f.

49 No. 16 E (Child, Ballads, III, 500).

50 No. 161 C 19.

‘1 In view of the question as to the relation of the ballads to chronicles,
romances, etc., it may be well to give here Andrew Lang’s observation,
in his A Collection of Ballads, p. 231, on the source of Douglas’s dream:
“Mr. Child [see Child, Ballads, III, 162] also thinks the ‘dreary
dream’ may be copied from Hume of Godscroft. It is at least as prob-
able that Godscroft borrowed from the ballad which he cites.”DEATH AND BURIAL LORE 67

characteristic of the ghost of folksong to appear in a dream *
but it so makes its presence felt in one of the Child texts of
Fair Margaret and Sweet William: “He dreamed that Lady
Margaret was dead, and her ghost appeared to view.” = The
hero in Lord Thomas and Fair Annet learns of his true-
love’s death through a dream: °**

But up und wakend him Sweet Willie
Out of his dreary dream:
‘““T dreamed a dream this night,
God read a’ dream to guid!

‘‘That Fair Annies bowr was full of gentlemen,
An herself was dead;
But I will on to Fair Annie,
An si’t if it be guid.”

But the dream is not “ guid” and the prayer to God avails
naught. Sweet Willie finds her father and ‘“‘ her seven
brithern, walking at her bier.” And no less certainly comes
to pass another lover’s dream of death in The Lass of Roch
Royal: **

“OQ I dreamd a dream, my mother dear,”®
The thoughts o it gars me greet,
That Fair Annie of Rough Royal
Lay cauld dead at my feet.”

The maiden’s dream in Young Andrew ** begins a story of

 

52 The revenant of balladry is in our best ballads of the return of
the dead a decidedly corporeal ghost, a point in favor of its objectivity.
In these songs dreams do not, as a rule, account for the returned dead
man. See especially nos. 77, 78, and 79. On the living corpse or cor-
poreal ghost, with reference to its occurrence in saga and balladry and
elsewhere, see Hans Naumann, Primitive Gemeinschaftskultur, pp. 25,
27, 34, and passim.

53 See Child, V, 293, st. 6. It is true that in two American texts of
The Wife of Usher’s Well (79) the ghost sons do come back in their
mother’s dream. See Campbell and Sharp, English Folk Songs from
the Southern Appalachians, pp. 73 f. However, there is no question
but that rationalization has been at work in these texts.

54No. 73 G 25 f.

55 No. 76 E 18. : :

56 The dream is of death in only one other text of this piece, Child,
III, st. 20. In texts A 23, B 20, D 23, and in a version unnumbered
(Child, IV, 473, st. 37) the lover dreams simply that his mistress stands
knocking at his door. In A 1 the heroine dreams of her lover.

oT No: 48, st. 2.

e
Ke
ee
6
i
é
e
&
-ee a eT eee

68 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

tragic import, though the dream in itself seems to have noth-
ing sinister about it. But in The Mother’s Malison®s May
; Meggie’s vision of her true-love staring at her “ bed-feet”
| all too certainly portends Willie’s death in Clyde’s water, g
. | [~ doom brought on by his mother’s curse. It may be noted
| here that the ballad dream is apparently of a purely divinatory
or, at times, prognosticatory character. It is not to be taken
as causing the event of which it gives knowledge or fore.
: i knowledge.

| A few other dream incidents remain to be surveyed, though
they do not relate to death. The cruel lover in Child Waters
dreams that his best steed is stolen. The ballad may be
quoted in part to show the degree of importance that folk-
song attaches to dreams. Willie is concerned to verify his
dream: °°

 

*‘T dreamed a dream san the straine,®?
Gued read a’ dreams to gued!
I dreamed my stable-dor was opned
An stoun was my best steed.
Ye gae, my sister,
An see if the dream be gued.”

 

The sister reports that in the stable Willie’s much-abused
| 4 mistress has borne him a son — an event which, we may sup-
pose, Willie’s dream somehow symbolized. Of more explicit
interpretations of dreams we can instance for English bal-
ladry those in Young Johnstone and The Braes o Yarrow."
The formula “ Gued read a’ dreams to gued,” as given in the
ry foregoing passage from Child Waters and in Lord Thomas

: \ and Fair Annet,°? may be taken as additional proof, however,
‘ ' that ballad folk were in the habit of interpreting their
ij dreams.
3 Wl al The lover in Thomas o Yonderdale * dreams that his for-

saken mistress stands “by his bedside” and upbraids him
for inconstancy. Thomas immediately goes about setting

 

q
| 8 No. 216 A 14,
7 No. 63 K 24 (Child, V, 221).
6° The dream occurs also in text J 27.
Sl See supra, pp. 62 ff.
62 No. 73 G 25 f.
8? Na, 268. at -12.DEATH AND BURIAL LORE 69

matters right with the lady in question. Robin Hood’s dream
that he was beaten and bound by two yeoman, who had taken
away his bow, is interpreted by him as foreshadowing danger
and he goes forth to take vengeance on his natural enemies
in ‘ greenwood where the bee.” °** A rather elaborately sym-
bolical dream occurs in Sir Aldingar, but it is of good omen
and signifies the coming of a champion to maintain the queen’s
innocence by battle.® All things considered, the dream in
Willie o Douglas Dale is likewise of good omen.”

Omens. In English and Scottish traditional poetry omens
virtually always portend disaster. One’s horse stumbling
over a stone, nose-bleed, buttons flying off, rings breaking,
bursting, or dropping from the fingers, beginning a journey
in a rain, the heel coming off the shoe — all these foreshadow
death. Stumbling over a stone as portentous of misfortune
occurs in Scott’s text of Lady Maisry,* in the Percy text of
Jock o the Side,®* and in five of the Child versions of Lord
Derwentwater.®’ Version A of this last-named piece reads:

They had not rode a mile but one,
Till his horse fell owre a stane:
“It’s warning gude eneuch,” my lord Dunwaters said,
** Alive I’ll neer come hame.”

As the story shows, the unfortunate lord’s reading of the
omen is correct. The stone omen occurs in only one text of

Jock o the Side, but in other versions there is talk of fey

folk.°° The omen in Lady Maisry is probably borrowed from
Lord Derwentwater.* The foregoing token, sign, or omen is
seen to be especially significant when we recall the ancient
and widespread belief in the magic character of stones, a
belief excellently illustrated for balladry in retributive stone
metamorphoses in The Maid and the Palmer as well as in

No. 118, sts. 3,-4,

65 No. 59 A 18 ff., 31. On the occurrence of dreams of this character
see Child, II, 33 n.

66 No. 101 B83, 4; C 1, 2.

67 No. 65 J 13 (Child, IV, 466).

68 No. 187 A 36.

©) No. 208 A, E, F, I, J.

10 See supra, p. 59.

“1 See Child, IV, 466 a.

12 No. 21 A; B,

ence
PES coe

ses

:

ie
is

POSEOe ee ae

Ame

70 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

other ballad incidents. It is possible that evil magic is at
work in one copy of The Twa Sisters, according to which the
murderess expressly asks her intended victim to stand upon

a stone.“* —
Nose-bleed as an ill omen is found in six of the Child texts
. of Lord Derwentwater,” in one version of The Mother's

Malison, and in a single copy of Lady Maisry. The first
stanza of The Mother’s Malison gives ample warning of the
tragedy to come: “

Willie stands in his stable-door,
And clapping at his steed,

And looking oer his white fingers
His nose began to bleed.

Such tokens are enough, cries Lord Derwentwater, to show
“that I shall never return.” *® In Jellon Grame the ominous
bleeding at the nose comes improperly, it seems, after, rather
than before, the deed of horror.*? But the bleeding here, as
in The Laird o Drum,*° may be caused simply by overwrought

 

“3 A stone figures in a chastity test in Willie 0 Winsbury (100 A 4 Te)
There is reference to the sacramental marriage stone in Greig’s variant
of Young Beichan (538), Folk-Song of the North-East, art. LXXVIII,
text A. There may be something of stone magic in the following in-
stances: Just before she meets her murderer, the lady in Lamkin (98
A, D, H, I, J, M, N, Q) “steppit on a stane.” A purse of gold is told
on a stone in The Knight and the Shepherd’s Daughter (110 F 82).
About to be hanged, two brothers in The Clerk’s Twa Sons o Owsenford
(72 C 39) are required to lay their black hats “down on a stone.”
Petrifaction is the fate of the elves in the Danish ballad Saint Olave’s
Voyage as well as of the witch in the same piece: “And froze the
swarthy Elves to stone; ” “ Thou hag of Scone, stand there and turn to
granite stone.” (Translation by Prior, Ancient Danish Ballads, I, 360;
ef. the ballad Rosmer, ibid., III, 56, 60.)

™ No. 10 F. See also G and H. One or both of the sisters stand on
a “ stane ” in B, C, E, M, O, Q.

No; 208 B, D, E, F, H, I. So in a variant in the Journal of the
Folk-Song Society, III, pp. 270 f.: “Three drops of blood fell from his
nose.” “That’s token enough,” he said, “that I never no more shall
return.” Cf. the three drops of Saint Paul’s blood and their life-giving
virtue in Leesome Brand (15 A 44 ff.). On nose-bleed as a death omen
see W. Gregor, Folk-Lore of the North-East of Scotland, p. 204.

“6 No. 65 J 12 (Child, IV, 466).

++ Ne, 216 € 1.

78 No. 208 E 9.

79 No. 90 D 4,

80 No. 236 B.DEATH AND BURIAL LORE Ti

feelings. In the latter song a young man falls so deeply in
love that his “‘ nose began to bleed.”

Buttons flying off his coat warn Lord Montgomery in the
song of Lamkin that all is “ undone” at home: *

Lord Montgomery sate in England
drinking with the king;

The buttons flew off his coat,
all in a ring.

“God prosper, God prosper
my lady and son!
For before I get home
they will all be undone.

That the buttons fly off “all in a ring ” may be not without
import. It is possibly a hint of that circle magic which finds
practitioners everywhere and of which our balladry gives an
occasional striking example.*?

Certainly something of circle magic must be implied in the
evil omen of rings dropping, breaking, or bursting from the
fingers, as in six of the Child copies of Lord Derwentwater,*
in two versions of Lamkin, and in Bonny Bee Hom. In this
last piece, however, as we shall see presently, the divinatory
power seems to reside in the “ ruby stone” rather than in
the ring. Motherwell’s text of Lamkin reads: *

““T wish a’ may be weel
with my lady at hame;
For the rings of my fingers
they’re now burst in twain!” 85

The modern betrothal or marriage ring — regarded now as
symbolical — survives doubtless from an early and primitive

81 No. 93 E 238. Cf. D: “the silver buttons of my coat they will not
stay on;” H: “the buttons on my waistcoat they winna bide on.” Silver
buttons fly off the murderer’s coat in Jellon Grame (90 D 4) but, if we
follow the order of the ballad story in this fragmentary text, this inci-
dent is not to be taken as an omen. ‘

82 See especially the magic circle made with holy water in Tam Lin
(389 D 17, G 32), and the circumambulation of the hill in The Broom-
field Hill (43 C 7).

= Mo. 208 B, D, EB, F, H, 1.

84 No. 93 B 23.

85 Cf. the ballad commonplaces: breaking sword in splinters three —
no. 53 K 4, L 18; heart bursting in three—vnos. 41 A 30; 48, st. 29;
49 E 18; 256, st. 10; back breaking in three — nos. 5 F 46; 64 A 27.72 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

marriage custom, according to which by some ceremony of
the actual binding of one party by the other the magical
union of the two was insured. We would not, of course,
attribute a high antiquity to our ballad or its ring omen,”
but this very probable origin of our “ symbolical”’ marriage
ring lends significance to the foregoing ballad incident.

The cumulative suggestion of the three omens * in Lord
Derwentwater heightens the tragedy of the little story: *

He set his foot in the level stirrup,
And mounted his bonny grey steed;
The gold rings from his fingers did break,
And his nose began for to bleed.

He had not ridden past a mile or two,
When his horse stumbled over a stone;
‘These are tokens enough,”’ said my lord Derwentwater,
‘‘ That I shall never return.”

In Bonny Bee Hom,* as well as in Hind Horn,” occurs an
incident more or less in the nature of an omen. His lady
gives Bee Hom a chain of “ gowd ” and a ring with a ruby
stone. Should this ring fade or fail or the stone “change
its hue,” Bee Hom is to know that his lady is “dead and
gone” or has proved faithless. Absent from his lady for
but a twelvemonth and a day, Bee Hom looks upon the stone
and finds that it has grown “dark and gray.” Thereupon
he dies, his heart split in twain. According to text B, also,
the ring signifies that the lady has died. Not only does the
ring turn “ black and ugly,” but the stone bursts “ in three.”

86 An exact parallel to our ballad omen is reported by William Hend-
erson in his Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties, p. 42: ‘“ The breaking
of the ring forbodes death. This belief holds ground as far south as
Essex, where, in 1857, a farmer’s widow, on being visited after her
husband’s death, exclaimed, ‘Ah! I thought I would soon lose him, for
I broke my ring the other day; and my sister, too, lost her husband
after breaking her ring —it is a sure sign.’”

The foregoing incident goes no little way to prove that our ballads
offer a faithful transcript of actual belief and custom.

87 No. 208 E 8 f. All three omens occur in a text in G. B. Gardiner
and Gustav von Holst, Folk-Songs of England, ed. Cecil Sharp, Book
III, p. 5. In the tragic song of Lady Maisry (65 J 12 f.) we find three
omens: buttons flying off, nose-bleed, and stumbling over a stone.

88 The efficacy of the number three in folklore needs no comment.

89 No. 92 A 7 f.

Ww 4) 041, Bei, C3 ££, Dp 4 f., 5-4, eteDEATH AND BURIAL LORE 713

A diamond ring in Hind Horn has similar divinatory powers.
Version A, .a Motherwell text, reads:

She’s gien to him a diamond ring,

With seven bright diamonds set therein.

‘““When this ring grows pale and wan,
You may know by it my love is gane.”’

One day as he looked his ring upon,
He saw the diamonds pale and wan.

It is very possible that the ring incident in the foregoing
pieces represents for balladry an even more striking, if not
a more primitive idea, than that of divination or omens. It
may be a survival of the belief in the life-token or index —
this especially in Bonny Bee Hom where the discoloration
and bursting of the stone are concomitant, we may well sup-
pose, with the death of the lady.®:

The Shropshire version of Lord Derwentwater furnishes
our sole example of the belief that beginning a journey in
rain betokens misfortune: %

He had not gone but half a mile
When it began to rain;
“Now this is a token,” his lordship said,
“That I shall not return again.”

According to the tragic song of Mary Hamilton, it is pre-
monitory of death for the heel to come off one’s shoe: **

When she gaed up the Parliament stair,
The heel cam aff her shee;

And lang or she cam down again
She was condemnd to dee.

In a Motherwell copy the “lap cam aff her shoe; ” ** in Scott’s
copy “the corks frae her heels did flee.”

Where there are no visible signs to tell the ballad actor of
impending misfortune we occasionally find audible warnings

 

*! Cf. E. S. Hartland, The Legend of Perseus, II, 26, 27 n.

°2No. 208 H 8. :

"3 No. 173 A 9. Cf. the “left-foot shee” employed in witchcraft in
Willie’s Lady (6).

PC 12.

*1 17,74 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

or boding voices, as in Laing’s version of Lord Lovel. A
“boding voice’? prepares the hero to meet his dead sweet-

sheart: *°

He hadna been in London town
A week but only three,

Whan a boding voice thirld in his ear”?
That Scotland he maun see.

In Buchan’s text of Jellon Grame a warning voice is not
heeded and May-a-Roe goes to her cruel death.** The uncanny
notes of Lord Barnard’s horn warn Little Musgrave to be
away: “Me thinkes I heare Lord Barnetts horne, away,
Musgreue, away!” °® With the false true-love herself, one
hears “ every jow that the dead-bell ” gives, as it cries “ Woe
to Barbara Allan!” *°°

Among those signs and portents in English balladry that
remain to be surveyed two belong to sailors’ superstitions.
According to Sir Patrick Spens, it is a fearful portent when
the new moon is seen “ wi the auld moone in hir arme”:*

96 No. 75 C 5.

97In version D, “a strange fancy;” B, “languishing thoughts;”
E, “lover-like thought; ” in American variants: Campbell and Sharp,
English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians, p. 71, “ Strange
thoughts rolled through his mind; ” Louise Pound, American Ballads
and Songs, p. 6, “wondering thoughts came over him; ” Cox, Folk-
Songs of the South, p. 79, “languishing thought; ” p. 81, “ something
came over his mind.”? One of Cox’s variants, p. 80, seems to have
borrowed the ring and bleeding omens from Lord Derwentwater (208;
see supra, pp. 71 f.). Cox’s text reads:

Till a ring busted off his little finger,
And his nose began to bleed.

oe 90 C 4 ff. Cf. the silver buttons flying off and the nose-bleed
in ;

_ % Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard (81 B 6). The horn is present
in all other texts except D. Cf. an American text, J A F L, XXX, 314
ff.: “And every note it seems to say, arise, arise, and go!” Cf. the
magic elf horns in The Elfin Knight (2 A 1, B 1, ete.) and Lady Isabel
and the Elf-Knight (4 A 1 f.).

100 Bonny Barbara Allan (84 A 8, B 10). In an American text,
Campbell and Sharp, op. cit., p. 96, “small birds” are substituted for
the bells. But talking and helpful birds are quite common in English
balladry; see especially The Bromfield Hill (48 A 11 f., C 21 f. D 12

f., ete.); The Gay Goshawk (96); Johnie Cock (114 B 18, H 21).
101 No. 58 A 7.DEATH AND BURIAL LORE 75

“Late late yestreen I saw the new moone,!02
Wi the auld moone in hir arme,
And I feir, I feir, my deir master,
That we will cum to harme.’’

This same ballad, as does also the song of The Mermaid, pre-
serves the well-known superstition that it is fatal to catch
sight of a mermaid. The sea-witch has in her hand the tra-
ditional glass and comb: 1°
Up started the mermaid by our ship,
Wi the glass and the comb in her hand:
“ Reek about, reek about, my merrie men,
Ye are not far from land.”’

“You lie, you lie, you pretty mermaid,
Sae loud as I hear you lie;
For since I have seen your face this nicht,
The land I will never see.’’

No less ominous is the presence of the merfay in The Mer-
maid,°* and Clerk Colvill in the ballad of that name owes
his death to the sea-maiden whom he has forsaken.

Upon his death a knight’s hounds howl on the leash and
the horses go wild in their stables.‘°* This howling of the
hounds illustrates a familiar portent.’°* There is good reason
for thinking that the ballad commonplace of looking over
one’s left shoulder is descriptive in certain instances, at least,
of an act that carries with it something of evil portent.’
Thus in Karl Brand, that fine ballad in which occurs the inci-
dent of dead-naming, it is with evil omen that Lord William

102 This incident occurs in all the Child versions except D and the
fragmentary texts L-R.

103 No. 58 L 2 f. The mermaid is found also in J, P, Q.

104 No. 289 A, B, C, D, E. In F the mermaid is supplanted by the
“kemp o the ship,” but this seems to be nothing more than a burlesque
variation. See Child, V, 148. Cf. four texts in the Journal of the Folk-
Song Society, III, 47 ff.; also a text, J A F L, XXV, 176. :

105 No, 42.

106 Lord Thomas Stuart (259, st. 11).

107 The whining, barking, or howling of the hound is a sign that the
dead are abroad in the Danish ballad of Svend Dyring. See translation,
Prior, Ancient Danish Ballads, I, 370 f. On the howling of dogs as a
death-omen see W. Henderson, Northern Counties, p. 48.

