The copy of this ballad in the Percy manuscript, the only one known to exist, shows very great carelessness on the part of the transcriber, or of some predecessor. It begins with these two stanzas, which manifestly belong to an historical ballad, and have only a verbal connection with what follows:
There is a large omission after the 125th verse (the 28th stanza as here printed), though the writing is continuous. There are also several difficult or unintelligible passages, even more than are usually met with in this manuscript.
As published in the Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, I, 35, ed. 1765, I, 41, ed. 1794, 'Sir Cawline' is extended to nearly twice the amount of what is found in the manuscript, and a tragical turn is forced upon the story.
I have said that the copy of 'Sir Cawline' in the Percy manuscript is the only one known. There are nevertheless two Scottish ballads, one hitherto unpublished and one printed by Buchan, which narrate Sir Colvin's winning the king's daughter by vanquishing the elritch knight. These, I conceive, however, to be simple rifacimenti of the ballad in Percy's Reliques. They will be given in an appendix.
'Sir Cawline' may possibly be formed upon a romance in stanzas[foot-note] which itself was composed from earlier ballads. There are two adventures in the ballad, one with an elritch knight, and a second with a five-headed giant who is at the same time a hend soldan, and there seem to be traces of another in the now unintelligible twenty-ninth stanza. The first adventure, though not of the same commonplace description as the second, is still by no means unique. We are immediately reminded of the beautiful romance of Eger, Grime and Gray. Steel: how Gray-Steel kept a forbidden country beyond seven days of wilderness, and how Grime slew the up to that time unmatched Gray-Steel with the sword Erkyin [EgekingJ, brought from beyond the Greekës sea, and cut off his hand, with fingers thrice a common man's size, and on every finger a gay gold ring.[foot-note] Gray-Steel, to be sure, is pictured rather as a giant than an elf, but still gives the impression of something out of the ordinary, as having perhaps lost an elritch character in the course of tradition. The elritch knight in our ballad haunts the moors, far from any good town, like Grendel, who held the moors and fens, but there is only a hint of that supernatural terror which attends the awful "march-stepper" in Beówulf. Gervase of Tilbury has a story of an ancient entrenchment in the bishopric of Ely, where anybody could have a passage at arms with an unearthly warrior, by moonlight only, by simply calling out, "Come, knight, and meet knight."[foot-note] Scott has introduced a spectral combat of this sort into his Marmion, Canto III, xxiii-xxv, and in a note (4) cites a similar encounter from Heywood's Hierarchy of Blessed Angels. He adds that a forest in the North Highlands is believed to be haunted by a martial spirit called Lhamdearg, or Bloody Hand, who insists on all whom he meets doing battle with him. Villemarqué has a tale like that of Gervasius, Les Romans de la Table Ronde, etc., 1860, p. 392 f (Liebrecht). These combatants and combats are rather shadowy compared with Grendel, Gray-Steel, our Elritch King, and an encounter with them.
'Liden Grimmer og Hjelmer Kamp,' a ballad of the 'Orm Ungersvend' class, Grundtvig, No 26 (I, 352, from manuscripts of the 16th and the 17th century, IV, 762, from recent tradition), has the same remote and general resemblance to 'Sir Cawline' that 'Orm Ungersvend' has to 'King Estmere,' the points of agreement permitting the supposition of a far-off connection, or of no connection at all.[foot-note] In Danish A, Grimmer, a young man who never went to a dance except with a drawn sword in his hand or sat down to table out of his corselet, sails to the heathen-king's land and asks him for his daughter. The king tells him that he will not get the fair maid unless he fights with Hjelmer Kamp and wins. The king's daughter, who is as favorably inclined to Grimmer as King Adland's daughter is to Estmere (and King Ardine's daughter to Adler), though in neither case has there been a previous meeting, tells him that no man ever came back from a fight with Hjelmer, and that Grimmer is far from understanding her father, who really wishes his death. Grimmer is not at all daunted, and so the lady gives him a sword with which he is sure to prevail. Thus equipped he makes sail for Hjelmer Kamp, who receives him with contemptuous remarks upon his size, but is presently cut to bits. Stopping only long enough to make boot of Hjelmer's gold, Grimmer returns to the heathen-king's court, and receives the princess in marriage. The resemblance of the Danish ballad is to be found in Cawline's second adventure, that with the giant, where the elritch sword represents the invincible weapon bestowed by the princess. In Danish B a coat of mail goes with the sword, "som icke skal suerd paa bide." This coat is like Estmere's after Adler has brought his magic to bear, and Cawline's fight with the giant, Estmere's with Bremor, and Hjelmer's with the kemp have all an obvious similitude.
Two verbal peculiarities in this ballad will not fail to be remarked: a superfluous and, 74, without and a good leedginge, 83, and take you doe and the baken bread, 271, and hee tooke then vp and that eldryge sword, 391, but take you doo and your lands broad, and again 261 (?); for used, apparently, in the sense of but (as in "for and a shrouding sheet"), 113, ffor if you wold comfort me with a kisse, 133, ffor some deeds of armes ffaine wold I doe, 225, ffor they tooke and two good swords; in this last we have the superfluous and again. These were, perhaps, only tricks of some ballad-singer, eking out his measure with half-articulated syllables.[foot-note]
Percy's ballad is translated by Bodmer, I, 134, and by Bothe, p. 25; Buchan's by Gerhard, p. 32.
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