'Veritable Dunghills': Professor Child and the Broadside
by Roy Palmer
Folk Music Journal, Vol. 7, No. 2 (1996), pp. 155-166
'Veritable Dunghills': Professor Child and the Broadside*
ROY PALMER
THE CONTEMPT FOR BALLAD SINGERS and their wares which frequently surfaces in print can also be found in pictures. Hogarth's famous engraving of a hanging day at Tybum shows a marginal woman, ragged, raddled and obese, mouth agape, baby on one arm and hand of the other to her ear, who proffers copies of 'The Last Dying Speech and Confession of the Idle [Apprentice]'.[1] Haifa century later, in about 1810, an even more slatternly woman, this time sans infant but with hand still cupped to ear- news, no doubt, to those who thought this was a mannerism invented by Ewan MacColl-appears with ballads for sale on the fringe of another execution crowd, this time at Newgate Gaol, in the drawing by Rowlandson.[2]
Singing and selling seem to be synonymous in such contexts, and this is confirmed by another Rowlandson drawing, 'Street Scene', which depicts a ballad singer (see Figure 1).[3] The subject, this time male, has his mouth open, shouting if not singing,
and he holds a bundle of ballads. The social level at which he operates is clearly indicated by the people who have assembled to hear him: they include housemaids, a boy chimney-sweep and a brick-dust seller.
Such images are amply paralleled in literature, with Shakespeare's Autolycus and Jonson's Nightingale providing perhaps the most famous examples.[4] The very expression, 'ballad singer', eventually became a term of disparagement. Nicholas Worsdale, mate of the William, was held to be grossly insubordinate in 1729 when he declared that he valued his captain no more than a ballad singer.[5] Rather more than a century later, Mrs Transome in George Eliot's novel, Felix Holt, complains of her son, Harold, that 'he will not listen to me any more than if I were an old ballad-singer'.[6]
Even relatively sympathetic observers made disparaging comments. John Freeth of Birmingham-himself a balladeer, albeit in books at three shillings and sixpence rather than sheets at a penny-wrote in 1765:
Paupers a nd Ballad-singers too,
With all the rag-tagt atteredc rew,
That often at a glass-houses warm,
To keep their wretched bodies warm.[7]
Figure 1
Thomas Rowlandson, Street Scene, 18th century, pen and watercolour over pencil, 6 1/4" x 8 11/16
Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York. Gift of Mr and Mrs Francis Fitz Randolph (Mary E. Hill, class of 1945-4), 1953.7.10.
The radical journalist, W. E. Adams, described in slighting terms those who sold the ballads printed in the 1830s and '40s by the equally radical Thomas Willey of Cheltenham:
The passage leading to Wiley's printing office was crowded on the morning of an execution with an astonishing collection of ragamuffins and tatterdemalions, greasy, grimy and verminous. Soon they were bawling their doleful wares all over the town.[8]
Such wares, doleful and otherwise, were often given short shrift by those literary commentators who deigned to consider them at all. The celebrated 'Q'- Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch- peered with distaste from his lofty vantage point at the 'crab-apple stage of Broadsides' through which he saw 'the Ballad' passing as it declined 'into Sterility'.[9] 'Q' gives no sources in his collection, The Oxford Book of Ballads, though he nods in the preface to Child, Furnivall and Hales (his three dedicatees), together with Scott, Allingham, Ritson, Herd, Jamieson, Sidgwick and Baring-Gould. His enormous condescension goes well beyond the broadside. He announces that 'the Ballad has been dead, or as good as dead, for two hundred years', and concludes that to compare it with the work of recognized poets would be unfair, 'much as any contrast between children and grown folk would be unfair'.[10] Even so, knowingly or otherwise, Quiller-Couch admitted to his anthology many items of broadside provenance or influence.
