Lambkin: A Study in Evolution- Gilchrist 1932
[Footnotes moved to the end. Proofed once,
R. Matteson 2012]
Lambkin: A Study in Evolution
by Anne G. Gilchrist
Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Dec., 1932), pp. 1-17
LAMBKIN: A STUDY IN EVOLUTION
BY ANNE G. GILCHRIST
As the main purpose of this study of "Lambkin" is to trace its development along two different streams of tradition, it may be well to preface the discussion of the ballad by printing a version from each form, also some "Lambkin" tunes, all from hitherto unpublished MSS. or scarce collections. As a label for each of these traditional forms may be useful, I shall distinguish the first as "Lambkin, the Wronged Mason" and the second as "Longkin, the Border Ruffian"- the first being the Scottish, the second the Northumbrian, form.
FORM I: THE WRONGED MASON.
FIRST TUNE.
CHRISTIE'S Traditional Ballad Airs,
[LAMKIN.] Vol, I, p. 6o.
1. It 's Lamkin was a mason good,
And ever built wi' stane;
He built Lord Wearie's castle
But pay - ment gat he nane.
* A second strain follows which may be ignored.
SECOND TUNE (The earliest printed tune for Lammikin)
R. A. SMITH'S Scotish Minstrel, . 1821-24 ed., Vol. II, p 94.
1. A better mason than Lam-mi-kin ne'er build - ed wi' the stane;
He builded Earl Robert's house,
But wages he gat nane.
Come gie to me, Earl Robert, now,
Come gie to me my hyre;
Come gie to me, Earl Robert, now,
Or I'll burn your house wi' fyre.
GIL MORRICE. (Herd directs "Lammikin" to be sung to "Gil Morrice.")
From the Caledonian Musical Repository, 1806.
LAMMAKIN.
Rymour Club Miscellanea ii, pt. iii, p. 136.
A Fifeshire version, obtained from an old woman known as " the Witch," who lived near the old castle of Balwearie, Fifeshire.
1 Lammakin was as guid a mason
As ever hewed a stane,
He biggit Balwearie Castle
But guerdon [1] he gat nane.
2 It fell upon a day
When Lord Wearie was frae hame,
He cam' to seek his siller
But siller he gat nane.
3 "Whare are the men o' this hoose?"
Spak' oot the Lammakin;
"They're in the barns threshing,
And they canna win in."
4 "Whare are the women o' this hoose ?
Spak' oot the Lammakin;
" They're at the waal [2] washing
And they canna come in."
5 " Whare is the lord o' this hoose?"
Spak' oot the Lammakin;
" He's on the saut sea sailing
And far, far frae hame."
6 " Whare is the leddy o' his hoose ?"
Spak' oot the Lammakin;
" She's in her chaumer shooing [sewing]
And she winna come doon."
7 "What wad ye do," quo' Lammakin,
"To mak' her come doon?"
"We'll stick [stab] the bairn in the
Says the false nourrice to him. [cradle]"
8 Lammakin he stickit it,
And the fause nourrice she sang,
Till the bluid sprang oure the cradle
And frae ilk bar it ran.
9 "O , please the bairn, nourrice,
And please him wi' the key;"
"He'll no be pleased, my leddy,
For a' my nourrice fee."
10 "O, please the bairn, nourrice,
Please him wi' the wand;"
"He'll no' be pleased, my leddy,
For a' his faither's land."
11 "O, please the bairn, nourrice,
And please him wi' the bell ";
"He'll no' be pleased, madam,
Till ye come doon yersel'."
12 The firsten step she steppit,
She steppit on a stane;
The neisten step she steppit
It was on Lammakin.
13 "O, mercy, mercy, Lammakin,
O, mercy ha'e on me:
Altho' ye've killed my young son,
O, let mysel' abee-
14 Ye'll get my auldest dochter,
Wi' her bonny yellow hair;
A peck o' the red, red goud,
And twice as muckle mair!"
15 "0 sall I kill her, nourrice,
Or sall I let her be? "
"O , kill her, kill her, Lammakin,
For she's ne'er been guid to me!"
16 "Gae scoor the siller basin,
Gae scoor it fair and clean,
To haud yer leddy's life-bluid
For she's o' noble kin."
17 But ere the siller basin
Was scoored fair and clean
The gentle leddy's heart's bluid
Was drappin' on the stane.
I8 Lord Wearie in a month or mair
Cam' sailin' ower the faem,
And dowie, dowie was his he'rt
As he drew near his hame.
I9 "There's murder in the kitchen,
And slauchter in the ha',
O, Lammakin killed yer young son,
Yer leddy fair and a'!"
20 "Come here, come here, fause nourrice,
And I'll gie ye yer fee!"
The weel-won fee he pey'd her,
He hanged her on a tree.
