"Reynardine": A Broadside Ballad of Seduction
by Douglas DeNatale
Western Folklore, Vol. 39, No. 1 (Jan., 1980), pp. 40-51
"Reynardine": A Broadside Ballad of Seduction
Douglas DeNatale
A curious ballad called "Reynardine," (Laws P-15) popular among British and American revival singers in recent years, relates the encounter of an innocent maiden with a shady, disturbingly animalistic stranger. The ensuing seduction takes on supernatural overtones in the version sung by Anne Briggs:
One evening as I rambled,
Amongst the springing thyme,
I overheard a young woman
Conversing with Reynardine.
Her hair was black, her eyes were blue,
Her mouth as red as wine,
And he smiled as he looked upon her,
Did the sly, bold Reynardine.
And she says, Young man, be civil,
My company forsake,
For to my good opinion
I fear you are a rake.
And he says, My dear, well I am no rake,
Brought up in Venus' train,
But I'm searching for concealment
All from the Judge's men.
And her cherry cheeks and her ruby lips,
They lost their former dye,
And she fell into his arms there
On the mountains high.
And they hadn't kissed but once or twice
Till she came to again,
And it's modestly she asked him,
Pray tell to me your name.
Well if you chance to ask for me,
Perhaps you'll not me find.
I'll be in my green castle,
Inquire for Reynardine.
And it's day and night she followed him,
His teeth so bright did shine.
And he led her over the mountains,
Did the sly, bold Reynardine.[1]
The roguish seducer bears a family resemblance to Reynard the Fox, by virtue of his name and characteristics. He is sly, bold, and predatory, an outlaw hounded by conventional society. Not surprisingly, some writers have seen him as a half-human, half-animal vampire figure, perhaps the survival of a lost British supernatural legend.[2] While attractive, this notion is based on little more than personal interpretation. "Reynardine" eludes all attempts to find a supernatural base.
I propose to take up the chase from another angle, and to run "Reynardine's" true identity to ground by tracing its convoluted course between broadside printer and traditional singer. From a historical standpoint, the supernatural question is but one factor in a complicated development. This song as an object has an existence separate from singer or printer, but each printed or oral version, and each purveyor's interpretation, supernatural or not, influences the continuance and shape of the object.
Given the haphazard manner in which whiteletter broadsides were
collected, it is impossible to trace each version in an unbroken fashion.
The existing record of any song distributed by the broadside press presents
a prospect like the scattered peaks of a submerged ice mass. The
relation of visible parts can be assumed, but the nature of these relationships
is hidden from view. In such uncharted seas, the very regularity
of "Reynardine" texts is almost disconcerting. The ten broadside
and twenty-eight oral versions of the song which I have examined are
remarkably consistent. Differences exist in abundance, but they are very
slight from variant to variant. Distinct versions are characterized more
by omission and addition of whole stanzas than by oral shaping. This
can be seen by comparing our revival version with a representative
nineteenth-century text, one found in The Forget-Me-Not Songster:
One evening as I rambled
Two miles below Pomroy
I met a farmer's daughter
All on the mountains high;
I said my pretty fair maiden
Your beauty shines most clear,
And upon these lonely mountains
I'm glad to meet you here.
She said, young man, be civil,
My company forsake,
For to my great opinion,
I fear you are a rake;
And if my parents should know,
My life they would destroy,
For keeping of your company
All on the mountains high.
I said, my dear, I am no rake,
But brought up in Venus' train,
And looking for concealments,
All in the judges name;
Your beauty has ensnared me,
I cannot pass you by,
And with my gun I'll guard you
All on the mountains high.
This pretty little thing,
She fell into amaze;
With her eyes as bright as amber,
Upon me she did gaze;
Her cherry cheeks and ruby lips,
They lost their former dye,
And then she fell into my arms;
All on the mountains high.
I had but kissed her once or twice,
Till she came too again;
She modestly then asked me,
Pray, sir, what is your name.
If you go to yonder forest,
My castle you will find,
Wrote in ancient history;
My name is Rinordine.
I said my pretty fair maiden,
Don't let your parents know.
For if ye do, they'll prove my ruin,
And fatal overthrow;
But when you come to look for me,
Perhaps you'll not me find,
But I'll be in my castle;
And call for Rinordine.
