Knight William- Cooley (ME) 1934 Barry BFSSNE
[My title. From Bulletin of the Folk Song Society of the Northeast; Barry ed. Vol. 9, 1935. Barry's notes follow.
R. Matteson 2015]
THE KNIGHT AND THE SHEPHERD'S DAUGHTER
(Child 110)
The singer, aged 80, sang this ballad in a clear, steady voice, giving an exceptionally fine demonstration of what is known to Maine folk as the "old-fashioned style": declamando rather than parlando, with effective rubato. In stanza 5, consisting of two stanzas partly coalesced, lines 1-2, 3-4, were sung to phrases 1-2, 1-2, respectively, of the air: lines 5-6 were sung to phrases 3-4 of the air, followed by the refrain. In singing Lord Arnold (Child 81), the singer used the same means to fit the air to a similarly coalesced stanza.
Child printed sixteen versions of The Knight and, the Shepherd's Daughter: his K, from Motherwell's MS., alone agrees with the Maine version in making them knight a blacksmith's son, though Child A, the oldest text, from the Roxburghe Collection, makes him a squire's son. In other versions, he is a prince of royal blood. Originally probably of the small number in English, of trylleviser or ballads of magic and enchantment, it has in its existing traditional form more of the romance of social inequality, while the manner in which the tables are turned on the knight, in spite of his ungracious caddishness, reveals the neatness of humor in folk-art.
The ballad has survived in old-country tradition: JFSS., III, 222-3, 280-81, V, 86-90; Williams, Folk-Songs of the Upper Thames, pp. 102-3; Greig, Last Leaves, No. 43, pp. 87-90; Rymour Club, Misc. II, 29 ff. It is rare in America, confined to the Northeast: the first version to be recorded (P. 8., JAFL, XXII, 377-8) was taken down in Boston, from a singer who learned it in Co. Tyrone. The text in Greenleaf-Mansfield, Ballads and Sea-Songs of New-foundland, pp. 35-7, sans music, has the trait of the blacksmith's son, but otherwise has slight resemblance to the Maine version.
[Knight William] Recorded by dictaphone, June 6, 1934, from the singing of Mrs. Eva A. Cooley, Exeter, Maine, formerly of Smithfield, Maine. Text and air transcribed by P. B.
[music]
A shepherd's daughter watching sheep--
Knight William riding by;
"O-- what will I give that pretty fair maid,
One night with me to lie !"
Chorus. Ri fol diddle O day.
He took her by the slender waist,
And laid her on the green;
He took her by the lily-white hand,
And lifted her up again.
He mounted on his milk-white steed,
And swiftly he did ride;
She, being young and nimble foot,
She followed him side by side.
4 And when she came to the King's castle,
She knocked so loud did ring;
O who was so ready as the King himself,
To rise and let her in.
5 "What news, what news, my pretty fair maid,
What news have you brought to me?
Has any of my goods been stole this night,
Or any of my castles won?"
"But I've been robbed of my body,
Which grieves me worse than all."
6 "If he be a married man,
Hanged he shall be;
But if he be a single man,
His body I'll give to thee."
7 The King called up his merry men all,
By one, by two, by three;
Knight William used to be the first-
The last of all came he.
8 Knight William brought five hundred pounds,
And laid it on the aisle;
Says he, "Take this, you wanton girl,
And go maintain your child!"
9 "I don't want your gold," she said,
"Nor I don't want your fee;
But I will have your fair body,
Which the King has given to me!"
10 After the wedding it was o'er,
And all was through and done;
She proved to be the King's daughter,
And he but a blacksmith's son.