Mey Guldinn- Balfour Collection (Ork) Gilchrist 1938
[Single stanza with music. From: Ancient Orkney Melodies by E. A. White and Anne G. Gilchrist; Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, Vol. 3, No. 3 (Dec., 1938), pp. 183-194
R. Matteson 2018]
3. MEY GULDINN
[MAY COLVIN]
XIV. [Tune: Chevy Chase] Air: MEY GULDINN.
[music]
1. O heard ye o a bluidy knight
Lives in the west countrie?
He has betrayed eight ladies fair
An' he's droond them in the sea.
This is a widely-spread ballad both in northern and southern Europe, and many variants of English or Scottish origin have been recorded in America. Col. Balfour retained no memory of the Orkney text, and indeed supposed the ballad to be a Norse relic, translating " Mey Guldinn ' tentatively as "The Maiden's Tocher." Versions are found in Child's collection under the heading "Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight" (No. 4) but this is most nearly related to the "Robber Bridegroom" or "Outlandish Knight" group. It is known in Scotland as " May Colvin, Collin, Colean, or Culzean" [pr. Cullane] or " Fause Sir John" [this title was sometimes given to a priest or parson], and is localized traditionally in various places as an actual event. The theme is that a suitor, human or supernatural, carries off in succession seven king's daughters with their dowries or " father's gold," and having
secured the money drowns them. The eighth by woman's wit contrives a ruse to turn the tables and drown the villain instead. Supernatural elements, including the speaking parrot, bribed to shield his mistress, are preserved in some versions. Buchan's, and Greig's very similar version, from the North-East of Scotland, show analogy with the casting of runes, which in Scandinavian ballads cast a literal "spell" upon a maiden, so that she cannot choose but go with the spell-binder:
Oot o' his arm he pulled a charm
An' he stuck it in her sleeve,
An' he's made her to go wi' him
Without her parents' leave.
So, in "Sir Peter and Mettelille"[1] (Prior's Ancient Danish Ballads, ii, No. 86) Sir Peter writes a " strong Rune " and casts it under the maiden's cloak-so strong that it made her fingers bleed and drew tears of anguish, and so working as to compel her
to follow him across the sea. In " The Retorted Rune "-another ballad in Prior's collection-an enamoured prince carves Runes in the greenwood [? on beech bark] and returning casts them down so that they leap up under the girl's mantle. But in this case the girl successfully " retorts " the Rune by a counter charm.
This suggestion of a magic, compelling power (cf. the " Johnny Faa" ballad, in
which the gypsies " Cuist the glamour o'er her ") is preserved in some of the many
American variants, .of which, besides Cecil Sharp's Appalachian versions, Arthur
Kyle Davis, in Traditional Ballads of Virginia, prints nineteen variants from Virginia
alone, his " C " version beginning thus:
He followed her up and he followed her down,
He followed her into the room [or " where she lay" (another version)"
She had no power to flee from his arms,
Nor the tongue to answer him nay.
Or as in the Appalachian "C":
I had no wings for to fly away,
No tongue to say him nay.
The Orkney tune, like Nos. 32 and 34 in the same volume, is a variant of " Chevy Chase." For others, see R. A. Smith's Scotish Minstrel, iii, 92, Motherwell, Appendix No. 24, Christie, ii, 236, Bruce's Northumbrian Minstrelsy, Kidson's Traditional Tunes, and variants in the Journal, including a Manx-Gaelic tune and fragment as. "Illiam Bocht " in the Clague collection, vii, 300.-A. G. G.
1. Prior's notion that Buchan stole passages from the Danish to fill out his own copies of Scottish ballads was of course absurd. Correspondence of incidents is a commonplace in the comparative study of the folk-balladry of different nations. In the case of the " charm," served like a writ on May Colvin, Greig's text can be traced traditionally back to an earlier date than Buchan's
Ballads of the North, where the verse also occurs in his version.-A. G. G.