No. 59: Sir Aldingar
[There are no known traditional US or Canadian versions of this ballad.]
CONTENTS:
1. Child's Narrative
2. Footnotes (Moved to the end of Child's Narrative)
3. Brief (Kittredge)
4. Child's Ballad Texts A-C.
5. Additions and Corrections
ATTACHED PAGES (see left hand column):
1. Recordings & Info: Sir Aldingar
A. Roud No. 3969 (11 listings)
2. English and Other Versions (Including Child versions A-C with additional notes)]
3. Sheet Music: Sir Aldingar (Bronson's texts and some music examples)
Child's Narrative
A. 'Sir Aldingar,' Percy Manuscript, p. 68; Hales and Furnivall, I, 166.
B. 'Sir Hugh le Blond,' Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, III, 51, 1803.
C. 'Sir Hugh le Blond,' Dr. Joseph Robertson's Note-Book, January 1, 1830, p. 6.
This ballad, one of the most important of all that the Percy manuscript has saved from oblivion, was first given to the world in the Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, II, 48, ed. 1765, II, 49, ed. 1767, with conjectural emendations by the editor, and the insertion of some stanzas to complete the story. A second version, very much humbled in diction, and otherwise corrupted, but of indubitable antiquity, as Scott remarks, was published in the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border in 1803, as communicated by Mr. Williamson Burnet, of Monboddo, from the recitation of an old woman. The story which this version relates was then, we are informed, universally current in the Mearns, and was supposed to be authenticated by the sword of the hero, preserved nearly down to that time by his reputed descendants.
Tales of the same general description — of a noble lady accused to her husband of infidelity, believed by him to be guilty, and in process of time demonstrated to have been faultless, to his entire conviction — are, as might be expected, extremely often to be met with in ballad, romance, chronicle, or saga; nor is the number small of those which have the special traits that the accusation is made by a trusted officer of the husband, who has attempted to seduce the lady, and has failed, and that the wife is cleared by a judgment of God. Our ballad belongs with a very distinct Scandinavian variety of these last, but has adopted one characteristic trait from another source.
The English version, as written down about the middle of the seventeenth century, narrates that Sir Aldingar, steward of King Henry, repulsed by the queen whom he has sought to make his paramour, cannot rest till he has revenge. He takes a lazar that happens to come to the king's gates, and lays him in the queen's bed, promising that in two hours the blind and lame shall be whole and sound; he then goes to fetch the king. The king, convinced by his eyes, says he will hang the lazar and burn his wife, and immediately proceeds to tell the queen his discovery. The queen sees the hand of Aldingar in this, and also the meaning of a dream she has had: 'how a vulture, or griffin, had carried her crown away, and would have taken her to his nest[1] had it not been for a merlin, a little hawk, that came flying from the east and struck the big bird down. She claims the right to maintain her innocence by battle, and the king gives her forty days to provide herself with a champion, which failing she shall be burnt. No man in all the south country will undertake her cause, but a messenger who rides into the east meets what seems to be a child, who interrogates him, and, getting a slow answer, bids the queen by him to remember her dream and be of good cheer, for when bale is highest boot shall be nighest. The days of grace being out, and no champion found, the queen is put into a tun to burn, and looks only for death. At this moment a child is seen riding from the east, who, when he comes to the fire, orders the brands to be withdrawn and Aldingar to be produced. Aldingar, a very large man, would not have minded fifty such. The child claims the first stroke, and if Aldingar can give a second he need not spare him. Aldingar's legs are cut off at the knee with this stroke. Aldingar asks for a priest to shrive him, confesses everything, and begs the queen's forgiveness. The child enjoins King Harry to take back his wife and love her, for she is true as stone; the lazar under the gallows becomes a sound man at the same instant, and is made steward in Aldingar's place.
The Scottish ballad repeats the main part of this story, dropping all that is miraculous save the simple judgment of God. Rodingham, who represents Aldingar, does not cajole the leper with the promise of being restored to health, but intoxicates him with sweet liquors, and lays him asleep in the queen's bed. The king wishes to believe the queen guiltless, and proposes that she shall find a champion. The champion is an ordinary knight; the leper is neither better nor worse for the part he is made to play; and the knight is rewarded with a gift of lands. That the Scottish ballad is the original of the English is a singularly unhappy idea of Sir Walter Scott's, and it is hard to conceive what suggested such a notion, unless it were the allegation that the sword with which Sir Hugh defended the queen's honor was until a late day producible by his posterity, whereas no one pretends to have the other. But Sir Walter could not seriously have credited this tradition, for he himself observes that there is no instance in history in which the honor of a queen of Scotland was committed to the chance of a duel.
Cousin to the English ballad is the Scandinavian 'Ravengaard og Memering,' Grundtvig, No 13, I, 177-213, 426 f, II, 640-45, III, 779-82, IV, 722-31. There are eleven versions in all, besides a Norwegian copy, extant at the end of the last century, of which now only the story is at our command. Eight of the eleven texts are Danish, A-C, G-L. A is from a manuscript of the middle of the sixteenth century, and so a hundred years older than 'Sir Aldingar.' The other Danish copies are from recent tradition,[2] and so are Färöe D, E. An Icelandic version, F, is from a seventeenth-centnry manuscript.
The old Danish ballad affords the following story. Gunild [Gunder] lives at Spire, and many nobles from all quarters of the compass sue for her hand, which Henry, Duke of Brunswick and Schleswig, obtains. Henry, going to the wars, commits to Ravengaard the protection of his land, and especially of his wife. But no sooner is the duke fairly away than Ravengaard goes to "the queen," and demands of her the sword Adelring, which she has in keeping. This being refused, Ravengaard threatens that he will tell false tales of her, but the lady is not intimidated. The duke comes home, and asks Ravengaard how things are. The country remains as it was, but Gunild has been acting ill. The duke will not believe anything wrong of Gunild; but Ravengaard affirms that he has seen the archbishop with her with his own eyes. Henry, after repeating this charge to Gunild, beats her severely, and nobody dares come to the rescue, or to speak for her, save two ladies of the court, who maintain that Ravengaard has lied. Then let her find a man who will fight with him, says the duke. Bare-headed and bare-foot Gunild goes to the hall where the knights are drinking. They all rise; but when she asks, Is there anybody here who will fight for a woman? there is no response except from Memering. He had served her father fifteen years; never had he seen her so wretched, bare-shouldered, bare-foot. Ravengaard had had more of her father's bounty than anybody, and he has been the first to betray her. Memering had always been last when gifts were giving; but he will go into the lists for her if he can have the sword Adelring, and this Gunild promises him. A ring is marked on the ground for the fight. Ravengaard requires Memering to swear that he knows not of the sword Adelring. Memering (who has thrust the blade into the earth) swears that he does not know of more than the hilt being above ground, and exacts in turn that Ravengaard shall swear that he has no knowledge of the sword Sudevind [Saadering], to which Ravengaard makes oath without qualification. With the first blow Ravengaard cuts Memering's sword in two. This shows, says the duke, what deeds you have been doing. Memering strikes, and cuts Ravengaard's sword in two. Ravengaard asks his adversary to wait a moment till he can tie his shoe, stoops, and picks up the sword Sudevind; for which perjury, says Memering, thy foul soul is lost. Ravengaard now cuts a second sword of Memering's in two. Memering asks for time to tie his shoe, stoops down, and produces the sword Adelring; for which perjury, says Ravengaard, thy foul soul is lost. But Memering had been careful to swear with circumstance: he had sworn that he knew of nothing but the hilt being above ground. With one stroke he cuts Sudevind in two, and with a second Ravengaard's neck. And now Gunild may say to the duke, You see Ravengaard lied. Henry begs forgiveness. Memering, who has a broken head and leg, demands nothing more than bread the rest of his days, but Gunild says she will herself be his leech, and he shall have both bread to eat and scarlet to wear.
