A Bundle of Ballads | Page 3

(*) and underline (_) characters may be used to convey punctuation intended by the?author, and additional characters may be used to?indicate hypertext links; OR
[*] The etext may be readily converted by the reader at
no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent form by the program that displays the etext (as is the case, for instance, with most word processors); OR
[*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC or other equivalent proprietary form).
[2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this
"Small Print!" statement.
[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the
net profits you derive calculated using the method you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are payable to "Project Gutenberg Association/Carnegie-Mellon University" within the 60 days following each?date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return.
WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution you can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg Association / Carnegie-Mellon University".
We are planning on making some changes in our donation structure in 2000, so you might want to email me, [email protected] beforehand.
*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