A Bundle of Ballads

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*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*

This etext was prepared from the 1891 George Routledge & Sons
edition by Les Bowler, St. Ives, Dorset.

A BUNDLE OF BALLADS - EDITED BY HENRY MORLEY.

by Henry Morley

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION
CHEVY CHASE
CHEVY CHASE (the later version)
THE NUT-BROWN MAID
ADAM BELL, CLYM OF THE CLOUGH, AND WILLIAM OF CLOUDESLIE
BINNORIE
KING COPHETUA AND THE BEGGAR MAID
TAKE THY OLD CLOAK ABOUT THEE
WILLOW, WILLOW, WILLOW
THE LITTLE WEE MAN
THE SPANISH LADY'S LOVE
EDWARD, EDWARD
ROBIN HOOD
KING EDWARD IV. AND THE TANNER OF TAMWORTH
SIR PATRICK SPENS
EDOM O' GORDON
THE CHILDREN IN THE WOOD
THE BEGGAR'S DAUGHTER OF BETHNAL GREEN
THE BAILIFF'S DAUGHTER OF ISLINGTON
BARBARA ALLEN'S CRUELTY
SWEET WILLIAM'S GHOST
THE BRAES O' YARROW
KEMP OWYNE
O'ER THE WATER TO CHARLIE
ADMIRAL HOSIER'S GHOST
JEMMY DAWSON
WILLIAM AND MARGARET
ELFINLAND WOOD
CASABIANCA
AULD ROBIN GRAY
GLOSSARY

INTRODUCTION BY THE EDITOR.

Recitation with dramatic energy by men whose business it was to travel
from one great house to another and delight the people by the way, was
usual among us from the first. The scop invented and the glee-man
recited heroic legends and other tales to our Anglo-Saxon forefathers.
These were followed by the minstrels and other tellers of tales
written for the people. They frequented fairs and merrymakings,
spreading the knowledge not only of tales in prose or ballad form, but
of appeals also to public sympathy from social reformers.

As late as the year 1822, Allan Cunningham, in publishing a collection
of "Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry," spoke
from his own recollection of itinerant story-tellers who were welcomed
in the houses of the peasantry and earned a living by their craft.

The earliest story-telling was in recitative. When the old
alliteration passed on into rhyme, and the crowd or rustic fiddle took
the place of the old "gleebeam" for accentuation of the measure and
the meaning of the song, we come to the ballad-singer as Philip Sidney
knew him. Sidney said, in his "Defence of Poesy," that he never heard
the old song of Percy and Douglas, that he found not his heart moved
more than with a trumpet; and yet, he said, "it is sung but by some
blind crowder, with no rougher voice than rude style; which being so
evil apparelled in the dust and cobweb of that uncivil age, what would
it work trimmed in the gorgeous eloquence of Pindar?" Many an old
ballad, instinct with natural feeling, has been more or less
corrupted, by bad ear or memory, among the people upon whose lips it
has lived. It is to be considered, however, that the old broader
pronunciation of some letters developed some syllables and the
swiftness of speech slurred over others, which will account for many
an apparent halt in the music of what was actually, on the lips of the
ballad-singer, a good metrical line.

"Chevy Chase" is, most likely, a corruption of the French word
chevauchee, which meant a dash over the border for destruction and
plunder within the English pale. Chevauchee was the French equivalent
to the Scottish border raid. Close relations between France and
Scotland arose out of their common interest in checking movements
towards their conquest by the kings of England, and many French words
were used with a homely turn in Scottish common speech. Even that
national source of joy, "great chieftain of the pudding-race," the
haggis, has its name from the French hachis. At the end of the old
ballad of "Chevy Chase," which reads the corrupted word into a new
sense, as the Hunting on the Cheviot Hills, there is an identifying of
the Hunting of the Cheviot with the Battle of Otterburn:--

"Old men that knowen the ground well enough call it the Battle of
Otterburn.
At Otterburn began this spurn upon a Monenday;
There was the doughty Douglas slain, the Percy never went away."

