FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   >>  
up the lines, as the ballad is written in two long lines and a short one to each stanza. No other text is known to me. The volume of _Anglia_ containing the ballad was not published till 1903, some five years after Professor Child's death; and I believe he would have included it in his collection had he known of it. +The Story+ narrates the subjugation of a proud lady who scorns all her wooers, by a juggler who assumes the guise of a knight. On the morrow the lady discovers her paramour to be a churl, and he is led away to execution, but escapes by juggling himself into a meal-bag: the dust falls in the lady's eye. It would doubtless require a skilled folk-lorist to supply full critical notes and parallels; but I subjoin such details as I have been able to collect. In _The Beggar Laddie_ (Child, No. 280, v. 116) a pretended beggar or shepherd-boy induces a lassie to follow him, 'because he was a bonny laddie.' They come to his father's (or brother's) hall; he knocks, four-and-twenty gentlemen welcome him in, and as many gay ladies attend the lassie, who is thenceforward a knight's or squire's lady. In _The Jolly Beggar_ (Child, No. 279, v. 109), which, with the similar Scottish poem _The Gaberlunzie Man_, is attributed without authority to James V. of Scotland, a beggar takes up his quarters in a house, and will only lie behind the hall-door, or by the fire. The lassie rises to bar the door, and is seized by the beggar. He asks if there are dogs in the town, as they would steal all his 'meal-pocks.' She throws the meal-pocks over the wall, saying, 'The deil go with your meal-pocks, my maidenhead, and a'.' The beggar reveals himself as a braw gentleman. A converse story is afforded by the first part of the Norse tale translated by Dasent in _Popular Tales from the Norse_, 1888, p. 39, under the title of _Hacon Grizzlebeard_. A princess refuses all suitors, and mocks them publicly. Hacon Grizzlebeard, a prince, comes to woo her. She makes the king's fool mutilate the prince's horses, and then makes game of his appearance as he drives out the next day. Resolved to take his revenge, Hacon disguises himself as a beggar, attracts the princess's notice by means of a golden spinning-wheel, its stand, and a golden wool-winder, and sells them to her for the privilege of sleeping firstly outside her door, secondly beside her bed, and finally in it. The rest of the tale narrates Hacon's method of breaking down the pr
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   >>  



Top keywords:
beggar
 

lassie

 
ballad
 

knight

 
narrates
 
prince
 
Beggar
 

golden

 

Grizzlebeard

 

princess


reveals

 

maidenhead

 

Scotland

 

converse

 

gentleman

 

afforded

 

seized

 

translated

 

throws

 

quarters


winder

 

spinning

 

disguises

 

revenge

 
attracts
 
notice
 

privilege

 

method

 

breaking

 

finally


firstly

 
sleeping
 
Resolved
 

refuses

 

suitors

 

publicly

 

Popular

 

drives

 

appearance

 
mutilate

horses
 
Dasent
 

twenty

 

morrow

 
discovers
 

paramour

 

assumes

 

juggler

 

subjugation

 
scorns