Bluegrass Messengers

US & Canada Versions: 213A. Sir James the Ross

[According to Coffin (see full text below): "The Child Sir James the Rose ballad is not in America. The American texts are highly sophisticated and based on Sir James the Ross, a song Child, IV, 156 thought to have been composed by Michael Bruce.

The US Canada versions that are named "Sir James the Rose" are based on the Sir James the Ross, a ballad attributed to Michael Bruce. Read Coffin's assessment below.

R. Matteson 2012]


CONTENTS:

[Upcoming- some texts included below]

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An American Text of "Sir James the Rose"
by Louise Pound
American Speech, Vol. 1, No. 9 (Jun., 1926), pp. 481-483

AN AMERICAN TEXT OF "SIR JAMES THE ROSE"

THE following text has interest as illustratingt he ways of popular song. It was taken down as sung by Mr. James R. Barron of Lincoln, Nebraska. Mr. Barron learned it about the year 1882 from his mother, who learned it by oral tradition when living in the parish of Walls on the West side of the Shetland Islands. Neither knows its provenance. Mr. Barron cannot remember that his mother ever owned a book of songs.

Although it has the same name, Mr. Barron's orally learned text is not to be identified with the Child ballad Sir James the Rose. It is unmistakably the imitative "historical ballad," Sir James the Rose, by Michael Bruce (1746-1767) which is based on the older ballad story. It was printed as an "old Scottish ballad" in the Weekly Magazine or Edinburgh Amusement, September 20, I770, IX, 371-73. Logan published it in that year, with alterations and insertions (probably Logan's) in his edition of Bruce's poems.

Bruce's ballad is said to have become as popular or more popular than the ballad on which it was founded.

SIR JAMES THE ROSE

Of all our Scottish Northern chiefs
Of high and warlike name,
The bravest was Sir James the Rose,
A knight of muckle fame.

Thrice he withstood the bloody fight
Against the English king,
Ere two and twenty opening springs
His blooming youth had seen.

The fair Matilda dear he loved,
A maid of beauty rare;
Even Margaret on our Scottish throne
Could not with her compare.

Her father Buchan, cruel lord,
This passion disapproved,
And bade her wed Sir John the Graeme
And leave the youth she loved.

One night they met as they were wont
Within a shady wood,
Down at a burn beside a bank
Where a tall oak tree stood.

Concealed beneath the underwood
This crafty Donald lay,
A brother of Sir John the Graeme,
To hear what they might say.

Long he had wooed, long she denied,
With shame and scorn and pride;
And what her constant heart confessed
Her faithless lips denied.

"My father Buchan, cruel lord,
Our passion disapproves,
And bids me wed Sir John the Graeme,
And leave the youth I love."

"Is this thy love, Matilda dear?"
Sir James the Rose replied.
"And wilt thou wed Sir John the Graeme
Though sworn to be my bride?" . . .

(Verse or verses forgotten)

They parted thus, the sun was set.
Up hastily Donald flies.
"O turn thee, turn thee, beardless youth,"
With loud insulting cries.

Soon turned about this beardless youth,
And soon his sword he drew,
And Donald's blood before his breast
Has soaked his tartan through.

Staggering, reeling, falling down,
A helpless lump of clay,
"Fast fall thy foes, thou valiant Rose,"
And straightway rode away.

"I now must to the Isle of Skye
Where my two brothers dwell,
And raise the valiant of the Isle
Their master to defend."

"'O say not so," the Maid replied,
"With me till morning stay,
For dark and dreary is the road
And dangerouiss the way.

"But do thou sleep within my bower.
My trusty page I'll send,
To run and raise the Rose's clan
Their master to defend."

Quick ran the page o'er hill and dale
Till in a lowly glen,
And there he met Sir John the Graeme
And twenty of his men.

"'Whered ost thou run, my little page?
Who did thee thus so send?"
"I run to raise the Rose's clan
Their master to defend.

"For he has slain fierce Donald Graeme,
His blood is on his sword,
And far far distant are those men
That must protect their lord."

"And has he slain my brother dear?"
The furious Graeme replied,
"Dishonor blast my name but he
By me ere morning dies.

"Tell me where is Sir James the Rose?
I will thee well reward."
"He sleepeth in Lord Buchan's wood.
Matilda is his guard."

They pricked their steeds in furious mood,
And scoured along the way;
And came unto Lord Buchan's hall
By the dawning of the day.

Matilda stood without the gate,
To whom the Graeme did say,
"O have you seen Sir James the Rose,
Or did he pass this way?"

"Last night at e'en I heard them say
Sir James the Rose passed by.,
He pricked his steed in furious mood
And scoured along the lea.

