P. 24 a. A copy in Christie's Traditional Ballad Airs, II, 236, 'May Colvine and Fause Sir John' (of which no account is given), is a free compilation from D b, D a, and C c.
The Gaelic tale referred to by Jamieson may be seen, as Mr. Macmath has pointed out to me, in Rev. Alexander Stewart's 'Twixt Ben Nevis and Glencoe, Edinburgh, 1885, p. 205 ff. Dr. Stewart gives nine stanzas of a Gaelic ballad, and furnishes an English rendering. The story has no connection with that of No 4.
25 b, note. 'Halewyn en het kleyne Kind,' in the first volume of the Manuscript Poésies pop. de la France, was communicated by Crussemaker, and is the same piece that he printed. Other copies in Lootens et Feys, No 45, p. 85 (see p. 296); Volkskunde, II, 194, 'Van Mijnheerken van Bruindergestem.'
27 a, note † (#10). Add: Mac Inness, Folk and Hero Tales [Gaelic], p. 301, a Highland St. George: see 1, 487, note.
27 f. Professor Bugge, Arkiv för nordisk Filologi, VII, 120-36, 1891, points out that a Swedish ballad given in Grundtvig, D. g. F. IV, 813 f., F, and here referred to under 'Hind Etin,' I, 364 b, as Swedish C, has resemblances with 'Kvindemorderen.' Fru Malin is combing her hair al fresco, when a suitor enters her premises; he remarks that a crown would sit well on her head. The lady skips off to her chamber, and exclaims, Christ grant he may wish to be mine! The suitor follows her, and asks, Where is the fair dame who wishes to be mine? But when Fru Malin comes to table she is in trouble, and the suitor puts her several leading questions. She is sad, not for any of several reasons suggested, but for the bridge under which her seven sisters (syskon) lie. 'Sorrow not,' he says, 'we shall build the bridge so broad and long that four-and-twenty horses may go over at a time.' They pass through a wood; on the bridge her horse stumbles, and she is thrown into the water. She cries for help; she will give him her gold crown. He cares nothing for the crown, and never will help her out. Bugge maintains that this ballad is not, as Grundtvig considered it, a compound of 'Nokkens Svig' and 'Harpens Kraft,' but an independent ballad, 'The Bride Drowned,' of a set to which belong 'Der Wasserman,' Haupt and Schmaler, I, 62, No 34, and many German ballads: see Grundtvig, IV, 810 f, and here I, 365 f., 38.
29-37, 486 a. Add: EE, Hruschka u. Toischer, Deutsche Volkslieder aus Böhmen, p. 126, No 35. Like Q, p. 35.
39 ff. The Polish ballad 'Jás i Kasia.' Mr. John Karłowicz has given, in Wisła, IV, 393-424, the results of a study of this ballad, and they are here briefly summarized.
Ten unprinted versions are there added to the large number already published, making about ninety copies, if fragments are counted. Copies not noted at I, 39, 486, are, besides these ten, the following. Kolberg, Krakowskie, II, 111, 168, Nos 208, 336; Kieleckie, II, 148, No 453; Lęczychie, p. 131, No 223; Lubelskie, I, 289 ff., Nos 473, 474; Poznańskie, IV, 63, No 131; Mazowsze, III, 274, No 386, IV, 320, No 346. Zbiór wiadomości do antropologii krajowej, II, 78, Nos 89, 90; IV, 129; X, 123. Wisła, II, 132, 159. Prace filologiczne, II, 568. Ketrzyński, O Mazurach, p. 35, No 1. Zawiliński, Z powieści i pieśni górali beskidowych, p. 88, No 66. Wasilewski, Jagodne, etc., No 120. Federowski, Lud okolic Żarek, etc., p. 102, No 49.
Most of the ten versions printed in Wisła agree with others previously published; in some there are novel details. In No 3, p. 398, Kasia, thrown into the water by her lover, is rescued by her brother. In No 10, p. 404, Jás, when drowning the girl, tells her that he has drowned four already, and she shall be the fifth; her brother comes sliding down a silken rope; fishermen take the girl out dead. There are still only two of all the Polish versions in which Catharine kills John, A a, b. The name Ligar, in the latter, points clearly, Mr. Karłowicz remarks, to the U-linger, Ad-elger, Ol-legehr of the German versions, and he is convinced that the ballad came into Poland from Germany, although the girl is not drowned in the German ballad, as in the Polish, English, and French.
