A Rewritten Version of the Carnal and the Crane (Child 55)
[From: A Rewritten Version of the Carnal and the Crane (Child 55) by Mollie McCabe, Folk Music Journal, Vol. 4, No. 5 (1984), pp. 528-538. This is partially proofed and is legible.
See also McCabe's thesis.
R. Matteson 2014]
A Rewritten Version of The Carnal and the Crane (Child 55)
MOLLIE McCABE
IN RECENT YEARS scholars have stressed the relevance to British folk culture of extensive study of the broadside press.[1] Such study includes research on the broadside printers, on chapmen and their routes, and on the titles and extant texts of broadside songs and poems, whether these can be categorized as 'folk songs' and 'traditional ballads' or not.
In particular, study of broadsides may indicate whether songs of medieval origin have survived through oral transmission or through reliance upon, or reinforcement by, print or manuscript. One group of songs almost certainly originating before the Reformation consists of traditional religious ballads: of these, two ('Judas' and 'St Stephen and Herod') survive in medieval manuscript, four ('The Maid and the Palmer', 'Sir Hugh', 'The Bitter Withy', and possibly 'Brown Robyn's Confession') in oral tradition, and five ('The Cherry Tree Carol', 'The Carnal and the Crane', 'Dives and Lazarus', 'The Holy Well', and 'The Seven Virgins')[2] have been popular as broadside carols, particularly in the West Midlands region. Only one of the broadside ballads, 'Dives and Lazarus', can be traced back beyond the eighteenth century,[3] but old Christmas carols seem to have been reprinted periodically at least since the seventeenth century[4] and it seems likely that there were manuscript collections of carols belonging to families, villages, and churches which are now lost.[5] However, despite Hone's fear in 1823 that carols were dying out,6 the heyday of these five ballads as broadsides seems to have been between about 1790 and 1840.[7] When considering the form and history of traditional ballads printed as broadsides, it is important not to overlook versions which have been rewritten in a more fashionable style by broadside printers or their hacks. Many ballads have been lightly reworked but remain traditional in tone, for example, 'Robin Hood's Death'[8] and 'The Hunting of the Cheviot'.[9] Later, in the early nineteenth century, Theophilus Bloomer of Birmingham printed both a conventional text of 'The Holy Well' and a revised version, with moral additions.[10]
Other revisions were much more radical, with the result that the traditional ballads on which they are based can hardly be recognized. A poem apparently based on a lost version of 'The Carnal and the Crane' (Child 55) seems hitherto to have escaped notice. It is to be found in an eight-page chapbook entitled Three New Carols for Christmas, measuring four by six inches, made of coarse grey paper and bearing the imprint, 'S. Martin, Printer, Ann-Street, BIRMINGHAM. The poem is entitled' A Carol for Christmas Day' and appears on pages 5 to 8 of the chapbook after 'A Carol on Our Saviour's Sufferings' (beginning, 'When Jesus Christ had lived') and 'The Holly and the Ivy', both usually considered as folk carols." Susanna(h) Martin was the widow (or, just possibly, the daughter, born 1772) of the printer Robert Martin, who died in 1796. A Susannah Martin gave notice of a printing, letter-founding, and type-selling business in 1799 and by 1800 was printing and binding books. From 1803 to 1810, however, the imprint on items issued from number 10 Ann Street is 'S. and T. Martin'. Susannah Martin herself died on 3 January 1810. Consequently, the chapbook must have been printed between 1796 and 1803 and the pencilled date on its front cover, 'c. 1800' is correct.[12]
The poem is given below[13] in full, with added line numbers but otherwise as printed in the chapbook, except that long es is replaced by its modern equivalent; obvious errors are rectified in parentheses in the margin.
A Carol for Christmas Day
When Jesus Christ our Lord,
Descended from on high,
For to redeemm ankind'slo st race,
In great humility,
5 A glorious star appear'd
Like Phoebus in the morn,
Whose rays (till then unknown bespoke,
Some mighty king was born.
This star some wise men saw
10 And they by magic art,
Knew it denoted some great birth,
Salvation to impart.
Elate with joy they soon,
Prepar'd our Lord to find,
15 And guided by the star they came,
Unto the place assigned.
