The Way Stylized Language Means: Pattern Matching in the Child Ballads
by Cathy Lynn Preston
Computers and the Humanities, Vol. 23, No. 4/5, Proceedings of the EighthInternational Conference on Computers and the Humanities (Aug. - Oct., 1989), pp. 323-332
The WayS tylizedL anguageM eans: Pattern M atching in the Child B allads[1]
Cathy Lynn Preston
Cathy Lynn Preston is a Research Associate,
Computer Research in the Humanities, at the
University of Colorado, Boulder. She is interested
in folklore, particularly oral narrative; popular
literature of the 18th- and 19th-century, particularly
broadside and chapbook; the works of John
Gay, Jonathan Swift, Thomas Hardy; Middle
English romance and lyric. Her major publications
are A KWIC Concordance to Jonathan Swift's "A
Tale of a Tub," "The Battle of the Books," and "A
Discourse Concerning the Mechanical Operation
of the Spirit, A Fragment," (New York: Garland
Publishing, 1984) (co-authored with Harold D.
Kelling), and A KWIC Concordance to Thomas
Hardy's "Tess of the d'Urbervilles," (New York:.
Garland Publishing, 1989).
Universityo f Coloradoa t Boulder,C enterfo r ComputerR esearchi n the Humanities( CCRH),
Hellems 101, Campus Box 226, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0226, USA
Abstract: This paper suggests ways in which the patternmatching
capability of the computer can be used to further
our understandingo f stylized ballad language.T he study is
based upon a computer-aideda nalysiso f the entire 595,000-
word corpus of Francis James Child's The English and
Scottish Popular Ballads (1882-1892), a collection of 305
textualt raditions,m ost of which are representedb y a variety
of texts.T he paperf ocuses on the "MaryH amilton"t radition
as a means of discussing the function of phatic language in the
balladg enrea nd the significanceo f textualv ariation.
Key Words: ballad, "Mary Hamilton," phatic language,
textual variation, collocation, stylized language, epithet, concordance,
verbal echoes
"Gay lady," "a year but and a day," and "there were ladies they lived in a bower" are examples of the collocations and stylized phrases and lines, often referred to as commonplaces or formulae, which appear in the eighteenth- and nineteenthcentury
English and Scottish popular ballads. Though considered as one of the dominant features by which a ballad text or a borrowing
from a ballad text might be identified, scholars
have disagreed about how such linguistic features
function within ballad texts.[2] This paper will
suggest ways in which the pattern-matching capability
of the computer can be used to further our
understanding of stylized ballad language.
My study is based upon a computer-aided
analysis of the entire 595,000-word corpus of
Francis James Child's The English and Scottish
Popular Ballads (1882-1898),[3] a collection of
305 textual traditions, most of which are represented
by a variety of texts (for example, Child
173, "Mary Hamilton," is represented by 28
different texts). These texts have oral, manuscript,
and printed sources (popular broadside as well as
popular and scholarly editions) primarily from the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. By mechanically
highlighting similar linguistic features in a
variety of concordance-like compilations, the
computer enables the scholar to identify stylized
patterns and their variants (see Appendix A for
sample concordance page).4 By analyzing pattern
and variation in one ballad text, its textual tradition,
and the corpus as a whole, one can begin to
describe a type of formulaic stylization which is
both phatic and culturally symbolic in function,
but which also can be individualized and is,
therefore, of semantic significance beyond the
formulaic cultural associations of the genre.
Phatic Language
Normally defined, phatic language is that speech
which almost totally lacks denotative meaning and
connotes little more than a sense of a shared
awareness. For example, many forms of contemporarys
alutationa re phatic.5I n normalc onversation,
someone saying "good morning" or "good
afternoon"r arelym eansi n any literalw ay that it is
a good morning or that it is a good afternoon. The
meaning of the expressions lies in their stylized
form, not in the denotative meaning of the words,
and their significance lies in their participants'
acknowledgemenot f a sharedc ulturalf ramework.
Analogously, there is a phatic element in language
- sharedd ialect,v ocabularyi,d ioms, and so forth
- which conveys a recognition of mutual belonging.
This phatic level of language enables one to
participatei n or bars one from participatingin a
particular group culture, its world view, and the
artistic productions exhibiting that world view
because it is the comprehensiono f the phaticl evel
of language which initially enables or signals
entrance to that world.