Come all ye pretty fair maidens,
A warning take by me,
And be sure you quit night walking
And shun bad company;
For if you don't you'll surely rue
Until the day you die,
And beware of meeting Rinor,
All on the mountains high.[3]
It is apparent that the revival version stems from this text. However,
the narrative frame of The Forget-Me-Not Songster text is in the first
person, the name of the seducer is slightly different, and the eerie final
verse of the revival version is absent, its place taken by a moralistic
warning. Those very elements which give the revival version its supernatural
aura are utterly lacking in the broadside text.
This fact suggests tampering by later hands, but the blame, if it can
be called so, cannot be placed on the revival singers. The revival versions
are free-handed collations of traditional texts. The mysterious
final verse stems from a version collected by A. L. Lloyd from Tom Cook
of Suffolk. It appears as:
Sun and dark she followed him,
His teeth did brightly shine,
And he led her over the mountains,
That sly, bold Reynardine.4
The question, then, is whether the supernaturalism is an older element
of the song, which survived in oral tradition, but not in printed texts.
The answer is no. It derives, instead, from the inadvertent influence
of an Irish folksong collector. In 1904, during the flurry of collecting
inspired partly by Irish nationalism and spurred on by the literary influence
of Yeats and his circle, the young composer Herbert Hughes
came across a curious song fragment in Donegal:
If by chance you look for me
Perhaps you'll not me find
For I'll be in my castle
Enquire for Reynardine.
The old woman who sang this fragment for Hughes gave him the
tantalizing information that "Reynardine" was the name of a fairy
which transformed itself into a fox.5
Five years later, Hughes published the song with a piano accompaniment
in Irish Country Songs, with an additional verse:
Sun and dark I followed him
His eyes did brightly shine;
He took me o'er the mountains,
Did my sweet Reynardine.6
The stanza that Tom Cook sang for A. L. Lloyd is almost identical.
Where did it arise?
We can surmise from a discussion in the pages of Notes and Queries
that it was not in Hughes's original. In December 1907, H. M. Belden
inquired in that journal whether anyone knew of a strange song entitled
"Rinordine."7 Hughes responded with his original four-line fragment,
and stated explicitly that this was all the old woman could remember.
[8]
It is possible that he later collected the second verse, but much
more likely that it derived from a poem by Hughes's friend and collaborator
Joseph Campbell.
In 1909, Campbell published a four-stanza poem entitled "Reynar-
dine." The first and last stanzas were Hughes's original fragment,
printed in italics. The middle two stanzas elaborated the theme of
Reynardine-as-fairy.
Sun and dark he courted me
His eyes were red as wine
He took me for his leman
Did my sweet Reynardine.
Sun and dark the gay horn blows
The beagles run like wind
They know not where he harbours
The fairy Reynardine.9
Apparently, the flurry of discussion in Notes and Queries aroused Camp
bell's interest and led him to write his poem. Hughes was compiling a
parlor song book, and although he did not have a long enough text for
"Reynardine," he was attracted by its "spirituelle" melody.10 So he, in
turn, borrowed from Campbell. The resulting song entered oral circulation,
eventually emerging as Tom Cook's version. Modern revival
singers generally allude to this version as their source. Anne Briggs's
version stems from an "Irish song," presumably the one printed by
Hughes.
Yet the old woman of Donegal's claim, that Reynardine is supernatural,
remains. Unfortunately, she is virtually alone. Few collectors report
any comments on the nature of the seducer. One singer in New Brunswick
did tell Helen Creighton that Reynardine was "a magic feller."11
And "Gosh Will," a Kentucky mountaineer charged with rape gave his
judge the excuse that he sang his victim "that aid song about Rinordine,
and she r'ared up on her hind legs like a stallion."l2 However,
most singers apparently attach no supernatural significance to the song.
Folksong collector Margaret MacArthur found that James Atwood of
Vermont saw nothing supernatural in the song but simply sang the text
from memory.13 If a supernatural significance held among earlier singers,
their opinion in the matter is unfortunately lost. To settle the question,
all we can do is examine the versions which were collected before the
song encountered turn-of-this-century romanticism.