The trick of reserving a peculiarly formidable sword is a commonplace in northern sagas,[3] and we are not obliged to suppose that it belonged to the ballad from the beginning. No trace of it is found in the other Scandinavian versions.
The Danish versions from recent oral tradition, B, C, G-L, relate that Henry, going off on an expedition, commits Gunild to the care of Ravnlil, who forthwith demands that she shall do his will, otherwise he will tell a great lie about her. She trusts in the triumph of honesty, and defies him. Henry comes back, and inquires of Ravnlil about his wife, and Ravnlil tells his great lie: Gunild spares neither monk nor priest; he has seen the archbishop with her, C. Henry seizes Gunild by the hair, throws her to the ground and beats her; thus shall she be served till she find a kemp that will fight for her. Gunild goes to the kemp-house, and asks if there is any man that will fight for a woman. None who will fight for a whore, H, K. Memering jumps over the table, B, G, I, and offers to be her champion. At the first shock in the lists Memering's horse is brought to his knees; in the second encounter Memering takes off Ravnlil's head. Henry offers tons of gold to redeem Gunild. Shame befall him that sells her, says Memering, and rides off with Gunild, leaving Henry wringing his hands.
K, like A, represents that Gunild was wooed from all quarters before she was won by Henry. Memering, who sits lowest at the board, says to Gunild, as in A 20-23, that he had served her father eleven years, and never seen her with bare feet. In C Memering finds Gunild weeping, and, learning the reason, asks the loan of her father's horse, receives horse and armor of proof, goes where the kemps are drinking, and challenges the slanderer. The burly villain says he will take him in his left hand and chuck him out of the country, crush all his limbs with his little finger. After the fight, Memering presents Gunild with "the head that has belied her," and she carries it to Henry, who asks in wonder, Who in all my land has hewn down a man so big? Memering, the least of men, she says. Henry offers him his Sudselille, his Strudselille, his Spire, but will have Gunild for his own. Memering bids him keep his gifts; he will not resign Gunild, whom he has won. The diminutive size of Memering is noted also in B, H, I, K, and the hugeness of Ravnlil in B, G, I. In H Memering knocks off his opponent's hat in the first bout, and the head follows in the second. Now we will ride off, says Memering to Gunild; but Gunild will not budge till she has had vengeance on Henry.
The Norwegian story has lost the beginning, but agrees well with the Danish so far as it goes. Gunild goes into the kemps' hall, and asks if any man dare fight for a woman against huge Ronnegaar. All are silent but Mimmer, smallest of Christian men, who offers himself. Gunild holds him cheap for his low stature, and says he had better stay at home and keep his sheep; but he, not rebuffed, mounts his horse, seeks out Ronnegaar, and, after a three days' fight, vanquishes him and cuts off his head, which he ties to his saddle-bow and brings back in triumph.
The Icelandic ballad is in accord with the Danish until we come to the judicium dei, and then an ordeal by hot iron takes the place of the combat. So with the two Färöe copies, which, however, mix both forms, and inconsistently bring in Memering, with nothing for him to do. King Diderik replaces Henry in all three, but Spire remains the place of the action. When the returning king asks after Gunild, he is told that the archbishop has been seen lying with her, or the bishop's brother, and others besides. He seizes her by the hair and drags her from her bed, F, beats her for two days, E, F, and a third, and no one dares interfere. At last two of his children beg him to stop, D, E; ask what their mother has done, F. She has been untrue. Then let her carry iron and walk on steel. Nine times she carries iron and ten times she walks on steel, F. The conclusion is very much injured in all these copies. In the Icelandic, F, "all her iron bands fall off;" her accuser goes to infernal punishment, and she to heaven. In D, E, after the children have asked for the ordeal by fire, Gunild goes to the strand, or along the street, and meets Mimmering, smallest of Christian men, E, who says he has served her father eight years, and never saw her in such wretched plight. She then goes to another land, D; Mimmering takes her from heathen land (which at least makes him of some use), E; when she enters a church her iron bands burst. She is making gifts of a Yule day, aud gives her traducer a red ring, meaning a rope round his neck.
The names of the four actors in the Scandinavian versions are: Henry, as in English, in all the Danish copies,[4] replaced by King Diderik in Färöe D, E, Icelandic F; Gunild, or Gunder, Gunni, Gunde, in all copies, including the Norwegian; Memering, Mimmering, in all but the Norwegian and Danish H, which have the slight modifications Mimmer, Nimmering, these last, as also Färöe D, E, adding the suffix Tand. There is considerable variety, always with some likeness, in the fourth name: Raffuengaard, Danish A; Röngård, H; Ronnegaar, the Norwegian; Ravnlil, B, G, K, L, Ravnhild, I; Rundkrud Hagensgaard, C; Roysningur. Färöe D, E; Rögnvaldr, Icelandic F. Ravengaard, Röngård, Ronnegaar, with the Anglo-Latin Rodingar, presently to be mentioned, are evidently the forerunners of the English Aldingar (Sir Raldingar) and Rodingham.[5] The English Eleanor is probably a later substitution for Gunild, become unfamiliar. Eleanor may have been meant or understood for Henry Second's queen (less likely for Henry Third's, though she went into a monastery), but considering how freely the name is dealt with in English ballads, the question is hardly worth raising, and assuredly it never was raised except by editors.[6]
Memering is of diminutive size in B-E, H-K, the smallest of Christian men in E, and also in the Norwegian copy.[7] The large size of his antagonist is noted in B, C, G, I, and the Norwegian copy. His representative in English A seems no more in a man's likeness than a child of four years old. Aldingar would not have recked had there been half a hundred such; and Aldingar is as big as a fooder, "a tun of man," like Falstaff, though not so unwieldy.
Gunhild, daughter of Cnut the Great and Emma, was married in 1036 to King Henry, afterwards the Emperor Henry III, and died of the plague at Ravenna two years later, never having had any trouble with her husband. William of Malmesbury, who died only a little more than a hundred years after Gunhild, 1142 or 1143, writes of her as follows: She was a girl of extraordinary beauty, and had been sighed for in vain by many suitors before her hand was bestowed upon Henry. She was attended to the ship which was to take her to her husband by a procession so splendid that it was still in William's day the theme of popular song. After many years of married life she was denounced for adultery, and offered as her champion against her accuser (who was a man of gigantic bulk), others refusing, a mere boy that she had brought with her from England, who by miracle hamstrung her defamer. Gunhild then could not be induced by threats or blandishments to live longer with her husband, but took the veil, and passed the remainder of a long life in the service of God.[8]
It will be recognized that we have in this narrative many points of the English and Danish ballad: the beauty of the queen, English A 2; her numerous suitors, Danish A, K; the youth or under size of the queen's champion, who had previously been in the service of her family, and the huge dimensions of the other party; the triumph of weakness and innocence, and Gunhild's separating herself from Henry, Danish B, C, G-L. Nor can we well doubt that William of Malmesbury was citing a ballad, for the queen's wonderful deliverance in so desperate an extremity would be even more likely to be celebrated in popular song than her magnificent wedding, and a ballad is known to have been made upon a similar and equally fabulous adventure which is alleged in chronicle to have occurred to Gunhild's mother.
