Burd Ellen and Young Tamlane
[There are no US or Canadian versions of this ballad and only one English version.]
CONTENTS:
1. Child's Narrative
2. Footnotes (There are no footnotes)
3. Brief by Kittredge
4. Child's Ballad Text A
5. "Additions and Corrections"
ATTACHED PAGES (see left hand column):
1. Recordings & Info: Burd Ellen and Young Tamlane
A. Roud number 3962; Burd Ellen and Young Tamlane (2 listings)
2. English Versions (Child Version A)]
Child's Narrative
A. a. Motherwell's Manuscript, p. 191.
A. Maidment's North Countrie Garland, 1824, p. 21. Communicated by R. Pitcairn, "from the recitation of a female relative, who had heard it frequently sung in her childhood," about sixty years before the above date.
Motherwell informs us, Minstrelsy, p. xciv of Introduction, note to 141, that 'Burd Helen and Young Tamlene' is very popular, and that various sets of it are to be found traditionally current (1827). Still I have not found it, out of Maidment's little book; not even in Motherwell's large folio.
I cannot connect this fragment with what is elsewhere handed down concerning Tamlane, or with the story of any other ballad.
Child's Text
'Burd Ellen and Young Tamlane'- Version A
Maidment's North Countrie Garland, 1824, p. 21. Communicated by R. Pitcairn, "from the recitation of a female relative, who had heard it frequently sung in her childhood," about sixty years before the above date.
1 Burd Ellen sits in her bower windowe,
With a double laddy double, and for the double dow
Twisting the red silk and the blue.
With the double rose and the May-hay
2 And whiles she twisted, and whiles she twan,
With a double laddy double, and for the double dow
And whiles the tears fell down amang.
With the double rose and the May-hay
3 Till once there by cam Young Tamlane:
With a double laddy double, and for the double dow
'Come light, oh light, and rock your young son.'
With the double rose and the May-hay
4 'If you winna rock him, you may let him rair,
With a double laddy double, and for the double dow
For I hae rockit my share and mair.'
With the double rose and the May-hay
* * * * *
5 Young Tamlane to the seas he's gane,
With a double laddy double, and for the double dow
And a' women's curse in his company's gane.
With the double rose and the May-hay
Brief Description by George Lyman Kittredge
This fragment seems to have no connection with what is elsewhere handed down concerning Tamlane (see No. 39), or with the story of any other ballad.
Maidment's North Countrie Garland, 1824, p. 21. Communicated by R. Pitcairn, "from the recitation of a female relative, who had heard it frequently sung in her childhood," about sixty years before the above date. Here from Pitcairn's Manuscripts, in, 49.
Additions and Corrections
P. 256. This ballad is in Pitcairn's Manuscripts, III, 49. It was from the tradition of Mrs. Gammel. The last word of the burden is Machey, not May-hay, as in Maidment.
P. 256. The first paragraph was occasioned by a misprint in Motherwell (corrected at p. cv of his Introduction), and may be dropped. In Pitcairn's Manuscript it is noted that this fragment was obtained from Mrs. Gammell.
To be Corrected in the Print.
256a, 14. Read Machey for May-hay.
The following are mostly trivial variations from the spelling of the text.
256 b, 32. Read O. 42. Read rocked.