Bluegrass Messengers

Humour in Traditional Ballads (Mainly Scottish)

by W. F. H. Nicolaisen

Folklore, Vol. 103, No. 1 (1992), pp. 27-39
 

W. F. H. NICOLAISEN
 

THE title of this essay probably deserves some explanation, as it may well sound contradictory; perhaps a question mark at the end of it might seem appropriate. However, while acknowledging that traditional ballads are not renowned for their humorous disposition, rib-tickling allusions to human foibles, and fun-loving reporting of acts of comedy, I contend that their attempts at humour are much more extensive and much more typically ballad-like than the usually slim sections entitled 'Humo(u)r' in collections of ballads or folksongs seem to admit. Ever since Francis James Child, or perhaps even some of his predecessors, the notion of ballad has been equated with, or at least closely associated with, the deeply tragic elements in life. This is certainly the case with regard to what in the Scots tradition are called the 'Muckle Sangs' which appear to deny that there can be anything muckle or great about comic themes. Silent chuckles, boisterous laughter and untrammelled hilarity are not expected reactions to the outcome of stories narrated in song by balladeers.
 

Much of this lopsidedp erspectivea ppearst o be due to the criteriaw hich Child applied when he put together his famous canon of 305 ballad types' and labelled them traditionaal nd popular,s o that when we use Bertrand Bronson's w idely accepted definition of a ballad as 'a song that tells a story' we are almost tempted to qualify the noun story by the epithet tragic. It is practically inevitable to link the term 'traditional ballad' immediately with 'Edward', 'Lord Randall', 'Barbara Allen',

'The Twa Sisters', 'The Cruel Mother', 'Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard', 'The Wife of Usher's Well', 'The Dowie Dens

o' Yarrow', 'Tam Lin', 'Sweet William's Ghost', 'Lambkin', 'Sir Patrick Spens', 'The Bonnie Earl o' Moray' and the like, or with one of the songs relating less personally some of the tragic events of Scottish history, like 'Harlaw' or 'Chevy Chase'. One would have to look at such storying songs from a very oblique angle to detect humour here, and yet it has sometimes struck me that the stark goriness in the final scene of'Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard"-in which, by the way, the cuckolded husband is sometimes said to be away at some kind of English academic institution, 'languages for to learn' itself a statement that should be raising a smile rather than an eyebrow in the right quarters-it has sometimes struck me, when observing my students' reactions to this extremely bloody ending of a night of illicit, but oh so ecstatic, love-making. that it is not without its subtle

touches of, admittedly somewhat misplaced, humour. How else could a lover when, at dawn, surprised with someone else's wife by that wife's very husband w hom he has thought far away from his convenient hide-out, his 'bower at Buckleford's Berry' reply to the teeth-gnashing question regarding his enjoyment of that husband's 'coverlet and sheet' that he has enjoyed the company of the woman most of all? Or is there any reason why one should not smile just a little at the magnanimous husband's insistence that the rival lover put on his clothes before, as it turns out, having his head split in two, so that it cannot be said that the great lord has 'killed a naked man'? There is something so ludicrously incongruous in that confrontation between the big, grim knight in armour and the little man without a stitch still joyously limp after an exhausting night in the knightly bed between the thighs of the knightly lady, that it almost ameliorates what is otherwise one of the bloodiest climaxes to any traditional ballad I know.

 

Just as I have yet to find a listener to that ballad whose unequivocal response is of the 'serves him right' kind, so audience allegiances in 'The Gypsy Laddie' are difficult to define and to predict, for the ballad allows the listener to identify, according to his or her disposition,w ith any of the three main characters: the deserted husband, the wife seeking to escape from the constraints of the daily routine of castle-keeping and childrearing, o r the gypsy-tempter who offers her that dream of freedom and the simple life. The seemingly unreasonable and certainly unexpected spurning by the wife of the soft featherbeds he has so far enjoyed, in favour of the rough earth of the gypsy encampment, permits the tiniest of humorous reactions, although the evidently puzzled but not yet angry jilted husband would, one might safely assume, not agree.
 

Even in 'Sir Patrick Spens', that maritime ballad of relentless inevitability, of petty court intrigue, and of loyalty divided between one's king and one's professional skills and reputation as a sailor, the fleeting picture of the land-lubber courtiers mincingly

boardingt he ship in their completely unsuitable 'cork-heeled shoen' evokes a momentary wry smile while symbolically anticipating the disastrous end of the ill-advised and illfated voyage from Scotland to Norway at the wrong time of year.
 

