Bluegrass Messengers

'The Cruel Jew's Wife': An Anglo-Irish Ballad of the Early Nineteenth Century
by Neil C. Hultin
Folklore, Vol. 99, No. 2 (1988), pp. 189-203

[Barely proofed, footnotes not edited.]

'The Cruel Jew's Wife:' An Anglo-Irish Ballad of the Early Nineteenth Century
NEIL C. HULTIN

AMONG the holdings of the British Library is a small volume from Clonmel containing a unique version of Child ballad 155, 'Sir Hugh, or, The Jew's Daughter.' Additional Manuscript 20099 was purchased in 1854 from Thomas Crofton Croker's estate, at which time the British Museum acquired several manuscript and blackletter ballads pertaining to Irish history and life.' Add. Ms. 20099, however, is composed largely of legends 'taken down' according to 'A.H.B., its anonymous collector, 'in the words in which they were related,' but she admits that much of its contents were 'already published,' although she claims to have been 'familiar [with the material] in the days of a happy childhood.'[2] The ballad which is transcribed in the MS is described as 'very ancient' though the collector is aware that it appears in more than oral form and, indeed, 'may not [have] be[en] out of print' in 1826 when A.H.B. transcribed it for Croker.[3] Though her informant, like Mrs Brown of Falkland from whom Francis James Child took his principal version of this ballad, 'may never [have seen]... one of [her contributions]...in print or manuscript,[4] it is clear that A.H.B. is aware of the ballad's literary existence even as she recognized that it circulated orally and was 'sung in Ireland to a very wild & melancholy tho' monotonous air.'[5] Unfortunately, she provided no further information either about its method of performance or the music to which it was sung, details of considerable interest considering the formal nature of the verse in contrast with the violence of its subject.

From the number of ballads traced to Irish sources, Child concluded that 'the remnants of Anglo-Irish balladry might with reasonable expectation be looked for in Ireland, where as yet no systematic attempt has been made to form a collection of that kind.'[6] About the same time Charles Gavan Duffy remarked on the British and perhaps literary source of Anglo-Irish song, observing that 'many of the ballads in Percy are more familiarly known here (in Ireland) than in England.'[7]Duffy's reference to Percy's collection is not inappropriate for, despite informants such as the Clonmel resident who came from 'an old Protestant family,'[8] and thus may have had personal contacts with Britain, Ireland beyond the Pale remained largely Celtic until the nineteenth century when English became more common in the countryside.[9] As a result, those ballads which found 'favour with a poetic people,"' were as likely to have originated from printed as from oral sources. This derivation does not diminish their importance either for Irish literary history or for the history of the ballad. One of Child's less valued informants, Margaret Reburn, presented him with a most 'strange and interesting variant' of 'Sir Hugh' which, although probably extracted from books, '. . . enlarg[ed] our knowledge, especially as [her ballads]. . . suggest that some Scottish ballads were known in the English-speaking part of Ireland in the nineteenth century.'"

'The Cruel Jew's Wife' similar to Child's version 'T' extracted from M. H. Mason's Nursery Rhymes and Country Songs,[12] which later was reprinted by Bernard Bronson as ballad 155, item 24, and to the variant which Bronson published as item 25," are clearly related and extend the history of this subset of ballad 155 over the course of nearly a century, though the latest, item 25, sung in 1909 by Sister Emma, then about 70 years old, was undoubtedly acquired earlier. The Clonmel version in Add. Ms. 20099 (hereafter referred to as 'C') follows the strand evident in 24-25 to such an extent that the assumption of some common ancestor is not entirely absurd. In fact, it is difficult to conceive how the marked affinities could arise solely from chance use of formula by one who knows only the general outline of the legend. Despite the greater literary quality of C, it seems reasonable to postulate some common form, underlying these versions of 'Sir Hugh. The issue of memorization and creativity is thus raised once more by the Clonmel 'Cruel Jew's Wife,' for it may reflect the creative use of memorized or printed text. The three versions of 'Sir Hugh; here called C, 24 and 25, are sufficiently alike in structure and diction to leave no doubt about their kinship. Versions 24 and 25 reflect in their reference to the 'Boyne water' an Irish provenance to which C by origin also belongs, though a conventional reference 'dam water' is here substituted for the specific reference to the Boyne.

The plot of C consists of a series of episodes-the temptation and murder of Hugh, the mother's search for her son, and Hugh's narrative--with little attempt to provide transitions between the sections. Still, these are not 'the gaps and chasms, the rugged and abrupt leaps of narrative which are characteristic and vivid features of traditional balladry.'[14]

1. Yesterday being a holiday,
The greatest in the year,
She gave the school boys leave to play;
But little Hugh stayed here.[15]

2. She had an apple in her lap
Which was both red and white.[16]
Little Hugh he took it up,
Which 'troyed him his life.

3. She had a pen knife in her hand,
Which was both sharp and small[17]
She found a Basin, silver bright,
For to let his heart's blood fall.[18]

4. She took him into a lonesome room,[19]
Which was both dark and cold,
And rolled him in a leaden sheet,[20]
Which weighed full many a pound.

5. His Mother walked up street[21]
And walked down again,
Saying, 'Little Hugh, if I had you,
I'd whip you very well.'

6. She came to the Jew's wife's house,
Tapping at the window,
Saying, 'Little Hugh, if you be here,
O, let your Mamma in.'

7. 'No,' says the Jew's wife then,
'He was not here today;
He went out with the little boys
To have some pretty play.'

8. His mother walked up street,
And walked down again,
Saying, 'Little Hugh, if I had you,
I'd whip you very well.

9. She came to the Dam water,
Which was both deep & cold,
Saying, 'Little Hugh, if you be here,
List to your Mamma's moan.'[22]

10. 'Oh Mother, how can I [23]
When the Jew's wife served me so;
She brought me out my bow & arrow
That I might shoot the crows.'

11. 'She had a penknife in her hand,
Which was both sharp & small;
She found a Basin, silver bright,
To let my heart's blood fall.'