The choicest drugs their land,
Could yield they with them bring,
Myrrh for a man, increase for God, [incense]
20 And gold, as for a king.
To Herod's court they came,
Enquiring w here he was, [wash e]
That was born king of the Jews, for they
In the east this star did see
25 A panick seiz'd king Herod,
Who thus in rage reply'd,
Then may this cock revive and crow,
In sign you have not ly'd;
No sooner spoke but straight,
30 To admirationr ose,
The naked cock, his youthful plumes,
Around his body shows.
In gaudy pride array'd,
Thrice o'er he clap'd his wings,
35 And crow'd as usual thrice,
Herod that haughty king
Surpris'dw ith fear he stood,
Amazd with horror quall'd, [quailed]
Like thunder struck, untill at length,
40 Rage o'er his fear prevail'd.
Then he in wrath commands,
Our Saviour's life to gain,
All children should (not two years old,
In Bethlehem be slain.
45 The executioners,
Without delay proceed,
And in a most inhuman sort
Young infants caus'd to bleed.
But God who knows all hearts,
50 Frustratest heirg reatd esign.
And into Egypt sends his son,
With presence all divine.
When that our Saviour came,
Into the Nillian land,
55 Their idols all in silence fell,
Nor could his power withstand.
By some it is affirmed,
When they in Egypt fled,
That being weary, they to rest,
60 Sat on a mossy bed.
And straight around them came,
Both tame and savage beasts,
Frisking around to make them sport,
As they sat there to rest.
65 And further as they pass'd,
An husband man they spy'd,
Sowing a cultivated field,
Near to the highway side
Now as he sow'd behold,
70 The seed sprung up amain,
A yellow harvest crown'd the field,
And full ripe was the grain.
Thus did our blessed Lord,
Shew both his power and might,
75 Even when a babe, when he was born,
Clouded with heavenly light.
Such was his wonderous love,
To us his people here,
From thickest darkness us he brought,
80 His righteous laws to fear.
Then let us all unite,
And praise his holy name,
And at this holy festival,
84 His mighty acts proclaim.
FINIS
This poem is hardly in the folk idiom but its structure resembles Child 55 closely: it omits the initial dialogue of the carnal and the crane[14] but includes the star appearing to Herod, the miracle of the revived cock, the slaughter of the Innocents, the adoration of the beasts, and the instantaneous harvest on the flight to Egypt. At some points the poem echoes the ballad (Child's text is used here). Compare lines 43-44 with Child 55 stanza 12, lines 3-4:
'All children under two years old
Now slain they all shall be.'
Lines 59-60 of the Martin poem resemble stanza 14, lines 3-4 of the ballad:
Mary, she being weary,
Must needs sit down to rest.
The labourer in both poem and ballad is called a 'husbandman' and each piece ends on an expository note. Both the poem, lines 62 and 64, and the ballad, stanza 14, rhyme 'beasts' with 'rest', a rhyme which would not have worked after the late seventeenth century.[15] Curiously, the gypsy version, 'King Pharim',[16] avoids this rhyme and its use of words such as 'fain' and 'musing' suggests likewise that it may be another eighteenth-century broadside redaction of the ballad.
The existence of the Martin poem implies that 'The Carnal and the Crane' was well known in the West Midlands by 1800, supporting the caption of a Monmouth broadside probably of the late eighteenth century which calls the carol 'old and popular'.[17] The chief importance of the Martin redaction, however, lies in its evidence that the conventional broadside text on which it is based may have included two extra details: the wise men's gifts are named and their significance explained (lines 17-20) and the Egyptians' idols fall at the approach of the Infant Jesus (lines 53-56). The explanation of the gifts is well known and might be the reviser's own addition, though it shows at least that the reviser interpreted the 'wise men' of the ballad to mean the Magi rather than Herod's own counsellors. The falling idols' episode, however, derives from the New Testament Apocrypha and is found in several Middle English poems, like the other ballad miracles of the revived cock, the adoration of the beasts, and the instantaneous harvest. Thus the relationship of 'The Carnal and the Crane' to apocryphal legend, to Middle English poems, and to European ballad analogues is rendered even more complex.
