"The Gypsy Laddie" (Child 200): An Unrecognized Child of Medieval Romance
"The Gypsy Laddie" (Child 200): An Unrecognized Child of Medieval Romance
by Judith Ann Knoblock
Western Folklore, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Jan., 1960), pp. 35-45
"The Gypsy Laddie" (Child 200): An Unrecognized Child of Medieval Romance
JUDITH ANN KNOBLOCK
THERE IS NO GENEALOGY more confused and confusing than that of the ballad family. When one attempts to draw up the family tree of any particular ballad, he finds such a quantity of aunts, uncles, and "cousins by the dozens" that it is often extremely difficult to distinguish parent from offspring, and the task of finding the initial ancestor, the great-grandfather of all, is over- whelming, if not impossible. Such has been the case with "The Gypsy Laddie" (Child 200). Scholars have traced it to the seventeenth century and classed it as an historical ballad, but a new slant, a new way of looking at this ballad, suddenly opens a door, and it is with great certainty that I reclassify this ballad, placing it where it rightfully belongs, with the ballads based on medieval romance. "The Gypsy Laddie" is the tale of a gypsy who steals a fine lady from her castle. The lady's husband, after returning home and discovering her gone, searches until he finds her. She refuses to return, saying she prefers her new love to him. The American versions of the ballad very often close with this lovely lyric stanza:
Last night I slept in a goose feather bed
With the sheets turned down so bravely-o;
Tonight I'll sleep in a cold open field,
Along with the raggle-taggle gypsies-o! [1]
Although this ballad has always been reasonably popular in the British Isles, it is perhaps in America that it came into its fullest flower. The number of American versions is staggering. At present, I have located, in print, one hundred and twenty-four of them. This popularity on our continent is probably best explained by the fact that the fair lady of the ballad gives up familiar home ties to choose a wandering life in the open. Her decision has also been the decision of many Americans at one time or another. This ballad has not always been preserved in its entirety. Often, all that remains is a short lyric song, recognizable as one of the stanzas belonging to "The Gypsy Laddie"; and this remaining stanza might be any part of the original ballad from its beginning to, its end. It is the gypsy Davy, or Daisy, as he often became, who managed to survive in this country. He probably first arose as the result of localization and survived because Davy is a common name and fits well into the rhyme scheme of the ballad. The gypsy Johnny Faa, the gypsy named in the earliest Scottish versions of the ballad, for some reason completely disappeared as time and distance removed the ballad away from seventeenth-century Scotland; yet his importance is tremendous, for it is the very appearance of Johnny Faa in the early versions that has caused scholars to class "The Gypsy Laddie" as a historical ballad, a classification which, in a sense, is quite legitimate. Although gypsies were thought to have been in Europe as early as the sixth century, it was not until about 1500 that they reached the British Isles. Records show that James IV of Scotland afforded these gypsies protection over a certain number of years. In 1541, for some unrecorded reason, he withdrew his protection and ordered all gypsies out of Scotland on pain of death. Unfortunately, Johnne, alias Willie Faa, either refused to leave Scottish soil or returned later, only to be sentenced to hang on July 31, 1611. On July 24, 1616, Johnne Faw, his son, and two others were also condemned to die in this manner, and on January 24, 1624, Captaine Johnne Faa and seven others received the same sentence. Finally, on January 29, 1624, Helen Faa and ten other women were supposed to be drowned, but their execution, unlike that of the men, was stayed at the last minute.[2] As Child himself states (IV, 64):
The execution of the notorious Egyptian and chieftain Johnny Faa must have made a considerable impression, and it is presumable that this ballad may have arisen not long after. Whether this were so or not, Johnny Faa acquired popular fame, and became a personage to whom any adventure might plausibly be imputed.
