Pretty Pollee- Richards (NH) pre1941 Flanders C
[My title, replacing the generic Outlandish Knight. Flanders- Ancient Ballads, 1966. This version has the stanzas found in old version Child F about the nettles. 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.
C. [Pretty Pollee] sung by Mrs, Belle Richards of Colebrook, New Hampshire . Her tune was the same as that of Clarke Amey of Pittsburg, New Hampshire, Version D. M. Olney, Collector; November 27, 1941
[Pretty Pollee] The Outlandish Knight
'Twas of a youth and a well-beloved youth,
'Twas of a squire's son.
He courted the bailiff's daughter so dear,
'Twas of old Engleston.[1]
He courted her many a long winter's eve
And many a long summer's day.
He courted her both early and late
To take her sweet life away.
"Go and get some of your father's gold,
Some of 'Your mother's fee,
And away we will go to some far distant land,
And married we will be."
She got some of her mother's gold,
Some of her father's fee,
And away they did ride to some clear water's side;
'Twas six hours before it was day.
"Oh, feed your horse, my Pretty Pollee,
Oh, feed your horse, I pray,
For it's six pretty fair maids I've drowned here before,
And you the seventh shall be.
"Oh, take off some of the best of your clothes
And lay them on the ground,
For I think that your clothing is rather too good
For to lie in a watery tomb.
She took off some of the best of her clothes
And laid them on the ground.
He put his hand into her pocket
And pulled out five hundred pounds
"Oh go and get a thistle for to keep away the nettle
That grows by the river's brim,
That it may nor entangle with my curly, curly locks
Nor mingle with my milk-white skin."
He went to get a thistle to keep away the nettle
That grew by the river's brim.
He went to get a thistle to keep away the nettle,
And she pushed this young man in.
"Oh, swim if you can; you're a false young man.
Since you have got your got your doom,
I think that your clothing is not at all too good
To lie in a watery tomb.
He mounted on her milk-white steed,
Likewise she led her gray;
And when she got back to her father's stable door,
'Twas three hours before it was day.
"Where, have you been, my pretty Pollee?
Oh where have you been I pray,
That you have been riding so early in the morning,
So long before it is day?"
"Oh, hold your tongue, my pretty parrot,
Don't tell any tales on me,
And your cage it shall be all of a bright gold
And shall hang on the willow tree."
"Oh, what is the matter, my pretty parrot,
That you're prating so long before dawn
That you have been calling so early in the morning,
So long before it is day?"
"Oh, the cats they come to my cage door,
Intending me to slay,
And I have been calling to pretty Pollee
To drive those cats away."
1 This stanza is obviously borrowed from "The Bailiff's Daughter of Islington" (Child 105).