Bluegrass Messengers

Recordings & Info 19. King Orfeo

[There are 11 articles attached to this page about King Orfeo (Sir Orfeo) including the 1886 article by George Lyman Kittredge (Sir Orfeo). There are no authentic US versions of this ballad. A song titled "Orpheo" or "King Orpheo" sung by R. E. Lee Smith and his brother Thomas P. Smith learned in Zionville, NC, 1912 was at one time considered to be a version of "King Orfeo."  Although the name "King Orpheo" appears in the first verse of the text, the song is identified as "The Whummil Bore." (see text in US versions).

There are two known English texts; Child A from the singing of Andrew Coutts and the Lyle text- 21 couplets with interleaved refrain. The Lyle text was originally printed in The Shetland News, 25 August 1894, where it was described as having been noted from oral recitation by Bruce Sutherland at Gloup fishing station, North Yell, in 1865. Lyle quotes it from Patrick Shuldham-Shaw, 'The Ballad "King Orfeo," ' in Scottish Studies 20, 1976, 124-6.

There are two traditional English versions that have been collected: 1. John Stickle in 1947 and 2. Kitty Anderson in Shetland in 1955

R. Matteson 2012]

 CONTENTS
1) Alternative Titles
2) Traditional Ballad Index
3) Folk Index
4) Child Collection Index
5) Excerpt from The British Traditional Ballad in North America by Tristram Coffin 1950, from the section A Critical Biographical Study of the Traditional Ballads of North America
6) Wiki

ATTACHED PAGES: (see left hand column)1
1) Roud Number 136: King Orfeo (18 Listings)
2) King Orfeo- Joseph J. MacSweeney 1918
3) Sir Orfeo- George Lyman Kittredge 1886
4) Syr Orfeo- The Scottish Antiquary
5) Cohesion in King Horn and Sir Orfeo
6) Artifice and Artistry in Sir Orfeo- Lerer 1985
7) Classical Threads in "Orfeo"
8) Notes on the Sources of "Sir Orfeo"
9) "Sir Orfeo", the Minstrel, and the Minstrel's Art
10) Sir Orfeo and the Sacred Bonds of Matrimony
11) The Significance of Sir Orfeo's Self-Exile
12) Sir Orfeo: A 'Kynges Noote'

[Shuldham-Shaw, Patrick. “The Ballad King Orfeo.” Scottish Studies 20 (1976): 124–26.

Alternative Titles

King Orpheus
Sir Orfeo
Kyng Orfew

Traditional Ballad Index; King Orfeo [Child 19]