To respond to and understand a ballad, one
must be able to recognize and respond to the
phatic elements of the text. One's initial entrance
to the world of the ballad is through its form,
textual and musical. That entrance may be instigated
visuallyf or a participatoryla y audience by
the graphic representation of sets of four-line
stanzas or for the academic critic by a recognition
that the stanza is an abcb-quatrainin which fourstress
and three-stress lines alternate, a couplet
with seven stresses to the line, or an abcb-quatrain
in which all lines are composed of four stresses. Or
the entrance may be gained through the auditory
sense;o ne hearsa particulars et of textualr hythms
or musicalr hythmsa nd tonal fluctuationsI. n each
case what one responds to is a particulark ind of
structural unity - a syntax, if you will. It matters
very little what the words are that fill the syntactic
structureT. he initiale ntrancet o the text by means
of a conscious or an unconscious recognition of its
syntax merely places the reader or the audience in
the world of the ballad; it does not generate any
specific meaning. The range of the world one is
able to enter, though, is controlled by one's historical
and cultural learning, and part of that
learning or conditioning lies in one's respective
participationin the variousa spects of folk, popular,
and elite cultures. This does not mean that
form cannot achieve meaning; it can and does.
It simply means that one should differentiate
between initial and secondary responses, because
it is the first that enables the second and to some
extent controls and directs it.
Not only may the larger syntactic or structural
features of the ballad function phatically, but the
individual couplets, lines, and phrases can as well.
In each, it is not initially the individual words
which the reader or audience responds to, but the
phrasal unit. Just as the independent clause,
"There was a young lady from York," slips the
reader or audience into the world of the limerick,
so too the independent clauses, "My father was the
duke of York" and "There were ladies, they lived
in a bower," slip the reader or audience into the
world of the ballad. It makes no difference which
town is involved, or which person, or what that
person is. What is important is the stylized phrase
and the way that phrase is formulated. One says
"limerick,"th e other says "ballad,"a nd the worlds
which the reader or audience enters are quite
different;c onsequently,t he way that the readero r
audience is prepared to react to the text that
follows is different. The traditional ballads are
filled with such phrases as even the most casual
glance at a concordance will show.
Finally,e ven individualw ordsa nd theire pithets
function phatically. For example, there are
innumerable references to females in the Child
corpus. They are referred to as "girl" (25 occurrences),"
dame"( 115 occurrences)," damosal"(20 occurrences)," lass"o r "lassie"( 300 occurrences),
"maid" or "maiden" (1500 occurrences), and
"woman" (510 occurrences), but by far the most
commonly occurring form is "lady" (3300 occurrences)
which seems to function as a generic term
coveringa ll the others.6" Lady"is then one of the
many words synonymous with balladry and, when
coupled with the other phatic elements, functions
similarly." Lady,"in turn, may be combined with
one of several adjectives: "beautious," "black,"
"blessed," "bonny," "bravest," "brave," "braw,"
"bright," "brisk," "brown," "crafty," "dainty,"
"dear,"" dutiful,"" English,"" fair,"" false,"" fine,"
"forsaken," "free," "gay," "gentle," "good," "highland,"
"lovely," "likesome," "loving," "lusty,"
"new," "noble," "old," "pretty," "small," "sweet,"
"true," "unhappy," "valient," "woeful," "wanton,"
"wearied," "wedded," "worthy," and "young." But
by far the most frequently occurring combinations
are with "fair" and "gay". Though the other
combinations may occur between one and thirty
times apiece (and many between one and five
times) in the whole corpus, the collocation of
"lady" with "fair" occurs around three hundred
forty times and "lady" with "gay" around two
hundred eighty times.' The high frequencies of
occurrence suggest fixed or semi-fixed epithets,
and the range of texts in which they occur suggests
epithets which float freely throughout the corpus.
Thus not only is "lady" a generic term, but when
collocated with "fair" and "gay," the combinations
become generic epithet-noun combinations of
phatic significance.
This last statement is to some extent further
substantiated by a comparison of those adjectives
collocated with "lady" and those adjectives collocated
with "dame," "damosel," "girl," "lass,"
"lassie," "maid," "maiden," and "woman" which
have a specificity about them which seems lacking
for those associated with the word "lady". That
specificity either narrows the application of the
word towards those attributes often associated
with youth or age, or the specificity lends to the
word, in particular the word "woman", a negative
variability which may suggest a cultural uneasiness
towards what it means to be a woman.[8]
The phatic elements of any text are often
ignored because they are perceived of as being
most normative and therefore least inventive or
creative. Ironically, they may be the most important
elements in establishing one's initial perception
of the text because they create a state of
shared awareness, participation, and anticipation.
