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
A #Portuguese# ballad has recently been obtained from tradition in the
island of St. George, Azores, which resembles the Spanish closely, but
is even curter: #A#, 'Romance de Dom Franco,' 30 vv; #B#, 'Dona Inez,' a
fragment of 18 vv; Braga, Cantos populares do Archipelago açoriano, No
48, p. 316, No 49, p. 317: Hartung's Romanceiro, II, 61, 63. Dona Inez
was so precious in the eyes of her parents that they gave her neither to
duke nor marquis. A knight who was passing [the Duke of Turkey, #B#]
took a fancy to her, and stole her away. When they came to the middle of
the mountain ridge on which Dona Inez lived, the knight stopped to rest,
and she began to weep. From this point Portuguese #A#, and #B# so far as
it is preserved, agree very nearly with the Spanish.[70]
Certain Breton ballads have points of contact with the Halewyn-Ulinger
class, but, like the French and Italian ballads mentioned on the
preceding page, have more important divergences, and especially the
characteristic distinction that the woman kills herself to preserve her
honor. 1. 'Jeanne Le Roux,' Luzel, I, 324 ff, in two versions; Poésies
pop. de la France, MS., III, fol. 182. The sieur La Tremblaie attempts
the abduction of Jeanne from the church immediately after her marriage
ceremony. As he is about to compel her to get up on the crupper of his
horse, she asks for a knife to cut her bridal girdle, which had been
drawn too tight. He gives her the choice of three, and she stabs herself
in the heart. La Tremblaie _remarks_, I have carried off eighteen young
brides, and Jeanne is the nineteenth, words evidently taken from the
mouth of a Halewyn, and not belonging here. 2. Le Marquis de Coatredrez,
Luzel, I, 336 ff, meets a young girl on the road, going to the pardon of
Guéodet, and forces her on to his horse. On the way and at his house she
vainly implores help. He takes her to the garden to gather flowers. She
asks for his knife to shorten the stems, and kills herself. Early in the
morning the door of the château is broken in by Kerninon, foster-brother
of the victim, who forces Coatredrez to fight, and runs him through. 3.
'Rozmelchon,' Luzel, I, 308 ff, in three versions, and, 4, 'La Filleule
de du Guesclin,' Villemarqué, Barzaz-Breiz, 6th ed., 212 ff, are very
like 2. The wicked Rozmelchon is burned in his château in Luzel's first
copy; the other two do not bring him to punishment. Villemarqué's
villain is an Englishman, and has his head cloven by du Guesclin. 5.
'Marivonnic,' Luzel, I, 350 ff, a pretty young girl, is carried off by
an English vessel, the captain of which shows himself not a whit behind
the feudal seigneurs in ferocity. The young girl throws herself into the
water.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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