DESCRIPTION: The wife of (King) Orfeo, perhaps in a fit of madness, flees from him and his court. Orfeo sets out to find her. Encountering her under guard in a high hall, he plays his pipes so well that his wife is returned to him.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1880
KEYWORDS: music magic separation madness royalty
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Hebr))
REFERENCES (14 citations):
Child 19, "King Orfeo" (1 text)
Bronson 19, "King Orfeo" (1 version plus 1 in addenda)
Davis-More 11, pp. 79-80, "King Orfeo," comments only
OBB 15, "King Orfeo (A Shetland Ballad)" (1 text)
DT 19, KNGORFEO*
ADDITIONAL: Emily Lyle, _Fairies and Folk: Approaches to the Scottish Ballad Tradition_, Wissenschaflicher Verlag Trier, 2007, pp. 63-65, article "King Orpheus" (2 texts in parallel, 1 tune)
RELATED: Versions of the Romance --
Thomas C. Rumble, editor, _The Breton Lays in Middle English_, 1964 (I use the 1967 Wayne State University paperback edition which corrects a few errors in the original printing), pp. 207-226, "Kyng Orfew" (1 text, of 604 lines, seemingly based on Ashmole 61)
Donald B. Sands, editor, _Middle English Verse Romances_, Holt Rinehart and Winston, 1966, pp. 185-200, "Sir Orfeo" (1 text, of 580 lines)
Kenneth Sisam, editor, _Fourteenth Century Verse and Prose_, Oxford, 1925, pp. 13-31, "Sir Orfeo" (1 text, of 604 lines, primarily from Auchinlek with expansions from Harley)
Burrow/Turville-Petre: J. A. Burrow and Thorlac Turville-Petre, _A Book of Middle English_, second edition, 1996 (I cite the 1999 Blackwell paperback edition), pp. 112-131, "Sir Orfeo" (1 text, of 604 lines)
Boris Ford, editor, _The Age of Chaucer_ (The Pelican Guide to English Literature, Volume 1), Pelican, 1954, 1959, pp. 271-287, "Sir Orfeo" (1 text, of 580 lines although it says it is based on Sisam)
Modernized poetic version: J. R. R. Tolkien, translator, _Sir Gawain and the Green Knight * Pearl * Sir Orfeo_, with an introduction (and perhaps some light editing) by Christopher Tolkien, 1975 (I use the 1988 Ballantine edition), pp. 133-148, "Sir Orfeo"
Modernied prose version: Roger Sherman Loomis and Laura Hibbard Loomis, editors (and translators), _Medieval Romances_, 1957 (I use the undated Modern Library paperback), pp. 311-323, "Sir Orfeo"
Roud #136
RECORDINGS:
John Stickle, "King Orfeo" (on FSB4, FSBBAL1)
NOTES: Loosely based on the Greek myth of Orpheus and Euridice. Observe, however, that "King Orfeo" has a happy endings: Orfeo and the Euridice figure are successfully reunited.
The same is true of what may be the direct source of this piece, the Middle English romance "Sir Orfeo." (There is also an independent Scottish romance on the subject; Lyle, p. 66. She thinks it the direct source of the ballad, but her evidence is slight. Burrow/Turville-Petre, p. 113, think that both "Sir Orfeo" and the Scottish piece are translations of the same original, possibly the "Lai d'Orphey," a French musical piece referred to in romances but now lost)
The change to a happy ending is not the only alteration in the tale. Shippey, p. 63, notes that "Sir Orfeo" is fighting the forces of Elfland, not Hell (there may be a link with "Thomas Rymer" [Child 37] or something like it), and that Orfeo's honor as well as his music plays a role.
Incidentally, the romance and the ballad should perhaps be referred to under the same title; Lyle, p. 61, notes that the name of the ballad was supplied by Child based on one version of the Middle English romance. Lyle refers to the song as "King Orpheus" after a Scottish version (also known as "Orpheus King of Portugal" after a title mentioned in the Complaynt of Scotland of c. 1550; Lyle, p. 66).
The interesting question is how "Sir Orfeo" evolved the ending it did. Of the 50-odd Middle English romances, "Orfeo" is generally considered the best not by Chaucer or the Gawain-Poet or Marie of France ("Sir Orfeo," like the works of Marie, is considered a "Breton Lei"; Bennett/Gray, p. 138). CHEL1, pp. 294-295, for instance, declares that "The best [of the romances] in English are Sir Orfeo and Sir Launfal. The first of these, which is the story of Orpheus, is proof of what can be done by mere form[;] the classical fable is completely taken over, and turned into a fairy tale; hardly anything is left to it except what it owes to the Breton form of thought and expression."
The story of Orpheus was known in the Middle Ages, from Virgil's Georgics (Book four, roughly lines 450-550 -- the very end of the book) and from Ovid's Metamorphoses (Book X, about lines 1-100) -- indeed, it seems to have been better known from Latin than Greek sources. The tale also occurs in the writings of Boethius, much philosophized (Loomis, p. 311; Burrow/Turville-Petre, p. 112), and Alfred the Great had translated Boethius into Old English. But those accounts are clearly classical in their settings, and don't have the happy ending; it's not clear how the tale was converted to a romance, or how the ending changed into the form of the romances. It has been hypothesized that there is a vanished French version, but if so, it's definitely lost (Sands, p. 185).
We do find allusions to a similar tale in the writings of Walter Map (Bennett/Gray, p. 140, who however think this may be a Celtic tale. Perhaps it was the combining of the two which gave us the happy ending. There is a French mention of the story being told by an Irish bard, according to Loomis, p. 312). Certainly the piece has been thoroughly adapted to a medieval setting (Bennett/Gray, p. 143; Loomis, p. 313, notes that the Thrace of the Greek account has been transformed into Winchester!).
To muddy matters further, there is a second Middle English version of the Orpheus tale, a Breton Lei called "King Orfew," a 604 line poem published (with a facsimile of the first page of the manuscript) on pp. 206-226 of Rumble. It is ironic that it is almost exactly the same length as the Romance. But it is far less popular, and seems to have had little literary influence.
