The three stanzas cited by Motherwell, Minstrelsy, Introduction, p. lxviii, note 15 (wrongly as to 24), and repeated from Motherwell by Chambers, p. 310, Whitelaw, p. 81, Aytoun, II, 342, are from B a.
A. The heir of Linne, a Scots lord, took to cards, dice, and wine, sold his lands to John o the Scales, and went on in dissolute ways for three fourths of a year longer; then he was forced to go to Edinburgh and beg his bread. Some gave him, some refused him, some bade him go to the devil. Brooding over his destitution, he remembered that his father had left him a paper which he was not to look into till he should be in extreme need. This paper told him of a castle wall in which stood three chests of money. Filling three bags with gold, he went to John o Scales's house. John's wife wished herself a curse if she trusted him a penny. One good fellow in the company offered to lend him forty pence, and forty more, if wanted. John o Scales tendered him his lands back for twenty pounds less than they had been sold for. The heir of Linne called the lords present to witness, threw John a penny to bind the bargain, and counted out the money from his bags. Then he gave the good fellow forty pounds, and made him keeper of his forest, and beshrewed himself if ever he put his lands in jeopardy again.
B. The heir of Linne stands at his father's gates, and nobody asks him in. He is hungry, wet, and cold. As he goes down the town, gentlemen are drinking. Some say, Give him a glass; some say, Give him none. As he goes up the town, fishermen are sitting. Some say, Give him a fish; some say, Give him a fin. He takes the road to Linne,[foot-note] and on the way begs of his nurse a slice of bread and a bottle of wine, promising to pay them back when he is laird of Linne; which he will never be, she says. A score of nobles are dining at Linne. Some say, Give him beef, some say, Give him the bone; some say, Give him nothing at all. The new laird will let him have a sip, and then he may go his gate. At his wits' end, he now recalls a little key given him by his mother before she died, which he was to keep till he was in his greatest need. This key fits a little door somewhere in the castle. He gets gold enough to free his lands. He returns to the company of nobles. The new laird offers him Linne back for a third of what had been paid for it. He takes the guests to witness, and tells the money down on a table. He pays the nurse for her bread and wine. His hose had been down at his ankles; now he has fifteen lords to escort him.[foot-note]
Percy, Reliques, 1765, II, 309, 1794, II, 128 (with some readings of his manuscript restored in the later edition), as he puts it, revised and completed A by "the insertion of supplemental stanzas," "suggested by a modern ballad on a similar subject." In fact, Percy made a new ballad,[foot-note] and a very good one, which, since his day, has passed for 'The Heir of Linne.' (Herd, 1769, p. 227, but afterwards dropped; Ritson, Scotish Songs, II, 129; Ritson, Ancient Songs and Ballads, 1829, II, 81, with a protest; even Chambers, p. 310, Aytoun, II, 342; for the Scottish version had not been printed when these collections appeared.)
The modern ballad on a similar subject used by Percy was 'The Drunkard's Legacy,'[foot-note] an inexpressibly pitiable ditty, from which Percy did not and could not take a line, but only, as he says, a suggestion for the improvement of the story. In this, a gentleman has a thriftless son given over to gaming and drunkenness. The father, foreseeing his ruin, builds a cottage on a waste plat of land, with one door, fastened by a spring-lock. On his death-bed he sends for his son, tells him of the cottage, and directs him, after he has lost all his friends and pawned his lands, to break open the door, for he shall find something within to end his troubles. After the father's death the son spent all his ready money, and then pawned his lands to the keeper of a tavern which he had frequented, who, in the end, kicked him out of doors. Recalling now his father's injunction, the son broke open the cottage, hoping to find money. He saw only 'a gibbet and a rope,' and a stool under the rope. He mounted the stool, put the rope round his neck, and jumped off. The ' gibbet ' broke, and a thousand pound in gold came tumbling about his ears. The young man, with a blessing on his father, vowed to give up drinking. He went to the vintner's, and getting a rough reception, complained of his so treating a man who had pawned to him for three hundred pounds lands bringing in eight score pounds' rent, and besides had spent the money in that shop. The vintner told him to bring a hundred pounds the next day and take the lands back. The young man asked a note to this effect, which was unsuspectingly given. He then went and fetched the money, bringing with him a comrade, 'who had made him drink when moneyless.' The vintner declared that he had spoken in jest, but 'this young man's friend' urged that the written agreement would 'cast' him in law; so the vintner had to take the hundred pounds and give up the deeds, and he cut his throat for mortification. From that time the prodigal lived a sober, charitable life.
Percy's introduction of the lonesome lodge, the hanging, the bursting ceiling, and the father's double admonition, is an improvement too striking to require or bear much comment. It is very far from certain that a young reprobate, who has spent everything in riotous living, will be turned into better courses by simply coming upon more money, as in the traditional ballad; whereas there is a very fair chance that the moral shock received in the other might be efficacious.
There are several Oriental stories which closely resemble that of 'The Drunkard's Legacy,' or of Percy's 'Heir of Linne.'