Someone of whom one might have entertained better hopes joined 'Q' in his dislike of crab-apple balladry. Baring-Gould wrote that 'a few-but only a few, unspoiled folk songs have found their way into print on broadsides', and again: 'The ballad-vendor, who vended his broadsheets, did much to corrupt the taste of the peasant."[11] Cecil Sharp followed suit, once more pursuing the peasant, last seen in England some centuries earlier: 'It was only very rarely that a genuine ballad found its way on to a broadside without suffering corruption. A broadside version of a ballad is usually, therefore, a very indifferent one, and vastly inferior to the genuine peasant song.'[12] Yet, Sharp was interested enough to amass and then draw on a large collection
of street ballads, as did Baring-Gould. So, too, did Frank Kidson, who at least was lukewarm on the subject rather than hostile: 'The folk-song collector cannot ignore the ballad sheet, for upon it are the words of many folk-songs of which he may obtain
only fragmentary versions from the singer.' [13]
The American ballad scholar, Francis James Child (1825-1896), also gathered an extensive collection of street ballads, garlands and chapbooks which is now in the Houghton Library at Harvard University. However, throughout his career he carefully distinguished between what he believed to be 'ancient ballads' and the rest- between 'true popular ballads' and 'the works of the professional ballad-maker, which make up the bulk of Garlands and Broadsides'. The former are 'the spontaneous products
of nature', the latter, 'though sometimes not without grace, more frequently not lacking in humour, belong to artificial literature - of course to an humble department'. Child admits that 'this distinction is not absolute, for several of the ancient ballads have a sort of literary character, and many broadsides were printed from oral tradition'. This justifies his 'gleaning' broadside ballads, but he nevertheless asserts that 'the popular ballads demand much more liberal treatment'.[14]
So far I have been quoting from the 1860 Preface to Child's anthology, English and Scottish Ballads, which preceded his definitive and better-known English and Scottish Popular Ballads.[15] He expresses himself even more strongly in a letter of 1872 to the Danish scholar, Svend Grundtvig:
The English and Scotch Ballads will not compare with the Danish in point of age. . . . We cannot of course exclude all ballads which have not been taken from the mouths of the people-nor perhaps include all such. The oldest Robin Hood ballads are derived from MS., and very many others of the best and oldest, and on the other hand some ballads written in comparatively recent times, especially historical ones, are found in the mouths of the people. The immense collections of Broadside ballads, the Roxburghe and Pepys, of which but a small part has been printed, doubtless contain some ballads which we should at once declare to possess the popular character, and yet on the whole they were veritable dung-hills, in which, only after a great deal of sickening grubbing, one finds a very moderate jewel.[16]
The use of the word 'dunghills' clearly reveals Child's revulsion from bawdy material. This is explicit in his comment on the 'rank and noxious specimens of comparatively modem dirt, such as would suit the age of Charles II' in Bishop Percy's folio manuscript.[17] Child is even more vehement in a letter advising a friend, should the Percy Loose and Humorous Songs volume ever come his way, 'to put [it] up the chimney (where it will be in its element) or into the fire -where the authors no
doubt are!! [18] This is not the place in which to mount a defence of the volume but I venture to suggest in passing that it contains at least one item, 'The Sea Crabb', which ought to have found a place in the Child canon.[19] In contrast with the 'very moderate jewels' that might be obtained from street balladry, Child believed that there existed old-and old was a key word in his vocabulary- 'genuine national or people's ballads'.[20] These were at once impersonal, classless and universal, produced at a point in social evolution 'anterior to the appearance of the poetry of art', and popular, though 'not in the sense of something arising from and suited to the lower orders of a people'.[21] On the other hand, the vulgar ballads of our day, the 'broadsides' which were printed in such large numbers in England and elsewhere in the sixteenth century or later, belong to a different genus; they are products of a low kind of art, and most of them are, from a literary p oint of view, thoroughly despicable and worthless.
For almost half a century, latterly much under the influence of Professor Grundtvig, Child agonized over classification. Making war, not love, seems to have been one of his guiding principles, for he much prefers violence to sex. He is preoccupied with aesthetics a nd antiquity, t hough his view of a classless g olden age 'anterior to the appearance of the poetry of art' does not stand up to serious scrutiny, or history. His earliest ballad, 'Judas' (Child 23), is from a manuscript of the thirteenth century (some considerable time after the emergence of 'the poetry of art'). Copies of only nine others predate the sixteenth century and over two hundred come from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.[23]
If in theory Child held to a particular view of what might be admitted to his grand florilegium, in practice he acted differently.[24] One scholar contends that 'a "Child ballad" means little more than one collected and approved by Professor Child'.[25] Another argues that Child's canon contains only 135 genuinely oral ballads, or about forty-four percent of the whole.[26]
A close examination of Child's work reveals the extent to which he relied on the despised garlands and broadsides. Not only does he cite these as sources for at least one version of a third (106 or thirty-four percent) of the 305 ballads in his canon,
but in sixty-two cases (twenty percent of the whole) these provide the prime or sole version. At least two of these are the work of professional ballad-makers-Martin Parker and Laurence Price in these cases-of whom Child so strongly disapproved.[27]
In addition, broadsides account for B versions of seventeen more of the ballads, not counting these in cases where the A version is also a broadside.[28] In three more instances Child refers to broadside texts without giving them,[29] and he prefers to ignore broadside versions in at least seven others.[30]
The biggest single group of Child's prime versions drawn from street ballads includes many of those concerning Robin Hood, with twenty-eight examples.[31] Other items, more or less surprisingly, are 'Riddles Wisely Expounded' (Child 1), 'The Elfin Knight' (Child 2), 'The Twa Sisters' (Child 10, entitled 'The Miller and the King's Daughter'), 'The Camal and the Crane' (Child 55), 'Dives and Lazarus' (Child 56), 'Fair Margaret and Sweet William' (Child 74), 'Fair Mary of Wallington' (Child 91), 'The Bailiff's Daughter of Islington' (Child 105), 'The Famous Flower of Serving-men' (Child 106), 'The Knight and Shepherd's Daughter' (Child 110), 'Adam Bell' (Child 116), 'Gude Wallace' (Child 157), 'King Henry V's Conquest of France' (Child 164), 'Johnie Armstrong' (Child 169), 'Hughie Grame' (Child 191, entitled 'The Life and Death of Sir Hugh the Grime'), 'Bewick and Graham' (Child 211), 'SirJames the Rose' (Child 213), 'Bonny Lizie Baillie' (Child 227), 'The Duke of Gordon's Daughter' (Child 237), 'James Harris (The Daemon Lover)' (Child 243), 'The Suffolk Miracle' (Child 272), 'King Edward the Fourth and a Tanner of Tamworth' (Child 273), 'The Friar in the Well' (Child 276), 'The Crafty Farmer' (Child 278), 'The George Aloe and the Sweepstake' (Child 285), 'The Sweet Trinity (The Golden Vanity)' (Child 286), 'Captain Ward and the Rainbow' (Child 287),
'The Young Earl of Essex's Victory' (Child 288), 'The Mermaid' (Child 289), 'The West-country Damosel's Complaint' (Child 292) and 'The Brown Girl' (Child 295). In all, this is not only a substantial amount but a wide-ranging cross section of Child's
material.