There is, however, no recorded account of any Johnny Faa's stealing of a great lady. Fortunately, or unfortunately for scholars, such an omission was corrected when Lord and Lady Cassilis entered the ballad. Child's B version of "The Gypsy Laddie" which appeared in the Edinburgh Magazine and Literary Miscellany of November, 1817, is the earliest recorded version to so name the lord and lady of the ballad. A story soon sprang up, as such stories will, saying that when the real Lady Jean Hamilton married Lord Cassilis, she already had a lover, John Faa of Dunbar, who later came to the Cassilis castle disguised as a gypsy and stole away his old love. Such a myth has proved to be no more than a scholastic "red herring," and Child, after exploding the story itself, explains that the Cassilis family undoubtedly entered the ballad through the processes of localization and corruption. "The gypsies came to the castle gate," became "The gypsies they came to my Lord Cassilis' yett."[3] At this point, then, the ballad has been left. Although there were many Johnny Faa's, there is no real basis for the rest of the ballad story. Perhaps it has been assumed that the original Johnny Faa story was lost, but such reasoning is in error. The original story remains, pristine and pure, but it has long been unrecognized as the immediate ancestor of "The Gypsy Laddie" for the very simple reason that the seventeenth-century ballad singers substituted gypsies for fairies, a common enough artifice among balladeers.* The gypsy laddie, then, was originally a fairy laddie, and the ballad which he stole completely, even to the point of almost crowding it out of existence, is the beautiful story of a fairy abduction, "King Orfeo," (Child 19).
The only version of "King Orfeo" which Child was able to locate for his collection came from Unst in the Shetland Islands and is a mere fragment of what the ballad must originally have been. Perhaps this version survived at all only because of the water barrier between Scotland and the Shetlands, for on the mainland, "King Orfeo" was undoubtedly laughed away. "The Gypsy Laddie" did not merely adopt the story pattern of the other ballad, it parodied, in a most clever and adroit manner, not only its own original but also as many elements common to the ballads based on medieval romance and to medieval romances themselves as it was possible to fit into the story. It was this very element of humor that probably gave "The Gypsy Laddie" its initial popularity, but as the generations passed, this humor was slowly sifted away, and the great basic lyricism of "King Orfeo," and its predecessor, the romance of "Sir Orfeo," began to reassert itself until, and especially in American versions, the humor was almost entirely lost, and the ballad re- gained its original stature of being both serious and romantic.
Because "King Orfeo" appears only in fragments, one must, in order to gain a more complete picture of what the story must have been, turn to "Sir Orfeo." Of the three extant manuscripts of this romance, MS Ashmole is believed to have been copied from a northerly or Scottish exemplar,' showing that the romance must have been known in Scotland. "Sir Orfeo," in turn, is a medieval rendition of the traditional Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, and the resemblances between the basic story outlines of Orpheus and Eurydice, "Sir Orfeo," "King Orfeo," and "The Gypsy Laddie" are striking. In all four stories, a lady is stolen away from her husband who goes in purusit of her, bringing her back, at least part way, from the other world to the land of reality (cf. F322). In the Greek legend, the abductor is Pluto or death. In "Sir Orfeo," he is the fairy king, and he takes Heuryodis behind a "grey stane." In "The Gypsy Laddie," it is a gypsy king or leader who takes the lady away to his kingdom, the greenwood. All the husbands, save Orpheus, get the lady home in safety. Orpheus, alas, turns back to see if Eurydice is following him and loses her forever. In "King Orfeo" and "Sir Orfeo" the reunited couple live in happiness ever after, but in "The Gypsy Laddie," the lord locks his lady up for the rest of her life.
A play by play account of "The Gypsy Laddie" is necessary to explain the parody involved, and the mere fact that it must be explained is evidence of the changes in thought and attitudes that have occurred in the centuries since 1600. To begin with, gypsies were unquestionably the object of jokes in the seventeenth century. Being wanderers, speaking a foreign tongue, robbing (cf. K2261.1) and stealing for food instead of cultivating ground in the custom- ary manner, were reasons enough that they should be feared and hated, and there was no penalty attached to killing them." To replace a prominent fairy king with a dirty gypsy was humorous in itself. And medieval romances were more than ripe for parodying at this time. The Renaissance had been in effect for almost one hundred years, and things medieval had become so far removed from common experience as to be ludicrous and difficult to understand. Cervantes recognized this fact when he wrote Don Quixote in 1605, a date very close to the possible dates for "The Gypsy Laddie," 1611-1624.
Thus, gypsies come to the castle gate. Their sweet song entices the lady of the house, and she comes down the stairs with her maids tripping behind her to greet her guests. Now gypsies have no right to enchanting music. Such music belongs to creatures of the otherworld (cf. F262), or, in the case of "Sir Orfeo," to Orfeo himself, for, in the original stories, Orfeo (or Orpheus) uses the enchanting music of his harp to gain the release of his lady (cf. F262.3.7). In the parody, Orfeo is automatically demeaned when the gypsies acquire his one great talent.
When the gypsies see the lady, they cast their spell over her. Such a spell is, of course, a reference to the spell cast by the original fairy king, and, like Orfeo, he loses stature by association with gypsies.