Malmesbury does not mention the names of the combatants, though he may very well have known them. These names are supplied by a French metrical life of Edward the Confessor, "translatée du Latin," of which the manuscript must have been written before 1272, and may, perhaps, be dated as early as 1245. In this poem we are told that Gunhild, having been calumniated to her husband, the Emperor Henry, was obliged by the custom of the empire to purge herself by battle, and with difficulty could find a champion, because her accuser was of gigantic size. But a dwarf, whom she had brought up, by name Mimecan,[9] undertook to fight for her, hamstrung the giant at the first blow, and at the second cut off his feet, "as the history says." The lady, thus acquitted, declined to have the emperor for her lord. The other name is given in verses describing a picture of the combat, one of many illustrations which adorn the manuscript: How the dwarf Mimecan, to redeem the honor of his mistress, fights with the huge old Rodegan, and cuts off his feet; where Rodegan is, perhaps, an adaptation of Rodingar, for rhyme's sake;[10] but we have Rodyngham in English B.
In The Chronica Majora of Matthew Paris, I, 515, ed. Luard, manuscript of the beginning of the fourteenth century, the passage in Malmesbury is repeated, with additions from other sources. The name of Gunhild's champion is given as Mimecan, and the dwarf is further said to have cut off the giant's head, as in the Norwegian version of the ballad and Danish C, and to have presented it to his mistress, as in Danish C. Brompton's Chronide, of the second half of the fourteenth century, reiterates the story of the duel, giving the names of both combatants, Mimecan (misprinted or misread Municon) and Roddyngar.[11]
It is highly probable that this story became connected with Gunhild, wife of Henry III, in consequence of her bearing the name Cunigund after her marriage, owing to which circumstance she might become confused with the consort of the Emperor St. Henry II, St. Cunigund, in whose legendary history there is a passage essentially similar. St. Cunigund's married life extended from 1002 to 1024. After Henry's death she retired to a nunnery, and she died "in the service of God," 1033, which corresponds with what Malmesbury says of Gunhild. Notwithstanding the mutual asceticism of the imperial pair, reports obtained, instigated by the devil, that Cunigund had doubly broken her vows, nor did these fail to make an impression on her husband's mind. To justify herself, Cunigund offered to walk barefoot over red-hot ploughshares, or, according to another account, to carry red-hot iron in her hands, and she went through the test without injury.[12] This form of ordeal is of the nature of what is suggested in the Färöe and the Icelandic ballad, and executed in the latter, where Gunild both walks over hot steel and carries hot iron in her hands.
Emma, Gunhild's mother, had the misfortune to be subjected to the same aspersions as her daughter and the Empress Cunigund, and was favored with the like glorious vindication. Accused of having a bishop for her lover, she asked to be submitted to the ordeal of hot iron, and walked over nine glowing ploughshares, in the church of St. Swithin, Winchester, not only without injury, but even without the consciousness of what she had done.[13] We are expressly informed tbat a ballad on the subject was sung by a minstrel in the hall of the prior of St. Swithin on the occasion of a visit of the Bishop of Winchester in 1338, in conjunction with another about the giant Colbrand.[14]
Earlier instances of a miraculous exoneration, under similar circumstances, are those of Richarda, or Richardis, wife of the Emperor Charles III, 887, and of Gundeberg, wife of the Lombard king Arioald, c. 630.
Richarda, accused of adultery with a bishop, protests, like Cunigund, not only her innocence of crime, but her intact virginity after a marriage of ten or twelve years, and offers herself to the judgment of God, either by duel or hot ploughshares; or actually proves her integrity by some form of ordeal, divino [aquino] judicio, or by passing through fire in a waxed shift, or donning a wax shift, which is set on fire at her hands and feet. Disculpated thus, she goes, like Cunigund, into a monastery for the rest of her days.[15]
Gundeberg happening to praise a certain nobleman's figure, he solicited her in shameless style, and was most contemptuously rejected. Upon this he tells the king that Gundeberg means to poison her busband and take another man, and the queen is put under confinement. Remonstrance is made by the king of the Franks, to which race Gundberg belongs, and Arioald consents to allow her to clear herself by a champion. One Pitto (otherwise Carellus) fights with the accuser and kills him.[16] If Pitto, as Bugge has suggested, and as seems more than plausible, be Little (old Italian pitetto, etc.), then the root of the Scandinavian-English story is found in the early part of the seventh century. The name Carellus may also be a significant diminutive.
Henry, in the Scandinavian ballad, accepts the testimony of the man in whose charge he had left Gunild, without asking for proof. Circumstantial evidence is offered in the English ballad; the false steward shows the king a leper lying in the queen's bed. Aldingar induces the leper to conform to his orders by promising that he shall be a sound man in two hours. Rodyngham gives the leper a drink, and lays him in the bed asleep. The queen, to the advantage of good taste, but to the detriment of the proof, is not there in either case.
We have here a link with the story of Oliva, or Sibilla, in the Charlemagne cycle of fictions. We may begin with the second section of the Karlamagnus saga, because we know that it was translated from an English copy brought home by a Norseman resident in Scotland in 1287.
Olif is here sister to Charles, and married to King Hugo. Going to the chase, Hugo leaves his wife in the care of his steward, Milon, who bad long had a passion for her, and takes advantage of this occasion to declare it. The queen threatens to have him hanged. Milon goes home, puts a potion in a mazer, returns to the queen, and, pretending that what he had said was only a jest and meant to try her virtue, asks her, in token of reconciliation, to drink the cup with him. He feigns to begin; the queen follows in earnest, and falls into a dead sleep. He lays her in her bed, administers the same drink to a black beggar, and, when it has had its effect, lays him by the queen, putting the arms of each about the other's neck. When the king comes back he wonders that his wife does not come to meet him, and asks where she is. The steward answers, as in A 8, that the queen has taken a new love, and conducts the king to his chamber. Hugo cuts off the black man's head. Every drop of his blood turns to a burning candle, which makes the king think that he has killed a holy man. But the steward says, Not so; rather she is a witch, that can make stones float and feathers sink, and urges the king, now that his sword is out, to take off the queen's head, too. The king refuses. Olif wakes, and is astounded at what her eyes behold. What means this black man in her bed! God wot, says Milon, he has long been your leman. The queen demands an ordeal, according to the law of the land; and successively proposes that she shall be put naked into a copper over a hot fire, or be thrown from a high tower on sword and spear points, or be taken in a boat out of sight of land and thrown into the water. The king is each time disposed to let her have her way, but is always dissuaded by Milon, who tells him that no such trial would signify anything with a witch of her powers. Hereupon a knight leaps up and knocks Milon down for a liar, and offers to fight him on these terms: Milon to be fully armed and on his best horse, and the challenger to have no armor, a mule for a steed, and a wooden wand for a weapon. Milon is immediately thrown, but the king is still induced to think this to be more of his wife's magic, calls his best men to council, and bids them determine what death she shall die. There is no further resemblance to our ballad. Karlamagnus Saga, Af Frn Olif ok Landres, Unger, p. 51.
A Färöe ballad, 'Óluvu kvæði,' Hammershaimb, in Antiquarisk Tidsskrift, 1846-48, p. 281, repeats this story with variations, and as we are informed by Grundtvig, I, 201, so do Icelandic rimes, 'Landres rímur,' as yet unprinted. In the Färöe ballad, after Óluva's champion (who had come with her from home, like Memering) has unhorsed her accuser, she passes the ordeal of water and fire triumphantly, and still another.
In the Spanish prose romance of Oliva (printed in 1498) and the French chanson de geste of Doon l'Alemanz (fifteenth-century manuscript), the heroine, who is now Pepin's sister, becomes the victim of slander, not in consequence of her having rebuffed an overweening lover, but because the father or uncle of the arch-traitor Ganelon had been thwarted in his plan to match his daughter or sister with the nobleman upon whom Pepin has bestowed Oliva. It is an ordinary young lad who is put into the lady's bed, and no loathsome leper or beggar. The injured woman asks for the ordeal of fire or of water, and, in the Spanish romance, when these are refused her, to be thrown from a tower. After much difficulty this right is conceded in the latter, and, like Richardis,[17] she walks through a blazing fire, in simple shift, without singeing hair or thread. But all this helps her not. F. Wolf, Ueber die neuesten Leistungen der Franzosen, u.s.w., p. 98 ff; C. Sachs Beiträge, u.s.w., p. 2 ff.
