Shepherd's Son- Revolutionary soldier (VT) pre1823 Flanders A
[From Flanders; Ancient Ballads, 1963. Notes by Coffin follow.
R. Matteson 2015]
The Baffled Knight
(Child 112)
The anecdote of the girl who avoids being raped by holding out for a more comfortable location until she can escape has been told again and again throughout European literature, oral and written. Usually its bawdy possibilities are developed far more enthusiastically than they are in the dignified " The Baffied Knight." This fact was particularly true of various black-letter texts that flooded from the presses during the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth century and the presence of these vigorous cousins may well account for the rarity of Child 112 in Britain and America today. Greig and Keith, 90-92 (Scottish), includes it. Coffin gives references to a trace mentioned by Phillips Barry in British Ballads from Maine, 454; to a confused fragment in
BFSSNE, XII, 12; and to the Green Mountain Songster version printed as A below. Child had five texts.
The ballad as found in The Green Mountain Songster, though not from oral tradition, is the only full version from American collections. It is close to Child D for four stanzas the text in Child, IV, 495, for the first stanza, but then then it deviates, although there are from time to time similarities to Child E. It seems to be of Scottish tradition (see the material in Greig and Keith, 90-92) and is nor unlike the version sung by Ewan MacColl on Riverside Records, RLP 12-622. The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, Vol. I, Side 3) which is based in part on a Lowland Scots fragment and in part on material from Greig and Keith.
Barry, op.cit., 455456, lists a host of broadsides and stall songs using the same themes as Child 112 and cites the popularity of the "Katie Morey" (Laws, N 24) variation. The four texts of that song given below are quite representative of "Katie Morey" in America, where it is well known. See Laws, ABBB, 215, and Coffin, 104, for a start on a bibliography. Katie's deception is, of course, far less gracious than that of "the bonny lass" in "The Baffled Knight," and the whole song is on quite a different level with its "whack fol da-day" refrain and fabliau humor. It is much more like the usual telling of the incident where, as in "The Politick Maid," the girl may throw her would-be lover in the river, hobble him, cause him to fall in the moat to her castle, and
so forth.
The Shepherd's Son- from The Green Mountain Songster, compiled by an old, Revolutionary soldier of Sandgate, Vermont in 1823.
There was a shepherd's son kept sheep on yonder hill
And he went forth one merry morning to see what he could kill;
He looked east, he looked west, he gave an under look,
And there he spi'd a pretty maid a swimming in the brook.
Kind sir, don't touch my mantua[1] and let my clothes alone,
And I will give you as much fine gold as you can carry home.
I will not touch your mantua, I'll let your clothes alone,
But I will take you from the water, my dear you are my own.
Oh, it's fitter for a shepherd's son to keep sheep on yonder hill,
Than to come forth this merry morning to see a maiden swim.
Oh, it's fitter for a fair maid to stay at home and sew her silks and seams,
Than to come forth this merry morning to swim against the streams.
She mounted on a milk-like steed and he upon another,
Away they rode then side by side like sister and like brother;
They came into a meadow, where there were cocks of hay,
A pretty place, said he, my dear for man and maids to play.
Kind sir, don't lay me down for the dew is on the ground,
To rumple my gay clothing which cost me many a pound,
But stay till I come to my daddy's house and to my mamma's hall,
Where you shall have my portion, my riding-hood and all.
I will not lay you down for the dew is on the ground,
To rumple your gay clothing which cost you many a pound,
But I'll stay till you come to your daddy's house and to your mamma's hall,
And there I'll have your portion, your riding-hood and all.
She stepp'd into her daddy's gate and turn'd herself about,
Saying, here's a pretty maid within and there's a fool without;
There is a flower in our garden some call a merrigould,
If young men will not when they may they shall not when they would.
There is an herb in our garden some call a featherfue,
There's many a girl in our town has made a fool of you;
We have some little roosters that run among the hens,
They often flop their wings and crow, you're just like one of them.
Pull off your shoes from off your feet and let your feet go bare,
And if you meet with a pretty maid then kiss her if you dare;
I will not pull off my shoes nor let my feet go bare,
But if I meet with you again I'll trim you to a hair.
1. mantle, see Child; also Creighton.