12. 'She rolled me in a leaden sheet,
Which weighed full many a pound,
And threw me down in the Dam water,
Which was so dark and cold.'[24]

Version C is, as Thomas Pettitt has characterized Mrs. Brown's ballads, a 'particular mixture of oral tradition, written tradition, and individual talent,'[25] but the unnamed Anglo-Irish informant who provided the Clonmel ballad cannot compete in quantity with Mrs. Brown, who provided a version of 'Sir Hugh' which is at once more lengthy, less strictly ordered and more distinctly in the popular tradition than C which has undergone methodical restructuring. C's manipulation of detail and patterned repetition suggests the intervention of formal concerns typical of literature and, throughout, the manuscript displays a greater literary prediliction. The versions most closely related to C are relatively brief. The first section of C, the seduction of Hugh, is not to be met with in 24-25 which concentrate upon the emotional interchange between mother and son. The difference, however, is more one of omission rather than a diversion from the established diction and description of this type of 'Sir Hugh' ballad:[26]

1. Easter Day [Yesterday] was a [high] holiday,
Of all [the] days in the year;
And all the little school fellows went out to play,
But Sir William was not there.
(No comparable stanzas to C, 2,3,4,5)

2. Mamma [His mother she] went to the Jew's wife's house
And knocked [loud] at the ring,
Saying, 'Little [O little] Sir William, if you are there [here],
Oh! [Come] let your mother in!'

3. The Jew's wife opened the door and said,
[He is not here the Jew's wife said]
'He is not here to-day;
He is [He's] with the [his] little school fellows out on the green,
Playing some pretty play [Keeping this high holiday.].'
(no parallel to C's stanza 8)

4. Mamma [His mother she] went to the Boyne water,
That is [flows] so wide [dark] and deep,
Saying, 'Little [O little] Sir William, if you are there [here]
Oh! [O] pity your mother's weep!'

5. 'How [O how] can I pity your weep, mother,
And I so long in [full of] pain?
For the little penknife sticks close in [to] my heart,
And the Jew's wife has me slain.'
(No parallel to C 11 and 12; C has no stanza similar to 6 and 7)

6. 'Go home, go home, my mother dear,
And prepare my [me a] winding sheet;
For to-morrow morning before eight o'clock [it is day]
You with my body [Your body and mine] shall meet.

7. And lay my Prayer-book at my head,
And my grammar at my feet;
That all the little schoolfellows, as they pass by,
May read them for my sake.'[27]

Fowler observes that 'Sir Hugh' is 'skilfully constructed in traditional ballad form, but . . . its structure and style mark it as a new creation of the Scottish master,' whose hand he traces elsewhere.[28] C, however dependent upon the urtext which also underlies 24/25, employs the common imagery and language of the ballad, but casts them in a frame defined by repeated stanzas and phrases. Economical use of language and strict structuring of the Clonmel text suggest an adept manipulator of traditional materials.

While all three ballads preserve the essential motifs of the legend of Hugh of Lincoln C removes those details which direct attention from its primary emotion and analogies; this formalization reaches its apogee in the Clonmel text. Fully five stanzas longer than 24-25, C is more elaborate in its methodical exploitation of repetition as a means for integrating its sections. On the other hand, versions 24-25 concentrate upon mother and son, and do not contain C's progression from temptation to death. Much in 24-25, is, however, almost identical with C; all, for example, devote a considerable portion of their verse to the murder and search. Three stanzas are dedicated to the mother's search in 24-25 and three to the 'consolation' offered by the child. This even balance in 24-25 is altered in C where five stanzas are given over to the mother's search and three to the final words of Hugh. But this expansion is achieved by repetition rather than the addition of new materials. Fully ten of the twenty lines of this section in C are repeated within the section itself, and another elsewhere in the ballad. Only two of the twelve lines of the comparable section in 24-25 are repeated, so that however shorter in overall length, the three versions are approximately the same in 'content' lines. C omits Hugh's final injunction to place his grammar and prayer-book at his head and feet as, perhaps, too blatant in its appeal. It maintains a 'formal stance,' with the sentiment more implied than stated. The twelve lines which constitute the final three stanzas of C contain only five which can be considered unique in the ballad while 24-25 have eleven 'unique' lines in their final three stanzas. The major differences between C and the two texts printed by Bronson arise from C's greater expansiveness, the absence of the final sequence of 24-25 and the insertion of an initial sequence not present in them, and its elaborate rhyme and alliteration. Those stanzas of C not found in 24-25-- as well as those in 24-25 but not in C-with the exception of three lines of C.10-- are found in other versions of the ballad. The additional stanzas of C increase its length less by expanding the story line that by introducing fuller rhetorical ornamentation. In comparison with Mrs. Brown's text of 'Sir Hugh; these three ballads, despite their elaborate structural and imagistic patterns, reduce the amount of detail while maintaining the core of the legend.

C, more fully than 24/25, unites the emotional aspect of the martyrdom with the traditional implications of its imagery. The absence in 24-25 of the initial episode of C and t heir reservation of any explicit recognition of the murder until stanza 7 when Hugh- or rather William-- speaks of the penknife lodged in his heart, focuses attention upon the boy rather than the women. In contrast, any suspense which might emanate from C 's narrative- certainly it could not come from a story-line so well known-is resolved by the second stanza in which responsibility is boldly placed upon Hugh himself, who is said to have 'troyed his life.' Moreover an ironic contrast between the Jew's wife and Hugh's mother is manifest in the structure of C which sets the women at opposing ends of the ballad:  stanzas 14 relate the deeds of the wife; Hugh's mother is introduced in stanza 5, the two women meet in 7-just off the centre of the ballad-and the wife deceives the mother as she did the son; stanzas 8-9 pick up the mother's search, while 10-12, corresponding to the action of the opening stanzas, are, this time, given in Hugh's words.

