32 And as he rode by one hawthorne, Even there did hang his hunting horne. 33 He sett his bugle to his mouth, And blew his bugle still full south. 34 He blew his bugle lowde and shrill ; The lady heard, and came him till. 35 Sayes, 'The gyant lyes vnder yond low, And well he heares your bugle blow. 36 And bidds me of good cheere be, This night heele supp with you and me.' 37 Hee sett that lady vppon a steede, And a litle boy before her yeede. 'Isaac-a-Bell and Hugh the Græme,' Christie, Traditional Ballad Airs, 1, 110. From the singing of an old woman in Buckie, Enzie, Banffshire. 1 A KNICHT had two sons o sma fame, Isaac-a-Bell and Hugh the Græme. 2 And to the youngest he did say, 3 Will you gae fee to pick a mill? 4 'I winna fee to pick a mill, 5 But it is said, as I do hear, That war will last for seven year, And the, etc. 6 With a giant and a boar That range into the wood o Tore. And the, etc. 19 KING ORFEO Mr Edmonston, from whose memory this ballad was derived, notes that though stanzas are probably lost after the first, which would give some account of the king in the east wooing the lady in the west, no such verses were sung to him. He had forgotten some stanzas after the fourth, of which the substance was that the lady was carried off by fairies, that the king went in quest of her, and one day saw a company passing along a hillside, among whom he recognized his lost wife. The troop went to what seemed a great "ha-house," or castle, on the hillside. Stanzas after the eighth were also forgotten, the purport being that a messenger from behind the grey stane appeared and invited the king in. We have here in traditional song the story of the medieval romance of Orpheus, in which fairy-land supplants Tartarus, faithful love is rewarded, and Eurydice (Heurodis, Erodys, Eroudys) is retrieved. There are three versions of this tale (edited respectively by Laing, Select Remains of the Ancient Popular Poetry of Scotland, No. 3; Halliwell, Illustrations of Fairy Mythology, p. 37; and Ritson, Metrical Romanceës, II, 248). See the critical edition by O. Zielke, Breslau, 1880. 3 She went into the wide wilderness; Poor she was to be pitied for her heavi ness. 4 She leant her back against a tree, And there she endurd much misery. 5 She leant her back against an oak, With bitter sighs these words she spoke. 6 She set her foot against a thorne, And there she had two pritty babes born. 7 She took her filliting off her head, And there she ty'd them hand and leg. 8 She had a penknife long and sharp, And there she stuck them to the heart. 9 She dug a grave, it was long and deep, And there she laid them in to sleep. 10 The coldest earth it was their bed, The green grass was their coverlid. 11 As she was a going by her father's hall, She see three children a playing at ball. 12 One was drest in scarlet fine, And the other as naked as ere they was born. 13 'O mother, O mother, if these children was mine, I would dress them [in] scarlet fine.' 14 'O mother, O mother, when we was thine, You did not dress us in scarlet fine. 15 You set your back against a tree, And there you endured great misery. 16 You set your foot against a thorne, And there you had us pritty babes born. 17 You took your filliting off your head, And there you bound us, hand to leg. 18 You had a penknife long and sharp, And there you stuck us to the heart. The only English copy of this ballad that approaches completeness is furnished by the Percy manuscript, A. Sir Walter Scott remembered, and communicated to Kirkpatrick Sharpe, three stanzas, and half of the burden, of another version, B. The English ballad speaks only of a maid, who does not appear to be any particular person, and of a mysterious palmer, who seems authorized to impose on the sinner certain penances, but whose identity is not declared. In the Scandinavian versions, as well as in a Finnish version, their true characters are seen. In all of these the story of the woman of Samaria (John, iv) is blended with mediæval traditions concerning Mary Magdalen, who is assumed to be the same with the woman "which was a sinner," in Luke, vii, 37, and also with Mary, sister of Lazarus. is the view of the larger part of the Latin ecclesiastical writers, while most of the Greeks distinguish the three. It was reserved for ballads, says Grundtvig, to confound the Magdalen with the Samaritan woman. The names Maria, or Magdalena, Jesus, or Christ, are found in most of the Scandinavian ballads. There are several Slavic ballads which blend the story of the Samaritan woman and that of 'The Cruel Mother,' without admixture of the Magdalen. The popular ballads of some of the southern nations give us the legend of the Magdalen uncombined. This |
