II.

From what has been said it is clear that, as a rule, the ballad is at its best, is most typically ballad, when its subject-matter is of purely popular origin. The _Gest_ and the earliest Robin Hood ballads “are among the best of all ballads,” and Robin Hood “is absolutely a creation of the popular muse. The earliest mention we have of him is as the subject of ballads.”[218] “Absolutely a creation of the popular muse” would seem to imply that the ballad is not,--or that these ballads at least are not,--based either upon a formless popular tradition or upon definite prose tales. Local traditions follow the ballad, as attempts to explain it; they do not supply the story. “In places where a ballad has once been known, the story will often be remembered after the verses have been wholly or partly forgotten, and the ballad will be resolved into a prose tale, retaining, perhaps, some scraps of verse, and not infrequently taking up new matter, or blending with other traditions. Naturally enough, a ballad and an equivalent tale sometimes exist side by side.”[219]

The existence of foreign traditional parallels is one evidence of popular origin. _The Bent Sae Brown_ (71) has close resemblances with Norse ballads; “but the very homeliness of the Scottish ballad precludes any suspicion beyond tampering with tradition. The silliness and fulsome vulgarity of Buchan’s versions often enough make one wince or sicken.... But such correspondences with foreign ballads as we witness in the present case are evidence of a genuine traditional foundation.”[220] Less complete, yet even more striking, are the foreign versions of the theme of _Tam Lin_ (39).

“This fine ballad stands by itself, and is not, as might have been expected, found in possession of any people but the Scottish. Yet it has connections, through the principal feature in the story, the retransformation of Tam Lin, with Greek popular tradition older than Homer.”[221] “We come ... surprisingly near to the principal event of the Scottish ballad in a Cretan fairy-tale ... [1820-1830].” And this “Cretan tale does not differ from the one repeated by Apollodorus from earlier writers a couple of thousand years ago more than two versions of a story gathered from oral tradition in these days are apt to do. Whether it has come down to our time from mouth to mouth through twenty-five centuries or more, or whether, having died out of the popular memory, it was reintroduced through literature, is a question that cannot be decided with certainty; but there will be nothing unlikely in the former supposition to those who bear in mind the tenacity of tradition among people who have never known books.”[222] _The Suffolk Miracle_ (272) has “impressive and beautiful”[223] European parallels, and therefore finds a place in Professor Child’s collection. Other debased or counterfeit or spurious ballads are present for the same reason, or because, like _Tam Lin_, they contain some purely popular or traditional feature. Certain features are expressly declared to be popular or to be common in ballads; among these are the quibbling oaths and the unbosoming oneself to an oven or stove, in _The Lord of Lorn and the False Steward_ (271);[224] the miraculous harvest in _The Carnal and the Crane_ (55);[225] the childbirth in the wood in _Leesome Brand_ (15) and in _Rose the Red and White Lily_ (103);[226] the presence of three ladies, “that the youngest may be preferred to the others;” the unpardonable “offence given by not asking a brother’s assent to his sister’s marriage” in _The Cruel Brother_ (11);[227] the testament in _The Cruel Brother_, _Lord Randal_, _Edward_, etc.;[228] the riddles in _Riddles Wisely Expounded_ (1), etc.;[229] and certain stanzas in _Crow and Pie_ (111).[230] “Heroic sentiment” is a characteristic of the earlier Robin Hood ballads; in the later it is gone.[231] It may be that in his appreciation of certain other features Professor Child is thinking not merely of their excellence but of their peculiarly popular quality as well. Thus he speaks of “the fine trait of the ringing of the bells without men’s hands, and the reading of the books without man’s tongue,”[232] in _Sir Hugh_ (155); and thinks that “perhaps the original conception [of _The Twa Sisters_ (10)] was the simple and beautiful one which we find in English B and both the Icelandic ballads, that the king’s harper, or the girl’s lover, takes three locks of her yellow hair to string his harp with.”[233]