C is more explicit in its depiction of the preparation for Hugh's execution, but in none of the three versions discussed here is the 'Jew's wife' shown thrusting the 'penknife' into Hugh's heart, nor does the blood gush forth, not even in the formulaic language found in many accounts of this 'martyrdom':

And out an cam the thick thick bluid.
And out and cam the thin;
And out and cam the bonny herts bluid;
Thair was nae life left in.[29]

The actual murder occurs in the interstices between stanzas, in contrast, for example, with Bronson's first item where:

...she has taine out a little pen-knife,
And low down by her gair,
She has twin'd the young thing o' his life,
A word he ne'er spake mair.[30]

Even more graphic is 'Little Saloo's' description of how:

She cut and cut through thick and thin
Until she came to skin,
Until she came to his little heart's blood,
Where life it lies within, within,
Where life it lies within.[31]

Violence is presented ritualistically in C, yet not without touches of pathos as the mother's threats are transformed in to 'moans" The interchange between the two women is marked by an initial-and erroneous-view of the Jew's wife as 'giver,' for as well as providing the apple and the bow, she seems to be the schoolmistress who allows the boys to play on this holiday. The mother ostensibly, and equally erroneously, appears to be 'cruel. But it is obvious that the mother's threats mean little, that she is desperately seeking her son, while the wife's gift of an apple is pregnant with danger. Beginning their account in the midst of the mother's search, 24-25 emphasize the pitiable state of William. The last line of the first stanza, 'But Sir William was not there,' bears considerable weight, suggesting William's death; no audience familiar with the opening stanza common to most versions of the ballad would hesitate about the events which must have occurred prior to the first lines. Still, the ballads do not call attention to these events so much as to the grief of mother and son. This emotion is compounded by the pathetic words of William as he prepares his burial and by his concern for his 'little schoolfellows.' 24-25 moves rapidly through the central events of the legend as it appears in balladic form: the visit to the Jew's house, the search for the boy, the revenant's words. But it is not the events themselves which are significant in these two versions but, first of all, the mother's response to her loss, and, then, the boy's poignant words. However much they differ in these respects, violence and sentiment in varying degrees are characteristic of all versions of 'Sir Hugh.

Patterns of intertwining are particularly noticeable in bonding the sections of C despite jumps in time and location, thereby creating a formalization which, like medieval art, narrates a story in separate panels, each of which depicts significant stages in its plot. Action-the violence of temptation and murder-and stasis-repetitive sounds, words, phrases, and stanzas-are held in the suspension of C's narrative; the ballad records a brutal history and yet freezes it in art. The symmetry of word, phrase and stanza in C stresses the relationship between accepting the apple and its consequence.[32] One element of the narrative is carefully mirrored in , or contrasted with, another, establishing a harmony of imagery and content. Stanzas 3 and 11, 5 and 8 are virtually identical and constitute a core for the ballad, ritualizing its motifs and establishing an iconographic quality. Stanzas 4 and 12 elaborate this structure through parallel descriptions of the 'lonesome room' and 'the Dam water,' both of which are 'dark and cold. The images of penknife, silver basin and blood contrast with the threats of an anxious mother whose promises of a 'whipping' become all the more pathetic. Stanzas 3-4 and 11-12 repeat the details of the murder, but with sufficient variation and inversion of detail to heighten interest while enforcing the stylized depiction. Within the ballad, imagistic and verbal iteration establish the ballad's form. C begins (stanza 2) with Hugh 'taking up' the apple and ends symmetrically with the Jew's wife who 'threw...(him) down' in the 'Dam water.' The figure of 'taking up' the apple is not, however, unique to C. Bronson's 65.3 develops it even more graphically:

She took an apple from her pocket,
And laid it on the grounds:
The little boy stooped to pick it up,-
She caught him by the lily white hand.[33]

The creator of C, however, employed the line with its contrast in 'casting (Hugh) down' to formally envelop the story. After an initial two stanzas which establish its subject and relate the temptation of Hugh, C begins an even greater series of internal cross-references. In the 25 versions which he examined, James Woodall found that 'the usual narration is third person with considerable dialogue,'34 and so it is in C, 24, and 25. The dialogue interweaves in stanzas 5-6 (mother), 7 ('Jew's wife'), 8-9 (mother), culminating Hugh's recapitulation of his murder. The dialogue, moreover, acts as part of the formalism-especially in C which tempers the sentiment of the ballad. Stanzas 4 and 12 of C are not strictly chiastic, but do exhibit a complex interweaving. The lines are unrhymed in both 4 and 12, but with the exception of the first line of stanza 4 and the third of 12, they are virtually identical if in differing order and in third and first person narration respectively. Moreover, those lines which differ express similar concepts: the 'lonesome room' and the cold 'dam water' are emotionally similar and reflect two aspects of murder and disposal of the body. If, as Buchan says, chiasm is distinctly oral,[35] this may reflect an attempt to imitate the 'ballad style.' A network of sounds reinforces the repeated words in binding the stanzas; C.3 illustrates this interweaving of sound:

a. Sh- h- hb.
b- sh- sc.
sh- f- B- s- bd.
h- h- b- f-

In line d the sibilance of the stanza is enhanced by the possessive form heart's. The similarity in the use of echoed sounds to create unity is apparent in all three versions of the ballad; thus stanzas 9 and 10 of the latter and 4 and 5 of C are parallel in content but different in the extent to which sounds are repeated:

C 24/24
(9.a.) c- d- w- (4.a.) m- w- w-
(b.) w- w- b- d- c- (b.) w-(d- d-)
(c.) 1- h- (c.) 1- w-
(d.) m- m- (d.) p- m- w-
(10.a) m- h- c- (5.a.) c- p- w- m
(b.) s- m- s- (b.) 1- p-
(c.) sh- m- (c.) 1- P- s- c-
(d.) m- sh- c- (d.) w- m- s-

Internal rhyme or near rhyme--Hugh'/'you'/'Jew'/'arrows'/'crow--is also evident in all three ballads, and so especially in C. As Willa Muir observed, an event may be all the more impressive because of stylization.[36] Of the 48 lines of the Clonmel ballad fully 25 are, with minimal variation, repeated; a mere 18% of the words have a single occurrence. This creates a complex pattern of iteration which is reflected in the syntactic structure of C and is evident in the words chosen for the onset of each line. Many indicate C's extensive use of subordination, especially of which clauses; in contrast, 24/25 depends upon co-ordinative structures common to oral narratives, with few instances of clausal embedding. The verbial forms tapping and saying, also evident in 24-25, assist in creating a sophisticated grammatical structure.