2I "Come here, come here, Lammakin,
And I'll gie ye yer hire!"
The dear won hire he pey'd him,
He burnt him in the fire.
From v. 7 this version follows Child's "A" (from Jamieson's Popular Ballads, 1806) pretty closely as far as Jamieson's V. 2I, but its stark terse conclusion rings much truer than Jamieson's last two verses, which run inconsequently, unless indeed they mean by the tree the one upon which Lambkin was hanged, and the thorns gathered to heap around the nourice's stake.
O sweetly sang the blackbird
That sat upon the tree,
But sairer grat Lamkin
When he was condemned to die.
And bonny sang the mavis
Out o' the thomy brake,
But sairer grat the nourice
When she was tied to the stake.
And this Balwearie version is devoid of the nourice's moral reflection in Jamieson's V. 22 on the lack of difference between the blood of the rich and the poor. It is noteworthy that no daughter appears upon the scene, and the tragic news is evidently told by a servant, on the lord's return.
The word "guerdon" in v. i would at first sight seem suspect, as too literary a word, but it is included in Warrack's Scots Dialect Dictionary, where its meaning is given as "protection, safeguard." It is an old French word, which might have became current in common speech, like many other instances of such survivals in Scotland of the "Ancient Alliance" with France. Possibly "guerdon" became confused with "gairdin' "(guarding), and one might be tempted to speculate whether guerdon in v. I really meant originally that Lammakin had not safe-guarded his interests by a proper contract, and hence was more easily cheated of his due by his employer. But enquiries have failed to trace this use of the word outside Waxrack's Dictionary, and probably "guerdon" is simply a French importation, like the "jigget" (gigot) of mutton or the "ashet" (assiette) of Scottish vernacular.
The above version was noted by Miss Minnie Kininmonth of Kinghorn (Fife), who had heard it "ranted" among the farm folk at Balwearie, where she spent much of her childhood. It first appeared in an MS. magazine "Pipers' News" in I9II, and was sent to the Rymour Club by Mrs. Jessie P. Findlay, one of the editors of the MS. magazine, which circulated in Kirkcaldy. Mrs. Findlay said that Lord Wearie was supposed to be one of the Balwearies of that ilk whose heiress carried the lands by marriage into the Scott family temp. Alexander III (1249- 1286) of Scotland. But as some doubt has been thrown upon the authenticity of this record (in Douglas's Baronetage), it would be idle to speculate whether the murder of an infant heir of the Wearie family in medizeval times might have created his sister an heiress. What is actually known of Balwearie Castle is that, as Mr. W. Mackay Mackenzie (author of The Medieval Castle in Scotland) informs me, it is a fifteenth-century tower, a license for its erection being issued to William Scott of Balwearie in February 1464. (The 'bal' of the name denotes a farmstead.) Whether any real connection with Balwearie existed or not, it seems probable that the ballad had a historical foundation; as far as I am aware it has no European counterpart.
FORM II: THE BORDER RUFFIAN.
[PROUD LAMKIN.]
A. Noted by MAUD KARPELES. Conception Bay, Newfoundland.
1. Said the lord to his lady
As he was going away:
"Beware of proud Lamkin,
For he comes up this way."
2. "What do I care for proud Lamkin
Or any of his men?-
When my doors are well bolted
And my windows shut in."
3 He was scarce gone one hour
When proud Lamkin came by,
He knocked at the hall door
And the nurse let him in.
4. "O where is your master?
Is he not without?"
"He's gone to old England,"
Cried the false nurse.
5 "O where is your mistress?
Is she not within?"
"She's up in her bed-chamber
With the windows barred in."
6 "How am I to get at her?"
Proud Lamkin did cry.
"O here is young Sir Johnson,
Pierce him and he'll cry."
7 He took out his bodkin
And pierced young Sir Johnson,
And made the blood trinkle
Right down to his toes.
8 "O mistress, dear mistress,
How can you sleep so fast?
Can't you hear your young Sir Johnson
A-crying his last?
9 I can't pacify him
On the nurse-milk or pap.
I pray you come down,
Quieten him on your lap."
10 "How can I come downstairs
On such a cold winter's night?
No spark of fire burning,
No candle alight."
11. You've got two white holland sheets
As white as the snow, [up there]
I pray you come down
By the light of them so."
12 As she was coming downstairs,
Not thinking much harm,
Proud Lamkin awaited,
Took her by the arm.
13 "I have got you, I have got you,"
Proud Lamkin did cry,
"For years I have waited,
But I have got you at last."
14 "O spare me my life," she cries,
"For one, two o'clock,
And I'll give you all the money
That you will carry on your back."
15 "If you'll give me the money
Like the sand on the shore, [? of the sea]
I'll not keep my bright sword
From your white skin so free."