"Sir Orfeo" is now found in three MSS, with the earliest and best, the Auchinlek MS., from about 1330; the others, Harley 3810 and Ashmole 61, are of the fifteenth century (Sisam, p. 13). It has been suggested that the Auchinlek manuscript may have been used by Chaucer (Sands, p. 185). It is sometimes suggested that another romance in that manuscript, the "Lay Le Friene," is by the same author (Sands, p. 185; this is partly because the beginning of the latter piece is quoted in the other two manuscripts of "Sir Orfeo." The "Lay Le Friene," although a Breton Lei, should not be confused with Marie of France's Lei "Le Fresne," even though both are on the same theme).
Anderson, p. 136, mentions a further speculation (praising the poet while he is at it): "The author of Sir Launfal is by tradition the same shadowy Thomas Chestre to whom was attributed the Middle English Tristan. Sir Orfeo, believed by some to be also the work of Chestre, is a beautiful and sensitive retelling of the pathetic tale of Orpheus and Eurydice."
The Orfeo poem is #3868 in the Brown and Robbins Middle English Index.
The language of this piece appears to be SW English but with some northern forms, perhaps introduced by a northern copyist; the whole is perhaps from a French or Breton original, and the translation perhaps is from the fourteenth century (Sisan, p. 13; Loomis, p. 313).
Sir Orfeo is, incidentally, one of the few Middle English romances to be generally praised by critics, for both its plot and for its well-handled poetry. Sands, e.g., says (pp. 186-187) that "few narrative poems conceal artfulness under disarming artlessness so well." Similarly Bennett/Gray comment that "Of all the English verse romances, Sir Orfeo is the one that in grace and charm, lightness and neatness, comes closest to the twelfth century lays of Marie de France, and to her conception of... the goodness... of love" (p. 138).
A full apparatus criticus for "Sir Orfeo" has been published by A. J. Bliss (1954); I have not seen it. A critical text of the romance (604 lines) is available in Sisam, pp. 14-31. Unfortunately, it is not glossed (though the book has a complete glossary by J. R. R. Tolkien). A glossed version (580 lines) is available in Sands, pp. 187-200. Tolkien, pp. 133-148, prepared modernized verse version following the same lineation as Sisam (though it is not just a crib; it's a true translation, which was published posthumously; it uses almost none of the language of the original).
Although "Sir Orfeo" is probably a sufficient source for this ballad, Lyle thinks she finds other materials which might have gone into the mix. On p. 67, she mentions the romance of "Guy of Warwick" -- another item with a theme of visiting the underworld. Lyle is right that this is an unusual theme in romance. But with Vergil and Ovid and Homer all telling tales of visits to the underworld, I don't really think it necessary to ring in "Guy." Especially since the Orpheus legend seems to have been popular in Britain; in addition to the two romances and the ballad, Robert Henryson wrote an Orpheus poem (Lyle, p. 75).
Lyle, p. 71, also notes thematic links to the Tristan legend, and to the Orpheus tale as found in Lefevre's Recueil des Hystoires Troyennes." The latter link is made particularly complicated by the fact that the Recueil was translated by Caxton, who then (in order to put it in more people's hands) printed it -- the first English printed book. If the Recueil is an influence, is it from a French source, or did an English writer know Caxton? (The difficulty with the latter hypothesis, of course, is that Caxton lived after the Auchinlek MS. was written. But it might have influenced the later stages of the transmision).
Several other ballads also derive loosely or from Middle English romance, or from the legends that underly it, examples being:
* "Hind Horn" [Child 17], from "King Horn" (3 MSS., including Cambridge Gg.4.27.2, which also contains "Floris and Blancheflour")
* "The Marriage of Sir Gawain" [Child 31], from "The Weddynge of Sir Gawe and Dame Ragnell" (1 defective MS, Bodleian MS Rawlinson C 86)
* "Blancheflour and Jellyflorice" [Child 300], from "Floris and Blancheflour" (4 MSS, including Cambridge Gg.4.27.2, which also contains "King Horn," and the Auchinlek MS, which also contains "Sir Orfeo") - RBW
Bibliography
Anderson: George K. Anderson, Old and Middle English Literature from the Beginnings to 1485, being volume I of "A History of English Literature," 1950 (I use the 1966 Collier paperback edition)
Bennett/Gray: J. A. W. Bennett, Middle Englich Literature, edited and completed by Douglas Gray and being a volume of the Oxford History of English Literature, 1986 (I use the 1990 Clarendon paperback)
Burrow/Turville-Petre: J. A. Burrow and Thorlac Turville-Petre, A Book of Middle English, second edition, 1996 (I use the 1999 Blackwell paperback edition)
CHEL1: Sir A. W. Ward and A. R. Waller, Editors, The Cambridge History of English Literature, Volume I: From the Beginnings to the Cycles of Romance, 1907 (I use the 1967 Cambridge edition)
Loomis: Roger sherman Loomis and Laura Hibbard Loomis, editors (and translators), Medieval Romances, 1957 (I use the undated Modern Library paperback)
Lyle: Emily Lyle, Fairies and Folk: Approaches to the Scottish Ballad Tradition, Wissenschaflicher Verlag Trier, 2007
Rumble: Thomas C. Rumble, editor, The Breton Lays in Middle English, 1964 (I use the 1967 Wayne State University paperback edition which corrects a few errors in the original printing)
Sands: Donald B. Sands, editor, Middle English Verse Romances, Holt Rinehart and Winston, 1966
Shippey: Tom Shippey, The Road to Middle-Earth, revised edition, Houghton-Mifflin, 2003
Sisam: Kenneth Sisam, editor, Fourteenth Century Verse and Prose, Oxford, 1925
Tolkien: J. R. R. Tolkien, translator, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight * Pearl * Sir Orfeo, with an introduction (and perhaps some light editing) by Christopher Tolkien, 1975 (I use the 1988 Ballantine edition)

