Three Brothers of Merry Scotland- Marstan (ME) 1926 Barry A
[From: British Ballad from Maine, 1929 by Barry, Eckstorm and Symth. Barry categorizes this under Child 167 Sir Andrew Barton, arguing that Child No. 250 is the same ballad. See his extensive notes below.
R. Matteson 2013]
SIR ANDREW BARTON
(child 167)
A. "Three Brothers of Merry Scotland." Sent in, 1926, by Mrs. Annie V. Marston of West Gouldsboro, Maine. See Addenda, for air.
1 There were three brothers in Merry Scotland,
Three loving brothers were they--
They all drew lots to see which should go
A-robbing all on the salt sea.
The lot it fell to Andrew Battam,
The youngest of the three,
That he should go a-robbing all on the salt sea
To maintain his two brothers and he.
He had not sailed for two winter's nights,
For two winter's nights or more,
When they saw a ship sailing far off and far on,
Till at length she came sailing close by.
"Who's there? Who's there?" cried Andrew Battam,
"Who's there that sails so night?"
"We are the rich merchants of Old England,
And its won't you please let us pass by?"
"O, no! O, no!" cried Andrew Battam,
"Such things can never be;
We will take away all your rich merchandise,
And your mariners drown in the sea."
"Go home, go home!" cried Andrew Battam,
"King Henry he wears the crown;
It is now that he offers a large sum of gold,
If this Andrew Battam can be found."
"Go build me a ship!" cried Captain Charles Stewart,
"Go build it strong and sure,
And I will bring you this Andrew Battam,
Or my life I'll no longer endure."
They had not sailed for two winter nights,
For two winter nights or more,
When they saw a ship sailing far off and far on,
Till at length they came sailing close by.
"Who's there? Who's there?" cried Captain Charles Stewart,
"Who's there that sails so nigh?"
"We are the bold robbers of Merry Scotland,
And it is won't you please let us pass by?"
"O, no, O, no," cried Captain Charles Stewart,
"Such things can never be;
We will take away all your rich shining gold,
And your mariners drown in the sea."
And then the battle it did begin,
The cannon loud did roar;
They had not fought but an hour or two,
What this Captain Charles Stewart gave o'er.
"Go home, go home!" cried Andrew Battam,
"And tell your King for me,
If he reigns King upon dry land,
It is I who reigns King on the sea."
BRITISH BALLADS FROM MAINE NOTES:
The editors, without hesitation, have referred the Maine texts to the tradition of Sir Andrew Barton (Child 167) rather than to that of "Henry Martin" (Child 250). Child's theory that "Henry Martin" must have sprung from the ashes of "Sir Andrew Barton," is quite correct. The precise relation, however, to each other, of the older and the later forms of the ballad for "Sir Andrew Barton" and "Henry Martin" are not two ballads, but one--has been made clear only through the evidence of the American texts.
The salient details of the story of "Sir Andrew Barton" as compared with "Henry Martin," are, first, the name of the hero himself; second, the name of the king, that is, Henry; third, the name of the captor of Barton, Lord Charles Howard; fourth, the defeat of Sir Andrew, who dies of wounds received in action, and whose head is taken to London. Professor Belden's interesting and important- text, our C, here printed for comparison, preserves these details of the old ballad story more closely than any other known version,- that is, the hero is Andy Bardan, the king is Henry; the king's officer, Captain Charles Howard, has become Captain Charles Stewart, while the pirate, instead of meeting death in a sea-fight, is taken to England, a prisoner, and hanged.
With C, Maine A agrees in the name of the pirate, Andrew Battam, in the retention of King Henry, and of Captain Charles Stewart, but differs in making the pirate victorious and boastful, Maine B, which has Andrew Martine as the hero, is still nearer to "Sir Andrew Barton," in making the pirate to be killed in action, but it has George, and not Henry, as the name of the king. To the same group represented by our A, B, C, belong also three closely related texts: Child E (of Henry Martin); a text printed by Mr. R. W. Gordon, in "Adventure" Nov. 20, 1924, as derived from a Kansas correspondent who heard it sung as late as 1881; Cox's text (Folk-Songs of the South, pp. 150-151). In these texts, the pirate Andrew Bartin, (Bardeen, Bardun) defeat,
and taunts Captain Charles Stewart, officer of the king, who is George in Child E, George III in Mr. Gordon's text, unnamed in Cox's text.
The texts of "Bolender (i.e., Bold Andrew) Martin" printed by Mackenzie (Ballads and Sea Songs, p. 61) and Child D (of Henry Martin from Nova Scotia and New Hampshire, respectively, though fragments, certainly belong to the same group. "Henry Martin," is a mere torso, so to speak. It has preserved of the story of the older ballad only the account of the pirates with nothing of the pursuit and capture. Child's groups of texts, listed under the head of Henry Martin (exclusive of those which retain the name of "Andrew," and which, by reason of their content, preserving, as they do, the longer form of the story, are here referred to "Sir Andrew Barton," are three. All have the name Henry Martin, except C, from Motherwell's MSS, which has Robin Hood as the name of the pirate. The story is short, - three brothers turn pirates, the youngest is chosen chief by lot, they meet and destroy (A, B), or plunder and scuttle (C) a royal merchantman, so that the bad news of the loss of the ship reaches England. In C, the king is Henry, - in the other texts, he is not named. Child notes that in A a, Henry Martin gets a deep
wound, and falls by the mast. This detail is also in an American text (printed by P. 8., in JAFL, XVIII, 135-136), in which Henry Martin receives his death wound, and falls overboard. It would seem at first sight, that, as Child thought, this detail must have come directly from the tradition of the older ballad. Yet both Child A a and the American text agree with the remaining texts of the ballad of "Henry Martin" in the concluding stanza, which tells of the bad news of the sinking of the ship, without any reference again to the death of the pirate. Now, if we turn to Child A b, and to the group of texts under Child B, we find that it is not the pirate, but the rich merchant ship which receives the death wound and sinks. Such an issue of the sea fight is quite consistent with the mood of the concluding stanza. It may then be inferred that Child A b and the texts of the B-group have the original form of the story, and that the incident of the pirate's wounding and death, if not a mere accident of traditional change, is at most due to crossing in tradition with some text of the older ballad.
