Version A
a, 'Willie's Lady,' was No 1 in the manuscript of fifteen ballads furnished William Tytler by Mrs. Brown in 1783, and having been written down a little later than b may be regarded as a revised copy. This manuscript, as remarked under No 5, is not now in the possession of the Fraser-Tytler family, having often been most liberally lent, and, probably, at last not returned. But a transcript had been made by the grandfather of the present family of two of the pieces contained in it, and 'Willie's Lady' is one of these two.
Lewis had access to William Tytler's copy, and, having regulated the rhymes, filled out a gap, dropped the passage about the girdle, and made other changes to his taste, printed the ballad in 1801 as No 56 of his Tales of Wonder. The next year Scott gave the "ancient copy, never before published," "in its native simplicity, as taken from Mrs. Brown of Falkland's manuscript," — William Tytler's,— in Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, II, 27, but not with literal accuracy. Jamieson, in 1806, gave 'Sweet Willy,' almost exactly according to the text of his Brown manuscript, in an appendix to the second volume of his collection, p. 367, and at p. 175 of the same volume, a reconstruction of the ballad which might have been spared.
b lacks altogether the passage which makes proffer of the cup, a, stanzas 5-11, and substitutes at that place the girdle of a 21-28. The woodbine in a 36, 41, is also wanting, and the concluding stanza. A deficiency both in matter and rhyme at a 32 is supplied by b 25, 26, but not happily:
'An do you to your mither then, An bid her come to your boy's christnen;
'For dear 's the boy he 's been to you: Then notice well what she shall do.'
Again, the transition in a, from st. 33 to st. 34, is abrupt even for a ballad, and b introduces here four stanzas narrating the execution of the Billy Blind's injunctions, and ending,
And notic'd well what she did say,
whereby we are prepared for the witch's exclamations.[foot-note]
Danish versions of this ballad are numerous: A-I, 'Hustru og Mands Moder' [' Fostermoder,' 'Stifmoder'], Grundtvig, No 84, II, 404 ff: J-T, 'Hustru og Mands Moder,' Kristensen, II, 111 ff, No 35: U-X, 'Barselkvinden,' Kristensen, I, 201 ff, No 74: Y, 'Hustru og Slegfred,' Grundtvig, No 85, II, 448 ff: in all twenty-five, but many of Kristensen's copies are fragments. Grundtvig's 84 A, B, and 85 a are from manuscripts of the sixteenth century. 84 F-I and several repetitions of 85 are of the seventeenth. Grundtvig's 84 C, D, E, and all Kristensen's versions, are from recent oral tradition. Some of these, though taken down since 1870, are wonderfully well preserved.
The Danish ballads divide into two classes, principally distinguished by their employing or not employing of the artifice of wax children. (There is but one of these in N, R, Kristensen's E, I, II, 116, 122, and in the oldest Swedish ballad, as in the Scottish: but children in Scandinavian ballads are mostly born in pairs.) Of the former class, to which our only known copy belongs, are F-I, N-T, X (Grundtvig, 84 F-I, Kristensen, II, No 35, E-L, I, No 74 D). N and I furnish, perhaps, the most consistent story, which, in the former, runs thus: Sir Peter married Ellen (elsewhere Mettelille, Kirstin, Tidelil, Ingerlil), and gave her in charge to his mother, a formidable witch, and, as appears from F, violently opposed to the match. The first night of her marriage Ellen conceived twins. She wrapped up her head in her cloak and paid a visit to her mother-in-law, to ask how long women go with child. The answer was,
'Forty weeks went Mary with Christ, And so each Danish woman must.
'Forty weeks I went with mine, But eight years shalt thou go with thine.'
The forty weeks had passed, and Ellen began to long for relief. Sir Peter besought aid of his sister Ingerlin. If I help your young bride, she said, I must be traitor to my mother. Sir Peter insisted, and Ingerlin moulded a fine child of wax,[foot-note] wrapped it in linen, and exhibited it to her mother, who, supposing that her arts had been baffled, burst out into exclamations of astonishment. She had thought she could twist a rope out of flying sand, lay sun and moon flat on the earth with a single word, turn the whole world round about! She had thought all the house was spell-bound, except the spot where the young wife's chest stood, the chest of red rowan, which nothing can bewitch! The chest was instantly taken away, and Ellen's bed moved to the place it had occupied; and no sooner was this done than Ellen gave birth to two children.
In the ballads of the other class, the young wife, grown desperate after eight years of suffering, asks to be taken back to her maiden home. Her husband's mother raises objections: the horses are in the meadow, the coachman is in bed. Then, she says, I will go on my bare feet. The moment her husband learns her wish, the carriage is at the door, but by the arts of the mother it goes to pieces on the way, and the journey has to be finished on horseback. The joy of her parents at seeing their daughter approaching was quenched on a nearer view: she looked more dead than quick. She called her family about her and distributed her effects. A great wail went up in the house when two sons were cut from the mother's side. (C, J, K, L, W: Grundtvig, 84 C; Kristensen, II, No 35 A, B, C; I, No 74 C.)
