The English and Scottish popular ballads, volume 1 (of 5)
General
The English and Scottish popular ballads, volume 1 (of 5)
Ballads, English -- England -- Texts; Ballads, Scots -- Scotland -- Texts
Danish #D# is unique in one point. The robber has shown the maid a
little knoll, in which the "much gold" of the women he has murdered
lies. When she has killed him, the maid says, "_I_ shall have the much
gold," and takes as much as she can carry off. Compare with this
Holofernes putting Judith into his treasury (xii, 1),[88] her carrying
off the conopœum (xiii, 10), and her receiving from the people all
Holofernes' gold, silver, clothes, jewels, and furniture, as her share
of the plunder of the Assyrian camp (xv, 14). It is, perhaps, a
perversion of this circumstance that the robber in German #G#, #H#, is
refused permission to keep his costly clothes.
English #D# seems also to have preserved a portion of the primitive
story, when it makes the maid tell her parents in the morning all that
has happened, whereupon they go with her to the sea-shore to find the
robber's body. The foundation for this is surely the Bible account that
Judith makes known her act to the elders of the city, and that the Jews
go out in the morning and fall on the enemy's camp, in which Holofernes'
body is lying. In Swedish #C# the robber's sisters mourn over his body,
and in Judith xiv, 18 the Assyrians break out into loud cries when they
learn of Holofernes' death.
In all this it is simply contended that the story of Judith is the
remote source of the ballad, and it is conceded that many of the
correspondences which have been cited may be accidental. Neither the
Latin text of Judith nor any other written treatment of the story of
Judith is supposed to have been known to the author of the ballad. The
knowledge of its biblical origin being lost, the story would develop
itself in its own way, according to the fashion of oral tradition. And
so the pious widow into whose hands God gave over his enemies is
converted into a fair maid who is enticed by a false knight into a wood,
and who kills him in defence of her own life.
A similar transformation can be shown elsewhere in popular poetry. The
little Katie of certain northern ballads (see Grundtvig, No 101) is a
maid among other maids who prefers death to dishonor; but was originally
Saint Catherine, daughter of the king of Egypt, who suffered martyrdom
for the faith under the Emperor Maxentius. All the versions of the
Halewyn ballad which we possess, even the purest, may be far removed
from the primitive, both as to story and as to metrical form. New
features would be taken up, and old ones would disappear. One copy has
preserved genuine particulars, which another has lost, but Dutch
tradition has kept the capital features best of all.[89]
Professor Bugge's argument has been given with an approach to fulness
out of a desire to do entire justice to the distinguished author's case,
though most of the correspondences adduced by him fail to produce any
effect upon my mind.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account