Stanza three" involves an exchange of tokens. There may be some question as to whether "Sir Orfeo," either romance or ballad, includes such an exchange, but the ballad singer, either the man who initiated the parody or those who improved upon it, must have added the token device as a recogniz- able element of romance. The exchange of tokens-in most cases, but not necessarily, rings (M94)-appears in such ballads as "Hind Horn" (Child 17) and "The Lass of Roch Royal" (Child 76), to give only two examples. In "The Gypsy Laddie," however, it is the lady only who gives a ring; the gypsies give her ginger and, in some versions, nutmeg. If ginger and nutmeg were rare exotic spices there might be some sense to this exchange, but, alas, our heroine is grossly cheated. In return for her gold ring she receives two of the most common spices known in the British Isles by 16oo. In fact, ginger was so common in England by the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries that it ranked next only to pepper, which was the most common spice of all.' Indeed, the fair lady of the ballad received for her fine rings two spices that were already to be found in her own kitchen and in many a poorer kitchen besides.
The next stanza brings an exchange of vows, another romance device. See, for example, "Sweet William's Ghost" (Child 77), a ballad that makes much of the exchange of vows. In begging or telling the lady to come away, the gypsy laddie swears by his sword, or his spear, or the coat that he wears that the lord shall no more come near her. Unquestionably, spears belong to the conquerors of Troy and swords to the Knights of the Round Table or to the warriors of the Scottish-English border; such weapons do not belong to draggle-tailed gypsies. And a coat, especially a ragged one (cf. F236.5.1), is an absurd token on which to swear.
The lady, in turn, completes the pact. She swears by the fan in her hand or by "what passed yestreen" that her lord shall no more come near her. What is more frivolous than a fan? As to what passed yestreen, this could well be a reference to the visit made to Queen Heurodis by the fairy king the day before he came to take her away. At any rate, these items, like the gypsy's coat, are not to be sworn by. Next, the fair lady of the ballad removes her silk mantle and puts on a "plaidie," undoubtedly a plaid tartan kilt or skirt. It is something of a puzzle as to why she should choose such an outfit. Perhaps the answer is simply that a tartan kilt is more appropriate than a silk gown for travel on foot about the countryside. It may be pointed out, however, that frequently Scottish fairies wore the tartan plaids. J. F. Campbell in one of the Popular Tales of the West Highlands describes fairies of that region as dressed in green coats, green kilts, and green conical caps." Spence also mentions (p. 137) a woman, Elspeth Reoch, who met two fairy men in Orkney, one dressed in black, the other in tartan plaid; and the fairies mentioned by Hugh Miller who is also quoted in Spence (p. 137) were clad in jerkins of tartan plaid. Perhaps, then, our lady is merely dressing herself like the fairy band who stole her in "King Orfeo," and the use of a tartan plaidie was merely carried whole into "The Gypsy Laddie." At any rate, the dressing of a noble lord or lady in old clothes to walk in the greenwood is another theme from romance, and related to it is the familiar ballad motif of a lord or king changing clothes with a beggar (Cf. K1817.1; H384.1). Sir Geraint, in the romance of the same name, tells his lady to put on her meanest dress for the two of them are going into the wild- wood." Sir Orfeo himself, when he begins the long search for his lady,
A staff to hym he gan take.
He had neker gowne ne hode,
Schert, ne non oer gode,
Bot an harpe he toke algate;
Barefote he went furth at be zate. (MS Ashmole, Bliss 21)
Obviously, in the parody, as most probably in "King Orfeo," the rejection of clothing becomes attached to the lady.[10]
The ballad now leaps ahead, and our lady is seen wandering with the gypsies. Only Child E [11] mentions any method of transportation other than foot travel. In this version, the gypsies are mounted on "cuddies," cuddy being a slang term for donkey. The fairies in "Sir Orfeo" ride, as do all good fairies, on stately white horses, and it is quite a ridiculous step down from fairies on white horses to gypsies on donkeys. Also note that even though the gypsies are mounted, our lady must still walk.
The roving band soon comes to "wan water." Here, of course, is the river or lake which must be crossed in order to enter the other world (cf. F93.1), be it the world of the dead or the kingdom of fairies. Orpheus crossed the River Styx to rescue Eurydice, and here is Eurydice, alias the Heurodis of the romance, alias Isabel of "King Orfeo," alias an unnamed lady, or, if preferred, Lady Cassilis, ready once again to cross the "wan water."