The Battle of Otterburn was fought on the 19th of August 1388. The
Scots were to muster at Jedburgh for a raid into England. The Earl of
Northumberland and his sons, learning the strength of the Scottish
gathering, resolved not to oppose it, but to make a counter raid into
Scotland. The Scots heard of this and divided their force. The main
body, under Archibald Douglas and others, rode for Carlisle. A
detachment of three or four hundred men-at-arms and two thousand
combatants, partly archers, rode for Newcastle and Durham, with James
Earl of Douglas for one of their leaders. These were already
pillaging and burning in Durham when the Earl of Northumberland first
heard of them, and sent against them his sons Henry and Ralph Percy.
In a hand-to-hand fight between Douglas and Henry Percy, Douglas took
Percy's pennon. At Otterburn the Scots overcame the English but
Douglas fell, struck by three spears at once, and Henry was captured
in fight by Lord Montgomery. There was a Scots ballad on the Battle
of Otterburn quoted in 1549 in a book--"The Complaynt of Scotland"--
that also referred to the Hunttis of Chevet. The older version of
"Chevy Chase" is in an Ashmole MS. in the Bodleian, from which it was
first printed in 1719 by Thomas Hearne in his edition of William of
Newbury's History. Its author turns the tables on the Scots with the
suggestion of the comparative wealth of England and Scotland in men of
the stamp of Douglas and Percy. The later version, which was once
known more widely, is probably not older than the time of James I.,
and is the version praised by Addison in Nos. 70 and 74 of "The
Spectator."

"The Nut-Brown Maid," in which we can hardly doubt that a woman pleads
for women, was first printed in 1502 in Richard Arnold's Chronicle.
Nut-brown was the old word for brunette. There was an old saying that
"a nut-brown girl is neat and blithe by nature."

"Adam Bell, Clym of the Clough, and William of Cloudeslie" was first
printed by Copland about 1550. A fragment has been found of an
earlier impression. Laneham, in 1575, in his Kenilworth Letter,
included "Adam Bell, Clym of the Clough, and William of Cloudeslie"
among the light reading of Captain Cox. In the books of the
Stationers' Company (for the printing and editing of which we are
deeply indebted to Professor Arber), there is an entry between July
1557 and July 1558, "To John kynge to prynte this boke Called Adam
Bell etc. and for his lycense he giveth to the howse." On the 15th of
January 1581-2 "Adam Bell" is included in a list of forty or more
copyrights transferred from Sampson Awdeley to John Charlewood; "A
Hundred Merry Tales" and Gower's "Confessio Amantis" being among the
other transfers. On the 16th of August 1586 the Company of Stationers
"Alowed vnto Edward white for his copies these fyve ballades so that
they be tollerable:" four only are named, one being "A ballad of
William Clowdisley, never printed before." Drayton wrote in the
"Shepheard's Garland" in 1593:--

"Come sit we down under this hawthorn tree,
The morrow's light shall lend us day enough--
And tell a tale of Gawain or Sir Guy,
Of Robin Hood, or of good Clem of the Clough."

Ben Jonson, in his "Alchemist," acted in 1610, also indicates the
current popularity of this tale, when Face, the housekeeper, brings
Dapper, the lawyer's clerk, to Subtle, and recommends him with--

"'slight, I bring you
No cheating Clim o' the Clough or Claribel."

"Binnorie," or "The Two Sisters," is a ballad on an old theme popular
in Scandinavia as well as in this country. There have been many
versions of it. Dr. Rimbault published it from a broadside dated
1656. The version here given is Sir Walter Scott's, from his
"Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," with a few touches from other
versions given in Professor Francis James Child's noble edition of
"The English and Scottish Popular Ballads," which, when complete, will
be the chief storehouse of our ballad lore.

"King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid" is referred to by Shakespeare in
"Love's Labour's Lost," Act iv. sc I; in "Romeo and Juliet," Act ii.
sc. I; and in "II. Henry IV.," Act iii. sc. 4. It was first printed
in 1612 in Richard Johnson's "Crown Garland of Goulden Roses gathered
out of England's Royall Garden. Being the Lives and Strange Fortunes
of many Great Personages of this Land, set forth in many pleasant new
Songs and Sonnets never before imprinted."

"Take thy Old Cloak about thee," was published in 1719 by Allan Ramsay
in his "Tea-Table Miscellany," and was probably a sixteenth century
piece retouched by him. Iago sings the last stanza but one--"King
Stephen was a worthy peer," etc.--in "Othello," Act ii. sc. 3.