According to other forms of the same story, it is Sibilla, wife of Charles the Great, that is temporarily repudiated by her husband, owing to a false suspicion of unfaithfulness, seemingly justified by an ugly dwarf being found in bed with her. A French romance, which narrated this story, is described in the Chronicle of Alberich, a monk of the cloister of Trois Fontaines, in the diocese of Liège, writing in the first half of the thirteenth century.[18] A fragment of the latter half of such a romance, and of the same age, is preserved. A complete tale is extant in a variety of forms: Hystoria de la reyna Sebílla, in Spanish prose, French by origin, of which a full analysis is given by Ferdinand Wolf, Ueber die neuesten Leistungen, u.s.w., p. 124 ff, from a printed copy dated 1532;[19] a Dutch volksbuch, also from the French, printed not far from the same time, of which an ample account is also given by Wolf in Denkschriften der kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Phil. Hist. Classe, VIII, 180 ff; Macaire, a French romance in verse, of the thirteenth or fourteenth century, Mussafia, Altfranzösische Gedichte aus venezianischen Handschriften, II, Guessard, Les Anciens Poëtes de la France; a German metrical tale of uncertain date, 'Diu Künigin von Frankrich und der ungetriuwe Marschalk,' found in many manuscripts, von der Hagen, Gesammtabenteuer, I, 169, Meyer und Mooyer, Altdeutsche Dichtungen, p. 52; a meisterlied, 'Die Kunigin von Frankreich, dy der marschalk gegen dem Kunig versagen wart,' u.s.w., printed in the fifteenth century, and lately in Wolff's Halle der Völker, II, 255.[20] The king and queen are nameless in the last two, and the queen bears the name of Blançiflor in 'Macaire.' In the two German versions the false marshal repeats the part of the false steward in the English and Norse story; having failed with the queen, he lays a sleeping dwarf in her bed. The dwarf is principal in the Spanish and Dutch story, and after a discomfiture in which he loses some of his teeth at the vigorous hand of the queen, creeps into her bed while she is asleep. He does the same in the Venetian-French romance, thinking to get vengeance for rough handling from his mistress when acting as Pandarus for Macaire, of whose spite against the queen for, rebuking his inordinate passion he is all the while the tool.
Sibilla appears again as Sisibe, daughter of a Spanish king, married to Sigmundr, father of Sigurðr Fáfnisbani. The king, summoned to arms, entrusts her to two of his nobles, one of whom, Hartvin, proposes that she shall accept him as a husband, and is threatened with the gallows. The two represent to the king, on his return, that the queen has had a handsome thrall for her partner during his absence. Hartvin advises that she be relegated to a desolate forest and have her tongue cut out, to which Sigmundr assents. Þiðriks Saga, Unger, p. 159 ff, cc 156-59; Hyltén-Cavallius, p. 115, cc 149-51.
The first part of the English romance of Sir Triamour, or a little more than 600 verses, is derived from some French form of Sibilla. A king going on a crusade to the holy land commits his queen to the care of his steward; the steward sues the queen to accept him as a paramour, and is threatened with hanging; the steward pretends that he has only been proving her, but when the king comes home tells him that he has seen a man lying with the queen, and has slain the traitor; the king is minded to burn his wife, but is advised by the steward rather to banish her; three days are allowed the queen to quit the country, and if found after that she is to die in the fire. Percy Society, vol. XVI, ed. Halliwell; Percy Manuscript, ed. Hales and Furnivall, II, 78; Utterson, Select Pieces of Early Popular Poetry, 1,5.
In like manner, Genoveva's husband is persuaded by the false Golo, who has been charged with the care of her and has abused his trust, that his wife has admitted a cook to her favor; and Octavian's mother, in the English romance, excites her son's resentment against his innocent queen by inducing a scullion, "lothly of face," to get into the empress's bed: Weber, III 163. v, 153 ff.[21]
Another series of tales, that has likeness in parts with the story of Gunhild and of Sibilla, is represented in English by the pleasing romance of The Ed of Tolous,[22] dating from about 1400.
We read in this lay of Britain, as it is called in the last stanza, that Barnard, Earl of Toulouse, has become enamored of the Empress of Germany, with whose lord he is at strife, and has excited a certain interest in the mind of the lady. Tbe emperor selects two knights to guard his wife; these conceive a violent passion for her, and declare it, one after the other, after having obtained from her a promise of secrecy. She tells the first that he is a traitor and deserves to be hanged, and the second that he should be hanged had she not hight to hold counsel. These knights, who have been in collusion from the first, think themselves unsafe, notwithstanding the empress's promise, and conspire to be her ruin. They induce a young gentleman, for a jest, to strip himself all but bare, and hide behind a curtain in her chamber while she is sleeping; then summon "lords of bed" to help take a traitor who is with their lady in her bower, find the young man where they had put him, and bear him through the body. The lady is cast into prison. Her husband, who is far off, has a dream of two wild bears tearing his wife to pieces, and returns home with all haste. The knights tell their story. A council is called the next day, and it is decided that the empress must die (be burned). An old knight calls attention to the circumstance that the young man's tongue is stopped, and that none ever found a fault in the lady before; he advises that proclamation be made for a champion, to which the king, who loves his wife tenderly, gladly assents. The Earl of Toulouse hears of the lady's peril, and resolves to go to Germany and fight for her. This, as being on hostile terms with the emperor, he must do in disguise. By the help of an abbot, who is the empress's uncle, he obtains admission to the lady in a monk's dress, hears her shrift, and assures himself of her innocence; and then, monk as he seems, offers to do battle with the accusers. One is run through, the other yields as recreant and confesses the plot, and both are burned. The monk is revealed by the abbot, under a pledge that he shall receive no injury, to be Sir Barnard of Toulouse. The emperor treats his late foe graciously, and rewards him, even to the extent of dying in three years, when the earl is chosen his successor and weds the empress.
Of this story the following are repetitions, with variations: (1) Miracle de la Marquise de Gaudine, Manuscript of about 1400, Paris et Robert, Miracles de Notre Dame, II, 121 ff; (2) the German Volksbuch, Eine schöne und liebliche History vom edlen und theuren Ritter Galmien, printed 1539 or earlier, upon which Hans Sachs founded his play Der Ritter Galmi mit der Hertzogin auss Britanien, Keller, VIII, 261; (3) the Danish poem Den kydske Dronning, by Jeppe Jensen, 1483, Brandt, Romantisk Digtning, II, 89 ff; (4) a tale of Bandello, Second Part, No 44, Amore di Don Giovanni di Mendozza e della Duchessa di Savoia, printed 1554; (5) the French proseromance L'Histoire de Palanus, Comte de Lyon, ed. A. de Terrebasse, 1833, put before 1539. In (1) a dwarf is made to conceal himself in the lady's chamber; in (2) a scullion to boast that he is the object of her passion; in (3) a servitor is the instrument of treachery; in (4) a young gentleman; in (5) this machinery is dropped, and a slanderous letter does the mischief. In none of these is the lady a German empress; in (5) she is an English queen; in (2) of British birth. In all there is a reciprocal predilection on the part of the lady and her champion.
Spanish and Provençal chroniclers and a Spanish ballad relate a story substantially according with what we find in The Earl of Toulouse, the injured heroine being an empress of Germany, and her champion a count, in all cases but one Count Ramon of Barcelona.