108 For a discussion of this incident and its significance see H. Bate-
son, “Looking over the Left Shoulder,” Folk-Lore, XXXIV, 241 f.;
Child, Ballads, V, 286; Gummere, Popular Ballad, p. 300.76 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

looks back over his left shoulder, for so he sees his stolen
bride’s vengeful relatives: *””

Lord William lookit oer his left shoulder,
To see what he could see,

And there he spy’d her seven brethren bold,!!°
Come riding over the lee.

In Northumberland Betrayed by Douglas “ the ladye looked
ouer her left sholder; in a dead swoone there fell shee.” ™
Told that he must die, Dickie, in another ballad, “ looked oer
his left shoulder.” ® Disaster, certain or at least possible,
is sighted over the left shoulder in Archie o Cawfield.™
Hughie Grame, condemned to die, looked over his left
shoulder, and was “aware of his auld father, came tearing
his hair most piteouslie.” “* The king has passed sentence
of death upon Johnie Armstrong. Johnie thereupon looks
over his left shoulder, ‘‘ what a grevious look looked hee!” ™
It is over his left shoulder that the king in The Lochmaben
Harper gives a command that turns out to his own disad-
vantage.''® We should remember in this connection that it is
with the young wife’s left-foot shoe that evil magic is worked
in Willie’s Lady.'\* It is upon looking over her left shoulder

109 No. 7B 4. See also A 21, E 1, G 14 (Child, I, 490), I 3 (Child,
I, 492), and the text, Child, IV, 444, st. 11. See also text, Gavin Greig,
Folk-Song of the North-East, art. LVII.

110 The traditional “seven brethren” of English balladry; for their
occurrence in our folksong see Child, V, 490: ‘‘ Numbers, favorite.”
And on the “ae sister” and the many brothers see the note, Gummere,
“The Mother-in-Law,” Kittredge Anniversary Papers, p. 17, n. 3.

111 No. 176, st. 37. See Mary’s feat of divination or second sight in
this piece, sts. 18 ff., and note that the knight must stand at her “ right
hand.”

112 No. 185, st. 35.

113 No. 188 A 32.

114. No, 191 C 13; also. A 19, E 18, H 10 (Child, IV, 519), 19 (Child,
IV, 520), and the text, Child, IV, 518, st. 9. It is noteworthy that in
A 21 looking over the “ right shoulder ”’ gives the same vision of sorrow,
with the exception that it is the mother and not the father who is seen.
On the whole, the “right shoulder ”’ in st. 21 is not to be taken very
seriously. The balladist was no doubt led to make the change from
“left” to “right ’ for no other reason than that of the avoidance of
repetition, just as we find the color triad of horses in certain ballads.

[i NO. 169: Ad 1B. 13:

_ 116 No. 192 A 8, B 4, D 6. The king also looks over his left shoulder
in no. 156 A 20, D 20, F 24, and but for the king’s oath this look bodes
ill for Earl Martial. See also no. 167 A 7.

117 No. 6.DEATH AND BURIAL LORE a

that the maiden in Clerk Saunders discovers the reason her
love sleeps so “soun’’: “An she lookd ovr her left shoulder,
an the blood about them ran.” "'* The “right hand” seems
in balladry to be of good omen. Willie must stand at Janet’s
right side during her travail,'!® and in another ballad an in-
scription is on a new-born son’s right hand.?2° The wounded
maiden in The King’s Dochter Lady Jean tries to staunch her
blood with the glove from her right hand."*!

Death Taboos. British folksong preserves the superstition
that contact with the dead will result fatally. This belief is
brought out clearly in The Unquiet Grave, Sweet William’s
Ghost, and The Twa Brothers.'** In these pieces the revenant
is corporeal and not to be thought of as the familiar airy and
unsubstantial shade.'?? The dead man in The Unquiet Grave
thus warns his sweetheart: 14

“You crave one kiss of my clay-cold lips; 17°
But my breath smells earthy strong;
If you have one kiss of my clay-cold lips,
Your time till not be long.”

In Thomas Rymer '*° English balladry records the widespread
belief that it is likewise dangerous to hold any sort of com-
merce with fairy folk. By kissing the fairy queen Thomas
places himself in her power.'?* In Fair Margaret and Sweet

118 No. 69, st. 12 (Child, IV, 469). Cf. no. 58 A 21.

119 No. 64 B 6. It is true that this song ends unhappily.

120 No. 5 C 85, E 31. For other references to the right hand see nos.
43 A 7; 6517; 53 E 12; 100 A 11, etc.; 98 A 16; 8 B 5. Steed breathes
flame from right nostril, no. 39 G 36. Tam Lin’s right hand will be
gloved, his left bare, no. 39 A 30.

121 No. 52 B 11.

122 Nos. 78 (all the Child texts); 77 A, B, C, E; 49 B.

123 See supra, p. 67, note 52.

124A 5.

125 This commonplace occurs in variants of The Unquiet ‘Grave re-
covered since Child: Sharp and Marson, Folk Songs from Somerset,
First Series, p. 14; Leather, Folk-Lore of Herefordshire, pp. 202 f.;
Journal of the Folk-Song Society, I, 119, 192; II, 6 ff.; Sharp, One
Hundred English Folksongs, pp. 56 f. It occurs also in two American
variants of The Twa Brothers: Campbell and Sharp, English Folk
Songs from the Southern Appalachians, pp. 35 f. E

126 No. 37 C5, 6.. Cf. sts. 17-21 in the related romance, Child, I, 327,
and another text of the ballad, Child, IV, 455, sts. 6 ff. Kissing may
effect disenchantment of a transformed mortal, according to Kemp
Owyne (34). ,

127Qn the effects of holding commerce with Otherworld beings see
Schambach and Miller, Niederséchsische Sagen und Marchen, p. 373.

7S

er

f
i aeae RC oe ec er SR err ee er acre ee aioe

 

78 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

William and Lord Thomas and Fair Annet we have, it js
probable, further evidence that the living man touches the
dead at his peril. In the former piece kissing the dead seems
to be, at any rate, a mark of exceeding devotion: ***

“ll do more for thee, Margaret,
Than any of thy kin;
For I will kiss thy pale wan lips,
Tho a smile I cannot win.”

As for the latter song, a sentimental interpretation might
ascribe Willie’s death to grief, but another reading might
well insist that his prediction that he would “ never kiss
woman again” arose from his having kissed the “bonny
cheek ” of his dead love.*”®

By what appears to be a bit of rationalization, the maiden
in The Suffolk Miracle is said to die of terror and grief. But
in the original form of the ballad it is possible that her death
was due to the workings of sympathetic magic. In the ballad
as it stands the ghost lover complains of a headache.’ The
maiden binds her handkerchief about his head:

But as they did this great haste make,!*!
He did complain his head did ake;

Her handkerchief she then took out,
And tyed the same his head about.

Subsequently, the corpse of the lover is disinterred, and
“though he had a month been dead, this kerchief was about
his head,” and the lady follows him to the grave. It is well
known that it is dangerous to allow the dead to gain pos-

\ session of one’s effects, such as an article of dress. In view
of this superstition is it not probable that the maiden’s death

‘> is the result of her imprudence in tying her handkerchief
about her dead lover’s head? According to two American
texts of our ballad, the maiden kisses her dead lover, an inci-
dent absent from the Child texts:

128 No. 74 A 18.

129 No. 73 E 40.

130 Child can make no sense of the headache (Ballads, V, 59).
131 No, 272, st. 14,DEATH AND BURIAL LORE 79

A handkerchief she pulled out 132

And around his head she tied it about,
And kissed his lips and thus did say:
My dear, you’re colder than the clay.

This incident and that of the handkerchief lend plausibility
to the interpretation that the death of the maiden was caused
by something more than mere terror and grief. It is note-
worthy in this connection that in Clerk Colvill the hero owes
his death in part, at least, to his binding about his aching
head a “gare” of the merfay’s “ sark.” 1%

Allied with the foregoing belief that physical contact with
the dead may prove fatal is the superstition that it is danger-
ous to allow an enemy to gain possession of one’s name. By
reference to Norse analogues of The Douglas Tragedy we
find that Earl Brand owes his death to the indiscretion of his
sweetheart in revealing his name to her kinsmen. Thus in
the Danish ballad Ribold and Guldborg Ribold enjoins his
stolen bride:

““Now if in fight you see me fall,154
My name I pray you not to call.

“And if you see the blood run red,
Be silent, lest you name me dead.”

Ribold slays Truid and her father, but when he sets upon her
brothers, the maiden cries:

“Stop, stop, Ribolt, o stay thy hand,
And sheathe I pray thy murdergus brand.”

The moment Guldborg named his name,
A fatal blow, the deathblow came.

The ballad of Erlinton, closely related to The Douglas
Tragedy, also receives light from the Danish piece:

 

182 Campbell and Sharp, op. cit., pp. 130, 132. i

8 No. 42 A 7 ff.; B 6 ff. Child seems not to have noticed the striking
resemblance between the headache in this piece and that in The Suffolk
Miracle. It is true that the situation in one song is somewhat the
reverse of that in the other, but the general idea underlying the two
meidents is doubtless the same.

4 Translation by Prior, Ancient Danish Ballads, II, 403.

ee

aE aren
gene

net
ee

hae
580 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

He lighted aff his milk-white steed,195
An gae his lady him by the head,
Sayn, “‘ See ye dinna change your cheer,
Untill ye see my body bleed.”
American variants of the British ballads do not always pre-
serve folklore elements well, but as regards the dead-naming
incident in The Douglas Tragedy,'*® a Campbell and Sharp
text of this piece seems to come nearer the original telling
than do the Child versions:
She got down and never spoke,!37
Nor never cheaped
Till she saw her own father’s head
Come trinkling by her feet.

The following is the best reading from the Child texts:

An bad her never change her cheer '*5
Untill she saw his body bleed.
It is possible that name magic finds further exemplifica-
tion in the heroic ballad of the Cheviot. In response to
Douglas’ command, “ Tell me whos men ye ar,” Percy replies:

 

“We wyll not tell the whoys men we ar,” he says,!?
“ nor whos men that we be; ”

The same motive, grounded possibly in the superstition of
name-avoidance, actuates Child Waters when he gives careful
instructions regarding the secrecy of his name:

“You must tell noe man what is my name; 14°
My ffootpage then you shall be.”

135 No. 8 A 15. Cf. B 14, C 24, and a variant of B (Child, I, 111).
metic 7 A 24. B 5, CS £, 7:3, BE 4, Ab, ¢ 22, and the text,
Child, IV, 444, st. 27.

137 English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians, p. 11; cf.
texts, ibid., pp. 138, 15: ‘And never changed a word.” Variants in
Cox, Folk-Songs of the South, p. 18, and Greig, Folk-Song of the North-
East, art. LVII, read: “And never shed a tear.”

138 Child, IV, 444, st. 27.

139 No, 162 A 16. B 19 reads: “ We list not to declare nor shew
whose men wee bee.”

140 No.” 63 A 10. This direction is absent from the other Child
versions. The power of the name is excellently illustrated in Riddles
Wisely Expounded (1 C 19). A riddle-mongering fiend is driven off
when a maiden calls him by his right name “ Clootie”’:

 

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

The incident of the fiend’s vanishing in a flame is preserved in a text
in Alfred Williams, Folk Songs of the Upper Thames, p. 37.i

DEATH AND BURIAL LORE 81

By keeping his name secret the ballad actor in so far pro-
tects his life and stays off death. Moreover, he is aware, it
seems, of the early and primitive belief that death itself
should not be mentioned by name. In speaking of death the
balladist occasionally resorts to euphemistic or periphrastic
expressions. The song of Fair Margaret and Sweet William
offers a clear case of the euphemistic manner of mentioning
death. Margaret cannot survive Sweet William’s preference
for another. The ballad does not, however, say that she is
dead but that “‘ she’s gone”:

There was a fair maid at that window,!41
She’s gone, she’ll come no more there.

In The Wife of Usher’s Well death is similarly suggested by
periphrasis. Word came to the carline wife that “ her three
sons were gane,” that ‘‘ her sons she’d never see.” 142 The
periphrasis is more elaborate in The Clerk’s Twa Sons o
Owsenford. The two sons have just been hanged and the
father reports their death in this fashion:

“It’s I’ve putten them to a deeper lair,!43
An to a higher schule;
Yere ain twa sons ill no be here
Till the hallow days o Yule.”

The brother-lover in The King’s Dochter Lady Jean does not
say that he will die. He puts his prediction in this way:

“O sister dear, when thou gaes hame !44
Unto thy father’s ha,
It’s make my bed baith braid and lang,
Wi the sheets as white ag snaw.”’

What appear to be further instances of death euphemisms
occur in Johnie Cock, The Battle of Otterburn, The Battle of

M41 No. 74 C 2. Cf. A 4: “But never more did come there;” B 6:
“She went out from her bowr alive, but never so more came there.”
Cf. American texts, Cox, op. cit., pp. 65 ff., A 4, B 4, C 4, ete.: “That
Was nevermore seen there; ” Campbell and Sharp, op. cit., p. 68: “ Lady
Margret was heard no more.”

142 No. 79 A 2, 3.

_M8No. 72 A 16. W. M. Hart in his Ballad and Epic, p. 22 n., con-
siders periphrasis in the English ballads.

144 No. 52 B 12.82 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

Harlaw, Sir Hugh, and Clerk Colvill..* It should be borne
in mind, however, that though the ballad is occasionally given
to periphrasis for death or for love and marriage '*° it em-
ploys with great frequency the words “dying,” “death,”
and “dead.” Nevertheless, the foregoing expressions are
not to be explained away as mere poetic conceits.’** Though
the evidence is somewhat vestigial, they seem to reflect ‘the
early and primitive attitude of fear toward death and the
attempt of man to guard himself against this experience by
avoiding the very mention of the name by which it is desig-
nated.

The Test for Death and the Return to Life. In the ballad
of The Gay Goshawk a maiden simulates death in order to
win her way to her lover in Scotland.**s But before the
funeral procession sets out for the far-distant burial ground
the heroine is subjected to a test for death, an ordeal through
which she passes successfully. The conductress of the cere-
mony varies according to different versions of the ballad. In
a Motherwell version the test, applied at the suggestion of

 

 

 

145In Johnie Cock (114 A 20 f., B 18, L), Otterburn (161 A 67),
Harlaw (163 A 25, Ab 25) the phrases “fetch away,” “fette away,”
“took awa,” and “sleepin.” In Sir Hugh (155 A 10): “ When every
lady gat hame her son, the Lady Maisry gat nane.” In Clerk Colvill
(42 A 13; cf. B 10): “brither, unbend my bow, ’t will never be bent
by me again.” Cf. Lord Randal (12 A): “And I fain wad lie down; ”
another text, Campbell and Sharp, op. cit., p. 28: “the cause of my
lying down.” “Bed” for grave is common in the ballads, as in nos.
7 B 16, C15; 77 B 14. See the figure of the sheath and knife in nos.
15 and 16, and the beautiful evasions in The Twa Brothers (49). On
this last see Child, I, 436. In no. 214 B 10, D 10, I 11: “sleepin
soun’”’ for dead. See also no. 196 C 17.

146 For love (91 B 2): ‘She pleasd hersel in Levieston; ” for preg-
nancy see nos. 63 A; 65 H; 100 A, C, D; 101 A, B, D (Child, V, 236);
102 A; 269 C. No. 101 A reads:

“O narrow, narrow’s my gown, Willy,
That wont to be sae wide;
An short, short is my coats, Willy,
That wont to be sae side.”

An interesting kenning is “ horse of tree” for bridge (187 A 13).

147 The expressions “ putten down” and “gae down” are used with
reference to death by hanging or death by violence in nos. 72 C 39;
173 I 15; 191 C 6, 7, E 11, and text, Child, IV, 518, st. 2; 194 C 12;
200 A 10, F 18. Cf. text of no. 191 in Gavin Greig, Last Leaves of
Traditional Ballads and* Ballad Airs, ed. Alexander Keith, p. 118, st. 2.

148 In Willie’s Lyke-Wake (25) a young man feigns death in order to
capture a maiden.Sone eee one ee ge

DEATH AND BURIAL LORE 83
an “auld witch-wife,” consists in dropping burning lead on
the chin, the breast, and the toe of the maiden: 14°

Out then spoke an auld witch-wife,
And she spoke random indeed:
Honoured madam, I would have you to try
Three drops of the burning lead.

Her mother went weeping round and round,
She dropped one on her chin;
“Och and alace,” her mother did say,
“There is no breath within!”

The lead is no more efficacious when dropped on the breast
and the toe. In two versions the mother performs the rite,°°
in other copies “the cruel step-minnie.” ** But mother and
stepmother are substitutions doubtless for the “ witch-wife ”
who appears in the better versions.'*2 In one copy the test
consists in rubbing red lead on the clever maiden’s chin and
toe:

“Bring to me the red, red lead,153
And rub it on her chin;
It’s Oh and alace for my dochter Janet!
But there is not a breath within.

“Bring to me the red, red lead,
And rub it on her toe;
It’s Oh and alace for my daughter Janet!
To Scotland she must go.”

“ The ‘red, red lead’ of D 7, 8,” says Child, “I had at first
Supposed to show a carelessness about epithets, like the
‘roses blue’ of a Danish ballad. But considering that the

 

149 No. 96 B 12 f.

150T), F.

151 G, E (Child, II, 367 b). The stepmother is a wicked characier in
English ballads. She places her stepchildren under monstrous enchant-
ments in nos. 31, st. 46 ff.; 32 (Child, I, 300, st. 20); 34; 36; and in
Tam Lin (39 G 25) she ill-sains the hero, so that he falls an easy prey
to the fairies.

2B 12 f., C 22. In G 87 the maiden’s “ youngest brither.” With
the witch in this piece compare the witch-woman in The Broomfield Hill
(43) who exercises her magic in a somewhat contrary direction. She
Instructs a maiden (A 4 ff., C 6 ff.) in the method of putting her lover
to sleep by magic devices. ee

“8D 7 £. Hot lead is used in C 22, G 38, E (Child, I, 367); boiling
lead, F 3, H 22 f.; “ burning red gowd,” E 27.84. STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

red lead is to be rubbed on, one may ask whether some occult
property of minimum may have been known to the mother.” 4
It is interesting to compare with our ballad test an incident
in Jamieson’s Child Rowland, part ballad, part tale. The

. hero’s two brothers are revived from their magic sleep by the
elf-king: ‘ The King of Elfland then produced a small crystal
phial containing a bright red liquor, with which he anointed
the lips, nostrils, eye-lids, ears, and finger-ends of the two
young men, who immediately awoke. **

In the ballad of Leesome Brand, a song with several prim-
itive traits, three drops of Saint Paul’s blood effect restora-
tion to life. This is the only incident of its kind in the
British ballads unless we include the miracle of the roasted
cock re-animated in St. Stephen and Herod.’ Leesome
Brand’s lady and son lie dead. But his mother is, like other
ballad mothers, learned in magic, whether of the black or of
the white variety,'*’ and she tells her bereaved son how to
proceed: +°8

He put his hand at her bed head,
And there he found a gude grey horn,

Wi three draps o’ Saint Paul’s ain blude,
That had been there sin he was born.

Then he drappd twa on his ladye,

And ane o them on his young son,
And now they do as lively be,

As the first day he brought them hame.

The number three in the foregoing procedure is, of course,
an illustration of the widespread use of this number in
magical operations.’®? That the blood is said to be Saint Paul's

 

 

154 Ballads, Il, 357 n. On tests for death in popular fiction see ibid.,
II, 357; III, 517 b; V, 6, 296. See also Elton-Powell, Saxo, pp. Ixxx f.

