Child Ballads - Additions and Corrections

95. The Maid Freed From the Gallows

P. 346, HI, 516 a. Add 'Leggenda Napitina' (still sung by the sailors of Pizzo); communicated to La Calabria, June 15, 1889, p. 74, by Salvatore Mele; Canto Marinaresco di Nicotera, the same, September 15, 1890. A wife is rescued by her husband.

347 b. Swedish. 'Den bortsålda,' Lagus, Nyländska Folkvisor, I, 22, No 6, a, b, c.

349 b, 514 a, III, 516 b, and especially 517 a. A wounded soldier calls to mother, sister, father, brother for a drink of water, and gets none; calls to his love, and she brings it: Waldau, Böhmische Granaten, II, 57, No 81.

I

"Scotch Ballads, Materials for Border Minstrelsy," No 127, Abbotsford. Sent to John Leyden, by whom and when does not appear.

1	'Hold your tongue, Lord Judge,' she says, 'Yet hold it a little while; Methinks I see my ain dear father Coming wandering many a mile.
2	'O have you brought me gold, father? Or have you brought me fee? Or are you come to save my life From off this gallows-tree?'
3	'I have not brought you gold, daughter, Nor have I brought you fee, But I am come to see you hangd, As you this day shall be.'
	["The verses run thus untill she has seen her mother, her brother, and her sister likewise arrive, and then Methinks I see my ain dear lover, etc."]
4	'I have not brought you gold, true-love, Nor yet have I brought fee, But I am come to save thy life From off this gallows-tree.'
5	'Gae hame, gae hame, father,' she says, 'Gae hame and saw yer seed; And I wish not a pickle of it may grow up, But the thistle and the weed.
6	'Gae hame, gae hame, gae hame, mother, Gae hame and brew yer yill; And I wish the girds may a' loup off, And the Deil spill a' yer yill.
7	'Gae hame, gae hame, gae hame, brother, Gae hame and lie with yer wife; And I wish that the first news I may hear That she has tane your life.
8	'Gae hame, gae hame, sister,' she says, 'Gae hame and sew yer seam; I wish that the needle-point may break, And the craws pyke out yer een.'

J

Communicated by Dr. George Birkbeck Hill, May 10, 1890, as learned forty years before from a schoolfellow, who came from the north of Somersetshire and sang it in the dialect of that region. Given from memory.

1	'Hold up, hold up your hands so high! Hold up your hands so high! For I think I see my own father Coming over yonder stile to me.
2	'Oh father, have you got any gold for me? Any money for to pay me free? To keep my body from the cold clay ground, And my neck from the gallows-tree?'
3	'Oh no, I've got no gold for thee, No money for to pay thee free, For I've come to see thee hangd this day, And hanged thou shalt be.'
4	'Oh the briers, prickly briers, Come prick my heart so sore; If ever I get from the gallows-tree, I'll never get there any more.'
	["The same verses are repeated, with mother, brother, and sister substituted for father. At last the sweetheart comes. The two first verses are the same, and the third and fourth as follows."]
5	'Oh yes, I've got some gold for thee, Some money for to pay thee free; I'll save thy body from the cold clay ground, And thy neck from the gallows-tree.'
6	'Oh the briers, prickly briers, Don't prick my heart any more; For now I've got from the gallows-tree I'll never get there any more.'

["I do not know any title to this song except 'Hold up, hold up your hands so high!' It was by that title that we called for it."]

Julius Krohn has lately made an important contribution to our knowledge of this ballad in an article in Virittäjä, II, 36-50, translated into German under the title 'Das Lied vom Mädchen welches erlöst werden soll,' Helsingfors, 1891. Professor Estlander had previously discussed the ballad in Finsk Tidskrift, X, 1881 (which I have not yet seen), and had sought to show that it was of Finnish origin, a view which Krohn disputes and refutes. There are nearly fifty Finnish versions. The curse with which I ends, and which is noted as occurring in Swedish C (compare also the Sicilian ballad), is never wanting in the Finnish, and is found also in the Esthonian copies.

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