Folk Index: King Orfeo [Ch 19]

Stickle, John. Folk Songs of Britain, Vol 4. The Child Ballads, I, Caedmon TC 1145, LP (1961), trk# A.07 [1950s] 

Child Collection Index: King Orfeo

Alison McMorland, Geordie McIntyre & Kirsty Potts King Orfeo Ballad Tree 2003 5:19 Yes
Alva King Orfeo Love Burns in Me - Medieval & Traditional Songs and Fiddle Music from Britain & France 2002  No
Andrew Calhoun King Orfeo Telfer's Cows: Folk Ballads from Scotland 2003 6:15 Yes
Archie Fisher Orfeo Orfeo 1970 8:43 Yes
Barbara Dickson King Orfeo Words Unspoken 2011 No
Carol Wood King Orfeo The Chaucer Songbook - Celtic Music and Early Music for Harp and Voice 2000 2:38 Yes

Ester Sjöberg Harpans Kraft Den Medeltida Balladen (The Medieval Ballad) - Folk Songs in Sweden 1995 1:17 Yes

Folk & Rackare Harpans Kraft Anno 1979 1979 5:27 Yes
Folk & Rackare Harpans Kraft Folk & Rackare 1976 - 1985 1996 5:27 Yes

Frankie Armstrong Young Orphy 'Till the Grass O'ergrew the Corn - A Collection of Traditional Ballads 1996 9:09 Yes
Frankie Armstrong Young Orphy Songs of Witchcraft & Magic - Songs & Ballads Compiled By the Museum of Witchcraft 2007  No

Holly Tannen King Orfeo Invocation 1983 9:45 Yes

John Stickle King Orfeo BBC Recordings
John Stickle King Orfeo Classic Ballads of Britain & Ireland - Folk Songs of England, Ireland, Scotland & Wales, Vol 1 2000 :43 Yes
John Stickle King Orfeo The Folk Songs of Britain, Vol 4: The Child Ballads 1 1961 :41 Yes
John Stickle King Orfeo The Elfin Knight - The Classic Ballads 1 1976  No

Kalabra Harpans Kraft Folka 2000 6:59 Yes

Ken Theriot King Orfeo Raven Boy Music - Son of SCA Bards Sampler 2004  No
Ken Theriot King Orfeo Human History 2008  No

Malinky King Orfeo The Unseen Hours 2005 4:50 Yes

Sedayne King Orfeo Zither Songs Volume 2 - the Chapters Session 2005  No

Steeleye Span Orfeo + Nathan's Reel Rocket Cottage 1976 6:00 Yes
Steeleye Span Orfeo + Nathan's Reel Another Parcel of Steeleye Span - Their Second Five Chrysalis Albums 1976-1989 2010; No

Styrbjörn Bergelt King Orfeo Tagelharpa Och Videflöjt 1979 4:07 Yes

Svea Jansson Harpans Kraft Den Medeltida Balladen (The Medieval Ballad) - Folk Songs in Sweden 1995 :54 Yes

Venereum Arvum King Orfeo (1)  Scowan Urla Grun + Fower Muckle Sangs 2003  No
Venereum Arvum King Orfeo (2)  Scowan Urla Grun + Fower Muckle Sangs 2003  No

Veslemøy Solberg Harpens Kraft The Strength of the Runes 1996 4:03 Yes 

Excerpt from The British Traditional Ballad in North America by Tristram Coffin 1950

19. KING ORFEO

Reed Smith lists this ballad among the Child ballads surviving in America in SFLQ, I, #2, 9 ii. See Davis, FS 7 a.