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
[20] Amasis in return (8) puts some of the questions which we are apt to
think of as peculiarly mediæval: What is oldest? What is most beautiful,
biggest, wisest, strongest? etc. Two of these we have had in Zingerle's
story. They are answered in a commonplace way by the Æthiop, with more
refinement by Thales. Seven similar questions were propounded by David
to his sons, to determine who was worthiest to succeed him, and answered
by Solomon, according to an Arabian writer of the 14th century: Rosenöl,
I, 167. Amasis also sent a victim to Bias (2), and asked him to cut out
the best and worst of the flesh. Bias cut out the tongue. Here the two
anticipate the Anglo-Saxon Salomon and Saturn: "Tell me what is best and
worst among men." "I tell thee word is best and worst:" Kemble, p. 188,
No 37; Adrian and Ritheus, p. 204, No 43; and Bedæ Collectanea, p. 326.
This is made into a very long story in the Life of Æsop, 11. See other
examples in Knust, Mittheilungen aus dem Eskurial, p. 326 f, note b, and
Nachtrag, p. 647; Oesterley's Kirchhof, V, 94, note to 3, 129; and
Landsberger, Die Fabeln des Sophos, CX, ff. We may add that Plutarch's
question, Which was first, the bird or the egg? (Quæst. Conviv. l. 2, q.
3), comes up again in The Demaundes Joyous, No 41, Kemble's Salomon and
Saturn, p. 290.
[21] Afanasief, Poetic Views of the Slavonians about Nature, I, 25. The
poludnitsa seems to belong to the same class: Afanasief, III, 76;
Ralston, Songs of the Russian People, p. 147.
[22] The legend of St Andrew in Legenda Aurea, Grässe, cap. II, 9, p. 19
ff; also in the Fornsvenskt Legendarium, I, 143 ff; Zambrini, Leggende
Inedite, II, 94 ff; Pitré, Canti pop. Siciliani, II, 232 ff: that of St
Bartholomew, Grässe, p. 545, cap. CXXIII, 5, and in a German Passional,
Mone's Anzeiger, 1839, VIII, col. 319 f: that of St Ulrich in Achazel
and Korytko, I, 76, 'Svéti Ureh,' translated by A. Grün, Volkslieder aus
Krain, p. 136 ff. The third question and answer are in all the same. St
Serf also has the credit of having baffled the devil by answering occult
questions in divinity: Wintown's Scottish Chronicle, I, 131, V, 1238 ff,
first pointed out by Motherwell, Minstrelsy, p. lxxiv, who besides cites
the legend of St Andrew.
3
THE FAUSE KNIGHT UPON THE ROAD
#A.# 'The Fause Knight upon the Road,' Motherwell's
Minstrelsy, Introduction, p. lxxiv.
#B.# 'The False Knight,' Motherwell's Minstrelsy,
Appendix, Musick, p. xxiv.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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