"By now he is in Edinborough,
If man and horse hold good."
"Your page then lied who told me that
He sleepeth in your wood."

She wrung her hands and tore her hair,
"Brave Rose thou art betrayed,
And ruined by those very plans
I for thy safety laid."

By this time the valiant knight awoke,
The virgin's shrieks he heard.
Up he rose and drew his sword
Ere the fierce band appeared.

Five of his men, the bravest five,
Sank down beneath his sword,
And still he scorned to slay these men
And sought their haughty lord.

Behind him basely came the Graeme,
And wounded him in the side;
Out spouting came the crimson flood
And all his garments dyed . . .

[The last stanzas of the ballad could not be recalled by Mr. Barron. It proceeds, he says, to tell how the Graeme is mortally wounded and sinks down beside the Rose. Matilda, seeing her lover's fate, because of the miscarriage of her plans, kills herself. Last of all, the little page, overcome with grief when he realizes what he has brought on, runs a sword through his body and sinks in death beside his mistress.]

When the Nebraska text, taken down in 1920, is compared with Bruce's ballad, published in 1770, it is seen that twenty-seven stanzas remain of the original fifty-eight. One new stanza, the seventh, has been inserted. The sequence of stanzas is but slightly disordered. The omissions from the original narrative are in the direction of concreteness. Mostly it is descriptive or elaborating stanzas which are lost; there is never loss of dramatic passages. If it were to be preserved orally somewhat longer, or to pass through many hands, the ballad would probably wholly lose its eighteenth-century literary touches and become consistently concrete, simple, and dramatic, much as the Child ballads lose some of their mediaeval touches in later versions and in New World versions. The Mid-Western text deriving from Bruce's Sir James the Rose affords the opportunity to register with certainty some of the changes arising in oral transmission.' Its departures from the original fall in line with those pointed out by Dr. John Robert Moore in his paper, the Influence of Transmission on the English Ballads. So far as I know, a version of the Child ballad, Sir James the Rose, has never been recovered in America.

LOUISE POUND.
University of Nebraska.
 

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

213. SIR JAMES THE ROSE

Texts: American Speech, I, 481 / Barry, Brit Bids Me, 284 / MacKenzie, Bids Sea Sgs NSct 48.

Local Titles: Sir James the Rose, Sir James the Ross.

Story Types: A: The Ross Story: James the Ross learns at a meeting in the woods with his true love Matilda that she must marry the hated John Grames on her father's orders. Donald Grames overhears the conversation between the lovers and, after the girl departs, makes himself known to Ross. Ross kills the eavesdropper. Fearful of revenge by the Grames clan, Ross then sets out to get aid from his kinsman, stopping en route to awaken Matilda and tell her what he has done. She detains him and hides him, saying that a page will rouse his clansmen. The page, however, meets John Grames on the way, tells him what has taken place, and is bribed into revealing James' whereabouts. When the Grames come to Matilda's house, they find Ross sleeping in the wood much to the dismay of the girl. Ross is able to kill four (or fifteen) of his attackers before John Grames stabs him from behind.  Matilda then kills herself, and the page follows suit.

Examples: Am Speech, I, 481; Barry; MacKenzie (A, B).

Discussion: The Child Sir James the Rose ballad is not in America. The American texts are highly sophisticated and based on Sir James the Ross, a song Child, IV, 156 thought to have been composed by Michael Bruce.  Barry, Brit Bids M?, 290 i, citing Alexander Keith (editor) in Greig's Last Leaves of Traditional Bids, points out that both the Ross (not in Child's collection) and Rose (which Child printed) ballads are derived from eighteenth century broadsides and stall copies and that Michael Bruce is mistakenly considered the composer of the former. He also points out on Keith's authority that the Ross version has ousted the Rose in Scotland and that his American copy of Ross is identical with the 1768 and oldest known Scottish (150 Scots Songs, London, 1768) text of the story. His version being that old and well established in oral tradition, Barry therefore rates the Ross texts as a primary, rather than a secondary, form of the story in  America. Also see MacKenzie, Bids Sea Sgs N Sc, 48. MacKenzie's A version is particularly sophisticated. The Pound, American Speech, Nebraska version does not differ materially from the northern texts.

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Sir James

Of all the Scottish northern chiefs
Of high and warlike fame,
The bravest was Sir James the Ross,
A knight of mighty fame.

Source: Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, Dec 1936

Notes:  Collected by Maud Karpeles from Mr. Jas. Walsh at Ferryland, Newfoundland, August 1, 1930. One of five versions given in edition of the Journal.

The notes say "The text is very similar to the 1768 version printed in Last Leaves and the versions noted in Nova Scotia and Maine."

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