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pubOne.info present you this new edition. 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.

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Publié par	Pub One Info
Date de parution	06 novembre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9782819943648
Langue	English

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INTRODUCTION BY THE EDITOR.
Recitation with dramatic energy by men whosebusiness it was to travel from one great house to another anddelight the people by the way, was usual among us from the first.The scop invented and the glee-man recited heroic legends and othertales to our Anglo-Saxon forefathers. These were followed by theminstrels and other tellers of tales written for the people. Theyfrequented fairs and merrymakings, spreading the knowledge not onlyof tales in prose or ballad form, but of appeals also to publicsympathy from social reformers.
As late as the year 1822, Allan Cunningham, inpublishing a collection of “Traditional Tales of the English andScottish Peasantry, ” spoke from his own recollection of itinerantstory-tellers who were welcomed in the houses of the peasantry andearned a living by their craft.
The earliest story-telling was in recitative. Whenthe old alliteration passed on into rhyme, and the crowd or rusticfiddle took the place of the old “gleebeam” for accentuation of themeasure and the meaning of the song, we come to the ballad-singeras Philip Sidney knew him. Sidney said, in his “Defence of Poesy, ”that he never heard the old song of Percy and Douglas, that hefound not his heart moved more than with a trumpet; and yet, hesaid, “it is sung but by some blind crowder, with no rougher voicethan rude style; which being so evil apparelled in the dust andcobweb of that uncivil age, what would it work trimmed in thegorgeous eloquence of Pindar? ” Many an old ballad, instinct withnatural feeling, has been more or less corrupted, by bad ear ormemory, among the people upon whose lips it has lived. It is to beconsidered, however, that the old broader pronunciation of someletters developed some syllables and the swiftness of speechslurred over others, which will account for many an apparent haltin the music of what was actually, on the lips of theballad-singer, a good metrical line.
“Chevy Chase” is, most likely, a corruption of theFrench word chevauchee, which meant a dash over the border fordestruction and plunder within the English pale. Chevauchee was theFrench equivalent to the Scottish border raid. Close relationsbetween France and Scotland arose out of their common interest inchecking movements towards their conquest by the kings of England,and many French words were used with a homely turn in Scottishcommon speech. Even that national source of joy, “great chieftainof the pudding-race, ” the haggis, has its name from the Frenchhachis. At the end of the old ballad of “Chevy Chase, ” which readsthe corrupted word into a new sense, as the Hunting on the CheviotHills, there is an identifying of the Hunting of the Cheviot withthe Battle of Otterburn:—
"Old men that knowen the ground well enough call itthe Battle of
Otterburn.
At Otterburn began this spurn upon a Monenday;
There was the doughty Douglas slain, the Percy neverwent away. "
The Battle of Otterburn was fought on the 19th ofAugust 1388. The Scots were to muster at Jedburgh for a raid intoEngland. The Earl of Northumberland and his sons, learning thestrength of the Scottish gathering, resolved not to oppose it, butto make a counter raid into Scotland. The Scots heard of this anddivided their force. The main body, under Archibald Douglas andothers, rode for Carlisle. A detachment of three or four hundredmen-at-arms and two thousand combatants, partly archers, rode forNewcastle and Durham, with James Earl of Douglas for one of theirleaders. These were already pillaging and burning in Durham whenthe Earl of Northumberland first heard of them, and sent againstthem his sons Henry and Ralph Percy. In a hand-to-hand fightbetween Douglas and Henry Percy, Douglas took Percy's pennon. AtOtterburn the Scots overcame the English but Douglas fell, struckby three spears at once, and Henry was captured in fight by LordMontgomery. There was a Scots ballad on the Battle of Otterburnquoted in 1549 in a book— “The Complaynt of Scotland”— that alsoreferred to the Hunttis of Chevet. The older version of “ChevyChase” is in an Ashmole MS. in the Bodleian, from which it wasfirst printed in 1719 by Thomas Hearne in his edition of William ofNewbury's History. Its author turns the tables on the Scots withthe suggestion of the comparative wealth of England and Scotland inmen of the stamp of Douglas and Percy. The later version, which wasonce known more widely, is probably not older than the time ofJames I. , and is the version praised by Addison in Nos. 70 and 74of “The Spectator. ”
“The Nut-Brown Maid, ” in which we can hardly doubtthat a woman pleads for women, was first printed in 1502 in RichardArnold's Chronicle. Nut-brown was the old word for brunette. Therewas an old saying that “a nut-brown girl is neat and blithe bynature. ”
