Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth. Sidgwick Frank
of Learne (or, more commonly, Lorne) is most enchanting in its naïveté, and, when read aloud or recited, is exceedingly effective. The curious remark that the affectionate parting between the young Lord and his father and mother would have changed even a Jew’s heart; the picturesque description of the siege of the castle, so close that ‘a swallow could not have flown away’; the sudden descent from romance to a judicial trial; the remarkable assumption by the foreman of the jury of the privileges of a judge; and the thoroughly satisfactory description of the false steward’s execution—
‘I-wis they did him curstly cumber!’
—all these help to form the ever-popular Lord of Learne.
The remaining ‘Fyttes of Mirth’ are mostly well known, and require no further comment.
ADDITION TO GLOSSARY OF
BALLAD COMMONPLACES
(See First Series, pp. xlvi-li)
The late Professor York Powell explained to me, since the note on ‘gare’ (First Series, p. 1) was written, that the word means exactly what is meant by ‘gore’ in modern dressmaking. The antique skirt was made of four pieces: two cut square, to form the front and the back; and two of a triangular shape, to fill the space between, the apex of the triangle, of course, being at the waist. Thus a knife that ‘hangs low down’ by a person’s ‘gare,’ simply means that the knife hung at the side and not in front.
THOMAS RYMER
The Text.—The best-known text of this famous ballad is that given by Scott in the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, derived ‘from a copy obtained from a lady residing not far from Erceldoune, corrected and enlarged by one in Mrs. Brown’s MS.’ Scott’s ballad is compounded, therefore, of a traditional version, and the one here given, from the Tytler-Brown MS., which was printed by Jamieson with a few changes. It does not mention Huntlie bank or the Eildon tree. Scott’s text may be seen printed parallel with Jamieson’s in Professor J. A. H. Murray’s book referred to below.
The Story .—As early as the fourteenth century there lived a Thomas of Erceldoune, or Thomas the Rhymer, who had a reputation as a seer and prophet. His fame was not extinct in the nineteenth century, and a collection of prophecies by him and Merlin and others, first issued in 1603, could be found at the beginning of that century ‘in most farmhouses in Scotland’ (Murray, The Romance and Prophecies of Thomas of Erceldoune, E.E.T.S., 1875). The existence of a Thomas de Ercildoun, son and heir of Thomas Rymour de Ercildoun, both living during the thirteenth century, is recorded in contemporary documents.
A poem, extant in five manuscripts (all printed by Murray as above), of which the earliest was written about the middle of the fifteenth century, relates that Thomas of Erceldoune his prophetic powers were given him by the Queen of Elfland, who bore him away to her country for some years, and then restored him to this world lest he should be chosen for the tribute paid to hell. So much is told in the first fytte, which corresponds roughly to our ballad. The rest of the poem consists of prophecies taught to him by the Queen.
The poem contains references to a still earlier story, which probably narrated only the episode of Thomas’s adventure in Elfland, and to which the prophecies of Thomas Rymour of Ercildoun were added at a later date. The story of Thomas and the Queen of Elfland is only another version of a legend of Ogier le Danois and Morgan the Fay.
Our ballad is almost certainly derived directly from the poem, and the version here given is not marred by the repugnant ending of Scott’s ballad, where Thomas objects to the gift of a tongue that can never lie. But Scott’s version retains Huntlie bank and the Eildon tree, both mentioned in the old poem, and both exactly located during last century at the foot of the Eildon Hills, above Melrose (see an interesting account in Murray, op. cit., Introduction, pp. l-lii and footnotes).
THOMAS RYMER
1.
True Thomas lay o’er yond grassy bank,
And he beheld a ladie gay,
A ladie that was brisk and bold,
Come riding o’er the fernie brae.
2.
2.3 ‘tett,’ lock or bunch of hair.
Her skirt was of the grass-green silk,
Her mantel of the velvet fine,
At ilka tett of her horse’s mane
Hung fifty silver bells and nine.
3.
True Thomas he took off his hat,
And bowed him low down till his knee:
‘All hail, thou mighty Queen of Heaven!
For your peer on earth I never did see.’
4.
‘O no, O no, True Thomas,’ she says,
‘That name does not belong to me;
I am but the queen of fair Elfland,
And I’m come here for to visit thee.
5.
‘But ye maun go wi’ me now, Thomas,
True Thomas, ye maun go wi’ me,
For ye maun serve me seven years,
Thro’ weel or wae, as may chance to be.’
6.
She turned about her milk-white steed,
And took True Thomas up behind,
And aye whene’er her bridle rang,
The steed flew swifter than the wind.
7.
7 is 15 in the MS.
For forty days and forty nights
He wade thro’ red blude to the knee,
And he saw neither sun nor moon,
But heard the roaring of the sea.
8.
8.2 ‘garden’: ‘golden green, if my copy is right.’—Child.
O they rade on, and further on,
Until they came to a garden green:
‘Light down, light down, ye ladie free,
Some of that fruit let me pull to thee.’
9.
‘O no, O no, True Thomas,’ she says,
‘That fruit maun not be touched by thee,
For a’ the plagues that are in hell
Light on the fruit of this countrie.
10.
‘But I have a loaf here in my lap,
Likewise a bottle of claret wine,
And now ere we go farther on,
We’ll rest a while, and ye may dine.’
11.
11.4 ‘fairlies,’ marvels.
When he had eaten and drunk his fill;
‘Lay down your head upon my knee,’
The lady sayd, ‘ere we climb yon hill,
And I will show you fairlies three.
12.
‘O see not ye yon narrow road,