The ballad does not always go to ancient tradition, or draw upon the stock of popular themes and motives; occasionally, in more modern times, it tells the story of some actual occurrence; it is based on fact. But the balladist feels himself under no obligation of loyalty to the fact. “A strict accordance with history should not be expected, and indeed would be almost a ground of suspicion [“or a pure@ accident”]. Ballad singers and their hearers would be as@ indifferent to the facts as the readers of ballads are now; it is only editors who feel bound to look closely into such matters.”[234] In _Johnie Armstrong_ (169) “the ballads treat facts with the customary freedom and improve upon them greatly.”[235] _Bonny John Seton_ (198) “is accurate as to the date, not commonly a good sign for such things.”[236] “A ballad taken down some four hundred years after the event will be apt to retain very little of sober history.”[237] Yet, in the case of _The Hunting of the Cheviot_ (162), at least, “the ballad can scarcely be a deliberate fiction. The singer is not a critical historian, but he supposes himself to be dealing with facts; he may be partial to his countrymen, but he has no doubt that he is treating of a real event.”[238] Part of _The Earl of Westmoreland_ (177) “has an historical substratum, though details are incorrect.”[239] In _Northumberland Betrayed by Douglas_ (176) “the ballad-minstrel acquaints us with circumstances concerning the surrender of Northumberland which are not known to any of the historians.”[240] Local tradition would seem to be even less authentic than the ballad; “in such cases” as _The Coble o Cargill_ (242) it “seldom means more than a theory which people have formed to explain a preëxisting ballad.”[241]

We have already seen how a ballad derived from print tends to revert to the popular form; the same tendency is evident in the ballad derived from a romance. Of _Gude Wallace_ (157) “Blind Harry’s Wallace ... is clearly the source.” “But the portions of Blind Harry’s poem out of which these ballads were made were perhaps themselves composed from older ballads, and the restitution of the lyrical form may have given us something not altogether unlike what was sung in the fifteenth, or even the fourteenth, century.”[242] _Thomas Rymer_ (37) is derived from the romance, yet it is “an entirely popular ballad as to style.”[243] These are the only cases where Professor Child admits without question the derivation of a ballad from a romance; in other cases, where ballad and romance tell the same story, he insists that the possibility of the priority of the ballad must be considered. Thus the ballad of _Hind Horn_ (17) has close affinity with the later English romance, but no filiation. “And were filiation to be accepted, there would remain the question of priority. It is often assumed, without a misgiving, that oral tradition must needs be younger than anything that was committed to writing some centuries ago; but this requires in each case to be made out; there is certainly no antecedent probability of that kind.”[244] _Fair Annie_ (62) is not derived from the lay; they “have a common source, which lies further back, and too far for us to find.”[245] In _Gil Brenton_ (5) “the artifice of substituting waiting-woman for bride has been thought to be derived from the romance of Tristan.... Grundtvig truly remarks that a borrowing by the romance from the popular ballad is as probable a supposition as the converse.”[246] The ballad does sometimes go to the romance for details. Thus, in _The Earl of Westmoreland_ (177) “what follows [stanza 15] is pure fancy work, or rather an imitation of stale old romance.”[247] _The Kitchie-Boy_ (252) is a modern adaptation of King Horn, but, “in the particular of the hero’s having his choice of two women, it is more like the _gest_ of ‘King Horn,’ or ‘Horn Childe and Maiden Rimnild;’ but an independent invention of the Spanish lady is not beyond the humble ability of the composer of ‘The Kitchie-Boy.’”[248] In the “worthless and manifestly--at least in part--spurious ballad” of _Young Ronald_ (304), “the nicking with nay and the giant are borrowed from romances.”[249] Though the _Gest_, finally, “as to all important considerations, is eminently original, absolutely so as to the conception of Robin Hood, some traits and incidents, as might be expected, are taken from what we may call the general stock of mediæval fiction.”[250] Thus “Robin Hood will not dine until he has some guest that can pay handsomely for his entertainment.... This habit of Robin’s seems to be a humorous imitation of King Arthur, who in numerous romances will not dine till some adventure presents itself.”[251]

