[Old Beggar Man] Hind Horn- Fraser (Ontario) c. 1925 Fowke
[Title from Traditional Singers and Songs from Ontario; Fowke. Text from: British Ballads in Ontario by Edith Fowke; Midwest Folklore, Vol. 13, No. 3 (Autumn, 1963), pp. 133-162. Mrs. Arlington Fraser was born in 1910. Mrs. Frasier's mother Johanna McGillis of Irish and Scotch descent, was born in 1871 in the Glengarry area. Mrs. Frasier learned these songs from her mother when she was a child, by 1925.
R. Matteson 2012, 2014]
THE OLD BEGGAR MAN (HIND HORN)- Sung by Mrs. A. Fraser, Lancaster, Ontario, collected in 1962 by Fowke.
1. Oh once there was a fair young man,
He wooed the fairest in the land.
Her father sorely tried was he,
And he sent him away across the sea.
2. She gave to him a gay gold ring,
The value of it was above all thing.
"As long as this ring retains its hue,
You'll know I'm a lover fond and true.
3. "But when your ring turns pale and wan,
Then I'm in love with another man."
He's gone to sea and far away,
And he stayed for seven long years and a day.
4. Seven long years by land and sea,
And he often looked how his ring may be.
He looked at the ring, it was pale and wan;
"Oh, she's in love with another man."
5. Then up set sails and away went he
Till he came to his own counteree.
He left the sea and came home to the land;
The first one he met was an old beggar man.
6. "What news, what news, my old beggar man?
For it's seven long years since I saw this land."
"No news, no news," the beggar man did say,
"But tomorrow is your true love's wedding day.
7. "'Beg from Peter, beg from Paul,
Beg from the highest to the lowest of them all.
From them all you shall take none
Till it will come from the bride's own hand."
8. He cast off his silken coat
And the beggar's clothes he did put on,
And when he came to the castle gate
He asked for a drink for the bride's own sake.
9. The bride came tripping down the stairs,
Rings on her fingers and gold in her hair,
A glass of wine held in her hand
Which she gave to the old beggar man.
10. Out of glass he drank the wine,
Into the glass he slipped the ring.
"Oh where did you find it by sea or by land,
Or did you take it off a drowned man's hand?"
.11. "I did not find it by sea or by land,
And I didn't take it off a drowned man's hand.
I got it from my love in our courting day
And I give it to my love on her wedding day."
12. The rings from her finger she did let fall,
The gold from her hair she did pull down.
"I'll go with you forever more,
Although I have to beg from door to door."
13. Between the kitchen and the hall
The beggar's clothes he did let fall.
In gold he shone above them all
And he was the best dressed man in the hall.
14. The bridegroom thought he would her wed,
But she wed her own true love instead,
And many happy years they lived in the land
And ne'er forgot the old beggar man.
"Hind Horn" is comparatively rare in North America: in fact, it seems to have survived only in Canada. Barry has two texts from New Brunswick (pp. 73-80); both Greenleaf (p. 12) and Karpeles (ii, p. 99) found it in Newfoundland; and Creighton has several texts from Nova Scotia (I, pp. 11-17). These, including the Ontario version, are all so similar that they appear to have sprung from the same source. Coffin notes that they "represent an unusual form of Child G, a ballad of Scottish origin that is well-known in Ireland" (p. 48). Mrs. Frasier's version, which is unusually coherent and complete, was learned from her mother who was half-Scottish, half-Irish.