American Versions of the Elfin Knight- JAFL 1894
American Versions of the Ballad of the Elfin Knight (JOAFL article 1894)
From: American Versions of the Ballad of the Elfin Knight
from The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 7, No. 26 (Jul. - Sep., 1894), pp. 228-232
[I've added titles using the standard first line. This article, not attributed, was surely written by the editor William Wells Newell (1839 - 1907), a folklorist and author of Games and Songs of American Children (1883, Mineola, N. Y.).
R. Matteson 2011]
AMERICAN VERSIONS OF THE BALLAD OF THE ELFIN KNIGHT
A. THE words and the music of this version are contributed by Miss Gertrude Decrow, of Boston, in whose family the song has been traditional: -
[As I Walked Out in Yonder Dell]
As I walked out in yonder dell,
Let ev'ry rose grow merry in time;
I met a fair damsel, her name it was Nell;
I said, "Will you be a true lover of mine?
I want you to make me a cambric shirt,
Let ev'ry rose grow merry in time;
Without any seam or needlework,
And then you shall be a true lover of mine.
"I want you to wash it on yonder hill,
Let ev'ry rose grow merry in time;
Where dew never was nor rain never fell,
And then you shall be a true lover of mine.
"I want you to dry it on yonder thorn,
Let ev'ry rose grow merry in time;
Where tree never blossomed since Adam was born,
And then you shall be a true lover of mine."
"And since you have asked three questions of me,
Let ev'ry rose grow merry in time;
And now I will ask as many of thee,
And then I will be a true lover of thine.
"I want you to buy me an acre of land,
Let ev'ry rose grow merry in time;
Between the salt sea and the sea sand,
And then I will be a true lover of thine.
"I want you to plough it with an ox's horn,
Let ev'ry rose grow merry in time;
And plant it all over with one kernel of corn,
And then I will be a true lover of thine.
"I want you to hoe it with a peacock's feather,
Let ev'ry rose grow merry in time;
And thrash it all out with the sting of an adder,
And then I will be a true lover of thine."
B. Contributed by Mrs. Sarah Bridge Farmer, as learned from an elderly lady born in Beverly, Mass.:-
[Can't You Show Me The Way To Cape Ann?]
Can't you show me the way to Cape Ann?
Parsley and sage, rosemary and thyme;
Remember ma to a young woman that's there,
In token she's been a true lover of mine.
The requirements which follow are identical with those of the previous version. There is an additional stanza:-
And when he has done, and finished his work,
Parsley and sage, rosemary and thyme;
If he'll come unto me, he shall have his shirt,
And then he shall be a true lover of mine.
The reciter invariably added, with much glee:- I think she got even with him, my dear.
C. The deficiencies in the latter version can be filled up by one given by Child. This version, "communicated by Rev. F. D. Huntington, Bishop of Western New York, as sung to him by his father in 1828 at Hadley, Mass.; derived from a rough, roystering 'character' in the town." The incomprehensible refrain is here omitted.
[Now You Are A-going To Cape Ann]
Now you are a-going to Cape Ann,
Remember me to the selfsame man.
Tell him to buy me an acre of land
Between the salt water and the sea sand.
Tell him to plough it with a ram's horn,
Tell him to sow it with one peppercorn.
Tell him to reap it with a penknife,
And tell him to cart it with two mice.
Tell him to cart it to yonder new barn
That never was built since Adam was born.
Tell him to thrash it with a goose-quill,
Tell him to fan it with an egg-shell.
Tell the fool, when he's done his work,
To come to me, and he shall have his shirt.
This version gives the last half of the ballad, that marked A being the first part.
In the great work of Prof. F. J. Child, "The English and Scottish Popular Ballads," now approaching completion, the first place is given to riddle-songs. With regard to these he remarks (vol. i. p. I):
"Riddles, as is well known, play an important part in popular story, and that from very remote times. No one needs to be reminded of Samson, OEdipus, Apollonius of Tyre. Riddle-tales, which, if not so old as the oldest of these, may be carried in all likelihood some centuries beyond our era, still live in Asiatic and European tradition, and have their representatives in popular ballads. The largest class of these tales is that in which one party has to guess another's riddles, or two rivals compete in giving or guessing, under penalty in either instance of forfeiting life, or some other heavy wager; an example of which is the English ballad, modern in form, of 'King John and the Abbot of Canterbury.' In a second class, a suitor can win a lady's hand only by guessing riddles, as in 'Captain Wedderburn's Courtship' and 'Proud Lady Margaret.' There is sometimes a penalty of loss of life for the unsuccessful, but not in these ballads. Thirdly, there is the tale (perhaps an offshoot of an early form of the first) of 'The Clever Lass,' who wins a husband, and sometimes a crown, by guessing riddles, solving difficult but practicable problems, or matching and evading impossibilities."
