The Errant Knight- Pease (NH) c.1880 Flanders J
[Flanders title, which possibly could have come from the informant - but I doubt it. Usually I just replace titles that have nothing to do with the text and clearly were supplied to the informant or attached by the collector. From Flanders- Ancient Ballads, 1966.
I figured the date from an article written by Arthur Pease, May, 2009 which similarly appeared in the Old Time Herald. Apparently (without a getting enough information about the lineage) Glenn F. Pease was Mabel's 7th child and first son. He was born in 1906 so I'm guessing Mable was born c. early 1770s making the date she learned this around 1880. Certainly it's older but there's no telling how old or when her parents knew it. Here's an excerpt about Glenn Pease. Coffin's notes from Flanders Ancient Ballads follow that.
R. Matteson Jr. 2014]
The life and Times of Glenn F. Pease
Glenn F. Pease was born in his parent's bedroom on the family farm in Orford, New Hampshire on May 17, 1906. He was the first boy born to Francis and Mabel Pease, after six girls, and on his mother's birthday! This 100-acre farm had been in the family since Mabel Pease's father, Luther Sherburn, bought it from Lanson Haines in 1866, for $2400, and moved here from nearby Wentworth, N.H. Glenn's father and mother lived in Easton, NH, for the first several years of their marriage, where Francis was a teamster well known for getting the most out of a team. One time, when he was hauling sawn lumber from Franconia or Easton to the railroad in North Lisbon, he was asked how much lumber he could haul. He said he didn't know but that he had never been stuck. He started at 3 AM and said that the horses kicked up so much dust on Sand Hilll that he couldn't see the leaders of his four-horse team. When he arrived with load intact, it was said to have been the largest load of sawn lumber ever drawn into North Lisbon. In 1898, after his second wife died, Luther Sherburn told his daughter Mabel that if she and her husband Francis would come to Orford, live on the farm and take care of him, he would leave the place to her. They ageed and made the move from Easton.
Francis Pease worked the farm and did some logging on the side, as well as making maple syrup and sugar. As was common at the time, he was put in charge of a section of the town road in the Mt. Cube area for a few years in the early 1900s, where in one year he was allowed to spend $175 on the road and pay not more than $1.50 per day for labor.
Glenn's father died in 1925 and at 19, Glenn took over the farm at the foot of Mount Cube. He married Theda Louise Howard in 1928 and there were soon three sons and a daughter growing up on the farm.
Lady Isabel and the Elf-Knight
(Child 4)
This song is known to practically all the ballad-singing people of Europe from Scandinavia to the Latin countries and into Poland to the Netherlands. Its theme, the story of the ogre who decoys maidens to their deaths but who is at last thwarted by an opportunistic girl, is widespread in tales (see Bluebeard and related matter) as well. Longer versions of the song may involve a conversation in which the girl asks her brother's permission to go with the lover who has sung irresistible melodies; a choice given the maid between hanging and being stabbed; remarks by the head of the decapitated lover; a meeting between the girl, who is carrying the ogre's head, and the ogre's mother; and the conquering maiden's blowing her horn like a warrior as she approaches her father's castle. It is easy to see that the Anglo-American texts, where even the supernatural nature of the lover has pretty well vanished and where the naive chivalry of the villain gives the girl her chance, are abbreviated and somewhat pale. However, the true core of the story, the vigorous nature of the heroine, is preserved faithfully--almost as well as in French Canada where Jeanneton kicks the man in the stream as he pulls off her stocking and then holds him under with a branch.
Versions similar to A and B below (see Child E), in which the girl is told to remove a series of garments, are more common to New England than to the rest of the United States. Texts C and D, in which nettles or other brambles are removed from the river's edge, are not until except in the opening stanza which is borrowed from Child 105, nor are texts like L where the parrot (note he is a pirate in A) has been omitted. The parrot in "Lady Isabel" and the parrot in "Young Hunting" (Child 68) often get confused anyhow. It is somewhat unusual, however, to find as one does in Versions L and M that the girl recites what has happened to her. Obviously, from what goes on between her and the parrot, in Anglo-American tradition she would prefer to drop the subject.
The European backgrounds of this have been intensively studied. Grundtvig (Danmark's gamle Folkeviser (Copenhagen, 1853-90], IV) made an elaborate investigation of its dissemination; Child, 22 f., spent a long introduction on it; and more recently it has come under the thorough attention of Iivar Kemppinen (The Ballad of Lady Isabel and the Elf-Knight, Heisinki, 1954) and Holger Nygard. Nygard's two articles, in JAF, LXV, 1-12, and LXVIII, 141-52, give one a start on a bibliography and a nice introduction to the problems involved; his book, The Ballad of Heer Halewijn (Knoxville, 1958), is a complete study. Anglo-American bibliographies and discussion, are found through Coffin, 32-35, Belden, 5-6; and Dean Smith, 97. The song is included in Barry's British Ballad's from Maine, 14.
The large group of tunes for this ballad falls (indistinctly) into two groups: 1) the versions of Burling, Harrington, Moses, Amey, Russel, Fish (which is especially close to Moses) and perhaps Pease (close to Russell?); and 2) Lougee, with Daniels and George (distantly close to Lougee, but close to each other). The Hayes version seems outside these groups, as does that of Lane which may be related to group I. Comparison with BCI groups reveals that our group I is part of BCl's group A, and our group 2, part of his group B.
I. As sung by Mrs. Mabel Pease of Orfordville [sic] [1], New Hampshire. Learned when a child, from hearing her mother and,
father sing the ballad. she says: "I still remember how I used to wait to hear the part that tells about Pretty Polly." Mrs. Pease and both her parents were born in this vicinity and lived all their lives around Orfordaille. Due to sickness, Mrs. Pease was unable to sing the entire ballad. M. Olney, Collector; November 29, 1942.
Structure: A B C D (2,2,2,2) for third stanza, A B C D E C D; Rhythm B; Contour: arc; Scale: hexachordal; t.c. D. For mel. rel. see DV, 551(33); BES, 16; EO, 6; first phrase of SAA, 35 ("Barbara Allen").
The Errant Knight
As I passed by a gentleman's door,
I 'spied a pretty maid
With jet black hair and ringlets fair
And diamonds in her eyes.
"Come out, come out, my pretty Mary,
Come out, come out," says he.
"And . . . . .
"Lie there, lie there, you false young man,
Lie there instead of me;
It's six fair maidens you've drown-ed there,
Go keep them companee,
Go keep them companee;
It's six fair maidens you've drown-ed there,
Go keep them cornpanee!"
"The young lady comes out and he persuades her to steal two of her father's horses and some money. she returns and,
he mounts one horse; she the other and then ride off, when they get to the river they dismount; it is then he lets her know his reason for bringing her there. Anyway, he discovers she is equal to him; she pushes him into the water and returns home. A parrot and a cat come into it sornewhere but I cannot think just how-- strange, because when I was a little girl that was the part I liked best."
1. Orford