“Adam Bell, Clym of the Clough, and William ofCloudeslie” was first printed by Copland about 1550. A fragment hasbeen found of an earlier impression. Laneham, in 1575, in hisKenilworth Letter, included “Adam Bell, Clym of the Clough, andWilliam of Cloudeslie” among the light reading of Captain Cox. Inthe books of the Stationers' Company (for the printing and editingof which we are deeply indebted to Professor Arber), there is anentry between July 1557 and July 1558, “To John kynge to pryntethis boke Called Adam Bell etc. and for his lycense he giveth tothe howse. ” On the 15th of January 1581-2 “Adam Bell” is includedin a list of forty or more copyrights transferred from SampsonAwdeley to John Charlewood; “A Hundred Merry Tales” and Gower's“Confessio Amantis” being among the other transfers. On the 16th ofAugust 1586 the Company of Stationers “Alowed vnto Edward white forhis copies these fyve ballades so that they be tollerable:” fouronly are named, one being “A ballad of William Clowdisley, neverprinted before. ” Drayton wrote in the “Shepheard's Garland” in1593:—
"Come sit we down under this hawthorn tree,
The morrow's light shall lend us day enough—
And tell a tale of Gawain or Sir Guy,
Of Robin Hood, or of good Clem of the Clough. "
Ben Jonson, in his “Alchemist, ” acted in 1610, alsoindicates the current popularity of this tale, when Face, thehousekeeper, brings Dapper, the lawyer's clerk, to Subtle, andrecommends him with—
"'slight, I bring you
No cheating Clim o' the Clough or Claribel. "
“Binnorie, ” or “The Two Sisters, ” is a ballad onan old theme popular in Scandinavia as well as in this country.There have been many versions of it. Dr. Rimbault published it froma broadside dated 1656. The version here given is Sir WalterScott's, from his “Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, ” with a fewtouches from other versions given in Professor Francis JamesChild's noble edition of “The English and Scottish Popular Ballads,” which, when complete, will be the chief storehouse of our balladlore.
“King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid” is referred toby Shakespeare in “Love's Labour's Lost, ” Act iv. sc I; in “Romeoand Juliet, ” Act ii. sc. I; and in “II. Henry IV. , ” Act iii. sc.4. It was first printed in 1612 in Richard Johnson's “Crown Garlandof Goulden Roses gathered out of England's Royall Garden. Being theLives and Strange Fortunes of many Great Personages of this Land,set forth in many pleasant new Songs and Sonnets never beforeimprinted. ”
“Take thy Old Cloak about thee, ” was published in1719 by Allan Ramsay in his “Tea-Table Miscellany, ” and wasprobably a sixteenth century piece retouched by him. Iago sings thelast stanza but one— “King Stephen was a worthy peer, ” etc. — in“Othello, ” Act ii. sc. 3.
In “Othello, ” Act iv. sc. 3, there is alsoreference to the old ballad of “Willow, willow, willow. ”
“The Little Wee Man” is a wee ballad that is foundin many forms with a little variation. It improves what was best inthe opening of a longer piece which introduced popular prophecies,and is to be found in Cotton MS. Julius A. v. It was printed byThomas Wright in his edition of Langtoft's Chronicle (ii. 452).
“The Spanish Lady's Love” was printed by ThomasDeloney in “The Garland of Goodwill, ” published in the latter halfof the sixteenth century. The hero of this ballad was probably oneof Essex's companions in the Cadiz expedition, and various attemptshave been made to identify him, especially with a Sir John Bolle ofThorpe Hall, Lincolnshire.
“Edward, Edward, ” is from Percy's “Reliques. ”Percy had it from Lord Hailes.
“Robin Hood” is the “Lytell Geste of Robyn Hood, ”printed in London by Wynken de Worde, and again in Edinburgh byChepman and Myllar in 1508, in the first year of the establishmentof a printing-press in Scotland.
“King Edward IV. and the Tanner of Tamworth” is aballad of a kind once popular; there were “King Alfred and theNeatherd, ” “King Henry and the Miller, ” “King James I. and theTinker, ” “King Henry VII. and the Cobbler, ” with a dozen more.“The Tanner of Tamworth” in another, perhaps older, form, as “TheKing and the Barker, ” was printed by Joseph Ritson in his “AncientPopular Poetry. ”
“Sir Patrick Spens” was first published by Percy inhis “Reliques of Ancient English Poetry” (1757). It was given bySir Walter Scott in his “Minstrelsy of the Border, ” and with moredetail by Peter Buchan in his “Ancient Ballads of the North. ”Buchan took it from an old blind ballad-singer who had recited itfor fifty years, and learnt it in youth from another very old man.The ballad is upon an event in Scottish history of the thirteenthcentury, touching marriage of a Margaret, daughter of the King ofScotland, to Haningo, son of the King of Norway. The perils of awinter sea-passage in ships of the olden time were recognised by anAct of the reign of James III. of Scotland, prohibiting allnavigation “frae the feast of St. Simon's Day and Jude unto thefeast of the Purification of our Lady, called Candlemas. ”
“Edom o' Gordon” was first printed at Glasgow byRobert and Andrew Foulis in 1755. Percy ascribed its preservationto Sir David Dalrymple, who gave it from the memory of a lady. Theinc