There seems to be no discernible pattern, except that perhaps a smaller proportion of Scottish than English material falls into the broadside category, probably because the trade did not develop in Scotland until the second half of the eighteenth centurya
factor, observes David Buchan, 'which contributes greatly to the difference in Scottish and English ballad traditions'.[32] However, I am not looking for a pattem but for evidence that Child's practice is at variance with his remarks about finding jewels in dunghills or 'a dark heap' (as he put it less graphically elsewhere).[33]
One of his (self-imposed) problems was that some broadside texts provided older and fuller versions than those available from oral tradition. In some cases, as we have seen, he silently adopted them. In others he just as quietly ignored them. His A version of 'The Unquiet Grave' (Child 78), originally published in 1868, was 'written down from the lips of a girl in Sussex'. It ends with what some may feel to be mawkish piety:
The stalk is withered dry, my love,
So will our hearts decay;
So make yourself content, my love,
Till God calls you away.
Instead of this, a version issued several decades earlier by two Birmingham printers has three concluding verses, two with the motif of impossible tasks and the third with a stoic resolution:
Go fetch me a nut from a dungeon deep
Or water from a stone,
Or milk white from a maiden'sb reast,
For maidens they have none.
How can I get a nut from a dungeon deep,
Or water from a stone,
Or milk white from a maiden'sb reast,
If maidens have got none?
Weep not for me my own true love,
Weep not for me I pray,
For I must leave you in this wide world,
34 And return back to my grave.
These verses have no equivalent in any of the four versions canonized by Child, and one wonders whether to ascribe the omission of so markedly superior a text to oversight or to prejudice. Certainly, Child's attitude to street literature seems to have hardened in the interval between the publication of his two anthologies. 'The later collection', Walter Morris Hart comments, 'is much more chary of the admission of broadsides or street-ballads: in many cases they are relegated to introductions or appendices; in many more, omitted.' [35]
In passing, Child makes a number of adverse comments on broadsides. He instances his B version of 'The Hunting of the Cheviot' (Child 162) as 'a striking but by no means solitary example of the impairment which an old ballad would suffer
when written over for the broadside press'.[36] He does not say 'could', but 'would'. Again, he suggests that 'a collation' -by which I take it he means a comparisonbetween his A version of 'Sir Andrew Barton' (Child 167), from Percy's manuscript,
and his B version, from seven broadsides, 'will show how ballads were retrenched and marred in the process of preparing them for the vulgar press'.[37]
Yet Child did make concessions -in words, that is, as well as tacitly -to broadsides. His M version of 'Young Beichan' (Child 53) is retained, despite being 'probably a broadside or stall copy', on the grounds that it 'preserves a very ancient traditional
feature'.[38] He concedes that 'tradition does not stop when a ballad gets into pnrnt', [39] and that it may exert an influence on subsequent printings. On 'Pnrnce Heathen' (Child 104) he comments: 'the fragment A ... is partly explained by B, which is no
doubt some stall-copy, reshaped from tradition.' [40] In the case of 'The Baffled Knight' (Child 112), 'E is, in all probability, a broadside copy modified by tradition.'[41] Conversely, he allows that even his paragon, Mrs Brown of Falkland, Fife, might have
been influenced by print, while contending that 'no Scottish ballads are superior in kind' to those she recited.[42]
Child did not set out merely to accumulate as many versions as possible of his chosen ballads, or if he did it was only to select those which came closest to the criteria he had established. Had he been so minded, he could have studied the extent
to which the 'vulgar press' disseminated items from his canon during a particular period, in a particular place, or in the work of a particular pnrnter. For example, 'Lady Isabel and the Elf-Knight' (Child 4) has as its E version 'the common English stall
copy' entitled 'The Outlandish Knight'.[43] H. 0. Nygard has suggested with reference to this ballad that 'the entire tradition in England and Scotland is influenced by the broadside press, which seems to have given the song its currency'.[44] As early as 1827 J. H. Dixon wrote:
A friend of mine, who resided for some years on the borders, used to amuse himself by collecting old ballads, printed on halfpenny sheets, and hawked up and down by itinerant minstrels. In his common-place book I found one, entitled 'The Outlandish Knight', evidently, from the style, of considerable antiquity, which appears to have escaped the notice of Percy and other collectors. Since then I have met with a printed one, from the popular press of Mr Pitts, the six-yards-for-a- penny song-publisher, who informs me that he has printed it 'ever since he was a printer [1802], and that Mr Marshall, his predecessor, printed it before him' .[45]
In offering the text, Dixon felt that he had to 'expunge', as he put it, certain 'expressions contra bonos mores' (the vulgar press again) which seem to have boiled down to the scandalous expressions 'silken stays' and 'naked woman'. In further reticence he left the letter unsigned but felt it desirable to add 'a few stanzas, wherein I have endeavoured to preserve the simplicity of the original', this being the putative better-quality article which existed before Marshall and Pitts got their inky hands on it. One verse will suffice as an example. It comes after the 'damoselle', as Dixon styles her, has pushed the knight into the sea:
That ocean wave was the false one's grave,
For he sunk right hastily;
Though with dying voice faint, he pray'd to his saint,
And utter'd an Ave Marie.[46]
Dixon had the good sense to drop his own verses in 1846 when he published the 'common English stall copy' of 'The Outlandish Knight',[47] presumably from Pitts.[48] Later still, in 1868, he acknowledged his "juvenile' letter of 1827, adding this information:
My visit to Mr Pitts led to an intimacy between us. He was at that time quite blind. I was somewhat surprised to find in the ballad-printer of Seven Dials a gentlemanly, well-educated man, with a wonderful store of information on ballad and chapbook literature.[49]
The ballad was also issued in London by Birt, Catnach, Disley, Fortey, and Such, as well as by Pitts, which gives an indication of its popularity.[50] Further afield, editions appeared in Birmingham (printed respectively by J. Russell and W. Wright), Brighton
(Hook), Edinburgh (Charles Sanderson), Manchester (Pearson), Portsea [Portsmouth] (Williams), Worcester (Sefton), and probably elsewhere.[51] It would thus be possible to plot the spread of the ballad in space and also in time, given the dating of the printers, and the Sanderson firm in Edinburgh was in existence as late as the 1940s. Similar studies of how other Child ballads fared in this way might be instructive, especially if the results were compared and contrasted with records deriving from oral tradition. One might also ask, hoping not to fall to the level of a parlour game, which ballads of broadside origin Child might have additionally canonized. 'The Boatswain of Dover', 'Box on her Head', 'Fanny Blair', 'The Golden Glove', 'The Green Bed', 'The Sheffield Apprentice', 'Thorney Moor Woods', 'Van Dieman's Land' and 'The Week before Easter' would be among my candidates. Most of these Child would have dismissed out of hand as belonging to 'an humble department' of 'artificial literature'. Yet they would satisfy many of his criteria: 'a short tale in lyric verse', 'an expression of the mind and heart of the people', 'the absence of subjectivity and self-consciousness', 'the author counts for nothing', 'handed down by long-repeated
tradition'.[52]
Among them I have taken a particular interest in 'Van Dieman's Land', in which three poachers (one of them from Nottingham) are transported for fourteen years, their only consolation provided by a female convict from Birmingham. It is possible to speculate that the ballad, inspired by events in Warwickshire, was first published in the Midlands in about 1830 before being reprinted at least a dozen times elsewhere.[53] In editions produced as far apart as Portsmouth and Glasgow the topographical
detail remains constant, though a version printed in Preston removes the scene to Dublin and Galway.[54]
Success spawned a sequel, 'Young Henry the Poacher', in which the Warwickshire narrator and his five comrades are again transported to Van Diemen's Land, though Sydney is mentioned as their place of confinement. Solace this time comes from a
woman who hails from Wolverhampton. Again, there are frequent printings, with topography constant in some but varied to Hertfordshire or Lancashire in others.[55] Both street ballads entered oral tradition, sometimes hybridizing as they did so.