In "The Gypsy Laddie," however, the crossing from one world to another is far from a serious matter. Our lady who has gone along willingly enough thus far becomes disgruntled upon viewing the water and begins to complain.
'Aften have I rode that wan water,
And my lord Cassilis beside me,
And now I must set in my white feet and wade,
And carry the gypsie laddie. (Child B, Stanza 11)
What a disagreeable character the fair lady of the ballad is beginning to assume. Not only was she most quick and willing to be unfaithful to her husband, but now she shows herself as petulant and vain.
Can this be Sir Orfeo's lovely queen?
A feyrer lady than sche was one
Was neuer made off flessch ne bone;
Sche was full off lufe & godnes,
Ne may no man telle hyr feyrnes. (Bliss, MS Ashmole, 7)
Perhaps the laughter here is not directed only at Queen Heurodis but is expanded to include all medieval heroines and perhaps even the idea of chivalric love. Cervantes did much this same thing when he chose for Don Quixote's patron lady a mere peasant girl from a neighboring village. The travelers wander on, finally arriving at an old barn, one belonging to a tenant farmer. The lady immediately begins to complain again.
'Last night I lay in a weel-made bed,
And my noble lord beside me,
And now I must ly in an old tenant's barn,
And the black crew glowring owre me. (Child B, stanza 8)
This barn corresponds to the fairy castle where Heurodis is ultimately taken by the fairy king.
Orfeo full wele it seye,
A feyr castell, ryall & hyze.
He be-held Pe weke full wele:
The oueryst werke a-boue
Pe walle Gan schyne as doth
Pe crystalle; A hundreth tyretys he saw, full stout,
So godly Pei wer bateyled a-boute;
The pylers Pat come oute off
Pe dyche, All pei wer of gold full ryche;
The frontys, pei wer emelyd all
Wyth all maner dyuerse amell.
Ther-in he saw wyde wonys,
And all wer full of presyos stonys. (Bliss, MS Ashmole, 33)
Once again the ludicrous comparison brings forth a smile. And the above stanza from "The Gypsy Laddie" contains another story element belonging to "Sir Orfeo." After Orfeo leaves his castle and goes to look for his queen, a comparison is made of the life he just left with the life he must now lead.
He pat hadde y-werd be fowe & griis, (fox fur)
& on bed Pe purper biis (sheets) -
Now on hard heke (heath) he lip, (lieth)
Wip leues & gresse he him wrip. (wrieth-covered himself) (Bliss, MS Auchinleck, 22)[12]
Again, Orfeo's predicament has been transferred to the lady, for both must leave a soft bed to sleep, either in an old or cold tenant's barn or on the cold, cold ground.
By this time, the gypsy has had enough of complaints. "0 hold your tongue, my hinny and my heart," he tells the lady, and in Child F, stanza 7, he comforts her with the promise that the band will stop at the first ale house for a drink, and the delicious wine of fairyland becomes ordinary English ale.
The gypsy now begs the lady to come to bed." Since this particular section of "King Orfeo" is among the lost stanzas and since "Sir Orfeo" makes no mention of such an incident, one cannot be sure how Isabel or Heurodis respond. No doubt, being under the fairy's spell, they comply with grace. Not so our lady, for being most contrary, she refuses to come to bed. She who has made a most sacred oath, leading the gypsy to believe he'll get "all the coat goes round" (Child A, stanza 7), changes her mind and goes back on her word. 'I will never come to yer bed, I will never be yer dearie For I think I hear his horse's foot That was once called my dearie.' (Child D, stanza 9) The gypsy's response to such a refusal is fortunately left to conjecture, for the ballad swiftly shifts scene, and the lord is seen returning home at nightfall. In Child E, there has already appeared by this point in the narrative a most unusual stanza.
For her lord he had to the hounting gane,
Awa in the wild green wuddie,
And Jockie Faw, the gypsie king,
Saw him there wi his cheeks sae ruddy.
The second extant stanza of "King Orfeo" begins,
Dis king he has a huntin gaen
Scowan iirle griin (Child 19 A, stanza 2)
A translation of the refrain line, according to Child I, 217, gives, "Early green's the wood," and the parallel between this "King Orfeo" stanza and the stanza from Child E of "The Gypsy Laddie" is unmistakable. Also, many American versions of the latter ballad make reference to "the greenwood," although, more often than not, when speaking of Gypsy Davy.
