US & Canada Versions: 110. The Knight and Shepherd's Daughter
[US & Canadian versions of The Knight and Shepherd's Daughter are rare. I'm missing Hungtington's which I will eventually get. The title, "The Knight and Shepherd's Daughter," is not a local title, so I've changed some of the generic Child titles.
R. Matteson 2015]
CONTENTS: (To access individual versions click on blue highlighted title below or on the title attached to this page on the left hand column in green)
1) Shepherd's Daughter and the King- Niles (KY) c.1880 -- From The Ballad Book of John Jacob Niles, 1961. Learned from John Jacob Nile's father who learned it in Louisville circa 1880. Transcribed in 1917.
2) The Knight and the Shepherd's Daughter- (MA) 1908 Barry -- From Folk-Songs of the North Atlantic States as sung by S. C., Boston, Mass., as sung by a Scotch laborer in Co. Tyrone, Ireland.; reprinted in Irish Come-All-Ye's by Phillips Barry; The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 22, No. 86 (Oct. - Dec., 1909), pp. 374-388.
3) Sweet Willie- (NC) c.1920s Sutton/Brown Collection -- From Brown Collection II, 1952. Heard by Mrs. Sutton in Avery county, but she does not say from whom.
4) Sweet William- Simmonds (NL) 1930 Greenleaf -- From: Ballads and Sea Songs of Newfoundland- Greenleaf and Mansfield 1933. Communicated by Mrs. Maude Roberts Simmonds, Glenburnie, Bonne Bay, I930.
5) Knight William- Cooley (ME) 1934 Barry BFSSNE -- From Bulletin of the Folk Song Society of the Northeast; Barry ed. Vol. 9, 1935. Recorded by dictaphone, June 6, 1934, from the singing of Mrs. Eva A. Cooley, Exeter, Maine, formerly of Smithfield, Maine. Text and air transcribed by P. Barry.
6) King William- Hatt (NS) 1954 Creighton/Peacock
7) Sir William- Decker (NL) 1959 Peacock
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Notes from Bulletin of the Folk Song Society of the Northeast; Barry ed. Vol. 9, 1935.
THE KNIGHT AND THE SHEPHERD'S DAUGHTER
(Child 110)
The singer, aged 80, sang this ballad in a clear, steady voice, giving an exceptionally fine demonstration of what is known to Maine folk as the "old-fashioned style": declamando rather than parlando, with effective rubato. In stanza 5, consisting of two stanzas partly coalesced, lines 1-2, 3-4, were sung to phrases 1-2, 1-2, respectively, of the air: lines 5-6 were sung to phrases 3-4 of the air, followed by the refrain. In singing Lord Arnold (Child 81), the singer used the same means to fit the air to a similarly coalesced stanza.
Child printed sixteen versions of The Knight and, the Shepherd's Daughter: his K, from Motherwell's MS., alone agrees with the Maine version in making them knight a blacksmith's son, though Child A, the oldest text, from the Roxburghe Collection, makes him a squire's son. In other versions, he is a prince of royal blood. Originally probably of the small number in English, of trylleviser or ballads of magic and enchantment, it has in its existing traditional form more of the romance of social inequality, while the manner in which the tables are turned on the knight, in spite of his ungracious caddishness, reveals the neatness of humor in folk-art.
The ballad has survived in old-country tradition: JFSS., III, 222-3, 280-81, V, 86-90; Williams, Folk-Songs of the Upper Thames, pp. 102-3; Greig, Last Leaves, No. 43, pp. 87-90; Rymour Club, Misc. II, 29 ff. It is rare in America, confined to the Northeast: the first version to be recorded (P. 8., JAFL, XXII, 377-8) was taken down in Boston, from a singer who learned it in Co. Tyrone. The text in Greenleaf-Mansfield, Ballads and Sea-Songs of New-foundland, pp. 35-7, sans music, has the trait of the blacksmith's son, but otherwise has slight resemblance to the Maine version.
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Coffin 1950:
110. THE KNIGHT AND THE SHEPHERD'S DAUGHTER
Texts: Brown Coll / BFSSNE, IX, // Greenleaf and Mansfield, Bids Sea Sgs New f did, 35 / JAFL, XXII, 377 / Miixish Mss.
Local titles: Sweet Willie, The Knight and the Shepherd's Daughter.
Story Types: A: A knight gets drunk and seduces a country girl. She asks his name so that she can call her baby after him. He replies that it is William, of the court, and rides away. She follows on foot. When she reaches the court, she tells the King her story, and he replies that if the man is married he shall hang; if single, shall be married to her. William is called down and
bewails the revelry that has caused him to be forced into a marriage that is below him. Nevertheless, the ceremony is performed. The girl turns out to be a duke's daughter; William, a blacksmith's son.
Examples: Greenleaf and Mansfield.
B: The story is the same as that of Type A, but the bribe is retained; that is, the knight offers the girl 500 to maintain her child, if she will forget the marriage.
Examples: BFSSNE, IX, 7.
Discussion: The Newfoundland version (Type A) is close to the usual Child story, although the seduction is nearer rape as in Child E, the attempts to buy off the girl are left out, and the end is made even more dramatic in the knight's being a blacksmith's (Child K), not at least a squire's, son. The Minish Mss. text is generally similar to the other Type A versions, although the knight is now a soldier, some of the details such as the reason for requesting the man's name, the King's decree for the married and single man, etc. are left out. In this text, the girl also indicates that she has a local suitor, and, while her rank is revealed to be that of a princess in the end, her lover's rank does not change.
Type B retains the bribe, and in the text cited above the revelation of the girl's being a princess comes in direct contradiction of the opening line's "shepherd's daughter".