They changed and developed. 'Van Dieman's Land', as printed in Glasgow in the 1850s by James Lindsay, retained the Nottingham-Birmingham terminology but added this coda:
Now if I had a thousand p ounds l aid down all in my hand,
I'd give it all for liberty, if that I could command;
Again to England I'd retum, and be a happy man,
And bid adieu to poaching and to Van Dieman's Land.[56]
However, some eighty years later, when the song reached John Ord through oral transmission, its protagonists hailed from Glasgow and Dundee, and their grief mingled with defiance:
Although the poor of Scotland do labour and do toil,
They're robbed of every blessing and produce of the soil;
Your proud, imperious landlords, if we break their command,
They'll send you to the British hulks, or to Van Dieman's Land.[57]
The same verse occurs in the version sung by Jimmy McBeath (see Appendix). With a heavy charge of emotion and of history, 'Van Dieman's Land' and 'Young Henry the Poacher' (a version of the latter from Walter Pardon is also included in the Appendix) were sung through much of the English-speaking world for well over a century. Indeed, they remain in oral circulation to this day, or did so until very recently. One wonders w hether Professor Child might not have plucked them from
the dunghill.
Child was well acquainted with the work of the eighteenth-century philosopher, Herder, and he followed him in adhering to 'the true, genuine, characteristic song of a people' which came from the putatively unsullied wellsprings of tradition. When these 'dried up', only 'muck and w eeds' remained.[58] For Herder this had happened by the 1770s; a century later Child a sserted: 'The fountain o f oral t radition, though still f lowing c ogiously in some Scandinavian countries, is now nearly dry i n England and Scotland.' [59] He could not know thatt he livingw aterw ould continue to well up for another hundred years, though o ne might r eproach h im for his lack of faith in the process. Child saw plenty of 'muck and weeds', often in the shape of street ballads, but despite their theoretical excommunication he quietly a dmitted a good many, as we have seen, to the ranks of the 305 which he canonized.
Appendix
VAN DIEMAN'S LAND
[music]
Come all ye gal- lant poa - chers and country men, be- ware;
It you go a - poach- ing take your gun, your dog and snare, For the
hare and has - t i - pa - tions(?) they roam at their com - mand; So be -
wareott hs wolvesa nd ti - gers, boys, goingt o Van Die- man's Land.
'Twas poor Jack Brown from Glasgow, Will Guthrie and Munro,
They were three daringp oacherst he countryd id well know;
The keepers caught them hunting all with their gun in hand,
They were fourteeny earst ransporteudn to Van Dieman's Land.
We had a gallantc omradeJ, eanW ilson was her name;
She used to come alongw ith us for the sharing o f the game,
But the captainf ell in love with her and he married h er straight b y hand,
So she gave us the best of treatmentb, oys, going to Van Dieman's Land.
It's when we landedo n the coast,t en thousanda, ye, and more,
And when the natives saw't us they began to shout and roar.
They marched us from the vessel, boys, it's right up to the strand,
So they yoked us up like horses, boys, to plough Van Dieman's Land.
Although the poor of Scotland do labour and do toil,
They're robbed of every blessing and produce of the soil.
Your proud,i mperiousl andlordsi,f you breakt heir commands,
They'll send you on the British hulks to plough Van Dieman's Land.
Sungb y J immyM cBeath (1894-1971); r ecorded a t Turriff, Scotland in March 1951 b y AlanL omax and HamishH enderson( School of Scottish S tudies A rchives, SA 1951/18 B2). The recording i s reproducedin part on the record, F air Gamea nd Foul (12-inch L.P., 12T195, Topic, 1970). I thankH amishH endersonf or permissionto publisht he wordsa nd tune here. The transcription of the tune is by Pat Palmer.
VAN DIEMEN'S LAND
[YOUNG HENRY THE POACHER]
[music]
Come all you wild and wick - ed youths Where - e - ver you may be, I
pray you give at- ten- tion and lis- ten un- to me. The fate of our poor trans - ports
Youshall un der stand,
The hardships they un- der- go U - ponVan Die man's Land.
Young men all now be - ware Lest you are drawn in - to a snare.
I and five more went out one night to Squire Dunhill's park
To see if we could get some game but the night it proved too dark,
And to our sadm isfortuneth ey hemmedu s in with speed,
And sent us off to Warwick Gaol which caused our hearts to bleed.
Young men all now beware lest you are drawn into a snare.
And at the March Assizes at the bar we did appear.
Like Job we stood with patience to hear our sentence there.
We being old offendersit made our casem ore hard:
Our sentence was for fourteen years, and I got sent on board.
Young men all now beware lest you are drawn into a snare.
The ship thatb ore us from the land Speedwewlla s by name;
For abouts ix monthsa nd upwardsw e ploughedt he ragingm ain.
No land or harbourc ould we see, believe me it is no lie;
Beneath us one black water, above us one blue sky.
Young men all now beware lest you are drawn into a snare.
I often looked behind me to see my native shore,
That cottageo f contentmentt hat I shalls ee no more;
Nor yet my poor old father-he tore his old grey hair-
Likewise my aged mother-in her womb she did me bear.
Young men all now beware lest you are drawn into a snare.