Violence and sentiment are formalized in C by a repeated syntactic structure which dominates the ballad. The second lines of stanzas 2,3,4 9, and 11 establish a structural form. Which was both and The first lines of these stanzas vary more widely, but share a basic syntactic pattern in which the verb establishes the controlling action of the women:

She had (stanzas2 , 3, 11)
She took (stanza4 )
She came (stanza9)

The pronouns he appears as the initial word, followed in a similar manner by the verb, in stanzas 1, 3, 10, 11:
She gave (stanza 1, line c)
She found (stanzas3 , line c; 11, c)
She brought (stanza1 0, line c)

The pattern is repeated in the initial line of stanza 12:
She rolled - (stanza1 2, line a)

The most frequent word in C, she, establishes that ballad's focal point of that version and calls attention to the conflict between 'she'-- whether it be the Jew's wife or the mother-and 'he': the feminine pronoun is evident in line beginnings in all stanzas but 5, 7, and 8, where the masculine pronoun is found. This technique of repeated word, phrase, and stanza is also evident in 24/25, but far less extensively. The opening line of 24/25, stanza 2, is repeated with variation in stanza 4, and, as has been seen, 4d is reiterated with some variation in 5a. Stanza 1d is modified for the wife's lie in stanza 3. While all of these versions utilize iteration, the greater tightness of C, as shown in its repetition of 'dark and cold' (4b; 9b; 12d), its use of stanza 3 and 11 to bracket the murder, the repeated lines from 4 (c. d) in 12 (a. b) and the parallel action of 5 and 8 as the mother searches for her child, indicates the correcting hand of an Irish 'master.'

All three versions exemplify the traditional interchange of iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter lines, and employ a common use of irregular rhyme. Stanzas 3, 7 and 11 in C and stanzas 3, 4, 5, 6 in 24/25 employ the so-called 'ballad stanza' with its a b d b scheme; [37] stanza 1 in C is clearly a b a b, and the apparent a b a c of 24/25 may reflect dialectal pronunciation of there any dear, producing a similar pattern. Other stanzas (2, 4, 5, 8, 9, 12) contain no rhyme. Stanza 10 of C is the most curious of all, for not only does it contain the single unique episode of that ballad but 'so,' ' arrow,' and 'crows,' in their near-rhyme suggest a triplet rhyme. The unusual metrical form calls attention to the second of three events in C in which the wife is the active agent: deception, provision of weapons with which to kill crows, and murder-a sequence of increasing violence, though it is not presented in chronological order in the ballad. The verbal structure of C emphasizes the active role which women play and, in contrast, makes Hugh's passivity more noticeable.

N.O. Nygard's summation of ballad change as either an intermixing of stanzas from other ballads, or stanzas borrowed from other parts of the same ballad, [38] applies to generally to C, but stanza 10, it would seem, fits neither method. At first glance the shooting of crows seems extraneous, as do those sequences concerning the plucking of chickens in other versions,[39] but the otherwise rigorous ordering and frugality of detail suggest that it might be more than 'filler.' Moreover, the Scots did say that 'nae gude ever cam o' killin' black crows.'[40] And it was commonly accepted that crows were ill omens,[41] a belief recorded in medieval bestiaries[42] and repeated by Renaissance encyclopaedists. When St. Edmund of Canterbury witnessed a soul being carried off, he recognized that hell was its destination because the escort was 'blake (foweles).../As hit crowen & choge were.'4C3 rows also were employed to fortell the future, as Stephen Batman, translating Bartholomaeus Anglicus, observed: 'diiuinoures tell, that she taketh heede of spiengs and awaitings, and teacheth and showeth wayes, and warneth what
shall fall.'[44] The additional lines may thus have constituted a foreshadowing both for the audience and Hugh.[45] All of these significations may have influenced the balladeer, but it is also possible that the 'crow episode' is a result of the conflation of the legends of William of Norwich and of Hugh of Lincoln. This early English account relates a similar story of a boy supposedly murdered by Jews in 1141. He was crucified at Easter, it is said, as a deliberatea ffrontt o Christianity.[46] When his body was discovered,' there were by hym two Crowes that attempted to haue torn hym/ and etyn hym/ But they hadde no power thereto.'[47] Substitution of the name 'William' for 'Hugh' in 24/25 and other versions may be a consequence of this influence. Unknown, at least to the reading public, before its inclusion in Percy's Reliques, 'Sir Hugh" has become one of the most popular of the 'traditional ballads.'[48] Henry Belden and Arthur Hudson, however, are over sanguine in attributing this popularity to 'the simple pathos of the little child's death rather than any conscious anti-Semiticism,'[49] for although 'universally regarded as [one of the] sterling specimens of the popular ballad,'[50] its foundation rests upon those prejudices which, however repugnant to modern sensibilities, provided popular thought with villains whose very name and race suggested unmentionable evil and consequently justified cruel reprisals. Woodall suggests that instead of anti-Semitism', all elements of time and weather [in the 'Sir Hugh' ballads] suggest witchery or ill-omen.'" The rain and mist with which so many versions of ballad 155 begin create what T.S. Eliot would have identified as an 'objective correlative,' a physical manifestation of the ballad's emotional content and a sure sign of dreadful things to follow. Whether this rain can also be associated with witchcraft is a different question. Easter was not generally so associated in the British Isles. Although C does not explicitly name the holiday, it is unlikely that 'the greatest in the year' was other than Easter, and 24 openly names it as such. Moreover, significantly for the motifs in C, Easter, the high holiday of Christianity, was also known to some as 'crow-day' and to practice archery was a custom of the season.[52] It is true that the legend of Hugh was not originally associated with that festival, yet many versions, perhaps again influenced by the legend of William which is specifically associated with Passover and Easter, transplant it to that season, even though the events associated with Hugh are set much later in the year. John Capgrave, however, specifically set the murder of Hugh 'aboute the feestys of seynt Peter & Paul, that is, the 29th of June. Like the torment of William, Hugh's murder was done 'in despyte of our lorde Jesu Cryste,' and parodied the Passion: a 'Pilate' was selected from the people to condemn Hugh. Then:

. . .'they bet hym soo that the blode folowyd...[and] crownyd hym with thorne they spyt vppon hym/ and mockyd hym/ and euery man pryckyd hym with his knyfe/ they gave hym to drynke Gall/ And with great opprobryes & blasphemouse wordys with gnasshynge oftheyr teth they called hym Ihesus the cursyd prophet/ And after they Crucyfyed hym/ And with a spere thuste hym to the Herte/ And when he was deed they toke his Body fro the Crosse and vnbowelde hym for they renchauntementys.

