Lord Bateman- Mulcahy (IR-VT) pre1900 Flanders U
[My date, learned in Ireland before 1900. From Flanders; Ancient Ballads, 1966. Notes by Coffin follow. The informant is apparently Bridget M. Mulcahy born about 1890 in Ireland and coming to the US around 1900. She married Michael P. Mulcahy and in 1935 they lived in Rutland, Vermont.
R. Matteson 2014]
Young Beichan
(Child 53)
This ballad has an extensive Anglo-American tradition and still is well known on both sides of the Atlantic. The American songs all trace back to early broadsides[1] and song books and quite generally refer to the hero as Lord Bateman or Bakeman. These texts vary somewhat in minor detail, but follow the Child L pattern as to plot outline, significant facts, and length. Nevertheless, a good many scholars have devoted a good bit of time to the minor variations of the American versions and more particularly to identifying the printed sources of the ballad in the New World. George L. Kittredge JAF, XXX, 295-97) used "the hole bored in the hero's shoulder" as a means of distinguishing texts closely akin to Child L from those related to the Coverly broadside in the Isaiah Thomas Collection, Worcester, Massachusetts, and Phillips Barry, British Ballads from Maine, 106 f., continues the probings and points out the "hole in the shoulder" stanza is characteristic of the South. There is also a good bit of information along similar lines in Jane Zielonko's Master's thesis, "Some American Variants of Child Ballads" (Columbia University, 1945), 83 f.
The Flanders versions below have been divided according to the findings of these researchers. Texts A-J seem to be similar to the Coverly broadside or to the version printed in the J. S. Locke of Boston Forget-Me-Not Songster (See A particularly) that goes back to an earlier broadside Coverly may have used. K-S are close to the text printed by Lucy E. Broadwood and J. A. F. Maitland in English Country Songs (London, 1893) and cited by Barry, op. cit., 116. This is a form of the song still known in Britain that evidently found its way into print in New England. In this series (see K-O) the hero's shoulder is not bored through as in many Child texts, but Bateman is tied to a tree[2]. T, it will be noted, contains further modifications and a compression
of the narrative. But, all in all, the Flanders texts are pretty typical of the northern findings for this ballad. Child, I,455 f., discusses the affinities of this song and the legend associated with Gilbert a Becket in the Middle Ages. However, analogous stories are known about Henry of Brunswick, Alexander von Metz, and a host of other heroes in Scandinavian and southern European balladry. A start on a bibliography can be had in Coffin, 63-65 (American); Dean-Smith, 5 (English); Greig and Keith, 40-43 (Scottish) ; and the notes in Child. Kittredge's JAF article contains a number of references, not easily available elsewhere, to printed American texts of "Lord Bateman" and its relative "The Turkish Lady." The latter, listed by Laws as O 26 and possibly derived from "Lord Bateman," is also immensely popular in America. Laws, AEBB,238, and Coffin, 65, give a
good many references for it.
The eight tunes for Child 53 are all related, and all correspond to tune group A in BC1. Two subfamilies appear: 1) the Davis, Kennison, Pierce, and Burke tunes, characterized by a triad at the beginning, this group corresponds to BCI group Aa. The other tunes together fit in with BCI group Ab, the Morton tune being relatively divergent from the others, however.
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1. In my opinion, this statement is simply inaccurate, "the American songs all trace back to early broadsides." Consider, for example, the Hick/Harmon version (Susan Price/Young Behan) which was collected from three different family members which they brought from Virginia (circa late 1600s) to the Carolina mountains probably around 1770 and has been passed strictly through oral tradition since then. [R. Matteson 2014]
2. It's likely that the "tied to a tree" reference is, in fact, derived from the "hole in the shoulder" texts, via faulty oral transmission. After all, there aren't many prisoners tied to a tree in a jail cell. [R. Matteson 2014]
Q. Lord Bateman. Contributed by mail by Mrs. Michael Mulcahy of Rutland, Vermont, as learned in her girlhood in Ireland.
Lord Bateman
We've made a vow for seven years
And seven days to bind it sirong,
That he would wed with no other woman
And she would wed with no other man."
But the seven years are past and over
And the seven days they are at an end
So she packed all her clothing
And said, "Lord Bateman, she would go and see-
When she came to Lord Bateman's palace,
She knocked boldly and rang the bell.
Who is there? who is there?" said the proud young waiter.
Who has knocked so boldly and can't get in?"
"I want to know is this Lord Bateman's palace
Or is his lordship, himself, within.
"Oh yes, oh yes,', said the proud young waiter,
lhis very day he has his new bride in."
Go up and ask him for a slice of bread
And a bottle of wine,
If he remembers that fair young lady
That relieved him when close confined."
Lord Bateman got up in such a hurry
That he broke his sword in splinters three.
"Oh, yes, oh yes, I. . .
Then up-stepped the bride's old mother,
"You wed my daughter. . .
"Your daughter is none the worse nor the better of me.
She came here on a horse and pillion
And she can go home with coach and three."
(So the wedding was got ready and everything-)