In the Spanish ballad 'Romance de cómo el conde don Ramon de Barcelona libró á la emperatriz de Alemaña que la tenian para quemar,' Duran, Romancero, II, 210, No 1228, Wolf y Hofmann, Primavera, II, 102, from the Silva de Romances of 1550, two knights, with no motive given but their own wickedness, tell the emperor that they have seen the empress toying with her chamberlain. The empress is imprisoned, and casts about for two knights to defend her life against the accusers. In all the chivalry of the court there is none that will venture against appellants so redoubtable, and she is to be burned in three days. The Count of Barcelona hears the distressing intelligence, and sets out to the rescue. No one being admitted to the lady except her confessor, the count makes known to the holy father that he has come for the defence, and begs, if possible, that he may first have a word with her majesty. He has an interview, in the guise of a monk, and is properly welcomed by the empress, who expresses her confidence that he will succeed in establishing her innocence, but will not permit him even to kiss hands. Asking only to take his adversaries one at a time, the count speedily disposes of the first, when the other surrenders. The emperor, delighted with the result, wishes to show due honor to the champion, who, however, is not to be found, having returned to his estates immediately after the fight; nor is the empress at liberty to tell who he is until the third day, He is then revealed to be the flower of chivalry, the lord of Catalonia. The empress, with the approval of her husband, goes to Barcelona, attended by a magnificent train and under conduct of two cardinals, to express her gratitude in person, and is very splendidly received and entertained.
The oldest of the chroniclers, the Catalan Bernart Desclot, writing about 1300, ascribes the misfortune of the empress to a harmless partiality for a young nobleman, which was misrepresented to the emperor by two of his councillors, out of envy and spite.[23] The empress is allowed a year and a day to find a champion, in default of which she is to be burned. None of the knights to whom she has shown kindness dare offer themselves in her cause, on account of the high favor in which her accusers, who engage to make good their charge by battle, stand with their master. But a minstrel attached to the court takes it in hand to find her a defender, goes to Barcelona, and so interests the count in the case that he sets out immediately for Germany. Carbonell, c. 1500, Beuter, c. 1530, and Pujades, † 1635, all of whom rely in part on popular tradition, make the count to be Ramon Berengar III, and Beuter says that, according to the Catalans, the empress was Matilda, daughter of Henry I of England, who was married to the emperor Henry V in 1114.[24]
Provençal chronicles, Cæsar de Nostradamus's Histoire et chronique de Provence, 1614, and La Royalle Couronne des Roys d'Arles, 1641, return to the baffled steward or maître d'hôtel and his revenge. The empress is Matilda in Nostradamus, as in Beuter, and the steward simply accuses her of adultery, and offers to sustain the charge by battle. No one dares to defend the lady, because the accuser is un fort rude et dangereux champion. The steward is hanged after his defeat. In La Royalle Couronne des Roys d'Arles the emperor is said to be Henry III and the empress Matilde, fille de Camet, qui avoit esté roy de Dannemarc et estoit roy d'Angleterre. The emperor Henry V was as king of Arles Henry III. Camet, whether miswritten or not, can mean only Canut, and there is an obvious confusion between Gunild, daughter of Cnut, wife of Henry III of Germany, and Matilda, daughter of Henry I of England, wife of Henry III of Arles and V of Germany. [25] This may be an historical blunder, pure and simple, or may have been occasioned by a knowledge of the tradition concerning Gunild.
There is little or nothing in all these tales that can be historically authenticated, and much that is in plain contradiction with history.[26] Putting history out of the question, there is no footing firmer than air for him who would essay to trace the order of the development. Even if we exaggerate the poverty of human invention so far as to assume that there must have been a single source for stories so numerous and so diversified in the details, a simple exposition of the subject-matter, with subordinate connections, seems all that it is safe, at present, to attempt.[27]
A is translated, according to Percy's Reliques, by Bothe, p. 175, and by Knortz, Lieder u. Romanzen Altenglands, No 68; B by Gerhard, p. 71. The old Danish ballad, Grundtvig's A, by Dr. Prior, I, 151.
Footnotes:
1. Such dreams are not unusual in this connection: the empress has a like one in Octavian, Weber, Metrical Romances, III, 165, v. 195 ff; the emperor in The Erl of Tolous, Lüdtke, st. 68; the duke in the German Hirlanda.
2. All these Scandinavian versions were printed for the first time by Grundtvig, save two out of eleven copies of K: these two in Kristensen, I, 124, No 49, 'Mimering,' and II, 306, No 87, 'Fru Gunder i Spire.' F was subsequently printed in Íslenzk Fornkvæði, No 12, J, 78, 'Gunnhildar kvæði.' Grundtvig devoted particular attention to this ballad, and has elucidated the history of the subject in a masterly way.
3. See Flóamannasaga, Vigfússon and Möbius, Fornsögur, p. 134 f, where the whole sword is hid in the sand; Svarfdælasaga, Íslendínga Sögur, 1830, II, 132-134; Gunnlaugs saga ormstúngu, Ísl. Sög., 1847, II, 225 f; þiðriks saga, Unger, p. 206, c. 222; Sturlaugs saga starfsama, c. 10, Rafn, Fornaldar Sögur, III, 608 f; and cf. 'Orm Ungersvend og Bermer Rise,' Danmarks gamle Folkeviser, No 11: Grundtvig and Bugge. Besides the oath customary in judicial combats, that the parties believe in the justice of their cause, tbe old Frisian and Lombard laws require champions to swear that they will fight fairly and honestly, and that they have no charm concealed about them, "ne forte carminibus, vel machinis diabolicis, vel magicis artibus insidientur:" Grundtvig, I, 194 note *. Jove seems to be expected to laugh at a qualified perjury in some of the above cases.
4. Hans Hendrik in H; clearly, as Grundtvig says, a modern misunderstanding of Han Hendrik.
5. The name Raadengaard occurs in Grundtvig, No 7, A, G, H, No 12, C; Ravengaard also in No 7, D, No 12, A; Raanegaard, Ronegaard, in No 12, B.
6. Percy says that it had been suggested to him that the author of 'Sir Aldingar' "had in his eye the story of Gunhilda, who was sometimes called Eleanor, and was married to the Emperor (here called King) Henry." I have not found that Gunhilda was ever called Eleanor.
7. Little Mimmering Tand is found in several ballads. He is one of King Diderik's kemps in Grundtvig, No 7, A, and appears again in his No 16, C. Mimering is the smallest of men in Grundtvig, No 14.
8. De Gestis Regum Anglorum, I. ii, c. 12.
9. Danish and Norwegian Mimecan, Mimmering, Memering, English mimicking, mimocking, and probably minnikin, Scottish memerkyn, mynmerkin, all denote a man or object of smail size, and point to Icelandic minni = minor, minnkan, a minishing, etc.; as Bugge remarks.
10. Lives of Edward the Confessor, edited by Henry Richards Luard, p. 39 I, vv 506-531, p. 3, VII.
11. Twysden, Historim Anglicanm Scriptores Decem, col. 933. In Manuscript A of the Abbreviationes of Ralph de Diceto, ed. Stubbs, I, 174, this note is inserted in the margin (at Gunnildam imperatori Romano cum ineffabilibus divitiis maritavit): Quam Rodingarus Alemannicus impetivit de adulterio, sed Mimekinus eam defendit et Rodingarum interfecit. The Abbreviationes were written before 1200, but the date of the insertion is of course uncertain.