Undoubtedly there are other such mildly or pointedly comic, or at least tragi-comic, vignettes in that large corpus of otherwise profoundly moving and disturbing narrative

songs but, althoughi t may be possiblet o distil a miniatureo f humouro ut of them, foolish

would be the scholar, whether folklorist or literary critic, whose hopes of constructing an essay on 'Humour in Traditional Ballads' were to be based on the flimsy tinsel of their accumulated evidence, for typically, in their very essence, most great ballads tell of tragicm omentsa nd acts and of their consequences-of patricide, fratricide, infanticide; of all kinds of murder done; of stabbings, poisonings, and cleavings; of deaths at sea,in battle and in drownings; of treachery, betrayal, and blackmail; of disasters affecting whole communities, or of domestic crimes fatal to a few; of elopements, love-sickness, and rakishness; of revenge, despair, and unspeakable cruelty; of depravity, cunning, and abandonment; of disaffection, j ealousy, a nd greed; of misplaced desire, self-imposed e xile, and the last words on the gallows; of the dead returning, of grief immeasurable, and of lovers united in their graves; a catalogue of woes, wickedness, and worse; human life as a vale of tears and of sins committed and punished, a hopeless world in which suffering kills all joy, and pain mutes all smiles.
 

It would be easy at this point to say that the 'folk' sang about tragedy because tragedy was indeed the keynote of their existence, but we have to remember that, in these ballads, most of the actors who initiate, are affected by, or suffer from, the tragic events narrated are members of the aristocracy. the great and powerful in the land or at least those who live in castle and hall, and not in cottage or hovel. The folk may indeed be singing about events, doings and occurrences which are part of their own lives but are removing them geographically and socially; this distancing becomes therapeutic, and the listening is

therefore less painfully immediate. There may not be complete healing in those songs but they contain some temporary relief. Awe and wonderment displace personal hurt and debilitating hopelessness.
 

Well, this is obviously not the stuff that an essay on 'Humour in Traditional B allads' is successfully made on, and we have to widen our horizons a little or, perhaps more appropriately, narrow them to the everyday w orld of the 'folk' themselves in order to discover where ballad humour has its being. In spite of what I said earlier about Child's selection c riteria, his canon of 305 balladt ypes-the so-called Child Ballads- is not without examples of the humorous, but it is probably symptomatic of his own perspective on balladry that several of them are placed towards the end of his corpus in the higher numbers, especially in the 270s. It is to this cluster of ballads, known as Child 274, 275, 277 and 278, that we turn first. As a testimony to their popularity, all of them have been recorded in many versions on both sides of the Atlantic, but as this is not an essay centrally concerned with ballad variation and distribution, I have in practically all cases selected a Scottish version as my chosen representative. In ballads, a s in all manifestations of folk culture, 'variation in repetition' is the key principle, and the examples quoted should therefore not be regarded as better or truer to type or, worse, as the type itself.
 

Rather, t hey are paraded h ere because I feel more comfortable w ith the Scottish versions and, morei mportantly, because t he language i n which their stories a re t old, Scots, seems to lessen the distance that so often separates the sung performance f rom the printed text. Somehow, Scots gives the impression of having a greater capacity, one might almost say voracity, for the comicalt han Standard English, and its essential regionality o ffers f urther advantages in this respect.
 

Child 274 is known under the generic title of 'Our Goodman'. It is the classical instance of a story about a cuckolded husband whose strong and understandable suspicions are allayed by his quick-witted wife. Its conclusion, at the end of half a dozen s tanzas displaying incremental repetition, leaves it open whether he has tumbled to the facts of his married life or not; one rather suspects that he has not. In the performed version, at the apex of the conjugal dialogue in each stanza, the questions and answers are spoken, not sung, highlighting their centrality through contrast. This version was sung by a Mrs. Gillespie

in Glasgow in 1905.[2]
 

Hame cam oor goodman, an' hame cam he,

An' he got a horse in a stall where nae horse should be.

'An' how cam this horse here, an' how can it be?

An how cam this horse here withoot the leave o' me?'
 

(Spoken') A horse?' quo' she; 'Ay, a horse,' quo he.

'Yea ul' blin' dottered carle, b linnerm at ye be,

It's but a little milk coo my minnie sent to me.'

(Spoken')A milk coo'? quo' he; 'Ay, a milk coo,' quo' she.

'Far hae I ridden an' muckle hae I seen,

But a saddle on a milk coo saw I never neen.'
 

