The Maid And The Palmer

The Text is from the Percy Folio MS. The only other known text is a fragment from Sir Walter Scott's recollection, printed in C. K. Sharpe's Ballad Book.

The Story is well known in the folklore of Europe, and is especially common in the Scandinavian languages. As a rule, however, all these ballads blend the story of the woman of Samaria with the traditions concerning Mary Magdalen that were extant in mediæval times.

From the present ballad it could hardly be gathered (except, perhaps, from stanza 11) that the old palmer represents Christ. This point is at once obvious in the Scandinavian and other ballads.

The extraordinary burden in the English ballad is one of the most elaborate in existence, and is quite as inexplicable as any.

The expression 'to lead an ape in hell' (14.2) occurs constantly in Elizabethan and later literature, always in connection with women who die, or expect to die, unmarried. Dyce says the expression 'never has been (and never will be) satisfactorily explained'; but it was suggested by Steevens that women who had no mate on earth should adopt in hell an ape as a substitute.

THE MAID AND THE PALMER

1.
The maid shee went to the well to washe,
Lillumwham, Lillumwham
The mayd shee went to the well to washe,
Whatt then, what then?
The maid shee went to the well to washe,
Dew ffell of her lilly white fleshe.
Grandam boy, grandam boy, heye!
Leg a derry Leg a merry mett mer whoope whir
Drivance, Larumben, Grandam boy, heye!

2.
White shee washed & white shee ronge,
White shee hang'd o' the hazle wand.

3.
There came an old palmer by the way,
Sais, 'God speed thee well, thou faire maid.

4.
'Hast either cupp or can,
To give an old palmer drinke therin?'

5.
Sayes, 'I have neither cupp nor cann,
To give an old palmer drinke therin.'

6.
'But an thy lemman came from Roome,
Cuppes & cannes thou wold ffind soone.'

7.
Shee sware by God & good St. John,
Lemman had shee never none.

8.
Saies, 'Peace, ffaire mayd, you are fforsworne;
Nine children you have borne.

9.
'Three were buryed under thy bed's head;
Other three under thy brewing leade;

10.
'Other three on yon play greene;
Count, maide, & there be nine.'

11.
'But I hope you are the good old man
That all the world beleeves upon.

12.
'Old palmer, I pray thee,
Pennaunce that thou wilt give to me.'

13.
'Penance I can give thee none,
But seven yeere to be a stepping-stone.

14.
'Other seaven a clapper in a bell;
Other seven to lead an ape in hell.

15.
'When thou hast thy penance done,
Then thou'st come a mayden home.'

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.

Frank Sidgwick

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English

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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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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 Broomfield Hill
The Text is taken from Scott's Minstrelsy (1803). It would be of great interest if we could be sure that the reference to 'Hive Hill' in 8.1 was from genuine Scots tradition. In Wager's comedy The Longer thou Lived the more Fool thou art (about 1568) Moros sings a burden:--

'Brome, brome on hill,
The gentle brome on hill, hill,
Brome, brome on Hive hill,
The gentle brome on Hive hill,
The brome stands on Hive hill a.'

Before this date 'Brume, brume on hil' is mentioned in The Complaynt of Scotlande, 1549; and a similar song was among Captain Cox's 'ballets and songs, all auncient.'

The Story, of a youth challenging a maid, and losing his wager by being laid asleep with witchcraft, is popular and widespread. In the Gesta Romanorum is ...
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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 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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Cospatrick
The Text is that of Scott's Minstrelsy (1802). It was 'taken down from the recitation of a lady' (his mother's sister, Miss Christian Rutherford), and collated with a copy in the Tytler-Brown MS. The ballad is also called Gil Brenton, Lord Dingwall, Bangwell, Bengwill, or Brangwill, Bothwell, etc.

The Story is a great favourite, not only in Scandinavian ballads, but also in all northern literature. The magical agency of bed, blankets, sheets, and sword, is elsewhere extended to a chair, a stepping-stone by the bedside (see the Boy and the Mantle, First Series, p. 119), or the Billie Blin (see Young Bekie, First Series, pp. 6, 7, and Willie's Lady, p. 19). The Norwegian tale of Aase and the Prince is known to English readers in Dasent's Annie the Goosegirl<...
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