The English ballad, though derived from the Scottish, may perhaps have been printed earlier. A conjectural date of 1720 is given, with hesitation, to G a, in the catalogue of the British Museum.
The Scottish ballad appears to have been first printed in the fourth volume of the Tea-Table Miscellany, 1740, but no copy of that edition has been recovered. From the Tea-Table Miscellany it was repeated, with variations, some traditional, some arbitrary, in: Herd's Ancient and Modern Scots Songs, 1769, 'Gypsie Laddie,' p. 88, ed. 1776, II, 54; The Fond Mother's Garland, not dated, but earlier than 1776; Pinkerton's Select Scotish Ballads, 1783, I, 67; Johnson's Museum, 'Johny Faa, or, The Gypsie Laddie,' No 181, p. 189; Ritson's Scotish Songs, 1794, II, 176; and in this century, Cromek's Select Scotish Songs, 1810, II, 15; Cunningham's Songs of Scotland, 1825, II, 175. A tran script in the Campbell Manuscripts, 'The Gypsies,' I, 16, is from Pinkerton.
"The people in Ayrshire begin this song, 'The gypsies cam to my lord Cassilis' yett.' They have a great many more stanzas ... than I ever yet saw in any printed." Burns, in Cromek's Reliques, 1809, p. 161. (So Sharpe, in the Musical Museum, 1853, IV, 217, but perhaps repeating Burns.) B, from Galloway, has eight more stanzas than A, and E, also from Galloway, fourteen more, but quite eight of the last are entirely untraditional,[foot-note] and the hand of the editor is frequently to be recognized elsewhere.
Finlay, Scottish Ballads, 1808, II, 39, inserted two stanzas after A 2, the first of which is nearly the same as 5, and the second as B 3, C 3. The variations of his text, and others in his notes, are given under A. Kinloch Manuscripts, V, 299; Chambers, Scottish Ballads, 1829, p. 143; Aytoun, 1859, I, 187, repeat Finlay, with a few slight changes. The Ballads and Songs of Ayrshire, I, 9, follows Chambers.
The copy in Smith's Scotish Minstrel, III, 90, is derived from B a, but has readings of other texts, and is of no authority. That in Maidment's Scotish Ballads and Songs, 1868, II, 185, is B a with changes. Ten stanzas in a manuscript of Scottish songs and ballads, copied 1840 or 1850 by a granddaughter of Lord Woodhouselee, p. 46, are from B a. This may be true also of B b, which, however, has not Cassilis in 11.
C is from a little further north, from Renfrewshire; D from Aberdeenshire. F is from the north of England, and resembles C. The final stanza of G a is cited by Ritson, Scotish Songs, II, 177, 1794. 'The Rare Ballad of Johnnie Faa and the Countess o Cassilis,' Sheldon's Minstrelsy of the English Border, p. 326, which the editor had "heard sung repeatedly by Willie Faa," and of which he "endeavored to preserve as much as recollection would allow," has the eleven stanzas of the English broadside, and twelve more of which Sheldon must have been unable to recollect anything. H-K are all varieties of the broadside.
The Rev. S. Baring-Gould has most obligingly sent me a ballad, taken down by him from the singing of an illiterate hedger in North Devon, in which 'The Gypsy Laddie,' recomposed (mostly with middle rhyme in the third verse, as in A 1, 8), forms the sequel to a story of an earl marrying a very reluctant gypsy maid. When the vagrant who has been made a lady against nature hears some of her tribe singing at the castle-gate, the passion for a roving life returns, and she deserts her noble partner, who pursues her, and, not being able to induce her to return to him, smites her "lily-white" throat with his sword. This little romance, retouched and repaired, is printed as No 50 of Songs and Ballads of the West, now publishing by Baring-Gould and Sheppard. Mr. Baring-Gould has also given me a defective copy of the second part of 'The Gipsy Countess' (exhibiting many variations), which he obtained from an old shoemaker of Tiverton.
Among the Percy papers there is a set of ballads made over by the Bishop, which may have been intended for the contemplated extension of his Reliques. 'The Gipsie Laddie,' in eighteen stanzas, and not quite finished, is one of these. After seven stanzas of A, not much altered, the husband ineffectually pursues the lady, who adopts the gipsy trade, with her reid cheek stained wi yallow. Seven years pass, during which the laird has taken another wife. At Yule a wretched carline begs charity at his gate, who, upon questioning, reveals that she had been a lady gay, with a comely marrow, but had proved false and ruined herself.