In "Othello," Act iv. sc. 3, there is also reference to the old ballad
of "Willow, willow, willow."

"The Little Wee Man" is a wee ballad that is found in many forms with
a little variation. It improves what was best in the opening of a
longer piece which introduced popular prophecies, and is to be found
in Cotton MS. Julius A. v. It was printed by Thomas Wright in his
edition of Langtoft's Chronicle (ii. 452).

"The Spanish Lady's Love" was printed by Thomas Deloney in "The
Garland of Goodwill," published in the latter half of the sixteenth
century. The hero of this ballad was probably one of Essex's
companions in the Cadiz expedition, and various attempts have been
made to identify him, especially with a Sir John Bolle of Thorpe Hall,
Lincolnshire.

"Edward, Edward," is from Percy's "Reliques." Percy had it from Lord
Hailes.

"Robin Hood" is the "Lytell Geste of Robyn Hood," printed in London by
Wynken de Worde, and again in Edinburgh by Chepman and Myllar in 15O8,
in the first year of the establishment of a printing-press in
Scotland.

"King Edward IV. and the Tanner of Tamworth" is a ballad of a kind
once popular; there were "King Alfred and the Neatherd," "King Henry
and the Miller," "King James I. and the Tinker," "King Henry VII. and
the Cobbler," with a dozen more. "The Tanner of Tamworth" in another,
perhaps older, form, as "The King and the Barker," was printed by
Joseph Ritson in his "Ancient Popular Poetry."

"Sir Patrick Spens" was first published by Percy in his "Reliques of
Ancient English Poetry" (1757). It was given by Sir Walter Scott in
his "Minstrelsy of the Border," and with more detail by Peter Buchan
in his "Ancient Ballads of the North." Buchan took it from an old
blind ballad-singer who had recited it for fifty years, and learnt it
in youth from another very old man. The ballad is upon an event in
Scottish history of the thirteenth century, touching marriage of a
Margaret, daughter of the King of Scotland, to Haningo, son of the
King of Norway. The perils of a winter sea-passage in ships of the
olden time were recognised by an Act of the reign of James III. of
Scotland, prohibiting all navigation "frae the feast of St. Simon's
Day and Jude unto the feast of the Purification of our Lady, called
Candlemas."

"Edom o' Gordon" was first printed at Glasgow by Robert and Andrew
Foulis in 1755. Percy ascribed its preservation to Sir David
Dalrymple, who gave it from the memory of a lady. The incident was
transferred to the border from the North of Scotland. Edom o' Gordon
was Sir Adam Gordon of Auchindown, Lieutenant-Depute for Queen Mary in
the North in 1571. He sent Captain Ker with soldiers against the
Castle of Towie, which was set on fire, and the Lady of Towie, with
twenty-six other persons, "was cruelly brint to the death." Other
forms of the ballad ascribe the deed, with incidents of greater
cruelty, to Captain Carr, the Lord of Estertowne.

"The Children in the Wood" was entered in the books of the Stationers'
Company on the 15th of October 1595 to Thomas Millington as,
"for his Copie vnder th[e h]andes of bothe the wardens a ballad
intituled, The Norfolk gent his will and Testament and how he
Commytted the keepinge of his Children to his owne brother whoe delte
moste wickedly with them and howe God plagued him for it."
It was printed as a black-letter ballad in 167O. Addison wrote a
paper on it in "The Spectator" (No. 85), praising it as "one of the
darling songs of the common people."

"The Blind Beggar of Bednall Green" is in many collections, and was
known in Elizabeth's time, another Elizabethan ballad having been set
to the tune of it. "This very house," wrote Samuel Pepys in June 1663
of Sir William Rider's house at Bethnal Green, "was built by the blind
beggar of Bednall Green, so much talked of and sung in ballads; but
they say it was only some outhouses of it." The Angels that abounded
in the Beggar's stores were gold coins, so named from the figure on
one side of the Archangel Michael overcoming the Dragon. This coin
was first struck in 1466, and it was used until the time of Charles
the First.