16 "O spare me my life," she cries,
"For one half-an-hour;
I'll give you my nurse,
Although she's my flower."
17 "O where is your nurse?
Go send her to me;
She can hold the silver basin
While your heart's blood runs free."
18. "False nurse was my friend," she cries
But-now she's my foe;
She can hold the silver basin
While- my heart's blood do flow."
19 There was blood in the nursery,
And blood in the hall,
And blood on the stairs,
And her heart's blood was all.
20 Proud Lamkin was taken
To the gallows to die,
And false nurse she was burned
In a fire near by.
B. Noted by MAUD KARPELES. Conception Bay, Newfoundland.
1. Said Lord Doug- las to his la - dy
In walk -ing one day:
"Be - ware of Lord Lam - kin
When he . . comes this way."
"Why need I be - ware of Lord Lam - kin?" she says,
"With my doors .. well bolt - ed
And my win - dows barred in."
(No more words).
C. Noted by MAUD KARPELES. Placentia Bay, Newfoundland.
1. The Lord to the la - dy
Was walk - ing the quay.
Said the lord to the la- dy:
"Are you 'fraid of Lam - kin?"
(No more words).
D. Noted by MAUD KARPELES. Fortune Bay, Newfoundland.
Proud Lamkin was ta - ken and condemned for to die,
And the false - heart - ed maid - en was burned a - long - side.
(No more words).
To the typical texts above given, one may add the fragment of the "Orange" Northumbrian version (Child's G) perhaps sung as a lullaby, in Halliwell's Nursery Rhymes (Fifth Edition, I853, p. 2I2). It is part of the dialogue between lady and nurse:
"Rock well my cradle
And 'bee-baa '[3] my son-
You shall have a new gown
When ye [yer?] lord comes home.
Oh, still my child, Orange,[4]
Still him with a bell!"
"I can't still him, ladie,
Till you come down yoursel'."
We may now proceed to consider the early form of the ballad-story-best preserved in the Scottish tradition. In the undoubtedly older and completer form, the villain of the piece is a skilled mason who built a "prime castle" and being defrauded of his pay gains access to the castle in the absence of its lord, and from motives of revenge, with the connivance of the false nurse, murders the owner's wife and infant heir. In the secondary form of the ballad the villain is either a lawless ruffian or perhaps another lord at feud with the castle's owner. Without reasonable or adequate explanation of his motive he plans and executes the same crime. He is no ordinary robber, for like the mason it is not booty but revenge which he seeks.
Before the second half of the eighteenth century, in which both forms of the story were almost simultaneously printed by Herd in Scotland and obtained by Percy in England (the respective dates being 1776 [5] and 1775) these two versions must have parted company, and it looks as though the freebooter or Border ruffian version arose from the loss of the first verse, in which half of the mason story is told and the motive for revenge shines clear. The mason ballad would seem to have originated in the south of Scotland, the secondary freebooter form in Northumberland, where border feuds and raids were common in the old days.
THE SCOTTISH TRADITION.
I.-Taking first the Scottish tradition, there is no need to suppose with Prof. Child that the name Lambkin was bestowed ironically. Lambkin (dim. of Lambert) is a Flemish name, constant, though sometimes in a corrupt form, such as Longkin or Dunkins or Rankin, in all of the many versions-about forty-of the ballad which I have seen. Bardsley in his English Surnames says: "Lambert received a large accession in England through the Flemings, who thus preserved a memorial of the patron of Liege, St. Lambert, who was martyred early in the eighth century. Succumbing to the fashion so prevalent among the Flemings, it is generally found as Lambkin, such entries as Lambekyn fil. Eli or Lambekin Taborer being common."
Lambert and Lambkin, Lampson and Lampkin survive as English surnames to the present day. Assuming a real event to have been the basis of this tragic and circumstantial story, the "mason guid" might well have been a Flemish craftsman. The Flemings were highly skilled workers, as is patent from the fact that Gresham imported Flemish masons and joiners, under the management of their master Hendryk, to build the Royal Exchange in 1566. Flemish as well as French influence may be seen in the old castles and churches of Fifeshire built or re-built in the sixteenth century. Along the east coast of Scotland were colonies of Flemings in the middle ages, there being a close connection between Scotch-grown wool and Flemish wool-merchants and weavers. "In many old and elaborate descriptions of architecture in England constant reference is made to the Flemings." James IV of Scotland employed Flemish craftsmen to plaster the walls and ceilings of his royal castles-gaunt and comfortless as they were for the reception of his "English rose," Margaret Tudor. Without elaborating the point further, the reader may be referred to Flemish Influence in Britain (1930) by J. Arnold Fleming. Though one cannot prove that Lambkin was a Flemish master-mason, this seems, assuming an historic foundation for the ballad, to be a reasonable possibility. And another is that he was neither called Lambkin because he was like or unlike a lamb but because it was his name. A third point is that if he was a "furriner," it would then as now be considered less of a crime to cheat him.
