Recordings & Info 88. Young Johnstone
CONTENTS:
1) Alternative Titles
2) Traditional Ballad Index
3) Child Collection Index
4) 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
5) Mainly Norfolk (lyrics and info)
ATTACHED PAGES: (see left hand column)
1) Roud No. 56: (24 Listings)
Alternative Titles
Oh Did Ye See a Bloody Knight
William and the Young Colonel
Young Johnson
Johnson and the Young Colonel
Young Johnstone [Child 88]
DESCRIPTION: Johnstone kills his love's brother, then seeks shelter with (successively his mother, his sister, and) his love. She hides him from his pursuers, whom she feeds while he rests. They leave and she goes to him. He kills her, probably in confusion. He dies.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1769 (Herd)
KEYWORDS: murder love brother reunion family hiding
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber,Bord)) Ireland Canada(Mar)
REFERENCES (9 citations):
Child 88, "Young Johnstone" (6 texts)
Bronson 88, "Young Johnstone" (4 versions+2 in addenda)
GreigDuncan8 1929, "Oh Did Ye See a Bloody Knight" (1 fragment)
Lyle-Crawfurd1 5, "William and the Young Colonel" (1 text, 1 tune)
Flanders-Ancient2, pp. 293, "Young Johnstone" (1 text, from "The Charms of Melody" rather than tradition)
Mackenzie 10, "Johnson and the Colonel" (1 text, 1 tune); "Johnson and Coldwell" (1 text) {Bronson's #4}
Leach, pp. 283-284, "Young Johnstone" (1 text)
PBB 60 "Young Johnstone" (1 text)
DT 88, JOHNSTON*
Roud #56
NOTES: Also collected and sung by Ellen Mitchell, "Johnston and the Young Colonel" (on Kevin and Ellen Mitchell, "Have a Drop Mair," Musical Tradition Records MTCD315-6 CD (2001)).
GreigDuncan8 is a fragment of Child 88A verses 6 and 7. - BS
Child Collection Index Child Ballad 088: Young Johnstone
Child --Artist --Title --Album --Year --Length ---Have
088 Betsy Whyte Young Johnston Scottish Tradition 5: The Muckle Sangs - Classic Scottish Ballads 1992 7:34 Yes
088 Ellen Mitchell Young Johnstone Old Songs & Bothy Ballads - 'Some Rants o Fun' 2006 No
088 Ewan MacColl Young Johnstone Blood and Roses - Vol. 3 1982 6:04 Yes
088 Jackie Oates Young Johnson Saturnine 2011 5:14 Yes
088 Jackie Oates & Mike Cosgrave Young Johnson FAF Tracks 2011 4:55 Yes
088 June Tabor Young Johnstone Always 2005 6:16 Yes
088 June Tabor Young Johnstone An Echo of Hooves 2003 6:22 Yes
088 Kevin & Ellen Mitchell Johnston and the Young Colonel Have a Drop Mair 2001 6:13 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
88. YOUNG JOHNSTONE
Texts: MacKenzie, Bids Sea Sgs N Sc, 4.1.
Local Titles: Johnson and Coldwell, Johnson and the Colonel.
Story Types: A: Johnson kills the Colonel after the latter has made slurring remarks about Johnson's sister. He then flees to this sister's house, but when she says that he will surely be hanged in the morning he rides off to the home of his true-love, the Colonel's sister. His sweetheart hides him. When the King's guards come after Johnson and describe him, his hawks,
and his hounds to the girl, she tells them that he passed the house earlier. After they hasten off, she goes to tell Johnson of her service, startles the sleeping man, and is stabbed. He immediately regrets his rash and unplanned act and promises her the best doctors. However, she dies, nobly.
Examples: MacKenzie (A).
B: The story is the same as that of Type A. However, Johnson goes in sequence to his mother, sister, and sweetheart. Each asks him where he has been. To each he replies "at the state house teaching young Clark to write". Each then tells him of a bloody dream she has had, and he is forced to confess the crime.
Examples: MacKenzie (B).
Discussion: MacKenzie, Bids Sea Sgs N Sc, 41 states that he cannot account for the variations that occur in his A text, although he points out that in the absence of the dream and of the description of the hawk, it resembles Child C. Type B is like Child D. Johnson's reply to the girl, when she asks him where he has been ("the young Clark to write" line) is also discussed here.