155 Jamieson, Illustrations of Northern Antiquities, p. 408.

156 No. 22.

157 Cf. the man’s mother in Willie’s Lady (6) and Gil Brenton (5).
In the former piece the mother, “a vile rank witch,” employs evil magic
in the obstruction of childbirth. In Gil Brenton the hero’s mother tests
the chastity of her son’s brides by making them sit in a golden chair.
An excellent, though fragmentary, text of Willie’s Lady is recorded in
Greig, Last Leaves of Traditional Ballads, pp. 4 f.

158 No. 15 A 44 ff.

159 Three is by far the most popular number in British balladry.DEATH AND BURIAL LORE * 85

may be merely another instance of the intrusion of Christian
belief in balladry.’® Saint Paul is not mentioned in an ex-
cellent Aberdeenshire text of this ballad recovered by Gavin
Greig: **

He’s done him to his mother’s bed-head,
An’ found a horn had hung lang,

An’ there he found three draps o bleed
That had hung there since one was born.

He drappit twa on his lady gay,

An’ ane upon his little young son,
An’ he fan them as life-livin

As the first hour that he got them.

The magical virtue of blood is well known and finds illustra-
tion in a number of our ballads.‘* In certain Scandinavian
ballads restoration from enchantment is effected by drinking
blood.'** It is probable that the source of the magical blood
in Leesome Brand has some connection with childbirth. The
line “ That had been there sin he was born” seems to indi-
cate this.

Before leaving this matter of restoration to life we ought
to make mention of the magical ceremony in Young Benjie
whereby a maiden’s corpse is made to “thraw ” and speak
and in speaking to reveal the identity of the maiden’s
slayer :'** But this incident we shall consider more in detail in
connection with the wake.’ The Leesome Brand motif of
resuscitation suggests the whole matter of ghost lore in bal-

169 Cf. The Wife of Usher’s Well (79 C). In this text of our best
ghost ballad the dead sons are made to return through the instru-
mentality of Jesus. See also Tam Lin (39 D 17, G 32). The “holy
water” in these texts is probably a relic of the “primitive ” water-
bath in A 34, B 34. Cf. the absence, or the intrusive character, of
Christian thought in Danish ballads, Johannes Steenstrup, The Medieval
Popular Ballad, trans. E. G. Cox, pp. 179 f.

= Op. cit., pp. 16 f. :

162 For example, the superstition of the bleeding corpse, Young
Hunting (68 B 21, C 23); indelible blood stains, Babylon (14 D), The
Cruel Mother (20 Q); catching the blood of the slain, Lamkin (93 A,
C, D, G, 1, N, O, R, T, V, X), Little Musgrave (81 G 28, 30), Sir Hugh
(155 F, H, J); drinking the blood of the slain, The Braes 0 Yarrow
(214 EK, F, G, M). :

163 Svend Grundtvig, Danmarks gamle Folkeviser, nos. 55, 58.

164 No. 86.

165 See infra, pp. 93 f.

PT Re la ft

STE
eee

eh S

b
&
I

bye
PsSepia inet eee ones arene
4 : pen aoa a SS eee

86 Stupfes IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

ladry, since the revenant of British folksong is almost with-
out question a living dead man or vitalized corpse.’ More-
over, the incident of the singing-bone in The Twa Sisters

rs is basically. analogous to the talking corpse in Young Benjie

; and hardly less analogous is the incident of the talking bird
in Young Hunting which betrays the hero’s murderess and
which is in all probability the form taken by the soul of the
dead man. But such instances might easily lead us here into
a discussion of transmigration and ideas of the soul as de-
picted in English folksong, particularly those transmigratory
shapes through which the murderess in The Cruel Mother and
the infanticide in The Maid and the Palmer must pass by
way of doing penance.’®* Moreover, a consideration of those
shapes assumed by the soul would lure us into a study of
magical operations whereby a mortal held under some
monstrous enchantment recovers his original form, as in
King Henry, Kemp Owyne, Allison Gross, The Laily Worm,
and Tam Lin.” Into these fascinating studies **° we must not,
however, permit ourselves to stray, for it is our purpose here
to examine only those beliefs and usages that bear directly
upon death and burial.

 

166 See supra, p. 67, note 52.

167 No. 10.

168 Nos. 20 I, J, K, ete.; 21 A; B.

169 Nos. 32, 34, 35, 36, 39; see also no. 31.

ve On soul ideas in balladry see my study “Ideas of the Soul in the
English and Scottish Popular Ballads,” Poet Lore, XXXVI, no. 4.IV
BURIAL

Heralded by dreams, omens, and warning voices, death in
balladry takes on various guises. If one would classify
deaths, he can assemble for folksong more kinds than those
enumerated in the poetic Edda when Sigrdrifa thus counsels
Sigurd: ‘‘ Care thou for corses, . . . . be they sick-dead, or
sea-dead, or weapon-dead.” * But so far as the ballads are
concerned, Sigrdrifa’s ‘‘sick-dead”’ may be left almost
wholly out of account. There is weapon-death, however, on
every hand — death in battle, at sea, in private feud, in
affairs of honor, and by act of treachery or of vengeance.
Such a death, as we have already seen, may be accompanied
by the horrors of mutilation — severing the hands, the feet,
the head, disfiguring the face, cutting off the breasts, cutting
out the tongue and the heart. There is death by burning and
drowning and death in child-bed, and the crimes committed
by the woman who would appear a “leal maiden” give us
infanticide, burial alive; and strangling. The “wee pen-)
knife” keeps company with deceitful epithet, for its wee-ness
accomplishes vast tragedy. Suicide is exceedingly common
and grief and madness take their toll.

Whatever the form in which death overtakes him, the
ballad hero faces it bravely and generously. In unforgettable
lines the dying Bewick directs his father to bury him and his
“brother” in one grave, but to give his “ bully Grahame ”
the “sun-side”: ‘For I’m sure he’s won the victory.” *? In
lines no less memorable Lord Thomas beseeches Fair Annet
to await him in her passing and then strikes the “ dagger un-
til his heart.” * But in his hatreds the dying hero is no less
noble than in his loves, as witness those death-bed testaments
in Edward and Lord Randal in which, with undying hatred,
he wills to his enemies the fire of hell or the gallows rope,*

! Vigfusson-Powell, Corpus Poeticum Boreale, I, 43.

2 No. 211, st. 51. On distinctions in burial see infra, pp. 129 ff.

*No. 73 A 28. These lines express belief in a future life.
=Nos, 12, 13.Nee

88 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

or again, as when Parcy Reed and Hughie Grame will the
deed and the weapons of vengeance to their friends and kins-
men.* Death is held in contempt by the ballad actor and he
ean die as courageously as Ragnar Lodbrok. “ My life days
are done,” cries Ragnar. “ Laughing I will die.” ® Our hun-
dred or more tragic ballads must not, however, with their
arresting themes, be permitted to turn us aside from the
purpose of the following pages, that of assembling the ballad
materials that have to do with funerary practices. Under
the general heading of burial we shall consider the “ dead-
bell,” the wake, doles for the dead, the graveclothes, the
coffin, and the bier, as well as mourning customs and the
grave. Under this last we shall present such matters as the
location and situation of the grave, orientation, double and
triple burial, distinctions in burial, and burial of belongings
with the dead.

The Dead-Bell. In the ballads funeral bells serve, appar-
ently, a variety of purposes — the general purpose, as today,
of ringing out the funeral, and the more special purposes of
announcing the passing of the soul, proclaiming the wake,
and accompanying the corpse to the grave. The ballad of
Sir Hugh preserves the ancient and widespread incident of
funeral bells that ring without ‘‘ men’s hands.” This magic
ringing of bells is sometimes regarded as a death omen but
it seems not to have this significance in Sir Hugh." Our
ballad trait recalls the bells that “‘ ring of themselves ”’ over
Olaf’s “ coffin-bed.” * Sir Hugh reads: °

 

> Nos. 193 B 41; 191 A 23, B 14.

6 Vigfusson-Powell, C. P. B., I, 345.

‘On the occurrence of the incident of bells ringing of themselves see
Child, I, 173, 231; III, 235, 519 f. See also Tatlock in Modern Language
Notes, XXIX, 98, and Barry, ibid., KXX, 28; E. M. Leather, The Folk-
Lore of Herefordshire, p. 9.

8 Vigfusson-Powell, op. cit., II, 161.

2 No. 155 A 17.ee

DEATH AND BURIAL LORE 89

And a’ the bells o merry Lincoln
Without men’s hands were rung,!?
And a’ the books o merry Lincoln
Were read without man’s tongue,
And neer wag such gq burial
Sin Adam’s days begun.

An even more curious and primitive example of the super-
stition with which church bells were formerly regarded" is
found in the ballads of The Cruel Mother and The Maid and
the Palmer. In both these songs of infanticide the murderess
must, by way of penance, pass through certain transmigratory
shapes. Among other shapes, the cruel mother must become
a church bell’? or a clapper in a bell,’® the period of each
penance to last for seven years.’*

The passing bell, rung immediately upon a person’s death

10 Bells are rung backward as a signal of alarm in Adam Bell (116,
st. 87): “And the belles backwards dyd they rynge.” Cf. ringing
bells backwards in revenge, Leather, op.-cit., p. 115.

11Qn the folklore of church bells see John Aubrey, Remaines of
Gentilisme and Judaisme, ed. James Britten, pp. 19, 96, 131, 166;
C. S. Burne, Shropshire Folk-Lore, pp. 600 ff.; E. M. Leather, op. cit.,
pp. 160 ff., 168 ff.; William Henderson, Folk-Lore of the Northern
Counties, pp. 61 ff.

12The Cruel Mother (20 I): ‘Seven years to be a church bell.”
Texts K and L read respectively, “ Seven years to ring a bell; ” “ Seven
lang years ye’ll ring the bell.” The penances in this piece, thinks
Child (Ballads, I, 218), belong properly to The Maid and the Palmer
(21). But Child may be wrong here. The transmigrations occur in
excellent variants of The Cruel Mother recovered since Child; for ex-
ample, Gavin Greig, Last Leaves of Traditional Ballads, pp. 21 f.;
W. Roy Mackenzie, The Quest of the Ballad, pp. 104 ff. In Greig’s text
occur the fish, bird, and bell transformations: “Seven year a warnin
bell.”

13 The Maid and the Palmer (21 A 14). In a Norse ballad Hilde-
brand and Hilde, a maiden is bartered for a church bell, the first stroke
of which breaks her mother’s heart. See trans. Prior, Ancient Danish
Ballads, II, 414.

14In point of frequency of occurrence in British balladry the number
seven is surpassed only by the number three. With reference to
periods of time it is found in ballads of the supernatural; for example,
in Tam Lin (39 A-D, G-K, M) and Thomas Rymer (37, Child, IV, 455,
st. 18) the fairies at seven-year intervals “ pay a tiend to hell.” Hind
Etin (41 A 9) keeps his earthly mistress in the enchanted wood for
“six lang years and one.” The seal-husband in The Great Silkie of
Sule Skerry (Frank Sidgwick, Popular Ballads of the Olden Time,
Second Series, pp. 235 ff.) will return in seven years. Ghosts return
after seven years in nos. 77 F 1; 243 A 18,D1,E1,F 1. Cf. no. 48,
st. 2. On the occurrence of this number in other ballads see Child,
V, 490 a, at “ Numbers.”

PaaS,
PSS

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Sapee Ge aes

Wace.

PELE ee OI CREE

PETE STORE ehh
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MS.90 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

or during his passing from life to death,’’ is probably heard
in Bonny Barbara Allan: '°

She had not gane a mile but twa,!*
When she heard the dead-bell ringing, -
And every jow that the dead-bell geid,
It ecry’d, Woe to Barbara Allan.

Church bells ring in Lord Lovel to announce the decease of
Lady Ouncebell.'* The dead-bell knells in The Earl of Aboyne
to summon the mourning nobles to “come and bury bonny
Peggy Irvine.” '® For Queen Jane “the bells were muffled,
and mournful did play.” *° Neglect to toll the bell is intended
as a mark of disrespect or of revenge in a Motherwell copy
of Fair Janet: *'

15 For a discussion, with illustrations from literature, of the passing
bell, see Brand, Popular Antiquities, II, 202-220.

16 No. 34 A 8: cf. B19, C. 9.

17 The dead bell is found in American variants: J A F L, VI, 133;
XIX, 285 ff., a, d, e, f; XX, 286; XXII, 683; XXIX, 161; Wyman and
Brockway, Lonesome Tunes, p. 5; McGill, Folk Songs of the Kentucky
Mountains, p. 39; Mackenzie, Quest of the Ballad, pp. 100 ff.; Cox,
Folk-Songs of the South, pp. 96 ff. In Campbell and Sharp, English
Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians, fp. 94, text D, the bells
are called “corpse bells; ” in ibid., p. 95, text E, “small birds” are
substituted for the bells. In Miss McGill’s text, op. cit., p. 39, Barbara
is rebuked by both “bells ” and “ birds.’’ The dead bell is found also
in a Scottish text, Greig, Traditional Ballads, p. 68.

18 No. 75, all the Child texts. A: “bells of the high chapel ring”
with a “ceserera;” B: “sound o a fine chapel-bell;” C: “the bells
they mak sic a sound;” D: “A dismal noise, for the church bells au
did soun;” E, as in A: “a loud sassaray.” ‘ Ceserera” and
“sassaray ” are intended for an imitation of the sound of the bells.
In H the bells are called “ St. Pancras bells,” as in Greig, Traditional
Ballads, p. 57; Journal of the Folk-Song Society, VI, 31; McGill, op.
cit., p. 10; but “St. Patrick’s bells”? in J A F L, XVIII, 291 ff., text A;
Pound, American Ballads and Songs, p. 5; Greig, Folk-Song of the
North-East, art. CLIX. On St. Pancras bells see C. S. Burne, Folk-
Lore, XXII, 35.

19 No. 235 B 19.

20 No. 170 D 5. F: “They churchd her, they chimed her, they dug
her her grave.” Cf. text of Lamkin (93), Journal of the Folk-Song
Society, I, 218: “The bells shall be muzzled to make a dismal sound
where this lady and the baby lay dead upon the ground.” On muffling
bells see Brand, op. cit., II, 219 f.

21 No. 64°B 20. Cf. E 18: “ There’s not a bell in Merrytown kirk
etc.” See also G 12.DEATH AND BURIAL LORE 91

Out and spak her ain bridegroom,
And an angry man was he:
‘This day she has gien me the gecks,
Yet she must bear the scorn;
There’s not a bell in merry Linkum
Shall ring for her the morn.”

In Buchan’s text of Lady Isabel and the Elf-Knight the Other-
world knight would ring the “‘ common bell” for the eighth
king’s daughter and for those other seven maidens whom he
has slain: *°

“And I’ll make you the eight o them,
And ring the common bell.”

Ringing the bell to announce the “ lyke-wake” occurs in
Willie’s Lyke-Wake, which tells a. story of counterfeited
death. That there is a “ principal bellman ” indicates a num-
ber of bell-ringers. The ‘‘ groat” shows that these func-
tionaries were rewarded for their services:

“Ye’ll gie the principal bellman a groat,?%
And ye’ll gar him cry your dead lyke-wake.”

In Kinloch’s version of our ballad the bellman is seen going
from house to house: 74

He gied the bellman his bell-groat,?°
To ring his dead-bell at his lover’s yett.

In Clerk Saunders and possibly in The Lass of Roch Royal
we are to think of the dead-bell as accompanying the corpse
through the town and to the grave. The former piece
reads: °°

22No. 4 B 10.

23 No. 25 B 5.

24 According to Scott, Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, ed. T. F.
Henderson, III, 220, the passing bell, like the wake bell in our ballad,
is rung throughout the town: “The custom of the passing bell is still
kept up in many villages in Scotland. The sexton goes through the
town, ringing a small bell, and announcing the death of the departed,
and the time of the funeral.” On the passing bell see also Prior,
Ancient Danish Ballads, III, 67, 68 f. : :

2A 5. Cf. C5: “And gie to the bellman a belling-great, to ring
the dead-bell at thy love’s bower-yett.” ee 7

26No. 69 A 23. G 29: “The bells went tinkling thro the town.92 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

The bells gaed clinking throw the towne,??
To carry the dead corps to the clay.

The Lyke-Wake.** The wake or night-watch with the
dead,”® cried in Willie’s Lyke-Wake by the principal bellman, °
is an occasion for feasting and merrymaking.* Buchan’s
text of the foregoing ballad reflects a custom of actual life
in the paradoxical phrase “ merry mourners ”: *'

Then they did conduct her into the ha,

Amang the weepers and merry mourners a’.
Doomed to die, the heroine in Fair Mary of Wallington bids
her mother “come to her sickening, or her merry lake-

wake.” *? The lover in The Lass of Roch Royal may have the
wake in mind or a subsequent merrymaking when he says: *

“Be merry, merry, gentlemen,
Be merry at the bread and wine;
For by the morn at this time o day
You’ll drink as much at mine.”

That the wake is a period of lamentation and sorrowing,
however, as well as of merrymaking, is seen in a Buchan copy
of Willie’s Lyke-Wake and in Prince Robert. In the former
piece the burning of candles and torches at the wake* is
noteworthy :

 

27In The Lass of Roch Royal (76 C 18) Lord Gregor is searching
for his true-love:
The first kirktoun he cam to,
He heard the death-bell ring,
The second kirktoun he cam to,
He saw her corpse come in.

But it is not clear that we have here the dead-bell that is rung in
procession with the corpse. Cf. The Gay Goshawk (96 A 24): “The
firstin kirk that they came till, they gard the bells be rung.” This is
virtually as in texts C 20 f., E 31 f., G 40 f., and text, Child, IV, 483,
21 f. See also no. 76 B 24. A horn is blown in another text of no. 96,
Child, IV, 484, after sts. 22 and 30. In a variant of Lady Maisry (65),
Sharp and Marson, Folk Songs from Somerset, Third Series, p. 57,
the lover returns too late and hears “a big bell toll.”

28 Called the “lake-wake:” (91 A), “dead lyke-wake” (25 B),
“leak” (73 G), “lyke” (88 E), “burial” (25 A, 73 E).

29 On the lyke-wake see Brand, Popular Antiquities, II, 225-30.

30 Qn merrymaking at wakes see Brand, tbid., It, 227 f.

31 No. 25 B 11.

32, No. 91 A 19. Cf. G 13 f.: the mother is to come to her “leak-
wake ” or at least to her “ birrien.”

33 No. 76 C 15. Cf. no. 74 A d 16 (Child, II, 203).DEATH AND BURIAL LORE 93 ;
As she gaed ower yon high hill head,?5 ‘
She saw a dowie light: id
It was the candles at Willie’s lyke,36 ®
And torches burning bright. F

For Prince Robert the ladies mourn and weep by torch i
. oy = 1, om
light : *
But when she came to Sillertoun town, i, ee
And into Sillertoun ha, s

The torches were burning, the ladies were mourning,
And they were weeping a’.

Candles and “torches burning clear ” shed their “ dowie ”
light upon a curious ceremony performed at a maiden’s wake K
in the fine ballad of Young Benjie. Two brothers would dis-
cover their sister’s murderer. So on her “low lykewake”
they “watch at mirk midnight” to hear “what she will
aay 3%

Wi doors ajar, and candle-light, is
And torches burning clear,

The streikit corpse, till still midnight,
They waked, but naething hear.

About the middle o the night °°
The cocks began to craw,

And at the dead hour o the night
The corpse began to thraw.