In spite of the similarities between all variants, the broadside texts of
the song fall into two groups. Each group is distinguished by a set of
slight variations which appear consistently in each particular variant.
Oral versions, too, can be assigned to one of these two groups on the
basis of which of the two sets of variations they display. If each of these
groups is examined in turn, a pattern of relationships reveals itself in
ways more significant than minor textual variation.14
One group consists entirely of American variants. The printed variants
have a close relationship of their own. All derive textually and
even typographically from the variant printed in the American Songster
of 1836. The Forget-Me-Not Songster of 1840, the Book of 1000 Songs,
and the Old Forget-Me-Not Songster comprise a subgroup, deriving from
the American Songster, but sharing several minor variations. The American
Vocalist variant is closer to that in the American Songster, though
printed some twenty years later. This typographical exactness over time
indicates that although the song may have had widespread currency at
the time, its transmission from songster to songster occurred exclusively
by way of print.15
While it is not surprising to find such a relationship among printed
versions, it is astonishing how close the oral variants of this group are
to the printed songsters. Some can even be traced to a particular book.
The variant collected by W. Roy MacKenzie in Nova Scotia has only
two changes from the American Songster text. One of these is the change
found in the Old Forget-Me-Not Songster. The same is true for the
variant collected by Mary O. Eddy in Ohio, except that one of the two
changes is identical to that made in the American Vocalist. The changes
found in all of the other oral variants of this group consist of single
word changes, inversion of word order, and omission of lines and stanzas.
In the entire oral tradition of this group, I find only six changes which
are not of this type. For example, in Josiah Combs's variant, the lines
"This pretty little thing, / She fell into amaze" become "These words
were scarcely spoken / When the maid fell in a maze," hardly a major
change.'1
From this it appears that all of the oral variants in this group derive
from the songster texts, and furthermore that none of these is more
than one or two removes from a printed text. Only one of the singers
mentioned a printed source, but the word-for-word exactness of Mac-
Kenzie's or Eddy's text is too close for coincidence. It seems that the
nature of the song mitigated against its widespread oral diffusion and
development into new forms. The singers picked up an attractive but
obscure song, and because they depended on word-for-word memory,
rather than thematic memory, they did little to alter the song.
The one report of a printed source gives an interesting clue to the
origin of the American Songster text. Belle Strong of Kansas told H. M.
Belden that she learned the song from a book which her father brought
from England in 1834.17 Since her variant clearly belongs to this group,
it is likely that the American Songster text also derives from a British
text. This may very well be the version printed by James Catnach and
listed in his 1832 catalogue.'8 Unfortunately, I have been unable to
locate a copy of Catnach's broadside. Although MacKenzie cites a copy
in the Harvard College Library, diligent searching by the Houghton
Library staff failed to unearth it. For the moment, the trail of this group
of texts "vanishes on the horizon of the past."'9
The second group, though smaller, is less homogenous. It consists of
all the British versions I have been able to locate as well as the earliest
American versions. Almost all of the American versions in this group
derived from the text printed by the early American broadside printer,
Nathaniel Coverly, Jr. The texts printed by Howe, Trifet, and Coverly,
Boston printers all, are identical, even to the strange line, "I am no
rake, but Cesar" (sic).20 Charles Tillett of North Carolina, who apparently
had contact with nineteenth-century songsters, sang for Louis
Chappell a version which can only derive from Howe's 100 Old Favorite
Songs or Trifet's Monthly Budget of Music, for it also contains this
line.21 Vance Randolph's fragment, amusingly altered by oral transmission
to "One evening as I rambled, / Two miles of rum and rye," almost
surely derives from these since its tune is clearly a variant of the
one printed by Howe and Trifet.22 These later American variants, then,
represent an anomaly caused by the reprinting of an early broadside
rather than continued oral currency.
