The Outlandish Knight; Child 4 Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight; Child Version 4E from Dixon, 1846
[Pitts broadside London c. 1820 (between 1819 and 1844) reprinted in Dixon's Early English Poetry, Ballads and Popular Literature of the Middle Ages, 1846 also Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs of the Peasantry of England.
R. Matteson 2018]
E. 'The Outlandish Knight,' Dixon, Ancient Poems, Ballads, etc., p. 74 = Bell, Ancient Poems, Ballads, etc., p. 61.
Version E
There's an addition version in Volume 3 given from singing and recitation in Shropshire Folk-Lore, edited by Charlotte Sophia Burne, 1883-86, p. 548. Child has nothing in particular to say about Version E. Here is his narrative:
D, E, F are all broadside or stall copies, and in broadside style. C, D, E, F have nearly the same story. False Sir John, a knight from the south country [west country, north lands], entices May Colven, C, D [a king's daughter, C 16, E 16; a knight's daughter, Polly, F 4, 9], to ride off with him, employing, in D, a charm which he has stuck in her sleeve. At the knight's suggestion, E, F, she takes a good sum of money with her, D, E, F. They come to a lonely rocky place by the sea [river-side, F], and the knight bids her alight: he has drowned seven ladies here [eight D, six E, F], and she shall be the next. But first she is to strip off her rich clothes, as being too good to rot in the sea. She begs him to avert his eyes, for decency's sake, and, getting behind him, throws him into the water. In F he is absurdly sent for a sickle, to crop the nettles on the river brim, and is pushed in while thus occupied. He cries for help, and makes fair promises, C, E, but the maid rides away, with a bitter jest [on his steed, D, leading his steed, E, F] , and reaches her father's house before daybreak. The groom inquires in D about the strange horse, and is told that it is a found one. The parrot asks what she has been doing, and is silenced with a bribe; and when the father demands why he was chatting so early, says he was calling to his mistress to take away the cat. Here C, E, F stop, but D goes on to relate that the maid at once tells her parents what has happened, and that the father rides off at dawn, under her conduct, to find Sir John. They carry off the corpse, which lay on the sands below the rocks, and bury it, for fear of discovery.
Child's Version E appears in J.H. Dixon, Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs of the Peasantry of England, p. 74. In 1846, the Percy Society issued to its members a volume entitled Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs of the Peasantry of England, edited by Mr. James Henry Dixon.
J.H. Dixon writes: [THIS is the common English stall copy of a ballad of which there are a variety of versions, for an account of which, and of the presumed origin of the story, the reader is referred to the notes on the Water o' Wearie's Well, in the Scottish Traditional Versions of Ancient Ballads, published by the Percy Society. By the term 'outlandish' is signified an inhabitant of that portion of the border which was formerly known by the name of 'the Debateable Land,' a district which, though claimed by both England and Scotland, cnuld not be said to belong to either country. The people ou each side of the border applied the term 'outlandish' to the Deuateable residents. The tune to The Outlandish Knight has never been printed; it is peculiar to the ballad, and, from its popularity, is well known.]
THE OUTLANDISH KNIGHT
1 An outlandish knight came from the north lands,
And he came a-wooing to me;
He told me he'd take me unto the north lands,
And there he would marry me.
2 'Come, fetch me some of your father's gold,
And some of your mother's fee,
And two of the best nags out of the stable,
Where they stand thirty and three.'
3 She fetched him some of her father's gold,
And some of her mother's fee,
And two of the best nags out of the stable,
Where they stood thirty and three.
4 She mounted her on her milk-white steed,
He on the dapple grey;
They rode till they came unto the sea-side,
Three hours before it was day.
5 'Light off, light off thy milk-white steed,
And deliver it unto me;
Six pretty maids have I drowned here,
And thou the seventh shalt be.
6 'Pull off, pull off thy silken gown,
And deliver it unto me;
Methinks it looks too rich and too gay
To rot in the salt sea.
7 'Pull off, pull off thy silken stays,
And deliver them unto me;
Methinks they are too fine and gay
To rot in the salt sea.
8 'Pull off, pull off thy Holland smock,
And deliver it unto me;
Methinks it looks too rich and gay
To rot in the salt sea.'
9 'If I must pull off my Holland smock,
Pray turn thy back unto me;
For it is not fitting that such a ruffian
A naked woman should see.'
10 He turned his back towards her
And viewed the leaves so green;
She catched him round the middle so small,
And tumbled him into the stream.
11 He dropped high and he dropped low,
Until he came to the side;
'Catch hold of my hand, my pretty maiden,
And I will make you my bride.'
12 'Lie there, lie there, you false-hearted man,
Lie there instead of me;
Six pretty maids have you drowned here,
And the seventh has drowned thee.'
13 She mounted on her milk-white steed,
And led the dapple grey;
She rode till she came to her own father's hall,
Three hours before it was day.
14 The parrot being in the window so high,
Hearing the lady, did say,
'I'm afraid that some ruffian has led you astray,
That you have tarried so long away.'
15 'Don't prittle nor prattle, my pretty parrot,
Nor tell no tales of me;
Thy cage shall be made of the glittering gold,
Although it is made of a tree.'
16 The king being in the chamber so high,
And hearing the parrot, did say,
'What ails you, what ails you, my pretty parrot,
That you prattle so long before day?'