Mainly Norfolk- English Folk and Other Good Music: Young Johnstone
[Roud 56; Child 88; Ballad Index C088; trad.]
June Tabor recorded Young Johnstone in 2003 for her CD of Border Country ballads, An Echo of Hooves. This track was also included in 2005 on her anthology Always. She commented in the original album's notes:
Mostly from Motherwell, W. Minstrelsy Ancient and Modern, 1827.
This is the true stuff of Tragedy—a short temper fuelled by alcohol sets in motion an inexorable sequence of events in which the innocent suffer and the (anti-)hero meets a bloody end (cf. Korusawa's Throne of Blood)—all the careless violence of a Western but set in a Scottish landscape.
Jackie Oates sang this ballad as Young Johnson in 2011 on her CD Saturnine, and she played the role of Johnston's lover in the dramatic video that accompanied this recording:
Lyrics
June Tabor sings Young Johnstone
Young Johnstone and the young Colonel
Sat drinking at the wine,
“It's if you'll marry my sister,
It's I will marry thine.”
“I wouldn't marry your sister
For all your houses and lands,
But it's I will make her my mistress
When I come o'er the strand.”
Young Johnstone had a little wee sword
Hung low down by his gear,
And he's thrust it through the young Colonel;
That word he never spoke more.
Then he's away to his sister's bower,
He's tirled at the pin:
“Where have you been, my dear brother,
So late a-coming in?”
“It's I have been at school, lady,
Learning young clerks to sing.”
“Oh, I have dreamed a dreadful dream,
I hope it may be for good;
They were seeking you with hawks and hounds
And the young Colonel was dead.”
“Hawks and hounds they may seek me,
As I trow well they be;
For I have killed the young Colonel,
Thy own true love was he.”
“If you have killed the young Colonel,
Then dule and woe is me!
May they hang you from the high gallows
And have no power to flee.”
Then he's away to his true love's bower,
He's tirled at the pin:
“Where have you been, my dear Johnstone,
So late a-coming in?”
“I have been at school, lady,
Learning young clerks to sing.”
“I have dreamed a dreadful dream,
I hope it may be for good;
They were seeking you with hawks and hounds
And the young Colonel was dead.”
“Hawks and hounds they may seek me,
As I trow well they be;
For I have killed the young Colonel,
Thy own brother was he.”
“If you have killed the young Colonel,
Then dule and woe is me!
But I care the less for the young Colonel
If thy own body be free.”
“Come in, come in, my dear Johnstone,
Come in and take a sleep;
And I will go to my casement,
And carefully I'll thee keep.”
She had not well been at her bower door,
No not for half an hour,
When four and twenty belted knights
Came a-riding by the bower.
“Well may you sit and see, lady,
Well may you sit and say;
Did you not see a bloody squire
Come riding by this way?”
“What colour were his hawks?” she says,
“What colour were his hounds?
What colour was the gallant steed,
That bore him from the bounds?”
“Bloody, bloody were his hawks,
And bloody were his hounds;
But milk-white was the gallant steed,
That bore him from the bounds.”
“Yes, bloody, bloody were his hawks,
And bloody were his hounds;
But milk-white was the gallant steed,
That bore him from the bounds.”
“Light down, light down now, gentlemen,
And take a glass of wine;
And the steed be swift that he rides on,
He's past the bridge of Lyne.”
“We thank you for your bread, lady,
We thank you for your wine,
But I'd rather thrice three thousand pound
That that bloody knight was ta'en.”
“Lie still, lie still, my dear Johnstone,
Lie still and take a sleep;
For thy enemies are past and gone,
And carefully I'll thee keep.”
Young Johnstone had a little wee sword,
Hung low down by his gear,
And he thrust it in fair Annet's breast,
A deep wound and sore.
“What aileth thee now, dear Johnstone?
What aileth thee at me?
Have you not got my father's gold
And my mother's fee?”
“Now live, now live, my dear lady,
Now live but half an hour,
And there's no a leech in all Scotland
But shall be at thy bower.”
“How can I live? How shall I live?
Young Johnstone, don't you see
The red, red drops of my heart's blood
Run a-trickling down my knee?
“But take your harp into your hand,
And harp out o'er yon plain,
And think no more on thy true love
Than if she'd never been.”
He had not well been out of the stable
And on the saddle set,
When four and twenty broad arrows
Were thrilling in his heart.