It is possible that Coverly's was not the first American broadside of
"Reynardine." When he printed the song together with "Paddy's Seven
Ages," he gave "Ranordine" top billing in bold letters. He must have
thought "Ranordine" more likely to be recognized by the ballad-buying
public. Further evidence that the song was known in America prior to
Coverly's broadside is its appearance on a manuscript sheet from Indiana
with the inscription, "John Small, his song Ballad, June 10,
1801."23 If the date is correct, then this is the earliest known dated version
of the song. John Small clearly uses "ballad" in the sense of
"ballet," or written copy of a pre-existing song, for while his version
has many indications of oral transmission, it must have had a broadside
source. The line which appears as "seeking for concealment," in most
printed versions has become "I'm hunting out conceited men" in this
version. Clearly, this unintended humor could only derive from a mishandling
of the broadside text. The presence of such orally influenced
lines in Small's text indicates a late-eighteenth-century broadside source
which does not survive or is presently unlocated.
Faced with the chimera of a missing Ur-text, we can only conjecture
where and when the song originated. There is no solid evidence, but
the dispersal pattern of the song points to a British source. Especially
noteworthy is the presence of a consistent tune record in the Irish versions.
Every Irish example belongs to the same family of tune variants,
with a melodic structure of AABA. Even Hughes's haunting tune belongs
to this group, reversing the A and B phrases of the tune and
utilizing an ABAB structure.24 When these tunes are arranged chronologically,
they demonstrate a shift from the Ionian mode via the gapped
scale to the Mixolydian mode, a melodic development identified by
Bronson as characteristic of oral transmission.25
The musical evidence shows only that the song was sung traditionally
in Ireland long enough to become connected with one tune family.
However, given the relatively short history of the song this is significant,
and increases the probability that its history in Ireland is entirely oral.
Moreover, the likelihood of an Irish source for the song-is bolstered by
the fact that it is only in Ireland that the song has been collected as
"Reynardine." The assumption that this is the original title is justified
by the various names under which the song appears. While "Ranordine,"
"Randal Rine," or "Rinordine" could have derived from "Reynardine,"
it is difficult to imagine a transition in the other direction.
Despite the assertion of the old woman of Donegal, however, it is
unlikely that the Irish ever believed in a fairy called "Reynardine." The
name itself has a literary ring, and the gaelic word for fox is sionnach.
Nor is there a folk tale of any shape or description with a character
"Reynardine." There is a well-known tale called "Mr. Fox" which closely
approaches the song. The would-be seducer in "Mr. Fox" is a Blue-
beard who murders his young maidens, and he does have a castle, or
mansion rather, in the woods. However, there is nothing in the tale to
account for the song's strange second verse.26
The name "Reynardine" did achieve limited currency in the literature
of the eighteenth century. The celebrated medieval romance,
"Reynard the Fox," was so popular in Britain that an enterprising
publisher added a second part to it at some point, in which the cunning
Reynard was finally hanged.27 When Edward Brewster decided to publish
a third part to the story, this left him no recourse but to invent a
son for Reynard. The Shifts of Reynardine, the Son of Reynard the Fox
hit the bookstalls in 1684, and was popular enough to warrant at least
three later printings.28 It was picked up by later printers with few alterations,
and reprinted throughout the eighteenth century.29 An edition
was published by Samuel Phillips Day as late as 1872.30
Brewster's Reynardine bears little resemblance to our song. The main
character is strictly a fable-variety animal, whose "shifts" are his deceits.
However, the book does end with a pursuit of Reynardine by the other
animals after he has escaped from trial, possibly the source for the elusive
reference in the song to the "judge's men." Its title, if nothing else,
gives Reynardine the only clear claim as grandsire of our song. The
song undoubtedly alludes to a literary source. Every early version of the
song refers to "an ancient history" or "some ancient history" as the clue
to Reynardine's name. Brewster's Reynardine is the only probable
source for this reference. As far as the origin of the song-as-object is
concerned, we can brush supernaturalism aside, and assume that a
broadside hack in searching for new material decided to conflate the
"Mr. Fox" story together with the high-sounding literary name.
As a factor in the song's preservation, however, we cannot entirely
dismiss the supernatural. The very obscurity of the song may have acted
in its favor. For some singers, the song's appeal could have been its indefinable
aura of mystery. Certainly it was this aspect which contributed
to its renaissance in the twentieth century. For others, the seduction
story must have held the center of interest. Even when the obscure references
were stripped away by oral transmission, the seduction story remained
intact. These two factors formed a counterpoint with the song's
printing history, for it is doubtful that the song would have survived
without fresh transfusions of printer's ink.
