Recordings & Info 108. Christopher White
[There are no known recordings of Christopher White]
CONTENTS:
1) Alternative Titles
2) Tradtitional Ballad Index
3) Wiki
4) From: Bishop Percy's Folio Manuscript By John W. Hales, Thomas Percy
ATTACHED PAGE: (see left hand column)
1) Roud No. 3974: Christopher White (1 Listings)
Alternative Titles
Christoper White (Percy's original spelling?)
Tradtitional Ballad Index: Christopher White [Child 108]
DESCRIPTION: A lady, mourning Christopher White's banishment, is wooed by the singer. She warns "If I prove false to Christopher White, Merchant, I cannot be true to thee," -- but marries him. While he is away she sends for Christopher; they go off, taking much wealth
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST_DATE: before 1750 (Percy manuscript)
KEYWORDS: love separation theft escape money
FOUND_IN:
REFERENCES: (2 citations)
Child 108, "Christopher White" (1 text)
BBI, ZN2, "Abroad as I was walking, all by the Park-side"
Roud #3974
Christopher White (ballad) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Christopher White is #108 of the Child Ballads, the collection of 305 ballads from England and Scotland, and their American variants, collected by Francis James Child in the late nineteenth century. The collection was published as The English and Scottish Popular Ballads between 1882 and 1898 by Houghton Mifflin in ten[1] volumes and later reissued in a five volume edition.
Synopsis
A maid bemoans the absence of her lover, Christopher White. A merchant offers to marry her instead. She tells him that if she was false to her lover, she'd be false to him. He offers more and more until he persuades her. She marries him, sends a letter to her lover with money, and when he comes, runs off with him and much of the merchant's treasure. The merchant laments, but acknowledges that she told him she would be false to him if she were false to her lover.
References
1.^ "The English and Scottish popular ballads / Part I-X.". WorldCat. http://www.worldcat.org/title/english-and-scottish-popular-ballads-part-i-x/oclc/491238623&referer=brief_results. Retrieved 25 April 2011. "10 vol. ; in 4°"
External links
From: Bishop Percy's Folio Manuscript By John W. Hales, Thomas Percy
Christop[h]er White
We know of no other copy of this ballad.
A wealthy merchant—a burgess of four towns, one of them Edinburgh—-makes love to the sweetheart of Christopher White, during Christopher’s banishment. She hesitates; she has found Christopher White good company; she warns the man of business that, if she is false to her old love, she cannot be true to him. But he still urges his suit, and at last
The Lady she took ‘his’ gold in her hand,
The tears they fell fast from her eyes;
Says, ‘Silver & gold makes my heart to turn,
And makes me leave good company.’
The honey-moon, and two or three other moons over, “ the merchants are ordered to sea” to serve against Spain (see vv. 40, 68). Such an employment of mercantile-navy was not unfrequent in the later middle ages, and if discontinued, may not have been forgotten at the time this ballad was written (see Pictures of English Life, Chaucer, p. 233). Or possibly “ that all the merchants must to the sea ” may mean only that the convoy was ready to accompany them, and they must at once put themselves under its protection. In any case, whether by his own business, or that of the State, the merchant was called away from his bride. When he returns, he finds her gone off to England with the companionable Christopher (who has managed to get pardoned) and his own spoons and plate and silver and gold. The excellent man protests he cares nothing for the missing goods and chattels; but for his “likesome lady” he mourns; yet confesses ingenuously that she warned him when he wooed her, that
If he were false to Christopher White,
She would never be true to me.
And so aptly follows the moral:
All young women, a warning take,
A warning, look, you take by me;
Look that you love your old loves best,
For in faith they are best company.