US & Canada Versions: 96. The Gay Goshawk
[Currently I don't have the version from Child MS and it's not be published. The fragment below in Flanders is from George Edwards of Vermont. Besides learning ballads from his family in England, Edwards also studied ballads from books and it's possible his recollection was prompted by print-- hence the similarity with Child A of the second remembered fragment.
R. Matteson 2012, 2015]
96. THE GAY GOSHAWK
Reed Smith prints this song among his list of American survivals of the Child ballads. His reference is to a text in the Child MSS, taken from an Irish woman in Iowa. See SFLQ, I, 52, 911. Check also the Vermont Historical Society, Proceedings, N. S., VII, 73 98.
Flanders-Ancient3, pp. 43-44, "The Gay Goshawk" (1 fragment, with lyrics typical of this piece but too short identify with certainty) The Gay Goshawk (Child 96) The stanza Edwards recalled is the first stanza of Child A. However, he is reported to have stated that the song "sets forth a romance between a Frenchman and an English girl" and gave the following account of the story to Mrs. Flanders:
The lover went up to England. They took her up there in a coffin. They were to stop at the first kirk to get her across the border. There was to be a second stop [Edwards could not recall where]. The third stop was to be their destination.
In 1933, he seems to have been able to recall the lines "She gave him the seventh ring from her finger fair" as well.
Edwards was recalling the details of his variant accurately his text is unusual. All the Child songs find the girl "going up to Scotland" to meet her Scottish lover and find the final procession stopping three times before the arrival at the final kirk. The only exception to this sequence is Child E which has but three stops. However, this text is a compounded one, and a comparison between it and its sources (see Child, IV, 482-484) indicates that four stops were an original feature of the variant. It should also be noted that Edwards did not recall the basic motif of the story, the trick that the lovers play on the girl's family. This significant part of the story may have been lost in transmission.
It might be mentioned that Reed Smith included "The Gay Goshawk" in his list of American survivals of Child ballads, SFQ, I, No. 2, 9-11. His reference is to a text in the Child Mss, taken from an Irish woman in Iowa. See Branford Millar's remarks on this song in SFQ XVII 159-160. Dean-Smith, 81, gives English listings, while an analogue, sometimes entitled "Belle Isambourg," is widely known in France.
George Edwards of Burlington, Vermont, recalled the plot and, two lines of "The Gay Goshawk" on July 27, 1933. Later, on May 23, 1934, he recalled four more lines. see JAF, LXIV , 130. H. H. F., Collector
July 27, 1933
She gave to him the seventh ring
From her finger fair.
May 23, 1934
"Oh, well's me, my gay goshawk,
That he can speak and flee.
I can send a letter to my true love
And bring one back to me."
Contents:
The Gay Goshawk- Edwards (VT) 1933-34 Flanders (see above)
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Southern Folklore Quarterly - Volume 44 - Page 80, 1980 [excerpt]
There is obvious punning on "merrie" in "The Gay Goshawk" as the lady bids "my marys a," to "eat and drink" in a line which is just a few phonemes off the invitation spoken by the Wife of Usher's Well to her merry men. The word "merry" is most The word "merry" is most contrarily applied in "Jock the Leg and the Merry Merchant", whose merchant proves himself to be the ultimate weapon of destruction, "dunging" to death six robbers rated "the best bowmen." For all the subtle humor of the piece, which is distinctive in this regard, it is not for his merriment but for his stubbornness that the merchant will be remembered. But the most compelling example of "merry" feebly and tastelessly at work in its old age is seen in the catchy "The Heir of Linne" which, like "Geordie", has a preponderance (twenty-one of thirty-two stanzas) of -eel-y rhymes and therefore a markedly