Their function changes from phatic to that of a
signifier as the audience moves from a primary to
a secondary level of awareness, a shift necessary in
order for a particular text or feature of a text to
assume a cultural meaning by historical, textual,
and sociological reference and/or an individualized
meaning by the particular artist's manipulation
(his similarity to and divergence from
tradition) of those points of historical reference.
To see how stylized language may be used to make
an individual statement about reality, let us turn to
a groupo f textsw hichc umulativelyr epresentw hat
is referred to as the "Mary Hamilton" textual
tradition.
Individualized S tatement:" MaryH amilton"
Mary Hamilton may be introduced to the audience
as a genericb allad" lady"a s in Child's "B" t ext:
There were ladies, they lived in a bower,
And oh but they were fair!
The youngest o them is to the king's court,
To learn some unco lair.
and Child's "T" text:
There was a duke, and he dwelt in York,
And he had daughterst hree;
One of them was an hostler-wife,
And two were gay ladies.
Or she may be introduced as a "dainty demosel,"
(E, F and Q), a "dainty dame" (P and U), a
"maiden bright" (V), or a "bonnie young may
[maid]"(Y ). The switchf rom "lady"t o "demosel,"
"dame,"" maiden,"a nd "may"is a form of reclassification
which causes the audience's attention to
begin to focus on the major character who is more
specifict hant he genericb allad" lady,"b ut still less
specific than she might be made and probably will
be made as the ballad continues. Thus the historical
reference of the epithet can be all-encompassing,
r eferringt he audiencet o all the "ladies"o f
ballad tradition, or it may be narrowed a bit,
referring the audience to the "demosels," "dames,"
"maidens," or "maids" of ballad tradition - those
who lived, those who died, those who were
honored, those who were disgraced, etc. As the
narratives of the various texts proceed, Mary
Hamilton may be referred to as "Mary mild," a
collocation which like its correlatives "maiden
mild" and "maidens meek and mild" in the larger
ballad corpus denotes a virginal state;[9] or she may
be referred to as an "ill woman," a collocation used
in the larger corpus to refer to a woman who has
been the source of some kind of malefaction.[10]"
A closer look at this textual tradition will
provide a bit more context for understanding the
capacity of a ballad text to achieve, through the
artist's use of stylized language, cultural and individual
meaning. The "Mary Hamilton" texts seem
to be based initially on six plot elements, each of
which may be fulfilled by a number of motifs
which are verbally stylized, may or may not overtly
appear in the text, and may or may not appear in a
linear narrative order: 1.) a young girl is introduced
2.) goes to court 3.) becomes pregnant 4.)
disposes of the child 5.) is tried and convicted and,
finally, 6.) is sentenced to the gallows. To these
major motifs are sometimes added others, which
in the textual tradition at large may appear to be
minor features by which the major action of the
narrative is advanced, but which in the individual
ballad texts often dominate the discourse. For
example, some texts highlight Mary's courtship,
others the confrontation between Mary and the
queen or the king as one or the other attempts to
learn of the child's whereabouts. Other texts focus
on the dialogue between Mary and the townspeople,
Mary's monologue to the sailors, her comments
about her parents, or her soliloquy on fate.
The texts differ thematically depending on
which motifs are incorporated and which of those
incorporated are emphasized. For example, (see
Appendix B) it is important, in many texts,
whether the girl is sent for by the court as in
Child's "U" and "V" texts, chooses to go to court
of her own accord as in Child's "B" and "D" texts,
or was sent to court by a socially ambitious mother
as in Child's "H" and "J" texts. How the artist
presents the girl's pregnancy is even more important.
In some texts, it is related by means of a
description of the seduction which precipitates the
pregnancy, in other texts by the description of the
flight of rumour and gossip which makes known
the pregnancy, and in some by both. The first way
focusses our attention on the girl, her environment,
and/or her lover, thus defining or questioning
culpability (see Appendix C). In text "U",
the girl seems to be seduced by the richness and
newness of her environment; in text A, the girl is
seduced, if not raped, by the King, and in text "I",
the King has been encouraged either by the girl or
by the girl's conscious but, perhaps, unmotivated
display of youthful beauty.
If the seduction focusses our attention on Mary
and the degree to which she is culpable for her
actions, the flight of rumour and gossip draws our
attention first to society's desire for conformity
and fascination with nonconformity, second to the
power structure which will condemn her, and
third, in texts such as "B", to the love triangle she
has willingly or unwillingly become a part of (see
Appendix D). Her ensuing condemnation and
execution can be defined by the author as being
caused by her having lost her virginity while still a
maid, by her having used her youthful physical
gifts to climb the social ladder, thus breaking class
boundaries, by her theft of another woman's
husband, by the usurpation of the queen's bed and,
metaphorically, her social or political position, or
by her infanticide.