A. Gypsies sing so sweetly at our lord's gate as to entice his lady to come down; as soon as she shows herself, they cast the glamour on her (so B-F, G b). She gives herself over to the chief gypsy, Johny Faa by name, without reserve of any description. Her lord, upon returning and finding her gone, sets out to recover her, and captures and hangs fifteen gypsies. (It is extremely likely that this version has lost several stanzas.)
Our lord, unnamed in A, is Lord Cassilis in B, C, F (so Burns, and Johnson's Museum). Cassilis has become Cassle, Castle in E, G, Corsefield[foot-note] in D, Cashan in Irish I, Garrick[foot-note] in American K. The Gypsy Laddie is again Johnie, Jockie, Faa in B, D, E; but Gipsy Davy in C (where Lady Cassilis is twice called Jeanie Faw), and in American lab; and seems to be called both Johnnie Faw and Gypsie Geordie in F. The lady gives the gypsies the good wheat bread B, E (beer and wine, Finlay); they give her (sweetmeats, C) ginger, nutmeg, or both, and she gives them the ring (rings) off her finger (fingers), B, C, E, G, I, (and Finlay).
B a has a full story from this point on. The gypsy asks the lady to go with him, and swears that her lord shall never come near her. The lady changes her silk mantle for a plaid, and is ready to travel the world over with the gypsy, B a 5, A 3, C 4, D 3, E 4, F 4, (B a 6 is spurious). They wander high and low till they come to an old barn, and by this time she is weary. The lady begins to find out what she has undertaken: last night she lay with her lord in a well-made bed, now she must lie in an old barn, B a 7, 8, A 4, C 6, D 7, F 5 (reeky kill E 8, on a straw bed H 7, in the ash-corner I 6). The gypsy bids her hold her peace, her lord shall never come near her. They wander high and low till they come to a wan water, and by this time she is weary. Oft has she ridden that wan water with her lord; now she must set in her white feet and wade, B a 11, C 5, D 5, 6, E 7, (and carry the gipsie laddie, B a 11, badly; follow, B b). The lord comes home, is told that his lady is gone off with the gypsy, and immediately sets out to bring her back (so all). He finds her at the wan water, B a 14; in Abbey Dale, drinking wi Gipsey Davy, C 10; near Strabogie, drinking wi Gypsie Geordie, F 10;[foot-note] by the riverside, J a 4; at the Misty Mount, K 5, 6. He asks her tenderly if she will go home, B a 15, E 15, F 12, he will shut her up so securely that no man shall come near, B a 15, E 15; he expostulates with her, more or less reproachfully, C 11, F 11, G 9, H 5, J 5. She will not go home; as she has brewed, so will she drink, B a 16, G 10; she cares not for houses or lands or babes (baby) G 10, H 6, J 6. But she swears to him that she is as free of the gypsies as when her mother bare her, B a 17, E 16.
Fifteen gypsies are hanged, or lose their lives, A 10, B 18, D 14; sixteen, all sons of one mother, C 12, 13; seven, F 13, G 11, (cf. I l).[foot-note]
D 8-11 is ridiculously perverted in the interest of morals: compare B a 17, E 16. 'I swear that my hand shall never go near thee,' D 8, is transferred to the husband in I 5: 'A hand I'll neer lay on you' (in the way of correction).
In G 4 the lady, in place of exchanging her silk mantle for a plaidie, pulls off her high-heeled shoes, of Spanish leather, and puts on Highland brogues. In I 7 gypsies take off her high-heeled shoes, and she puts on Lowland brogues. The high-heeled shoes, to be sure, are not adapted to following the Gypsy Laddie, but light may perhaps be derived from C 12, where the gypsies 'drink her stockings and her shoon.' In K these high-heeled shoes of Spanish leather are wrongly transferred to Lord Garrick in the copy as delivered, but have been restored to the lady.
It is not said (except in the spurious portions of B) that the lady was carried back by her husband, but this may perhaps be inferred from his hanging the gypsies. In D and K we are left uncertain as to her disposition, which is elsewhere, for the most part, to stick to the gypsy. J, a copy of very slight authority, makes the lord marry again within six months of his wife's elopement.
