'Fair Mary of Wallington' was communicated to Bishop Percy, with other "old Scots Songs," in 1775, by Roger Halt, and presumably in a copy of the garland from which it is here printed. A was given by Ritson, from an inferior edition, with corrections, and the title changed to 'Fair Mabel of Wallington,' in The Northumberland Garland, 1793, p. 38 of the reprint of Northern Garlands, 1809. Ritson's copy is repeated in Bell's Rhymes of Northern Bards, 1812, p. 147, and in Richardson's Borderer's Table Book, VI, 141.
The story is very well preserved and very well told in A. All the seven sisters of a family are destined to die of their first child. Five having so died already, one of the remaining two expresses a resolution never to marry, since she is sure that she will go the way of the others. She is told that a knight has been there, asking for her hand. Then in three quarters of a year they may come to her burial. When her husband's mother welcomes her to her castle and bowers, the bride responds, under the operation of her melancholy conviction, I think they'll soon be yours. At the end of three quarters of a year she sends messages to her family: to her mother to come to her sickening or her wake;[foot-note] to her sister to remain in maidenhood, and escape the doom of the family. When the mother arrives the young wife is in extremities.[foot-note] She gives rings to her mother, who is all to blame, gives rings to her husband, and with a razor opens her side, and takes out an heir for the house. In D we are told that five boys had been cut from their mothers, Mary's sisters, before. In B the remaining sister declares that no man shall ever lie by her side; but her mother says she shall marry though she live but three quarters of a year: so, nearly, in C.
A Breton ballad, 'Pontplancoat,' A, Luzel, I, 382, B, p. 386, exhibits such correspondences with the English and Scottish that we cannot hesitate to assume that it has the same source.
In the first version Pontplancoat marries Marguerite for his third wife. He is obliged by affairs to leave her, and has a dream which disturbs him so much that he returns home the same night. This dream is that his wife has been three days in travail, and it proves true. A spoon is put in the lady's mouth, an incision made in her right side, and a son taken out. This is Pontplancoat's third son, and each of them has been extracted from his mother's side. He has had three wives of the name of Marguerite, and they have all died in this way.
Marguerite, in the other version, is told by her mother that she is to marry Pontplancoat. Marguerite signifies her obedience, but Pontplancoat has already had four wives of her name, all of whom "had been opened," and she shall be the fifth. As before, Pontplancoat is obliged to go away, and during his absence he receives letters which inform him that his wife is in labor and that the chances are against a normal delivery. He returns instantly. The lady has been three days in labor. A silver ball is put into her mouth, her right side opened with a knife, and a son extracted. Pontplancoat has four sons besides, all of whom have been brought into the world in this way.
English A is localized in Northumberland, and Mary made the wife of a Sir William Fenwick of Wallington. According to notes of Percy, he had not been able to find a Sir William Fenwick, lord of Wallington, with a wife of the name of Mary. Were a Sir William and Lady Mary Fenwick authenticate, a nice historical question would arise between them and some baron and baroness of the family Pontplancoat in Finistere, Brittany.
An extensively disseminated Scandinavian ballad has been assumed to be of kin with 'Mary of Wallington,' and in one version or another has resemblances which may possibly come from unity of origin, but the general likeness is certainly not striking. The published texts are: Norwegian, 'Maalfrí,' Bugge, Gamle norske Folkeviser, p. 122, No 25, A, B. Icelandic, 'Málfríðar kvæði,' Íslenzk furnkvæði, I, 208, No 24, A-D. Swedish, 'Herr Peder och Malfred,' Afzelius, I, 70, No 14. Danish, A, 'Esben og Malfred,' "Tragica, No 26," Danske Viser, III, 208, No 133; B, C, Kristensen, I, 232, No 87, A, B; D, E, 'Malfreds Død,' Kristensen, II, 232, No 69, A, B; F, 'Liden Malfreds Vise,' Feilberg, Fra Heden, p. 119; G, 'Herr Peder og Liden Malfred,' Berggreen's Danske Folkesange, 3d ed., p. 172, No 88. The Danish ballad is preserved in ten manuscripts, and Grundtvig possessed not less than twenty-two traditionary Danish versions and two Swedish, which he did not live to print.
The Norwegian ballad is most like, or least unlike, the English. Maalfrí, a king's only daughter, is married to Karl, king of England. It was spaed to her when she was yet a maid that she should die of her twelfth lying in; she has already born eleven children. The king purposing to leave her for a time, she reminds him of the prophecy. He defies spaewives and goes, but after three days dreams that Maalfrí's cloak is cut in two, that her hair is cut to bits, etc.; and this sends him home, When he learns that two sons have been cut from her side. He throws himself on his sword. Maalfrí, Malfred, is, in the other Norse ballads, also an only daughter, and dies in her twelfth child-birth, in all but Icelandic B, C, D, where the first is fatal to her. There are no other important diversities, and the resemblances in the details of the Norse and the English ballads are these two: the wife being fated to die of her first child in Icelandic B, C, D, and the Cæsarean operation in the Norwegian versions.
It is barely worth mentioning that there is also a German ballad, in which a maid (only eleven years old in most of the versions) begs her mother not to give her to a husband, because she will not live more than a year if married, and dies accordingly in child-birth: 'Hans Markgraf,' "Bothe, Frühlings-Almanach, 1806, p. 132," reprinted in Büsching und von der Hagen's Volkslieder, p. 30, Erlach, II, 136, Mittler, No 133; "Alle bei Gott die sich lieben," Wunderhorn, 1808, II, 250, Erlach, IV, 127, Mittler, No 128; Hoffmann und Richter, Schlesische Volkslieder, p. 12, No 5, Mittler, No 132. To these may be added 'Der Graf und die Bauerntochter,' Ditfurth, II, 8, No 9; 'Der Mutter Fluch,' Meinert, p. 246. In these last it is the mother who objects to the marriage, on account of her daughter's extreme youth.[foot-note]
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