Thus, through deletion, addition, elaboration,
and modification of the formal features of the
textual tradition (features which are often highly
stylized within the specific textual tradition and
may be equally stylized in the larger corpus as
well), the stories in the various texts are individualized
and molded into conflicting statements of
moral indignation, social protest, and a resigned
indifference to and acceptance of life. Mary
Hamilton can be viewed as a young woman who
tries to break stringently enforced class-boundaries
and falls into moral degradation through an
illicit love-affair and the murder of her own child,
or she can be seen as the heroine - perhaps a type
of Pamela, Clarissa, or Tess of the d'Urbervilles -
of a socially oppressed and manipulated class of
people who often get caught in the dilemma of not
wanting to disobey the whims of the more powerful
but who, by obeying those whims, come into
conflict with another part of the power structure
or the morality of their society at large. More often
than not, she exists somewhere between the two
extremes.
Verbal Echoes
The individualized statement of a particular text
can be underscored through conscious and unconscious
echoing of the larger corpus of balladry.
Just as an artist's use of such adjective-noun
collocations as "Mary mild" and "ill woman" can
link one character with other characters, so the
artist's use of other stylized phrases, lines, couplets
and stanzas may draw analogies, conscious and
latent, for the purpose of comparison or contrast.
The referential potential which such stylized
features of language engender adds, for the active
participant in the tradition, a subtlety to the text
not always perceived by someone viewing the text
from outside that tradition. But such subtleties can
be brought to the surface by the pattern-matching
capability of the computer.
Out of the whole Child corpus, I have found
that there are often sets or smaller groups of
ballads which exhibit a particularly strong intertextual
affinity. They often share a large number of
plot elements and motifs which are presented in
similarly stylized language. Those similarities of
language which are most memorable and which
are most obvious are those which are most
verbally stylized, in other words, those in which
the words and syntax are identical. Those similarities
which are least obvious but still of importance,
perhaps primarily in terms of a subconscious
linking with other texts, are those which are
syntactically or structurally similar. Syntactic and
structural similarities gain their referential ability,
then, partially by the existence of the more
obvious verbal formulae found intratextually. A
few sample lines and stanzas will suffice to
exemplify the ability of one text to echo another.
The adjective-noun collocation, "unco lair,"
appears in the Child corpus in seven texts: "Mary
Hamilton" (# 173 text B), "Lady Maisry" (# 65
texts D, E, K), "The Clerk's Twa Sons O Owsenford"
(# 72 texts A and D), and "Lord William"
(# 254 text A). Of these seven appearances, six -
"Lord William" is the exception - are incorporated
in a nearly fixed line, "To learn some unco
lair," which is, in turn, incorporated in a stylized
stanza, often the first stanza of the text. Each of the
seven texts involves an unacceptable love affair,
and in all but "Lord William" a member of the love
trist is condemned and executed because of the
affair. Thus it would seem that the adjective-noun
collocation, the nearly fixed line, and the stylized
stanza function as verbal echos progressively or
cumulatively narrowing the artist's and the audience's
range of reference, pointing, as it were,
towards an analogy and establishing a set of
narrative expectations, while at the same time
broadening the character's importance by suggesting
the eternal or cyclic qualities of the character
and his or her situation. "To learn some unco lair,"
when used, associates a "Mary Hamilton" text with
the subgenre of the tragic love ballads just as the
equally frozen line "To serve for meat and fee"
which fills the same metrical slot as "To learn
some unco lair" in a stanza which is structurally,
syntactically, and thematically much the same as
the "Mary Hamilton" stanza, might associate
another ballad, such as "Johnie Scot" (Child 99),
with the subgenre of the heroic rather than tragic
love ballad (see Appendix E).
An initial echo might be reinforced by others
(see Appendix F), thus drawing the texts even
more closely together for the purposes of comparison
and contrast. For example, the "Lady
Maisry" texts and the "Johny Scott" texts are
almost parallel. Lady Maisry is a Scottish lady who
gives her love to an Englishman, becomes pregnant,
and is condemned and executed by her
family for the affair. Johny Scott is a Scottish
gentleman who has an affair with an English girl.