In Motherwell's text, he is called indifferently Lambert Linkin and Belinkin (in Motherwell's MS., Belankin-a corruption of Bold Lankin?). And it may be noted that Finlay's form Balcanqual seems to have been falsely restored from Beluncan [? Bold Lankin] as he states that Beluncan is sometimes found as a corruption "for the more agreeable sound'" of Balcanqual, "an ancient Scottish surname." As Finlay's text is "written over"- as Child remarks- probably Beluncan was really the form he or his old lady corrected, as another name in the ballad was editorially changed.
The strongest Scottish tradition seems to be that which localises the tragedy at Balwearie, Fife, near to former colonies of Flemings; and here the "dule-tree" used to be pointed out on which Lambkin was hanged before the castle gate. Without laying too much stress upon local legend, it may be noted that this Fifeshire version is the only form I have seen in which the castle is named in the text. For the Prime Castle of Motherwell-
He built up Prime Castle
But payment gat nane-
seems to me to be wrongly sung or heard for " built a prime castle," that is, a castle of prime importance or strength. "Prime" in this sense is found in Scotland both as a noun meaning the best and an adjective meaning the foremost. It was probably the lilt of the tune which supplied the extra "p" as sung. (On this point-the influence of the tune on the text- I shall have more to say later, apropos the Lambkin tunes.) Another location "Lord Cassilis' [pr. Cassels] house" may be due to a similar confusion of the personal name and the building, as seems to be the case in "Johnny Faa" (the Gypsy Laddie) where the "castle-yett" sometimes figures as "Lord Cassilis' yett." By the time the ballad has been recovered in America the castle has sunk to a "cation" or even a "frame-house! "
Who Lord Weir or Wearie (alternatively Erlie or Arran or Earl Robert) was is quite unknown. He does not seem to have belonged to the Scott family. The presumed real event may have had its origin earlier than the date of Balwearie Castle, and Lambkin be possibly the only real name which, perhaps by very reason of its incongruity to later ears, has survived of the story. Lambkin's accomplice, the "false nurse," has seldom any other name. ("Orange" and "Fortunate" seem to be misconstructions of words in the text.) Her grudge against her mistress- as the ballad sometimes more than hints-is resentment because her lady never bestowed on her any of the fine clothing she had coveted- hence her sarcastic reference to the five golden mantles by the light of which her lady might see to come down. Sometimes the lady appeals to her- as in the B version noted by Gavin Greig (Last Leaves of Aberdeen Ballads):
"Did ye ever want your meat, nursie,
Did ye ever want your fee,
Or did ye ever want anything
A lady had to gie?"
"I wanted never meat, lady,
I wanted never my fee,
But I wanted mony things
A lady had to gie."
Or when the nurse says her lady was "never guid " to her, her mistress cries out
"O haud your tongue, nourrice,
Sae loud as ye lee,
Ye'd ne'er a cut finger
But I pitied thee! " [Macmath MS. in Child.]
But always in vain. The nurse's malice is as inexorable as Lambkin's and in all versions of the story she shares his doom, except that in one Irish variant Lambkin murders her after she has served his ends.
THE NORTHUMBRIAN TRADITION.
II. - We may turn now to the Northumbrian or English tradition, embodied in Percy's " Long Lonkin." This-Child's K-though obtained in Kent in I775, was then known to have come from Northumberland.[6] Moreover the words "bairn" and "moss" (peatland or heath) betray its north-country origin. But this is the form which has spread further south in England.
On the north side of the road leading from Heddon on the Wall to Corbridge, which crosses Whittle Dene, through which the Whittle burn flows to the Tyne, stand the ruins of Nafferton Tower, an unfinished fortress begun by Philip de Ulecote, Constable
of Chinon and Forester of Northumberland in the time of King John. This Norman baron, presuming on his influence with the Crown, was proceeding with the erection of a castle on his manor here when his neighbour Richard de Umfraville made complaint of the injury and menace involved to his own castle of Prudhoe on the south side (and opposite bank) of the Tyne. Whereupon a Crown writ was issued compelling Philip de Ulecote to stop the work in progress, and the Tower ever after remained at the stage at which it was abandoned by the thirteenth-century workmen.[7] The bearing of this piece of history-which together with the Northumbrian tradition surrounding the ballad I take from W. W. Tomlinson's Comprehensive Guide to Northumberland (Tenth Edition)-is that in course of time the ruinous hold became known as "Lang Lonkin's Castle"- a gigantic freebooter "Lang Lonkin" ("long" meaning of course "tall") having lived in it-so it was said-to the terror of the countryside. And the Longkin ballad in the " Orange " version (Child's G) as noted from the recitation of an old woman of Ovington, near by, was believed to refer to one of his crimes. The story was told of him that during the absence of its owner and through the treachery of a serving-maid called Orange he gained entrance to Welton Hall-close to the Whittle Dene-and murdered the lady and child. (No motive, however, is adduced or even suggested in the local version of the ballad.) He then dragged the lady's body into the dene and threw it into a deep pool in the stream still known as Lang Lonkin's Hole. Further it is said that Lonkin hanged himself on or fell from a huge tree overlooking the well. His skull lay about the castle for some time, and, to conclude the story, to the present day his ghost haunts the district, and a mother has but to shake a bunch of keys and call out "There's Lang Lonkin!" to recall her straying children at nightfall. There is another "corroborative detail" of the doings of Lonkin, a second deep pool, called the Whirl Dub, in the stream being pointed out as the place into which Lonkin when hard pressed flung a rich booty sewed up in a bull's hide. At the bottom of this dub it is said still to lie.
