The Whummil Bore

The Text is from Motherwell's MS. He included it in the Appendix to his Minstrelsy. No other collector or editor notices the ballad--'if it ever were one,' as Child remarks.

The only point to be noted is that the second stanza has crept into two versions of Hind Horn, apparently because of the resemblance of the previous stanzas, which present a mere ballad-commonplace.


THE WHUMMIL BORE

    1.
    Seven lang years I hae served the king,
            Fa fa fa fa lilly
    And I never got a sight of his daughter but ane.
            With my glimpy, glimpy, glimpy eedle,
            Lillum too tee a ta too a tee a ta a tally

    2.
    I saw her thro' a whummil bore,
    And I ne'er got a sight of her no more.

    3.
    Twa was putting on her gown,
    And ten was putting pins therein.

    4.
    Twa was putting on her shoon,
    And twa was buckling them again.

    5.
    Five was combing down her hair,
    And I never got a sight of her nae mair.

    6.
    Her neck and breast was like the snow,
    Then from the bore I was forced to go.

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

The Braes Of Yarrow

Frank Sidgwick, Simple Poetry

The Lament Of The Border Widow

Frank Sidgwick, Simple Poetry

Fair Janet

Frank Sidgwick, Simple Poetry

The Laird O' Logie

Frank Sidgwick, Simple Poetry

English

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The Twa Sisters O' Binnorie

Texts.--The version here given is compounded from two different sources, almost of necessity. Stanzas 1-19 were given by Scott, compounded from W. Tytler's Brown MS. and the recitation of an old woman. But at stanza 20 Scott's version becomes eccentric, and he prints such verses as:--

    'A famous harper passing by
    The sweet pale face he chanced to spy ...

    The strings he framed of her yellow hair,
    Whose notes made sad the listening air.'

Stanzas 20-25, therefore, have been supplied from the Jamieson-Brown MS., which after this point does not descend from the high level of ballad-poetry.

The Story.--This is a very old and a very popular story. An early broadside exists, dated 1656, and the same version is printed in Wit Restor'd, 1658. Of Scandinavian ballads on the ...

Frank Sidgwick

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 ...

Frank Sidgwick

The Wee Wee Man

The Text is that of Herd's MS. and his Scots Songs. Other versions vary very slightly, and this is the oldest of them.

There is a fourteenth-century MS. (in the Cotton collection) containing a poem not unlike The Wee Wee Man; but there is no justification in deriving the ballad from the poem, which may be found in Ritson's Ancient Songs (1829), i. p. 40.

Scott incorporates the story with The Young Tamlane.


THE WEE WEE MAN

    1.
    As I was wa'king all alone,
        Between a water and a wa',
    And there I spy'd a wee wee man,
        And he was the least that ere I saw.

    2.
    His legs were scarce a shathmont's length,
        And thick and thimber was his thigh;
    Between his brows there was a span,
       ...

Frank Sidgwick

The Twa Brothers

The Text is from Sharpe's Ballad Book (1823). Scott included no version of this ballad in his Minstrelsy; but Motherwell and Jamieson both had traditional versions. Motherwell considered it essential that the deadly wound should be accidental; but it is far more typical of a ballad-hero that he should lose his temper and kill his brother; and, as Child points out, it adds to the pathetic generosity of the slain brother in providing excuses for his absence to be made to his father, mother, and sister.


The Story.--Motherwell and Sharpe were more or less convinced that the ballad was founded on an accident that happened in 1589 to a Somerville, who was killed by his brother's pistol going off.

This ballad is still in circulation in the form of a game amongst American children--the last state of more ...

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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,
     ...

Frank Sidgwick

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...

Frank Sidgwick