US & Canada Versions: 44. King John and the Bishop
[King John and the Bishop is a riddle ballad- there are three questions that must be answered correctly. It's rare in the US where it has had some circulation and it has not been found as a ballad in Canada (Macedward Leach has collected a prose tale from Labrador that has a similar theme. A folk-tale prose variant titled, "The Three Questions" is given by Parsons in Folk-Lore from the Cape Verde Islands).
Only about a dozen versions of this ballad have been collected, mostly from the North. Two of the versions from Flanders (Ancient Ballads 1966) have two informants singing from the same source: Flanders A1 (Parnham) and A2 (Ballard), "The King's Three Questions" and Flanders B1 (Myra Daniels/Elmer George) and B2 (Elmer George) "King John and the Bishop." The Niles version is so unusual that it may be a ballad recreation.
In 1937 Hilton Rufty published a 22 stanza version, a rewrite of Child A titled King John and the Abbot, which is based on the music and refrain as given by Barry in the JAFL of Mary Eddy. A 3 stanza variant from Kentucky was given in the Annual Report of the Ohio Valley Historical Association, Volume 5 by Ohio Valley Historical Association, 1912 (no informant was named).
A version was learned by Ford from his mother in Wisconsin. See Bronson's liner-notes, from 'Child Ballads Traditional in the United States' Vol. 1. [Listen to Warde Ford: The Bishop of Canterbury] Below is an excerpt from: Susan Edmunds, (1985) The English riddle ballads, Durham theses, Durham University; Chapter 5.
R. Matteson 2012, 2104]
CONTENTS: Individual versions may be accessed by clicking on the highlighted title or by clicking on the version attached to this page on the left-hand column.
1) The Bishop of Canterbury- Stevens (NY) c.1840s -- From: A Pioneer Songster, Thompson; as written down from an MS dated between 1841-1856.
2) The King's Three Questions- Farnham (VT) c.1870 -- From Flanders/Brown; Vermont Folk-Songs & Ballads; also from Flanders' Ancient Ballads, pp. 281-298. This version was collected and modified by the informant, who added missing verses-- another version was collected, also learned from the same source Farnham's grandmother by Fred Ballard and is given as A2.
3) The Bishop of Canterbury- Hubbard (Utah) c.1875 -- From: Traditional Ballads from Utah by Lester A. Hubbard and LeRoy J. Robertson; The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 64, No. 251 (Jan. - Mar., 1951), pp. 37-53. Mrs. Salley A. Hubbard communicated the text February 10, 1946, and sang it for recording June 10, 1947. She learned it from her brother in Willard about 1875.
4) King John and the Bishop- M.E.E. (R.I.) 1907 -- From: King John and the Bishop by Phillips Barry; The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 21, No. 80 (Jan. - Mar., 1908), pp. 57-59. Published in Folk-Songs of the North Atlantic States, sung by S. A. Flint, Providence, R. I., as recollected by Mary E. Eddy, in whose family it is traditional. March 5, 1907.
5) The Bishop of Old Canterbury- Hall (CT) 1907 JAFL
6) King John & the Bishop- (KY) 1912
King John & the Bishop- Daniels/George (VT) 1930
King John & the Bishop- Sicily (VT) 1933 Flanders
King John and the Bishop- Vaughan (MI) 1937
The Bishop of Canterbury- Ford (CA) 1938
King John & the Bishop- George (VT) 1939 Lomax
The King's Three Questions- MacNelly (Maine) 1940
The King & the Bishop- Ratliff (KY) c.1940s Niles
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[Excerpt from: Susan Edmunds, (1985) The English riddle ballads, Durham theses, Durham University; Chapter 5. ]
American Versions
Percy's Reliques were also known in the United States, for there was a reprinting of the collection in 1856 in Boston (Phillips, Sampson & Co.). However, only one version collected in America seems to have been influenced by the Reliques text. This is the fragmented text from Massachusetts (ix) in which only three stanzas are complete. Although the existing lines are not identical to Percy's, and show some influence from the other American traditions, there are a few lines which are not found in any other American text, and which are close to the Reliques version:
. . . . in his stead,
With my crown of gold so fair on my head.
The qualification, 'so fair', is elsewhere found only in Percy. The last line probably also came from his version, although it is found also in the Brooksby text, because no other American text uses it:
You bring him a pardon from good King John.
