Recordings & Info 252. The Kitchie-Boy
[To understand the excerpt from, The Ballad of Hind Horn, you will need t o know:
1. The Norman French Horn et Rimel =(HR)
2. The English "Geste of King Horn"= (KH)
3. The fourteenth-century English romance of "Horn Childe and Maiden Rimnild"= (HC), which is generally believed to be derived from HR. ]
CONTENTS:
1) Alternative Titles
2) Traditional Ballad Index
3) Child Collection Index
4) 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
5) The Ballad of Hind Horn (Excerpt, the Appendix- The Kitchie-Boy)
ATTACHED PAGES: (see left hand column)
1) Roud No. 105: The Kitchie-Boy (18 Listings)
Alternate Titles
Bonny Foot-Boy
Earl Richard's Daughter
Traditional Ballad Index: Kitchie-Boy, The [Child 252]
DESCRIPTION: A lady reveals her love to a kitchen boy. He begs her not to make it known; her father would kill him. She sends him over the sea; he rebuffs a lady's advances. He returns home in disguise and convinces the father to let him marry his daughter
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST_DATE: 1800 (GordonBrown/Rieuwerts)
KEYWORDS: love separation nobility servant disguise marriage reunion return
FOUND_IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES: (6 citations)
Child 252, "The Kitchie-Boy" (5 texts)
Bronson 252, "The Kitchie-Boy" (3 versions)
GordonBrown/Rieuwerts, pp. 231-234, "Bonny Foot-Boy" (1 text)
GreigDuncan5 1048, "The Kitchie Boy" (4 texts, 2 tunes)
Leach, pp. 616-621, "The Kitchie-Boy" (1 text)
DBuchan 25, "The Kitchie-Boy" (1 text)
Roud #105
CROSS_REFERENCES:
cf. "Matt Hyland" (plot)
cf. "Richie Story" [Child 232] (plot)
cf. "The Prince of Morocco (The Sailor Boy II)" [Laws N18] (plot)
cf. "Hind Horn" [Child 17] (lyrics)
NOTES: Child views this as a "modern 'adaption' of 'King Horn'" (i.e. "Hind Horn," Child 17), from which it derives some stanzas. The plot, however, is by no means identical, sharing elements with a number of other ballads. - RBW
GreigDuncan5 1048C has a connection with "King Horn" not in any of Child's texts: the hero reveals himself by dropping the ring in the lady's wine cup. - BS
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
252. THE KITCHIE-BOY
Reed Smith (SFLQ, I, # 2, 9) included this ballad on his list of Child ballads that have survived in this country. I have not, however, been able to locate a published text.
Attention should be directed, nevertheless, to W. R. Nelles article in JAFL, XXII, 42 ff. on Hind Horn in which he discusses The Kitchie-Boy as an off-shoot of the Horn tradition. See the chart on p. 59 in his article.
-----
The Ballad of Hind Horn (Excerpt)
by Walter R. Nelles
The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 22, No. 83 (Jan. - Mar., 1909), pp. 42-62
APPENDIX: THE KITCHIE BOY
In the part of his collection given over to fabrications and degenerates, Professor Child prints five versions of a ballad known as the "Kitchie Boy." [59] With other names and places, the "Kitchie Boy" gives what appears to be a debased version of the Horn story. Its resemblances to the other versions are noted in the following comparative summary.
1. A fair lady of birth and fame falls in love with her father's kitchen boy. In all the romances, the lady is the first to fall in love. The descent of Horn into a menial may be accountedf or as an illiterate ballad-teller's interpretation of two features in HR and KH: first, Horn, though a king's son, is a foundling; and, second, Horn is officially the king's cup-bearer--in HR, especially,
great stress is laid upon his serving wine at the high feast (11. 755 sq.), and upon his duty of relieving the king of his sword and gloves when he comes in from hunting (11. 1911 sq.).
2. The lady, as in all the romances, sends for Horn to her chamber, and herself makes the proposal.
3. The Kitchie Boy demurs, like Horn in HR, KH; the Kitchie Boy alleges fear of her father, Horn alleges the duty he owes him.
4. The lady equips for the Kitchie Boy a bonny ship, in which he may sail away beyond the wrath of her father and the master cook.
5. At parting she gives him a ring; it has no magic properties.
6. He sails away to Spain (London); cf. Horn's trip to Ireland in the romances.
7. A Spanish lady offers to feast him sumptuously; the king's daughter of Ireland feasts Horn sumptuously (HR, 11. 2688 sq.).
8. The Spanish lady offers him her love; so the king's daughter of Ireland to Horn in HR (11. 2400 sq.). (In KH it is the lady's father who makes the offer.)