"The Bailiff's Daughter of Islington," or "True Love Requited," is a
ballad in Pepys's collection, now in the Bodleian. The Islington of
the Ballad is supposed to be an Islington in Norfolk.

"Barbara Allen's Cruelty" was referred to by Pepys in his Diary,
January 2, 1665-6 as "the little Scotch song of Barbary Allen." It
was first printed by Allan Ramsay (in 1724) in his "Tea-Table
Miscellany." In the same work Allan Ramsay was also the first printer
of "Sweet William's Ghost."

Fragments of "The Braes o' Yarrow" are in old collections. The ballad
has been given by Scott in his "Minstrelsy of the Border," and another
version is in Peter Buchan's "Ancient Ballads of the North."

"Kemp Owyne" is here given from Buchan's "Ballads of the North of
Scotland." Here also Professor F. J. Child has pointed to many
Icelandic, Danish, and German analogies. Allied to "Kemp Owyne" is
the modern ballad of "The Laidley Worm of Spindleston Heughs," written
before 1778 by the Rev. Mr. Lamb of Norham; but the "Laily Worm and
the Machrel of the Sea" is an older cousin to "Kemp Owyne."

"O'er the Water to Charlie" is given by Buchan as the original form of
this one of the many songs made when Prince Charles Edward made his
attempt in 1745-6. The songs worked scraps of lively old tunes, with
some old words of ballad, into declaration of goodwill to the
Pretender.

"Admiral Hosier's Ghost" was written by Richard Glover in 174O to
rouse national feeling. Vice-Admiral Vernon with only six men-of-war
had taken the town of Portobello, and levelled its fortifications.
The place has so dangerous a climate that it is now almost deserted.
Admiral Hosier in 1726 had been, in the same port, with twenty ships,
restrained from attack, while he and his men were dying of fever. He
was to blockade the Spanish ports in the West Indies and capture any
Spanish galleons that came out. He left Porto Bello for Carthagena,
where he cruised about while his men were being swept away by disease.
His ships were made powerless through death of his best officers and
men. He himself at last died, it was said, of a broken heart. Dyer's
ballad pointed the contrast as a reproach to the Government for
half-hearted support of the war, and was meant for suggestion of the
success that would reward vigorous action.

"Jemmy Dawson" was a ballad written by William Shenstone on a young
officer of Manchester volunteers who was hanged, drawn, and quartered
in 1746 on Kennington Common for having served the Pretender. He was
engaged to a young lady, who came to the execution, and when it was
over fell back dead in her coach.

"William and Margaret," by David Mallet, published in 1727, is another
example of the tendency to the revival of the ballad in the eighteenth
century.

"Elfinland Wood," by the Scottish poet William Motherwell, who died in
1835, aged thirty-seven, is a modern imitation of the ancient Scottish
ballad. Mrs. Hemans, who wrote "Casabianca," died also in 1835. But
the last ballad in this bundle, Lady Anne Barnard's "Auld Robin Gray,"
was written in 1771, and owes its place to a desire that this volume,
which begins with the best of the old ballads, should end with the
best of the new. Lady Anne, eldest daughter of the fifth Earl of
Balcarres, married Sir Andrew Barnard, librarian to George III., and
survived her husband eighteen years. While the authorship of the
piece remained a secret there were some who attributed it to Rizzio,
the favourite of Mary Queen of Scots. Lady Anne Barnard acknowledged
the authorship to Walter Scott in 1823, and told how she came to write
it to an old air of which she was passionately fond, "Bridegroom grat
when the sun gaed down." When she had heaped many troubles on her
heroine, and called to a little sister to suggest another, the
suggestion came promptly, "Steal the cow, sister Anne." And the cow
was stolen.