There are two American fragments which seem to have derived from the Brooksby broadside text without the help of Percy. These are Henry Vaughan's version from Michigan, 1937 (xiv), learned from his mother in Vermont, and the most recent of all versions, that of Mrs. Maxine Elkins of Kentucky, 1965 (xxi). The latter has only the first two stanzas; the former has only the first, but in the case of (xiv), the lines are identical to the broadside, and in (xxi), the only differences are obvious developments of the same: in place of 'a story anon', for example, she has, 'a story I know', and in place of 'high renown', 'great compound'.
The Stevens-Douglas Group (vii; xviii; xix)
Earliest of the American oral versions is the text from the Stevens-Douglas family manuscript, dated 1841-56: this is a record of songs used at family gatherings in the mid-nineteenth century, written down by Artemas Stevens, who died in 1877, and by his children. It contains 89 songs, including 36 of British origin, unfortunately without music. The family lived near Buffalo, in an area settled mainly be Puritans from New England in the seventeenth century.
The 'King John' text is entitled 'The Bishop of Canterbury', and apart from some unique mis-hearings, such as 'abilities' for •nobility', in stanza J, it is coherent and well-structured. It is evidently related to the Brooksby text in some respects, but there are certain elements which occur here and in other American variants, which point to another source. The elements, as they are found in the Stevens-Douglas text, are as follows:
1. In the third riddle, in place of the normal broadside reading, 'thou must not shrink', the MS reads, 'As I do now wink'. This is found in six other American texts.
2. The Bishop offers the shepherd a reward before he sets off:
"A suit of pearl (apparel) I will freely give,
"And ten pounds a year as long as I live."
This occurs in the same six other American texts, although the sum varies (See Appendix D).
3. On the arrival of the shepherd, the King asks,
"Have you come here to live or to die?"
This occurs in four other texts. Two texts in particular are very close to the Stevens-Douglas, and can be traced to the same period: the first of these is Virginia Hiner's version from Kansas, 1945 (xviii), which came from a great-uncle who had lived in New York State, moving to Kansas in 1857. The second is from Mrs. Salley Hubbard, Utah 1946-7 (xix), which she learned from her brother in 1875. Both these two texts have a syncopated refrain of the 'Fol-de-rol' type, which sets them apart from other American versions, most of which preserve the 'Derry Down' refrain. The Stevens-Douglas MS records no refrain. They also share an ending not found in any English version, in which the King says to the shepherd,
"Go tell the old Bishop, go tell him for me,
"He keeps a fine fellow if he keeps thee.
It seems probable that these elements, not found in the Brooksby text or the Reliques, came from another broadside version of the ballad.
The Vermont Group (xii; xiii; xi; xv; xvi; xx)
A second group of texts seems closer to the Brooksby version, but also has in common certain features not known in any English version. The texts come mainly from Vermont, three of them from the Elmer George family. ( 2-1) The Warde Ford version (xv) is close to the Stevens-Douglas group in tune and refrain, but in its opening stanza and in general diction it belongs in the Vermont group.
These texts, unlike the Stevens-Douglas group and the Brooksby broadside, succeed in avoiding self-contradiction in the opening description of the King. The Virginia Hiner text (xviii), for example, in the Stevens-Douglas group, blatantly presents a double view:
A health to King John, that worthy old knight
Who set up great wrongs and put down great rights. . .
The Elmer George texts thoughtfully put this right:
A story, a story, a story of one
About an old prince whose name was King John.
He was a man, a man of great mirth
Who set up all rights and downed great wrongs.
Warde Ford (xv) does not describe him at all. George Farnham (xi) has the most original and, in social context, the most realistic version:
He was a man and a man of great might,
He tore down great barns and set up great right.
The other significant feature that distinguishes these texts is the taunt of the shepherd when the Bishop explains his predicament:
"Are you a man of learning and wit
"To answer these questions, so soonly put to it?" (xii)
Each of the texts has this question in some form: in the fragment from Alice Sicily, (xiii), it has shifted to the opening description of the King:
He was a man of learning and wit.