The girl is condemned by her family, the execution
ordered, but Johny Scott comes to her rescue just
in time and all ends happily in marriage. Just as the
plots are much the same with the exception of the
endings, so too is the verbal narration. The verbal
echoes serve as a memory jog to the plots, and the
similarities of plot mutually underscore the cultural
taboos surrounding unacceptable love trysts
and a girl's loss of virginity while unmarried as well
as establishing a set of narrative expectations to be
flaunted. When echoed by a "Mary Hamilton" text,
either tradition might underscore Mary's loss of
virginity as a contributing factor in her condemnation.
Similarly, echoes between a "Mary Hamilton"
text and the textual tradition of "The Clerk's Twa
Sons O Owsenford" might underscore a maid's
loss of virginity and her parents' wrath if one
equates Mary Hamilton with the girls wooed by
the Clerk's two sons, but in so much as Mary might
also be associated with the young men (the sons of
a clerk wooed the daughters of a mayor and Mary
wooed or was wooed by a king), the texts also
mutually highlight a breaking of class-boundaries
and their parents' frantic attempts, though unsuccessful, to rescue their wayward children (in "The
Clerk's Twa Sons" half of the ballad concerns the
parents' attempt at rescue and feelings after the
failed rescue). In this way, a motif presented
briefly in a "Mary Hamilton" text - a motif which
seems to be of little value to the plot though of
high emotional impact - is given a considerable
range of possibilities by the verbal referencing
which preceded it. An early echo of "The Clerk's
Twa Sons" might help to dramatize Mary's worrying
over her parents response and their feelings of
helplessness as their dreams and hopes die on the
gallows.
Verbal echoing may be conscious or unconscious
on the part of the artist and the audience,
but the web created by such echoes makes of any
individual text something far more complicated
than one unfamiliarw ith the balladt raditionm ight
expect. The verbal echoes discussed here have
been only a very few of those which are possible
for one text, but even these are enough to hint at
the part stylized language plays as one makes
meaning of a ballad text. Though Mary Hamilton
seems to be condemned and executed for the
murdering of her child (a motif not present in any
of the other texts discussed here), verbal echoes
amongt exts highlighto ther factorsw hichm ightb e
interpretedt hroughi ndividuale mphasisa s equally
important in her condemnation or as important to
one's reaction to the text as a whole. A maid's loss
of virginityt o a lover below or above her stationa s
the cause for social condemnation is echoed
throughout the ballad tradition as are a parent's
wrath or grief. Other ballads, such as "The Gypsy
Laddie" (Child 200), when echoed, can further
emphasize the importance of class-boundaries
within the text or highlight the fatalistic vision of
the text (see Appendix G). Or a reference to "Lord
Thomas and Fair Annet" (Child 73) might move
the love triangle (Mary, the king, and the queen)
into a more prominant position, suggesting that
Mary is not executed because of her infanticide
but because of the queen's jealousy.
The stylized language of the ballads both
defines who will have access to the tradition and,
once within the tradition, what meaning will be
made of a particular text. Because each individual's
repertoire, active and passive, will differ, the
meaning made by each individual may also differ.
Thus a reader's or an audience member's reaction
to a text may differ from that of the performer's,
creating an infinite variety of texts through interpretation.
L anguagef eatureso nce referedt o by Sir
WalterS cott as "over-scutchedp hrases"w hicht he
"ballad-makeru nceremoniouslya ppropriatedt o
himself, thereby greatly facilitating his own task,
and at the same time degrading his art"" are
instead capable of summoning personal evocations
of enough meaning and intensity that an
artform thought dead or dying in the 19th-century
still flourishes today.
When working with the stylized language of an
enormousc orpus,t he pattern-matchincga pability
of the computeri s invaluable. A printed concordance
in a KWIC format visually highlights those
patterns which are most stylized - often phrases
and adjective-nounc ollocations.I t can, additionally,
indicate where in the stanza or line such
features most often occur and which texts they are
associated with. From the concordance, the critic
can then turn to a more interactive aid for further
information. One can retrieve stanzas based on,
for example, the lines "My father was the duke of
," the phrase "to learn some unco lair," or the
adjective-noun collocation "lady fair." Or if one
needs, one can retrieve the complete text. If,
having retrieved a group of related texts, one is
interested in finding further points of verbal
affinity, one can then re-concord just those texts
and continue this process.
Furthermorec, ontextuald ata can be added to
the corpus, thus widening the range of questions
one can seek answers to. For example, when
working with oral texts, one is often interested in
comparing performers, the performer's texts
against the editor's texts, texts from different
geographic areas or from different times, texts
performed by the same person but in different
settings or by the same person over an extended
period of time, etc. All such information can be
included in the database and used to retrieve texts
- or serve as the primary data for analysis. What
is still needed is more machine-readablete xts but
also software complicated enough to manipulate
textual data in ways that accord better with the
demands of modern literary and textual criticism.