A basic problem confronting the student of folklore is whether ancient legends found in folk material have really been handed down orally from the Middle Ages or whether they have been 'dug up' by some assiduous broadside hack from an accessible source such as Caxton's Golden Legend.[18] The eighteenth-century working man or woman seems to have had a penchant for mysterious legends, judging by the numerous chapbook versions of the life of Judas Iscariot which survive, from London in 1724 to Glasgow in 1828.[19] Then there is the intriguing case of the 'letter written by our Saviour Jesus Christ found eighteen miles from Iconium sixty-five years after our blessed Saviour's crucifixion': this letter can be traced back to sixth-century Spain[20] but appears to have had a vogue throughout England at the turn of the nineteenth century.[21]
'The Carnal and the Crane' is an untidy and episodic ballad and the infrequency of its collection from oral tradition with the fragmentary and confused nature of the oral texts suggests that it survived mainly through print or manuscript. Its rhythm,[22] rhyme[23] and even tone[24] are inconsistent and it may be a compilation of more than one medieval poem. It has Scandinavian analogues[25] equally episodic and close enough to suggest some relationship, yet the English ballad is unlikely to have been simply borrowed entire from Scandinavia since it is also slightly but definitely connected with Middle English tradition.
The miracle of the cock, ultimately derived from the apocryphal gospel of Nicodemus,[26]is found, with some similarities of expression, in the fifteenth-century ballad of 'St Stephen and Herod' (Child 22)[27] and in the fourteenth-century Northumbrian poem, Cursor Mundi. [28] The cornfield legends[29] feature in several Middle English works and a fifteenth-century poem on the Childhood of Jesus resembles the ballad slightly in content and style.[30] The adoration of the beasts is found in the popular apocryphal gospel of Pseudo-Matthew[31] and in some Middle English poems[32]; so is the falling of the idols,[33] in one case with confusion between Egypt and Israel much as in the ballad.[34] Two facts make it unlikely that the writer of the Martin poem simply took the falling idols from Pseudo-Matthew and added them to a conventional text of 'The Carnal and the Crane': firstly, there seems no reason why, if he took such a course, he should omit the 'miracle of the bowing tree' (ultimate source of 'The Cherry Tree Carol') which occurs in Pseudo-Matthew between the adoration of the beasts and the falling idols, and secondly, the latter tale, which in Pseudo-Matthew occurs after the flight to Egypt, is placed in the Martin poem out of sequence at lines 49-56, immediately after Herod's slaughter of the Innocents. This suggests that the reviser may have been following a disordered ballad text and moreover, such confusion as to when the Holy Family reached Egypt might explain the confusion between Herod and Pharaoh in some texts.
Discussion of the sources and analogues of 'The Carnal and the Crane' has been kept brief because the purpose of this article is to print the Martin poem and draw general conclusions from it. The existence of the Martin revision lends support to those scholars who have maintained that so-called 'secondary ballads' are worthy of study.[35] If nothing else, such study teaches us about changes of fashion in the broadside market, and therefore within the folk world itself.
Notes
1 Thomas Crawford, 'Scottish Popular Ballads and Lyrics of the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries: Some Preliminary Conclusions', Studies in Scottish Literature 1, (1963), 49-63; Robert S. Thomson,' The Frightful Foggy Dew', Folk Music Journal,4 (1980), 35-61 and see the same writer's unpublished thesis, 'The Development of the Broadside Ballad Trade and its Influence upon t he Transmission of English Folksongs' (Ph.D. thesis, University o f Cambridge, 1974).
2 See Mary Diane McCabe (the present writer), 'A Critical Study of Some Traditional Religious Ballads'( M.A. thesis, Universityo f Durham,1 980), passim. Lists of texts (as full as possible) are given in Appendixes A to G. Only old religious songs in 'ballad style' and generally considered as 'ballads' by scholars were considered.
3 A ballad' Of the Ryche Man and Poore Lazarus' was licensed t o John Wally and
Mrs Toy between 19 July 1557 and 9 July 1558: see Hyder E. Rollins, An Analytical
Indext o theB allad-Entrie(s1 557-1709)i n theR egisterso f theC ompanyo f Stationers
of London, Studiesi nPhilology,2 1 (Universityo f NorthC arolina,1 924),r eprinted
edition (Hatboro, Pa.: Tradition, 1967), 1-324, no. 2293; McCabe (1980),
pp. 195-200s hows that it is probablet hat 'Dives and Lazarus'c ontinuedt o be well
known in London during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
4 'Joseph an Aged Man Truly' was printed as a black-letter broadside in the
seventeenth century and sung in Cornwall in the early nineteenth century: see
Rollins( 1924), nos 1311-12a nd InglisG undry,N ow CarolW e:T welveC arolsf rom
an Old CornishM anuscrip(tO xford:O xfordU niversityP ress, 1966),p p. 18-19.
