Get Up And Bar The Door

The Text is from Herd's Ancient and Modern Scots Songs (1769), which is almost identical with a copy in Johnson's Museum. Another variant, also given in the Museum, was contributed by Burns, who made it shorter and more dramatic.

The Story of this farcical ballad has long been popular in many lands, European and Oriental, and has been introduced as an episode in English, French, and German plays. A close parallel to the ballad may be found in Straparola, Day VIII., first story.

GET UP AND BAR THE DOOR

1.
It fell about the Martinmas time,
And a gay time it was then,
When our goodwife got puddings to make,
And she's boil'd them in the pan.

2.
The wind sae cauld blew south and north,
And blew into the floor;
Quoth our goodman to our goodwife,
'Gae out and bar the door.'

3.
'My hand is in my hussyfskep,
Goodman, as ye may see;
An it shoud nae be barr'd this hundred year,
It's no be barr'd for me.'

4.
They made a paction 'tween them twa,
They made it firm and sure,
That the first word whae'er shoud speak,
Shoud rise and bar the door.

5.
Then by there came two gentlemen,
At twelve o'clock at night,
And they could neither see house nor hall,
Nor coal nor candle-light.

6.
'Now whether is this a rich man's house,
Or whether is it a poor?'
But ne'er a word wad ane o' them speak,
For barring of the door.

7.
And first they ate the white puddings,
And then they ate the black;
Tho' muckle thought the goodwife to hersel',
Yet ne'er a word she spake.

8.
Then said the one unto the other,
'Here, man, tak ye my knife;
Do ye tak aff the auld man's beard,
And I'll kiss the goodwife.'

9.
'But there's nae water in the house,
And what shall we do than?'
'What ails ye at the pudding-broo,
That boils into the pan?'

10.
O up then started our goodman,
An angry man was he:
'Will ye kiss my wife before my een,
And sca'd me wi' pudding-bree?'

11.
Then up and started our goodwife,
Gi'ed three skips on the floor:
'Goodman, you've spoken the foremost word,
Get up and bar the door.'

Frank Sidgwick

Frank Sidgwick was an English writer, publisher, and scholarly editor. He was instrumental in popularizing ballad and folklore studies in the early 20th century. Sidgwick co-founded the publishing company Sidgwick & Jackson, which became known for its contributions to literature and scholarship. Though not primarily known as a poet, his editorial and publishing efforts significantly impacted the literary culture of his time, emphasizing the academic study of traditional songs and verses.

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English

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Our Goodman

The Text is from Herd's MSS., as given by Professor Child to form a regular sequence. The ballad also exists in an English broadside form.


The Story of the ballad has a close counterpart in Flemish Belgium, and in southern France. The German variants, however, have a curious history. The English broadside ballad was translated into German by F. W. Meyer in 1789, and in this form gained such popularity that it was circulated not only as a broadside, but actually in oral tradition,--with the usual result of alteration. Its vogue was not confined to Germany, but spread to Hungary and Scandinavia, a Swedish broadside appearing within ten years of Meyer's translation.


OUR GOODMAN

    1.
    Hame came our goodman,
        And hame came he,
    And then he saw a saddle-horse,
     ...

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The Jolly Juggler

The Text is from a manuscript at Balliol College, Oxford, No. 354, already referred to in the First Series (p. 80) as supplying a text of The Nut-brown Maid. The manuscript, which is of the early part of the sixteenth century, has been edited by Ewald Flügel in Anglia, vol. xxvi., where the present ballad appears on pp. 278-9. I have only modernised the spelling, and broken up the lines, as the ballad is written in two long lines and a short one to each stanza.

No other text is known to me. The volume of Anglia containing the ballad was not published till 1903, some five years after Professor Child's death; and I believe he would have included it in his collection had he known of it.


The Story narrates the subjugation of a proud lady who scorns all her wooers, by a juggler who assumes the g...

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Willie's Lady

The Text is from the lost Fraser-Tytler-Brown MS., this ballad luckily having been transcribed before the MS. disappeared. Mrs. Brown recited another and a fuller version to Jamieson.


The Story.--Willie's mother, a witch, displeased at her son's choice, maliciously arrests by witchcraft the birth of Willie's son. Willie's travailing wife sends him again and again to bribe the witch, who refuses cup, steed, and girdle. Here our version makes such abrupt transitions, that it will be well to explain what takes place. The Belly Blind or Billie Blin (see Young Bekie, First Series, pp. 6, 7) advises Willie to make a sham baby of wax, and invite his witch-mother to the christening. Willie does so (in stanzas lost between our 33 and 34); the witch, believing the wax-baby to be flesh and blood, betrays all her craft by aski...

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The Fire Of Frendraught

The Text is from Motherwell's Minstrelsy. He received the ballad from Charles Kirkpatrick Sharp. In Maidment's North Countrie Garland there is a similar version with a number of small verbal differences.


The Story.--Frendraught in Aberdeenshire, and Rothiemay in Banffshire, lie on opposite sides of the Deveron, which separates the counties. A feud began (as the result of a dispute over fishing rights) between Crichton of Frendraught and Gordon of Rothiemay, and in a fight on the first day of the year 1630, Rothiemay and others were killed. Kinsmen of both parties were involved; and though the broil was temporarily settled, another soon sprang up. The Lord John of the ballad was Viscount Melgum, the second son of the Marquis of Huntly, who was appealed to as a peacemaker between the factions of Leslie and Cri...

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The Clerk's Twa Sons O' Owsenford, And The Wife Of Usher's Well

These two ballads must be considered together, as the last six verses (18-23) of The Clerk's Twa Sons, as here given, are a variant of The Wife of Usher's Well.


Texts.--The Clerk's Twa Sons is taken from Kinloch's MSS., in the handwriting of James Chambers, as it was sung to his grandmother by an old woman.

The Wife of Usher's Well is from Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, and however incomplete, may well stand alone.


The Story has a fairly close parallel in the well-known German ballad, 'Das Schloss in Oesterreich'; and a ballad found both in Spain and Italy has resemblances to each. But in these two ballads, especially in The Wife of Usher's Well, the interest lies rather in the impressiveness of the verses than in the story.

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The Gay Goshawk

The Text is from the Jamieson-Brown MS., on which version Scott drew partly for his ballad in the Minstrelsy. Mrs. Brown recited the ballad again to William Tytler in 1783, but the result is now lost, with most of the other Tytler-Brown versions.

The Story.--One point, the maid's feint of death to escape from her father to her lover, is the subject of a ballad very popular in France; a version entitled Belle Isambourg is printed in a collection called Airs de Cour, 1607. Feigning death to escape various threats is a common feature in many European ballads.

It is perhaps needless to remark that no goshawk sings sweetly, much less talks. In Buchan's version (of forty-nine stanzas) the goshawk is exchanged for a parrot.


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    1.
    'O well's me o' my g...

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