The first son stood up and brushed his hair: 'Most surely am I in my ninth year.'
The second stood up both fair and red: 'Most sure we'll avenge our dear mother dead.'[foot-note]
Several of the most important ballads of the first class have taken up a part of the story of those of the second class, to the detriment of consistency. F, G, H, O, P (Grundtvig, 84 F, G, H, Kristensen, II, No 35 F, G), make the wife quit her husband's house for her father's, not only without reason, but against reason. If the woman is to die, it is natural enough that she should wish to die with the friends of her early days, and away from her uncongenial mother-in-law; but there is no kind of occasion for transferring the scene of the trick with the wax children to her father's house; and, on the other hand, it is altogether strange that her husband's mother and the rowan-tree chest (which sometimes appears to be the property of the mother, sometimes that of the wife) should go with her.
Y, 'Hustru og Slegfred,' Grundtvig, 85, agrees with the second class up to the point when the wife is put to bed at her mother's house, but with the important variation that the spell is the work of a former mistress of the husband; instead of his mother, as in most of the ballads, or of the wife's foster-mother, as in C, D, J, K, M (Grundtvig, 84 C, D, Kristensen, II, No 35 A, B, D), or of the wife's step-mother as in A only. The conclusion of 'Hustru og Slegfred' is rather flat. The wife, as she lies in bed, bids all her household hold up their hands and pray for her relief, which occurs on the same day. The news is sent to her husband, who rejoins his wife, is shown his children, praises God, and burns his mistress. Burning is also the fate of the mother-in-law in B, I, O, P, whereas in F she dies of chagrin, and in G bursts into a hundred flinders (flentsteene).
This ballad, in the mixed form of O, P (Kristensen, II, 35 F, G), has been resolved into a tale in Denmark, a few lines of verse being retained. Recourse is had by the spellbound wife to a cunning woman in the village, who informs her that in her house there is a place in which a rowan-tree chest has stood, and that she can get relief there. The cunning woman subsequently pointing out the exact spot, two boys are born, who are seven years old, and can both walk and talk. Word is sent the witch that her son's wife has been delivered of two sons, and that she herself shall be burned the day following. The witch says, "I have been able to twine a string out of running water. If I have not succeeded in bewitching the woman, she must have found the place where the damned rowan chest stood." (Grundtvig, III, 858, No 84 b.)
Three Swedish versions of the ballad have been printed. A, B, from tradition of this century, are given by Arwidsson, II, 252 ff, 'Liten Kerstins Förtrollning,' No 134. These resemble the Danish ballads of the second class closely. Liten Kerstin goes to her mother's house, gives birth to two children, and dies. In A the children are a son and daughter. The son stands up, combs his hair, and says, "I am forty weeks on in my ninth year." He can run errands in the village, and the daughter sew red silk. In B both children are boys. One combs his hair, and says, "Our grandmother shall be put on two wheels." The other draws his sword, and says, "Our mother is dead, our grandmother to blame. I hope our mother is with God. Our grandmother shall be laid on seven wheels." The other copy, C, mentioned by Grundtvig as being in Cavallius and Stephens' manuscript collection, has been printed in the Svenska Fornminnesforeningens Tidskrift, vol. ii, p. 72 ff, 1873-74. It dates from the close of the sixteenth century, and resembles the mixed ballads of the Danish first class, combining the flitting to the father's house with the artifice of the wax children. The conclusion of this ballad has suffered greatly. After the two sons are born, we are told that Kirstin, before unmentioned, goes to the chest and makes a wax child. If the chest were moved, Elin would be free of her child. And then the boy stands up and brushes his hair, and says he has come to his eighth year.
Three stanzas and some of the incidents of a Norwegian version of this ballad have been communicated to Grundtvig, III, 858 f, No 84 c, by Professor Sophus Bugge. The only place which was unaffected by a spell was where Signelíti's bride-chest stood, and the chest being removed, the birth took place. The witch was a step-mother, as in Danish A.
