Jock of Hazeldean and Child 293 E
Jock of Hazeldean and Child 293 E
by Maurice W. Kelley
Modern Language Notes, Vol. 46, No. 5 (May, 1931), pp. 304-306
[Since the article was written two other versions of Scott's 'Jock o' Hazeldean' have been recovered in the US. See also the article by Zug in the 1973 JAFL.]
JOCK OF HAZELDEAN AND CHILD 293 E
For the past hundred years, editors of Scott's poems have dismissed the source of Jock of Hazeldean with the general statement: "The first stanza of this ballad is ancient. The others were written for Mr. Campbell's Albyn's Anthology."[1] Child, interested in the problem from another angle, was more explicit, and stated: "Upon this traditional stanza [Child 293 E, stanza 1] was built Scott's 'Jock of Hazeldean.' [2] The recent publication, however, of Virginia J variant of Child 293 [3] seems to make dubious both of the foregoing statements.
One of ten texts that "seem to be the only traditional copies of this ballad to be printed in America," Virginia J, is the solitary variant that is particularly close to any Child version.[4] Stanza one of Child E, of Virginia J, and of Jock of Hazeldean, except for unimportant variations of spelling and of one personal pronoun, differs only in the name of the hero. The second stanzas, however, are strikingly dissimilar: the details of Child E suggest various stanzas of other versions of Child 293; [5] but, although some variations of spelling and diction occur, and lines three and four are entirely different, Virginia J is parallel in content to stanza three of Jock of Hazeldean, and resembles no other stanza found in Child or in Virginia versions.
Virginia J. Scott
"A chain of gold ye shall not lack, 'A chain of gold ye sall not lack,
Nor braid to bind your hair, Nor braid to bind your hair;
Nor trusty steed ilor silken plaid, Nor mettled hound, nor managed hawk,
And all that ladies wear. Nor palfrey fresh and fair;
And ye the fairest of them all And you, the foremost of them a',
Shall ride a fairie queen" Shall ride our forest queen.'-
But a' she loot the tears come down But aye she loot the tears down fa'
For Jock o' Hazelgreen. For Jock of Hazeldean.
A special relationship, therefore, seems to exist between Virginia J and Jock of Hazeldean, and any genealogy of versions must take this relationship into account.[6]
One must suppose, therefore, that either Virginia J is derived from Scott and entered popular balladry from literary sources, or that Scott wrote less of Jock of Hazeldean than is usually thought. Although the "semi-Scottish language" [7] and the popularity of Scott in nineteenth century Virginia suggest the possibility of a literary origin for this version, yet the designation of the hero as Jock of Hazelgreen and the existence of only two stanzas argue against such a hypothesis. Campbell's Albyn's Anthology,[8] in which Jock of Hazeldean first appeared, attributed the entire poem to Scott; four years later, Scott stated that the first stanza was popular balladry and that he wrote the remaining three-[9] Is it not possible that Scott, annotating the poem at least four years after its composition, had forgotten just how much of it he took from popular sources? If such be the case, Child and the editors of Scott were misled in assuming that Jock of Hazeldean derived only one stanza from popular balladry; and in the composition of his poem, Scott used some other version nearer to Virginia J than to Child E.
MAURICE W. KELLEY
West Virginia University
Footnotes:
1 The Poetical Works of Sir Walter Scott, Philadelphia, 1880, p. 890. All other editions of Scott that I have been able to examine make similar statements.
2 The English and Scottish Popular Ballads (ed. F. J. Child), London, 1898, v, 160. The 1857 edition is likewise in agreement.
3 Traditional Ballads of Virginia (ed. E. K. Davis, Jr.), Cambridge, Mass., 1929, p. 536.
4. Ibid., p. 529.
5 Cf., Child 293, A, 3; B, 2; C, 2; D, 5; and Virginia A, 4; C, 2; D, 4; E, 4; G, 4; H, 2.
6. Concerning this likeness, Davis (op. cit., p. 529) remarks that "The first stanza of all three is practically identical, but the beginning of the second Virginia stanza is more like the beginning of Scott's third stanza than like the traditional second stanza." He seems, nevertheless, to accept Child's statemenlt.
7 Ibid., p. 529.
8. 1816, I, 18.
9. Miscellaneous Poems, Edinburgh, 1820.