To this last division belongs the first ballad of Professor Child's collection, in which (in version A) the first two questions and answers are, -
Oh, what is longer than the way,
Or what is deeper than the sea?
Oh, what is louder than the horn,
Or what is sharper than a thorn?"
Oh, love is longer than the way,
And hell is deeper than the sea.
And thunder is louder than the horn,
And hunger is sharper than a thorn.
The questions being properly answered, the knight marries the maiden.
It would seem, however, that the part of the song relating to the elfin knight is out of place, and borrowed from other ballads, as this character does not appear in the versions of the story found in other European tongues. "Gesta Romanorum" contains a mutilated form of the tale. A king is urged by his friends to marry, and a maiden found who is suitable. The king, desiring to try her sagacity, sends a bit of linen three inches square, with a promise to marry her if she will make him a shirt of proper length and width. She sends back reply that she must have a proper vessel in which to work.
In a Transylvanian tale, a king similarly requires the maid to make a shirt and drawers of two threads; she, in return, sends to the king a couple of broomsticks, requiring that he should first make a loom and bobbin-wheel out of these. In a Turkish tale from South Siberia (the references may be consulted in the work of Child), a king who is desirous to find a proper bride for his weak-minded son, being struck with the ability of a poor girl, tests her sagacity by requiring of the father impossible feats: he is to die unless he can cause an ox to bear a calf. The girl goes out to gather herbs; when examined, she explains that it is to make a bed for her father, who is about to bear a child. This is as likely as that an ox can have a calf. The girl thus becomes the bride of the prince, and saves her husband from danger by guessing the enigmas of a hostile king, who has proposed a riddle-match, of which the two kingdoms shall be the stake. The whole story is thus shown to be an outgrowth from that class of tales in which one king propounds tasks to another in order to acquire his possessions, and the latter is delivered either by the wisdom of his minister, whom he has imprisoned, or by the cleverness of the daughter of the minister. Moreover, in the older forms of the story (we follow the discussion of the editor), the object of the attack is to discover whether the prince to whom the demand is addressed enjoys the aid of such counsellors as will make an attack on him dangerous. It will be seen that, in the earlier versions of the tale, it assumes a form which would have, in the eyes of a simple-minded people, some sort of historical sequence, while in this, as in other cases, the ultra-romantic aspect is the later.
The songs which have been sung, and indeed are still sung in America, are therefore the echoes of a tale which long antedates the Christian era. An anecdote in Plutarch, in which the king of the AEthiops gave a task to Amasis, king of Egypt, with a stake of many towns and cities, is, as Professor Child remarks, probably a fragment of a story connected with the class of tales in question.
The songs above printed belong to another ballad, "The Elfin Knight," Child's No. 2, which has had more currency in modern oral tradition. According to the beginning of this ballad, a girl, who has heard the marvellous sweetness of the strains produced by a fairy knight, desires to obtain the love of the latter: this the knight evades by asking the performance of impossible tasks; she is to make for him a shirt without cut or seam, shaped without knife or thread, washed in a well where never was water, and dried on a hawthorn that never grew. To these requirements the maiden responds by counter-desires: the knight must till an acre of land with his horn, sow it without seed, harrow it with a thread, cut it with a knife, stack it in the sea, and fetch it home dry. According to the usual conditions of controversies of this sort, the person accosted is now free from the performance.
The refrain of the ballad seems to have been an enumeration of certain flowers. This refrain belongs to the dance (for the ballad was a dancing-song), not to the story. "Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme" appears in a version given by Motherwell, as corrupted into "Every rose grows merry with thyme," and in the first of our American versions receives a moral sense: "Let every rose grow merry in time." Just so, in the first of Child's ballads, "Juniper gentle (gentian?) and rosemary" have been taken for the names of persons: "Jennifer gentle and Rosemaree."