Pretty Mary- Russell (VT) pre1942 Flanders G
[My title, replacing the generic Outlandish Knight. Flanders- Ancient Ballads, 1966. Notes by Coffin follow.
R. Matteson Jr. 2014]
Lady Isabel and the Elf-Knight
(Child 4)
This song is known to practically all the ballad-singing people of Europe from Scandinavia to the Latin countries and into Poland to the Netherlands. Its theme, the story of the ogre who decoys maidens to their deaths but who is at last thwarted by an opportunistic girl, is widespread in tales (see Bluebeard and related matter) as well. Longer versions of the song may involve a conversation in which the girl asks her brother's permission to go with the lover who has sung irresistible melodies; a choice given the maid between hanging and being stabbed; remarks by the head of the decapitated lover; a meeting between the girl, who is carrying the ogre's head, and the ogre's mother; and the conquering maiden's blowing her horn like a warrior as she approaches her father's castle. It is easy to see that the Anglo-American texts, where even the supernatural nature of the lover has pretty well vanished and where the naive chivalry of the villain gives the girl her chance, are abbreviated and somewhat pale. However, the true core of the story, the vigorous nature of the heroine, is preserved faithfully--almost as well as in French Canada where Jeanneton kicks the man in the stream as he pulls off her stocking and then holds him under with a branch.
Versions similar to A and B below (see Child E), in which the girl is told to remove a series of garments, are more common to New England than to the rest of the United States. Texts C and D, in which nettles or other brambles are removed from the river's edge, are not until except in the opening stanza which is borrowed from Child 105, nor are texts like L where the parrot (note he is a pirate in A) has been omitted. The parrot in "Lady Isabel" and the parrot in "Young Hunting" (Child 68) often get confused anyhow. It is somewhat unusual, however, to find as one does in Versions L and M that the girl recites what has happened to her. Obviously, from what goes on between her and the parrot, in Anglo-American tradition she would prefer to drop the subject.
The European backgrounds of this have been intensively studied. Grundtvig (Danmark's gamle Folkeviser (Copenhagen, 1853-90], IV) made an elaborate investigation of its dissemination; Child, 22 f., spent a long introduction on it; and more recently it has come under the thorough attention of Iivar Kemppinen (The Ballad of Lady Isabel and the Elf-Knight, Heisinki, 1954) and Holger Nygard. Nygard's two articles, in JAF, LXV, 1-12, and LXVIII, 141-52, give one a start on a bibliography and a nice introduction to the problems involved; his book, The Ballad of Heer Halewijn (Knoxville, 1958), is a complete study. Anglo-American bibliographies and discussion, are found through Coffin, 32-35, Belden, 5-6; and Dean Smith, 97. The song is included in Barry's British Ballad's from Maine, 14.
The large group of tunes for this ballad falls (indistinctly) into two groups: 1) the versions of Burling, Harrington, Moses, Amey, Russel, Fish (which is especially close to Moses) and perhaps Pease (close to Russell?); and 2) Lougee, with Daniels and George (distantly close to Lougee, but close to each other). The Hayes version seems outside these groups, as does that of Lane which may be related to group I. Comparison with BCI groups reveals that our group I is part of BCl's group A, and our group 2, part of his group B.
G. [Pretty Mary] Sung by Mrs. Bert Russell of Newport, Vermont; Mrs. Russell learned, this ballad, from her mother, who used to live in Waterville, Vermont. M. Olney, Collector; September 24, 1942
Structure: A B Cb D1 D2 (2,2,2,2,2) ; Rhythm C;
Contour: arc; Scale: hexachordal, t.c. G. For mel. rel. see BES, 16, 19, and 26; DV, 550(3F) and 551(35); and (distant) GN, 3.
[Pretty Mary] The Outlandish Knight
"Oh, give to me your father's gold
And all of your mother's fee
And two of your father's best horses,
As they stand thirty and three,
As they stand thirty and three."
She goes and gets her father's gold
And all of her mother's fee,
And two of her father's best horses
As they stood thirty and three,
As they stood thirty and three.
She jumps right on the milk-white steed,
And she led the dapple gray,
And she rode all along o'er the merry green woods
Till she came to the willow tree,
Till she came to the willow tree.
She gets right off that milk-white steed.
"Then stand. beside of me,
For it's six fair damsels I've drownded here,
And you the seventh shall be,
And you the seventh shall be."
"Ger right off that milk-white steed
And stand beside of me,
For it would be a shame for my silk gown
To be rotted away in the sea,
To be rotted away in the sea.
"Turn your back to the watery side
And look at a leaf in a tree,
For it would be a shame for a nice young man
A naked girl for to see,
A naked girl for to see." [1]
She got right off the milk-white steed;
She stood beside of him.
When she gently picked him into her arms
And she flung him into the sea,
And she flung him into the sea.
"Lie there, lie there, you false young man;
Lie there instead of me;
For it is six fair damsels you've drownded here,
Go keep them company,
Go keep them company."
She jumps right on the milk-white steed,
And she led the dapple gray,
And she rode all along o'er merry green woods
Till she came to her father's door,
Till she came to the father's door.
The parrot hearing Mary up,
This to her did say:
"Oh, what's the matter, my pretty Mary,
You call so long 'fore day,
You call so long 'fore day?"
"Oh, hush, oh, hush , my pretty parrot,
And tell no tales on me,
And your cage shall be lined with the beaten gold
And hung in the willow tree."
1. Note the the speeches of the villain and the girl are reversed in stanzas 5 and 6.