12. The second account in Alberti Krantzii Saxonia, lib. IV, c. 32, p. 97, ed. 1621: Grundtvig. Cunigund having publicly protested that she had never known man (not even her husband), Henry, who wished the secret kept, according to one account struck her lightly in the face, according to another squeezed her mouth together so roughly as to draw blood. Grundtvig sees in this story a correspondence with the severe beating that Henry is said, in some of the ballads, to have inflicted on Gunild
13. The trial is described with every detail in the Annals of Winchester, which may be of Henry II's time: Luard, Annales Monastici, II, 20-25. See, also, Brompton's Chronicle, Hist. Angl. Scriptores X, col. 941 f; Eulogium Historiarum, ed. Haydon. II, 184, c. 184; Rudbourn, in Wharton's Anglia Sacra, 1,233-35; etc.
14. Et cantabat joculator quidam, nomine Herebertus, canticum Colbrandi, necnon gestum Emme regiue a judicio ignis liberate, in aula prioris: Registrum prioratus S. Swithini Wintoniensis, cited by Wartun, History of English Poetry, I, 81, ed. 1840. While the ordeal was in process, we are told, the spectators were weeping "intolerably" and crying with one voice, St. Swithin, help her! now or never! Deus vim patitur. Regina sine clamore faciebat orationem: Deus, qui liberasti Susannam, tu me liberare digneris! It may be the same or another ballad on the deliverance of Queen Emma which Langland refers to at the end of the Prologue to Piers Plowman, as sung by lazy dykers and delvers, "that drive forth the long day with Dieu vous saue, Dame Emme."
15. Regino, † 915, in Pertz, I, 597; Hermannus Contractus, † 1054, and Compendium ex codice Bernoldi, Migne, Patrologia, CXLIII, col. 201; Massmann, Kaiserchronik, twelfth century, II, 415-22; Jac. von Königshofen's Chronicle, end of fourteenth century, ed. Schilter, p. 105, cited by Grimm, Hechtsalterthümer, p. 912, Grundtvig, I, 190. In the Kaiserchronik the emperor gives his wife a blow with his fist.
16. Fredegarius, Chronicon, c. 51, in Du Chesne, I, 755; Aimoinus, c. 1000, Historia Francorum, lib. IV, c. 10, in Du Chesne, III, 103. Paulus Diaconus lib. IV, c. 47, has wrongly made Gundeberg wife of Rodoald, putting the event at 652.
17. In Königshofen's Chronicle.
18. Edited by Leibnitz in Accessiones Historicæ, tom. II, Pars I, p. 105 f. The pasage relating to this romance is cited from Leibnitz by Wolf, Ueber die neuesten Leistungen, u.s.w., p. 156 f, and from a manuscript by Guessard, Macaire, p. xii f. All that is said of the dwarf is: de quodam nano turpissimo, cuius occasione dicta regina fuit expulsa
19. This tale apparently exists also in a manuscript of the end of the fourteenth century: Gayangos in Rivadeneyra's Biblioteca, Libros de Caballerias, p. lxxxiii, 'Sebilla.' Cited by Wolf.
20. See, for the last, and generally for the related literature, von Tettau, Ueber einige bis jetzt unbekannte Erfurter Drueke aus dem 15. Jahrhundert, pp 8-65. Hans Sachs has dramatized the story of the false marshal, VIII, 51, ed. Keller.
21. For Genoveva see Seuffert, Die Legende von der Pfalz-grafin Genovefa, Würzburg, 1877.
22. Ritson, A. E. Metrical Romancees, III, 93; newly and admirably edited, Berlin, 1881, by Gustav Liidtke, with a thorough investigation of the related literature, the more material part of which is furnished in appendixes.
23. This recalls Morant in Karl Meinet, Keller, 219 If, and in La gran conquista de ultramar, Wolf, Denkschriften der kais. Akad., as before, VIII, 280. Olive, in the German volksbuch Hirlanda, seems to be patterned after Morant. Hirlanda is charged with an intrigue with Olive by a graceless nobleman, and is to be burned unless vindicated by battle. Everybody is afraid of the impeachers strength and skill in fight, but he is vanquished by a mere boy (divinely assisted) and confesses his villainy. The boy is Hirlanda's long-lost son. This is a stale paraphrase of an old story.
24. Diago in his history of the counts of Barcelona contends for Ramon Berengar IV and the wife of Alfonso VII, who was crowned Emperor of Spain in 1135: Wolf, Lüdtke
25. For these chronicles and for Palanus, see F. Wolf in Jahrbücher für wissenschaftliche Kritik, 1835, 945-56, and Lüdtke, 78 ff. In the Arles chronicle, as also in Desclot, Carbonell, Beuter, etc., the empress gives the count a ring when he visits her in prison, and the same is done earlier in The Erl of Tolous; see Lüdtke, pp 80, 171, 181, 185, 191, 201, and vv 392, 1076 of the English romance. It may be noted, without the intention of suggesting any particular inference, that Arthur's queen in Le lai du Corn, v. 325 ff, to clear herself from the suspicion of loving amiss, professes herself ready to be thrown into a fire of thorns, and, should a hair of her head or any of her dress be burned, then to be dragged at a horse's heels. She owns that she had given a ring to a young donzel, who had killed a giant that had slandered Gawain, and then wished modestly to withdraw.
26. Lüdtke has endeavored, by a very carefully conducted comparison, to show the probability of an historical foundation for The Erl of Tolous in the relations of Bernard I, Count of Barcelona, with the Empress Judith, second wife of Louis le Débonnaire. By the influence of this beautiful and clever woman, Bernard, son of the William of Orange of romance, and later in his life Count or Duke of Toulouse, as his father had been, was made imperial chamberlain or prime minister, with the object of forwarding the aspirations which the empress entertained for her son Karl. Hugo, Count of Tours, and Matfrid, Count of Orleans, partisans of Lothair, stand for the empress's two lovers and enemies. Judith was accused of adultery with Bernard, and shut up in a monastery. At an assembly of the estates of the empire in 831, she declared herself prepared to refute the charge against her, and no accuser appearing, did so, when required, by an oath, after which she was restored to her rights as wife and empress. Bernard, though already incidentally purged by the empress's oath, some months subsequenlly asked the privilege of a duel with anybody that was disposed to inculpate him, and, no such person offering, in turn cleared himself by an oath. See Lüdtke, p. 98 ff, p. 209 ff. Hildegard, Louis's mother, according to tradition, labored under the same imputation as Judith, his wife; a parallel to the case of Gunild and her mother Emma. The story of Hildegard (Grimms, Deutsche Sagen, II, 102) has some resemblance to that of Repsima, Les Mille et un Jours, p. 265, Paris, 1840, and Jonathan Scott's Arabian Nights, VI, 396, 'Adventures of the Cauzee,' etc.
27. Grundtvig, admitting that the time has not come for anything more, sketches an hypothesis of the evolution and transmission of the story, "as a mere experiment," I, 208 f.
Child's Ballad Texts A-C
'Sir Aldingar'- Version A; Child 59 Sir Aldingar
Percy Manuscript, p. 68; Hales and Furnivall, I, 166.
1. Our king he kept a ffalse steward,
Men called him Sir Aldingar,
. . . . .
. . . .
2 He wold haue layen by our comely queene,
Her deere worshipp to haue betraide;
Our queene shee was a good woman,
And euer more said him nay.
3 Aldingar was offended in his mind,
With her hee was neuer content,
But he sought what meanes he cold find out,
In a fyer to haue her brent.
4 There came a lame lazer to the kings gates,
A lazar was blind and lame;
He tooke the lazar vpon his backe,
Vpon the queenes bed he did him lay.
5 He said, Lye still, lazar, wheras thou lyest;
Looke thou goe not away;
Ile make thee a whole man and a sound
In two howres of a day.