For the reasons stated, therefore, it seems at least probable that the group of American texts, represented by "Andy Bardan," should be reckoned as of an older tradition than that of Henry Martin, in addition, certain specific details of this group of texts, absent from any known texts of "Henry Martin," have a certain bearing on the case, and may be dealt with at this point in the discussion. In Child's E version of "Henry Martin," and in the two texts most closely related to it, the pirate taunts his would-be captor, saying, "If thou are brass without, I am steel within," and, after the battle, as also in Maine A, boasts that he will be king on sea, in spite of the king who reigns on land. These details are correctly stated in Child V, 302, to have come from the ballad of "Captain Ward and the Rainbow." We have, however, in "Sir Andrew Barton," A 27 (Child III, 340):
Hee is brasse within, and steele without,
And beames hee beares in his topcastle stronge;
His shipp hath ordinance cleane round about,
Besids my lord, hee is verry well mand.
It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that a reminiscence of this very stanza may have suggested to the author of "Captain Ward," the pirate boast of steel within to match brass without. The denouement of the ballad of "Captain Ward," which leaves the pirate a winner, not less satisfactory to the ballad singer, who love, a good fighter always, and perhaps all the better, if he happen to be a gallant rogue or a merry outlaw. Hence the intrusion of the pirate taunts into one form of the tradition of "Sir Andrew Barton."
A second interesting feature of the American tradition of the group of "Andy Bardan" texts, is the name of the king's officer, Captain Charles Stewart. There can be no doubt, of course, that "Stewart," has simply replaced "Howard," as the name stood in the older tradition of "Sir Andrew Barton." But why has "Howard" become "Stewart?" Mr. Gordon, in his notes to his Kansas text of "Andrew Bardeen," says: "The story is confused by the introduction of King George III and Charles Stuart." Apparently, he thought the Young Chevalier was meant. But Bonnie Prince Charlie was no sea-dog or sailors hero. The absence of any reference to any Charles Stewart in English texts of either the earlier or later form of the ballad forces us to look elsewhere
than in English history for the source of the name of the king's officer. The historical captain Charles Stewart (1778-1869) was one of the most dashing and popular naval heroes of thu United States, with a long record of distinguished service in the French crisis of 1799, the Barbary war, and the war of 1812. An early Maine broadside song, printed and sold at the Bangor Printing-office, entitled Yankee Tars: Tune, "Mrs. Casey," contains the stanza:
With Ironsides, brave STEWART slips
To sea, on her third cruise sir,
And tir'd of flogging single ships,
She drubs them now by two's sir!
The allusion is to the sea fight of February 19, 1815, when Stewart, in command of the Constitution, defeated and took the Cyana and the Levant. In 1844 some Democrats of Pennsylvania named him as a "favorite son" for nomination for President of the songs composed at the time, and circulated to help his candidacy several were printed in The Union Song Book (Leavitt and Allen, New York, pp. 109, 117, 119). The event of his career, however, omitted from most histories, but which must have made him for the time being, at least, much in the public ear, was the execution of the official order, which, as he expressed it, caused him to be "cashiered" from his position in the navy. This took place in 1855.
It may be a mere coincidence, but it is a fact, that about the time when capture, or as he was then, Commodore Stewart was "cashiered" the ballad of "Sir Andrew Barton," with Charles Stewart, instead of Charles Howard as the name of the king's officer, was circulating in American tradition. Maine B was sung in Portland, probably early in 1859, by the well-known Boston singer, Eliza Ostinelli (1824-96), Child's E-text of "Henry Martin," may be dated with equal exactness; we know from the contributor, that it was sung in the winter of 1856-57, by a cadet in the west Point Military Academy. This date is significant. The American party ticket in the Presidential campaign of 1856 was headed by Fillmore and Donelson, who, in the election, carried the state of Maryland. This result was due in a measure to the efforts of Miss Anna Ella Carroll, who took up the cause of Stewart and others as a campaign issue, charging that their retirement was part of a plot to cripple the Navy. The case of Commodore Stewart was likely to provoke a feeling in official, as well as in nonofficial circles. To put him into a good sea song as an officer of the king's navy might be as doubtful compliment as it was a serious breach of history, neither of which offenses are unknown in ballad tradition. As a working theory of the reason for the substitution of "Stewart" for "Howard" it does, at least, no more violence to history or to person than Mr. Gordon's hypothesis.
It is proper here to summarize the results of the foregoing discussion. The thesis is that "Sir Andrew Barton," a ballad extinct in English tradition, has survived in America. Capt. Charles L' Donovan, of Jonesport, whose memory of the content of songs sung by his sailors is excellent, even though he can recall no texts, has said that the older ballad was still sung in his day. No broadside or songster text of "Sir Andrew Burton," printed in America, is known to have existed. Yet we cannot for this reason infer that the older ballad never circulated in print in this country. The traditional variants of this hypothetical printed text, the existence of which can neither be proved nor disproved, have through one group of texts represented by Maine B, C, preserved the older ballad with little change. The second group, represented by Maine A and three texts allied to it, has undergone a change in the theme, due to crossing with the tradition of "Captain Ward and the Rainbow."