Hamec am oor goodmana, n' hamec am he,

An' he got a pair o' boots where nae boots should be.

'How cam this boots here, an how can it be?

An how cam this boots here withoot the leave o' me?'

(Spoken) 'B oots?' quo' she, 'Ay, b oots,' quo' he.

'Yea ul' blin' dottered c arle, blinner mat ye be,

It's but a pair of water stoups my minnie sent to me.'

(Spoken)' W aters toups'? q uo' he; 'Ay, w aters toups,' quo' she.

'Far hae I ridden, an' muckle hae I seen,

But laces upon water stoups saw I never neen.'
 

Stanza 3 containsa suspicious-looking staff (walking stick) which the wife explains away as a pottage stick given to her by a relative, while her husband maintains that he has never seen 'siller heids' on such a kitchen implement. In stanza 4, the object of suspicion is a man's hat which according to the wife is a hen's nest, an explanation which does not satisfy the husband who claims that he has never seen ribbons on nests. A 'muckle coat' arouses the husband's suspicion in stanza 5; it is quickly turned into 'a pair o' blankets' by the wife, although the husband wants the buttons explained. Finally things become personal:
 

Hame cam oor goodman an' hame cam he,

An' he got a man i' the bed where nae man should be.

'O how cam this man here, an' how can it be?

An' how cam this man here withoot the leave o' me?[']

(Spoken) 'A man?' quo' she; 'Ay, a man,' quo' he.

'Ye aul' blin' dottered carle, blinner mat ye be,

It's but a little milkmaid my minnie sent to me.'

(Spoken) 'A milkmaid?' quo' he; 'Ay, a milkmaid,' quo' she.

'Far hae I ridden an' muckle hae I seen

But lang-bearded milkmaids saw I never neen.'
 

The next ballad type in the Child canon, No. 275, derives its title 'Get Up and Bar the Door' from the crucial marital dispute in its story (repeated in the chorus), the refusal by both husband and wife to secure the door against the wind after they have already comfortably gone to bed, and from their pact that whoever speaks the first word will have to get up and put the bar on. Their stubbornness about not giving in is carried to an extreme, under some very provocative circumstances. Although this version was sung by a Mrs. E. H. McKeen in Sherbrooke, Nova Scotia, in 1950, it is obviously a direct import from Scotland. Bronson has twenty versions.[3]
 

It fell about the Martinmas time

And a gay time it was then O,

That our guid wife had puddings to make

She boiled them in a pan O,

For the barring of oor door weel, weel, weel,

For the barring of oor door weel.
 

And the wind blew hard fae north to south

And it blew across the floor O,

Says oor guidman to oor guidwife,

'Get up and bar the door O.'

'My hands are in the husseyskep

Guidman as ye may see O,

If it shouldna be barred these hunner's years

It'll no be barred by me O.'
 

So the pact is made, and the evening passes on in resolute silence until, at midnight, two benighted travellers enter through the unbarred door and request shelter. Only silence greets them. Irritated, one of the travellers proposes that his companion should shave off the old goodman's beard, while he himself kisses the goodwife. There is, however, a slight problem, as the second visitor points out:
 

'But there's nae water in the hoose,

And what shall we do then O?'

'What ails ye at the pudding-bree

That boils into the pan O?'

 

Then up jumps our guidman

And an angry man was he O,

'Ye kissed me wife before me face

And sca'dm e with pudding-bree O. '

Then up jumps our guidwife

And made three skips across the floor O,

'Guidman y e spoke t he foremost word,

Ye'll rise and bar the door O.'
 

Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew has a folk-cultural counterpart in Child 277, called officially 'The Wife Wrapt in Wether's Skin' but better known in Scotland and Britain as 'The Wee Cooper o' Fife'. It tells the story of a young bride who thinks herself too 'gentle' i.e. too well bred, to do the hard work that was required of housewives in her time, and of how the husband, while not a wife-beater, gives her a good thrashing after having put a sheepskin on her and how, as a consequence, he makes her willing to do all the jobs necessary about the house. Of the sixty-two versions in Bronson, I have chosen one of the fullest, again sung for the well-known collector, the Rev. J. B. Duncan, by Mrs. Gillespie in 1905. The singer had learned it from her father.[4] (The refrains are of course to be repeated in each verse).
 

