The Project Gutenberg eBook, Story-Telling Ballads, by Frances Jenkins Olcott

STORY-TELLING BALLADS

THE LIFT GREW DARK, AND THE WIND BLEW LOUD,
AND GURLY GREW THE SEA (page 5)

STORY-TELLING
BALLADS

SELECTED AND ARRANGED FOR
STORY-TELLING AND READING ALOUD
AND FOR
THE BOYS’ AND GIRLS’ OWN READING

BY

FRANCES JENKINS OLCOTT

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
1920

COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY FRANCES JENKINS OLCOTT

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Riverside Press

CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS
U . S . A

TO MY SISTER

VIRGINIA OLCOTT

THE FOREWORD

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

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

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

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

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

TEACHERS, STORY-TELLERS, AND BALLADS

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

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

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

YOUTH IN THE BALLADS

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

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

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

HOW THE BALLADS GREW

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

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

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

MAKING A COLLECTION FOR CHILDREN

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

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

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

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

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

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

The gude green-wood amang the lily flower.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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

Among the authoritative texts from which I have taken ancient and popular ballads, are Bell’s Early Ballads and Songs of the Peasantry of England; Bishop Percy’s Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, and his Folio Manuscript, edited by Hales and Furnivall; A Collection of Old Ballads, London, 1723-25; Dixon’s Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs of the Peasantry of England (Percy Society); Jamieson’s Popular Ballads and Songs; Monk Lewis’s Tales of Wonder; Motherwell’s Minstrelsy, Ancient and Modern; Nicholson’s Historical and Traditional Tales ... Connected with the South of Scotland; Ritson’s Robin Hood; Sir Walter Scott’s Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border; Sheldon’s Minstrelsy of the English Border; also the scholarly collection of English and Scottish Popular Ballads, compiled and edited by Professor Francis James Child, for the use of which my acknowledgments are due its publishers, Messrs. Houghton Mifflin Company.

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

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

THE SALT BLUE SEAS

THE STORMY WINDS DO BLOW

One Friday morn when we set sail,

Not very far from land,

We there did espy a fair pretty maid

With a comb and a glass in her hand, her hand, her hand,

With a comb and a glass in her hand.

While the raging seas did roar,

And the stormy winds did blow,

While we jolly sailor-boys were up into the top,

And the land-lubbers lying down below, below, below,

And the land-lubbers lying down below.

Then up starts the captain of our gallant ship,

And a brave young man was he:

“I’ve a wife and a child in fair Bristol town,

But a widow I fear she will be.”

Then up starts the mate of our gallant ship,

And a bold young man was he:

“Oh! I have a wife in fair Portsmouth town,

But a widow I fear she will be.”

Then up starts the cook of our gallant ship,

And a gruff old soul was he:

“Oh! I have a wife in fair Plymouth town,

But a widow I fear she will be.”

And then up spoke the little cabin-boy,

And a pretty little boy was he:

“Oh! I am more grievd for my daddy and my mammy,

Than you for your wives all three.”

Then three times round went our gallant ship,

And three times round went she:

For the want of a life-boat they all went down,

And she sank to the bottom of the sea.

While the raging seas did roar,

And the stormy winds did blow,

While we jolly sailor-boys were up into the top,

And the land-lubbers lying down below, below, below,

And the land-lubbers lying down below.

SIR PATRICK SPENS

The king sits in Dunfermline town,

Drinking the blude-red wine;

“O whare will I get a skeely skipper,

To sail this new ship of mine?”

O up and spake an eldern knight,

Sat at the king’s right knee,—

“Sir Patrick Spens is the best sailor,

That ever sailed the sea.”—

Our king has written a braid letter,

And seal’d it with his hand,

And sent it to sir Patrick Spens,

Was walking on the strand.

“To Noroway, to Noroway,

To Noroway o’er the faem;

The king’s daughter of Noroway,

’Tis thou maun bring her hame.”

The first word that sir Patrick read,

Sae loud loud laughed he;

The neist word that sir Patrick read,

The tear blinded his ee.

“O wha is this has done this deed,

And tauld the king o’ me,

To send us out, at this time of the year,

To sail upon the sea?

“Be it wind, be it weet, be it hail, be it sleet,

Our ship must sail the faem;

The king’s daughter of Noroway,

’Tis we must fetch her hame.”—

They hoysed their sails on Monenday morn,

Wi’ a’ the speed they may;

They hae landed in Noroway,

Upon a Wodensday.

They hadna been a week, a week,

In Noroway, but twae,

When that the lords o’ Noroway

Began aloud to say,—

“Ye Scottishmen spend a’ our king’s goud,

And a’ our queenis fee.”—

“Ye lie, ye lie, ye liars loud!

Fu’ loud I hear ye lie:

“For I brought as much white monie,

As gane my men and me,

And I brought a half-fou o’ gude red goud,

Out o’er the sea wi’ me.