The earliest edition of the ballad styles the gypsy Johny Faa, but gives no clew to the fair lady. Johnny Faa was a prominent and frequent name among the gypsies. Johnne Faw's right and title as lord and earl of Little Egypt were recognized by James V in a document under the Privy Seal, February 15, 1540, and we learn from this paper that, even before this date, letters had been issued to the king's officers, enjoining them to assist Johnne Faw "in execution of justice upon his company and folks, conform to the laws of Egypt, and in punishing of all them that rebels against him." But in the next year, by an act of the Lords of Council, June 6, Egyptians are ordered to quit the realm within thirty days on pain of death, notwithstanding any other letters or privileges granted them by the king, his grace having discharged the same. The gypsies were expelled from Scotland by act of Parliament in 1609. Johnne, alias Willie, Faa, with three others of the name, remaining notwithstanding, were sentenced to be hanged, 1611, July 31. In 1615, January 25, a man was delated for harboring of Egyptians, u specially of Johnne Fall, a notorious Egyptian and chieftain of that unhappy sort of people." In 1616, July 24, Johnnë Faa, Egyptian, his son, and two others were condemned to be hanged for contemptuous repairing to the country and abiding therein. Finally, in 1624, January 24, Captain Johnnë Faa and seven others were sentenced to be hanged for the same offence, and on the follow ing 29th Helen Faa, relict of the late Captain Johnnë Faa, with ten other women, was sentenced to be drowned, but execution was stayed. Eight men were executed, but the rest, "being either children and of less-age and women with child or giving suck to children," were, after imprisonment, banished the country under pain of death, to be inflicted without further process should they be found within the kingdom after a day fixed.[foot-note] The execution of the notorious Egyptian and chieftain Johnny Faa must have made a considerable impression, and it is presumable that this ballad may have arisen not long after. Whether this were so or not, Johnny Faa acquired popular fame, and became a personage to whom any adventure might plausibly be imputed. It is said that he has even been foisted into 'The Douglas Tragedy' ('Earl Brand'), and Scott had a copy of 'Captain Car' in which, as in F, G, of that ballad, the scene was transferred to Ayrshire, and the incendiary was called Johnny Faa.[foot-note]
Toward the end of the last century we begin to hear that the people in Ayrshire make the wife of the Earl of Cassilis the heroine of the ballad. This name, under the instruction of Burns, was adopted into the copy in Johnson's Museum (which, as to the rest, is Ramsay's), and in the index to the second volume of the Museum, 1788, we read, "neighboring tradition strongly vouches for the truth of this story." After this we get the tradition in full, of course with con siderable variety in the details, and sometimes with criticism, sometimes without.[foot-note]
The main points in the traditional story are that John, sixth earl of Cassilis, married, for his first wife, Lady Jean Hamilton, whose affections were preengaged to one Sir John Faa, of Dunbar. Several years after, when Lady Cassilis had become the mother of two children,[foot-note] Sir John Faa took the opportunity of the earl's absence from home (while Lord Cassilis was attending the Westminster Assembly, say some) to present himself at the castle, accompanied by a band of gypsies and himself disguised as a gypsy, and induced his old love to elope with him. But the earl returned in the nick of time, went in pursuit, captured the whole party, or all but one,[foot-note] who is supposed to tell the story, and hanged them on the dule tree, "a most umbrageous plane, which yet flourishes upon a mound in front of the castle gate." The fugitive wife was banished from board and bed, and confined for life in a tower at Maybole, built for the purpose. "Eight heads carved in stone below one of the turrets are said to be the effigies of so many of the gypsies."[foot-note] The ford by which the lady and her lover crossed the River Doon is still called The Gypsies' Steps.
Several accounts put the abduction at the time when the Earl of Cassilis was attending the Assembly of Divines at Westminster. This was in September, 1643. It is now known that Lady Cassilis died in December, 1642. What is much more important, it is known from two letters written by the earl immediately after her death that nothing could have occurred of a nature to alienate his affection, for in the one he speaks of her as a "dear friend" and "beloved yoke-fellow," and in the other as his "dear bed-fellow."[foot-note]
"Seldom, when stripped of extraneous matter, has tradition been better supported than it has been in the case of Johnie Faa and the Countess of Cassilis: " Maidment, Scotish Ballads, 1868, II, 184. In a sense not intended, this is quite true; most of the tradi tions which have grown out of ballads have as slight a foundation as this. The connection of the ballad with the Cassilis family (as Mr. Macmath has suggested to me) may possibly have arisen from the first line of some copy reading, 'The gypsies came to the castle-gate.' As F 13 has perverted Earl of Cassilis to Earl of Castle, so Castle may have been corrupted into Cassilis.[foot-note]
Knortz, Schottische Balladen, p. 28, translates freely eight stanzas from Aytoun.
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