There are two familiar cases of malicious arrest of childbirth in classic mythology, — those of Latona and Alcmene. The wrath of Juno was the cause in both, and perhaps the myth of Alcmene is only a repetition of an older story, with change of name. The pangs of Latona were prolonged through nine days and nights, at the end of which time Ilithyia came to her relief, induced by a bribe. (Hymn to the Delian Apollo, 91 ff.) Homer, II. xix, 119, says only that Hera stopped the delivery of Alcmene and kept back Ilithyia. Antoninus Liberalis, in the second century of our era, in one of his abstracts from the Metamorphoses of Nicander, a poem of the second century B.C., or earlier, has this account: that when Alcmene was going with Hercules, the Fates and Ilithyia, to please Juno, kept her in her pains by sitting down and folding their hands; and that Galinthias, a playmate and companion of Alcmene, fearing that the suffering would drive her mad, ran out and announced the birth of a boy, upon which the Fates were seized with such consternation that they let go their hands, and Hercules immediately came into the world. (Antoninus Lib., Metam. c. xxix.) Ovid, Metamorphoses, ix, 281-315, is more circumstantial. After seven days and nights of torture, Lucina came, but, being bribed by Juno, instead of giving the aid for which she was invoked, sat down on the altar before Alcmene's door, with the right knee crossed over the left, and fingers interlocked, mumbling charms which checked the processes of birth. Galanthis, a servant girl media de plebe, was shrewd enough to suspect that Juno had some part in this mischief; and besides, as she went in and out of the house, she always saw Lucina sitting on the altar, with her hands clasped over her knees. At last, by a happy thought, she called out, "Whoever you are, wish my mistress joy; she is lighter, and has her wish." Lucina jumped up and unclasped her hands, and the birth followed instantly. Pausanias, ix, 11, tells a similar but briefer story, in which Historis, daughter of Tiresias, takes the place of Galanthis. See, for the whole matter, 'Ilithyia oder die Hexe,' in C.A. Böttiger's Kleine Schriften, I, 76 ff.
Apuleius, in his Metamorphoses, mentions a case of suspended childbirth, which, curiously enough, had lasted eight years,[foot-note] as in the Danish and Swedish ballads. The witch is a mistress of her victim's husband, as in Grundtvig, 85, and as in a story cited by Scott from Heywood's 'Hierarchy of the Blessed Angels,' p. 474. "There is a curious tale about a Count of Westeravia [Vestravia, in diocesi Argentoratensi], whom a deserted concubine bewitched upon his marriage, so as to preclude all hopes of his becoming a father. The spell continued to operate for three years, till one day, the count happening to meet with his former mistress, she maliciously asked him about the increase of his family. The count, conceiving some suspicion from her manner, craftily answered that God had blessed him with three fine children; on which she exclaimed, like Willie's mother in the ballad, 'May Heaven confound the old hag by whose counsel I threw an enchanted pitcher into the draw-well of your palace!' The spell being found and destroyed, the count became the father of a numerous family."
A story like that of the ballad is told as a fact that took place in Arran within this century. A young man forsook his sweetheart and married another girl. When the wife's time came, she suffered excessively. A pack-man who was passing suspected the cause, went straight to the old love, and told her that a fine child was born; when up she sprang, and pulled out a large nail from the beam of the roof, calling out to her mother, " Muckle good your craft has done!" The wife was forthwith delivered. (Napier, in The Folklore Record, II, 117.)
In the Sicilian tales, collected by Laura Gonzenbach, Nos 12 and 15, we have the spell of folded hands placed between the knees to prevent birth, and in No 54 hands raised to the head.[foot-note] In all these examples the spell is finally broken by telling the witch a piece of false news, which causes her to forget herself and take away her hands. (Sicilianische Märchen aus dem Volksmund gesammelt, Leipzig, 1870.)
We find in a Roumanian tale, contributed to Das Ausland for 1857, p. 1029, by F. Obert, and epitomized by Grundtvig, III, 859, No 84 d, a wife condemned by her offended husband to go with child till he lays his hand upon her. It is twenty years before she obtains grace, and the son whom she then bears immediately slays his father. A Wallachian form of this story (Walachische Märchen von Arthur u. Albert Schott, No 23) omits the revenge by the new-born child, and ends happily.
With respect to the knots in st. 34, it is to be observed that the tying of knots (as also the fastening of locks), either during the marriage ceremony or at the approach of parturition was, and is still, believed to be effectual for preventing conception or childbirth. The minister of Logierait, Perthshire, testifies, about the year 1793, that immediately before the celebration of a marriage it is the custom to loosen carefully every knot about bride and bridegroom, — garters, shoe-strings, etc. The knots are tied again before they leave the church. (Statistical Account of Scotland, v, 83.) So among the Laps and Norwegians, when a child is to be born, all the knots in the woman's clothes, or even all the knots in the house, must be untied, because of their impeding delivery. (Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, p. 322, who also cites the Statistical Account of Scotland.)
Willie's Lady is translated by Schubart, p. 74, Talvj, p. 555, and by Gerhard, p. 139. Grundtvig, 84 H (= Syv, 90, Danske Viser, 43), is translated by Jamieson, Illustrations of Northern Antiquities, p. 344, and by Prior, No 89.
This page most recently updated on 22-Oct-2011, 13:51:55. Return to main index