John, who is commonly the hero in the Polish ballad, is at the beginning of many copies declared to have sung, and the words have no apparent sense. But we observe that in the versions of western Europe the hero plays on the horn, sings a seductive song, promises to teach the girl to sing, etc.; the unmeaning Polish phrase is therefore a survival.
In many of the German versions a bird warns the maid of her danger. This feature is found once only in Polish: in Zawiliński (No 69 A of Karłowicz).
At p. 777 of Sušil's Moravian Songs there are two other versions which I have not noticed, the second of them manifestly derived from Poland.
There is a Little-Russian ballad which begins like the Polish 'Jás i Kasia,' but ends with the girl being tied to a tree and burned, instead of being drowned: Wisła, IV, 423, from Zbiór wiadom. do antrop., III, 150, No 17. Traces of the incident of the burning are also found in Polish and Moravian songs: Wisła, pp. 418-22. It is probable that there were two independent ballads, and that these have been confounded.
42 a, III, 497 a. A. Add: 'Renaud et ses Femmes,' Revue des Traditions Populaires, VI, 34.
43 a. 'Lou Cros dé Proucinello,' Daymard, Vieux Chants p. recueillis en Quercy, p. 130, has at the end two traits of this ballad. A young man carries off a girl whom he has been in love with seven years; he throws her into a ravine; as she falls, she catches at a tree; he cuts it away; she cries, What shall I do with my pretty gowns? and is answered, Give them to me for another mistress. Cf. also Daymard, p. 128.
43 b, III, 497 a. 'La Fille de Saint-Martin.' Add: 'Le Mari Assassin,' Chanson du pays de Caux, Revue des Traditions Populaires, IV, 133.
43 f., 488 a, III, 497. Italian. The ballad in Nannarelli (488 a) I have seen: it is like 'La Monferrina incontaminata.' Add: 'La bella Inglese,' Salvadori, in Giornale di Filologia Romanza, II, 201; 'Un' eroina,' A. Giannini, Canzoni del Contado di Massa Lunense, No 1, Archivio, VIII, 273; ['Montiglia'], ['Inglesa'], Bolognini, Annuario degli Alpinisti Tridentini, XIII, Usi e Costumi del Trentino, 1888, p. 37 f.
44 b. 'La Princesa Isabel,' Pidal, Romancero Asturiano, p. 350 (sung by children as an accompaniment to a game), is a variety of 'Rico Franco.'
45 a, 488 a. Another Portuguese version, 'O caso de D. Ignez,' Braga, Ampliações ao Romanceiro das Ilhas dos Açores, Revista Lusitana, I, 103.
45 b. Breton, 5. Marivonnic also in Quellien, Chansons et Danses des Bretons, 1889, p. 99.
50 b, note || (#59). As to this use of blood, cf. H. von Wlisłocki, Volksthümliches zum Armen Heinrich, Ztschr. f. deutsche Philologie, 1890, XXIII, 217 ff; Notes and Queries, 7th Series, VIII, 363. (G.L.K.)
55. B. A copy in Walks near Edinburgh, by Margaret Warrender, 1890, p. 104, differs from B b in only a few words, as any ordinary recollection would. As:
56 ff., 488 f., II, 497 f.
The copy of 'May Collin' which follows is quite the best of the series C-G. It is written on the same sheet of paper as the "copy of some antiquity" used by Scott in making up his 'Gay Goss Hawk' (ed. 1802, II, 7). The sheet is perhaps as old as any in the volume in which it occurs, but may possibly not be the original. 'May Collin' is not in the same hand as the other ballad.
According to the preface to a stall-copy spoken of by Motherwell, Minstrelsy, p. lxx, 24, "the treacherous and murder-minting lover was an ecclesiastic of the monastery of Maybole," and the preface to D d (see I, 488) makes him a Dominican friar. So, if we were to accept these guides, the 'Sir' would be the old ecclesiastical title and equivalent to the 'Mess' of the copy now to be given.
'May Collin' "Scotch Ballads, Materials for Border Minstrelsy," No 146, Abbotsford.
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