(1.) Sinadab was left by his father's will free to dispose of a large property, with the exception of a diminutive garden, at the end of which was a small house. This he was on no account to part with. He indulged in reckless profusion, and in about two years everything was spent. The friends of his affluent days abandoned him, all but one, who gave him ten sequins. With only this in hand he set out on a voyage which led to adventures which may be passed over. They ended in his coming again to extreme poverty. He then remembered the little garden which he had been forbidden to sell. He found a small box in the house, and eagerly broke it open. There was nothing in it but a rope, with a writing in his father's hand, rebuking him for his dissipation, and suggesting that, if he had sufficient resolution, he might put an end to his troubles by use of the rope. Sinadab accordingly got up on a stool, fastened the rope to the ceiling, adjusted a noose about his neck, and pushed back the stool. The ceiling gave way, and he was covered with a shower of gold pieces, which proved to be only a trifling part of riches concealed above. His career after this was serious and prudent. Gueulette, 'Les mille et un quart d'heure,' Contes Tartares, Cabinet des Fe*es, XXI, 66-70, 89-93.
(2.) Turkish. A merchant took his son to a certain house, and said, If you waste the wealth I leave, do not beg, but get a rope and hang yourself from this ring. The son squandered his inheritance with sycophants, who reviled him after he was stripped. He got a rope, went to the house, mounted a stool, fastened one end of the rope to the ring, the other about his neck, and threw himself from the stool. A board in which the ring was fastened gave way, the young man fell to the ground, and gold and jewels came pouring upon him. He repented of his profligacy, and reformed his ways. 'The Forty Vezirs,' Gibb, p. 244; Behrnauer, p. 253.
(3.) Arabic. A man charged his son not to beg if he should come to want, for he had hidden a treasure in his house, which, however, he was not to resort to until compelled by dire necessity. After his father's death, the son, without delay, broke into the place where the treasure had been said to be concealed, but found only an empty room, with a rope hanging from the ceiling. Under the rope was a pile of bricks, and a paper recommending him to get up on the bricks and hang himself. The young man went off, and with the assistance of parasites, was soon rid of all his wealth. After a taste of the sharpness of poverty and of the baseness of summer friends, he went to the room where he had expected to find the treasure, stepped on the pile of bricks, tied the rope round his neck, and kicked away the bricks. The rope parted, and a quantity of precious things tumbled from overhead. His false friends promptly returned with prosperity, but were put to shame. Tausend und eine Nacht, Deutsch von Habicht, v. d. Hagen u. Schall, 1840, XIV, 65-68.
(4.) The same story, with some of the details of both 2 and 3, in Pauli's Schimpf und Ernst, Oesterley, p. 400, from the edition of 1533. In Pauli's tale, the young man, after a year of exemplary life in the world, gives all his goods to the poor and turns hermit.
(5.) Persian. Atalmulc's extravagances cause his father great anxiety. The father, when near his end, charges his son, if he should be so unhappy as to dissipate the fortune he will receive, to hang himself to a branch of a tree in the middle of the garden. The bough breaks, and the trunk is found to be full of precious stones. Petis de la Croix, Les Mille et un Jour, Cabinet des Fées, XIV, 457.
There is another and seemingly an independent story, summarized in two distichs in the Greek Anthology (IX, 44, 45, translated by Ausonius, Epigrammata, 22, 23), how a man, who was about to hang himself, found some money, and left his rope behind, and how the owner of the money, coming for it and not finding it, hanged himself with the rope.[foot-note] La Fontaine's fable, 'Le Trésor et les deux Hommes,' IX, 16, is this story, with a wall falling, not by precontrivance, but from its ruinous condition.
The eighth tale in the ninth decade of Giraldi Cinthio's Hecatommithi, 1565, II, 563, is a modification of what may be called the Greek story. "Chera hid a treasure. Elisa, going about to hang herself, and tying the halter about a beam, found that treasure, and in place thereof left the halter. Philene, the daughter of Chera, going for that treasure, and busily searching for the same, found the halter, wherewithal, in despair, she would have hanged herself, but," etc. (Painter's argument to his translation of Cinthio's tale in the Palace of Pleasure, 2d Tome (1567), 11th novel, ed. Jacobs, II, 264.)
The Greek Syntipas has another variety. A man, reduced to want, takes a sword and goes to a lonely place to end his misery. He finds in a deep hole or fosse a quantity of gold which has been hidden there by a cyclops, takes it, and goes back to his house very happy. The cyclops, coming to the spot and not finding his gold, but seeing the sword lying about, slays himself. Matthæi, Syntipæ Fabulæ, 1781, p. 38, #956;η; Coray, Æsop, p. 246, No 384.[foot-note]
A tale in Anvár-i Suhailí has been cited in connection with the foregoing, which has only a general and remote resemblance to 'The Heir of Linne.' A wise king, perceiving that his two unpromising sons would misuse his treasures, buries them in a hermitage. After his death, his sons quarrel about the succession. The younger is worsted, and brought so low that he abandons the world, and selects this hermitage for his retirement. Here he learns wisdom that is better than riches, and also discovers the buried treasure. Both the elder brother and a king with whom he is at variance are killed in a fight, and the younger is offered a double kingdom. (Chapter I, story II, Eastwick, p. 74; also, Contes et Fables Indiennes de Bidpaï et de Lokman (Galland), Cabinet des Fées, XVII, 122; The Fables of Pilpay, London, 1818, p. 51.)
Percy's ballad is translated by Bodmer, II, 117, and by Knortz, Lieder und Romanzen Alt-Englands, p. 78.
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