On the fifteenth o f September w as when we madet he land;
At four o'clock next morning all chained hand to hand.
To see my fellow suffererIs' m sureI can'tt ell how;
Some were chained to a harrow and others to a plough.
Young men all now beware lest you are drawn into a snare.
No shoes nor stockingst hey had on, no hatst hey had to wear;
Leatherb reechesa nd linen drawerst;h eirf eet and headw ere bare.
They drove about in two and two like horses in a team;
The driverh e stood over them with his malaccac ane.
Young men all now beware lest you are drawn into a snare.
As we marched into Sydney town without no more delay,
A gentleman he bought me his book-keeper to be.
I took the occupation-my master loved me well
My joys were out of measure, I'm sure no tongue could tell.
Young men all now beware lest you are drawn into a snare.
He had a female servant, Rosanna was her name;
For fourteen years a convict, from Wolverhampton came.
We often told our tales of love while we were blest at home,
But now the rattling of our chains in a foreign land to roam.
Young men all now beware lest you are drawn into a snare.
Sung by Walter Pardon (1914-1996) under the title of 'Van Diemen's Land' on the record, A Proper Sort (12-inch LP, LED2063, Leader, 1975). Text from sleeve, also published in The English Folksingere, d. by Sam Richards and Tish Stubbs (Glasgow and London: Collins, 1979), pp. 194-95, and reproduced with their permission.
Notes
* This article is partly based o n a talk w hich I gave at the Sidmouth In temational Festival of FolkArts
in 1993. To the many debts l isted i n the notes I should l ike to add my thanks f or comments a nd
suggestions to the members of the Editorial Board, a nde specially to Sigrid Rieuwerts.
1. This has been widely reproduced, including in Christopher H ibbert, The R oad t o Tyburn: The Story of Jack Sheppard an d the Eighteenth C entury U nderworld (L ondon: L ongmans, G reen, 1957), facing p. 129.
2 Reproduced in David D. Cooper, The Lesson o f the Scaffold (London:A llen Lane, 1974), between pp. 84 and 85. A kind of close-up of the same or a similar figure is shown in Rowlandson's 'Last Dying Speech and Confession' (Cooper, facing p. 84).
3 Reproduced in John Hayes, RowlandsonW atercolouarnsd Drawings(L ondon:P haidon Press, 1972), plate 127, and in Roy Palmer,T heS oundo f HistoryS: ongsa ndS ocialC ommeny (O xford: O xford University Press, 1988), p. 10.
4 Respectively in A Winter'sT alea nd BartholomeFwa ir.
5 MarcusR ediker, Betweent he Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: MerchanSt eamen,P iratesa nd the Anglo-
AmericanM aritimeW orld,1 700-1750 (Cambridge:C ambridgeU niversity Press, 1987), p. 166.
6 George Eliot, Felix Holt, the Radical, 3 vols (Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood, 1866), in,
133 (Chapter 42).
7 John Freeth, 'Hospitality',i n Poemso f WanvickshirAe:n Anthologye, d. by Roger Pringle (Kineton:
Roundwood Press, 1980), p. 51.
8 William Edwin Adams, Memoirso f a SocialA tom, 2 vols (London: Hutchinson, 1903; repr. New
York: Kelley, 1968), i, 143.
9 The Oxford Book of Ballads, ed. by. A. T. Quiller-Couch (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1910; repr.
1927), p. vii.
10 Quiller-Couch, p. xvi.
11 Sabine Baring-Gould, StrangeS urvivalsS: ome Chapterisn the Historyo f Man (London: Methuen,
1892), pp. 199 and 213.
12 Cecil J. Sharp, EnglishF olk Song: Some Conclusions4,t h edn, rev. by Maud Karpeles( London:
Mercury Books, 1965), p. 125.
13 FrankK idson, 'EnglishF olk-Song', in FrankK idson and Mary Neal, EnglishF olk-Songa nd Dance
(Cambridge:C ambridgeU niversityP ress, 1915), pp. 1-94 (p. 85).
14 Englisha nd ScottishB alladse, d. by F. J. Child, 8 vols (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1875), pp. viiviii
(Preface to the 1860 edn). Originally published: Boston, MA: Shepard, Clark & Brown,
1857-59.
15 TheE nglisha ndS cottishP opulaBr alladse, d. by F. J. Child, 5 vols (Bostona nd New York: Houghton,
Mifflin, 1882-98; repr. New York: Dover, 1965).
16 F. J. Child, letter of 25 August 1872, in BalladB ooksa nd BalladM en:R aidsa nd Rescuesin Britain,
Americaa nd the ScandinaviaNno rths ince1 800, by S. B. Hustvedt (Cambridge,M A: HarvardU niversity
Press, 1930), p. 253. I am indebted to Leslie Shepard for this reference.