The taunt is absent from both the Brooksby broadside and the Reliques text: it does exist, however, in the Folio version:
"Brother", quoth the shepard, "you are a man of learninge;
"What neede you stand in doubt of soe small a thinge?" (st. 18)
The word "wit" may have come from the proverbial remark retained by the Brooksby writer and by Percy,
"Brother", quoth the shepeard, "you have heard itt,
"That a foole may teach a wisemane witt. . ." (Folio, st. 13)
The Stevens-Douglas group and the Vermont group, then, exhibit between them a number of regular features which cannot have come from any of the known English sources. This suggests an independent source, most probably a broadside, since the area covered by the texts is too large for an unprinted text to remain as constant. This hypothetical text could have been taken to New England by Puritan emigrants and thence to the Puritan settlements in New York State, the home of the Stevens family.
One American text does not fit into any of the groups described above: this is the version from Mr. Jack MacNelly, Maine, 1949 {xvii). It has no tune or refrain, and has become well acclimatised to its new nationality: it opens with the formula:
Come all you folks and I'll make you merry
The basic story is still there, and the three riddles, but the text is so much altered that it is impossible to determine its probable source. It shows, however, that the song was robust enough to adapt to a completely foreign environment. The King and the Bishop are token figures, barely given a mention, but the shepherd evidently struck a sympathetic chord; his answers to the questions are the main substance of the text, which ends:
"You think I'm the Bishop of Canterbury
"And I nawthin' but his hired man."
The ballad has given to, as well as taken from, the wider American folksong tradition: the tune continued to be used for other songs in the twentieth century, such as 'The Belle of Long Lake'[22]. And like the eighteenth century satirists, ballad-makers continued to use the famous opening formula to begin new ballads, such as the variant of 'The Liverpool Landlady' collected in Nova Scotia at the beginning of the century:
I'll tell you a story, I'll not keep you long,
Concerning a sailor whose name it was John. . .[23]
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[From Flanders' Ancient Ballads, pp. 281-298, notes by Coffin:
King John and the Bishop
(Child 45)
"King John and the Bishop" is a ballad version of a well-known folk tale (Aarne-Thompson, Mt. 922) that is probably oriental in origin. At least a ninth-century Arabic work contains a story about a wicked king, his viziers, and a potter that is basically similar. This is about as far back as the tale can be safely traced. It became quite popular in the Middle Ages, both in the East and west, and has been the subject of a good bit of study. walter Anderson's monograph, "Kaiser und Abt" (FFC, No. 42 [Helsinki, 1923]); the citations in the Aarne-Thompson Types of the Folktale; and the notes in Child, I, 405 f., make a good start on a bibliography of the tale's variations and history.
The American ballad versions, almost all from the North, follow the child's Brooksby broadside pretry closely, usually even to the "derry down" refrain. The Flanders texts are of interest more because of the way they interrelate to each other than because of anything unusual in their make-up. After all, the story, with its set situation, questions, and answers, is about as variation-proof as folklore can ever be. A1 and A2, below, were learned by two men from a mutual grandmother, and, except for the fact that most of is is forgotten, they are much alike. However, it should be noted that the singer of A1 did not recall a good portion of his text until later. B1, B2, and BB make an interesting series. B1, sung word for word the same in 1933 by a brother and sister, was re-collected from the brother in 1939 and again in 1951. The 1939 B2 and 1951 B2 texts have two stanzas (8 and 9) not found in the 1933 version and add two new stanzas to the material covered in B1 from stanza 3 to stanza B. Otherwise the three texts do not differ greatly. The fact that neither Mr" George nor his sister recalled the additional stanzas in 1933 makes one wonder why the material should crop up six and eighteen years later. C, it will be noted, is also from the Slayton family that Mrs. Daniels, Elmer George's sister, gave as the source of her text. D is interesting in the singer's comment that the Bishop "was arrested for having too much money"--a compact statement of the Child B motivation. For a start on a bibliography of the song, see Coffin, 58-59.
All three of the tunes given here are related, corresponding to BC1 group A. The two George tunes are almost identical.