It is quite possible that there did exist a notorious Border ruffian known as Long Lonkin, to whom the headless Northumbrian version of "Lambkin" became attached, and that the tradition gathered accretions from time to time. Miss Broadwood has a note in Journal, Vol. v, p. 84, that in a deed of May, 1316, relating to lands on the south side of the Tyne (though drawn up in London) one of the witnesses is John Lonkin. (Lonkin seems to be simply a corrupt form of Lambkin.) In any case the villain of the ballad has been in Northumberland identified with this real or legendary outlaw, though Nafferton Tower was neither built by nor for Long Lonkin, as has been seen. But it is often characteristic of ballads to "fly in the face of all history," as Child notes in a letter to his friend "W. W.," Aberdeen.
The most important difference between the Scottish and Northumbrian versions is that in the latter the mason motive has faded out of the story, and the ballad opens with the lord parting from his lady and warning her against the attack which may be made upon the castle or house by Lonkin in his absence.
III.- FURTHER EVOLUTION IN THE NORTHUMBRIAN VERSION.
Soon after the mason vanishes from the story it obviously becomes necessary for the singer to find a new and adequate motive for Lonkin's enmity.[8] Now, in some of what I judge to be later versions of the cheated mason ballad, the lady in desperate terror seeks to gain time (as I read the incident) while hoping for rescue by offering Lambkin more gold than he can carry away if he will but spare her life for twelve hours-one hour-five minutes-and finally offers him her nurse "although she's my flower," or her eldest daughter, or daughter Betsy, to stay his hand.[9] About the same stage in the ballad's Scottish career (as I conceive) a certain Jeanie or Jenny, who appears to be the lady's one faithful bower-maid and who offers to die in her stead, is commanded by Lambkin to scour the silver basin to hold her lady's blood. But false nurse always urges Lambkin on to the murder. It seems to be this same devoted maid who on her master's return breaks the direful news:
Her maiden looked out from the turret so high
And she saw her master from London ride by:
"O master, 0 master, don't lay the blame on me,
'Twas the false nurse and Lankin that killed your fair ladye!
Or thus, in the Fifeshire version:
There's murder in the kitchen
And slauchter in the ha',
0, Lammakin killed yer young son,
Yer leddy fair and a'.
As the result of the suggestions of the text, the daughter is next actually brought upon the stage (she is sent for from school, in an American variant) to hold the basin, and in the further process of decadence is followed by Lady Nelly and other lady daughters ad libitum and ad absurdum. This (in Percy's version) is a rather interesting petering out of the ballad, because it recalls the list of relatives sent for, one by one, to come to Queen Jane's bedside in the nursery version of "The Death of Queen Jane" (see Journal, Vol. ii, p. 22I). But Betsy having been brought upon the scene is now made to serve another purpose. The singer, one may postulate, casting about for the motive probably-and very properly-demanded by his audience or his own intelligence for Longkin's enmity, interpolates the information that the murderer had wished to marry Lady Betsy, but her parents had frowned upon his suit. Therefore we are now asked to believe that by a strange mental process he plans and carries out the murder of his love's nearest and dearest-scorning the offer of the maiden herself which actually occurs in the text.[10] So we arrive lastly at the flat and lamentable conventionality of the ballad-sheet:
It's of some noble lord, as you shall quickly hear,
He had one only daughter, young Lankon loved her dear;
Her father tried to part them without fear or strife,
But bold Lankon he contrived to take away her [sic] life.