17 [F. J. Child], 'Bishop Percy's Folio Manuscript' [anonymously published review], The Nation
(29 August 1867), p. 167; repr. in Sigrid Rieuwerts, "'The Genuine Ballads of the People": F. J. Child
and the BalladC ause',J ournalo f FolkloreR esearch3,1 (1994), 1-34 (pp. 27-29; quotationf rom p. 29). I
am grateful to Sigrid Rieuwerts for communicating a copy of her paper.
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'VeritablDe unghills':P rofessoCr hilda nd the Broadside 165
18 Letter to James Russell Lowell, 23 June 1867, in M. A. DeWolfe Flowe and G. W. Cottrell, The
Scholar-FriendLse: tteros f FrancisJameCsh ilda ndJamesR ussellL owell( Westport,C N: Greenwood, 1970),
p. 18.
19 BishopP ercy'sF olioM anuscripLt:o osea nd HumorouSs ongs,e d. by FrederickJ . Furnivalla nd John
W. Hales (London: Triibner, 1867), pp. 99-100.
20 See note 16.
21 F. J. Child, 'BalladP oetry', in UniversaCl yclopaediaan d Atlas, ed. by RossiterJ ohnson, rev. and
enl. by Charles K. Adams, 12 vols (New York: Appleton, 1908), i, 464-68, (p. 464). I am indebted to
Leslie Shepard for a copy of this article. The suggestion by D. K. Wilgus that Child's comments are
'metaphorical'i s rejectedb y MichaelJ . Bell in his article, "'No Borders to the BalladM aker'sA rt":
FrancisJ ames Child and the Politics of the People', WesternF olklore4, 7 (1988), 285-307.
22 Child, 'Ballad Poetry', p. 466.
23 See E. Fliigel, 'Zur Chronologie der Englischen Balladen', Anglia, 21, n.s. 51 (1899), 312-58.
24 See Dave Harker,' FranciJs amesC hild and the "BalladC onsensus"',F olkM usicJourna4l.,2 (1981),
146-64.
25 Thelma G. James, 'The Englisha nd ScottishP opularB alladso f FrancisJ . Child',Journaol f American
Folklore4, 6 (1933), 51-68 (p. 59).
26 J. BarreT oelken, 'An Oral Canon for the Child Ballads:C onstructiona nd Application'J, ournalo f
the FolkloreI nstitute,4 (1967), 75-101 (p. 92). I have reservationsa bout some of the Child ballads
which Toelken excludes;D avid Buchan takes the view that 'Child possesseda remarkablec apacityf or
distinguishingt he stylistict raitso f oral-or as he would call it, popular-balladry' (The Ballada nd the
Folk, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972, p. 277).
27 Parker, 'A True Tale of Robin Hood' (Child 154), and Price, 'Robin Hood's Golden Prize' (Child
147a).
28 Child 45, 46, 54, 84, 109, 120, 122, 123, 142, 145, 162, 167, 207, 233, 271, 274, 279.
29 Child 228, 248 and 278 (Addendum).
30 Child 78, entitled 'The Weeping Lover' (see below); 170, entitled 'Death of the Royal Queen
Jane', printedb y Collardo f Bristol (BritishL ibrary', A Collection of BalladsP rinteda t VariousP lacesi n
the Provinces',1 876 e.3, fol. 441); 188, entitled 'The Bold Prisoner',p rintedb y Bloomer of Birmingham
(VaughanW illiamsM emorialL ibrary)2; 21, entitled 'The Squireo f Edinburgh',p rintedb y Harknesso f
Preston, stock no. 396 (Cambridge University Library, Madden Collection); 275, 'Get Up and Bar the
Door', printed by Williams of Portsea (British Library, 'A Collection'; this is one of nine references in
Rainer Wehse, Schwanklieudn d Flugblatitn Grossbritanni(eFnr ankfurat m Main: Lang, 1979), no. 253);
281, 'The Keach in the Creel' (two examples in Wehse, no. 142), and 293, entitled 'Jock of Hazledean',
printedb y Harknesso f Preston,s tock no. 344 (CambridgeU niversity LibraryM, adden Collection).
31 Child 117, 124, 126-131, 133-136, 137 (manuscripct opied from broadside?)1, 38, 139, 141, 143,
144, 146-154, and 156.
32 Buchan, p. 215. See also E. B. Lyle, 'Child'sS cottish Harvest',H arvardL ibraryB ulletin2, 5 (1977),
125-54.
33 F. J. Child, 'Ballad Books' [anonymously published review], The Nation, 3 September 1868,
pp. 192-93; repr. in Rieuwerts, pp. 30-34 (p. 32).
34 'The Weeping Lovers', printed by W. Wright of Birmingham between 1827 and 1829, and by
R. Heppel of Birminghamb etween 1827 and 1831 (BodleianL ibrary2, 806 c.17 (460, 461)). W. Jackson
and W. Pratt, both of Birmingham, issued versions under the title of 'Cold Blows the Wind' (see Roy
Palmer, 'Street Ballads of Birmingham' (1990), unpublished typescript deposited in Vaughan Williams
Memorial Library, London. See also David Atkinson, 'The Wit Combat Episode in "The Unquiet
Grave"', Lorea nd Language1, 2 (1994), 11-30).