Appendix A
UNCO (38)
232A.7 2
232A.8 2
232A.9 2
232A.1 2
232A.2 2
252A.27 2
252A.17 2
253A.10 4
253A.11 1
1C.7 2
39A.27 3
65D.1 4
72A.1 4
72D.2 4
173B.1 4
65K.1 4
65E.1 4
254A.1 2
41B.5 4
15A.3 1
37B.4 3
257B.48 3
257B.49 3
253A.20 3
15A.1 2
/O and a wally, but she was unco bonnie!/A' her silks were
/O and a wally, but she was unco bonnie!/All the nobles took
/O and a wally, but she was unco bonnie!/Her goodmother bade
/Oh and a wally, but they were unco bonnie!/The eldest of them
/Oh and a wally, but she was unco bonnie!/There she espied
my dochter, /G[a]e busk ye unco fine,/An I'll gae down to
ye, my maries a', /Busk ye unco fine,/Till I gae down to
/Which had true Thomas to unco ground.
He hadna been on unco ground/A month, a month but
/And she was to lye with this unco knicht.
love know, /Amang sae mony unco knights/ The like I never
Castle,/To learn some unco lair.
Owsenford/Has to learn some unco lair.
Brewick,/Tolearn some unco lair.
king's court,/To learn some unco lair.
Castle,/To learn some unco [lair] lear.
Castle,/To get some unco lair.
gone over seas,/Some unco lair to learn,/And our gude
ye, Hynde Etin,/I wad be unco laith.
He hadna been in that unco land/But only twallmonths
For I'm but a lady of an unco land,/Comd out a hunting,
sing,/And I will o some unco land,/Drive love out of
roe,/And I will to some unco land;/Now lat Sir Patrick go
cramasie,/And she's awa to unco land,/True Thomas's wedding
auld,/When he went to an unco land,/Where wind never blew
This is a sample from a KWIC (Key Word In
Context) concordance to the Child ballads. In such
a concordance, text is sorted alphabetically from
left to right following the key word.
Appendix B
GIRL IS SENT FOR BY THE COURT
MARY HAMILTON: U.1
My father was the Duke of York,
My mother a gay ladie,
And I myself a daintie dame;
The queen she sent for me.
MARY HAMILTON: V.1
My father was the Duke of York,
My mother a gay lady,
And I myself a maiden bright,
An the queen desired me.
GIRL CHOOSES TO GO TO COURT
MARY HAMILTON: B.1
There were ladies, they lived in a bower,
And oh but they were fair!
The youngest o them is to the king's court,
To learn some unco lair.
MARY HAMILTON: D.1-2
There lives a knight into the north,
And he had daughters three;
And ane of them was a barber's wife,
The other a gay ladie.
And the youngest of them is to Scotland gane,
The queen's Mary to be,
And a' that they could say or do,
Forbidden she wouldna be.
GIRL IS SENT TO COURT BY AN
AMBITIOUS MOTHER
MARY HAMILTON: H.2
But my mither was a proud woman,
A proud woman and a bauld;
And she hired me to Queen Mary's bouer,
When scarce eleven years auld.
MARY HAMILTON: J.1
My mother was a proud, proud woman,
A proud, proud woman and a bold;
She sent me to Queen Marie's bour,
When scarcely eleven years old.
Appendix C
DESCRIPTION OF THE SEDUCTION
MARY HAMILTON: U.2
'But the queen's meat it was sae sweet,
And her cloathing was sae rare,
It made me long for a young man's bed,
And I rued it evermair.'
MARY HAMILTON: A.2
He's courted her in the kitchen,
He's courted her in the ha,
He's courted her in the laigh cellar,
And that was warst of a'.
MARY HAMILTON: I.1-5
Marie Hamilton's to the kirk gane,
Wi ribbons in her hair;
The king thought mair o Marie Hamilton
Than ony that were there.
Marie Hamilton's to the kirk gane,
Wi ribbons on her breast;
The king thought mair o Marie Hamilton,
Then he listend to the priest.
Marie Hamilton's to the kirk gane,
Wi gloves upon her hands;
The king thought mair o Marie Hamilton,
Than the queen and a' her lands.
She hadna been about the king's court,
A month, but barely one,
Till she was beloved by a' the king's court,
and the king the only man.