Not only from ancient tradition, from fact, from romance or the sources of romance may the ballad derive its subject-matter; it may also turn back upon itself, and as late ballads counterfeit or imitate the style of earlier ones, so late ballads go to earlier ones for their subject-matter as well. Thus _The Battle of Otterburn_ (161) “is likely to have been modernized from ... a predecessor.”[252] Part of _The King’s Disguise, and Friendship with Robin Hood_ (151) “is a loose paraphrase, with omissions, of the seventh and eighth fits of the Gest.”[253] _The Brown Girl_ (295) “recalls ‘Lord Thomas and Fair Annet,’ ‘Sweet William’s Ghost,’ ‘Clerk Saunders,’ ‘The Unquiet Grave,’ ‘Bonny Barbara Allen,’ and has something of all of them.... Still it is not deliberately and mechanically patched together (as are some pieces in Part VIII), and in the point of the proud and unrelenting character of the Brown Girl it is original.”[254] “Deliberately and mechanically put together” were the pieces of Part VIII which follow. _Auld Matrons_ (249) “was made by someone who had acquaintance with the first fit of ‘Adam Bell.’ The anonymous ‘old wife’ becomes ‘auld Matrons;’ Inglewood, Ringlewood. The conclusion is in imitation of the rescues in Robin Hood ballads.”[255] _Henry Martyn_ (250) “must have sprung from the ashes of ‘Andrew Barton,’ of which name Henry Martyn would be no extraordinary corruption.”[256] _The Kitchie-Boy_ (252) is “a modern ‘adaptation’ of ‘King Horn’ ... from which A 33, 34, B 47, D 7, 8, are taken outright.”[257] The first half of _Willie’s Fatal Visit_ (255) “is a medley of ‘Sweet William’s Ghost,’ ‘Clerk Saunders,’ and ‘The Grey Cock,’”[258] Of _Broughty Wa’s_ (258), “Stanza 9, as it runs in b, is a reminiscence of ‘Bonny Baby Livingston,’ and 13 recalls ‘Child Waters,’ or ‘The Knight and the Shepherd’s Daughter.’”[259] A large part of _The New-Slain Knight_ (263) “is imitated or taken outright from very well known ballads.”[260] Like some of these later ballads the _Gest of Robyn Hode_ goes back to earlier ballads for its subject-matter. “The Gest is a popular epic, composed from several ballads by a poet of a thoroughly congenial spirit. No one of the ballads from which it was made up is extant in a separate shape, and some portions of the story may have been of the compiler’s own invention. The decoying of the sheriff into the wood, stanzas 181-204, is of the same derivation as the last part of Robin Hood and the Potter, No 121, Little John and Robin Hood exchanging parts; the conclusion, 451-56, is of the same source as Robin Hood’s Death, No 120.”[261] Some of the Middle-English forms “may be relics of the ballads from which this little epic was made up; or the whole poem may have been put together as early as 1400, or before.”[262] It is noteworthy that the _Gest_ was composed _from_, not _of_, several ballads; it was not made up of unchanged ballads, “deliberately and mechanically put together.”

The motives or features characteristic of subject-matter derived from pure popular tradition have already been noted; we may now note those traits which Professor Child declares or implies to be not characteristic of such subject-matter. Extravagance would seem to be one of these: the extravagance of _Hughie Grame_ (191, A, 16) “it is to be hoped is a corruption.”[263] In _Mary Hamilton_ (173) “there are not a few spurious passages. Among these are the extravagance of the queen’s bursting in the door, F 8; the platitude,[264] of menial stamp, that the child, if saved, might have been an honor to the mother, D 10, L 3, O 4.”[265] Exaggeration is another non-traditional trait: “It is but the natural course of exaggeration that the shepherd, having beaten Robin Hood, should beat Little John. This is descending low enough, but we do not see the bottom of this kind of balladry here”[266] [_Robin Hood and the Shepherd_ (165)]. _Robin Hood and Queen Katherine_ (145) is “a very pleasant ballad, with all the exaggeration.”[267] The true ballad is not prosaic: in _Fause Foodrage_ (89) “the ... king kills his successful rival on his wedding-day. According to the prosaic, not at all ballad-like, and evidently corrupted account in A, there is a rebellion of nobles four months after the marriage, and a certain False Foodrage takes it upon himself to kill the king.”[268] The true ballad is not over-refined: in _The Braes of Yarrow_ (214, C, 2) “the brothers have taken offence because their sister was not regarded as his equal by her husband, which is perhaps too much of a refinement for ballads, and may be a perversion.”[269] The true ballad is not cynical: _The Twa Corbies_ sounds “something like a cynical variation of the tender little English ballad,”[270] and it is not printed as a ballad in Professor Child’s collection. The true ballad is not sophisticated: it was the influence of the play, Home’s _Douglas_, that gave vogue to the ballad, _Child Maurice_ (83), and “the sophisticated copy passed into recitation.”[271] The true ballad is not sentimental: in _Mary Hamilton_ (173), “there are not a few spurious passages,” among them, “the sentimentality of H 3, 16.”[272] Jamieson published _Child Waters_ (63, B a) with “the addition of three sentimental stanzas to make Burd Ellen die just as her enduring all things is to be rewarded.”[273] The true ballad does not append a moral: a German version of _Lady Isabel and the Elf-Knight_ (4) “smacks decidedly of the bänkelsänger, and has an appropriate moral at the tail.”[274] A certain degree of probability or naturalness is to be expected of the true ballad story: in _Jellon Grame_ (90), “one day, when the boy asks why his mother does not take him home, Jellon Grame (very unnaturally) answers, I slew her, and there she lies: upon which the boy sends an arrow through him.”[275] Finally, the plot of the true ballad is not trite. In _Child Owlet_ (291) “the chain of gold in the first stanza and the penknife below the bed in the fourth have a false ring, and the story is of the tritest. The ballad seems at best to be a late one, and is perhaps mere imitation.”[276]