Child Ballads - Narrative

The Fause Knight on the Road

'The Fause Knight upon the Road,' Motherwell's Minstrelsy, Introduction, p. lxxiv. Version A
The False Knight,' Motherwell's Minstrelsy, Appendix, Musick, p. xxiv. Version B
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This singular ballad is known only through Motherwell. The opening stanza of a second version is given by the editor of the music, Mr. Blaikie, in the Appendix to the Minstrelsy. The idea at the bottom of the piece is that the devil will carry off the wee boy if he can nonplus him. So, in certain humorous stories, a fool wins a princess by dumfounding her: e. g., Halliwell's Popular Rhymes and Nursery Tales, p. 32; Von der Hagen's Gesammtabenteuer, No 63, III, 179; Asbjørnsen og Moe, Norske Folkeeventyr, No 4. But here the boy always gets the last word. (See further on, under 'Captain Wedderburn's Courtship.') An extremely curious Swedish ballad of the same description, from the Lappfiord, Finland, with the substitution of an old crone, possibly a witch, and clearly no better than one of the wicked, for the false knight, is given by Oskar Rancken in Några Prof af Folksång och Saga i det svenska Österbotten, p. 25, No 10. It is a point in both that the replicant is a wee boy (gossen, som liten var).

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1	'Why are you driving over my field?' said the carlin: 'Because the way lies over it,' answered the boy, who was a little fellow.
2	'I will cut [hew] your traces,' said etc.: 'Yes, you hew, and I'll build,' answered etc.
3	'I wish you were in the wild wood:' 'Yes, you in, and I outside.'
4	'I wish you were in the highest tree-top:' 'Yes, you up in the top, and I at the roots.'
5	'I wish you were in the wild sea:' 'Yes, you in the sea, and I in a boat.'
6	'I'll bore a hole in your boat:' 'Yes, you bore, and I'll plug.'
7	'I wish you were in hell:' 'Yes, you in, and I outside.'
8	'I wish you were in heaven:' 'Yes, I in, and you outside.'

Chambers, in his Popular Rhymes of Scotland, p. 66 of the new edition, gives, without a word of explanation, a piece, 'Harpkin,' which seems to have been of the same character, but now sounds only like a "flyting."^[foot-note] The first stanza would lead us to expect that Harpkin is to be a form of the Elfin Knight of the preceding ballad, but Fin is seen to be the uncanny one of the two by the light of the other ballads. Finn (Fin) is an ancestor of Woden, a dwarf in Völuspá 16 (19), and also a trold (otherwise a giant), who is induced by a saint to build a church: Thiele, Danske Folkesagn, I, 45, Grimm, Mythologie, p. 455. The name is therefore diabolic by many antecedents.

HARPKIN

1	Harpkin gaed up to the hill, And blew his horn loud and shrill, And by came Fin.
2	'What for stand you there?' quo Fin: 'Spying the weather,' quo Harpkin.
3	'What for had you your staff on your shouther?' quo Fin: 'To haud the cauld frae me,' quo Harpkin.
4	'Little cauld will that haud frae you,' quo Fin: 'As little will it win through me,' quo Harpkin.
5	'I came by your door,' quo Fin: 'It lay in your road,' quo Harpkin.
6	'Your dog barkit at me,' quo Fin: 'It's his use and custom,' quo Harpkin.
7	'I flang a stane at him,' quo Fin: 'I'd rather it had been a bane,' quo Harpkin.
8	'Your wife 's lichter,' quo Fin: 'She'll clim the brae the brichter,' quo Harpkin.
9	'Of a braw lad bairn,' quo Fin: 'There'll be the mair men for the king's wars,' quo Harpkin.
10	'There's a strae at your beard,' quo Fin: 'I'd rather it had been a thrave,' quo Harpkin.
11	'The ox is eating at it,' quo Fin: 'If the ox were i the water,' quo Harpkin.
12	'And the water were frozen,' quo Fin: 'And the smith and his fore-hammer at it,' quo Harpkin.
13	'And the smith were dead,' quo Fin: 'And another in his stead,' quo Harpkin.
14	'Gift, gaff,' quo Fin: 'Your mou 's fou o draff,' quo Harpkin.

The peit (peat) in st. 3, below, as I am informed by Dr Davidson, is the wee boy's contribution to the school firing.

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This page most recently updated on 15-Oct-2011, 08:13:43.
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