H. M.

CHEVY CHASE

The Percy out of Northumberland, and avow to God made he
That he would hunt in the mountains of Cheviot within days three,
In the maugre of doughty Douglas and all that ever with him be,
The fattest harts in all Cheviot he said he would kill and carry them
away.
"By my faith," said the doughty Douglas again, "I will let that
hunting if that I may!"
Then the Percy out of Bamborough came, with him a mighty mean-y;
With fifteen hundred archers, bold of blood and bone, they were chosen
out of shires three.
This began on a Monday, at morn, in Cheviot, the hillis so hie,
The child may rue that is unborn, it was the more pitie.
The drivers thorough the wood-es went for to raise the deer;
Bowmen bickered upon the bent with their broad arrows clear,
Then the wild thorough the wood-es went on every sid-e shear;
Greyhounds thorough the grov-es glent for to kill their deer.
This began in Cheviot, the hills abone, early on a Monnynday;
By that it drew to the hour of noon a hundred fat harts dead there
lay.
They blew a mort upon the bent; they sembled on sidis shear,
To the quarry then the Percy went, to see the brittling of the deer.
He said, "It was the Douglas' promise this day to meet me here;
But I wist he would fail, verament"--a great oath the Percy sware.
At the last a squire of Northumberland looked, at his hand full nigh
He was ware of the doughty Douglas coming, with him a mighty mean-y,
Both with spear, bill, and brand, it was a mighty sight to see.
Hardier men both of heart nor hand were not in Christiant-e.
They were twenty hundred spearmen good without any fail;
They were borne along by the water of Tweed, i'th' bounds of Tividale.
"Leave off the brittling of the deer," he said, "and to your bows look
ye take good heed,
For never sith ye were of your mothers born had ye never so mickle
need."
The doughty Douglas on a steed he rode all his men beforn,
His armour glittered as did a glede, a bolder barn was never born.
"Tell me whose men ye are," he says, "or whose men that ye be;
Who gave you leave to hunt in this Cheviot Chase in the spite of mine
and of me?"
The first man that ever him an answer made, it was the good Lord Perc-
y,
"We will not tell thee whose men we are," he says, "nor whose men that
we be;
But we will hunt here in this Chase in the spite of thine and of thee.
The fattest harts in all Cheviot we have killed, and cast to carry
them away."
"By my troth," said the doughty Douglas again, "therefore the tone of
us shall die this day."
Then said the doughty Douglas unto the Lord Perc-y,
"To kill all these guiltless men, alas! it were great pit-y.
But, Percy, thou art a lord of land, I am an earl called within my
countr-y.
Let all our men upon a parti stand, and do the battle of thee and of
me."
"Now Christ's curse on his crown," said the Lord Percy, "whosoever
thereto says nay!
By my troth, doughty Douglas," he says, "thou shalt never see that
day!
Neither in England, Scotland, nor France, nor for no man of a woman
born,
But and fortune be my chance, I dare meet him, one man for one."
Then bespake a squire of Northumberland, Richard Witherington was his
name,
"It shall never be told in South England," he says, "to King Harry the
Fourth, for shame.
I wot you ben great lord-es two, I am a poor squire of land;
I will never see my captain fight on a field, and stand myself and
look on;
But while I may my weapon wield I will fight both heart and hand."
That day, that day, that dreadful day: the first fytte here I find,
An you will hear any more of the hunting of the Cheviot, yet is there
more behind.

SECOND FYTTE.