A variation upon this proffered elucidation of the workings of Lankon's mind is found in A. K. Davis's fragmentary and confused Virginian version B (see Traditional Ballads of Virginia, p. 357). "Ward Lampkin" was sung by an old negro servant who introduced the ballad by explaining that Ward Lampkin had been in love with the "Landlady" before her marriage, and had always sworn to have his revenge. (A similar interpolation occurs in an Irish text.) The Lord was going off on a trip and urged his wife to have some protection, to which warning the first verse of the remembered fragment was her reply:
Why should I reward Lampkin,
Why need I reward him ?
When my doors are fast bolted
And windows pinned down. [? in]
(Ward Lampkin perhaps derives his name from the first line.)
Probably this verse (which suggests a lost "cheated mason" opening, in which Lampkin "comes craving his money to seek"- as in another version) originally meant that if Lampkin should come craving his pay in the lord's absence, the lady need not fear, the castle being secure against his entry. In this version it is Ward Lampkin who tells the nurse- Fortunate is her curious name-that the baby is crying in the nursery, so as to get her out of the way, this change in the situation being, one guesses, due to the dislike of devoted coloured servants for a story of a trusted nurse's treachery. (The murder of the baby has been lost or excluded from this form.) As the eighteenth-century editor jibbed at the crass selfishness - of the mother's appeal:
O mercy, mercy, Lambkin,
Ha'e mercy upon me;
Though you have ta'en my young son's life
Ye may lat mysel' be!
-substituting the more correct maternal sentiment:
O monster, monster, spare my child,
Wha never scaithed thee!
(the child is already done to death, but that circumstance can also be revised)- so the Virginian negro must absolve "fause nerrice"- changed or corrupted to "Fortunate"[11]- from complicity. She has been got away by a ruse while the murder of the lady is a-doing, and though her fate was admittedly to be burnt, she was an innocent victim. So through a combined process of elimination, selection, and development, the story of the cheated and revengeful mason retains in the end only the murder scene intact, and the motive abundantly clear in the admirable opening "mason" verse-which sets forth half the plot in four short lines-is replaced by feebler and feebler explanations furnished by a later line of singers.
Thus an examination of about forty variants shows, as already stated, that the decay sets in as soon as the mason is lost from the story, the common motive of love or jealousy taking the place of the more unusual and distinctive theme. Moreover, the Betsy of the lady's desperate offer-which I do not regard as a genuine one becomes (wrongly, I think) fused with the teller of the tragic news; for "O master, master, do not blame me!" in the mouth of the servant who has helplessly witnessed her mistress's murder is surely the original form, rather than a similar appeal on the lips of a young daughter. And it is more humanly credible that even a convinced murderer should ask a servant to scour the silver basin than the lady's own daughter, or the daughter, in a still more decadent form, be invited to hold it for her own gore. Another point may be noticed. The scouring of the silver basin that the lady's "noble blood may be kepped [caught] clean" is evidently connected with the old superstition- whatever its foundation- against shedding noble or innocent blood upon the ground. For the first case see my note on "The Wife wrapt in Wether's Skin" (Journal, VOl. II, pp. 223-4). For the second, cf. the incident of the spreading of white blankets on the ground at the execution of Illiam Dhone (Journal, Vol. vii, p. 326). And again for the respect due to noble birth cf. the hanging of Geordie in gold or silver chains, and in the Lambkin ballad itself the stabbing of the baby with a bodkin, skewer, or dagger of silver.
IV.- TENDENCY TO CONFUSION IN A DIALOGUE BALLAD.
Another interesting point is the evidence "Lambkin" affords of how a confusion between the voices of the dialogue creates new permutations in the situation and the sentiments of the persons supposed to be speaking. Note how the changes are rung in different versions upon the appeal to Lambkin's mercy:
[LADY]: Ye've killed my bairn, Lamkin,
but lat mysell be,
Ye'll be as weel payit a mason
as was ever pay'd a fee.- Child M.
[JENNY, THE MAID]: 0 no, no, no, Lambkin,
My heart will be sare, [woe ?]
O take my life, Lambkin,
Let my lady go.- Child C.
[LADY BETSY]: O rather kill me, Rankin,
And let my mother go.- Child D.
[LADY]: O mercy, mercy, Lamkin,
O mercy ha'e on me,
Although ye've killed my young son
O lat mysel abee.- Rymour Club.
[LORD WEARIE]: Woe be to you, Lambkin,
Some bad death may ye dee,
Though ye hae killed my lady
Ye micht hae latten my young son be. -Aberdeenshire (Last Leaves, etc.).
There seems to have arisen a similar confusion amongst the persons addressed by Lambkin and commanded to hold the basin, figured variously as a faithful maid, the false nurse, and the daughter. Where a ballad consists almost entirely of dialogue such changes of identity are almost certain to occur. Cf. the change of sex in the two chief characters in "The Prickly Bush."
V.- DECADENCE OF THE BALLAD IN RECITATION.