“Make ready, make ready, my merrymen a’!

Our gude ship sails the morn,”—

“Now, ever alake, my master dear,

I fear a deadly storm!

“I saw the new moon, late yestreen,

Wi’ the auld moon in her arm;

And, if we gang to sea, master,

I fear we’ll come to harm.”

They hadna sail’d a league, a league,

A league but barely three,

When the lift grew dark, and the wind blew loud,

And gurly grew the sea.

The ankers brak, and the top-masts lap,

It was sic a deadly storm;

And the waves cam o’er the broken ship,

Till a’ her sides were torn.

“O where will I get a gude sailor,

To take my helm in hand,

Till I get up to the tall top-mast;

To see if I can spy land?”—

“O here am I, a sailor gude,

To take the helm in hand,

Till you go up to the tall top-mast;

But I fear you’ll ne’er spy land.”

He hadna gane a step, a step,

A step but barely ane,

When a bout flew out of our goodly ship,

And the salt sea it cam in.

“Gae, fetch a web o’ the silken claith,

Another o’ the twine,

And wap them into our ship’s side,

And letna the sea come in.”—

They fetch’d a web o’ the silken claith,

Another o’ the twine,

And they wapp’d them round that gude ship’s side,

But still the sea cam in.

O laith, laith, were our gude Scots lords

To weet their cork-heel’d shoon!

But lang or a’ the play was play’d,

They wat their hats aboon.

And mony was the feather bed,

That flatter’d on the faem;

And mony was the gude lord’s son,

That never mair cam hame.

The ladyes wrang their fingers white,

The maidens tore their hair,

A’ for the sake of their true loves;

For them they’ll see na mair.

O lang, lang, may the ladyes sit,

Wi’ their fans into their hand,

Before they see sir Patrick Spens

Come sailing to the strand!

And lang, lang, may the maidens sit,

With their goud kaims in their hair,

A’waiting for their ain dear loves!

For them they’ll see nae mair.

O forty miles off Aberdeen,

’Tis fifty fathoms deep,

And there lies gude sir Patrick Spens,

Wi’ the Scots lords at his feet.

THE DÆMON LOVER

“O where have you been, my long, long love,

This long seven years and mair?”

“O I’m come to seek my former vows

Ye granted me before.”

“O hold your tongue of your former vows,

For they will breed sad strife;

O hold your tongue of your former vows,

For I am become a wife.”

He turned him right and round about,

And the tear blinded his ee:

“I wad never hae trodden on Irish ground,

If it had not been for thee.

“I might hae had a king’s daughter,

Far, far beyond the sea;

I might have had a king’s daughter,

Had it not been for love o thee.”

“If ye might have had a king’s daughter,

Yer sel ye had to blame;

Ye might have taken the king’s daughter,

For ye kend that I was nane.

“If I was to leave my husband dear,

And my two babes also,

O what have you to take me to,

If with you I should go?”

“I hae seven ships upon the sea—

The eighth brought me to land—

With four-and-twenty bold mariners,

And music on every hand.”

She has taken up her two little babes,

Kissd them baith cheek and chin:

“O fair ye weel, my ain two babes,

For I’ll never see you again.”

She set her foot upon the ship,

No mariners could she behold;

But the sails were o the taffetie,

And the masts o the beaten gold.

She had not sailed a league, a league,

A league but barely three,

When dismal grew his countenance,

And drumlie grew his ee.

They had not saild a league, a league,

A league but barely three,

Until she espied his cloven foot,

And she wept right bitterlie.

“O hold your tongue of your weeping,” says he,

“Of your weeping now let me be;

I will shew you how the lilies grow

On the banks of Italy.”

“O what hills are yon, yon pleasant hills,

That the sun shines sweetly on?”

“O yon are the hills of heaven,” he said,

“Where you will never win.”

“O whaten a mountain is yon,” she said,

“All so dreary wi frost and snow?”

“O yon is the mountain of hell,” he cried,

“Where you and I will go.”

He strack the tap-mast wi his hand,

The fore-mast wi his knee,

And he brake that gallant ship in twain,

And sank her in the sea.

THE MERMAID

PART I

On Jura’s heath how sweetly swell

The murmurs of the mountain bee!

How softly mourns the writhed shell

Of Jura’s shore, its parent sea!

But softer, floating o’er the deep,

The Mermaid’s sweet sea-soothing lay,

That charmed the dancing waves to sleep,

Before the bark of Colonsay.

Aloft the purple pennons wave,

As parting gay from Crinan’s shore,

From Morven’s wars the seamen brave

Their gallant Chieftain homeward bore.

In youth’s gay bloom, the brave Macphail

Still blamed the lingering bark’s delay;

For her he chid the flagging sail,

The lovely Maid of Colonsay.

“And raise,” he cried, “the song of love,

The maiden sung with tearful smile,

When first, o’er Jura’s hills to rove,