George Collins- Barbara M. Cra'ster 1910
George Collins
Barbara M. Cra'ster
Journal of the Folk-Song Society, Vol. 4, No. 15 (Dec., 1910), pp. 106-109
GEORGE COLLINS
NOTE BY BARBARA M. CRA'STER.
The song, "George Collins," contributed by the late Dr. G. B. Gardiner to the Folk-Song 5onirnial, Vol. iii, part 13, P. 299, though obviously a version of the better known "Giles Collins," differs from that ballad in containing an additional and very important incident. The three main incidents of " George Collins" are:
(1) His meeting with a maiden by a stream, the maiden being evidently of a supernatural nature.
(2) His return home and death as the result of the meeting.
(3) His true-love's realisation of the tragedy through the sight of his coffin, and her own consequent death.
All the stock versions of "Giles Collins" omit incident (i) entirely, thus giving no reason for the man's death, while some are still further reduced, and contain only incident (3).
But the three incidents (set out with various details and with various forms of introduction) form exactly the main plot of the ballad referred to in Child's English and Scottish Ballads (under the heading of "Clerk Colvill"), as occurring in many languages, especially in Scandinavian collections, where the hero is Sir Olaf, and in Breton versions, where he appears as Ann Aotro Nann, i.e., Le Seigneur Nann.
Prof. Child connects "Clerk Colvill" with this widely-spread story, although none of the versions given by him contain incident (3), and he speaks of them himself as being all "deplorably imperfect." He does izot notice the connection between "Giles Collins" and these same ballads, for the obvious reason that he has never come across any version of "Giles Collins" containing incident (1), and without this the story at once assumes a perfectly different character. This is shown very clearly by the fact that Professor Child has placed all his versions of "Giles Collins" under the heading "Lady Alice," the true-love being now the centre of interest, whereas in the comiplete story she is very much overshadowed by her supernatural rival, and in "Clerk Colvill" becomes of so little account that in one version she is actually confused with the Clerk's mother!
So, in order to complete the story as found in the Scandinavian and Breton versions, it is necessary to conmbine "Clerk Colvill" with "Giles Collins"; and this is practically what has been done in Dr. Gardiner's " George Collins." Or rather, is this not more probably a survival of the original ballad from which both "Clerk Colvill" and "Giles Collins" are descended? The idea of a possible connection between the two is considerably strengthened by the fact that "Clerk Colvill" also appears in Prof. Child's versions as "Clark Colven" and "Clerk Colin." Indeed, the name "Colvill," though selected by Prof. Child as being the correct form (p. 372, note), occurs only in Herd's version, which differs in metre from the other versions quoted, while these agree in metre with all the versions of "Giles Collins" as well as with "George Collins." Dr. Gardiner's words are certainly of a simpler and more primitive type than most of the "Giles Collins" versions, in which the parson of the parish is a distinct innovation.
The description in "George Collins" of the supernatural maiden "washing her marble stone" is most closely paralleled by the lines in " Clerk Colin " (Prof. Child's version C) which run:
"An there he saw the mermaiden
Washin silk upon a stane."
In the other versions of "Clerk Colvill" she is found washing "a sark o' silk"; and this is explained by Prof. Child, in a note on "The Elfin Knight " (Vol. v, p. 284), as probably having reference to the old custom by which a shirt given to a man by a maiden signified betrothal. The shirt having disappeared from Dr. Gardiner's version, there seems to have been some attempt to connect the stone with George Collins' own tombstone by turning it into marble.
Prof. Child also notes (Vol. iii, p. 5o6) that in one of the Breton versions of "Le Seigneur Nann," printed by Gaidoz in Melusine, "the language appears to be Cornish." If this is correct it is easy to understand that the Cornish ballad might find its way into Hampshire; but as many of the Breton ballads published by Villemarque are noted as being in the "sdialecte de Cornouaille" (i.e. a district of Brittany), it seems very probable that Prof. Child has made a slip in taking this to mean Cornish, though the two dialects no doubt are closely allied.
London, 1910.
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Since writing the above note I have found in Villemarque's Chaints populaires de la Bretagne, ed. I846, vol. ii, p. I22, another Breton ballad, "Markiz Gwerand" ("Le Marquis de Guerand "), which again points to a connection between "Clerk Colvill" and "Giles Collins." But while "Ann Aotro Nann," quoted above, has more in common with " Clerk Colvill " and Dr. Gardiner's " George Collins" than with the usual versions of " Giles Collins," the " Marquis de Gu6rand" resembles these latter versions in containing no reference to any supernatural being.