““O what has done the wrang, sister, Xs
Or dared the deadly sin? ‘

Wha was sae stout, and feared nae dout, ei
As thraw ye oer the linn? ”
“Young Benjie was the first ae man *
I laid my love upon; a le
He was sae stout and proud-hearted, o é., pe
He threw me oer the linn.” P 5

°4 On torches and lights at funerals see Brand, op. cit., II, 276 ff.
35 No. 25 E 9 (Child, I, 506). ii
36 Cf. candle-light and torches at the wake in Young Benjie (86 A

37No. 87 A 12. Cf. Bll: iw

There were bells a ringing, and sheets doun hinging, 5
And ladies mourning a’. RK

38 No. 86 A 15 ff. ; é
39 Ballad ghosts are active at night. Midnight is often specified.
See nos. 74 C; 77 E; 73 E; 74 A, B; 77 A; 79; 243 A; 245; 78 (Child, E
IV, 475); 47 A, B; 69 G 37.94 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

,

The interesting feature of the “ doors ajar” reflects a belief
said by Sir Walter Scott to be current among the peasants
of Scotland. Leaving the door ajar, according to this super-
stition, serves as a charm for causing a dead body to speak.
“On this account the peasants of Scotland sedulously avoid
leaving the door ajar while a corpse lies in the house.” *

The ballad-like song The Lyke-Wake Dirge, a funeral chant
of the North Country, may be given a moment’s attention
here. This old dirge illustrates an early custom that when
“any dieth certaine women sing a song to the dead bodie,
recyting the journey that the partye deceased must goe.” *
According to the funeral chanf, as given by John Aubrey,”
the soul must pass over Whinny-moor, thence across the
“ Brig o’ Dread” (Bridge of the Dead?) “no brader than a
thread,” and so to Purgatory. The ease and safety with
which the soul makes the journey depend upon the charit-
ableness of the deceased during his lifetime. These matters
may best be brought out by quoting the dirge in part:

If ever thou gave either hosen or shun
every night and awle

Sitt thee downe and putt them on
and Christ recieve thy sawle.

40 See Scott, Ministrelsy, ed. T. F. Henderson, III, 10 f. In his dis-
cussion of the ballad Scott gives the following story as related by the
peasants of Scotland: “In former times, a man and his wife lived in
a solitary cottage, on one of the extensive Border fells. One day, the
husband died suddenly; and his wife, who was equally afraid of staying
alone by the corpse, or leaving the dead body by itself, repeatedly went
to the door, and looked anxiously over the lonely moor for the sight of
some person approaching. In her confusion and alarm she accidentally
left the door ajar, when the corpse suddenly started up and sat in the
bed, frowning and grinning at her frightfully. She sat alone, crying
bitterly, unable to avoid the fascination of the dead man’s eye, and too
much terrified to break the sullen silence, till a Catholic priest, passing
over the wild, entered the cottage. He first set the door quite open, then
put his little finger in his mouth, and said the paternoster backwards;
when the horrid look of the corpse relaxed, it fell back on the bed, and
behaved itself as a dead man ought to do.”

The incident of the “ door ajar ” does not occur in either of the other
two texts given by Child. See B and the text resembling A (Child,
IV, 478 f.).

41 The custom illustrative of the dirge was by Ritson found described
in a MS. of the Cotton Library. See Scott, op. cit., III, 163 f., for the
description in full.

42 Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme, ed. J. Britten, pp. 31 f. See
also Britten’s note, ibid., pp. 220 ff.DEATH AND BURIAL LORE 95

But if hosen nor shoon thou never gave nean
every night, &c:

The Whinnes shall prick thee to the bare beane
and Christ recieve thy sawle.

From Whinny-moor that thou mayst pass
every night, &c:

To Brig o’ Dread thou comest at last
and Christ &c:

From Brig of Dread that thou mayest pass
no brader than a thread
every night, &c:

To Purgatory fire thou com’st at last
and Christ &c:

If ever thou gave either Milke or drinke
every night, &c:

The fire shall never make thee shrink
and Christ &c:

But if milk nor drink thou never gave nean
every night &c:

The Fire shail burn thee to the bare bene
and Christ recive thy Sawle.

The “ Whinny-moor,” the “ shoon,” and the “ Brig o’ Dread ”
have important folklore connections, but it is not within the
province of this study to enter upon a discussion of these
matters.*

The practice of dealing bread and wine or beer and wine
to the company assembled at the wake finds depiction in a
familiar ballad commonplace. The insistence in these lines,
as in Fair Margaret.and Sweet William,** upon the amount
to be dealt seems to indicate that the feasting was governed
by the wealth of the deceased: *°

 

48 For a discussion of these items with their folklore affiliations see
Frank Sidgwick, Popular Ballads of the Olden Time, Second Series,
pp.. 241 f.

#4No. 74:A 16. :

45 Cf. Brand, op. cit., II, 228: “Pipes and tobacco are first dis-
tributed, and then, according to the ability of the deceased, cakes, and
ale, and sometimes whiskey, are dealt to the company.” Brand quotes
our ballad commonplace as illustrative of the foregoing observation.2, nates eee ae taba

96 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

‘‘ Pray tell me then how much you'll deal
Of your white bread and your wine;
So much as is dealt at her funeral today
Tomorrow shall be dealt at mine.”

The foregoing incident of dealing at wakes or funerals occurs
in a number of our ballads,*® but there seems to be a dis-
tinction between feasting at the wake and feasting at or
after the funeral. The latter occasion for festivity corre-
sponds doubtless to the burial feasts or arvals described by
Brand.’ Thus in the Gibb version of Lord Thomas and Fair
Annet we find the “ dairgie,”’ a refection given after a
funeral: *°

 

“ As much breid ye deal at Annie’s dairgie *°
Tomorrow ye’s deal at mine.”

When Gregory meets the corpse of his sweetheart on the way
to the burial he orders that “ the spiced bread and the wine”
be dealt for her.*° But in a Greig version of Lord Thomas and
Fair Annet it seems that we have an instance of the lyke-wake
feast: *!

“OQ deal ye weel at my lover’s lyke °?
The white breid and the wine,
An’ ere the morn at this time
Ye’ll deal as weel at mine.’’

In the present connection, though not to be confused with
the feasting of the funeral guests and mourners, should be

46 There is dealing of ‘‘ wheat-bread (or white-bread) and the wine”
in nos. 64, st. 37 (Child, IV, 465) ; 73 I 41 (Child, IV, 471), E 41, F 34,
G 28, H 41; 74 A 16; “cake and your wine” in no. 74 A d 16 (Child,
II, 208); “ white bread ”’ or simply ‘ bread ” and wine in nos. 75 C 9,
fod 15,.176 © 16% “biscuit and the beer” in: ‘no..-75..G: 11> “ spice
bread and the wine” in no. 76 A 33; “beer but an the wine” in
nos. 88 E 8, 222 B 30; “short bread and the wine”’ in a text of no.
222, st. 22 (Child, V, 262). Cf. texts of no. 74 in Sharp, Folk-Songs
of England, Book I, 33; Campbell and Sharp, op. cit., pp. 67 f.;
J AFL, XXVIII, 154; and text of no. 73 in Greig, Traditional Ballads,
p. 56; text of no.- 222 in ibid., p. 271.

a1 Op cit., Ii, 237-2.

48 No. 73 H 41.

49 There is a hint here of the extravagance that formerly character-
ized funeral feasts in Scotland. See Brand, op. cit., II, 241 f.

50 No. 76 A 33.

*l Traditional Ballads, p. 56. “ Lyke” may mean simply funeral.
52 Cf. text of no. 222, ibid., 271.

SS nen eee9 ae ce res ee —— ss te

DEATH AND BURIAL LORE 97

discussed the distribution of doles at wakes or funerals, and
the mention of such doles in the testaments of the dying in
order to win the prayers of the poor or of the church. These
doles may be in the nature of money or of food.®? In Kin-
loch’s copy of Willie’s Lyke-Wake silver and gold “ fly round ”
for the sake of the deceased — this at his “ outmost yett ”
and at his “inmost yett ”: °4

It’s whan she cam to the outmost yett,5°
She made the silver fly round for his sake.

It’s whan she cam to the inmost yett,
She made the red gowd fly round for his sake.

In the Jamieson-Brown as well as in a Motherwell text of
The Gay Goshawk, another ballad of feigned death, gold is
dealt at the ‘“ thirdin kirk ” for the dead: *¢

The thirdin kirk that they came till,
They dealt gold for her sake.

In The Lass of Roch Royal bread, wine, and “ pennys” are
to be dealt at Isabell’s funeral: *

“Gar deall, gar deall for my love sake *8
The spiced bread and the wine;
For ere the morn at this time
So shall you deall for mine.

“Gar deall, gar deall for my love sake
The pennys that are so small;
For ere the morn at this time,
So shall you deall for all.”

The dying man craves the prayers of the poor, even at the
cost of “gude red gowd,” ** as in The Fire of Frendraught:

°3 There is no specific mention in British balladry of the old custom
of sin-eating, but there is good reason to believe with John Aubrey,
Remaines, p. 36, that “ Doles to Poore people with money at Funeralls
have some resemblance of that of ye Sinne-eater.”’

emo. 25 A 11 f.

°° Cf. C 6: “When that she came to her true lover’s gate, she dealt
the red gold and all for his sake.”

= No. 96 A 25, 18; of. C 46 ai.
; °7On dealing pence and half-pence at funerals see Brand, op. cit.,
I, 289.

8 No. 76 A 33 f. ;

°° In balladry gold is usually described as “red,” “reid,” or “ yellow.”
Lavish display of wealth and ornamentation is characteristic of English
and Scottish balladry.98 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

He’s taen a purse o the gude red gowd,°%
And threw it oer the wa:
“It’s ye’ll deal that among the poor,

2? 99

Bid them pray for our souls a’.

With like regard for the welfare of his soul, Lord Derwent-
water asks, just before his execution, that the fifty pounds
in his right pocket be divided “to the poor” and that a
similar sum in his left pocket be divided “from door to
door.” “' Gold is dealt for the prayers of the poor in Geordie,
prayers which, we may suppose, were efficacious, since the
story ends happily:
When she cam to the West Port,®*
There war poor folks many;

She dealt crowns an the ducatdowns,
And bade them pray for Geordie.

Pope’s will, it may be remembered, directed that poor men
should bear his pall, and the ballad dying are no less solicitous
of the interest of the poor. The stricken lover in Bonny Bee
Hom is specific enough in his testament: “*

60 No. 196 C 15.

61 Lord Derwentwater (208 A 12). Cf. D 11, E 14, F 15, I 17, and
text, Journal of the Folk-Song Society, III, 270 f.: “ Here is fifty
thousand pounds in one pocket, etc.”; and version, G. B. Gardiner and
Gustav von Holst, Folk-Songs of England, Book III, 5: “There is
forty pounds, ete.”

Begging for the dead is found in no. 66 A 31: “For a bit I’ll beg
for Chiel Wyet, for Lord Ingram I’ll beg three.” No. 107 A 66 makes

mention of the “dole-day”’: “By chance itt was of the dole-day; ”
st. 68: And now the dole that itt is delte, and all the beggars be gon
away.

62 No. 209 B 8.

63 Cf. texts C-J, and text, Gavin Greig, Folk-Song of the North-East,
art. LXXV: “She parted the yellow gold them among etc.” See also
Greig, Traditional Ballads, p. 132, and text, ibid., p. 266: She gave
“ shillins,” “croons,” and “red guineas” to the poor and “ bade them
pray for Geordie.’’

64 No, 92 B 15 f.DEATH AND BURIAL LORE 99

“Ye’ll take my jewels that’s in Bahome,®
And deal them liberallie,
To young that cannot, and old that mannot,
The blind that does not see.

“Give maist to women in child-bed laid,
Can neither fecht nor flee; ”’

Graveclothes, Coffin, and Bier. Ballad funerals, virtually
without exception, are aristocratic, and the burial clothes and
the bier, if we may trust conventional passages, reveal de-
cided splendor. The preparation of the dead for burial, the
“ streeking ” of the body,® the making of graveclothes, coffin,
and bier, are under way during the “ lyke” or wake in Lord
Thomas and Fair Annet: *

65 Cf. A 10. Lord Livingston in the ballad of that name (262, st. 29)
makes the following testament: .

“Yell take the lands o Livingston
And deal them liberallie,
To the auld that may not, the young that cannot,
And blind that does na see,
And help young maidens’ marriages,
That has nae gear to gie.”

66 On laying out or streeking the body see Brand, op. cit., II, 231 ff.
The few scattered references in the ballads to getting the body ready
for burial may be disposed of here. Washing the hands and feet of
the dead is implied in Proud Lady Margaret (47 A 18, B 23): Lady
eerearet (A 18), says her dead brother, may not go to “clay” with

im:

“ For ye’ve unwashen hands and ye’ve unwashen feet,
To gae to clay wi me.”

Braiding his hair follows hard upon Clerk Colvill’s visit to the “false
mermaid” (42 B 10): “O mother, mother, braid my hair.” Queen
Jane’s body (no. 170 I 7, Child, V, 246) is anointed with “the ointment
so sweet.” Lines from The Duke of Bedford (Child, V, 298), a plagiar-
ism from the foregoing ballad and which Child brands as “ trivial,”
portray the disembowelling and garnishing of the corpse. Cf. Child’s
version with that in the Journal of the Folk-Song Society, Vv, 79 f.:
“They opened his bowels and stretched out his feet, and garnished him
over with lilies so sweet.” Laying the body out is not described in the
ballads, but the Earl of Aboyne’s lady “ was newly strickit ” (235 D
25); H 7: was “lying streekit; ’’ and Marjorie’s is a = streikit corpse
(86 A 15). Before rolling him in a cake of lead the Jew’s Daughter
(155 B 6 f.) dresses Sir Hugh “ like a swine.” GE C Sf Dose 4-9.
The foregoing is probably an instance of disembowelling.
87 No. 73 E 36 ff.

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100 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

The firsten bower that he came till,
There was right dowie wark;

Her mither and her three sisters
Were makin to Annie a sark.

The nexten bower that he came till,
There was right dowie cheir;

Her father and her seven brethren
Were makin to Annie a bier.

The lasten bower that he came till,

And Fair Annie streekit there.
According to another text, ‘““Annie’s sisters an sisters’ bairns

were sewing at Annie’s weed.” °° Wrapping the corpse in the
winding-sheet is described in still another version: °°

Her father was at her heed, her heed,
Her mother at her feet,

Her sister she was at her side,
Puttin on her winding sheet.

 

It is a noteworthy point that in the foregoing ballad, as
well as in The Gay Goshawk, the relatives of the deceased
themselves fashion both shroud and bier. The latter song
reads: “°

Her father an her brothers dear
Gard make to her a bier;

The tae half was o guide red gold,
The tither o silver clear.

Her mither an her sisters fair
Gard work for her a sark;

The tae half was o cambrick fine,*!
The tither o needle wark.

69 F 32.

‘ONo. 96 A 22 f. Cf. G 34 f., and Willie’s Lyke-Wake (25 E 9 ff.
Child, I, 506). Mother prepares winding sheet for her dead son in no.
155 A 15, B 13, C 16, E 21, F 138, ete.

1 Cf. C 26: sark of “satin fine, and the steeking silken wark;”’
H 20 (Child, IV, 485): sheet of “silk sae fine” and “cambrie white.”
Cf. Lord Thomas and Fair Annet (73 I 38, Child, EV, 474).

cetera nas ia lean Eee har hn nt NS Sa tNDEATH AND BURIAL LORE 101

In a Motherwell copy of this piece one side of the “ smock,”
as of the bier, is of “the bonny beaten gold.” @ In still an-
other text the winding-sheet is so described.*? Seett’s text
pictures the seven sisters sewing “to her a kell,” a cap of
network, which they ornament with silver bells: “4

Then up and gat her seven sisters,
And sewed to her a kell,

And every steek that they pat in ™
Sewd to a siller bell.

In English balladry the dress of the living is usually of “ silk
sae fine,’ “holland fine,” “‘ cambric fine,” or of the “ velvet
pall,” *° but the vain lady in Proud Lady Margaret, arrayed
though she is in fine clothes and jewels, wears “ ower coarse
robes ” to “‘ go to clay’ with her dead brother.’

Descriptions of the bier and the coffin reveal the customary
fondness of the ballads for gold and silver or other ornamen-
tation.** The “boards” of the bier in a Motherwell text of
The Gay Goshawk ‘was cedar wood, and the plates ow it
gold so clear.” *® According to Scott’s text, they “ hewd it
frae the solid aik, laid it oer wi silver clear.” * In another
ballad Annie’s father and her seven brothers make “to her
a bier, wi ae stamp o the melten goud, another o siller

“2B 16: “The one side of the bonny beaten gold, and the other of
the needle-work.”’

73D 26.

74E 30.

Cf. the sails in Sir Patrick Spens (58 L 1): “ At every tack of
needle-work there hung a silver bell.” In no. 75 D 7 the burial sheets
are of linen. Cf. American text of no. 84, Campbell and Sharp, op. cit.,
p. 95: “unfold those lily-white sheets.”

76 For the use of silk see, for example, nos. 1 C 11, D 2; 4 C 6;
ee Gi: 8 AT: 10 G 4:11 #22, € 17,-G 16, ete: 88 B10: 27 AS,
B 2; 39 G 42; 42 A 5; 46 A 15. Holland: nos. 2 D5; 4D 14; 7B 8;
SOA 3; 73 A 15; 76 A 18, G.17.. Cambrit: nos: 2 G 1;'%, C 6, 2-6:
25 £11; 66 C 6; 76 D 15; 96 A 28; 98 C 42. Pall: nos. 5 A 7, B 6;
1A 22;°87 A 2,C 2; 45 A 8; 54 B11,C 10. Silk is by far the most
common fabric in the English ballads. The fondness of the ballads for
rich fabrics should be thought of in connection with their fondness for
gold and silver and jewels, and for brilliant colors, as reflecting a
primitive love for display. See my study “ ‘Sewing the Silken Seam
in the English and Scottish Ballads,” Poet Lore, XXX, no. 4.

a7 No. 47 B 23. : Pa

78 On the display of wealth in balladry see Andrew Lang, “ Ballads,
Encyclopaedia Britannica (11th ed.), III, 266.

7 No. 96 C 25.

80 EF 29.102 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

‘

clear.” *: A Motherwell text calls the bier a ‘ earriage-bier,”
“with the one side of the beaten gold, and the other o the
silver clear.” *2 In Bonnie Annie the ship’s captain makes his
love “a coffin of the gowd sae yellow.” * In Sir Hugh, The
Battle of Otterburn, and The Hunting of the Cheviot the
coffin is of hazel and birch.*t Young Jean in the song of
Glenlogie cares no more for her seals and her signets but
craves “linen and trappin, a chest and a grave.” *

In Flodden Field, a battle piece, a corpse is wrapped in
leather; *° in The Sweet Trinity, a sea ballad, in “an old
cow’s-hide.” ** The dead body is inclosed in lead in Sir
Hugh: *

She’s rowd him in a cake o lead,*?
Bade him lie still and sleep;

She’s thrown him in Our Lady’s draw-well,
Was fifty fathoms deep.

81 No. 73 I 37 (Child, IV, 471). Cf. G@ 27: “half of it guid red goud,
the other silver clear; ” as in another text (Child, V, 224, st. 25).

82 No. 96 D 10. The supposed corpse, be it remembered, is carried
by the maiden’s seven brothers from England into Scotland. See also
the specially contrived “bier” in G 39:

The bier was made wi red gowd laid,
Sae curious round about;

A private entrance there contriv’d,
That her breath might win out.