5'Gloria Tibi Domine' is found in fifteenth-centurym anuscripta nd in two
manuscripbt ooks of 1767a nd 1777r ecordingc arolss ungi n the Cornishv illageo f St
Just; the St Just MSS also contain a text of 'The Cherry Tree Carol': see Richard L.
Greene, 'The Traditional Survival of Two Medieval Carols', English Literary
History, 7 (1940), 223-38.
6 William Hone, Ancient Mysteries Described (London: William Hone, 1823),
p.797.
7 Based on my research into unpublished broadsides at Birmingham Public
Library,t he British Library,t he Bodleian Librarya t Oxford, ManchesterP ublic
Library,a ndt he VaughanW illiamsM emorialL ibrarya t CecilS harpH ouse.
8 TheE nglisha nd ScottishP opularB allads,e dited by FrancisJ amesC hild,5 vols
(CambridgeM, assachusettsH: oughton,M ifflin,a ndC ompany,1 882-98),r eprinted
edition, 5 vols (New York: Dover, 1965), nos 120 A and B. Child numbers cited in
the text refer, of course, to ballads within this collection and page numbers are cited
from the Dover edition.
9 But compare Child 162 A, stanza 2, with 162 B, stanzas 4 and 5.
10B loomer'st raditionabl roadsidet ext of 'The Holy Well'm ayb e foundi n Douce
Adds. 137, an unpublishedc ollectiono f broadsidesin the BodleianL ibraryO, xford,
as no. 12;h is revisedv ersiona ppearsi n the unpublishedS harpB roadsideC ollection
2061, Vaughan Williams Memorial Library,p. 72.
11C ecilS harp'sC ollectiono f EnglishF o Songs, edited by MaudK arpeles,2 vols
(London, New York and Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1974), ii, nos 353 and
357.
12 Nesta Jenkins, 'Printingi n Birminghamin the EighteenthC entury:A Bibliography
with Biographical Notes on Printers' (thesis submitted for admission to
Fellowship of the Library Association, London, 1972), p. 267 and nos 679 and 680;
see also Joseph Hill, The Bookmakerso f Old BirminghamA: uthors,P rintersa nd
Booksellers (Birmingham: Cornish Brothers, 1907), p. 84, and Paul Morgan,
WarwickshirPe rinters'N otices 1799-1866 (Oxford:T he Dugdale Society, 1970),
nos 6 and 7. I would like to thank Mr Roy Palmer for his help with this note.
13 The chapbooki s appendedt o the bottomo f page8 5 of A Collectiono f Christmas
Carolsc . 1800-1840( unpublishedb roadsidec ollection,B irminghamP ublicL ibrary
no. 60338) and the poem is reproduced here by kind permission of the Reference
LibraryL ocalS tudiesD epartment,B irminghamP ublicL ibrariesM. ys pecialt hanks
are due to the LocalS tudiesL ibrarianM, r PatrickB aird.
535
14 The reviser may have thought the birds' dialogue too Catholic for public taste as
he may, like Professor Child, have made the common mistake of seeing a reference
to the ImmaculateC onceptiono f Maryi n the lines,
'Was not the mother of Jesus
Conceiv'd by the Holy Ghost?'
(stanza 4, 1-2)
These lines in fact refert o the Incarnationo f Jesuss incet he verb 'conceived'i s here
used to mean 'made pregnant', a usage which became obsolete in the midseventeenthc
entury:s ee Child (1882-98). ii, 7 and A New EnglishD ictionaryo n
Historical Principles, edited by J. A. H. Murray, H. Bradley, W. A. Craigie, and
C. T. Onions, 10vols in 15 (Oxford: the Clarendon Press, 1888-1928), ii, p. 757,
'conceive',s ense 1.3. This interpretationis confirmedb y Child5 5, stanza5 , line 3,
'She was the handmaid of the Lord', which clearly refers to Mary's words at the
Annunciationin St Luke'sg ospeli , verse3 8.
15E . J. Dobson, EnglishP ronunciation1 500-1700,2 vols, seconde dition( Oxford:
the ClarendonP ress, 1968),i , 112a nd3 54, andi i, paragraph8s , 398, and4 06.
16 BertrandH arris Bronson, The TraditionalT uneso f the Child Ballads, 4 vols
(Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1959-72), no. 55:3; another
oral gypsy variant,b adly garbled, appearsi n the unpublishedV aughanW illiams
Scrapbook of Broadsides, Letters, etc. (Vaughan Williams Memorial Library,
6016) p. 78.
