Sir Lionel- Kidson (England) c.1900; pub.1936
Songs from Frank Kidson's Mss.
by Anne G. Gilchrist
Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, Vol. 3, No. 1 (Dec., 1936), pp. 46-52
[From a faded, yellow manuscript given to Kidson, probably dating to late 1800s]
Songs from Frank Kidson's Mss.
CONTRIBUTED By ANNE G. GILCHRIST
I. SIR LIONEL
From the late FRANK KIDSON's MSS.
1. Tom and Harry went to plough,
Dil-lon down dil-lom
As Tom and Harry went to plough,
Quid-ly quo quam
As Tom and Harry went to plough
They saw a fair maid on a bough,
Kamt-ber - y quo, quod -dle damn, quid-ly quo quiam.
2. "Why do ye, fair maid, sit so high
(Refrains as before)
That no young man can you come nigh ?"
3. The fair maid unto them did say
"If you can fetch me down you may.
4. There is a wild boar in the wood,
If he comes out he'll suck your blood!"
* * * * * *
5. The wild boar came with such a sound
That rocks and hills and trees fell down.
* * * * * *
The missing portion of the ballad found elsewhere relates that the hero, having shot the wild boar through the heart with his arrow,
"went unto the den,
And there were bones of forty men."
And the lady, having promised to marry him if he should kill the boar, presumably kept her word.
This very curious and interesting old ballad, with its fragmentary text, was discovered in a batch of MSS. sent to me by Miss Ethel Kidson, niece of the late Frank Kidson, who almost from its beginning was one of the editorial committee of the Folk-Song Society and a well-known musical antiquary and collector of folksongs. Miss Kidson asked me to go through the bundle and see what might be worthy of preservation, and the present selection has been the result. This ballad is not in Mr. Kidson's own handwriting and I surmise that it had been sent to him by some correspondent, a good many years ago, as the ink is brown and faded. All efforts to trace the sender by the music-script and handwriting have failed. So if the tune is still the copyright of its collector-if still alive-I make my apologies to him.
This is the first appearance in the Journal of this ballad, to which Child gives the generic title of " Sir Lionel." It is based upon a mediaeval English romance, and when Child's collection was published he seems to have known three versions only, (I) " Sir Egrabel (or Lionel) " in the Percy folio MS., (2) " The Jovial Hunter of Bromsgrove" in Dixon's Songs of the Peasantry of England (I845), (3) " Isaac-a-Bell and Hugh the Graeme," a Banffshire version in Christie's Traditional Ballad Airs, Vol. I (I876). Since then Mrs. Leather has printed two versions "Brangywell" (hard " ") and "Dilly Dove" (long "o") in her Folk-Lore of Herefordshire (19I2) Alfred Williams prints a version " Bold Sir Rylas" (text only) in his English Folk Songs from the Upper Thames (1923); Cecil Sharp gives four versions with tunes in English Folk-Songs from the South Appalachians (I932 ed.); and Arthur Davis in his Traditional Ballads of Virginia (I929) prints seven texts and four tunes (one obtained from Sharp) and gives references to various other American variants.
Except Sharp's "A" tune, all these American as well as the Herefordshire examples are variants of the tune here printed-a remarkable instance of the continuity of tradition, the hero's name in America also being always some variant of "Brangywell," such as "Bangry," "Bangum and the Boar," "Bangry Rewey," "Old Bangem," "Bingham," etc., while they all have similar forms of the "Dillum down," "Kitty quo quam," "Cubby ki cuddle down" refrains. Moreover all these versions are in rhymed couplets with interlined refrains, the first line of the couplet being repeated after the first refrain before proceeding to the second line, as in the still familiar pattern of shanties and children's singing-games.
It has been suggested that "Brangywell" is a corruption of the " Egrabel" (Sir Lionel's father) of Percy's version-see Child's note. The only other distinctive names I have found-where given at all are "Dilly Dove," "Sir Ryalas," and "Lion" (perhaps for Lionel). The American texts which I have seen are much altered from the English forms of the story, in which the fair maid on a bough figures sometimes as a "wild woman" (but sometimes also as a giant) who is the owner of the monstrous man-eating boar. When the hero, after a terrific encounter, slays the beast, she herself falls upon the victor for his audacity in slaying her " pretty spotted pig" - whereupon he completes his exploit by cleaving her in two and returning triumphant. In the American versions the marvellous or supernatural elements have faded from the story-which, however, is still vigorous and thrilling -and the issue of the combat is told with a touch of humour: Bangrum having roused the wild boar, as directed, by a blast on his horn "both loud and shrill," the monster comes rushing through the wood, thrashing down trees in his progress. But after a terrific tussle lasting four (or nine) hours the boar, overmatched at last, we are told, "fled and flunk away." The lady on the bough is claimed by the hero as the reward of his prowess, in some versions. But in others she is left vaguely still sitting in the tree. Perhaps she was a decoy!
Ferocious as the ballad is (says Davis) it is often used [in Virginia] as a lullaby or nursery-song. He notes "cuddle down" in the refrain as illustrating such usagebut compare " quoddle dam " (which sounds more like a swear) in the English version here printed and "collin dame" in "Brangywell." Returning to Old Country versions, in the Banffshire "Isaac-a-Bell and Hugh the Graeme" (Is Graeme a reminiscence of Eger and Grime-see Laing's Early Metrical Tales), the younger of two sons elects to fight the notorious boar of Tore wood. This version has the rhyming refrains " Hey, nein, nanny," " And the norland flowers bloom bonny'" and may show traces of Scandinavian influence, the tune also being quite a different one. In Dixon's Warwickshire version the jovial hunter of Bromsgrove is given a somewhat uncertain place in history as one of Sir Robert Bolton's sons. For slaying her pretty pig- as in other versions the wild woman demands from Sir Ryalas his horn, his hound, and his gay lady. He retorts with a grim reference to his sword and her neck-
Then into his locks the wild woman flew,
Wind well thy horn, good hunter
Till she thought in his [her?] heart she had torn him through,
As he was a jovial hunter.
Then Sir Ryalas draw'd his broadsword again,
Wind well, etc.
And he fairly split her head in twain,
For he was, etc.
In Bromsgrove Church they both do lie,
Wind well, etc.
The wild boar's head is pictured thereby,
Sir Ryalas was a jovial hunter.
But it is well known, says the editor, crushingly, that the tomb belongs to a family of another name. Dixon also prints a fragment of the ballad current in the north of England as a nursery-song in his day, in which, as above suggested, there is a trace of the name " Sir Lionel." It begins:
There was an old man and sons he had three
Wind well, Lion, good hunter,
A friar, he being one of the three
With pleasure he ranged the north countree
For he was a jovial hunter.
Alfred Williams' Upper Thames version seems to be a fusion or confusion of two, one with the "jovial hunter" refrain, the other with the "I dan dilly dan," etc., which he suggests may perhaps have represented the sound of the "bugle horn." But all these unintelligible refrains may possibly have been originally cabbalistic charms, used in relating incidents of an uncanny or evil nature, like the invocations of potent herbs in the refrains of certain other old ballads as a protection against the Evil One.
As to this group of tunes, there is considerable likeness between all of them and the old Scottish air "Duncan Gray"- which first appeared in print in Oswald's Caledonian Companion for the Flute, c. I750. There is a doubtful legend that it was noted from the whistling of a carter or carman in Glasgow, whose name was Duncan Gray and who was further said to have composed it himself. This tune is of similar construction, and fits a verse of repetitions and refrains- the refrain in this case being "Ha, ha, the wooing o't."- A. G. G.