9. She offers him gifts; so the Irish princess in HR (11. 2485 sq.).
10. The Kitchie Boy refuses both love and gifts on the ground that he is already engaged; so Horn in HR, KH.
11. Having sailed back home, the Kitchie Boy blacks his bonny face and close tucks up his yellow hair (C 31); his disguise is carried no further. In HR, Horn's only disguise is a change of clothes. But in KH, he made him a foul cheer, and smeared his neck with coal dust, and made himself uncomely, so that he did not look like himself (11. 1O63 sq.).
12. When the disguised Kitchie Boy has shown his love her ring (there is no dropping it into a wine cup), she asks,
"'O gat ye that ring on the sea sailing?
Or gat ye it on the sand ?
Or gat ye it on the shore laying,
On a drouned man's hand?"' (A 34.)
This is obviouslya lmost identicalw ith the corresponding stanza in the ballad of "Hind Horn." I have already pointed out the particular resemblance of this part of the ballad to KH.
13. The Kitchie Boy replies,
"'I gat na it on the sea sailing,
I gat na it on the sand,
But I gat it on the shore laying,
On a drouned man's hand.' " (A 35.)
Buchan's version adds,
"'He was not dead as I passed by,
But no remeid could be;
He gave me this token to bear
Unto a fair ladie."' (B 49.)
This is the reply which seems to have dropped out of "Hind Horn." [60] By it the resemblance to KH is made closer.
14. The Kitchie Boy washed his face and combed his hair, and took his true love in his arms and kissed her. She, fatuously enough, asked him how he could her so beguile. Her father blessed the match and called for a priest, little knowing that the happy lover was his own Kitchie Boy.
The "Kitchie Boy" shows no particular resemblance to HC. Points I, 2, 3, 5, 6, and 10 are resemblances to both HR and KH. Points 7, 8, and 9 are particular resemblances to HR; point 11 is a particular resemblance to KH; points 12 and 13 resemble both KH and "Hind Horn," as to phraseology the latter in particular.
The likeness in phraseology of points 12 and 13 of the " Kitchie Boy" to " Hind Horn " would at first glance seem to indicate that the two ballads had once been connected. A note in Professor Child's Additions and Corrections would tend to support this hypothesis:
"Dr. Davidson in forms me that many years ago he heard a version of 'Hind Horn' in four-lines tanzas, in which, as in HR and HC, Horn t ook part in a joust at the king's court,
" An young Hind Horn was abune them a'."
He remembers further only these stanzas:
"'O got ye this o the sea sailin,
Or got ye 't o the lan?
Or got ye 't o the bloody shores o Spain,
On a droont man's han?'
"'I got na 't o the sea sailin,
I got na 't o the lan,
Nor yet upo the bloody shores o Spain,
On a droont man's han.' "[61]
Clearly these are the "Kitchie Boy " stanzas, associated with the name "Horn." The obvious inference is that the two ballads were formerly one.
But I do not believe that this was the case. For except as to the stanzas above quoted, the "Kitchie Boy" differs radically from "Hind Horn:" one gives an expanded form of the story, slurring the denouement; the other devotes itself altogether to the denouement. Moreover, the distinctive features of "Hind Horn," discoloration of the ring, beggar disguise, discomfiture of the bridegroom, are so striking that I cannot conceive of their disappearance from any ballad with which they had become connected. And it is possible to account for the presence in both of substantially the same stanzas without resorting to the theory that they were once connected. May not this be simply another case of the employment of a stock stanza, such as the ring stanza of "Hind Horn" seems originally to have been? [62] As to Dr. Davidson's version of "Hind Horn" in four-line stanzas with a tournament, I feel no certainty that it ever existed. If Dr. Davidson had ever read HR, it is quite possible that the tournament in which " Young Hind Horn was abune them a' " may have invented itself in his mind without his being aware of it, and attached itself to two stanzasw hich he rememberedfr om the "Kitchie Boy" and confused with the similar stanzas in "Hind Horn." [63]
If the "Kitchie Boy" is independent of "Hind Horn," what is its origin? It may, of course, be derived from a very early form of the hypothetical ballad ancestor of "Hind Horn," which had not yet acquired the discoloration of the ring. But nothings tands in the way of a theory that this ballad descends from a romance. Its particular resemblance to "Hind Horn" being disposed of as a borrowing of stock stanzas, its particular resemblance to KH (point 11) is the only obstacle to a theory that it is derived from HR. Point ii, as well as all the points of resemblance to HR, is paralleled in the fifteenth century prose romance of "Ponthus and Sidoine,"' which is generally regarded as based upon HR. The "Kitchie Boy" is more likely to come from this romance than from the hypothetical ballad.
Footnotes:
59 No. 252, vol. iv, pp. 400 sq.
60 See p. 51.
61 English and Scottish Popular Ballads, vol. i, p. 502.
62 See pp. 48, 49.
63 Even if Dr. Davidson's version existed, its mention of a tournament would not necessarily indicate a connection with HR or HC; the tournament might have drifted in from some other ballad, in the same way as the features enumerated above on p. 50, note 3.