She hadna been about the king's court,
A month, but barely three,
Till frae the king's court Marie Hamilton,
Marie Hamilton durstna be.
Appendix D
DESCRIPTION OF THE FLIGHT OF RUMOR
MARY HAMILTON: A.1
Word's gane to the kitchen,
And word's gane to the ha,
That Marie Hamilton gangs wi bairn
To the hichest Stewart of a'.
MARY HAMILTON: B.3
Word is to the kitchen gane,
And word is to the ha,
And word is up to Madame the queen,
And that is warst of a'.
MARY HAMILTON: G.4
A sad tale thro the town is gaen,
A sad tale on the morrow;
Oh Mary Hamilton has born a babe,
An slain it in her sorrow!
MARY HAMILTON: H.4
Word's gane up and word's gane doun,
An word's gane to the ha,
That Mary Hamilton was wi bairn,
An na body kend to wha.
MARY HAMILTON: 1.8
Word is to the kitchen gane,
And word is to the ha,
And word is to the noble room,
Amang the ladyes a',
That Marie Hamilton's brought to bed,
And the bonny babe's mist and awa.
MARY HAMILTON: S.2
She had na been in the king's court
A twelvemonth an a day,
When word is thro the kitchen gaen,
An likewise thro the ha,
That Mary Moil was gane wi child
To the highest steward of a'.
MARY HAMILTON: T.2
O word's gane to Queen Mary's court,
As fast as it coud gee,
That Mary Hamilton's born a bairn,
And the baby they coud na see.
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PATTERN MATCHING IN THE CHILD BALLADS 331
Appendix E
"Mary Hamilton," "Lady Maisry," "The Clerk's
Twa Sons Owsenford," and "Johnie Scott" all
begin with or imply initial movement away from
home into a new environment on the part of the
protagonist. This motif may be presented in a way
which is structurally, and, at times, syntactically
and verbally similar:
MARY HAMILTON: B.1
There were ladies, they lived in a bower,
And oh but they were fair!
The youngest o them is to the king's court,
To learn some unco lair.
LADY MAISRY: D.1
Lady Margery was her mother's ain daughter,
And her father's only heir,
And she's away to Strawberry Castle,
To learn some unco lair.
THE CLERK'S TWA SONS O OWSENFORD:
D.2
They thought their father's service mean,
Their mother's no great affair;
But they would go to fair Berwick,
To learn [some] unco lair.
JOHNIE SCOT: A.1
O Johney was as brave a knight
As ever saild the sea,
An he's done him to the English court,
To serve for meat and fee.
Appendix F
Once at court, Mary Hamilton, Lady Maisry, the
clerk's two sons and Johnie Scot have affairs;
Mary Hamilton's and Lady Maisry's affairs leave
them pregnant; Johnie Scott's affair leaves his lady
pregnant:
MARY HAMILTON: X.2
She hadna been at the queen's court
A year but and a day
Till she has fa'n as big wi child,
As big as she coud gae.
LADY MAISRY: D.2
She hadna been in Strawberry Castle
A year but only three,
Till she has proved as big with child,
As big as woman could be
THE CLERK'S TWA SONS O OWSENFORD:
D.3
They had not been in fair Berwick
A twelve month and a day,
Till the clerk's two sons of Oxenfoord
With the mayor's two daughters lay.
JOHNIE SCOTT: 1.2
He had na been in fair London
A twalmonth and a day,
Till the king's ae daughter
To Johnie gangs wi child.
Appendix G
"MARY HAMILTON" AND "THE GYPSIE
LADDIE"
MARY HAMILTON: A.17-18
'Last night I washd the queen's feet,
And gently laid her down;
And a' the thanks I've gotten the nicht
To be hangd in Edinbro town!
"Last nicht there was four Maries,
The nicht there'l be but three;
There was Marie Seton, and Marie Beton,
And Marie Carmichael, and me.
GYPSY LADDIE: B.8
'Last night I lay in a weel-made bed,
And my noble lord beside me,
And now I must ly in an old tenant's-barn,
And the black crew glowring owre me.'
MARY HAMILTON: B.19-20
Yestreen Queen Mary had four Maries,
This night she'll hae but three;
She had Mary Seaton, and Mary Beaton,
An Mary Carmichael, and me.
Yestreen I wush Queen Mary's feet,
And boren her till her bed;
This day she's given me my reward,
This gallows-tree to tread.
GYPSY LADDIE: D.6-7 & 14
Yestreen I wade this wan water,
And my good lord was wi me;
The nicht I man cast aff my shoes and wide,
And the black bands widen wi me.
