Ed de Moel

Child Ballads - Narrative

The Famous Flower of Serving Men

    1. Wood, E. 25, fol. 75, Bodleian Library.
    2. Pepys, III, 142, No 140, Magdalen College Library, Cambridge.
    3. A Collection of Old Ballads, I, 216, 1723.
    Version A

This ballad was given in Percy's Reliques, III, 87, 1765, "from a written copy, containing some improvements (perhaps modern ones)." These improvements are execrable in style and in matter, so far as there is new matter, but not in so glaring contrast with the groundwork as literary emendations of traditional ballads. Ritson reprinted in A Select Collection of English Songs, II, 244, 1783, some broadside like that which was followed by c.[foot-note]

'Sweet Willie' in Kinloch Manuscripts, V, 407 and VII, 197 (the latter printed in Kinloch's Ancient Scottish Ballads, p. 96), and also a fragment with the same title in the Harris Manuscript, fol. 20 f, No 15, are derived from the broadside through recitation. A copy in Buchan's Manuscripts, I, 150, is taken directly from print.

In other cases portions of the broadside appear to have entered into combination with traditional verses belonging to some other story, or possibly to some older form of this.

The Dean of Derry communicated to Percy in 1776 the following stanzas, which he wrote down from the recitation of his mother, Mrs. Barnard, wife of the Bishop of Derry.[foot-note]

1   My mother showd me a deadly spight;
She sent three thieves at darksome night;
They put my servants all to flight,
They robd my bower, and they slew my knight.
2   They could not do me much more harm,
But they slew my baby on my arm;
They left me nothing to wrap it in
But the bloody, bloody sheet that it lay in.
3   They left me nothing to make a grave
But the bloody sword that slew my babe;
All alone the grave I made,
And all alone salt tears I shed.
4   All alone the bell I rung,
And all alone sweet psalms I sung;
I leant my head against a block,
And there I cut my lovely locks.
5   I cut my locks, and chang'd my name
From Fair Eleanore to Sweet William.

Scott inserted in his Border Minstrelsy, III, 83, 1803, seven stanzas under the title of 'The Lament of the Border Widow,' which show broader traces of the sheet-ballad (1-3), and also, as Aytoun has remarked, agreements with 'The Three Ravens' and with 'Fair Helen of Kirconnell' (57). 'The Lament of the Border Widow,' "obtained from recitation in the Forest of Ettrick," has been thought to relate to the execution of Cokburne, a border-free booter, by James V. Those who are interested in such random inventions (as, under pardon, they must be called) will find particulars in Scott's introduction, and a repetition of the same in Maidment's Scotish Ballads and Songs, Historical and Traditionary, II, 170.[foot-note]

1   My love he built me a bonny bower,
And clad it a' wi lilye-flour;
A brawer bower ye neer did see
Than my true-love he built for me.
2   There came a man, by middle day,
He spied his sport and went away,
And brought the king that very night,
Who brake my bower, and slew my knight.
3   He slew my knight, to me sae dear;
He slew my knight, and poind his gear;
My servants all for life did flee,
And left me in extremitie.
4   I sewd his sheet, making my mane;
I watched the corpse, myself alane;
I watched his body, night and day;
No living creature came that way.
5   I took his body on my back,
And whiles I gaed, and whiles I sate;
I diggd a grave, and laid him in,
And happd him with the sod sae green.
6   But think na ye my heart was sair,
When I laid the moul on his yellow hair?
O think na ye my heart was wae,
When I turnd about, away to gae?
7   Nae living man I'll love again,
Since that my lovely knight is slain;
Wi ae lock of his yellow hair
I'll chain my heart for evermair.

Again, there are six couplets in Johnson's Museum, p. 90, No 89, called, from the burden, 'Oh ono chrio,' which have a little of The Border Widow, and incidentally of The Flower of Serving-Men, winding up with sentiments of transcendent elegance.

  Oh was I not a weary wight,
Maid, wife and widow in one night!
  When in my soft and yielding arms,
When most I thought him free from harms,
  Even at the dead time of the night,
They broke my bower, and slew my knight.
  With ae lock of his jet-black hair
I'll tye my heart for ever mair.
  Nae sly-tongued youth, or flattering swain,
Shall eer untye this knott again.
  Thine still, dear youth, that heart shall be,
Nor pant for aught save heaven and thee.

"Dr. Blacklock informed Burns that this song ... was composed on the horrid massacre at Glencoe": Stenhouse's note, IV, 92.

The English broadside, which may reasonably be believed to be formed upon a predecessor in the popular style, has been held to have a common origin with the Scandinavian ballad 'Maid and Stable Boy,' already spoken of under 'Child Waters' at p. 84 f of this volume. The points of resemblance are that a maid cuts her hair, dons man's clothes, and seeks service with a king. In the end she is married to the king's son, or to a nobleman of his court. The differences, in other respects, are considerable.

Percy's ballad is translated by Bodmer, I, 160; by Merk, Ursinus, p. 79, and Bothe, p. 307; by Döring, p. 329.

This page most recently updated on 22-Mar-2011, 16:45:28.
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