83 No. 24 A 16, B16. See also text of Baring-Gould (Child, IV, 453,
st. 14). Cf. texts in the Journal of the Folk-Song Society, Ul, 33 ff.:
“T’ll edge it all with yellow,” “of the gold that shines so yellow,”
“and the gold shall shine yellow,” the coffin “shall shine yellow; ”
ibid., III, 292 f.: “she shall have a coffin, and the nails shall shine
yellow.” Cf. text, Gavin Greig, Traditional Ballads, p. 24: “a kist 0
the gowd sae yellow.” See text, Wyman and Brockway, Lonesome
Tunes, p. 94: coffin is “ red-lined,” a probable corruption of “ red gold.”

84No. 155 N 15: “hazel and green birch;” no. 161 A 67: “of
byrch and haysell graye; ” no. 162 A 57: “birch and hasell so gray.”
In Sweet William’s Ghost (77 G1) a “wand o bonny birk”’ is laid on
the breast of the dead. On this incident see Scott, Ministrelsy, III, 231.

85 No. 238 E 12.
oe a 168, st. 12. On the historicity of this incident see Child, III,

87 No. 286 C 7: “they sewed him up in an old cow’s-hide.” Cf.
texts, Journal of the Folk-Song Society, I, 104; II, 244. American
texts: J A F L, XXIII, 429 f.: “in an old rawhide; ” Pound, American
Ballads and Songs, p. 26: in “his hammock.”

88 No. 155 A 9.

89 Cf. B, C, D, E, G; E 10 reads: “case of lead.” Cf. text, Journal
of the Folk-Song Society, V, 252 ff., first version: “ bring hither a
white winding sheet, all on a Marland cross.” Cf. Lord Soulis (Scott,
Minstrelsy, IV, 240, st. xv): “ They roll’d him up in a sheet of lead,
a sheet of lead for a funeral pall.”

ee Nn CURT» TONNE SO ESTO NIS-SORRISSICIOINE Te WUE S/O SOE NIE Sn UUSNODNSNIISNESSNENI Ses OSU UUSSeDEATH AND BURIAL LORE 103

oO

Grief and Mourning. Before taking up mourning customs
more or less as we know them today, we ought to raise the
question as to whether the ballads hold anything of primitive
mourning ritual. One is inclined to raise this question when
confronted with the various and picturesque ways that ballad
characters have of expressing grief. What means, for ex-
ample, the riving or tearing of the hair, what the pulling of
ribbons from the hair and letting them “ down fa,” what the
wringing of the hands, the “ cracking ” of the fingers? May
these incidents be dismissed as extravagances that are likely
to characterize popular poetry when striving for its own
peculiar effects, or do they reflect a way of life that, without
the aid of artistic distortion, would appear absurd to the
modern reader, as unnatural, say, as the unheroic lamenta-
tions of certain of Homer’s heroes?

What, again, signify those austerities that are vowed by
ballad actors on the occasion of the death of a loved one?
On the surface they appear to be nothing more than those
penances that were, as Prior suggests, “agreeable to the
habits of the age.” °° But may they not reflect, however in-
directly, those prohibitions that in early society centered
about death? Going without certain articles of clothing,
leaving off ornaments, fasting, wearing black, going without
fire and candle-light, all these things the bereaved in balladry
will do by way of penance or for the sake of the departed.
Thus in a Motherwell text of Clerk Saunders: ™

“It’s I will do for my love’s sake
What many ladies would think lang;

Seven years shall come and go 9

Before a glove go on my hand.

“And I will do for my love’s sake
What many ladies would not do;
Seven years shal! come and go
Before I wear stocking or shoe.

““Ther’ll neer a shirt go on my back,
There’ll neer a kame go in my hair,
There’ll never coal nor candle-light
Shine in my bower nae mair.”

 

% Ancient Danish Ballads, II, 111.
*l No. 69 D 18 ff.

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4104 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

The foregoing stanzas take on additional interest when read
in connection with E. 5. Hartland’s description of primitive
mourning practices: “ Everywhere mourning garb is an
essential part of the observances. Primarily it seems in-
” tended to distinguish those who are under the tabu. For this
reason it is usually the reverse of the garb of ordinary life.
Peoples who wear their hair long cut or shave it; those who
habitually cut or shave it allow it to grow. Those who paint
omit the painting. Those who wear clothing go naked, or
wear scanty, coarse, or old worn-out clothes. Ornaments are
laid aside or covered up. Those who habitually dress in gay
clothing put on colourless — black or white — garments.” ”
In Herd’s version of Clerk Saunders we find the additional
penance of wearing “nought but dowy black.” * In still
‘another text four stanzas are given up to an enumeration of
austerities vowed by the grief-stricken heroine: “Seven
years shall come and go before I wash this face of mine.
_... before I comb my yellow hair. .... before I cast off
stocking and shoe..... before I cast off my robes of
black.” °* The robes of black are pretty clearly indicative that
we are dealing here with mourning observances.* In
Buchan’s copy of Bonny Bee Hom the penance of fasting is
undertaken because of a maiden’s grief for her lover who
had been “ fore’d ” to “ the sea; ” but this is not grieving for
the dead: “ The ale shall neer be brewin o malt, ... . that
ever mair shall cross my hause, till my love comes to hand.” “
A mother’s grief for her two dead sons finds somewhat sim-
ilar expression in The Clerk’s Twa Sons 0 Owsenford: *'

 

92 Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, IV, 439. See also ibid., I,
231 f., under “ Austerities.”’

93 No. 69 A 20 ff.
rages 17. On penances in ballads and romances see Child, I, 156 f.;

9} On black at funerals see infra, pp. 110 ff.

we NO. 92-b 3. Cf. -A-3 f.

°TNo. 72 A 17. Refusing to eat or drink until a certain thing is
accomplished is a ballad commonplace; see nos. 41 A, 46 B, 47 A, 123
A, 200 A-F, 209 A C G; 222 A; 30, st. 7.DEATH AND BURIAL LORE 105

““O sorrow, sorrow come mak my bed,
An dool come lay me doon!
For I'll neither eat nor drink,?®
Nor set a fit on ground.”

Or better, in another text: °°

“And I will spend my days in grief,
Will never laugh nor sing;
There’s never a man in Oxenfoord
Shall hear my bridle ring.”

Divorced under false accusation of infidelity, Jamie Douglas’s
wife makes the usual resolutions of self-denial,’°’ a common-
place that occurs also in The Coble o Cargill and in Lord
Livingston.**!

Upon the death of her lover, a maiden in a Motherwell copy
of Clerk Saunders dreams of cutting her yellow hair and
dripping it in ‘‘ the wells o blood.” 1°? May this be a reflection
of the ancient custom of cutting the hair as a part of the
ritual of grief? Fair Annie, in another song, hears of her
lover’s death. She cuts off her yellow locks and hurries to
fee tye”: 7°

She has cut aff her yellow locks,
A little aboon her ee,

And she is on to Willie’s lyke,
As fast as gang could she.

But the foregoing passage may be taken with too great assur-
ance as illustrating a funerary practice, for it is a ballad
commonplace, and maidens on other occasions than death are
accustomed to “ snood,” “ plait,” or cut their yellow locks.’™

98 Of. C 19.

99 D—D AS

100 No, 204 E 7. ‘

101 Nos. 242, st. 14; 262, sts. 31 f. Cf. 81 L 48 and The Lowlands of
Holland, Journal of the Irish Folk-Song, HU, 31.

102 No. 69 D 10.

103 No, 25 E 8 (Child, I, 506). 3

104 See nos. 39 A-17, B 16, L 2 (Child, IV, 457); 41 B 2; 63 A 10;
77 A 11; 103 A 13, B 18, C 4 f.; and Child, V, 202 a.

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a? MES eS106 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

Mourning customs aside for the moment, ballad characters
do express their emotions, and among these grief, in unusual
and picturesque fashion. “ Knacking ” or wringing the

; “ white fingers,” cracking the finger-joints, tearing or riving

. the hair, are common indications of sorrow; so, too, the

breaking of rings and the flying off of buttons, nose-bleed,

and looking over the left shoulder. Exclamations of grief,

and words and phrases descriptive of the darker moods of

life, are found on every hand.’** Ballad actors are as unre-
strained in their weeping as in their laughter.**°

Riving or tearing the hair over the death of a loved one
occurs in Tytler’s Brown version of The Cruel Brother:

This ladie fair in her grave was laid,
And many a mass was oer her said.

But it would have made your heart right sair,
To see the bridegroom rive his hair.

The good Scots lords, “wi Sir Patrick at their feet,” lie
“fifty fathoms deep, and their bereaved ladies crack their
fingers white and maidens tear their hair: '°*

The ladies crackt their fingers white,1
The maidens tore their hair,

A’ for the sake o their true loves,
For them they neer saw mair.

105 For example: ‘“ hech and how,” “Och how,” “ ochanie,” “ Heigh
a ween, and Oh a ween, a ween, a woe-ses me!” (173 He 1s i335 204
L 14; The Hagg Worm, Child, II, 504, st. 27). Cf. “O hon, alas! ”
me (5 B 87); “alelladay, oh and alelladay ” (20 A 1, refrain line) ; “ waly,

waly” (96 E 1; 204 B1, C1; 9 G1, 2; 231 D b 1, Child, IV, 290).

Cf. other terms descriptive of grief: ‘tray and tene,” “dool,”

“wanhappy,” “wo, woo, woe,” “drumlie,” ‘ dowie,” “ drousli.” Cf.
“lamrachie,” “lamacheelie ” (163), Greig, Traditional Ballads, pp. 108,
ot. 20: 262.

106 A loud lauch lauched he.” See Child, V, 474, for the occurrence
of this commonplace.

107 No. 11 A 28.

108 No. 58 G 16.

109 The commonplace of wringing the hands and tearing the hair
occurs in nos. 58 H 23; 91 D 7, G 29 (Child, V, 228); 92 B; 182 E;
187 A; 191 A, C; 210 A, B, C; 243 B; 257 A; 263; 238 I; 239 A, B;
252 B; 259. Cf. Go Fetch My Little Footboy, Journal of the Folk-Song
Society, III, 74: “A wringing of his hands and a-tearing his hair;”
no. 182 in Greig, Folk-Song of the North-East, art. LXXV: “torn oot
her bonnie yellow hair, and she has torn’t locks three and three.”
“ Knacking ” the white fingers is a sign of mirth in no. 91 G 5 (Child,
V, 227): “Mukell mirth was ther; the knights knaked ther whit
fingers, the ladys curled ther hear.” Cf. no. 257 A 7.

Nee ee UID SURI ONS SCOTS I-SOUISIE SSIES NNT cD cS OOSUDENE SU USNODNOINIDNIE NEN SEsee
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DEATH AND BURIAL LORE 107

Out of grief for her drowned lover a maiden tears the rib-
bons from her hair: 1!°
The ribbons that were on her hair —
An they were thick and monny —
She rive them a’, let them down fa,
An is on [to] the water o Gamerie.

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4

At sight of Fair Annie’s corpse Lord Gregory, in The Lass .
of Roch Royal, tears “ his gowden locks” and makes a “ wafu
moan.” 1?

Already discussed under death omens, the breaking of
rings, the flying off of buttons, and nose-bleed seem in cer-
tain instances to be merely a sign of violent emotion. Thus
in Herd’s text. of Fair Mary of Wallington, Levieston, fear-
ing that his wife will die, knocks his white fingers, and his
“goude rings ”’ fly “‘in foure’”’: 1”

The knight he knocked his white fingers,1!*
The goude rings flew in foure.

Looking over the left shoulder appears to be indicative of
grief in Young Beichan: +

She’s lookit oer her left shoulder 115
To hide the tears stood in her ee,

We would not imply in our survey of the foregoing incidents
that we are dealing directly in all cases with ritualistic mourn-
ing, but these passages seem to reflect psychological traits

110 The Water o Gamrie (215 D 12). Cf. E 15, F 8, G 7, and The
Braes o Yarrow (214 D 11, I 12). See also texts of the foregoing
ballads, Greig, Traditional Ballads, pp. 142, 146. According to Child
(Ballads, IV, 462 n.), this incident belongs to no. 215.

111 No. 76,.st. 45 (Child, IV, 473).

112 No. 91 B 5, 6, 7. :

113 Cf. C 9: “Her good lord wrang his milk-white hands, till the s
gowd rings flaw in three;”’ F 11: “ Darlington stood on the stair, and
gart the gowd rings flee.” 5

Buttons burst as a sign of violent emotion in no. 73 C 15: “And
the buttons on Lord Thomas’ coat, brusted and brak in twa.” Cf.
Jamie Douglas (204 I 15). On the occurrence of this incident in the
ballads and elsewhere see Child, IV, 302. This commonplace occurs
also in Annan Water, st. 11 (Child, IV, 185). Cf. also no. 235 J 10:
“Till stays and gown and all did burst.” According to a Motherwell
text of Prince Robert (87 C 16), “death was so strong in Lord
Robert’s breast that the gold ring burst in three.”

114No. 53 A 21. Cf. no. 191 A 19. On looking over the left shoulder
as an act of evil portent see supra, pp. 75 ff.

115 Cf. looking over the right shoulder, no. 191 A 21.ic ea. NY AE Win ~ ii SUEY ION ANT

 

2s ena roa

108 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

that are more or less primitive and far removed from the
mental attitudes of more civilized people. They give evidence,
too, of a matrix of emotionalism in which may be engendered
a world of superstitious custom and belief. This same
heightened emotional state is found again in the peculiar
incident of jumping over tables or breaking table furniture
to flinders and hurling it into the fire. As it occurs in the
ballads this feat is expressive of emotions ranging from joy
to grief. It is an incident that appears not only in balladry
but in tales, and seems to have been copied directly from life
itself.*° It appears to be indicative of fear or of sorrow in
Fair Mary of Wallington. The mother, sitting “in her chair
of stone,” is called to her ‘“‘ daughter’s sickening or her merry
lake-wake ”’: 17

She kickt the table with her foot,!1§
she kickt it with her knee,

The silver plate into the fire,
so far she made it flee.

Emotional gymnastics of this sort, however, as we have al-
ready hinted, may be displayed not only on tragic occasions
but in any moment of great excitement, as when Young
Beichan learns that his old love has returned. According to
different versions, Beichan kicks over tables, breaks his
sword “in splinters three,” or clears a stair of “ fifteen” or

116 For the occurrence of this incident see Child, V, 498, at “ Table
jumped.” See especially ibid., II, 127, 128 and n.

117 No. 91 A 22.

118 Cf. B 20: “ Till siller cups an siller cans unto the floor did gae.”
The Earl of Aboyne (235 C 14) upon hearing the news of his wife’s
death, “ gae the table wi his foot, an koupd it wi his knee, gared silver
cup and easer dish in flinders flee.” D 27: “He took the table wi his
foot, made a’ the room to tremble.” Cf. J 12. “But the greatest
achievements in this way,’ notes Child (III, 509 a), “are in Slavic
ballads. A bride, on learning of her bride-groom’s death, jumps over
four tables and lights on the fifth, rushes to her chamber and stabs
herself ....” Kinmont Willie (186, st. 9) “takes the table with his
hand and gars the red wine spring on hie.” “The table,” says Child
(II, 127), “being of boards laid on trestles, would be easy to ding over,
and those in whose way it might be seem to have preferred to clear it
in that fashion, at least out of Britain.” In The Gay Goshawk (96 H
26, Child, IV, 485) the lover has

.... taen the coffin wi his fit,
Gard it in flinders flie.

But this is a ballad of feigned death.

a aDEATH AND BURIAL LORE 109

“thirty” steps in three bounds.’ Beichan’s feat is well
preserved in American texts of our ballad and in English
and Scottish versions recovered since Child.'2°

Before passing to our survey of conventional mourning
practices we must dwell for a moment upon another familiar
ballad incident. From such exaggerated expressions of grief
as those listed in the foregoing pages it is no far cry to mad-
ness or death itself, and ballad actors on tragic occasions are
prone to go “ brain” or “ wood,” to swoon, or to die of grief
or remorse. Because she is “big wi bairn” to an English
lord,’*t Lady Maisry suffers death by burning at the hands
of her relatives. Her true-love runs “ brain” on the fields: 122

Great meen was made for Lady Maisry,!23
On that hill whare she was. slain;

But mair was for her ain true-love,
On the fields for he ran brain.

1) Young Beichan (58 B 18, D 23, F 28, H 42, J 5, N 42, and texts,
Child, IV, 462, V, 219). This commonplace occurs also in nos. 63 G 18
f.; 66 C 17; 83 E 17, F 23; 96 H 26 (Child, IV, 485); 173 S 5 (Child,
ae, 508); 186, st. 9; 2385 C 14; D 29, 5 12, and text, st. 14 (Child, V,
271); 288 I 4; 91 A 22, B 20. In no. 53 A 19, E 34 Beichan makes
fifteen steps of the stair in three; D 24: “ thirty steps in three.” Cf.
N 43. In L 18 he flew in a “ passion ” and “ broke his sword in splinters
three;” K 4: “rent himself like a sword in three.” Cf. the feat of
the auld queen (5 A 38) who is stark and strang: “She gard the door
flee aff the ban; ”’ B 81: “She aff the hinges dang the dure.”

120 American texts: the most common reading is “He stamped his
foot upon the floor and burst the table in pieces three,” asin J A F L,
XVIII, 209 f.; XX, 251; XXII, 64; Wyman and Brockway, Lonesome
Tunes, p. 61; Campbell and Sharp, Folk Songs from the Southern
Appalachians, p. 41; Mackenzie, Quest of the Ballad, p. 117; Pound,
American Ballads and Songs, p. 36; in this last: “rose upon his feet,
and split his table in pieces three.” Cf. texts, Cox, Folk-Songs of the
South, pp. 36 ff.

See English and Scottish texts, Greig, Folk-Song of the North-East,
art. LXXVIII; Traditional Ballads, p. 42; Sharp and Marson, Folk
Songs from Somerset, Third Series, p...d1. :

121 Her crime is that she is with bairn to an English rather than a
Scottish lord. That her own relatives exercise justice upon her is a
striking feature of the story.

122.No. 65 H 39.

123 On this incident Child has the following note (Ballads, II, 113 n.):
“According to Buchan, H 39, Maisry’s true-love ran brain; so again
in Buchan’s version of Fair Janet; see F 35. This is Maisry’s end in
several versions of ‘Auld Ingram,’ and in all, I suppose, a modern sub-
stitute for the immediate death of older,ballads.” Throughout his great
collection Child, as in the foregoing passage, levels his criticism at
Buchan, but he often does so unjustly. Buchan’s version of Fair Janet
(64 F 7 ff.), for instance, gives us our sole example in British balladry
of the couvade.

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110 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

Such is the fate of the bereaved in Lord Ingram and Chiel
Wyet,2* Wille and Lady Maisry,* and Glasgerion.?*® In
Percy’s copy of Lord Thomas and Fair Annet Lord Thomas
waxed “ wood-wroth” when he saw Annet’s “ dear heart’s
blude.” 127 “I thinke that I was woode” is Old Robin’s ex-
euse for having mutilated his unfaithful wife,’?* and Lord
Barnard offers the same excuse for a like deed.**®? In North-
umberland Betrayed by Douglas a lady looks over her left
shoulder and falls in a “ dead swoone.” 12° Upon news of his
wife’s death, the ship-carpenter in The Daemon Lover
“ grievously fell in a swoon; 131 and out of grief for her
dead lover a maiden in Willie and Lady Maisry suffers literal
heartbreak: ‘Her heart it brak in twa.” **= And greater
heartbreak for a like cause is that of another maiden in The
Twa Brothers: “And her heart burst into three.” **° The
lover in Fair Margaret and Sweet William “dy’d for sor-
row.” !** The lachrymose napkin in Fawr Annie should not
be overlooked, although the occasion for sorrow is not
death.'*

After our survey of phrases, lines, and passages descriptive
of grief and lamentation we may now turn our attention to
such matters as mourning garb, the number of mourners, and
the period of mourning. According to the ballads, black is
the appropriate funeral color.**° Golden, stone, and oak chairs
are found in balladry, but in Sir Aldingar, Seott’s text, the
queen, about to be burnt, is set in a black velvet chair, “a
token for the dead ”’: ***

124No. 66 A 28 f., B 20, D 9.

