of the Folk-Song Society (volume ii, pp. 29–32; volume iii, p. 43; volume v, pp. 244–248).
No. 19. Blow away the Morning Dew
This is a shortened form of “The Baffled Knight, or Lady’s Policy” (Percy’s Reliques). The words beginning “Yonder comes a courteous knight” are preserved in Deuteromelia, 1609, and in Pills to Purge Melancholy (volume iii, p. 37, ed. 1719). A tune to which this ballad was once sung is to be found in Rimbault’s Music to Reliques of Ancient Poetry. See also “Blow the winds I ho!” in Bell’s Ballads of the English Peasantry, and “Blow away ye mountain breezes,” in Baring-Gould’s Songs of the West (No. 25, 2d ed.).
A Scottish version of the words, “Jock Sheep,” is given in The Ballad Book (Kinloch and Goldsmid, p. 10); and another, “The Abashed Knight,” in Buchan’s Ancient Ballads and Songs (volume ii, p. 131). For other versions, see Child’s collection. I have secured thirteen variants, one of which was used as a Capatan Chantey.
No. 20. The Two Magicians
This is, I believe, the only copy of this ballad that has as yet been collected in England. The tune, which, of course, is modern, is a variant of one which was used for a series of humorous songs of the “exaggeration” type that was very popular in the 18th and 19th centuries, of which “The Crocodile” (English County Songs, p. 184) is an example,
The words were first printed, I believe, in 1828 in Buchan’s Ancient Ballads and Songs (volume i, p. 24), together with the following comment: “There is a novelty in this legendary ballad very amusing, and it must be very old. I never saw anything in print which had the smallest resemblance to it.” It has been necessary to make but one or two small alterations in the words.
Child (English and Scottish Ballads, volume i, p. 244) prints Buchan’s version and says: “This is a base born cousin of a pretty ballad known all over Southern Europe and elsewhere, and in especially graceful forms in France.”
“The French ballad generally begins with a young man’s announcing that he has won a mistress, and intends to pay her a visit on Sunday, or to give her an aubade. She declines his visit or his music. To avoid him she will turn, e.g. into a rose; then he will turn bee and kiss her. She will turn quail; he sportsman and bag her. She will turn carp; he angler, and catch her. She will turn hare; and he hound. She will turn nun; and he priest and confess her day and night. She will fall sick; he will watch with her or be her doctor. She will become a star; he a cloud and muffle her. She will die; he will turn earth into which they will put her, or into Saint Peter, and receive her into Paradise. In the end she says, ‘Since you are inevitable, you may as well have me as another;’ or more complaisantly, ‘Je me donnerai à toi, puisque tu m’aimes tant.’ ”
The ballad in varying forms is known in Spain, Italy, Romania, Greece, Moravia, Poland, and Serbia. See the chapter on “Magical Transformations and Magical Conflict,” in Clouston’s Popular Tales and Fiction. I believe there is a similar story in the Arabian Nights’ Entertainment.
No. 21. The Duke of Bedford
The singer of this ballad, a native of Sheffield, told me that he learned it from his father, who, in turn, had derived it from his father, and that it was regarded by his relatives as a “family relic” and sung at weddings and other important gatherings. The earlier stanzas of the song are undoubtedly traditional, but some of the later ones (omitted in the text) were, I suspect, added by a recent member of the singer’s family, or, possibly, derived from a broadside.
The tune, which is in the Æolian mode, has some affinities with the second strain of “The Cuckoo” (No. 35), an air which is often sung to “High Germany.” See also the tune of No. 92 of Joyce’s Ancient Irish Music.
Three Lincolnshire variants collected by Percy Grainger are printed in the Journal of the Folk-Song Society (volume iii, pp. 170–179); while the version in the text is given, with all the words, in the fifth volume of the same publication (p. 79).