According to Villemarque's notes, the verses were composed by a peasant named Tugdual Salaun, of the parish of Plouber, in celebration of a duel which he himself witnessed between the Marquis de Guerand and the "clerc de Garlan" on the occasion of a certain Aire-Neuve (an agricultural festival, always ending, in a series of single combats, which is fully described by Villemarque on p. 333 of the same volume). This Marquis de Guerand is identified with the one whose "passe-pieds bas bretons," performed at the court of Louis XIV, are recorded with delight by Madame de Sevigne in a letter of I67I. The court-favourite was less appreciated in his own country, where, according to tradition, his excesses were such that his own mother used to ring a bell as a warning to the neighbourhood whenever her son went forth from the castle.
In the ballad before us the girl, Annaik Kalvez, refuses at first to attend the Aire-Neuve for fear of "le plus mechant gentilhomme du monde, qui me poursuit partout." She yields, however, to the persuasions of her lover, Kloarek Garlan ("le clerc de Garlan"), who undertakes to defend her, if necessary, against a hundred such persecutors.
But the marquis, having extorted from the reluctant innkeeper the information that the " joyeux et beau couple" are taking part in the festival, appears on the field and challenges the clerk to single combat. The clerk tries to evade the challenge on the score that he is only the son of a peasant and not fit to wrestle with a "gentilhomme"- that he has never borne a sword but only a single-stick that the "seigneur" will defile his sword by using it upon one of such low birth. But the marquis will take no denial. "If I defile my sword," he exclaims, "I will wash it in thy blood!" And apparently he deals the clerk a mortal blow, for Annaik, "seeing the blood of her sweet clerk flow," leaps in a frenzy upon his assailant and drags him round the field by the hair of his head. She then returns home, and says to her mother (in Villemarque's translation):
"MM a bonne mere, si vous m'aimez, vous me ferez mon lit;
Vous me ferez mon lit bien doux, car mon pauvre coeur va bien mal."
These lines, it should be noted, are a close variant of the words of Le Seigneur Nann to his mother:
"Ma bonne mbre, si vous m'aimez, faites-moi mon lit, s'il n'est pas fait:
Je me sens bien malade."
It is the same request as that of Clerk Colvill, George Collins, and Giles Collins, only in the "Marquis de Guerand " the words are put into the mouth of the heroine. Annaik also begs her mother to tell the sexton not to throw the earth back into the clerk's grave, since she will shortly follow him thither.
Here, then, we have, with slight variation, incidents (2) and (3) of the Sir Olaf, Seigneur Nann, or George Collins story. So far as these incidents alone are concerned, it might be contended that they are simply ballad commonplaces, and that no inference can be drawn from them as to any original connection between the songs in which they occur. But the names of the hero and heroine of "Markiz Gwerand" seem to me to point very clearly to a connection between this ballad and our English versions. " Kloarek Garlan" is distinctly like "Clerk Colin" (an alternative form of "Clerk Colvill," as mentioned above); and "Annaik" is still nearer to the "'Anna, Annice, Annis, or Alice" of the various "Giles Collins" variants. I would even suggest that the girl's second name, "Kalvez," nay by some confusion have led to the corruption of "Colin" into "Colvill." If Villemarque is correct in his statement as to the origin of "Markiz Gwerand," it would seem difficult to account for any connection between this late seventeenth century Breton ballad and the far older sounding "Clerk Colvill" and "George Collins." (Most of the " Giles Collins" variants seem, as I have said above, to belong to a comparatively late period). But it is well known that folk-singers often claim as their own composition words which they have merely adapted to suit the circumstances of their own time and place; and as the lines quoted above from "Markiz Gwerand" are obviously not the original composition of Tugdual Salauin, it is quite conceivable that he may simply have taken an old ballad of the "Seigneur Nann" type (but in which the hero and the heroine appear as Kloarek Garlan and Annaik Kalvez), and have substituted the notorious marquis of his own day for the jealous sprite of the original story. The incident of Annaik dragging the marquis round the field by his hair suggests in itself a reminiscence of something a good deal older than the seventeenth century, though not properly belonging to the "Seigneur Nann" type of story.
Unless some such ballad as I have suggested did, at some time, exist in a language accessible both to the Bretons and to the people of our own islands (therefore probably in some form of Cymric), it seems impossible to account for the names "Kloarek Garlan" and "Annaik Kalvez" appearing together in a Breton ballad, while " Clerk Colin, Colvin, or Colvill" and "Anna, or Annice" are found in two English ballads, usually distinct, but showing clear traces of connection with each other and with the Breton story, and actually united in "George Collins."-
B. M. C.