Somewhat mutilated, and also defaced, though it be, this ballad has certainly never been retouched by a pen, but is pure tradition. It has the first stanza in common with 'Kemp Owyne,' and shares more than that with 'Allison Gross.' But it is independent of 'Allison Gross,' and has a far more original sound. Maisry's services in washing and combing are more conceivable when rendered by a maid in her proper shape, as in 'Allison Gross,' than when attributed to a machrel of the sea; and it is likely that the machrel returned to her own figure every Saturday, and that this is one of the points lost from the story. It is said, here as in 'Allison Gross,' that Maisry kames the laily head on her knee.[foot-note] It would be a mere cavil to raise a difficulty about combing a laily worm's head. The fiery beast in 'Kemp Owyne,' A, has long hair, and the laily worm may have had enough to be better for combing.[foot-note]
It is only natural that the transformed maid should not wish to trust herself again in the hands of the stepmother, but it is not according to poetical justice that she should remain a machrel of the sea, and here again we may suppose something to have dropped out.
We have had a double transformation, of sister and brother, in the 'Marriage of Gawain' and in the 'Wedding of Gawen and Dame Ragnell,' and again, with a second sister added, in the story of Álsól. Brother and sister are transformed in the Danish 'Nattergalen,' Grundtvig, No 57. It is an aggravation of stepmother malice that the victim of enchantment, however amiable and inoffensive before, should become truculent and destructive; so with the brother of Gawain's bride, and with the Carl of Carlile. The stepmother is satisfactorily disposed of, as she is in 'Kemp Owyne,' B, and the 'Laidly Worm of Spindleston Heughs.'
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