Daughter of Old England- Amey(NH) 1942 Flanders D
[Flanders- Ancient Ballads, 1966. For a similar version see Flanders C, also from New Hampshire. Notes by Coffin follow.
R. Matteson Jr. 2014]
Lady Isabel and the Elf-Knight
(Child 4)
This song is known to practically all the ballad-singing people of Europe from Scandinavia to the Latin countries and into Poland to the Netherlands. Its theme, the story of the ogre who decoys maidens to their deaths but who is at last thwarted by an opportunistic girl, is widespread in tales (see Bluebeard and related matter) as well. Longer versions of the song may involve a conversation in which the girl asks her brother's permission to go with the lover who has sung irresistible melodies; a choice given the maid between hanging and being stabbed; remarks by the head of the decapitated lover; a meeting between the girl, who is carrying the ogre's head, and the ogre's mother; and the conquering maiden's blowing her horn like a warrior as she approaches her father's castle. It is easy to see that the Anglo-American texts, where even the supernatural nature of the lover has pretty well vanished and where the naive chivalry of the villain gives the girl her chance, are abbreviated and somewhat pale. However, the true core of the story, the vigorous nature of the heroine, is preserved faithfully--almost as well as in French Canada where Jeanneton kicks the man in the stream as he pulls off her stocking and then holds him under with a branch.
Versions similar to A and B below (see Child E), in which the girl is told to remove a series of garments, are more common to New England than to the rest of the United States. Texts C and D, in which nettles or other brambles are removed from the river's edge, are not until except in the opening stanza which is borrowed from Child 105, nor are texts like L where the parrot (note he is a pirate in A) has been omitted. The parrot in "Lady Isabel" and the parrot in "Young Hunting" (Child 68) often get confused anyhow. It is somewhat unusual, however, to find as one does in Versions L and M that the girl recites what has happened to her. Obviously, from what goes on between her and the parrot, in Anglo-American tradition she would prefer to drop the subject.
The European backgrounds of this have been intensively studied. Grundtvig (Danmark's gamle Folkeviser (Copenhagen, 1853-90], IV) made an elaborate investigation of its dissemination; Child, 22 f., spent a long introduction on it; and more recently it has come under the thorough attention of Iivar Kemppinen (The Ballad of Lady Isabel and the Elf-Knight, Heisinki, 1954) and Holger Nygard. Nygard's two articles, in JAF, LXV, 1-12, and LXVIII, 141-52, give one a start on a bibliography and a nice introduction to the problems involved; his book, The Ballad of Heer Halewijn (Knoxville, 1958), is a complete study. Anglo-American bibliographies and discussion, are found through Coffin, 32-35, Belden, 5-6; and Dean Smith, 97. The song is included in Barry's British Ballad's from Maine, 14.
The large group of tunes for this ballad falls (indistinctly) into two groups: 1) the versions of Burling, Harrington, Moses, Amey, Russel, Fish (which is especially close to Moses) and perhaps Pease (close to Russell?); and 2) Lougee, with Daniels and George (distantly close to Lougee, but close to each other). The Hayes version seems outside these groups, as does that of Lane which may be related to group I. Comparison with BCI groups reveals that our group I is part of BCl's group A, and our group 2, part of his group B.
D. The Daughter of Old England. Sung by Clarke Amey of Pittsburg, New Hampshire. M. Olney, Collector; April 25, 1942;
Structure: A B C D (2,2,2,2); Rhythm C; Contour: arc; Scale: hexatonic, tending to major. t.c. E-flat. For mel. rel. see GN, 3, especially the first phrase; GCM , 31; BES, 22.
The Daughter of Old England
'Twas of a youth, a well-known youth,
'Twas of a squire's son.
He courted the bailiff's daughter so dear;
'Twas of old England town. [1]
He courted her many a long summer's day
And many a winter's eve;
He courted her for many, many a day
For to take her sweet life away.
"Go and get some of your father's gold,
Some of your mother's fee,
And away we will go to a far distant land
And married we will be."
She got some of her father's gold,
Some of her mother's fee,
And away we did ride to her father's stable door,
Where the horses were thirty and three.
She mounted on her milk-white steed
And he upon her gray,
And away they did ride to a clear riverside,
'Twas six hours before it was day.
"Now take off the very best of your clothes
And lay them on the ground,
For the clothes you have on are far too good
For to lie in a watery tomb."
"Go and pluck the nettle to whip away the thistle [2]
That grows by the river's brim,
So it won't tangle with my curly, curly locks
And mingle with my milk-white skin."
He went to pluck the nettle to whip away the thistle
That grew by the river's brim,
And as he plucked the nettle to whip away the thistle,
And the young girl pushed him in.
"Now swim if you can you're a false young man,
Since you have met your doom,
If seven fair maids you have drown-ed here before,
You shall lie in a watery tomb.''
She mounted on her milk-white steed
And also led her gray,
And when she got back to her father's stable door,
'Twas three hours before it was day.
"Now, you keep quiet, my pretty Pollee,
And. tell no tales on me.
Your cage, it shall be of the gleamingest gold
And shall hang on a willow tree."
1. This stanza is borrowed from "The Bailiff's Daughter of Islington" (Child 105).
2. This and the next stanza are found in old version Child F, dating to the early 1700s.