6 And then went forth Sir Aldingar,
Our queene for to betray,
And then he mett with our comlye king,
Saies, God you saue and see!
7 'If I had space, as I haue grace,
A message I wold say to thee:'
'Say on, say on, Sir Aldingar,
Say thou on and vnto me.'
8 'I can let you now see one of [the] greiuos[est] sights
that euer Christen king did see;
Our queene hath chosen a new, new loue,
She will haue none of thee.
9 'If shee had chosen a right good knight,
The lesse had beene her shame;
But she hath chosen a lazar man,
Which is both blinde and lame.'
10 'If this be true, thou Aldingar,
that thou dost tell to me,
Then will I make thee a rich knight
Both of gold and fee.
11 'But if it be false, Sir Aldingar,
That thou doest tell to me,
Then looke for noe other death
But to be hangd on a tree.
Goe with me,' saide our comly king,
'This lazar for to see.'
12 When the king he came into the queenes chamber,
Standing her bed befor,
'There is a lodly lome,' says Harry King,
'For our dame Queene Elinor!
13 'If thou were a man, as thou art none,
Here thou sholdest be slaine;
But a paire of new gallowes shall be built,
Thoust hang on them soe hye.
14 'And [a] fayre fyer there shalbe bett,
And brent our queene shalbee:'
Fforth then walked our comlye king,
And mett with our comly queene.
15 Saies, God you saue, our queene, Madam,
And Christ you saue and see!
Heere you [haue] chosen a new, new loue,
And you will haue none of mee.
16 'If you had chosen a right good knight,
The lesse had beene your shame;
But you haue chosen a lazar man,
That is both blind and lame.'
17 'Euer alacke!' said our comly queene,
'Sir Aldingar is false to mee;
But euer alacke!' said our comly queene,
'Euer alas, and woe is mee!
18 'I had thought sweuens had neuer been true;
I haue prooued them true at the last;
I dreamed in my sweauen on Thursday at eueninge,
In my bed wheras I lay,
19 'I dreamed a grype and a grimlie beast
Had carryed my crowne away,
My gorgett and my kirtle of golde,
And all my faire heade-geere.
20 How he wold haue worryed me with his tush,
And borne me into his nest,
Saving there came a little hawk,
Flying out of the east.
21 'Saving there came a little hawke,
Which men call a merlion;
Vntill the ground he stroke him downe,
that dead he did fall downe.
22 'Giffe I were a man, as I am none,
A battell I would proue;
I wold fight with that false traitor;
Att him I cast my gloue!
23 'Seing I am able noe battell to make,
You must grant me, my leege, a knight,
To fight with that traitor, Sir Aldingar,
To maintaine me in my right.'
24 'I'le giue thee forty dayes,' said our king,
'To seeke thee a man therin;
If thou find not a man in forty dayes,
In a hott fyer thou shall brenn.'
25 Our queene sent forth a messenger;
He rode fast into the south;
He rode the countryes through and through,
Soe ffar vnto Portsmouth.
26 . . . . . .
. . . . .
He cold find never a man in the south country
that wold fight with the knight soe keene.
27 The second messenger the queen forth sent
Rode far into the east;
But, blessed be God made sunn and moone!
He sped then all of the best.
28 As he rode then by one riuer side,
There he mett with a little child;
He seemed noe more in a mans likenesse
Then a child of four yeeres old.
29 He askt the queenes messenger how far he rode;
Loth he was him to tell;
The little one was offended att him,
Bid him adew, farwell.
30 Said, Turne thou againe, thou messenger,
Greete our queene well from me;
When bale is att hyest, boote is att next;
Helpe enough there may bee.
31 'Bid our queene remember what she did dreame
In her bedd wheras shee lay;
Shee dreamed the grype and the grimly beast
Had carryed her crowne away;
32 'Her gorgett and her kirtle of gold,
Alsoe her faire head-geere;
He wold haue werryed her with his tushe,
And borne her into his nest.
33 'Saving there came a little hawke,
Men call him a merlyon;
Vntill the ground he did strike him downe,
that dead he did ffall downe.
34 'Bidd the queene be merry att her hart,
Euermore light and glad;
When bale is att hyest, boote is at next,
Helpe enoughe there shalbe.'
35 Then the queenes messenger rode backe,
A gladed man then was hee;
When he came before our queene,
A gladd woman then was shee.
36 Shee gaue the messenger twenty pound,
O lord, in gold and ffee;
Saies, Spend and spare not while this doth last,
Then feitch thou more of me.
37 Our queene was put in a tunne to burne,
She thought no thing but death;
Th?e were ware of the little one
Came ryding forth of the east.
38 With a mu . . . . .
A louelie child was hee;
When he came to that fier,
He light the queene full nigh.
39 Said, Draw away these brands of fire
Lie burning before our queene,
And feitch me hither Sir Aldingar,
that is a knight soe keene.
40 When Aldingar see that little one,
Ffull litle of him hee thought;
If there had beene halfe a hundred such,
Of them he wold not haue wrought.
41 Hee sayd, Come hither, Sir Aldingar;
Thou seemust as bigge as a ffooder;
I trust to God, ere I haue done with thee,
God will send to vs [an] auger.
42 Saies, The first stroke that's giuen, Sir Aldingar,
I will giue vnto thee,
And if the second giue thou may,
Looke then thou spare not mee.
43 The litle one pulld forth a well good sword,
I-wis itt was all of guilt;
It cast light there over that feild,
It shone soe all of guilt.
44 He stroke the first stroke att Aldingar,
He stroke away his leggs by his knee;
. . . . . .
. . . . .
45 Sayes, Stand vp, stand vp, thou false traitor,
And fight vpon thy feete;
For and thou thriue as thou begins,
Of a height wee shalbe meete.
46 'A preist, a preist,' sayes Aldingar,
'Me for to houzle and shriue!
A preist, a preist,' sayes Aldingar,
'While I am a man liuing a-liue!
47 'I wold haue laine by our comlie queene;
To it shee wold neuer consent;
I thought to haue betrayd her to our king,
In a fyer to haue had her brent.
48 'There came a lame lazar to the kings gates,
A lazar both blind and lame;
I tooke the lazar vpon my backe,
In the Queenes bed I did him lay.
49 'I bad him, Lie still, lazar, where he lay,
Looke he went not away;
I wold make him a whole man and a sound
In two houres of a day.
50 . . . . .
. . . . .
'Euer alacke!' sayes Sir Aldingar,
'Falsing neuer doth well;
51 'Forgiue, forgiue me, queene, Madam!
For Christs loue forgiue me!'
'God forgaue his death, Aldingar,
And freely I forgiue thee.'
52 'Now take thy wife, thou King Harry,
And loue her as thou shold;
Thy wiffe shee is as true to thee
As stone that lies on the castle wall.'
53 The lazar vnder the gallow tree
Was a pretty man and small;
The lazar vnder the gallow tree
Was made steward in King Henerys hall.
------------
'Sir Hugh le Blond'- Version B; Child 59 Sir Aldingar
Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, III 51, 1803. Communicated to Scott by K. Williamson Burnett, of Monboddo, as written down from the recitation of an old woman, long in the service of the Arbuthnot family.
1 The birds sang sweet as ony bell,
The world had not their make;
The queen she's gone to her chamber,
With Rodingham to talk.
2 'I love you well, my queene, my dame,
Bove land and rents so clear,
And for the love of you, my queen,
Would thole pain most severe.'
3 'If well you love me, Rodingham,
I'm sure so do I thee;
I love you well as any man,
Save the king's fair bodye.'
4 'I love you well, my queen, my dame,
'Tis truth that I do tell;
And for to lye a night with you,
The salt seas I would sail.'
5 'Away, away, O Rodingham!