Yestreen I lay in a well made bed,
And my good lord lay we me;
The nicht I maun ly in a tenant's barn,
And the black bands lying wi me.'
Yestreen we were fifteen good armed men;
Tho black, we werena bonny;
The nicht we a' ly slain for one,
It's the Laird o Corse Field's lady
Notes
1. This paper is based on work completed for my dissertation,
"The Ballad Tradition and the Making of Meaning," University
of Colorado, Boulder, 1986.
2 See: Douglas J. McMillan, "A Survey of Theories Concerning
the Oral Transmission of the Traditional Ballad,"
Southern Folklore Quarterly, 28 (1964), 299-309; Mac-
Edward Leach and Tristram P. Coffin, The Critics and the
Ballad (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press,
1961); David Buchan, The Ballad and the Folk (Boston:
Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972); Roger deV. Renwick,
EnglishF olk Poetry( PhiladelphiaU: niversityo f Pennsylvania
Press, 1980); JamesH . Jones, "Commonplacae nd Memorization
in the Oral Tradition of the English and Scottish Popular
Ballads," in Journal of American Folklore 74 (1961) 97-
112; Albert B. Friedman, "The Formulaic Improvisation
Theory of Ballad Tradition - A Counterstatement,"in
Journal of American Folklore 74 (1961) 113-115; K.
Thigpen, "A Reconsideration of the Commonplace Phrase
and Commonplace Theme in the Child Ballads," in Southern
Folklore Quarterly 37 (1973); and Flemming G. Andersen,
Commonplace and Creativity (Odense University Press,
1985).
SFrancis James Child, The English and Scottish Popular
Ballads 5 Vol., 1882-1898, (New York: Dover Publications,
Inc., 1965).
4 The Center for Computer Research in the Humanities at
the University of Colorado, Boulder made available the
software and personal expertise necessary to create the
multiple concordance-like compilations which underlie this
study.
SFor a fuller discussion of phatic language see G. W. Turner,
Stylistics (New York: Penguin Books, 1973, rpt. 1979), pp.
208-215.
6 These numbers are approximationsT. he database upon
which this paper is based has been proofread and corrected
only once.
7 For a discussion of collocation see J. R. Firth, "Modes of
Meaning," in Papers in Linguistics, 1934-1951 (London:
Oxford University Press, 1957), pp. 190-215.
8 DAME: beautiful, charming, dainty, dear, fair, gallant,
gentel, lovely, lusty, noble, old, savey, skilly, stalwart,s tately,
sturdy, thrifty, and young; DAMOSEL: beautiful, dainty,
pretty, and propper; GIRL: brown, country, handsom, little,
neat, poor, pretty, Scottish, trim, and young; LASS or
LASSIE: bonny, country, fairest, finikin, foolish, lazy, lovely,
lowland, southern, sweet, thrifty, tocherless, tapster, wee,
well-faired,a nd young;M AID:a ngry,b eautious,b est, bonny,
charming, comely, courteous, dainty, dear, fair, false, fine,
handsome, harmless, lovely, meanest, meekest, mild, missworn,
nut-brown, perfidious, pretty, propper, pure, rare,
tocherless, ventrous, well-fared, worst, wretched, and young;
Maiden: best, bright, clear, fair, false, free, gay, leal, meek,
mild, pretty, and true; WOMAN: angry, bad, best, bold,
dowie, fair, faulse, fey, glad, good, grieved, haughty, ill, light,
mean, moanful, old, poor, proud, scolding, Scots, sick, silly,
sorrowful, sorry, troubled, unco, waif, weary, western,
wicked, wild, wind, wise, witch, woeful, worst, and young.
SParticular texts make this equation quite clear; for example,
the stanzai n "FairM aryo f Wallington"(C hild9 1C.1. 1-4):
'O we were sisters seven, Maisry,
And five are dead wi child;
There is nane but you and I, Maisry,
And we'll go maidens mild
as well as the following lines from "Gil Brenton" (Child
5B.28.1-2):
'I courted a maiden meik and mild,
And I hae gotten naething but a woman wi child.'
'" In addition to "Mary Hamilton" (Child 173 C, O, S), see
Child 36, 66E, 68 C, G, J, 71; 76 A, D, E, G; 83 F; 103 A, C;
110 E, G, M, N; 194 C; 217 M; 246 B; 261 A; 264 A; and
266B.
" "IntroductoryR emarkso n Popular Poetry,"i n the 1830
edition of Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, ed. T. F.
Henderson, Vol. 1 (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1932), p.
8-9.