When the lord, then, returns home from hunting, he is greeted by his servants. When he asks for his lady, he discovers that she has absconded. Immediately the lord demands that his black horse be saddled.
'Go saddle to me the black,' he says
'The brown rides never so speedie,
And I will neither eat nor drink
Till I bring home my ladie.' (Child B, stanza 13)
This stanza contains two familiar ballad motifs. The first is the device of saddling up a horse to go in search of a lost love, a device that may be found in "The Lass of Roch Royal" (Child 76), to give only one example. Margaret Widdemer writes in Dorothy Scarborough's book, Songcatcher in the Southern Montains (New York, 1937, P- 224), "The proverbial use of a black horse. for speed and a brown for endurance is found in the British Isles everywhere."
The second motif is the familiar use of "And I will neither eat nor drink." This folk motif from folk tradition is perhaps bound up with the idea that if the lord should eat or drink (cf. C211.1), he would be unable to break the fairy spell binding the lady. The use of this idea may also be a corruption of the theory that if the lady were to eat or drink while in fairyland, she would be unable to return to earth for seven years. This motif of not eating or drinking may be found in such other ballads as "Robin Hood and the Curtal Friar" (Child 123), and "Thomas Rymer" (Child 37)
Long does the lord search for his lady. "He wandred high, he wandred low, he wandred late and early" (Child B, stanza 14). Long did Orfeo search for his lady. In fact, the lines just quoted are much more applicable to Orfeo's wandering on foot than to the lord's racing off on horseback and may have been lifted, without change, from the Orfeo ballad.
It is at this point in the ballad that the confusing stanzas appear referring to someone's having seen the lady. American versions especially retain such a vague reference, and Child E, stanza 12, states,
'I met wi a cheel as I rade hame,
And thae queer stories said he;
Sir I saw this day a fairy queen
Fu pack wi a gypsie laddie.
The packman's lad whom the lord is said to question in the addition to Child A probably arose from the last line of a stanza similar to this and from the use of the word "pack." The stanzas as a whole undoubtedly refer to that part of the Orfeo story where Orfeo, in the greenwood, sees, almost like a vision, his beautiful queen riding with a company of fairies. Such a reference would explain why the lady is said to be a fairy queen; it would also explain the various garbled ballad references to someone's having seen the lady; only in the romance, that someone was Sir Orfeo himself.
And at last the lord does find the lady. Orfeo is delighted to see his queen and cannot wait to bring her home and restore her to her former position. Our lord is perhaps not so delighted. At any rate, he tells his lady that he is going to take her home and shut her up in a tower or close room. He puts all blame entirely on the lady herself, not, as must the medieval Sir Orfeo, upon the fairy king. Heurodis comes home gladly. Our lady refuses to leave her gypsies. What a contrary creature this lady proves to be. She leaves her rich lord for poor gypsies; she refuses to go to bed with the gypsies once she is away with them; and when her lord returns to take her home, she refuses to go back with him. The lady's inclinations seem to influence the lord not at all. Paying no heed to anything she says, even to her protestations of innocence, the lord calmly proceeds to hang most of the gypsy band, and, it is easy to assume, takes his lady home and shuts her up just as he promised. What Renaissance man would not have done likewise?
The last stanza of "The Gypsy Laddie" with its seemingly serious comment has only intensified the romance we moderns find in the ballad as a whole.
They were fifteen valiant men,
Black, but very bonny,
And they lost all their lives for one,
The Earl of Cassillis' ladie. (Child B, stanza 18)
How terrible that fifteen should die for one? Not at all, for what were fifteen worthless gypsies compared to one fine lady, and how extremely humorous it must have been to the seventeenth-century Scots that gypsies would dare compare themselves to one of the gentry. This stanza, too, shows how another element belonging to the great King Orfeo was transferred to the squalid gypsies. When Orfeo is in the palace of the fairy king, and, after having played his harp, is allowed to ask for what he will, Orfeo requests the lovely lady, Heurodis, who is asleep under a tree. The fairy ruler replies,
'Nay,' he seyd, 'Pat thouzt j neuer!
A foule couple of zou it wer,
For pou arte rowye & blake,
And sche is wyth-outyn lake;' (Bliss, MS Ashmole, 39)
Here is the familiar romance idea of something fierce or fearful looking being good. This theme is used in Chretien's Perceval, in Malory's Quest, and in the Bible are the words, "I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem" (Song of Sol. I : 5). Were the gypsies "black, but very bonny," or were they "black and not so bonny?" The versions differ. Child's versions A, C, D, and F are in favor of "not so bonny." Versions B and G hold to "black but very bonny." Were the gypsies good or evil? Perhaps when these words were referring to Orfeo they meant "black, but very bonny," but when used in reference to gypsies, they should have been changed, as in most cases they were.