You are both stark and stoor;
Would you defile the king's own bed,
And make his queen a whore?
6 'To-morrow you'd be taken sure,
And like a traitor slain,
And I'd be burned at a stake,
Altho I be the queen.'
7 He then steppd out at her room-door,
All in an angry mood,
Untill he met a leper-man,
Just by the hard way-side.
8 He intoxicate the leper-man,
With liquors very sweet,
And gave him more and more to drink,
Until he fell asleep.
9 He took him in his arms two,
And carried him along,
Till he came to the queen's own bed,
And there he laid him down.
10 He then steppd out of the queen's bower,
As swift as any roe,
Till he came to the very place
Where the king himself did go.
11 The king said unto Rodingham,
What news have you to me?
He said, Your queen's a false woman,
As I did plainly see.
12 He hastend to the queen's chamber,
So costly and so fine,
Until he came to the queen's own bed,
Where the leper-man was lain.
13 He looked on the leper-man,
Who lay on his queen's bed;
He lifted up the snaw-shite sheets,
And thus he to him said.
14 'Plooky, plooky are your cheeks,
And plooky is your chin,
And plooky are your armis twa,
My bonny queen's layne in.
15 'Since she has lain into your arms,
She shall not lye in mine;
Since she has kissd your ugsome mouth,
She never shall kiss mine.'
16 In anger he went to the queen,
Who fell upon her knee;
He said, You false, unchaste woman,
What's this you've done to me?
17 The queen then turnd herself about,
The tear blinded her ee:
'There's not a knight in a' your court
Dare give that name to me.'
18 He said, 'Tis true that I do say;
For I a proof did make;
You shall be taken from my bower,
And burned at a stake.
19 'Perhaps I'll take my word again,
And may repent the same,
If that you'll get a Christian man
To fight that Rodingham.'
20 'Alass! alass!' then cried our queen,
'Alas, and woe to me!
There's not a man in all Scotland
Will fight with him for me.'
21 She breathed unto her messengers,
Sent them south, east, and west;
They could find none to fight with him,
Nor enter the contest.
22 She breathed on her messengers,
She sent them to the north;
And there they found Sir Hugh le Blond,
To fight him he came forth.
23 When unto him they did unfold
The circumstance all right,
He bade them go and tell the queen
That for her he would fight.
24 The day came on that was to do
That dreadful tragedy;
Sir hugh le Blond was not come up,
To fight for our lady.
25 'Put on the fire,' the monster said,
'It is twelve on the bell;'
''Tis scarcely ten, now,' said the king,
'I heard the clock mysell.'
26 Before the hour the queen is brought,
The burning to proceed;
In a black velvet chair she's set,
A token for the dead.
27 She saw the flames ascending high,
The tears blinded her ee:
'Where is the worthy knight,' she said,
'Who is to fight for me?'
28 Then up and spak the king himsell:
'My dearest, have no doubt,
For yonder comes the man himsel,
As bold as eer set out.'
29 They then advanced to fight the duel,
With swords of temperd steel;
Till down the blood of Rodingham
Came running to his heel.
30 Sir Hugh took out a lusty sword,
'Twas of the metal clear,
And he has pierced Rodingham
Till's heart-blood did appear.
31 'Confess your treachery, now,' he said,
'This day before you die;'
'I do confess my treachery,
I shall no longer lye.
32 'I like to wicked Haman am,
This day I shall be slain:'
The queen was brought to her chamber,
A good woman again.
33 The queen then said unto the king,
Arbattle's near the sea;
Give it unto the northern knight,
That this day fought for me.
34 Then said the king, Come here, Sir Knight,
And drink a glass of wine,
And, if Arbattle's not enough,
To it we'll Fordoun join.
--------------
'Sir Hugh le Blond'- Version C; Child 59 Sir Aldingar
Dr. Joseph Robertson's Note.Book, January 1, 1830, p. 6.
1 They've putten her into prison strang,
A twalmon lang and mair,
Until the mice and wild rattens
Did tear her yallow hair.
2 'One shake o your han,' said Rodingham,
'One shak o your han gie me:'
'I cam na here for shaking hans,
But to fight maist desperatelie.'
3 'It's nae ten strucken on the clock,
Nor eleven on the bell:'
'We'll doe ill deeds anew ere night,
Tho it were strucken twall.'
End-Notes
A. 22. Perhaps we should read to betray.
42. was lind.
54. in 2.
133. be bul: t torn off, and one stroke of the u dotted. Furnivall.
174. Sr before Euer crossed out. Furnivall.
191. dreamed the grype.
241,3. 40.
284. 4.
303, 343. next should, perhaps, be nyest.
321. kirt e.
324. her nest.
361. 20ii.
381. The rest of the line is cut away.
403. 100.
453. thriue: one stroke of the u is left out. Furnivall.
494. 2.
521. thou K.
523. is a.
B. 284. as ere
Additions and Corrections
P. 33, note. Octavian, ed. Sarrazin, p. 8, 195 ff, p. 72, 157 ff.
40 a, the second paragraph. There are five copies of the Färöe ballad. The copy in the Antiquarisk Tidsskrift was made up from four. A fifth, printed by Hammershaimb in Færøsk Anthologi, p. 188, No 25, has a widely divergent and very inferior story. There is no ordeal by battle. Oluva asks to be subjected to three probations, sea, fire, and a snake-house, and comes off triumphantly. Mylint, her slanderer, is so absurd as to propose to try the snake-house, and is torn to pieces ere he is half in. Oluva goes into a cloister.
Pp. 37-43. The first adventure of the fragmentary romance of Joufrois affords this story. Count Richard of Poitiers has a son Joufrois. The boy begs his father to send him to the English court, that King Henry may knight him. The English king receives him well, but he remains a vaslet for some time. The seneschal of the court endeavors to win the queen's amisté, but fails. He tells the king that he has seen the queen in bed with a kitchen-boy, and Henry swears that she shall hang or burn. The vaslet Joufrois offers to prove the seneschal a liar, and begs to be knighted for that purpose. Everybody thinks him mad to undertake battle with the seneschal, who is an unmatched man-at-arms: li biaus vaslet estoit enfens. The fight takes place at Winchester. Joufrois' sword is broken, but he picks up a piece of a huge lance and disables his adversary with a blow on the arm. Joufrois then threatens to cut off the felon's head if he does not retract, and as the seneschal prefers death to eating his words, this is done. Joufrois, Altfranzösisches Rittergedicht, ed. Hofmann und Muncker, vv. 91-631, pp. 3-18. (G. L. K.)
P. 33 f. The child champion in A. (Compare also the notes to No 90, II, 513 b, III, 515 b.) Children who distinguish themselves by valorous exploits, and even get the better of heroes, are especially common in Bulgarian epos. A child of three days kills a monster that stops the way of a marriage-train, and then requires the guests to come to its baptism: Miladinof, p. 79, No 59. Marko Kraljević is vanquished by one of these, seven years old: Miladinof, p. 173, No 121; Kačanofskij, pp. 341-55, Nos 151-55. In Kačanofskij, p. 355, No 156, the child is but seven months old. More of this extravagance in Miladinof, p. 266, No 173; Sbornik of the Ministry of Instruction, I, 59, No 4. (W. W.)
35, note. In The Order of Combats for Life in Scotland, Spalding Club Misc., II, 387 (of uncertain date), the second oath to be proposed to the parties is, that they have not brought into the lists other armor or weapons than was allowed, neither any engine, charm, herb, or enchantment, etc.
[P. 33, 511 b, III, 508 a, IV, 462 a. For parallels, including the child champion, see R. Köhler's account of the Breton mystery of Sainte Tryphine, Revue Celtique, I, 222 ff. F. N. Robinson.]