There wis a wee cooper wha lived in Fife

Nickity nackity noo', noo', noo'

An he has gotten a gentle wife

Hey Wullie Wallacky how John Dougall

A lane quo Rushety roue, roue, roue'

She widna bake she widna brew

For the spoilin o her comely hue

She widna card nor she widna spin

For the shamin o her gentle kin

She widna wash and she widna wring

For the spoilin o her gouden ring

The cooper's awa to his wool pack

He's laid a sheep's skin on his wife's back

I'll no thrash you for your proud kin

But I will thrash my ain sheep's skin

O I will bake an I will brew

I'll never mair think on my comely hue

I will card and I will spin

An never mair think o my gentle kin

O I will wash an I will wring

An never mair think on my gouden ring

An ye wha hae gotten a gentle wife

Send ye for the cooper o Fife

 

Child 278, 'The Farmer's Curst Wife', is nowadays sung much more frequently in North America than in Britain, as the majority of Bronson's seventy-one versions seem to indicate, but the version included here, which is found in the Macmath MS, was sung

by Miss Jane Webster, Kirkcudbrightshire, on August 27, 1892. She herself had learned it many years before from the singing of one Samuel Galloway at Airds of Kells. In the case of this song, the curse 'Oh, go to hell' appears to have worked, for the devil himself appears as the farmer is ploughing his field and, to the farmer's great delight, takes the nagging wife to his domicile in the infernal regions.[5]

The auld Deil cam to the man at the pleugh,

Rumchy ae de aidie

Saying, I wish ye gude luck at the making o yer sheugh.

Mushy toorin an ant tan aira.
 

'It's neither your oxen nor you that I crave;

It's that old scolding woman, it's her I must have.'
 

'Ye'rew elcomet o her wi a' my gude heart;

I wish you and her it's never may part.'
 

She jumped on to the aul Deil's back,

And he carried her awa like a pedlar's pack.
 

However, she turns out to be too much even for the devils, for on seeing 'seven wee deils' 'she took up a mell and she murdered them all'. To her husband's sorrow she is carried back to her earthly home still nagging and, as some American versions have it, 'ten times worse'.
 

It is obvious why Child placed these four ballad types together in his collection: they all tell of the precarious relationship between husband and wife, a relationship which is depicted more like a battlefield than a co-operative venture. In three of them, the wife is the winner, only the wee cooper of Fife is clever enough to devise a ruse which allows him, by some drastic and presumably painful means, to subdue his spouse and to force upon her the role that is expected of her in the society of their day and for the economic well-being of his household. The large number of versions of these ballads, both old and contemporarys, ung by both men and women, testifies to the popularity of the humorous treatment of this central theme in folk-culture. As singers and audiences are mostly personally aware of the unlimited opportunities for attempts at lopsided domination, of a little fun on the side, of misplaced gentility, of constant dissatisfaction by one of the marriage partners in a social climate in which separation or divorce is not a serious alternative or available solution, they also knowt he rolet hat humourc an play in alleviating such situations, or at least lessening such conflicts. A little laughter goes a long way under the circumstancesa, nd it is worth noting that what used to be called the weaker sex is, in the keen perception of the folk, more often than not the winner.
 

The popularity and humorous treatment of this perennial and ubiquitous theme of conjugal b liss turned sour, which will find affectionate acceptance as long as human beings have to discover for themselves possible ways of living with each other in close proximity, is confirmed by one of the bothy ballads from the Scottish north-east printed by Ord in his extensive collection. Certain listeners may refuse to see anything funny in the story of 'The Bad Wife', and the lamenting husband would undoubtedly agree with them, but the figure of the 'hen-pecked husband' is a well-known stock character in folk comedy.[6]

 

As soon as I got married, a happy man to be,

My wife turned out a sorry jade, we never could agree;

For what I thought my greatest bliss was grief without compare,

And a' the cause o' my complaint's she's mine forever mair.
 

For she's aye plague, plaguing, and she's aye plaguing me;

She's aye plague, plaguing, and never lets me be.

And if I choose to speak a word she flies like fire frae flint;

I daurna ca' my house my ain, nor anything that's in't,

My very hair I daurna' cut, my claes I daurna wear,

An' o' baith claes and siller, too, she keeps me naked, bare.

For she's aye strip, stripping, etc.
 

In stanzas 4, 5 and 6, the husband complains about her dirty ways of cooking, her moody contrariness in conversation and her disapproval of his social pleasures, with often painful consequences. He therefore comes to the conclusion:
 

That marriage is a Paradise I've often heard folk tell,

But for my ain part, first and last, I think it worse than hell;

An' yet there is a comfort left, ae comfort and nae mair,

The pangs o' death will break the bonds and bury a' my care.