The song "Reynardine," then, has never lost the "shifts" of its grandsire.
For all its apparent stability as an object throughout the nineteenth
century, it underwent many changes as a collaboration of literary hack
and traditional singer, broadside printer and romantic poet. Nor can
we now place it on a dusty shelf with a self-satisfied air, for the version
which revival singers continue to sing is as much a part of this collaboration
as the song John Small set down in his copy book. The shadowy
figure of Reynardine will continue to stalk the imagination of his
singers.
University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill
Appendix
The sets of variations marking the two subgroups of "Reynardine" are:
Stanza, Line GROUP 1 GROUP 2
1,5: maid maiden
IV,1: maid thing
1,7: lonesome lonely
III,3: seeking looking for
concealment concealment
IV,7: stood in amaze fell into my arms
IV,3: nature amber
VII,7: Ranodine, Randal Rine Rinor
Rinordine
The variants composing these two groups are:
GROUP 1
1836: The American Songster (Baltimore, 1836), 191-193.
1840: The Forget-Me-Not Songster (New York, 1840), 199-200.
1844: Book of 1000 Songs (New York[?], 1844[?]), 459-460.
1845: Gale Huntington, Songs the Whalemen Sang (Barre, Mass., 1964), 222-
223.
1860: The American Vocalist (New York, 1860), 47-49.
No Date: The Old Forget-Me-Not Songster (Boston, n.d.), 199-200.
1906: H. M. Belden, Ballads and Songs Collected by the Missouri Folk-Lore
Society (Columbia, Mo., 1940), 268-288.
1925: Josiah H. Combs, Folk-Songs du Midi des Etats-Unis (Paris, 1925), 165-
166.
1928: W. Roy MacKenzie, Ballads and Sea Songs from Nova Scotia (Hatboro,
Pa., 1963), 102-103.
1931: Jean Thomas, Devil's Ditties (Chicago, 1931), 108-109.
1934: Emelyn E. Gardner and Geraldine J. Chickering, Ballads and Folksongs
of Southern Michigan (Hatboro, Pa., 1967), 96-97.
TOPICS & COMMENTS 51
1934: Foy and Ella Gant, Austin, Tex., November 1934. Recorded by John
Lomax. Archive of American Folksong AAFS 63 A2.
1939: Mrs. Goldie Hamilton, Wise, Va., 28 March 1939. Recorded by Herbert
Halpert. Archive of American Folksong AAFS 2785 Al.
1939: Mary O. Eddy, Ballads and Songs from Ohio (Hatboro, Pa., 1964), 192-
193.
1952: Helen Creighton, Maritime Folk Songs (Toronto, 1961), 112-113.
1964: Margaret MacArthur, "Introduction," On the Mountains High F-LFR-
100 (Cambridge, Mass., 1971).
GROUP 2
1801: Paul G. Brewster, "More Indiana Ballads and Songs," Southern Folklore
Quarterly 5 (1941): 171-172.
1813: Nathaniel Coverly, Jr. "Ranordine, together with Paddy's Seven Ages,"
(Boston, 1813[?]). Broadside in the Isaiah Thomas Collection of Ballads,
American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass.
No Date: John Holloway and Joan Black, Later English Broadside Ballads
(London, 1975), 183-184.
No Date: W. Percy Merrick, "Sussex Songs," Journal of the Folk-Song Society
1 (1889): 271-272.
1892: F. Trifet, Trifet's Monthly Budget of Music, 15 (Boston, 1892), 172.
No Date: Howe's 100 "Old Favorite" Songs (Boston, n.d.), 266.
1912: P. W. Joyce, Ancient Irish Music (London, 1912), 21.
1924: Louis W. Chappell, Folk-Songs of Roanoke and the Albemarle (Morgantown,
W.Va., 1939), 84-85.
1927: H. E. Greenough, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, 25 July 1927. Contributed
to Robert W. Gordon, Adventure Ms. #3167. Archive of American Folksong.
1942: Vance Randolph, Ozark Folksongs (Columbia, Mo., 1946), 1: 379-380.