125 No. 70 B 25.

126 No. 67 B 29. See also nos. 63 F 35, 101 A 10, 157 G 33.

127 No. 73 A 26. See W. M. Hart, English Popular Ballads, p. 325,
on the expression “ wod” as it occurs in St. Stephen and Herod (22,
No. 80, st. 30.

129 No, 81 A 27.

130 No..176, st: 37.

131 No. 243 B 12. Cf. nos. 92 B 17; 48, st. 29; 241 A 13.

132 No. 70 A 15.

133 No. 49 E18. Cf. nos. 41 A 30; 48, st. 29; 110 C 8, 21, 26; 256,
st. 10; 87 C 17; 204 D 15.

istNo, (470-17. B At:

135 No. 62 A 16.

136 On black at funerals see Brand, Popular Antiquities, II, 281 ff.

137 No. 59 B 26.

oes I a ir eer ie RE 5 LE EPI oe eR enEre eae
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CAPR Le

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DEATH AND BURIAL LORE 111

In a black velvet chair she’s set,
A token for the dead.

For seven years all “ were clad in black, to mourn for Gight’s
own lady ”—this in Buchan’s text of Geordie. Annie’s
spirit cuts Willie to the heart by reminding him of the “ black,
black kist ” to which his infidelity has consigned his for- *
saken true-love.'** Among the austerities vowed by May Mar-

gret for her dead lover is that of wearing black for seven
years: '*°

“When seven years is come an gone,
[’le wear nought but dowy black.”

A father in Earl Crawford puts on the black himself and tells
the others to do likewise: 1"

“Ye may cast aff your robes o scarlet —
I wyte they set you wondrous weel —
And now put on the black sae dowie,
And come and bury your Lady Lill.

Though it occurs in Danish balladry, white for mourning is
not found in English folksong.'*2

Conventional mourning-mantle and hat make their appear-
ance in Buchan’s text of Bonny Baby Livingston:

bee
ia
:
y
Py
lie
ie
ed
oe
jek
is
te
ba
i
As
ine

“Get me my hat, dyed o the black,144
My mourning-mantle tee,”

Letters announcing the death of the Lady of Aboyne are “ all
sealed in black,” and “ fifteen o the finest lords” “from their

== No. 209 J 41.- This incident. oceurs in what Child (IV, 126) calls
a “spurious supplement ” to the ballad.

189 No. 73 E. 34.

140 No. 69 A 22. Cf. E 20. *

141 No, 229 A 21.

142 See Axel and Walborg, st. 171, Prior, Ancient Danish Ballads, II,
273: “O take ye robes of linen white, and leave your silk so red.”

There is record of white funerals in Shropshire, Burne, Shropshire
Folk-Lore, p. 300. Cf. white “ wands ” in no. 170 D 5.

143 No, 222 B 24, ;

M4“ black suit of mourning” is one of the dying bequests in two
American variants of Lord Randal (12), J AFL, XVI, 285 ff.; XVIII,
197, In three American texts of Lord Thomas and Fair Annet (738),
J A F L, XXVIII, 152; Campbell and Sharp, pp. 56, 58, the hero
directs that his coffin be painted black. In another variant of Lord
Fandal (12), J A F L, XVI, 258, the dying lover wills a “black yoke
of oxen to his brother.”

Sets

 

Sea eT nee Es, BEA Ee RN
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a sh12 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

hose ‘to their hat, .--’... were all clad in black.” ** Black
lends its dark aspect to the pomp of royal funeral in The

Death of Queen Jane: black stockings, bands, weapons, muf-
( ’ filers, shoes, chevrons.'* In Jamieson’s copy of this little
threnody, current in both England and Scotland, there is even
greater profusion of black: ***

O black was King Henry, and black were his men,!45
And black was the steed that King Henry rode on.

And black were the ladies, and black were their fans,
And black were the gloves that they wore on their hands,

And black were the ribbands they wore on their heads,
And black were the pages, and black were the maids.

An unpopular color in balladry, black is usually accom-
panied by the epithets “ dowie ” and “ grisly.” '*° Fair Annie
rejects the “ grisly black ”’ for a wedding garment,” and an
old woman, probably a hired witch, in Robin Hood’s Death
kneels on a plank over “ blacke water ” as she bans the noble
outlaw.'**

Who the mourners are, their number, how long they mourn,
and where, may be given brief consideration. Women are
the principal mourners in balladry, partly, perhaps, because
they are the only ones left to mourn or because the mourning

“5No. O95 A 18%. Cf. (B17 f° “letter sealed wi black” and
“frae the horse to the hat, a’ must he black”. EU: ~ A’ clead in
black frae the saidle to the hat.” Cf. text, Greig, Traditional Ballads,
| p. 181: “letters sealed in black.”

mm 146 No. 170 B 8.

147:€)-4 f.

148 Cf. D 5: “Black was the mourning, and white were the wands; ”
“Six dukes followed after, in black mourning gownds.” Cf. text,
j Journal of the Folk-Song Society, V, 257: “how deep was the mourn-
‘ 2 ing; ” as in text, Sharp, One Hundred English Folksongs, Pp. 68. See

also text, Greig, op. cit., 107: “ Black was the kitchen, and black was
the hall, and black was the aprons that hung on them all.” “ And
black were the women attending Queen Jane.”

149 Black occurs in the Child pieces some three hundred times, with
reference, as a rule, to steeds. The “ milk-white ”’ steed is generally
preferred to all others. Black is found something like a dozen times in
descriptions of human hair and eyes. The hats of the two condemned
sons in no. 72 C 39 are black.

150 No. 73 B 20: “I'll na put on the grisly black, nor yet the dowie
green.” Fair Annie, to be sure, is not the bride in the story, but her
apparel is designed to outshine that of her rival.

151 No. 120 A 7 f.

 

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NEY aeDEATH AND BURIAL LORE 113

role is one to which they are well adapted. But women are
seen mourning, too, for one of their own kind. In Lord
Lovel, a song with German and Norse affiliations, there is
mourning by women for Lady Ouncebell: 1°2

He heard the sound o a fine chapel-bell,
And the ladies were mourning all.

In Percy’s version of this piece “The ladys make all their
moan.” °° “ Four and twenty ladies” let the “tears down
fall” at the death-bed of Mary in Fair Mary of Wallington.**4
In the Burton copy of this song, however, there are knights
as well as ladies,’*’ but this is probably a corruption,
“knights” being substituted for “ knight,” the lady’s hus-
band, in other copies. In both the Scott and the Motherwell
versions of Prince Robert ladies are the mourners. In
Laing’s text of Lord Lovel “the folk gae mournin round.” *°"
There is a hint of the professional mourner in Willie’s Lyke-
Wake: “Amang the weepers and merry mourners a’.” 158
Some idea as to the number of mourners may be had from
the foregoing citations. The period of mourning may cover
seven years, if we regard the austerities vowed upon the
death of a loved one as evidence of mourning customs.’ A
twelvemonth is its duration in The Unquiet Grave: 1°

152. No. 75 B 7.

193 A 6. Cf. E 6: “the ladies were making a moan.” Cf. text, Greig,
op. cit., p. 57: “people all mourning round;” and texts, Cox, Folk-
Songs of the South, pp. 79 ff.: “people” or “ladies” mourning. See
text of Lady Maisry (65), Hammond and Sharp, Folk-Songs of Eng-
land, Book I, 39: “And the ladies mourning round; ” or a ballad that
seems to be related to both the foregoing songs, Journal of the Folk-
Song Society, III, 74 f.: “ A-wringing of his hands and a-tearing of
his hair, crying, ‘ Love, will you mourn for us all?’”

a4 No. 91 A 28,

155 D 7.
_ 6No. 87 A 12: “The torches were burning, the ladies were mourn-
ing, and they were weeping a’;” cf. B 11: “And ladies mourning a’.

7No. 75 C 7. Cf. H 5: “the people all mourning round.” So,
too, in American texts: J A F L, XVIII, 291 ff.; Campbell and Sharp,
P. 71; McGill, Folk Songs of the Kentucky Mountars, p. 9; Sharp,
One Hundred English Folksongs, p. 60; Pound, American Ballads and
Songs, pp. 4 ff. English texts: Journal of the Folk-Song Society, VI,
31; Greig, Folk-Song of the North-East, II, art. CLIX.

158 No, 25 B 11.

159 See supra, pp. 103 ff.

160 No. 78, all texts.a nr

114 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

“11 do as much for my true-love +51
As any young man may;
I’ll sit and mourn all at her grave
For a twelvemonth and a day.”

In The Brown Girl a maiden says she will dance and sing on
her lover’s grave for a “ whole twelvemonth and a day ”:*”

“P11 dance and sing on my love’s grave 16
A whole twelvemonth and a day.”

In both The Unquiet Grave and The Twa Brothers the living
mourn excessively, and the slumber of the dead is disturbed
thereby: *°*

The twelvemonth and a day being up,?©
The dead began to speak:
“Oh who sits weeping on my grave,
And will not let me sleep.”

The Funeral Procession. Bearing the corpse or following
it to the grave is portrayed in several ballads,'®* and in one
song, The Death of Queen Jane, there is an imposing funeral
train. In the Mason version of Lady Alice, a little ballad
“ still of the regular stock of the stalls,” *°* the corpse is borne
on the shoulders of “ six tall men’: 7°

161 Cf, American and English variants since Child. The period of
mourning is a twelvemonth: Sharp, One Hundred English Folksongs,
p. 56; Journal of the Folk-Song Society, I, 119, 192; II, 6 ff.; Sharp
and Marson, Folk Songs from Somerset, First Series, p. 14; Leather,
Folk-Lore of Herefordshire, pp. 202 f.

162 Cf, Brand, Popular Antiquities, II, 283: “Tn England it was
formerly the fashion to mourn a twelvemonth for very near relations.”

166 No. 2905 A 8. Cf. B16. In B the motive for the dancing seems
to be revenge: “‘O never will I forget, forgive, so long as I have
breath; I’ll dance above, etc.”.. This incident occurs in American texts
of The Brown Girl: Campbell and Sharp, Folk Songs from the Southern
Appalachians, pp. 145 f. A, BF. 35 these versions, however, it is
the false lover who will dance. A 6 reads: “Off from her fingers
pulled diamond rings three. Here, take these rings and wear them
when you’re dancing on me.” The ring incident is present in the Child
texts and has there to do with the returning of the troth-plight.

164 Nos. 78 A, B, D; 49 C. In text B 10 of no. 49 the maiden harps
her lover from his grave.

165 For the occurrence of this incident in various traditions see Child,
II, 234 ff., 512 f.; III, 513 b; V, 62 f.; 294.

166 On pall-bearers: see Brand, op. cit., II, 284 fi.

167 Child, II, 279.

168 No. 85 A 2.DEATH AND BURIAL LORE 115

“What bear ye, what bear ye, ye six men tall?
What bear ye on your shoulders? ”

“We bear the corpse of Giles Collins,
An old and true lover of yours.”

In Skene’s copy of Lord Thomas and Fair Annet Annie’s
father and her seven brothers walk at her bier: 17°

Seven lang mile or he came near,
He heard a dolefull chear,

Her father and her seven brithern,
Walking at her bier;

The half of it guid red goud,
The other silver clear.

Four and twenty knights carry the “dead coffin” of Fair
Helen in a Percy text of Lord Lovel:1™

He hadna ridden a mile, a mile,
A mile but barelins ten,

When he met four and twenty gallant knights,
Carrying a dead coffin.

“Set down, set down Fair Helen’s corps,
Let me look on the dead; ”
And out he took a little pen-knife,
And he screeded the winding-sheet.

The progress of the heroine’s funeral in The Gay Goshawk
requires nine days from England into Scotland and passes
from one kirk to another with the ringing of bells, the sing-
ing of mass, and the dealing of gold. The bier is borne by
the heroine’s seven “ bold brothers ” : 172

169 Cf. B 4,,C 5 (Child, V, 225), and text, Journal of the Folk-Song
Society, III, 229 ff.: coffin borne by “six pretty lads.” Barbara M.
Cra’ster, ibid., IV, 106, discusses the soT ee. oe of Lady ae
(George Collins) and its probable derivation from the same source as
the ballad Clerk Colvill (42). See also texts of no. 85 (Child, III, 514
f.): first version, “six tall men; ” second version, “four tall men.

#0 No. 73 G 27. :

M1 No. 75112. Cf. a variant of Lady Maisry (65), Sharp and Mar-
son, Folk Songs from Somerset, Third Series, p. 57: then he saw
eight noble, noble men, a-bearing of her pall.” On bearing the coffin
as depicted in Bonny Barbara Allan (84) see Burne, Shropshire Folk-
Lore, pp. 544, 299.

M2No, 96 A 24 f.EN RR Ree a

116 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

The firstin kirk that they came till,178
They gard the bells be rung,

An the nextin kirk that they came till,
They gard the mess be sung.

The thirdin kirk that they came till,
They dealt gold for her sake,

An the fourthin kirk that they came till,
Lo, there they met her make!

In a Motherwell copy of this ballad the body appears to have
been borne on a Steed: **

‘But now she is dead, and she’s new come from her steed,!
And she’s ready to lay in the ground.”

In The Earl of Aboyne “ four-an-twenty o the noblest
lords’ convey the corpse of Peggy Ewan: '*

There waur four-an-twenty o the noblest lords 17
That Lonnon could aford him,

A’ clead in black frae the saidle to the hat,
To convey the corpse o Peggy Ewan.

The funeral procession of Queen Jane is not unworthy of
majesty. In the Percy version of this ballad ‘‘ trumpets in
mourning so sadly did sound, and the pikes and the muskets
did trail on the ground.” '** In Kinloch’s copy something as
to the order of the procession is indicated: *°°

 

Six and six coaches, and six and six more,
And royal King Henry went mourning before;
O two and two gentlemen carried her away,
But royal King Henry went weeping away.

According to Jamieson’s text, King Henry is in black and
rides a black steed; likewise in black are men, ladies, pages,

 

s78.Cf..C 30 £.; BE 31 f.; G 40 4£.; and texts, Child, IV, 483, sts. 21 f.;
IV, 484, st. after 22. This last text reads: “The third Scotts kirk
that ye gang to ye’s gar them blaw the horn.”

174 B 19.

175 According to this version the journey is made partly by sea:
“Many a mile by land they went, and many a league by sea.”’

176 No. 235 E 7. On following the corpse to the grave see Brand,
op. cit., II, 249 ff.

177 Cf. F 12: “fifty o the bravest lords.” Cf. text, Greig, Traditional
Ballads, p. 181: “Fifteen o the noblest lords.”

ae ih Death of Queen Jane (170 A 6).

ts TsDEATH AND BURIAL LORE 117

and maids, and the “ trumpets they sounded ” and the “ can-

nons did roar.” '*° Processional torches are found only in the
Bell text: 1*

So black was the mourning, and white were the wands,
Yellow, yellow the torches they bore in their hands; 182

The bells they were muffled, and mournful did play,183
While the royal Queen Jane she lay cold in the clay.

Six knights and six lords bore her corpse through the grounds,
Six dukes followed after, in black mourning gownds;

The flower of Old England was laid in cold clay,
Whilst the royal King Henrie came Weeping away.

There is no evidence in the ballads of leading the dead
man’s horse in the funeral train, unless there be a hint of it
in Young Waters, where the hero’s “ horse bot and his sad-
dle’? are taken to the scene of his execution,'’™ the “ heiding-
mar. 335

The Grave. With respect to burial proper the ballads
yield evidence as to the place and manner of burial, such as)
locating the grave, orientation, burial of belongings with the
dead, and distinctions in burial. To begin with we should
note that the dying often give instructions concerning their
grave, an incident that recalls death-bed testaments,'** the
directions of the dying to deal “ white bread and wine” at

180C 6.

181 DP 5 f.

182“ The custom of using torches and lights at funerals or in funeral
processions,” says Brand (op. cit., II, 276), “appears to have been of
long standing.”

183 Cf. an American variant of this piece, Sharp, One Hundred Eng-
lish Folksongs, p. 68: “yellow, yellow were the flamboys they carried
in their hands.” Observe the interesting corruption of “flamboys” in
an English variant, Journal of the English Folk-Song Society, V, 257:
“yellow was the flower, my boys, he carried in his hands.” See also
The Duke of Bedford (Child, V, 298, st. 7): “And pretty were the
flamboys that they carried in their hands.” In the foregoing American
and English variants of Queen Jane there are fiddling and dancing to
celebrate the birth of the priince, an incident not found in the Child
versions.

184 No. 94, st. 13 f. Young Waters’ son and lady are also taken to
the “heiding-hill.” Buchan’s copy (Child, II, 344, sts. 20 f.) includes
the condemned man’s hounds and “ gos-hawk” as well.

185 Ballad executions often take place on a hill. Cf. no. 93 .D 30:
“false nurse was burnt on the mountain hill-head; ” no. 271 A 104:
“burnte him eke vpon a hyll.”

 

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118 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

the wake and money to the poor,'*’ as well as the dying re-
quest of certain ballad heroes that their friends avenge
them.'** The dying boy in The Twa Brothers, the lover in
Lord Thomas and Fair Annet, little Sir Hugh in The Jew’s
Daughter, and “ bully ” Bewick in Bewick and Graham, as
well as others, are very much concerned as to the manner of
their sepulture. And we must not overlook Robin Hood’s
interesting specifications for his burial.*° Lord Barnard
orders his grave with a succinctness of which Browning’s
Bishop is incapable: *”

186 See nos. 11, 12, 18. On the death-bed testament see E. C. Perrow,
The Last Will and Testament in Literature, Publications of the Wis-
consin Academy of Sciences, XVII. Respecting the ill wishes that
occur in certain of these legacies, Prior (Ancient Danish Ballads, U,
369) observes: “ From the ill wishes that accompany some of the gifts
we may suppose that people attached some supernatural power to the
dying words of the testator.”

Prior’s observation finds support in the poetic Edda (Fafnismol),
where we read that Sigurth concealed his name because it was thought
in olden times that “the word of a dying man might have great power
if he cursed his foe by his name.”

187 See supra, pp. 95 ff.

188 As in nos. 191 A 23, C 16, D 15; 193 B Ads,

189 “ Our British ballad-commonplace of instructions given by a dying
person about a ‘marble-stone’ and the inscription thereon, etc., is found
often in these Swiss songs, the phraseology in some cases being strik-
ingly similar to ours.” (Lucy Broadwood, rev. S. Grolimund, Volks-
lieder aus dem Kanton Aargau, Folk-Lore, XXIII, 129.)