For she'll soon, soon bury, an' she'll soon bury me,

She'll soon, soon bury, an' then she'll let me be.
 

That not all men resort to resignation and meek submission under such adverse circumstances is proved by 'Johnny Sands', the protagonist of another bothy ballad. Seemingly at the end of his tether as a result of his wife's perpetual scolding, he agrees

to put an end to his life, with her help. However, things are not always what they seem to be, as the deceived wife discovers to her discomfiture. Being able cunningly to turn the tables on one's 'opponent' in marital warfare, especially when there seems to be no way of gaining the upper hand, appears to have received smiling approval by folk audiences (and singers).' The song opens with Johnny's apparent misery--'He said that he was tired of life,/And she was tired of him.' His wife proves co-operative:
 

Says he, Then I will drown myself;

The river runs below.

Says she, Pray do, you silly elf,

I wished it long ago.

Says he, Upon the brink I'll stand,

Do you run down the hill

And push me in with all your might.

Says she, My love, I will,

Says she, My love, I will.

For fear that I should courage lack,

And try to save my life,

Pray, tie my hands behind my back.

I will, replied his wife.

She tied them fast as you may think,

And when securely done;

Now stand, she says, upon the brink

And I'll prepare to run,

And I'll prepare to run.

 

All down the hill his loving bride

Now ran with all her force

To push him in, he stepped aside,

And she fell in, of course.

Now splashing,d ashingl ike a fish;

Oh, save me, Johnny Sands.

I can't, my dear, though much I wish,

For you have tied my hands,

For you have tied my hands.
 

The 'story' is, or course, not confined to the north-east of Scotland, and its central motif is enjoyed in many parts of the English-speaking world.
 

That maritalh appinessi n a physicals ense is sometimesp articularlyd ifficultt o achieve

when there is a considerable age gap between the partners is also not lost on the folk.

The ballad which follows therefore sings of a young girl's experience who is persuaded

to marry an old man, and of the good and heartfelt advice which she offers to other

girls her age. The variant I have chosen is one of the so-called 'other' ballads in the late

Jeannie Robertson'sr epertoire.[8] The first two stanzasa re mere generalizedc omplaint,

but then the discontented bride's lament becomes more specific:
 

When we went to wer tea,

He startedt easingm e.

When we went to wer tea, me being young.

When we went to wer tea

He startedt easingm e:

Maids, when you're young never wed a auld man.

When we went to wer bed,

He lay as he was dead.

When we went to wer bed, me being young.

When we went to wer bed,

He lay as he was dead:

Maids, when you're young never wed a auld man.

For he has no too-rool,

Or right fal-a-doora0l,.

He has no tooral, or right fa-la-day;

For he has no tooral

To fill up my dooral0, ;

Maids, when you're young never wed a auld man.

What is missing in Jeannie's version is the account of the self-help to which the frustrated

girl resorts even before her wedding night is over; for in other variants we learn in an

additional stanza that9

When he was fast asleep

Out of his room did I creep, me being young,

Into the armso f a handsomey oungm an.

For he had his too-rooral,

His right fal-a-doora.l.,.

The folk obviouslyw atcheds uch potentiallye mbarrassingsi tuationsw ith greati nterest.

What they are saying is: Young girls, if you must marry a man much older than yourself

 

HUMOUR IN TRADITIONAL BELIEFS (MAINLY SCOTTISH) 35

make sure first that there is a reasonably good-looking young male around who, if need

be, can step into the breach. It would, however, be misleading to regard this song simply

as a 'come-all-ye' for eminently nubile young girls; sexually over-ambitious elderly

gentlemenm ighta lso find some helpfull essoni n it, and its generalt enorc an be appreciated

by everybodyin the audience.I t distilsl ife'se xperiencen ot just for youngw omend esperate

for that ring and for grey-beardse ager to rejuvenatet hemselves with the assistanceo f

a young wife, but for the whole community.