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Annual Report of the Ohio Valley Historical Association, Volume 5
By Ohio Valley Historical Association 1912
I. Songs of the Old Country.
I begin with an old song of King John of England, and give the versions still sung in the Cumberland Mountains of Kentucky. Archbishop Hubert Walter died in 1205; King John claimed the right, exercised by his predecessors, of naming the new head of the church at Canterbury. But the bishops of the province asserted that the right was their’s. In a quandary, Pope Innocent III, appointed his own candidate, Stephen Lang-ton. King John until worsted in the altercation, refused to receive or to recognize the new archbishop. Now a generation or two before Shakespeare, our English forefathers were listening to the plays and interludes of that vigorous protestant and defender of King John, Bishop John Bale. The theme was well worked, and the quarrel between Pope and King was well aired for considerably more than a century before the landing of the first American colonists in the early 1600’s. Little wonder, then, that ballads should be found, clinging like ivy vines around the ruins of this tale of the royal quarrel of long ago, and little wonder that at least one of them has been saved to this day, to be remembered long after the quarrel itself as a historical incident had been forgotten. This folk-song, “King John and the Bishop,” seems to be a popular “take-ofi”’ upon the slow-wittedness of King John. A bishop of the Pope’s Party had been summoned into the royal presence, and sentence of death had fallen from the royal lips. The wretched cleric begs John for life, and the King, in tantalizing mood, grants his wish upon condition that the Bishop answer correctly three questions. The latter in terror of failure, confides his hard plight to a poor shepherd friend, who magnanimously impersonates in disguise the Bishop and answers the questions in his stead
“My first question is, without any doubt,
How long I’d be travelling this wide world about?”
“You rise with the sun, go down with the same,
In twenty-four hours you will it obtain.”
The second query of King John is, “How much money am I worth?”
“Our Saviour for thirty pieces was sold
Unto the Jews, both wicked and hold;
I think twenty-nine must be your just due,
For I’m sure he 'was one piece better than you.”
“And from my third question you must not shrink,
But tell me truly what do I think?”
“My answer here ’tis; ’twill make you quite merry,
You think I’m the Bishop of Old Canterbury,
But I’m his poor shepherd, as now you do see.”
And we are left to assume that both Bishop and shepherd are saved from the King’s decree, by the clever answering of the peasant.
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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
45. KING JOHN AND THE BISHOP
Texts: Barry, Brit Bids Me, 445 (trace) / Flanders, Garl Gn Mt Sg, 58 / Flanders, Vt F-S Bids, 200 / Gardner and Checkering, Bids Sgs So Mich, 379 / JAFL, XXI, 54, 57 / NTFLQ, I,#i, 45 / Parsons, F-L Cape Verde Is, 94 (prose) / Smith and Rufty, Am Anth Old Wrld Bids, 8.
Local Titles: King John and the Abbot, King John and the Bishop, The Bishop of Canterbury.
Story Types: A: Mighty King John sends for the Archbishop of Canterbury and tells the churchman that he is a greater scholar than this king (or makes some such accusation) and that if he doesn't answer three questions correctly he will be beheaded. The questions are how much the King is worth mounted in all his state, how long the King will be travelling this world about, and what the King is thinking. The bishop goes homeward. On the way he meets a shepherd who offers to disguise himself as the churchman and answer the riddles. The shepherd tells King John that he is worth a piece less than Jesus, may go with the sun and circle the world in twenty-four hours, and thinks the man before him is the Archbishop of Canterbury. The King is amused by the wit of the man and excuses both.
Examples: Flanders, Ft F-S Bids; JAFL, XXI, 54.
Discussion: The American versions, all from the North, seem to be closely related to Child B. See Gardner and Chickering, Bids Sgs So Mich, 379 and Flanders, Ft F-S Bids, 200. The story is varied in a number of minor details, such as the shepherd's reward and the reason for the riddles being asked.
However, even the refrain "derry down, etc.", is retained in the Vermont text. See Flanders, loc . cit.
The riddles of the story are not unusual. They appear in the same general form in European, American, Cape Verde, and Phillipine prose and poetic folklore. See MAFLS, XV, 94; XII, 287; JAFL, XXI, 58 (from N. J. via Missouri); and Child, I, 405 ff.
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Missing versions:
1. The King's Three Questions'; Garnett, Kansas; Date: 26 January 1945; Source: Sent by Virginia Hiner, learned from her mother. H. H. Flanders Collection, Middlebury College, Vermont. Description: 17 stanzas
2. 'King John and the Abbot of Canterbury'; Place: La Rue Co., Kentucky; Date: Autumn 1965; Source: Sung by Mrs. Maxine Elkins, aged 24. Collected by Joyce Lee. Mantell Collection, W. Kentucky University. Description: 2 stanzas:
A2(a story I know) B1 E1