35 W. M. Hart, 'ProfessorC hild and the Ballad', Publicationosf the ModernL anguageA ssociationo f
America2, 1, n.s. 14 (1906), 755-807 (p. 793).
36 The Englisha nd ScottishP opularB allads,in , 305.
37 The Englisha nd ScottishP opularB allads,iI I, 334.
38 The Englisha nd ScottishP opularB allads,i, 455.
39 The Englisha nd ScottishP opularB allads,ii , 464, note.
40 The Englisha nd ScottishP opularB allads,ii , 424.
4' The Englisha nd ScottishP opularB alladsi,i , 480.
42 TheE nglisha ndS cottishP opularB alladsi,i , 296, and i, vii. See also 'The Oral Balladso f MrsB rown',
in Buchan, pp. 62-73.
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166 ROY PALMER
43 Another 'stall copy', entitled 'The Historical Ballad of May Culzean', features as version Dd in
Child's Addendum.
44 Holger Olof Nygard, The Ballado f 'HeerH aleuijn',i ts Formsa nd Variationisn WesternE uropeA:
Studyo f the Historya nd Natureo f a BalladT raditionF, oildore Fellows Communications,1 69 (Helsinki:
SuomalainenT iedeakatemiaK; noxville:U niversity of Tennessee Press, 1958), p. 260.
45 William Hone, TheE very-dayB ook,o r, EverlastinCg alendaor f PopularA musement3s, vols (London:
Tegg, 1827), iII, col. 129; reprintedi n John Pitts:B alladP nrnteorf SevenD ials, London,1 765-1844, by
Leslie Shepard (London: Private Libraries Association, 1969), p. 36. Of Pitts's predecessor, Shepard
writes: 'As Richard Marshall died in 1779, this is more likely his son John Marshall for whom Pitts
worked in Aldermary Church Yard. However, Pitts actually first set up in business on his own account
in 1802, twenty-one years before the death of John Marshall in 1823' (p. 37).
46 Hone, col. 131.
47 AncientP oems,B allads,a nd Songso f the Peasantryo f England,c oll. and ed. by J. H. Dixon, Early
Enghish Poetry, 17 (London: Percy Society, 1846), pp. 74-77.
8 The Pitts sheet is reproduced in facsimile in Shepard, p. 38.
49 Notesa nd Queries4, th series, 1 (April 1868), 344-45.
50 Steve Roud, FolksonIgn dex,v ersion2 , ElectronicI ndexes,1 (EnfieldL ock:H isarlikP ress,f orthcoming),
no. 21. I am indebted to Steve Roud for sending me (a computer illiterate) a print-out of his
information on 'The Outlandish Knight'.
51 See note 50.
52 Child, 'Ballad Poetry', pp. 465-66.
53 See my note, which no one, to my knowledge, has so far contested: 'The Origin of "Van Dieman's
Land"a nd "Young Henry the Poacher":A Hypothesis',F olk MusicJourna3l,. 2 (1976), 161-64.
54 Harkness sheet, stock no. 662 (Cambridge University Library, Madden Collection, vol. 18,
fol. 1199). See also Roud, no. 519.
55 See Roud, no. 221.
56 Sheet in the possession of Adam McNaughtan, who kindly gave me a copy.
57 'The Poachers',i n 7he BothyS ongsa nd Balladso f AberdeenB, anff& Moray,A ngusa nd the Mearns,
coll. and ed. by J. Ord (Paisley: Gardner, 1930), p. 384. Cf. 'Van Dieman's Land' in The Grieg-Duncan
FolkS ongC ollectionV, olume 2, ed. by PatrickS huldham-Shawa nd Emily B. Lyle (Aberdeen:A berdeen
University Press in association with the School of Scottish Studies, University of Edinburgh, 1983),
no. 252.
58 Volksliedeerd, . by J. G. von Herder (Leipzig, 1778-79), Preface to vol. 2. The original remarks
contrast' die treuen, wahrhaften,c harakteristischeGn esange eines Volkes' with the kind mentioned in
this remark: 'eigentlicher Gesang ist entweder verhallet oder, wenn man nicht Kot und Unkraut zusammen
auftragenw ill, ist's schlimm und arm, ein deutscherP ercy zu werden' ('genuines ongs have either
died away or, if one does not want to offer excrement and weeds at the same time, to become a German
Percy is [a] vile and barely profitable [labour]'). I am grateful to Sigrid Rieuwerts for drawing my
attention to Herder's comments, and to Hamish Henderson for construing them.
59 Child, speaking in a lecture of 1878; quoted in Lyle, 'Child's Scottish Harvest', p. 142.