190 Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard (81 © 32). Ch-A 20, F 24,

H 20, I 22, J 25, L 45 f., and original text of F (Child, IV, 477, st. 24).
Cf. an American text, Campbell and Sharp, Folk Songs from the
Southern Appalachians, p. 83: “ Go bury me on yonder church hill
with Matthy in my arms asleep..... And bury Lord Dannel at my
feet.”
Similar directions given by the dying are found in the following
pieces: nos. 12 H 11,8 5 (Child, I, 500), as in Baring-Gould, A Gar-
land of Country Song, no. 38; 49 A 4, B45, C6,D8 £, £8, F 9, 8s
(Child, V, 218), and text, st. 5 (Child, IV, 460), as in American texts,
Campbell and Sharp, op. cit., pp. 33, 36; 73 Dd (Child, II, 196), D f
(Child, II, 197), as in American variants, J A F L, XIX, 253 ff., a, b,
ce; XXVIII, 152; Mackenzie, Quest of the Ballad, p. 99: “ He ordered a
coffin to be made, a coffin both wide and long, ete.”; Campbell and
Sharp, op. cit., pp. 56, 58, A, B; A 13 reads: “Go dig my grave both
wide and deep,and paint my coffin black, and bury me, ete.”; no. 85
A 4: “And bury me in Saint Mary’s church,.... And make me a
garland of marjoram, ete.”, C 7 (Child, V, 226); no. 96, all versions:
a maiden instructs her parents to bury her in Scotland; no. 155 A, B,
C, E, F, M, O, T (Child, V, 241); no. 211, st. 51.

With this incident compare that of a dying person’s asking that his
bed (bed often euphemistic for grave) be made: no. 7 B 16, C 14, as
in Greig, Folk-Song of the North-East, art. LVII, and American texts,DEATH AND BURIAL LORE 119

“A grave, a grave,” Lord Barnet cryde,191
“Prepare to lay us in;
My lady shall lie on the upper side,192
Cause she’s of the better kin.”

It is a fitting conclusion to the career of Robin Hood that the

dying outlaw should mark the spot for his grave by the flight
of an arrow: !%

“But give me my bent bow in my hand,1%%4
And a broad arrow I’ll let flee;
And where this arrow is taken up,
There shall my grave digged be.”

A somewhat Similar, and possibly identical incident, occurs

in Sheath and Knife. The brother-lover is thus instructed
by his dying sister : 195

“Now when that ye hear me gie a loud cry,
Shoot frae thy bow an arrow and there let me lye.196

““And when that ye see I am lying dead,
Then ye’ll put me in a grave, wi a turf at my head.”

 

Campbell and Sharp, op. cit., pp. 10, 12, 18, 15; no. 42 A idB 10, Ce:
no. 52 B 12; no. 84 A 9; no. 233 B 21, C 40; and also in most versions
of no. 12, asin A: “ mother, mak my bed soon.” The foregoing cita-
sions are not meant to be exhaustive for this commonplace.

11 Lord Barnard’s remorse, as in A 27 ff., and B 12 f., is among the
beautiful incidents in ballad literature.

122 On distinctions in burial see infra, pp. 129 ff.

193 Robin Hood’s Death (120 B 16). Cf. A 26 f.

4 An important note bearing upon the incident of shooting an arrow
to locate a grave, a note the date of which is later than Child, is
found in Folk-Lore, XII, 305 and n.: W. B. Gerish cites a popular
account relative to Piers Shonkes and his choice of a burial place.
This incident, says Mr. Gerish, “resembles an incident in the Robin
Hood hero-tale.” “The chief variant is, that when Piers was on his
death-bed he called for his bow and arrow and shot it at random from
his window, commanding that he should be buried where the arrow fell.”

Child (Ballads, II, 499), with reference to Hindoo, Greek, and Slavic
tales, notes the occurrence of the incident of shooting an arrow to
“determine where a wife is to be sought.” Arrows were formerly used
in divination. See Aubrey, Remaines of Gentilisme and Judiasme, pp.
92, 116.

™ No. 16 A 3 f. Cf. B 2, C 3, and Leesome Brand (15 A 27 ff., B
4 ff.). The incident of the arrow does not occur in an Aberdeenshire
version of Leesome Brand, Greig, Traditional Ballads, pp. 16 f.

“6 With respect to Sheath and Knife Child (Ballads, I, 185) says:
“The directions in 3, 4 receive light from a passage in ‘ Robin Hood’s
Death.’” But later (ibid., III, 103 n.) he concludes that the arrow
was not meant to determine the place of a grave but rather “that the
arrow is to leave the bow at the moment when the soul shoots from
the body.” It is possible that the white hind of the story is the animal
form taken by the soul of the dead mother.

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120 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

The kirk-yard receives most of the ballad dead. Giles
Collins would forego such sepulture, however, in order to lie
under “ Lady Annice’s wall’: *

“Q bury me not in our churchyard,'”®
But under Lady Annice’s wall.”

In view of the possible connection between Lady Alice and
Clerk Colvill,’®? a ballad of the supernatural, is it not probable
that Giles Collins’ request may arise from his having had

commerce with a mermaid, an attachment that would unfit

him for burial in sacred ground? In any event, burial within
the churchyard is a ballad desideratum, although again fate
decrees against such sepulture in Bessy Bell and Mary Gray.
The “bonnie lasses” had “ thought to lye in Methven kirk-
yard, amang their noble kin,” but “ they maun lye in Stronach
haugh, to biek forenent the sin.” °° As a rule, however, the
ballad dead fare better. In Bromsgrove churchyard lies the
old lady in Sir Lionel along with her slayer Sir Ryalas.?*
The “ pretty boy ” in Lord Randal finds an interment no less
happy,° as do also the dead in The Twa Brothers, Sweet
William’s Ghost,2°* Willie and Earl Richard’s Daughter,’ Sir
Hugh,?° and Robin Hood’s Death, as well as Robin Hood's
Progress to Nottingham, not to mention others. But we
must not forget those ballad lovers whom death cannot part

 

 

197 Child, III, 514, st. 2.

198 Cf, text, Journal of the Folk-Song Society, III, 299: The lover
asks to be buried “ under that marble stone, that’s against fair Helen’s
hall.” Cf. American texts, Cox, Folk-Songs of the South, pp. 110 ff.,
A, B, E. A 5: “Go bury me under the white marble stone, at the
foot of Fair Ellen’s green hill.”

199 On the possible relationship between these two ballads see discus-
sion by Barbara M. Cra’ster in the Journal of the Folk-Song Society,
Ill, 299; IV, 106.

200 No. 201, st. 3.

201 No. 18 C 16.- Cf. D 11, and C 16, D 11 (Child, I, 215).

2022 No. 12 H 11. I 8: “corner of the churchyard.”

203 No. 49, all versions save G and the Hudson text (Child, V, 290).
A and D: “Kirkland fair; ” E: at “yon kirk-style.” Cf. American
text, J A F L, XXX, 294: “beneath the churchyard tree; ” Cox, Folk-
Songs of the South, p. 34: “ churchyard.”

204 No. 77 A, C, E. In A and C the churchyard is far beyond the
sea. Cf. Proud Lady Margaret (47 D 10, E 6).

205 No. 102 B.

206 No. 155 F: “green churchyard.” Cf. American text, J A F L,
XIX, 294, b: “Dug his grave by a juniper tree.”

207 Nos. 120 B 19; 139, st. 18: “buried them all a row.”

eo nD lc i lA ttn ARAN mln NaDEATH AND BurRIAL LORE 1Zi

and whose souls spring from the grave in the form of loving
plants.** The lovers are buried, the one in “ St. Mary’s kirk,”
the other in “ Mary’s quire,” or in the “lower chancel ” and
the “ higher,” or in “ the east ” and in “ the west,” according
to Lady Alice; *** or within and without “ kirk-wa,” as in
Lord Thomas and Fair Annet.2 The lovers in Eard Brand
both lie within the church: 2+

The one was buried in Mary’s kirk,212
The other in Mary’s quire;

The one sprung up a bonnie bush,
And the other a bonny brier.

*08 The priority of romance or ballad is discussed by Child (I, 98) in
connection with this incident: “The idea of love-animated plants has
been thought to be derived from the romance of Tristran, where it also
occurs; agreeably to a general principle, somewhat hastily assumed,
that when romances and popular ballads have anything in common,
priority belongs to the romances. The question as to precedence in this
instance is an open one, for the fundamental conception is not less a
favorite with ancient Greek than with mediaeval imagination.”

Child might well have added that this beautiful incident gives evi-
dence of the belief that the soul may at death pass into the form of a
tree, a belief that is current the world over in the traditions not only
of civilized peoples but of Savage or primitive races as well.

209 No. 85 A 5, B 6. Another text (Child, III, 515) reads: “in the
east church-yard.” I find no instance in this commonplace of making
the grave in the north or the south.

210No. 73 A 29: “Lord Thomas was buried without kirk-wa.”’

211 No. 7 C 17.

212 Cf. B 18: “St. Mary’s kirk” and “ Mary’s quire; ” as in Greig,
Folk-Song of the North-East, art. LVII; Traditional Ballads, D0"
American texts, Campbell and Sharp, Folk Songs from the Southern
Appalachians, pp. 10, 14: “by the church door,” “at the upper church
yard.” Other ballads that read as does no. 7 C17 are: nos. 64 A 30,
E 20; 73 B 39, E 42, F 36, G 29, and text, Child, V, 224, st. 27, as
well as texts, Greig, Traditional Ballads, p. 56; Journal of the Folk-
Song Society, II, 105 ff., fourth version. Variation in the name of the
church: ‘no. 75 B 11, F 6 (St. John’s), H 9 (St. Pancras’), I 16, as
also in McGill, Folk Songs of the Kentucky Mountains, p. 10 (St.
Pancras); Greig, Folk-Song of the North-East, art. CLIX (St. Pat-
rick’s); Greig, Traditional Ballads, p. 58 (St. Pancras); nos. 76 A 35;
87 A 20, B 15; 222, st. 23 (Child, V, 262). Other readings for this
commonplace: no. 73 D h (Child, II, 198): “end of church: ” no. 74
A 18: “lower chancel” and “ higher,” as in 85 C 8 (Child, V, 226) ;
cf. text of no. 74, Mackenzie, Quest of the Ballad, p. 126: “ chancel
gate” and “choir;” text, McGill, op. cit., Dp. 70; “lower” and
“higher ” churchyard; text, J A F L, XXX, 304: “high churchyard ”
and “mire.” Cf. no. 75 A 10, E 9: “high chancel” and choir. For
other readings of no. 74 with slight variations see Campbe | and Sharp,
op. cit., pp. 65, 67, 68; no. 75 in Pound, American Ballads: and Songs,
p. 7; Journal of the Folk-Song Society, III, 74 f.; no. 84 in Campbell
and Sharp, op. cit., pp. 91, 93, 96, 98; Wyman and Brockway Lone-
some Tunes, p. 5. No. 76 C 16 (Child) reads: “ Mary’s isle Mary’s
quire.”

 

Fe

ene = ee AS

—
ok

‘

Sh SRNa —— em eee

122 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

Disposal of the dead in balladry means virtually always
burial beneath the ground. Young Andrew was. never
“buryed vnder mold,” however, for he was slain by a ter-
rible wolf that got into the story, says Professor Child, no
one knows how.?* The grave is usually described as “ lang
and large,” “braid and lang,” or “ wide and deep,” as in
The Twa Brothers: °"*

‘Oh brither dear, take me on your back,?!°
Carry me to yon kirk-yard,
And dig a grave baith wide and deep,
And lay my body there.”

For her murdered babes the cruel mother makes a “ hole
baith deep and wide”: *'®

She has howked a hole baith deep and wide,?!*
She has put them baith side by side.

“Let me have length and breadth enough,” is Robin Hood’s
dying request.2"* ‘“ She wants to be laid in your grounc ; Bae
Janet’s seven brethren in The Gay Goshawk,?® and in The
Three Ravens a fallow doe carries her dead knight to
“earthen lake.” ??°

In the ballads Edward and Lizie Wan Gummere sees a
hint of boat-burial.22* In the former piece Davie tells his
mother the kind of death he would like to die: *°

“Tl set my foot in a bottomless ship,??*
Mother lady, mother lady:
I’ll set my foot in a bottomless ship,
And ye’ll never see mair o me.”

213 Young Andrew (48, st. 37).

214 No. 49 A 5.

215 Cf. B 5, D 8, F 9, and A b 5 (Child, IV, 460), H 5 (Child, V, 218).
Cf. American texts, Campbell and Sharp, op. cit., pp. 33, 36.

216 The Cruel Mother (20 C 4). Cf. text, Mackenzie, Quest of the
Ballad, p. 105: “hole seven feet deep.” Cf. nos. 15 B 9, 16 A 6.

217 On the burial of two or more in one grave see infra, pp. 130 ff.

218 Robin Hood’s Death (120 B 18).

219 No 96 D 12.

220 No. 26, st. 8. It is probable that the fallow doe is the slain knight’s
mistress in the form of a deer.

221 Germanic Origins, p. 325 and n.

222 No. 13 A 9.

223 Cf. Lizie Wan (51 A 11, B 18). A 11:

“T’ll set my foot in a bottomless boat,
And swim to the sea-ground.”DEATH AND BURIAL LORE 123

That Sir Andrew Barton may be buried under ground, his
enemies, after beheading him, bind him to “ borden tre” so
that he may float to shore. About his middle they tie “ five
hundreth angels ” to insure his proper sepulture: 74

But of he cut the dead man’s heade,?2°
And bounde his bodye toe borden tre,

And tiede five hundreth angels about his midle,
That was toe cause hime buried toe bee.

There is only one actual burial at sea-in the English ballads,
that of the “little cabin-boy,” an incident that is the dis-
tinguishing feature of a stall copy of The Sweet Trinity, but
which is found in American variants as well: °°

They laid him on the deck, and it’s there he soon died; 227

Then they sewed him up in an old cow’s-hide,

And they threw him overboard, to go down with the tide,
And they sunk him in the Low Lands Low.

The early practice of heaping the grave with stones is re-
flected in the ballad of The Cruel Mother. The ghosts of the
babes have returned to accuse the’ murderess: **®

“Ye happit the hole wi mossy stanes
And there ye left our wee bit banes.”

224 No. 167, st. 73 (Child, IV, 502 ff.).
won Cf. A 70:

And about his middle three hundred crownes:
“ Whersoeuer thou lands, itt will bury thee.”

For the occurrence of this incident in literature see Professor Kitt-
redge’s references, Child, IV, 502; V, 245. It is found in the Danish
ballad Sir John Rimord’s Son’s Shrift. Translation, Prior, Ancient
Danish Ballads, II, 232, reads:

Three money-pouches took Sir John,
And firmly about him bound:

“A boon for him who lays my corse
Beneath some holy ground.”

226 No. 286 C 7. :

27 Cf. C e 12, f 7, G9 (Child, V, 142). In certain texts (Child, V,
139, 140) the wrapping in the “ bull’s-skin ” is not meant as part of
the burial. Cf. text, Journal of the Folk-Song Society, II, 244: “black
bear skin” as disguise. Cf. American texts, J AF L, XXIIl, 429;
Pound, American Ballads and Songs, pp. 24 ff.

228 No. 20 L 7.

Ss

tt t

FoR

aRES

124 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

According to other texts, she “has covered them oer wi a
marble stane.” 22° The simple “ stane ” in The Twa Brothers
has a more ancient ring: *°°

He laid him in the cauld cauld clay,
And he cuirt him wi a stane,

Another text of this piece adds “ good green turf” to the
stone: 7”

“You'll put a good stone ou my head,
Another at my feet,
A good green turf upon my breast
That the sounder I m[aly sleep.”

The marble stone as a grave covering ** is found again in
The Cruel Brother: “She lies aneath yon marble stone.” 2%

Green sod appears to be a sine qua non of the ballad grave.
In a fragmentary text of The Famous Flower of Serving-Men
a maiden, after sewing her love’s winding sheet, watching
his corpse, bearing it upon her back,”** lays him in the grave

and heaps him with green sod: **
I took the corpse then on my back,
And whiles I gaed, and whiles I sat;
I digd a grave, and laid him in,
And hapd him wi the sod sae green.

 

According to The Twa Brothers, a green sod laid upon the
breast of the dead causes sound sleep.?** In Sweet William’s
Ghost a “ wand o bonny birk” performs a like office.*** The

 

229C 5; H 6: “with a marble stone, for dukes and lords to walk
upon;” I 6. Cf. text, Journal of the Folk-Song Society, Ill, 70 f.,
second version; American text, Campbell and Sharp, op. cit., p. 30:
the mother hides the bloody knife “under the marble stone.”

230 No. 49 C 11.

231 H 6 (Child, V, 218).

232“ This custom of laying flat stones in our churches and church-
yards over the graves of the better class of folk, for the purpose of
inscribing thereon the name, age, and character of the deceased, has
been transmitted from very ancient times.” (Brand, op. cit., H, 301.)

233 No. 11 B 28. Cf. Lord Randal (12 H 11): ‘“ Put a stone to my
head and a flag to my feet;”’ The Twa Brothers (49 F 16): “a head-
stane at his head, another at his feet.”

234 Cf, a similar incident in The Three Ravens (26, st. 8): “She
got him vpon her backe, and carried him to earthen lake.”

235 No. 106, sts. 4 f. (Child, IV, 492).

236 No. 49 F 16, H 6 (Child, V, 218).

237 No. 77 G 1, and text, Child, IV, 474, st. 1.FE ek ee

SRE AS

DEATH AND BURIAL LORE 125

dying sister in Sheath and Knife asks for a “turf” at her
head,”** and Robin Hood directs that a “ green sod” be placed
under his head, another at his feet, and that his grave be
made of “gravel and green’: 2°9

“Lay me a green sod under my head,
And another at my feet; -
And lay my bent bow by my side,
Which was my music sweet;
And make my grave of gravel and green,240
Which is most right and meet.”

The “green gravel” of Robin’s grave recalls the ring-game
of Green Gravel, which originally may have been “a child’s
dramatic imitation of an old burial ceremony.” 241

Orientation seems to determine the position or direction of
the grave in the ballad of The Cruel Mother: 2%

EI TT HETIL TE
aire tansy oat

ETRE

She howkit a grave forenent the sun,743

And there she buried her twa babes in.
According to other copies, she “ howkit a hole before the
sun,” *** “ayont the sun,” 2" “anent the meen.” 246 At this
point we may raise the question as to whether Motherwell’s
Agnes Laird copy of our ballad furnishes an instance of

burial alive. Professor Child so explains the following
lines: 247

GRRE

ke
{ oy
Be
2
¥
ee
pe
&

ay

438 No..16 A 4,

289 Robin Hood’s Death (120 B 17).

240 Cf. A 26: “And there make me a full fayre graue, of grauell
and of greete.”

“41 Alice Gomme, Traditional Games of England, Scotland, and Ire-
land, I, 169. On the “ gravel and green ” of the ballad and the singing-
game Green Gravel see A. Gilchrist in the Journal of the Folk-Song
Society, VI, 83.

242 No. 20 E 7. Cf. N 7 (Child, I, 504): “fornent the seen; as in
text, Child, IV, 451, st. 5.

*43 Cf. the “sun-side” of the grave in Bewick and Graham (C21 st: *
D1); g 51 (Child, IV, 150): “sunney side; ” cf. Little Musgrave (81
F 24): “sunny side” of grave. See swearing by the sun in nos. 156
F 6, 200 B 17. Cf. “ marry thee under the sun ” in no. 2, st. 14 (Child,
IV, 440). Cf. the following from a Danish ballad King Waldmar’s
Suit to Queen Dagmar, trans. Prior, Ancient Danish Ballads, I, 123:

Sir Strangé he turn’d him towards the sun,
And solemnly made reply;

FRAT

aE ee

Dg or, H, ties them hand and feet and buries them alive.”
(Ballads, I, 218.)126 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

She took the ribbons off her head,?48
She tied the little babes hand and feet.

She howkit a hole before the sun,
She’s laid these three bonnie babes in.

