The Fause Knight Upon The Road

The Text is taken from the Introduction to Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. lxxiv.


The Story appears to be a conversation between a wee boy and the devil, the latter under the guise of a knight. The boy will be carried off unless he can 'have the last word,' a charm of great power against all evil spirits.

A very similar ballad, of repartees between an old crone and a wee boy, was found at the Lappfiord, Finland.


THE FAUSE KNIGHT UPON THE ROAD

    1.
    'O whare are ye gaun?'
            Quo the fause knicht upon the road:
    'I'm gaun to the scule,'
            Quo' the wee boy, and still he stude.

    2.
    'What is that upon your back?'
    'Atweel it is my bukes.'

    3.
    'What's that ye've got in your arm?'
    'Atweel it is my peit.'

    4.
    'Wha's aucht they sheep?'
    'They're mine and my mither's.'

    5.
    'How monie o' them are mine?'
    'A' they that hae blue tails.'

    6.
    'I wiss ye were on yon tree:'
    'And a gude ladder under me.'

    7.
    'And the ladder for to break:'
    'And you for to fa' down.'

    8.
    'I wiss ye were in yon sie:'
    'And a gude bottom under me.'

    9.
    'And the bottom for to break:'
    'And ye to be drowned.'

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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The Knight And The Shepherd's Daughter

The Text is given here from Kinloch's MSS. He gives also three other versions and various fragments. The tale is also found amongst the Roxburghe Ballads, as The Beautifull Shepherdesse of Arcadia, in two broadsides printed about 1655 and 1680. This is the only English version extant. But earlier than any text of the ballad is a quotation from it in John Fletcher's The Pilgrim, iv. 2 (1621). The Scots versions, about a dozen in number, are far more lively than the broadside. Buchan printed two, of sixty and sixty-three stanzas respectively. Another text is delightfully inconsequent:--

    '"Some ca' me Jack, some ca' me John,
        Some ca' me Jing-ga-lee,
    But when I am in the queen's court
        Earl Hitchcock they ca' me."

    "Hitchcock, Hitchcock," Jo Janet she said,
        ...

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The Baffled Knight
The Text is from Ravenscroft's Deuteromelia (1609), reprinted almost verbatim in Tom Durfey's Pills to Purge Melancholy.

The Story was sufficiently popular not only to have been revived, at the end of the seventeenth century, but to have had three other 'Parts' added to it, the whole four afterwards being combined into one broadside.

In similar Spanish, Portuguese, and French ballads, the damsel escapes by saying she is a leper, or the daughter of a leper, or otherwise diseased. Much the same story is told in Danish and German ballads.

THE BAFFLED KNIGHT

1.
Yonder comes a courteous knight,
Lustely raking over the lay;
He was well ware of a bonny lasse,
As she came wand'ring over the way.
Then she sang do...
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The Queen Of Elfan's Nourice
The Text.--As printed in Sharpe's Ballad Book, from the Skene MS. (No. 8). It is fragmentary--regrettably so, especially as stanzas 10-12 belong to Thomas Rymer.

The Story is the well-known one of the abduction of a young mother to be the Queen of Elfland's nurse. Fairies, elves, water-sprites, and nisses or brownies, have constantly required mortal assistance in the nursing of fairy children. Gervase of Tilbury himself saw a woman stolen away for this purpose, as she was washing clothes in the Rhone.

The genuineness of this ballad, deficient as it is, is best proved by its lyrical nature, which, as Child says, 'forces you to chant, and will not be read.'

'Elfan,' of course, is Elfland; 'nourice,' a nurse.

THE QUEEN OF ELFAN'S NOURICE

1.
'I heard a cow ...
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Fause Footrage
The Text is from Alexander Fraser Tytler's Brown MS., which was also the source of Scott's version in the Minstrelsy. One line (31.1), closely resembling a line in Lady Wardlaw's forged ballad Hardyknute, caused Sir Walter to investigate strictly the authenticity of the ballad, but the evidence of Lady Douglas, that she had learned the ballad in her childhood, and could still repeat much of it, removed his doubts. It is, however, quite possible, as Professor Child points out, 'that Mrs. Brown may unconsciously have adopted this verse from the tiresome and affected Hardyknute, so much esteemed in her day.'

The Story.--In The Complaynt of Scotlande (1549) there is mentioned a tale 'how the King of Estmure Land married the King's daughter of Westmure Land,' and it has been suggested that there is a conn...
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The Friar In The Well
The Text is taken from Buchan's MSS., the Scots version being rather more condensed than the corresponding English broadside. There is a reference to this ballad in Munday's Downfall of Robert, Earl of Huntington (1598); but earlier still, Skelton hints at it in Colyn Cloute.

The Story can be paralleled in French, Danish, and Persian ballads and tales, but is simple enough to have been invented by almost any people. Compare also the story of The Wright's Chaste Wife by Adam of Cobsam, E.E.T.S., 1865, ed. F. J. Furnivall.

THE FRIAR IN THE WELL

1.
O hearken and hear, and I will you tell
Sing, Faldidae, faldidadi
Of a friar that loved a fair maiden well.
Sing, Faldi dadi di di (bis)
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The Laird Of Knottington
The Text was sent to Percy in 1768 by R. Lambe of Norham. The ballad is widely known in Scotland under several titles, but the most usual is The Broom of Cowdenknows, which was the title used by Scott in the Minstrelsy.

The Story is not consistently told in this version, as in 11.3,4 the daughter gives away her secret to her father in an absurd fashion.

An English song, printed as a broadside about 1640, The Lovely Northerne Lasse, is directed to be sung 'to a pleasant Scotch tune, called The broom of Cowden Knowes.' It is a poor variant of our ballad, in the usual broadside style, and cannot have been written by any one fully acquainted with the Scottish ballad. It is in the Roxburghe, Douce, and other collections.

THE LAIRD OF KNOTTINGTON

1.
There ...
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