Of course, married life and its disputes are preceded by courtship when male and female

pursuee ach other with guile, with ruses, with perseverancei,n a stateo f mind and heart

which makest hem particularlyp rone to mishaps. As a kind of necessaryc ounterweight

to the 'Muckle Sangs', however, the general context for such courtship ballads is that

Johnnie get his Jean, and Jean gets her Johnnie. In fact, it is probably fair to say that,

at leasti n the bothyb alladsh, appye ndingsb y faro utnumberu nhappyo nes. Embarrassing

moments, comic misunderstandingsa, nd thwarteds trategiesa re thereforeu sually only

temporary setbacks which delay achieving the desired goal for a while but do not rule

it out altogether.B allad scholarshiph as concentrateds o much on the tragict hemes and

events that one gets the erroneousi mpressiono f people in the folk-culturarl egisterb eing

constantly weighed down by doom and gloom, unable to stand back and extricate

themselves from a life of misery. This is by no means the case, and the 'folk'-certainly

the ones who composed, sang and listened to these songs-had a knack of laughing at

their very real hardships and genuine sufferings, as well as at the many good things in life.

One of the age-oldc omic themes of folk-narrativew, hethers pokeno r sung, is the clash

between parental control and the desire for greater freedom by adolescent children on

the threshold of adulthood. In the next song, called 'Half Past Ten' the courting young

lass manages to extend her curfew and the strict bedtime imposed by her father, by a

clever ruse which allows her to see her lover for much longer than she would normally

have been permitted.1"

I mind when I courted my ain wifie Jean,

Though aften I gaed, she little was seen;

For her father, the elder, like a' godly men,

Aye steekith is door abouth alf-pastte n.

Ae SacramenSt abbathI saw Jeanieh ame,

Ony lad wi' his lassie wad hae dune the same;

We crackit sae lang at the cosy fire-en'

That the time slipt awa't ill nearh alf-pastte n.

The worthym an read,s yne ferventlyp ray'd,

And when he was dune he solemnly said-

'It has aye been a rule-but 'tis likely ye ken-

That we steeka ' our doorsa bouth alf-pastte n.'

The hint was eneuch for a blate lad like me,

But I catch'da bit blinko ' Jeanie'sb lacke 'e,

As much as to say-Come ye back to the glen,

An' ye'll maybes tayl angert han half-pastte n.

The girl's device is to stop the hands of the clock next time the lad comes visiting; her

father discovers the trick because when he rises at 4 a.m. the clock still says less than

 

36 W. H. NICOLAISEN

half past ten, even though hens are cackling and the cock crowing. However, all ends

merrily:

It was a' settled then that Jean should be mine,

The waddin's une followed;a n' we'vea ye sin syne

Lived happyt hegithera, n' hope to the en'

We'lla ye mind that nicht an' its half-pastte n.

An' noo a wee bit advice I wad gie,

Ne'ers tinty oungf olks't imew hent heyg angt o a spree;

I'm a faither mysel', but brawly I ken

That the fun juist beginsa booth alf-pastte n.

Since darknessis almosta universalp reconditionfo r secreta ssignationas nd the activities

forw hich they arem ade,t herei s alwayst he possibilityo f one of the two partnersb estowing

his or her affections on the wrong person. Courtship ballads are not slow in recognising

the comic possibilities of such situations. The song which follows, 'Kissing in the Dark',

tells of such a case of mistaken identity, fortunately without any ill effects, except for

some blushes and acute embarrassment." The narrator hero explains that it was his

custom to visit his Jeanie at night, and when she came out of her mother's house to

meet him, he would kiss her in the dark.

Ae nicht I gaed to see her,

And my Jeanie bein' frae hame,

I slippit to the window

And I rattled at the pane;

Oot cam'J eanie'sm ither,

And the nicht it bein' sae dark,

I took her in my airms

And kissed her in the dark.

She ruggit, and she tuggit,

And she tried to get awa';

But I held her aye the closer,

And I gae her ither twa';

Then oot she burst a-lauchin',

Says, 'This is awfa' wark,

To tousle an aul' body

And to kiss her in the dark.'

The embarrassedy oung man tries to run away,b ut is forcedt o remainu ntil Jeaniec omes

home and is told the whole story. Once again, all ends well; the young people marry,

and soon afterwardJse anie'sm otherd ies, leavinga ll her moneyt o her son-in-lawt,o gether

with her blessing 'for the kissing in the dark'. It is doubtful, however, whether mistaking

one's future mother-in-lawf or one's future wife always has such beneficial results.

In the spatial arrangementso f such courtship scenes and night-visitings ongs, doors

and windows play important parts, as we have just seen, in separation imposed or

separation overcome; sometimes just a little opening seems to be full of promise-not

always, however, with the desired results, as the song of 'The Bonnie Wee Window'

demonstrates.'2

 

HUMOUR IN TRADITIONAL BELIEFS (MAINLY SCOTTISH) 37

There was a young lass, and her name it was Nell,

In a bonnie wee house wi' her grannie did dwell,

The house it was wee, but the windows were less,

It had but four panes and ane wanted gless.