In other versions, however, the mother slays the babes be-
fore burying them and it is possible that this incident was
merely omitted by the singer of the foregoing version.?*°

The ancient and primitive practice of burying with the
dead certain of their possessions is reflected in three fine
ballads, Robin Hood’s Death, The Twa Brothers, and Sir
Hugh. Among other instructions relative to his burial Robin
Hood directs that his sword be set at his head, his arrows at
his feet, and his bow by his side: ?°°

“ And sett my bright sword at my head,?°!
Mine arrowes at my feete,
And lay my vew-bow by my side,
My met-yard wi... .-

Nor are Robin’s instructions in the Paisley text to be ignored:
“Let me have length and breadth enough; ” *°? for the out-

28H 4f. Cf. C 2, E 6, F 6, G3, I 5, ete.

249 But a clear case of burial alive occurs in Norse analogues of
Leesome Brand (15), concerning which incident Child remarks (Ballads,
f.3907 <2 y the horrible circumstance of the children being
buried alive is much more likely to be slurred over or omitted at a
later day than to be added.”

250 No. 120 A 27: B 27 reads: “And lay my bent bow by my side,
which was my music sweet.” Cf. Clerk Colvill (42 A 18): a dying
man requests, ‘ Oh, brither, brither unbend my bow, ’t will never be
bent by me again.” Child quotes (Ballads, 111, 104) from a Russian
popular song that has “an interesting likeness to the conclusion of
Robin Hood’s death. The last survivor of a band of brigands, feeling
death to be nigh, exclaims:

‘ At my feet fasten my horse,
At my head set a life-bestowing cross,
In my right hand place my keen sabre.’ ”

In the Danish ballad Orm Ungersvend og Bermer-Rise, a song with
certain resemblances to King E'stmere (60) we find a splendid example
of the barrow-grave and the incident of a magic sword buried with the
dead. See translation, Prior, op. cit., I, 1382. In his Pagan Scotland
Anderson describes a burial in the Western Isles of a wicking-smith
with his tools, hammer, tongs, etc.

251In balladry swords are often both “brown” and “bright.” See
Gummere, Old English Ballads, p. 345.

252B 18. So in no. 49 B 5, D 8. Child (III, 104) notes the dimen-
sions of the grave in a Greek song: “Dimos, twenty years a Klepht,
tells his comrades to make his tomb wide and high enough to fight in at,
standing up, and to leave a window, so that the swallows may tell him
that spring has come.... ”DEATH AND BURIAL LORE iy

AE

EEE 2

law’s grave suggests the roomy barrow of ancient times.2°?
“The ‘ met-yard’ of the last line is one of the last things we
should think Robin would care for,” notes Child in his intro-
duction to this piece,’** but later he observes that the met-
yard or measuring-rod is a necessary part of an archer’s
equipment.?*°

In this matter of funeral mobilier a stanza in Jamieson’s
text of The Twa Brothers, as does that in a Motherwell copy,
comes very near the passage in Robin Hood’s Death:

fT

“Ye’ll lay my arrows at my head,256
My bent bow at my feet,
My sword and buckler at my side,
As I was wont to sleep.”

RIE

le
4
j

2
E
a
Be
8
fs
te
i

The Motherwell text makes something of a compromise be-
tween Christianity and paganism: 2°"
“Lay by bible at my head,” he says,2°8
““My chaunter at my feet,
My bow and arrows by my side,
And soundly I will sleep.”

Little Sir Hugh is orthodox enough. He asks for burial in
the churchyard and that a Bible be placed at his head, a
Testament at his feet, and pen and ink at every side: 2°°

et
Se

253 See Vigfusson-Powell, Corpus Poeticum Boreale, I, 420.

254 Op. cit., III, 103 n.

259 Tbid., V, 297: “The met-yard, being a necessary part of an
archer’s equipment for such occasions as p. 29, 148, LDSs° p.° 15,09!
p. 93, 28; p. 201, 18, 21, may well enough be buried with him.”

In a curious tale relating to Cormac Ogmundsson’s father the met-

SE re BE A EAR US Be

yard is employed in divination. “ When a man had laid out his house
‘it was the belief in those days, that as the meteyard fitted, when it
measured a second time, so the man’s luck should fit.’” (Vigfusson-

Powell, Corpus Poeticum Boreale, II, 32.) This note is not uninterest-
ing in view of Robin’s divinatory method of locating his grave in B 16
by shooting an arrow.

256. No. 49 D 9. The instructions in D 8, A 5, C 10, F 9, “lift me
upon your back, ete.” occur also in no. 120 A 26; no. 106, sts. 4 f (Child,
IV, 494); cf. no. 26, st. 8.

257 B 6.

258 Cf. American text, Campbell and Sharp, English Folk Songs from
the Southern Appalachians, p. 34:

He buried his bible at his head,
His hymn book at his feet,

His bow and arrow by his side,
And now he’s fast asleep.

209 Sir Hugh (155 E 20).RENN rnae fee eas TRO eee ne : SSDS mee

128 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

“ Put a Bible at my head,” he says,?°?
“And a Testament at my feet,
And pen and ink at every side,
And Ill lie still and sleep.” 7°

’ At this point it may be well to give certain stanzas from
Motherwell’s version of Sweet William’s Ghost, stanzas which,

’

says Child, are “not trivial or unimpressive” and “ cannot
be an accretion of modern date.” *°* Marjory has followed
her lover’s ghost or rather her lover’s corpse to the church-
yard. The grave opens up, Sweet William resumes his wormy
bed, and Marjory questions him concerning the other strange
occupants of his grave: °°

‘‘ What three things are these, Sweet William,” she says,
“That stands here at your head? ”’

“It’s three maidens, Marjorie,”’ he says,
‘That I promised once to wed.”

‘‘ What three things are these, Sweet William,” she says,
“That stands here at your side? ”

“Tt is three babes, Marjorie,’ he says,
‘That these three maidens had.”

“What three things are these, Sweet William,” she says,
“That stands here at your feet? ”

“Tt is three hell-hounds, Marjorie,” he says,
“‘That’s waiting my soul to keep.”

esocer. -f. 14>" Bible” and ““Testament;”.N 15 f.:° “grave large
and deep,” “ coffin of hazel and green birch,” “ Bible at my head,....
busker- (?) at my feet, .... little prayer-book at my right side; ”
H, I, and M: say nothing as to burial, but Bible and Testament are
found in H 7; I 5: Bible, Testament, and Catechise-Book “in his
own heart’s blood; ”’ M 6: ‘Seven foot Bible at my head and my feet; ”
7 (Child, V; 241); “Prayer-Book at my head, ....: grammar at
my feet, that all the little schoolfellows as they pass by may read them
for my sake:” S 7 (Child, IV, 497 f.): Bible, Testament, and prayer-
book.

Cf. texts, Journal of the Folk-Song Society, I, 264: Bible and Testa-
ment; ibid., V, 253 ff., second version: “ prayer<book at his head,
-3. = testament at his feet;.... .. Bible at his heart.” J A FL, XIX,
298: prayer-book and Bible; ibid., p. 294: marble slab at head, “his
ball”? at feet; ibid., XXIX, 164 ff., first version: prayer-book and
Bible; as: in Campbell and Sharp, op. cit., p. 111, and C. A. Smith,
“Ballads Surviving in the United States,” Musical Quarterly, p. 15.
Cf. texts, Cox, Folk-Songs of the South, pp. 120 ff., A, B, C, D, E, F.
Cf. variant of no. 78, Cox, ibid., p. 52: “new Bible under my head.”

261 A hint here that the ghost would walk in case the instructions
were not carried out.

262 On. cit., U1, 227;

263 No. 77 C 11 ff. May there not be here a reminiscence of the
household of the Scandinavian barrow?DEATH AND BURIAL LORE 129

~

In one version of The Unquiet Grave there is a hint of the
practice so well illustrated in Robin Hood’s Death and The
Twa Brothers, the practice, namely, of burying belongings
with the dead. It was anciently the custom to inter with
the dead man something of his earthly treasure in the nature
of gold and jewels. The “gold” and “ wealth” spoken of
in the following passage give evidence of this old custom:

A twelvemonth and a day being past,264
His ghost did rise and speak:
“What makes you mourn all on my grave?
For you will not let me sleep.”

“Tt is not your gold I want, dear love,?65
Nor yet your wealth I crave;
But one-kiss from your lily-white lips
Is all I wish to have.”

An interesting feature of funerary practice in the ballads
is that of distinctions in burial. These distinctions rest upon
differences in the rank of the dead, upon guilt or sin, or upon
success in arms, and depend, we may suppose, as in the inci-
dent of the sympathetic plants, partly, at least, upon the
artistic purposes of the story. This last-named _ incident,
however, illustrating as it does burial in the chancel, lower
and higher, at the church door, and so on, recognizes in a
general way the desirability of sepulture within the church
and in that part of the church that is nearest the altar.?°

264No. 78 B38 f.

“© Cf. the Danish ballad Orm Ungersvend og Bermer-Rise in which
Childe Orm seeks out his father in his barrow in order to gain posses-

sion of the “Sword Birting.” Prior’s translation (Ancient Danish
Ballads, I, 135) reads:

“And is it thou art come, childe Orm,
My youngest son so dear?
And is it gold, or silver plate,
Or coin, thou seekest here? ”’

 

“T want nor gold, nor silver plate,
Nor coin from out thy grave,
But all to win a lovely maid
Sword Birting come to crave.”

With respect to interment in church and churchyard Brand (op.
cit., II, 293) quotes Laurence “in a sermon preached before Charles in
1640”: “*Churchyards they thought profaned by sports, the whole
circuit both before and after Christ was privileged for refuge, none
out of communion of the kirke permitted to lie there, any consecrate
ground preferred for interment before that which was not consecrate,

266

TEAR eee

TINS Sa eee Oat

FE

ae

Tat LL PME ES

FEES TE ES130 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

The general practice of avoiding burial at the north side of
the church because that side is reserved for criminals, sui-
cides, and unbaptized infants,?** may be inferred from the
absence in our folksong of any reference to burial north of
the church. However, there is no reference to the south side,
either, though in foreign ballads, as seen again in the loving
plant motif, the graves of the lovers are said to be north and
south of the church.***

There can be little doubt, at any rate, as to the meaning
of the burial site in the Percy text of Lord Thomas and Fair
Annet. It is altogether probable that we have here an ex-
emplification of the custom or law that denies ecclesiastical
sepulture to a murderer or suicide. Lord Thomas has slain
the “ nut-browne”’ bride, and, calling to Fair Annet, herself
mortally wounded, to await him in her passing, he strikes
the dagger “untill his heart.”” But he may not lie with hen
in the church. He is buried “ without kirk-wa’’: °°°

Lord Thomas was buried without kirk-wa,?"?
Fair Annet within the quiere,
And o the tane thair grew a birk,
The other a bonny briere.
In Buchan’s version of Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard
Munsgrove must lie in the “ lowest flat” of the grave because
he is ‘‘ deepest in the sin”: 774
“A grave, a grave,” said Lord Burnett,
‘““To bury these two in;
Lay Munsgrove in the lowest flat,
He’s deepest in the sin.”

According to the foregoing ballad, the grave is a frank

respecter of persons and would preserve the social distinc-

and that in an higher esteem which was in an higher degree of con-
secration, and that in the highest which was neerest the altar.”

On the place of burial as illustrated by the commonplace of loving
plants see supra, p. 121 and note 212.

267 See Brand, op. cit., II, 292-96.

268 In his introduction to Harl Brand (7), Ballads, I, 96 ff., Child

notes the following: Norwegian: ‘the lovers are laid north and- south
of the church; ” Swedish: ‘ are buried south and north in the church-
yard; ’’ a German ballad: ‘the maid is buried in the church-yard, the

knight under the gallows.”’
269 No. 73 A 29.
270 This distinction does not occur in Child’s other versions.
271 No. 81 L 46.DEATH AND BURIAL LORE Ist

tions of the Upper World.’ Lord Barnard, who, like certain
other ballad avengers, suffers remorse for his cruel deed,?7*
confides to one grave the two lovers whom he has slain,
directing that his wife be laid “on the upper hand, for she
came of the better kin ”’: 274

“A grave, a grave,” Lord Barnard cryd,
“To put these lovers in;
But lay my lady on the upper hand,275
For she came of the better kin.”

According to a Motherwell text, the coffin is made for two,
but there is recognition none the less of the disparity in rank
between the occupants, the one of higher rank to lie on the
right hand: 27°

“Ye’ll make a coffin large and wide,
And lay this couple in;
And lay her head on his right hand,?77
She’s come o the highest kin.”

In the original text of the Jamieson version the “ sunney
side’ of the grave is allotted the lady ‘“‘ because of her noble

9 978

mans

““ My lady shall lye on the sunny side,
Because of her noble kin.”

In the noble ballad of Bewick and Graham, remarkable,
according to Scott, “as containing the very latest allusion to
the institution of brotherhood in arms,” 2 the ‘“ sun-side ”

*72 On such distinctions in primitive or savage life see Rosalind Moss,
Life after Death in Oceania, pp. 147 f.

2%¢ Cf. nos. 80, st. 323 83 A 31 f£., Ee 3S; 269 ATi, C is.

274 A 29. Cf. I 22: “And put Lady Bengwill uppermost, for she’s
come of the noblest kin.”

275 Cf, C 32: ‘My lady shall lie on the upper side, cause she’s of
the better kin.”

276 J 25.

277 Cf. H 20: a coffin “ wide and long,” with “my lady at the right
hand.” On the right hand see supra, p. 77 and note 120.

Cf. American text of no. 81, Campbell and Sharp, op. cit., p. 83:
“Go bury me on yonder church hill with Matthy in my arms asleep.

... and bury Lord Dannel at my feet.”

278 Child, op. cit., IV, 477, st. 24.

279 Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, ed. T. F. Henderson, III, 75.
Cf. Adam Bell, Clim.of the Clough, and William of Cloudesly (116, st.
4): “They swore them brethen vpon a day, to Englysshe-wood for to
gone.”132 STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

of the grave is generously assigned by Bewick to his slain
’ hrother(! 272°

““Nay, dig a grave both low and wide,
And in it us two pray bury;
But bury my Bully Grahame on the sun-side,2%!
For I’m sure he’s won the victory.”’

As for epitaphs in balladry there are none unless we in-
clude those ‘“‘ foolish lines ”” on Robin Hood’s tomb 2°? and the
lines on the hero’s tombstone in a text of Geordie given in
the Journal of the Folk-Song Society.*** A matter worthy of
mention here, however, is the practice in balladry of burying
two or more in one grave, a practice in evidence in the fore-
going songs that are illustrative of distinctions in burial.
It appears also in Lord Thomas and Fair Annet: ***

“O dig my grave,’”’ Lord Thomas replied,?5°
“Dig it both wide and deep,
And lay Fair Eleanor by my side
And the brown girl at my feet.’’

We find it again in Sheath and Knife: ?°°

He has made a grave that was lang and was deep,?%7
And he has buried his sister, wi her babe at her feet.

In an American variant of Lord Thomas and Fair Annet it
seems that the coffin is meant for three: 2°*

He ordered a coffin to be made,?89
A coffin both wide and long.

He ordered fair Ellinor at his right side
And the brown girl at his feet.

280 No. 211, st. 51.

281 Cf. g 51 (Child, IV, 150): “ sunney side.”

282 See Child, op. cit., III, 107, 226, 233.

283 Vol. IV, 89.

*8t No. 73 D d (Child, II, 196). There is a possibility here that
separate graves are meant but there is no such possibility in a case
like that in no. 211, st. 51.

289 Cf. D f (Child, II, 197), D h (Child, II, 198). D h reads: “ Bury
my mother at my head, Fair Ellenor by my side.”

286 No. 16 A 6.

*87 The burial here is in the wood, as in The Bonny Hind (50, st.
11): “And he has buried his bonny sister amang the hollins green.”

*88 Mackenzie, Quest of the Ballad, p..99.

289 Cf. texts, Cox, Folk-Songs of the South, pp. 56 ff, BE, G, H; 1.
G 16: “Place Fair Ellenger in my arms, the brown girl at my feet.”
Cf. texts, Campbell and Sharp, op. cit., pp. O6°fi., A, Bo] Avt32." = TheyDEATH AND BURIAL LORE loo

The infanticide in The Cruel Mother buries her three babes
in one grave and covers them with a marble stone.2%°

In concluding our survey of matters that have to do with
burial we may dwell for a moment on the incident of opening
the coffin or the grave and turning back or cutting the wind-
ing-sheet in order that the bereaved may look upon the dead.
Lines from The Lass of Roch Royal will serve to illustrate: 2%

He had not rode a mile, a mile,
A mile but barely three,

Till that he spyed her comely corps
Come raking oere the lee.

“Set doun, set doun these comely corps,?°2
Let me look on the dead: ”’
And out he’s ta’en his little pen-knife,
And slitted her winding sheet.

And first he kist her cheek, her cheek,???
And then he kist her rosy lips,

And then he kist her rosy lips,
But there was no breath within.

We ought to observe, too, that the grave in Sweet William’s
Ghost opens up to admit the revenant: 2°

dug his grave both wide and deep and painted his coffin black, and
buried the brown girl in his arms and fair Ellendry at his back.”
The demands of rime in this last are obvious.

290 No. 20 H 5 f. On the incident of several occupants of one grave
Child has this note in his introduction to Clerk Colvill (42), Ballads,
I, 382 n.: ‘ The burial of father, mother, and child in a common grave
is found elsewhere in ballads, as in ‘ Redselille og Medelvold.’” Trans-
lation, Prior, Ancient Danish Ballads, III, 7, reads:

He dug a grave, was broad and deep,
And laid all three therein to sleep;

“i No. 76 A oi,

#2 Cf. B 25 ff:, and nos. 25 B 12,-C 8; 73: F $3, I 89 (nid, IV, 72);
19D 7, E 8 F 5, H'%; 85 A 8; B50 6: (Child; V, 226), and texts,
Child; ITI, 514, f.; 96 A 26, B 20,-¢ 32 {f., D134, ete; 259 A 168-10.
Cf. American texts: no. 75, Campbell and Sharp, op. cit., p. 72; Cox,
op. cit., p. 79, A, C; A 7: “He ordered the grave to be opened forth-
with; ’’ no. 84, Campbell and Sharp, pp. 90, 92, 95, 96, 97; Mackenzie,
op. cit., p. 101. Cf. Scottish text of no. 75, Greig, Traditional Ballads,
p. 58: “He ordered the grave to be opened wide, and the shroud to be
drawn down.” :

293 Ts there any indication in this procedure to show that its purpose
is to make certain that the person is actually dead? See test for
death, supra, pp. 82 ff.

“04 NG. 77 -C 40.

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O there the grave did open up,
And young William he lay down.

Finally, we may point out that as regards the time of burial
or the period between death and the disposal of the corpse
the ballads speak with little definiteness. We have this, how-
ever, from Young Benjie to show that the burial followed hard
upon the lyke-wake: 2°

“The night it is her low lykewake,?°
The morn her burial day.”

And this from Young Hunting, though here the idea is to
conceal the corpse: **"
And she has kept that good lord’s corpse ?°§
Three quarters of a year,

Until that word began to spread;
Then she began to fear.

 

295 No. 86 A 14.
_ 6 Ci. Fair Margaret and Sweet William (74 A 16).: © So muchas
is dealt at her funeral today, tomorrow shall be dealt at mine.”

297 No. 68 E 12.

*98 This incident does not occur in other texts.DEATH AND BURIAL LORE 135

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Wyman, Loraine, and Brockway, Howard. Lonesome Tunes. New
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