The earth refused to conceal the body of Hugh, which was thrown into a pit where his mother found him.[53] A.H.B. recalls that Sir Walter Scott 'alludes to it (the legend), somewhere, as proving the popular belief, in past times, that the Jews were so cruel as to kill little children, & drink their blood.'[54] Sir Hugh is less a saint in this form of the legend-and in the ballads-than a victim; C does not accord him any dialogue until after his death, when he recounts the events of his murder. The ballads concentrate upon the pathetic element, including no element of piety which might justify the title of 'saint' for Hugh displays no special devotion. But no acts of piety are required, because death at the hands of the 'perfidious Jews' is sufficient justification, it seems. Still, there may be other, more expansive, connotations than racism behind C's account of Hugh's death, and perhaps that of other versions as well. If some readers are correct, 'Sir Hugh' draws upon the apocryphal and balladic history of the young Jesus for its significance. David Fowler suggests that there are verbal and contextual similarities with 'The Bitter Withy,' in which Mary threatens to punish Jesus for misbehaviour. It is, however, possible that this threatened beating may be another mark of the blending of 'Sir Hugh' with the legend of William.[55] Fowler is convinced, nonetheless, that 'there can be little doubt that the anxious mother searching for Hugh has taken on the character of the Virgin Mary bent on punishing her child and that the rod in her hand is a branch of 'The Bitter Withy.' Though perhaps not as definite a correlation as this suggests, there is little doubt that the characters of the ballad have multiple reference: the traditional relationships of Adam/Christ; Eve/Mary in particular.[56] A 'religious' reading of 'Sir Hugh'--surely not surprising in a ballad supposedly about a saint--is inevitable, proper, and dangerous. One must not ascribe to the singer or creator of the ballad esoteric knowledge unless there is evidence of a sophisticated theological grounding. Even Mrs Brown, with her academic and clerical family, does not attempt to instill these ideas into her ballads, and no more should we expect to find complex theological references in C or 24/25. Such interpretations might be questionable were they to depend solely upon threatened punishment, but joined to a series of images which echo the Edenic story there is more reason for such a reading-at least for C's version. To see the analogy between the Jew's wife and Eve, it is unnecessary to become enmeshed in the debates of the schoolmen over the exact nature of the fall and the respective guilt of Adam and Eve. The fact is that the story, seen in its most elemental form, is that of a Jewess who seduces an innocent young man by means of an apple.

C directs the auditor--or reader--to those elements congruent with Biblical history and which depict Hugh as a type of the innocent Adam. All three ballads in this group omit the obvious image of 'garden,' which might seem most appropriate to such an allusion, but C makes the apple and the silver-bright basin more dominant and thereby heightens the suggestion of a dual nature, for the apple recalls the first Adam while the basin filled with blood suggests-particularly to the Irish but also the Anglo-Irish the second Adam whose blood transubstantiated from wine appeared in silver vessels daily and weekly. Matthew Hodgart doubts that the creators of ballads consciously employed symbolism but insists that their use of traditional imagery was nonetheless not merely decorative. What we see as symbolic may, he suggests, be references 'to beliefs held quite literally by them, to a mythology once quite coherent but become fragmentary through the passage of time.[57] Consequently he identifies the apple of 'Sir Hugh' as an 'allusion to the Garden of Eden. . . little Sir Hugh is tempted by the Antichrist and is punished-an allusion which greatly widens the ballad's range of meaning."[58] These overtones are surely present in C, though it may be an overstatement to refer to the Jew's wife as 'the Antichrist? Those details which might obscure the reference seem to have been eliminated from this set of ballads, and in particular from C which, along with 24/25, omits the other objects offered to lure Hugh into the house, despite the conventional significance these objects may have had.[59] C and 24/25 focus upon a few relevant images. C remains an account of Hugh of Lincoln, but in conformity with its iconographic quality, his death is seen also as a form of the death of Adam, but not without some suggestion of the sacrifice of Jesus.

A final question which must be considered, given the similarities and differences of the three versions of this ballad, is whether we should attribute it to oral re-creation. Buchan admits that 'it is rather paradoxical that a recreative technique should produce the degree of narrative conservatism it does,[60] but it is even more paradoxical-since variation is often, as in this instance, a matter of 'verbal minutiae'--to speak of re-creation apart from an established text. To consider the singer constantly 'expanding and creating anew' from 'the aural, melodic, metrical, and syntactic patterns intrinsic to the local tradition's form,[61] underplays the importance of the remarkable uniformity of most ballads. When expansion consists largely of the addition of a few phrases or the inclusion of stanzas taken almost intact from other versions of the ballad, one must question the validity of any statement about oral re-creation. 'Sir Hugh' illustrates how strong the established lines of tradition are and how thoroughly this maker is committed to an established form. As Buchan admits, a maker normally tries to tell 'the right and true story,' and in the case of 'Sir Hugh' that would seem to indicate one of the three basic patterns into which T.P. Coffin classified the versions of 'Sir Hugh.'[62] Alan Bold spoke of Mrs. Brown also 're-creating' ballads in a process of 'recomposition in performance,' and described her ballads changing under the influence of 'oral transmutation,'[63] though she, too, seems to have had a strong sense of 'right and true stories.' There can be no question that some of Mrs. Brown's ballads were transcribed from performance, but more often than not she judged her performance-generated texts inferior to those 'recollected' in tranquility. On 15 September 1800, for example, she wrote to Jamieson enclosing a version of 'Bonny Baby Livingston' to replace one taken down from performance,observing that 'on the other page you will find the whole ballad. . . I found upon recollection that I had the whole story in my memory, and thought it better to write it out entire, as that I repeated to you was, I think, more imperfect.'[64] This sense of 'imperfection' arises from her awareness of an established style of the ballad which is established in form as well as content. Her sense of 'correctness' is evident in her apology for her ballads: 'I do not pretend to say that these ballads are correct in any way, as they are written down entirely from recollection.'[65] This not to say that the 'maker' tries to repeat the ballad just as he or she learned it, but may it not be another way to described memorization? Buchan's dissection of the versions of Child's collection of 'Sir Hugh' ballads finds slight variation, depending largely upon 'lexical variation and expansion and contraction' of the 'linked ideas' which constitute the ballad,[66] but he rejects memorization as the basis of the marked similarities. It is difficult to see how the lexical and episodic elements could be so markedly similar were there not basic texts from which variants grew, gradually by the introduction of a few changes--as C introduced the episode of the crows, perhaps influenced by the episode of the chicken/birds in another version, perhaps drawing out a significance which had otherwise become obscure. Texts were thus established which singers thereafter attempted to recall.