'Twas a bonnie wee window, a sweet little window,

The bonniest window that ever ye saw.

One night young Johnnie comes courting, and pokes his head through the window to

steal a kiss-only to find that he is stuck and cannot get back again. His shouting and

curses rouseN ell's grandmotherw, ho rushes out and belaboursJ ohnniew ith the poker.

As he struggles to get free, the whole window-frame is ripped away from the wall and

remains hanging round his neck.

As soon as the window in ruins did lie,

Auld granniel et out such a horriblec ry,

It alarmeda ' the neighbours-lad,l ass, man, and wife,

And caused poor Johnnie to rin for his life

Frae the bonnie wee widow, etc.

O'er hill and o'er dale he pursued his way hame,

Like a bear that was hunted, ne'er lookin' behin';

Andt he neighbourtsh eyf ollowedw i' clamoura nds queals,

While some o' them hunted their dogs at his heels,

As he ran frae the window, etc.

When Johnnie got hame, wi' a hatchet did he

Fraeh is woodenc ravats yne set himsel'f ree;

But he vow'd that the deil micht tak' him for his ain

If he e'er kissed a lass through a window again,

Be she ever sae bonnie, or live wi' her grannie,

Or the bonniest wee lassie that ever he saw.

These are just three examples of a genre that undoubtedly made, and still makes, the

folk laugh. Like Child, many scholars may feel that their themes are too trivial, their

ambiencei s too undistinguisheda nd their treatmentt oo lightweightf or them to be ranked

artistically among the best ballads, and perhaps such critics are right insofar as these

songs are rathert he equivalentso f what the Germans call Schwankliederc,o mic songs

about mishaps, pranks and embarrassing incidents. This is, in the end, a matter of

terminology and of the concepts it represents, and not necessarily one of function,

aesthetics and intrinsic value. If, from the outset, we exclude most songs that tell a funny

story or display humour of some kind, from our central canon of traditional ballads, or

assign them places on the fringe of it, then, of course, such humorous songs are not

balladsi n the propers ense of that term;b ut in additiont o the unsatisfactoryin volvement

in petty genre-mongeringw e are, in doing so, enteringt he long and continuing debate

and controversy over the relative merits of tragedy and comedy in which the latter has

seldom had a good press. In my own view, it may be wiser and more appropriate for

us to regard all narrative songs as ballads and to deal with their several manifestations

under that general heading. It is probably significant in this respect that the English

language( andt hat includest he jargono f English-speakinfgo lkloristsh) as neverd eveloped

a term equivalent to the German Schwank, perhaps because its specific reference to a

particular kind of content is not a suitable classificatory device for a major narrative

 

38 W. E H. NICOLAISEN

category. The absence of such a term in English certainly permits us to look upon the

songs used in this essay as illustrations, as the humorous sub-genre of what academics

have come to term 'ballads ', regardless of etymology or folk-usage. Be that as it may,

the Scottish song tradition is demonstrably not lacking in humour and does not confine

that humour to the music hall.

It would be wrong, however, to give the impression that such humour is only to be

found among the songs telling and retelling the delicious, exciting, titillating aspects of

the kaleidoscopicr elationshipbs etweenm en and womeno f all ages,e speciallyi n courtship

and in marriage. One other major theme is concerned with the hard work of the farm

labourer and the funny incidents of farm life. Songs on this theme frequently make

reference to particular farms and farmers, their good qualities and, especially, their bad

habits. Some of the best known are ballads such as 'Drumgeldie', 'The Barnyards o'

Delgaty' or 'The Muckin' o' Geordie's Byre', the hilarious incidents of which have never

been told better than by the late Jimmie MacBeth.

'The Tarves Rant' is a prime example of this type of song. It tells a story of the common

conflict between individual freedom and restraining authority, especially if the latter is

sober and the former is not.13 Its anonymous hero, a cowhand on a farm, goes to a pub

called Duthies, where there is fine music played by 'a gallant ploughboy./They ca'd him

Ironside'T. hen they go on to Philip's, where the hero'sh eart is ensnaredb y 'the maiden

of the inn'. After that, however, trouble begins:

Drink it was right merriment,

And drink I think nae shame,

But syne we left the tavern

To steer oor course for hame.

'Twas there I lost my comrades,

And on them I did cry,

And at that very moment

A man in blue cam' by.

He told me very quickly,

If I didn't hold my tongue,

He would take me into custody

And that before nae lang.