The English men had their bows ybent, their hearts were good enow;
The first of arrows that they shot off, sevenscore spearmen they
slowe.
Yet bides the Earl Douglas upon the bent, a captain good enow,
And that was seene verament, for he wrought them both wo and wough.
The Douglas parted his host in three like a chief chieftain of pride,
With suar spears of mighty tree they come in on every side,
Through our English archery gave many a wound full wide;
Many a doughty they gard to die, which gain-ed them no pride.
The Englishmen let their bows be, and pulled out brands that were
bright;
It was a heavy sight to see bright swords on basnets light.
Thorough rich mail and manople many stern they struck down straight,
Many a freke that was full free there under foot did light.
At last the Douglas and the Percy met, like to captains of might and
of main;
They swapt together till they both swat, with swords that were of fine
Milan.
These worthy frekis for to fight thereto they were full fain,
Till the blood out of their basnets sprent as ever did hail or rain.
"Yield thee, Percy," said the Douglas, "and in faith I shall thee
bring
Where thou shalt have an earl's wagis of Jamy our Scottish king.
Thou shalt have thy ransom free, I hight thee here this thing,
For the manfullest man yet art thou that ever I conquered in field
fighting."
"Nay," said the Lord Percy, "I told it thee beforn,
That I would never yielded be to no man of a woman born."
With that there came an arrow hastily forth of a mighty wone;
It hath stricken the Earl Douglas in at the breastbone.
Through liver and lung-es both the sharp arrow is gone,
That never after in all his life-days he spake mo word-es but one,
That was, "Fight ye, my merry men, whilis ye may, for my life-days ben
gone!"
The Percy lean-ed on his brand and saw the Douglas dee;
He took the dead man by the hand, and said, "Wo is me for thee!
To have saved thy life I would have parted with my lands for years
three,
For a better man of heart nor of hand was not in all the north
countree."
Of all that see, a Scottish knight, was called Sir Hugh the Montgomer-
y,
He saw the Douglas to the death was dight, he spended a spear a trusty
tree,
He rode upon a coursiere through a hundred archer-y,
He never stinted nor never blane till he came to the good Lord Perc-y.
He set upon the Lord Percy a dint that was full sore;
With a suar spear of a mighty tree clean thorough the body he the
Percy bore
On the tother side that a man might see a large cloth yard and more.
Two better captains were not in Christiant-e than that day slain were
there.
An archer of Northumberland saw slain was the Lord Perc-y,
He bare a bent bow in his hand was made of trusty tree,
An arrow that a cloth yard was long to the hard steel hal-ed he,
A dint that was both sad and sore he sat on Sir Hugh the Montgomer-y.
The dint it was both sad and sore that he on Montgomery set,
The swan-feathers that his arrow bare, with his heart-blood they were
wet.
There was never a freke one foot would flee, but still in stour did
stand,
Hewing on each other while they might dree with many a baleful brand.
This battle began in Cheviot an hour before the noon,
And when evensong bell was rang the battle was not half done.
They took on either hand by the light of the moon,
Many had no strength for to stand in Cheviot the hillis aboon.
Of fifteen hundred archers of England went away but seventy and three,
Of twenty hundred spearmen of Scotland but even five and fift-y;
But all were slain Cheviot within, they had no strength to stand on
hy:
The child may rue that is unborn, it was the more pity.
There was slain with the Lord Percy Sir John of Agerstone,
Sir Roger the hinde Hartley, Sir William the bold Herone,
Sir George the worthy Lumley, a knight of great renown,
Sir Ralph the rich Rugby, with dints were beaten down;
For Witherington my heart was wo, that ever he slain should be,
For when both his leggis were hewen in two, yet he kneeled and fought
on his knee.
There was slain with the doughty Douglas Sir Hugh the Montgomer-y;
Sir Davy Lewdale, that worthy was, his sister's son was he;
Sir Charles of Murray in that place that never a foot would flee;
Sir Hugh Maxwell, a lord he was, with the Douglas did he dee.
So on the morrow they made them biers of birch and hazel so gay;
Many widows with weeping tears came to fetch their makis away.
Tivydale may carp of care, Northumberland may make great moan,
For two such captains as slain were there on the March parti shall
never be none.
Word is comen to Edinborough to Jamy the Scottish king,
That doughty Douglas, lieutenant of the Marches, he lay slain Cheviot
within.
His hand-es did he weal and wring; he said, "Alas! and woe is me:
Such another captain Scotland within," he said, "yea faith should
never be."
Word is comen to lovely London, to the fourth Harry our king,
That Lord Perc-y, lieutenant of the Marches, he lay slain Cheviot
within.
"God have mercy on his soul," said King Harry, "good Lord, if thy will
it be,
I have a hundred captains in England," he said, "as good as ever was
he;
But Percy, an I brook my life, thy death well quite shall be."
As our noble king made his avow, like a noble prince of renown,
For the death of the Lord Perc-y he did the battle of Homildoun,
Where six and thirty Scottish knights on a day were beaten down;
Glendale glittered on their armour bright, over castle, tower, and
town.
This was the hunting of the Cheviot; that tear began this spurn;
Old men that knowen the ground well enough call it the battle of
Otterburn.
At Otterburn began this spurn upon a Monenday;
There was the doughty Douglas slain, the Percy never went away.
There was never a time on the March part-es sen the Douglas and the
Percy met,
But it is marvel an the red blood run not as the rain does in the
stret.
Jesu Christ our balis bete, and to the bliss us bring!
Thus was the hunting of the Cheviot. God send us all good ending!

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