The unsatisfactory state of " Lambkin " in some of the earlier printed Scottish texts-whose spurious verses were thrown out by Child's expert judgment-is largely due, as I believe, to the ballads having been noted from recitation instead of singing- a notable step downwards in a ballad's career. The small irregularities which occur naturally in ballad lines ride lightly and rhythmically upon the current of the tune, whereas when they are written down the literary editor, especially of a hundred to a hundred and fifty years ago, has a great temptation to trim superfluous syllables and fill apparent gaps-not to speak of adding embellishments of his own to make it read better. Sometimes, as in editing "Lambkin," he drops into common iambic ballad-metre in making such emendations and additions, for instance substituting "O gentle nourice, still my child" for "O still my bairn, nourice," throwing the verses he disturbs out of gear through an ignoring-or actual ignorance-of the tune, combined with an irrepressible love of adjectives, for which the short lines of "Lambkin" leave no room, even had they been needed. (The "fause" nourrice is an almost solitary label). Only in a late and degraded form of this ballad-probably a broadsheet version-do we find the lines padded out to fit a common ballad-tune, as in the verse quoted above, "It's of some noble lord, as you shall quickly hear." For the rhythm of "Lambkin" is a triple metre, fitting a triple-time tune, constant as such in almost all versions where a tune has been noted at all.
VI.- THE TUNE.
A factor in a ballad's evolution which has often been entirely ignored by our folksong scholars-either from lack of knowledge or interest, or from lack of realization of its importance-is this relation between the text and the tune. Speaking generally, a new ballad coming into currency would not be sung to a new tune. The singer brings to the new words some tune he already knows and so makes them acquainted.
Often the tune brings with it some of the words-perhaps only the refrain-the singer already associates with it, which may have no relation whatever to the new ballad. The contact of tune and words results in the adaptation of the one to the other. Sometimes one, sometimes each, insensibly yields something of its rhythm, or stretches or contracts its line or melody, and before long the pair settle as it were into place, and the old tune may then be half-way towards a new one.
As constant as "Lambkin's" name is its triple-time metre- a metre which can be traced back to the sixteenth century in folk-song, and may be earlier. It is the metre of "The Death of Queen Jane" [Seymour], of "Six Dukes went a-fishing" [? Death of the Duke of Suffolk], of the old song "The Cuckoo" (Oh, meeting is pleasure and parting is grief), of " The Lost Lady Found," "The Virgin unspotted," and in Scotland of "Lord Ronald," "Colin's Cattle," and a version of "Gil Morrice," to which tune Herd says "Lammikin" is sung. It is also known in Wales; and "Lambkin" tunes show connections with most of these other tunes, though it is impossible to say how and when borrowings took place. There is an echo of "Queen Jane" in William Allingham's Irish version of "Lambkin," which may have been sung to the same tune:
There's blood in the kitchen,
And blood in the hall,
And the young Mayor of England
Lies dead by the wall.
"Mayor" should perhaps be "heir," but even so the "England" must be imported. "Lambkin" tunes are unfortunately very much scarcer than texts. A small number have been noted in America, where both Form I and II are represented in more or less fragmentary or corrupted versions. It may be noted that in the case of Mr. Sharp's Appalachian version of Form I, a pentatonic tune, Scottish in character, adheres to it, whereas a Maine version, Form II, in British Ballads from Maine, goes to a tune of English character, as do the Newfoundland Form II versions printed above, particularly "B," which is a blend of "A Virgin unspotted" and "The Cuckoo." The one Scottish tune quite different from any other "Lambkin" is that in the Scotish Minstrel, quoted above. As this takes up two verses instead of one it can hardly be in its original state; but as its pattern is A A B B possibly a simple A B strain has been repeated in each part to form the double verse. The tune is at any rate "folk" in character and its unusual cadences are curiously reminiscent of a Faroese ballad-air "Asmundur Adalsson" in Hjalmar Thuren's Dans og Kvaddigtning paa FerePerne, the last twelve notes of this tune being almost identical. Some oddities in the texts are probably due to mishearing of the words as sung, since words are sometimes run together by the singer. "Prime castle" and "Orange" have already been noticed. "Johnson" as the baby's name was perhaps evolved from "young-son," with the musical accent on "young "- "Can't you hear your little young-son?"- and in "Fause nurse was my friend," she cries, "But now she's my foe,"- it is easy to see how "Fause-nurse" might be heard as a Christian name, and "Fortunate" substituted for it at the earliest opportunity.
CONCLUSION.
To sum up, the apparent confinement of the " Lambkin" ballad to the Englishspeaking race would point to its being based upon a real event in British domestic history, the ballad branching off at an early date into the Northumbrian form, which was the one to spread southwards in England, while the mason motive was retained in Scotland and amongst Scottish settlers in America. Had more tunes been recorded in the States, to match the number of texts, it might have been possible to say with certainty whether a Scottish tune adhered as a rule-as well as in the cases noted-to the mason tradition, and an English tune to the "lawless foe" form of the tragedy.