He roughly took me by the arm,

And draggedm e to the inn,

'Twas there we fought right earnestly

For it didn't end in fun.

But surely I'm a profligant,

A villain to the bone,

To tear the coat frae aff his back,

And it nae bein' his ain.

[He] tried to shove me in the room,

His strength he didna spare,

But I could plainly show him

That it would tak' a pair.

Our hero briefly escapes through the prison window, but is recaptured, commenting

acidly that it is an "awful crime" to breach the Sabbath by chasing absconding prisoners

on the holy day.

 

HUMOUR IN TRADITIONAL BELIEFS (MAINLY SCOTTISH) 39

The local referencet o Tarves,w ith its named public houses, and to Aberdeen,a s well

as the purporteda utobiographicanla tureo f this ballads tory,w ould have a speciala ppeal

to audiencesi n the area,b ut the mockingo f authoritys, ymbolisedb y the policeman'st orn

coat, would provide a release of tension wherever this song is sung.

This particularc ategoryo f ballad,a s sung in bothiesa nd on convivialo ccasions,i s very

common.I t containss ocial protestb ut is not bent on revolution;it laughsa t hardshipa nd

shrugsa t discomfituree, speciallyw hen personallye xperienceda, nd tries to maket he best

of discomfort,r estrictionse, ven pain. I am not an expert in humour and have not even

dabbledi n the personaol r socialp sychologyo f the humorousb, ut to me such a song andt he

attitudesu nderlyingi t are remarkablea nd worth drawinga ttentiont o because they are

a celebrationo f the indomitableh umans pirita nd, when a song functionsl ike this, it sings

of hope ando f underlyings trengthin the humanc onditionN. aturallyt,h e greatt ragict hemes

of the 'Muckle Sangs', and even the more domestic ones, move us more, are perhaps

ultimatelym ores atisfying,b oth emotionallya nd aestheticallyh, ave probablym orea rtistic

integrity, but what keeps people going most of the time is not the heavy tear of weeping

but our eyes awash with tears of laughter. Thus the humorous ballads in the narrative

repertoiroef the folk,w hateverth eirt opic,h aveg reath ealinga nd community-buildinpgo wer;

they should,t hereforea, rguablyr eceivea little morea ttentiont han they have in the past.'4

This might allow them to emerge from the shadow cast upon them by their more prominent

tragicc ounterpartsT. he folk may not have a profoundt heory of humourb ut they surely

know how to smile, smirk, laugh, even guffaw, and are much the better for it.

Department of English

State University of New York

Binghamton, N.Y 13902-6000, USA

NOTES

1. Francis James Child (ed.), The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, 5 vols. (Boston:

Houghton, Miffin & Co., 1882-1898).

2. Bertrand H. Bronson, The Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads, 4 vols. (Princeton, NJ:

PrincetonU niversityP ress,1 959-1972I)V , 99.

3. Bronson IV, 132.

4. Bronson IV, 147.

5. Bronson IV, 197.

6. John Ord,B othyS ongsa ndB allads( PaisleyJ: ohnG ardner1, 980), 151.

7. Ord, 93.

8. HerscheGl owera ndJ amesP orter',J eanniRe obertsonT:h e "Other"B alladsS',c ottisSht udies

15 (1972), 147-148.

9. This is a compositev ersioni n whicht he finalc horuss tressest he presencein the young man of what the old man lacks.

10. Ord,7 1-72.O rdc laimst hatt his song' wasw rittenb y a ladyn amedM rs. Bacon,r esiding

at BainsfordF, alkirk.'

11. Ord, 97-98.

12. Ord, 99-100.

13. DavidB uchan(e d.),A ScottisBh alladB ook( Londona ndB ostonR: outledg&e KeganP aul,

1973)2 02-204I. n his introductioBn,u chani,n additionto someo f the balladsin cludedh ere,a lso

mention'sK empyK ay'a nd' LongJ ohnnyM ore'a s goingi n 'fort he comedyo f broade xaggeration.

Bothi n facth avee lementso f parodyo, n the one hand,o f the chilvariuc nspellingo f the loathly

hag into a beautifuwl oman,a nd on the other,o f the heroicr escuef romj ails tory'( p. 6). 14. One mighte veni maginea thematicin ventoroyr motifi ndexo f humoroubs alladsto find

out whatm akest he 'folk'l augh.T his mighta lsos ervea s a basisf or comparativsetu diesi n folknarrativien

generaal nd balladryin particular