A comparison of "King Orfeo" and "The Gypsy Laddie" would not be complete without noting that both ballads are told from the same point of view, that of a servant of the house. The only exception is the last stanza of "The Gypsy Laddie," which, unless edited away, is in the words of a gypsy and which was probably tacked on to the parody to heighten the comedy. The only discoverable American version of "King Orfeo," probably brought to Virginia by someone from the Shetland Islands, prints only the first line, but it begins, "For eight long years I have served the great king Orfeo."[14] showing definitely that here, too, it is the servant who speaks.
The verse forms differ, however, from "King Orfeo" to "The Gypsy Laddie." It can only be assumed that a verse with a somewhat cumbersome internal refrain, as is found in "King Orfeo," could not fit the medium of satire as well as a four line stanza and that the satirist switched to what he felt was a more suitable form. If there is, however, any music to be found for "King Orfeo," a comparison between it and the many variant melodies for "The Gypsy Laddie" will undoubtedly prove most interesting. All in all, it is easy to see that at one time, probably around 1624 when the gypsy executions were in full swing, some one individual-undoubtedly a man-saw his opportunity to create, by parodying "King Orfeo," an effective and amusing satire not only on medieval romance and the ballads derived therefrom, but also on medieval heroines, and, more specifically, on women- a subject long in vogue for such purposes. Is it any wonder that this ballad was as popular in its earliest days as it is now?
University of Washington
Footnotes:
1 As sung by Susan Reed on her recording, Susan Reed Sings Old Airs from Ireland, Scotland and England (Electra 26).
2 Francis J. Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads (Boston, 1882-1898; New York, 1956), IV, 63, 64.
3 Child, IV, 65. * In the light of this practice, and the tendency to rationalize fairy elements in the ballads gen- erally, I have ventured to indicate a few fairy motifs that may be helpful in the study of this ballad.-B. A. W.
4 A. J. Bliss, Sir Orfeo (Oxford, 1954), p. xxv.
5. The Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed. (Cambridge, 1910), XII, 38.
6. Since the version, Child B, seems to follow most closely what must have been the original text, it will be used as a reference guide to the plot. B, however, is the only version to place the "wan water" stanzas before the "tenant barn" stanzas, and in order to obtain the greatest accuracy possible, these sections will be placed in their probably original position, the reverse of Child B.
7 The Encylcopedia Britannica, XII, 27, 28.
8 Lewis Spence, The Fairy Tradition in Britain (London, 1948), p. 137.
9 The Mabinogion, Everyman 97 (London, 19o6), pp. 240, 241.
10 That "Sir Orfeo" contains a medieval explanation for insanity-Queen Heurodis goes where Orfeo cannot reach her and tears herself with her nails-in a case much too complicated to be dealt with in this paper. It is interesting to note, however, that the rejection of clothing has been considered a sign of insanity (See Dan. 4 : 16, 25). As a result, it is easy to see how Orfeo's penance and sorrow could have been transferred to Heurodis (Isabel) in the conversion from romance to ballad.
11 Child E from John Mactaggart's Scottish Gallovidian Encyclopedia contains many unusual stanzas which Child labels "spurious," and which do seem to make little sense. With the exception of the unusual ending, however, one finds that the rest of the stanzas have considerable meaning when viewed in relation to "Sir Orfeo." Even the ending could be an original, for the gypsies it depicts behave a great deal more like fairies than traditional gypsies. "And the gypsies slade down by yon bonny burnside / To beek themsells there sae sunnie." Perhaps the parody originally had two endings, depending upon who was singing it. At any rate, this happy ending has much less force than the one with the bloody execution, which may have accounted for its lack of popularity.
12 These particular lines are missing in MS Ashmole. MS Ashmole, however, was derived from MS Auchinleck (Bliss, xv). Thus, these lines would have been known in Scotland.
13 These stanzas do not appear in version B. Victorian editors, in fact, seldom included them, often stating in a footnote that they were deleting immoral material. Child's versions C and D do have part of these "come to bed" stanzas.
14 A. K. Davis, Folk Songs of Virginia (Durham, N. C., 1949), p. 10.