Finally, "Lambkin," of which so many versions have been discovered, shows the ballad-an exemplar of ballads in general- as a live and growing thing, coloured and shaped in its course through centuries by the many minds through which it has passed -some folk content to " tell the tale as 'twas told to me," sometimes in imperfect phonetics and with lapses of memory, others chafing against the obscure or the inexplicable- often the result of the same bad phonetics or forgetfulness- and so impelled to invent, as in folk-etymologies, a rational explanation for what seems irrational; or rebelling against what for any reason-conscious or sub-conscious the singer dislikes, and substituting something more pleasing to himself. For the folk mind is not all of one level of taste and intelligence, and it is not only literary editors who have tampered with our old ballads but the folk themselves who leave their individual marks upon them. Particularly in the case of the Scottish ballads, it is difficult to say where, with simpler social habits of life in Scotland in bygone days, the folk end and the gentry begin, especially as the Scottish peasantry of three hundred years ago was less illiterate than the corresponding social class in England.
There is certainly little visible gap between the literacy of some of the eighteenth century old Scottish ladies who wrote down the ballads from memory in any spelling that pleased them and the singers from whom they themselves had learned their store of folk-poetry.
A list of the extant versions of " Lambkin " is appended for reference by students.
VERSIONS: Child, English and Scottish Ballads (26 texts),
Folk Song Journal, I, 2I2; II, III, V, 8I-84 (4 texts, 5 tunes).
English Folk Songs from the S. Appalachians, No. 23 (1 text and tune).
Traditional Ballads of Virginia, No. 26 (3 texts and fragment, i tune).
British Ballads from Maine, pp. 200-203 (1 text and fragment, I tune).
Last Leaves of Aberdeen Ballads, No. XXXIV (2 texts).
R. A. Smith's Scotish Minstrel, II, P. 94 (1 text, 1 tune).
Christie's Traditional Ballad Airs (1 text, 1 tune).
Newfoundland versions above (1 text, 3 fragments, 4 tunes).
Recent American versions from Ohio, Michigan and Tennessee, etc. (These I have not seen).
Footnotes:
1. The word "guerdon" in v. I would at first sight seem suspect, as too literary a word, but it is included in Warrack's Scots Dialect Dictionary, where its meaning is given as " protection, safeguard." It is an old French word, which might have became current in common speech, like many other instances of such survivals in Scotland of the "Ancient Alliance" with France. Possibly "guerdon" became confused with "gairdin"' (guarding), and one might be tempted to speculate whether guerdon in v. I really meant originally that Lammakin had not safe-guarded his interests by a proper contract, and hence was more easily cheated of his due by his employer. But enquiries have failed to trace this use of the word outside Waxrack's Dictionary, and probably "guerdon" is simply a French importation, like the "jigget" (gigot) of mutton or the "ashet" (assiette) of Scottish vernacular.
2 There is a ballad of " The Water o' Wearie's Well."
3. Lull to sleep.
4. The name Orange has probably been evolved from the line "O still my bairn, norice." At the same time, Orange occurs as a girl's name in Journal, Vol. II, p. 295, " The Story of Orange "; another version being called " Orange and Lemon."
5. It may also be in Herd's 1769 edition, which I have not seen.
6. Child's E (from Kinloch's MS.) bridges the versions north and south of the Border.
7 There remain the walls of the keep, twenty feet square, and two outer baileys, on the summit of a gentle slope.
8. Even in Percy's copy the singer had interpolated explanations, and said that Longkin and the nurse were engaged in plundering the house when the lord came home.
9. In most of the Scottish versions Betsy does not figure, and she seems to have been a later addition. In Finlay's version (Scottish Ballads, i8o8), lettered as Q by Child, there is no daughter.
"Is this the bairn o' this house?"
Says the Lammikin;
"The only bairn Lord Weire aughts," [owns]
The fause nourice did sing.
I incline to think the nurse or a maid-servant was the original Betsy, who is also called the "branch of all flowers." Cf. "The famous flower of serving men," if the description was first applied to the nurse or maid-either a faithful servant or still unsuspected of falsity. The "branch of all flowers" is stated to be an Irish expression, but the Irish versions are very corrupt, and this may be a late embellishment.
10. In one English version he retorts:
"That for your daughter Betsy!
She may do me some good,
She may hold the silver basin
To catch your heart's blood."
In another:
"I don't want your daughter Betsy, nor none of the rest,
I should rather see my naked,sword through your milk-white breast."
11. Perhaps influenced by "Fortune"- a woman's name current in England in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and carried out to New England.