17 See the unpublished broadside volume Pilley Collection No.2270 (Hereford
PublicL ibrary),p . 7: 'Soldb y PrichardM, onmouth'.
18 Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend or Lives of the Saints as Englished by
William Caxton, edited by F. S. Ellis, 7vols (London: J. M. Dent and Son, 1900),
reprintedf acsimilee ditioni n 4 vols (New York:A .M.S. Press, 1973).
' Paull Franklin Baum, 'The Mediaeval Legend of Judas Iscariot', PMLA, 31
(1916), 481-632 (pp. 571-80). Thomas Gent, a printer of York, claimed to have
composeda poem on the subjecti n 1711w hilsth e was an apprenticein London.
20 The Layman in Christian History, edited by S. C. Neill and H.-R. Weber
(London: the World Council of Churches, 1963), p. 105.
21 The presentw riterh as come acrossn umerouse xampleso f 'OurS aviour'sL etter'
in unpublishedb roadsidec ollections:f or example,s ee A Collectiono f Broadsides
includinga numbero f ChristmasC arolS heets and Newsmen's,L amplightersa'n d
Beadles'C hristmasA ddresses( BritishL ibrary1 875d . 8) nos 44 and 70, printedb y
the London giants, Pitts and Catnach.S ee also BirminghamL ibrary6 0338, p. 85
(top), printed by Thomas Wood of Birmingham. There is a photograph of a
Herefordb roadsidei n Ella MaryL eather,T heF olkloreo f Herefordshir(eH ereford:
Jakemana nd Carver,1 912), reprintede dition (Wakefield:S .R. Publishers,1 970),
p. 112.
22 Child 55, stanzas, 1, 2, 10-12, 14, 15, 19, 20, 22, 23, 27, and possibly 9 and 21 are
in 'ballad measure'; stanzas 4-8, 13, 16-18, 25, 26, 28-30, and perhaps also 3 consist
mainlyo f lines of 3 stresses,w hilsts tanza2 4 apparentlyu ses trochaict etrameters.
23 Use of end-rhymesa s evidencei s complicatedb y the fact thats ome rhymes,e .g.
'place'a nd' ass'i n stanza3 and 'appear'a nd' were'i n stanza8 , wouldh aveb een ood
rhymes from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries, but in general the Childttext
exhibits poor use of rhyme. For a full discussion, see McCabe (1980), pp. 123-25.
24 Even grantingt he role of the cranea s narratort, he moralistics tanzas1 7 and2 9 of
the Childt ext are undulyi ntrusive.I n A Manualo f the Writingisn MiddleE nglish,
1050-1500, by Members of the Middle English Group of the Modern Language
Associationo f America( basedu pon A Manualo f the Writingsin MiddleE nglish,
1050-1400, by J. E. Wells, New Haven, 1916 and Supplements1 -9, 1919-1951),
edited by J. Burke Severs and Albert E. Hartung, 6 vols (New Haven, Connecticut:
Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1967-80), vi, 1805, David C. Fowler
sees stanza3 0 as a signo f Protestantr eshaping.
25 See Child (1882-98), i, 233-36; McCabe (1980), pp. 50-53, and 114; The Types of
the ScandinavianM edievalB allad:A DescriptiveC Satalogued, ited by Bengt R.
536
Jonsson, Svale Solheim, and Eva Danielson, in collaboration with Mortan Nols0e
and W. Edson Richmond (Oslo, Bergen and Troms0: University Press, 1978), types
B3 and B8. The cock miracle in Scandinavia is linked with St Stephen and is usually
separate from the cornfield miracle, except for a Swedish broadside of 1848. Some
Danish cock ballads mention Herod's pursuit. Mary, not Jesus, performs the
cornfield miracle in Scandinavia.
26 Child (1882-98), i, 239-40; C. de Tischendorf, Evangelia Apocrypha adhibitis
plurimisc odicibusG raecise t Latinism aximamp artemn uncp rimumc onsultisa tque
ineditorum copia insignibus, second edition (Lipsiae: Avenarius et Mendelssohin,
1876), p. 269, n. 3; Montague Rhodes James, The Apocryphal New Testament
(Oxford: the Clarendon Press, 1924), p. 116.
27 Compare Child 22, stanza 9, line 2 with Child 55, stanza 10, line 3, and Child 22,
stanza 11, line 1 with Child 55, stanza 12, lines 1-2 and with Child 74A, stanza 10,
lines 1-2 (the usual form of this ballad commonplace).
