Examples of the riddle-song pure and simple will be found under _Captain Wedderburn's Courtship_. [1] Among those nations who originated and developed the character of Marcolf (the German and the French) his fame has declined, but in Italy, where the legend was first introduced towards the end of the sixteenth century, his shrewd sayings, like the kindred jests of the _Eulenspiegel_ in Germany, have an undiminished popularity, and his story, both in the form of a chap-book and of a satirical epic, (the _Bertoldo_,) is circulated throughout the length and breadth of the country, whence it has also been transplanted into Greece. This ballad is taken from Percy's _Reliques_, ii. 329. The copy in Durfey's _Pills to Purge Melancholy_, iv. 29, or _A Collection of Old Ballads_, ii. 49, is vastly inferior to the present. "The common popular ballad of _King John and the Abbot_," says Percy, "seems to have been abridged and modernized about the time of James I., from one much older, entitled _King John and the Bishop of Canterbury_. The Editor's folio MS. contains a copy of this last, but in too corrupt a state to be reprinted; it however afforded many lines worth reviving, which will be found inserted in the ensuing stanzas. "The archness of the following questions and answers hath been much admired by our old ballad-makers; for besides the two copies above mentioned, there is extant another ballad on the same subject, (but of no great antiquity or merit,) entitled _King Olfrey and the Abbot_. [_Old Ball._ ii. 55.] Lastly, about the time of the civil wars, when the cry ran against the bishops, some puritan worked up the same story into a very doleful ditty, to a solemn tune, concerning _King Henry and a Bishop_; with this stinging moral: 'Unlearned men hard matters out can find, When learned bishops princes eyes do blind.' "The following is chiefly printed from an ancient black-letter copy, to the tune of _Derry-down_." An ancient story Ile tell you anon Of a notable prince, that was called King John; And he ruled England with maine and with might, For he did great wrong, and maintein'd little right. And Ile tell you a story, a story so merrye, 5 Concerning the Abbott of Canterbùrye; How for his house-keeping and high renowne, They rode poste for him to fair London towne. An hundred men, the king did heare say, The abbot kept in his house every day; 10 And fifty golde chaynes, without any doubt, In velvet coates waited the abbot about. "How now, father abbot, I heare it of thee, Thou keepest a farre better house than mee; And for thy house-keeping and high renowne, 15 I feare thou work'st treason against my crown."