17 'It's no laughing matter,' the parrot did say,
'That so loudly I call unto thee,
For the cats have got into the window so high,
And I'm afraid they will have me.'
18 'Well turned, well turned, my pretty parrot,
Well turned, well turned for me;
Thy cage shall be made of the glittering gold,
And the door of the best ivory.' *
J.H. Dixon Footnote: *In the Roxburgh Collection is a copy of this ballad, in which the catastrophe is brought about in a different manner. When the young lady finds that she is to be drowned, she very leisurely makes a particular examination of the place of her intended destruction, and raises an objection to some nettles which are growing on the banks of the stream; these she requires to be removed, in the following poetical stanza:—
'Go fetch the sickle, to crop the nettle,
That grows so near the brim;
For fear it should tangle my golden locks,
Or freckle my milk-white skin.'
A request so elegantly made is gallantly complied with by the treacherous knight, who, while engaged in 'cropping' the nettles, is pushed into the stream.
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Excerpt: 'Veritable Dunghills': Professor Child and the Broadside
by Roy Palmer
Folk Music Journal, Vol. 7, No. 2 (1996), pp. 155-166
Child did not set out merely to accumulate as many versions as possible of his chosen ballads, or if he did it was only to select those which came closest to the criteria he had established. Had he been so minded, he could have studied the extent to which the 'vulgar press' disseminated items from his canon during a particular period, in a particular place, or in the work of a particular printer. For example, 'Lady Isabel and the Elf-Knight' (Child 4) has as its E version 'the common English stall copy' entitled 'The Outlandish Knight'.[43] H. O. Nygard has suggested with reference to this ballad that 'the entire tradition in England and Scotland is influenced by the broadside press, which seems to have given the song its currency'.[44] As early as 1827 J. H. Dixon wrote:
A friend of mine, who resided for some years on the borders, used to amuse himself by collecting old ballads, printed on halfpenny sheets, and hawked up and down by itinerant minstrels. In his common-place book I found one, entitled 'The Outlandish Knight', evidently, from the style, of considerable antiquity, which appears to have escaped the notice of Percy and other collectors. Since then I have met with a printed one, from the popular press of Mr Pitts, the six-yards-for-a-penny song-publisher, who informs me that he has printed it 'ever since he was a printer [1802], and that Mr Marshall, his predecessor, printed it before him'.[45]
In offering the text, Dixon felt that he had to 'expunge', as he put it, certain 'expressions contra bonos mores' (the vulgar press again) which seem to have boiled down to the scandalous expressions 'silken stays' and 'naked woman'. In further reticence he left the letter unsigned but felt it desirable to add 'a few stanzas, wherein I have endeavoured to preserve the simplicity of the original', this being the putative better-quality article which existed before Marshall and Pitts got their inky hands on it. One verse will suffice as an example. It comes after the 'damoselle', as Dixon styles her, has pushed the knight into the sea:
That ocean wave was the false one's grave,
For he sunk right hastily;
Though with dying voice faint, he pray'd to his saint,
And utter'd an Ave Marie.[46]
Dixon had the good sense to drop his own verses in 1846 when he published the 'common English stall copy' of 'The Outlandish Knight',[47] presumably from Pitts.[48] Later still, in 1868, he acknowledged his "juvenile' letter of 1827, adding this information:
My visit to Mr Pitts led to an intimacy between us. He was at that time quite blind. I was somewhat surprised to find in the ballad-printer of Seven Dials a gentlemanly, well-educated man, with a wonderful store of information on ballad and chapbook literature.[49]
The ballad was also issued in London by Birt, Catnach, Disley, Fortey, and Such, as well as by Pitts, which gives an indication of its popularity.[50] Further afield, editions 'Veritable Dunghills': Professor Child and the Broadside appeared in Birmingham (printed respectively by J. Russell and W. Wright), Brighton (Hook), Edinburgh (Charles Sanderson), Manchester (Pearson), Portsea [Portsmouth] (Williams), Worcester (Sefton), and probably elsewhere.[51] It would thus be possible to plot the spread of the ballad in space and also in time, given the dating of the printers, and the Sanderson firm in Edinburgh was in existence as late as the 1940s.
Footnotes:
45 William Hone, The Every-day B ook, or, Everlasting Calendar of Popular Amusements, 3 vols (London: Tegg, 1827), iII, col. 129; reprinted in John Pitts: Ballad Printer of Seven Dials, London, 1765-1844, by Leslie Shepard (London: Private Libraries Association, 1969), p. 36. Of Pitts's predecessor, Shepard writes: 'As Richard Marshall died in 1779, this is more likely his son John Marshall for whom Pitts worked in Aldermary Church Yard. However, Pitts actually first set up in business on his own account in 1802, twenty-one years before the death of John Marshall in 1823' (p. 37).
46 Hone, col. 131.
47 Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs of the Peasantry of England, coll. and ed. by J. H. Dixon, Early Enghish Poetry, 17 (London: Percy Society, 1846), pp. 74-77.
48 The Pitts sheet is reproduced in facsimile in Shepard, p. 38.
49 Notes a nd Queries, 4th series, 1 (April 1868), 344-45.
50 Steve Roud, Folksong Index, version2 , Electronic Indexes, 1 (Enfield Lock: H isarlik Press, forthcoming), no. 21. I am indebted to Steve Roud for sending me (a computer illiterate) a print-out of his information on 'The Outlandish Knight'.
51 See note 50