Whoever produced C was a creator within defined limits. She-or, perhaps, he attempted to recall the elements of the ballad version which also influenced 24 and 25, but was prepared to introduce a new element, though obviously with great care, for it is only three out of an otherwise traditional 45 lines which are added. Change consists of lexical variation, contraction, expansion, and metrical ornamentation; but this manipulation may also suggest the library more than the 'pattern.' If not memorization, this certainly appears to be the manipulation of an established text. T.C. Croker, the recipient of the Clonmel Ms., once spoke of the power of 'all old ballads, or even their modern imitations, [to] sink deeply into the heart,'[67] a power which he never attempted to explain. If he felt the impact of the Clonmel 'Cruel Jew's Wife,' he gave no indication of it, for apparently he made no use of this part of the manuscript forwarded to him from Ireland. The songs and ballads which appeared under his name pertain largely to Irish history or culture, and as a consequence, this version of Child 155, the 'Cruel Jew's Wife' seems to have remained only in manuscript since 1826 when it was recorded by A.H.B.

Department of English,
Unviersity of Waterloo, Ontario.

NOTES

1. The letter accompanying the ms. is dated 1826, to which Croker has added 'recd 20 April 1827,' and a British Museum official has further pencilled in 'Purchd at T.C. Croker's Sale, 18 Dec, 1854,' noting that the document was 'part of Lot 375' (ff.lr-lv).
2. f.lr. I infer the gender of A.H.B. from an episode where the narrator raises a glass and pledges 'To your Fathers, Ma'am' (f. 16r). There is no reason for so addressing the listener; the legend is not placed in any context appropriate for this address, and, except for the irony of the narrator raising his glass after telling a story whose supernatural occurrences he attributed to drink, no reason for the toast at all. A.H.B. may have been an Anglo-Irishwoman impoverished by 'the commercial distresses of 1820,' as the letter records; one whose 'bright vision of the past' has been superceded by 'the anxieties of a state of comparative poverty' (f.lr). For a discussion of the legends in this ms., see N.C. Hultin, 'Anglo-Irish Folklore from Clonmel: T.C.
Croker and British Library Add. 20099,' Fabula 27 (1986), 288-307.
3. f. 16v.
4. John Nichols, Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century (London: J.B. Nichols and Son, 1848), VII, 179.
5. f.16v. For Croker's interest in performance see N.C. Hultin, 'Mrs Harrington, Mrs Leary, Mr. Croker, and the 'Irish Howl,' Eire/Ireland X X (1985), pp. 43-64.
6. S. B. Hustvedt, Ballad Books and Ballad Men (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1930), p. 217.
7. The Ballad Poetry of Ireland (1869; Delmar, New York: Scholars' Facsimiles, 1973), p.23. A.H.B. says that her informant 'had many fragments of old English ballads' (f. 16v).
8. f. 16v.
9. Patrick C. Power, The Story of Anglo Irish Poetry 1800-1922 (Cork: The Mercier Press, 1967), p. 12.
10. The Ballad Poetry of Ireland, p.23.
11. Alisoun Gardner-Medwin, 'Miss Reburn's Ballads: A Nineteenth-Century Repertoire from Ireland,' Ballad Studies, ed. E.B. Lyle (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer Ltd and Rowman and Littlefield for the Folklore Society, 1976), p. 114. Miss Reburn recognized that 'it is only through Scotland that we know what we do of the old English ballads,' p. 111, but claimed to have heard her ballads in the 1860's in County Meath, p.94. She was aware that 'Hugh' reflected a bigotry ' so in unison with the prejudice against ... [Jews] in those days, p.109. But the 'Scottish orthography' of her 'Sir Hugh' suggests that she obtained it from a printed source.
12. The English and Scottish Popular Ballad (reprint: New York: Dover, 1965), V, 241. 13. The Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966), III, 85-86. The Clonmel text will be referred to as C and the two versions printed by Bronson as 24 and 25, with the understanding that, with the exception of differences in punctuation, 24 is the same as Child 155T.

14. Bertrand Bronson, The Ballad as Song (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1969), p.72. The Clonmel text appears on folios 16v-18r. A fragment of the 'Sir Hugh' ballad-not the Clonmel version however, was published by James Orchard Halliwell (Phillips) who seems not to have seen Ms. 20099, even though he obviously was aware of Croker's manuscripts and mentions another 'very curious ballad, written about the year 1720, in the possession of Mr. Crofton Croker,' Popular Rhymes and Nursery Tales (1849; New York: Arno Press, Inc., n.d.) p.21. I have not seen Halliwell's Ballads and Poems Respecting Hugh of Lincoln (1849). Francisque Michel uncovered a Norman-French version in the Royal Library at Paris about the same time (1834) and published it under the title, Hugues de Lincoln: Recueild e Ballades Anglo-Normandes et Ecossoises Relatives au Meurtre de cet Enfant Commis Parles Juiss en MCCLV I have added stanza numbers and punctuation to the text from the Clonmel manuscript.

15. The references to parallel variants indicate the traditional quality of the verse. Alphabet letters refer to versions printed by Child. Bronson's texts are indicated by Arabic numerals. In both cases these are followed, where appropriate, by stanza number, and individual lines are indicated by lower-case alphabet letters.
E.1: yesterday was brave Hallowday,/ And, above all days of the year,/ The school boys all got leave to
play,/Andl ittle Sir Hugh was there. 7.1: Yesterdayw as a holiday,/Ah olidayi n the year;/Anda ll the schoolboys
had leave to play,/Andl ittle Saloo was there, was there,/Andl ittle Saloo was there.66.1:Y esterdayw as a very
fine day,/The finest in the year, year,/When little Harry Huston and schoolboys all/Went out to play at ball,
ball,/Went out to play at ball.