28 Cursor Mundi, edited by Richard Morris, 3 vols (London: Early English Text
Society, Original Series 57, 59, 62, 66, and 68, 1874-93), ii, 914-15, lines 15983-98;
compare Child 55, stanza 11, lines 1-2,
The cock soon freshly featherd was,
By the work of God's own hand
with Cursor Mundi, lines 15990-92,
the cok lepe vp on flight
fetherred fayrer then beforne
& krew thorou goddis might.
Of course in Child 22 it is St Stephen, in Cursor Mundi Judas Iscariot and in Child 55
the wise men who are linked with the cock miracle.
29 For a discussion of the sources of the cornfield legend, see Von Dietz-Rudiger
Moser, 'Die Heilige Familie auf der Flucht: Apokryphe Motive in Volkstumlichen
Legendliedern Mit einem Beitrag sur Formel "Bia vrio ischt auf' im Liedgut der
Goltschee', Rheinisches Jahrbuch fur Volkskunde, 21 (1973), 255-328 and McCabe
(1980), pp. 110-14 and 118-22. The examples of the cornfield legend in Middle
English poetry are too numerous to cite here but usually take a slightly different form
from that in the ballad, being derived from the incidents in the apocrhal gospels of
Pseudo-Matthew and Thomas (Infancy Gospel): Tischendorf (1876), pp. 104, 164,
and 175.
30 SammlungA ltenglischeLr egenden,e dited by Carl Horstmann (Heilbronn: Gebr.
Henninger, 1878), reprinted edition (Hildesheim and New York: Georg Olms,
1969), p. 102 (Harley MS 3954), lines 17-28, and p. 111 (Harley MS 2399), Fines 17-
26; Carl Horstmann, 'Nachtrage zu den Legenden: Kindheit Jesu, aus MS
Addit.3 1,042',A rchivf ur das Studiumd ern eurenS prachenu ndL iteraturene,d ited
by L. Herrig and H. Viehoff, 74 (1885), 327-39, lines 17-28; Severs and Hartung,
Manual, ii, p. 413 states that the three manuscript recensions date from the fifteenth
century and that British Museum Additional MS 31042 is from the North of England,
the other two being from the North Midlands. The corn legend is told so concisely in
the poem as to suggest that it was well known in England by the fifteenth century.
Harley MS 2399 is closest to the ballad in expression: in line 22 we are told that Mary
'(wen)dyn yn to Egyp(t) ther sche was not knowy(n)e', which resembles Child57,
stanza 18,
lines 1-2:
Then Jesus, ah, and Joseph,
And Mary, that was unknown.
31 Tischendorf (1876), pp. 85-87, and 104-05.
32 For example, Cursor Mundi, ii, 666-69, lines 11601-56; Horstmann (1878),
pp. 111-12, lines 27-40.
3 See Tischendorf (1876), pp. 89-92; Cursor Mundi, ii, 674-77, lines 11744-96;
Horstmann (1878), p. 113, lines 125-48.
537
24
34 In a poem on the Childhoodo f Jesusi n the late thirteenthc enturyL audM S 108
(see Severs and Hartung, Manual, ii, 413 and 447), the 'temple of giwes' contains
three hundred idols 'ywuche heroudes the king honourede with the giwes'; the false
idols fall when Jesus enters and 'heroudes the king of egypte lond' becomes
frightened, recalling the fate of Pharaoh, drowned for disbelief (this Pharaoh
reference occurs in the apocryphal gospel account): see Altenglische Legenden,
edited by C. Horstmann( PaderbornF: . Schoningh,1 875),p p. 9-12, lines2 09-300.
In two versions of 'The Carnal and the Crane' the king who pursues the Holy Family
is called Pharaoh: see Bronson (1959-72), nos 55: 1 and 55: 3.
35 Bronson (1959-72), ii, 24 justifies inclusion of secondary ballads as 'modern
representativeso f an ancientt heme'. It is, of course, not alwaysp ossiblet o prove
whichs econdaryb alladsa re directlyb asedu pon a primaryb alladt ext: severalt exts
of a secondary version of 'Dives and Lazarus' common in America are printed by
Bronson (nos 56:9-12) but the version is based firmly on Luke xvi, verses 19-31, and
does not seem to sharea ny significanet xpressionsw ith Child5 6.