----------------
I would like to express my gratitude to the following persons and archives for allowing
me to examine works which are not cited in this paper, but which were invaluable
in helping me to trace the history of this broadside ballad. The staff of
the Cecil Sharp House, London, England was most kind in allowing me to examine
a copy of the Lucy Broadwood manuscripts in the English Folk Dance and Song
Society Archives. I am grateful to Dr. Emily Lyle and the School of Scottish Studies,
Edinburgh University, Edinburgh, Scotland, for giving me access to the Gavin Greig
manuscripts. I am especially grateful to Joseph Hickerson and Gerald Parsons of the
Archive of American Folk Song, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., for many
helpful suggestions.
1. Anne Briggs, Topic Records 12T207 (London, 1974).
2. Stephen Sedley, The Seeds of Love (London, 1967), 88-89.
3. The Forget-Me-Not Songster (New York, 1840), 199-200.
4. Sedley, 89.
5. Herbert Hughes, "Rinordine, Irish Song," Notes and Queries, 10th ser. 9 (1908):
33.
6. Herbert Hughes, Irish Country Songs (London, 1909), 4-6.
7. H. M. Belden, "Rinordine, Irish Song," Notes and Queries, 10th ser. 8 (1907):
468.
8. Hughes, "Rinordine, Irish Song," 33.
9. Joseph Campbell, The Mountainy Singer (Dublin, 1909), 11. I am grateful to
Linda May-Smith of the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, Northern Ireland for
referring me to this work.
10. Hughes, Irish Country Songs, 4.
11. Helen Creighton, Maritime Folk Songs (Toronto, 1961), 112.
12. Margaret MacArthur, "Introduction," On The Mountains High, F-LFR-100
(Cambridge, MA: Living Folk Records, 1971).
13. Letter from Margaret MacArthur, 6 November 1978.
14. For the sets of variations marking these groups, see the attached appendix.
15. The Forget-Me-Not Songster contains a variant which is word-for-word the
same as the American Songster except for four minor changes. "For if you do" becomes
"For if ye do." A semi-colon is substituted for a comma after "amaze," a
period for the question mark after "what is your name," and the comma in "Come,
all ye" is omitted. The Book of 1000 Songs also contains these changes. In addition,
"To my great opinion" becomes "In my great opinion," "Mountains" and become "eyes" singular, and several other typographical changes are made. The American
Vocalistv ariant is word-for-wordt he same as that of the American Songster,e xcept that "should know" becomes "should it know." There are fourteen typographical differences between the two, but none of these is found in the other songsters. This
raises a slight possibility that this variant derives from an oral variant of the American
Songster text.
16. Combs, 165-166.
17. Belden, 286-288.
18. Leslie Shepard, The History of Street Literature (Newton Abbot, 1973), 220
19. Bertrand Bronson, The Ballad as Song (Berkeley, 1969), 18.
20. Broadside printed by Nathaniel Coverly, Jr. in the Isaiah Thomas Collection
of Ballads, American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass. I am grateful to the
American Antiquarian Society for allowing me to examine this broadsheet; Howe,
266; Trifet, 172.
21. Chappell, 84-85.
22. Randolph, 379-380.
23. Brewster, 171.
24. George Petrie, The Complete Petrie Collection of Irish Music (London, 1902),
161; Joyce, 21; Graves, 70; Hughes, Irish Country Songs, 4.
25. Bertrand Bronson, The Singing Tradition of Child's Popular Ballads (Princeton,
NJ., 1976), xli-xliv.
26. Edwin S. Hartland, English Fairy and other Folk Tales (London, 1890), 27.
27. Reynard the Fox (London, 1681). I am grateful to the Houghton Library of
Harvard University and the Beinecke Library of Yale University for allowing me
to examine this and the following editions.
28. The Shifts of Reynardine, the Son of Reynard the Fox, or a Plaisant History
of his Life and Death (London, 1684, 1694, 1701).
29. The Most Pleasing and Delightful History of Reynard the Fox and Reynardine
his Son (London, 1702, 1708, 1763).
30. Samuel Phillips Day, The Rare Romance of Reynard the Fox, the Crafty
Courtier: together with the Shifts of his Son Reynardine, 3rd ed. (London, 1872).