16. Cf.B.3: Scho powd an apple reid and white,/To intice the yong thing in:/Scho powed an apple white and reid,/And that the sweit bairne did win. N.5: She [the Duke's daughter] took an apple out of her pocket,/And rolled it along the plain;/Little Hary Hughes pickedu p the apple,/Ands orelyr uedt he day. In G.5, the daughter shows Hugh an apple 'as green as grass' and then 'a gay gold ring,' and 'a cherry as red as blood,/Which enticed the little boy in.'In M it is an apple, a fig, and a cherry. In L sugar succeeds where the apple fails.

17. 9.6.a/b: She pierced him with the little pen-knife/Which was both sharp and keen.

18. F.5.c/d: And called for a goolden cup/ To houl his heart's blood in. H.6.c: And then she called for a wash-basin, 3.5.a/b: I've been washing this basin this live-long day,/To catch your heart's blood in. 44.7.c-e: And then she called for a tin basin/To catch his heart's blood in, in, in,/To catch his heart's blood in.

19. N.6.c/d: Until she came to a little dark room,/ That no one could hear him call.

20. N.9.a: She rolled him in a quire of tin.

21. F.8: She put her mantle about her head,/Tuk a little rod in her han,/An she says, Sir Hugh, if I fin you here,/I will bate you for stayin so long. J.10: She went up Lincoln and down Lincoln,/And all about Lincoln street,/With her small wand in her right hand,/Thinking of her child to meet. N.12.a: She walked up and down the street.

22. 66.10.c-e: Saying 'Little Harry Huston, if you be there,/Will you pity your mama's moan, moan,/Will you pity your mama's moan?'

23. 66.11.a/b: 'How can I pity your moan, mamma/When I am here so long, long.'

24. 2.7.a/b: She threw him in a deep, cold well/Where it was deep and cold. 15.4c/d: She led him down to that cold well/Where it were so cold and deep.

25. 'Mrs Brown's 'Lass of Loch Royal" and the Golden Age of Scottish Balladry,' Jahrbuch fur Volksliedforschung 29, (1984), p.18.
26. The text is Bronson's item 24 with the deviations of 25 in brackets.
27. Traditional Tunes, III, 186. The punctuation follows that of version 24.
28. Literary History, p.259.
29. A.5., Traditional Tunes, III, 75.
30. Traditional Tunes, III, 75.
31. Traditional Tunes, III, 78.
32. Fowler ascribess uch symmetry to oral transmissioni n which plots are 'regularized.I' t is 'stressedb y
a studied repetition of motifs and descriptive detail, In this fashion an event at the outset is likely to find
'an extract mirror image reversal' at the end (p.9).
33. Traditional Tunes, III, 103. See F.3: She took an apple out of her pocket,/And trundled it along the
plain,/And who was readiest to lift it/Was little Sir Hugh again.
34. "'Sir Hugh": A Study in Balladry,' Southern Folklore Quarterly, XIX (1955), p.77.
35. The Ballad and the Folk, p.100.
36. Living With Ballads (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965), p.184.
37. Alan Bold, The Ballads, p.21, notes that 179 of Child's 305 ballads follow this pattern.
38. Quoted by Flemming G. Anderson and Thomas Pettitt, 'Mrs. Brown of Falkland: A Singer of Tales?'
Journal of American Folklore, 92 (1979) p.2.
202 NEIL C. HULTIN
39. In Bronson1 55.26H ughi s leadb y the Jew'sd aughte'rt hroughoutth e kitchen/Antdh enh e sawh is
own motherd ear/Shew erep ickingo f her chicken.'
40. Quotedb y EdwardA . ArmstrongT, heF olkloroef Birds( 1958;N ew York:D over,1 970),p .74.
41. TonyD eanea ndT onyS haw,T heF olkloroef Cornwa(lTl otowaN, ew JerseyR: owmana ndL ittlefield,
1975),p .22,r efert o the Cornishd esignatiofno ra hoodedc rowa s a 'MarkeJte wC row.I'o naa ndP eterO pie,
TheL orea ndL anguagoef SchooCl hildre(nL ondonO: xfordU niversityP ress,1 959),p .214,r ecordth e belief
thatt he sighto f a singlec rowf ortellsil l; see alsoD orisJ ones-BakeTr,h eF olkloroef Hertfordshi(rTeo towa,
New Jersey:R owmana nd Littlefield,1 977),p .3, and KingsleyP almer,T heF olkloroef Somerse(tT otowa,
New Jersey:R owmana nd Littlefield,1 976),p .55.
42. T.H.WhiteT, heB estiaryA. Booko fB easts(N ewY orkG: .P.P utnam'Ss ons,1 954)p, .142:' .. it discloses
the pathso f treacherya,n d... predictst he future..'
43. TheS outhE nglishL egendareyd, . CharlottDe 'Evelyna ndA nnaJ . Mill (LondonO: xfordU niversity
Press for the Early English Text Society, 1967), II, 498.
44. BartholomaeAuns glicusB. atmanv pponB artholomHei s BookeD e ProprietatibRues rum1 582.W itha n
Introductioann dI ndexb yJ urgenS chafer(r, eprinHt. ildesheimG:e orgOe lmsV erlage1,9 76)L, iberD uodecimus,
cap.9.
45. Beliefs about crows are manifold but frequently associated with death: Ernest Ingersoll, Birds in Legend, Fable and Folklore (New Y ork: Longmans, Green and C o., 1923),p .166, refers to the Irish belief that a crow resting upon a cottage was a sign of death in the family. This association is graphically depicted, as Armstrong (p.113, plate 20) notes, in the statue of Cu Chulainn with the crow on his shoulder that stands in honour of those who died in the Easter Week Rebellion of 1916.

