Recordings & Info 38. The Wee Wee Man
CONTENTS
1) Alternative Titles
2) Traditional Ballad Index
3) Folk Index
4) Child Collection Index
5) Excerpt from The British Traditional Ballad in North America by Tristram Coffin 1950, from the section A Critical Biographical Study of the Traditional Ballads of North America
6) Mainly Norfolk (lyrics and info)
ATTACHED PAGES: (see left hand column)
1) Roud Number 2865 The Wee Wee Man (27 listings)
Alternative Titles
A Fairie Sang
The Little Man
Traditional Ballad Index: Wee Wee Man, The [Child 38]
DESCRIPTION: The singer meets a "wee wee man," who, despite his size, proves amazingly strong. He takes the singer on a tour to his home, and shows him the finest ladies he has ever seen -- but then disappears.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1776 (Herd)
KEYWORDS: magic home
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland) US(SE,So)
REFERENCES (14 citations):
Child 38, "The Wee Wee Man" (7 texts)
Bronson 38, "The Wee Wee Man" (1 version)
Lyle-Crawfurd1 72, "The Wee Wee Man" (1 text)
Lyle-Crawfurd2 101, "A Fairie Sang" (1 text)
BrownII 11, "The Wee, Wee Man" (1 text)
Randolph-Legman II, pp. 587-588, "The Wee Wee Man" (2 texts, one of them the Brown version)
Leach, pp. 135-136, "The Wee Wee Man" (1 text)
OBB 11, "The Wee Wee Man" (1 text)
PBB 11, "The Wee Wee Man" (1 text)
Gummere, pp. 293-294+362, "The Wee Wee Man" (1 text)
Montgomerie-ScottishNR 198, "(The Wee, Wee Man)" (1 text)
DT 38, WEEWEEMN
ADDITIONAL: Emily Lyle, _Fairies and Folk: Approaches to the Scottish Ballad Tradition_, Wissenschaflicher Verlag Trier, 2007, pp. 40-41, "A New Scotch Song" (1 text plus a print of part of the broadside containing it; also assorted excerpts)
Walter de la Mare, _Come Hither_, revised edition, 1928; #315, "The Wee Wee Man" (1 text)
Roud #2865
NOTES: Carterhaugh, also mentioned as the site of magic in "Tam Lin," "is a plain at the confluence of the Ettrick and Yarrow in Selkirkshire" (Scott).
Child prints as an appendix to this ballad the poem "Als Y Yod on ay Mounday," found in a single copy in British Museum MS. Cotton Julius A5, dated firmly to the fourteenth century (another part of the document has a reference to the year 1307). This is curious in a number of ways. There is no doubt that the two items go back to the same folkloric roots -- but "Wee Wee Man" seems to be purely Scottish, and "Als Y Yod" is in a very difficult Northumbrian dialect.
E. B. Lyle, in "The Wee Wee Man and Als Y Yod on y Mounday" (reprinted in Lyle, Ballad Studies, 1976), examines the nature of the parallels between the two, but does not reach any clear conclusions. Her suggestion is that both derive from some lost proto-romance does not strike me as compelling, though it is certainly possible.
Lyle revisited the topic in a section in Emily Lyle, Fairies and Folk: Approaches to the Scottish Ballad Tradition, Wissenschaflicher Verlag Trier, 2007, pp. 36-43. This attempts to classify the known versions of "The Wee Wee Man" and group them in families. It also includes, on p. 38, a useful table of parallels between the ballad and "Als Y Yod." - RBW
Folk Index: The Wee Wee Man [Ch 38]
Rm - Bundle and Go
Johnson, James & Robert Burns (eds) / Scots Musical Museum, Amadeus, Bk (1991/1853), #370 [1792]
Leach, MacEdward / The Ballad Book, Harper & Row, Bk (1955), p135
The Wee, Wee Man (instrumental)
Harding's All-Round Collection of Jigs, Reels and Country Dances, Lewis Music, fol (1932/1905), # 17
Child Collection Index
038 Frederick Worlock & C.R.M. Brookes The Wee Wee Man Poetry of Robert Burns & Scottish Border Ballads 1959 No
038 Jim & Holly Lawrence The Wee Wee Man Caledonian Shadows 2011 No
038 Moira Cameron Wee Wee Man Sands of the Shore - Be Tricked or Betrayed 2007 No
038 Steeleye Span The Wee, Wee Man Parcel of Rogues 1973 3:54 Yes
038 Steeleye Span The Wee Wee Man A Parcel of Steeleye Span - Their First Five Chrysalis Albums 1972-1975 2009 3:56 Yes
Excerpt from The British Traditional Ballad in North America
by Tristram Coffin 1950, from the section; A Critical Biographical Study of the Traditional Ballads of North America
38. THE WEE, WEE MAN
Texts: Brown Coll.
Local Titles: None given.
Story Types: A: A man out walking encounters a little fairy, no bigger than his ear, but strong "as any buck". The man picks the elf up, and, after watching him throw a huge stone far away, goes along a lane with the little fellow until they come to a castle. Here a lovely lady comes out and wishes to "rassle". They go to bed, and after a night of sport the man awakes to find both his love and the elf-man gone.
Examples: Brown Coll.
Discussion: This version of Child 38 does not follow any of the texts given by Child in his collection, although its first five stanzas are generally the same as the corresponding parts of all seven British stories. North Carolina Stanzas 6, 7, 8, and 9 are, however, a vulgarization and rationalization of the fairy-lore found in the final lines of the Child texts. In fact. Stanza 6 was so crude that the informant refused to sing it to the collector. (A note on the manuscript reads, "One stanza Mr. S. censored here, a description of the girls physical qualities. He didn't know me well enough.") As will be noted with the publication of the F. C. Brown North Carolina Collection and the appearance of this text in print, there is a great deal of localization and modernization of the old lines in this unique American version.
Mainly Norfolk: English Folk and Other Good Music
The Wee Wee Man
[Roud 2865; Child 38; Ballad Index C038; trad.]
Steeleye Span recorded The Wee Wee Man in 1973 for their album Parcel of Rogues.
Lyrics
'Twas down by Carterhaugh Father,
Between the water and the wall;
There I met with a wee wee man
And he was the least that ever I saw.
His legs were scarce a finger's length
And thick and nimble was his knee.
Between his eyes a flee could go,
Between his shoulders inches three.
Chorus: His beard was long and white as a swan,
His robe was neither green nor grey.
He clapped his hands, down came the mist,
And he sank and he's fainted clean away.
He's lifted up a stone six feet in height
And flung it farther than I could see.
And though I'd been a giant born,
I'd never had lifted it to my knee.
“Wee Wee Man but thou art strong,
Tell me where thy dwelling be.”
“It's down beneath yon bonny green bower,
Though you must come with me and see.”
Chorus
We rode on and we sped on
Until we came to a bonny green hall.
The roof was made of the beaten gold
And purest crystal was the floor.
There were pipers playing on every stair
And ladies dancing in glistering green.
He clapped his hands, down came the mist,
And the man and the hall no more were seen.
Chorus (x2)
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Patrick Montague for correcting the lyrics.