46. Stephen Wilson,' Introduction, in 'Studies i n Religious Sociology, Folklore and History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983)p, .28, argues that the c ultw ase ncouragetdo r aisef undsf orc hurchb uilding.
M.J. Hodgart,T heB allads( New YorkW: .WN. orton& Company1, 962),p .67, remarktsh at 'thes toryi s a
commonm otifi n folklorea, n anti-Semitilce gendw hicha ppearisn manyf ormsi n the MiddleA ges.'T his
legenda ndo thersl ikei t werek epta livei n bookso f popularp ietys ucha s PictoriaLl iveso f theS aintsw ith
Reflectiofnosr EveryD ay in theY ear(,N ewY orkB: enzigerB rothers1, 881)p . 153,w hichr elatehs ow' a little
beforeE asterA, .D. 1137,h e (Williamw) as enticedi ntoa Jew'sh ouse,a ndw as thereg aggedb, ound,a nd
crucifiedin hatredo f Christ.P' hillipsB arrye, t al, BritishB alladfsr omM aine( NewH aven:Y aleU niversity
Press,1 929),p .461,m entionso ne informanwt ho heardt he balladi n Irelandb, ut not abouta Jew,a ndh e
suggesttsh atP rotestanmts ayh aveb eent hev illainso f thatp iece.F lorencHe . Ridley',A T aleT oldT ooO ften,'
WesterFno lkloreX, XVI( 1967)p, p. 153-156r,e lateas libelc irculatinagt thet imeo f here ssayi n whichB lacks
andM exicansr eplacet he Jew.
47. Kalendroef theN eweL egend(eL ondonR: . Pynson,1 516)f, . cvi. See alsoS . Baring-GouldT,h eL ives
of theS aints( LondonJ; ohnC . Nimmo,1 897)I II, 462. Accountso f conflictsb etweenC hristiana ndJ ew
werer ifei n the MiddleA ges,a nd oftent ooka forms imilart o this legend.T heS outhE nglishL egendary,
I, 227-229,g ivesw hati s almosta n inversiono f 'Hugho f Lincoln:a' youngJ ewishb oyw hoa ttendedM ass
withh is playmateasn dw asa ttractetdo theV irginW. henh e explainetdo his parentsw, hoh adb eens earching
for him, whereh e hadb een,h is fatherc asth im intoa n ovenb ut he wasp reservedf,o rM aryh ads hielded
him fromh arm.T he conclusionw as, as so often,t he deatho f the 'perfidiouJse w.'
48. DavidF owlerA, LiterarHy istoryo f theP opulaBr allad( DurhamD: ukeU niversityP ress,1 968),p .254.
The popularityo f the ballad' canb e measuredb y the lists of traditionaslu rvivalsin England(, Margaret
Dean-SmithA, Guidet o EnglishF olkS ongC ollection(Ls iverpool1, 954),p .85, "LitleH ugh/William"a)n d
in America(C offin,T heB ritishT raditionBala lladi n NorthA mericap, .107).F' owlerp, .267n.
49. Folk-Ballafdrso mN orthC arolina,voIlI. of the FrankC . BowenC ollectiono f NorthC arolinaF olklore
(DurhamD: ukeU niveristPyr ess,1 968)p, . 155.J .C.JM. etfordD, ictionaroyf ChristiaLno rea ndL egen(dL ondon: Thamesa nd Hudson,1 983),p .124,r eferst o the storya s a 'scandalouesx cusef or an anti-Jewisrhi ot...'
50. Fowler, p.254.
51. 'Sir Hugh; p.79.
52. In somel ocationsit wasi nsistedt hati f newc lothesw eren ot worno n EasterD ay,c rowsw ould' dung
upont hem.'S eeJ amesO belkevichR, eligionan dR uralS ocietyS: outhL indsey1 825-187(5O xfordC: larendon
Press,1 976)p p. 267-268.F ora rcheryp racticeu ponE asters ee TheB ooko f Days;A Miscellanoyf Popular
Antiquitieisn Connectiowni tht he Calendare,d . R. Chamber(sL ondonW: & R Chambers1, 866),I . 429.
53. TheK alendroef theN eweL egendoef England(e1 516),f . Ivi. 54. f. 16v.T his referencien dicatesth e
collector'sin terestin popularlo re.
55. The LaudM anuscripotf theA nglo-SaxoCnh ronicleed, . C. Plumme(rO xfordA: t the ClarendoPnr ess,
1892)I . 265, notest hat' ...theI udeuso f Noruicb ohtona n xpistenc ild be forenE stren&, pinedenh im alle
the ilce pining that ure Drihten was pined'
'THE CRUEL JEW'S WIFE' 203
56. Fowler, p.270. Wells, p.185, also observes the relationship between these two ballads but speaks of
the repetition of the beating motif as due to possible confusion. In his consideration of the versions published
by Child, John Spiers referred to 'the green garden [and] the apple..' as a 'very fragmentary revelation of
... a folk mythology.' 'The Scottish Ballads,' The Critics & The Ballad, Selected and Edited by MacEdward
Leach and Tristram P. Coffin (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1961), p.241.
57. The Ballads, p.35.
58. The Ballads, p.36.
59. The cherry red as blood, and other offers, are well known in song and play. The shepherds of the
Wakefield Master's 'Second Shepherd's Play,' offer a number of such gifts. Bronson's version 49 says that
the tempter '..showed him a rosy red apple/ And then a blood red peach,/ And then she showed him a diamond
ring/ That urged his little heart in, oh in,/ That urged his little heart in.' Traditional Tunes, III, 97. And
other versions refert o 'a gay gold ring' and 'a cherry as red as blood.' TraditionalT unes( 155.48), III. 97.360.
The Ballad and the Folk p.167.
61. The Ballad and the Folk, p.166.
62. T.P. Coffin, TheB ritish TraditionaBl allad in North America,r evisede dn. (Austin:U niversity of Texas
Press, 1977), p.108, distinguishes three types, of which the Clonmel text is closest to Type B, which includes
Child's versions A-F.
64. English and Scottish Popular Ballads, IV, 238.
65. Nichols, VII, 179.
66. The Ballad and The Folk, p.162.
67. KillarneyL egendsE, ditedb y the Late TC.CrokerA, New Edition Revisedb y T. Wright( London:W illiam
Tegg and Co., 1879), p.117.