2110-5-8-2

152 Hamilton Place, Aberdeen. 11th January, 1931.

Dear Mr Buchan,

Forgive my egotism, thrustfulness and other unlovely qualities in sending you a screed of my own. But I know that you have a taste in the matter of ballads and folk-song, and I thought that the enclosed might interest you. Perhaps you may even be able to say where the real original ballad is to be found!

Do not trouble to acknowledge this.

With best wishes for the New Year,

Yours sincerely, Alexander Gray

John Buchan Es q . M.P. etc

THE GI.JASGOW HERALD, SATURDAY, JANUARY 10.,

THE WEEK-END

A LOST BALLAD THE LEGEND OF THE MOTHER'S GHOST

I owe this problem to Mr Gordon Bottomley, to whose sympathetic understanding Scottish literature is, in these latter days, indebted for so much inspiration. Having played with the question, I hand it on, so that some one in a wider audience may perchance be able to contribute something towards its solution. For it concerns nothing less than the recovery of a lost Scots ballad; moreover, one may reasonably surmise that, had the ballad been spared, it would have ranked among those of which we are proudest.

The chase begins with a ballad set to music by Loewe in 1824. In the third volume of his collected songs, in the group devoted to Scots and English ballads, there will be found one which bears the title " Der Mutter Geist" (" The Mother's Ghost"). Its theme is the not unfamiliar one of the harsh step-mother, and it tells how the cries of the children bring their mother from her grave to comfort them and to censure the somewhat too supine and consenting father.

The assignment of the origin of this ballad is tantalising and peculiar. It is presented as a " ballad described by Loewe as 'out of the old Scots by Talv j' " ; and to this there is the further addition: " originally after the Danish." Talvj, who was Loewe's sister-in-law, supplied the composer with not a few of the ballads which he set to music. 'l'he reference to the Danish is sufficiently comprehensible ; for indeed the ballad is familiar in Danish collections in various forms, and has been translated from the Danish not only by William Morris, but also by Prior in his "Ancient Danish Ballads." There is also a version by Longfellow in the " Tales of a Wayside Inn," where the legend of the Mother's Ghost is told by the musician.

Scots Origin

One's first temptation is to regard the cryptic "aus dem Altschottischen" as merely a graceful, if not wholly honest, concession to a prevailing fashion. The music of "Der Mutter Geist" was composed when the influence of Scott had made Scots ballads a popular commodity on the Continent. A good ballad, even if it might claim a "settlement" elsewhere, might therefore have been assigned to Scotland in order to satisfy the demands of popular taste in these matters.

But here it is clearly inadmissable to accept the suggestion that the claim to a Scots origin is no more than a meaningless ticket. For, in the first place, Loewe obviously believed in the Scots origin of tJhe ballad which his sister-in-law presented to him. In his autobiography he says of Talvj: "hat sie für mich die Ballade der Mutter Geist aus dem Altschottischen in das deutsche übertragen" ("she translated for me the ballad of the Mother's Ghost out of old Scots into German"). Talvj also, although responsible for a later translation from a Danish source, expressly refers to iJhe Scots origin of the version used by Loewe. It is thus evident that Loewe considered that he was here dealing with a Scots ballad and not merely with a Danish ballad masquerading under a Scots flag.

"Wuthering Heights"

does, and the extreme vagueness of the references in Loewe's collected works furnishes a reasonable presumption that the most conscientious editor had failed to trace any corresponding Scots text. Failing the recovery of any portion of the lost Scots version, an interesting line of inquiry for those who "possess" the Danish (and who live near the British Museum) would lie in a comparison of the various Danish versions.

It is notable, for instance, that the versions which seem to come direct from the Danish (such as Longfellow's) have passages relating to the recall of the ghost at dawn by the crowing of the cock. The absence of these couplets from the version professedly drawn from a Scots source may perhaps be an additional indication that Talvj and Loewe were working on a version distinct from any of those in the Danish collections. But all these problems I present to the ballad scholar; I am content to offer, with becoming diffidence, an attempted reconstruction of the Scots ballad on the basis of the text used by Loewe:-

THE MITHER'S GHAIST (FOR GORDON BOTTOMLEY.)

Earl Richard has ridden far and wide To seek a new wife for his ingleside.

He has wooed and won her, and brocht her back: But her hert was cankered, her hert was black.

Into the yaird she has stepped, and there The Earl's seven bairns were greetin' sair.

The bairns were flichtered wi' dule and teen ; The lass glowered at them wi' angry een.

She gaed them neither ale nor breid; "It's hunger and spite sal be your meed."

She has stown the bairnies' beds awa: "What ails the brats at the hey and the straw?"

They daurna bed by candle licht: "You can see to sleep in the mirk at nicht."

It was far in the nicht, and the bairnies grat; The mither beneath the mools heard that

And when she heard her bairnies maen, Quo' she: "I maun see my weans again."

She cried to the Lord in eident prayer: "Let me gang whaur my bairns are greetin' sair."

And aye she deaved Him, and priggit sae lang, That God the Lord had to let her gang.

Up sprang she frae the dowie deid, And birst the lair-stane ower her heid.

As süne as her ghaistly stap drew near, The dogs in their kennels a' yowled in fear.

And when she cam to tha castle yett, 'T was the auldest lase o' them a' she met

"What, dochter o' mine, are you daein' here? in And whaur are the lave o' my bairns sae dear?"

"You're a bonnie wife, a.nd you're braw and fine; plete fi But I'm thinkin' you ne'er were mither o mine."

"0, hoo should I be fine and braw?" My hoose in the yird is weet and sma'."

" My mither was white, and her cheeks were reid; But you are ashen and wan as the deid."

" Wuthering Heights "

Moreover, there is evidence from an unexpected quartur that such a ballad existed in Scotland, or at least in the North of England. The reader who turns to the ninth chapter of "Wuthering Heights " will find the following passage:

I was rocking Hareton on my knee, and humming a song that began: It was far in the night, and the bairnies grat, The mither beneath the mools heard that.

Wherever this couplet came from, it is beyond all reasonable doubt a verse the from the ballad which, whether through Danish channels or directly from the Scots, supplied the words for Loewe's music. For purposes of comparison, it may be as well to give the German as it appears in the ballad used by Loewe : 's war spat in der Nacht, und der Kindlein Gewein

Drang bis zur Mutter ins Grab hinein. It is true that Emily Bronte's version gives an anglicised "night" where one would expect "nicht," but this at most points to a somewhat anglicised version being current in the North of England, if only in fragments, at a date subsequent to the composition of Loewe's ballad. The alternative possibility that Emily Bronte translated a couplet from Danish sources or from the text used by Loewe is too obviously a violation of probabilities.

It would be dangerous for one who is but an amateur in these matters to assert that the ballad does not exist somewhere in one or other of the Scots collections, but I am not aware that it reid: But you are ashen and wan as the deid."

"O, hoo should I be white and reid? This mony a lang I've been cauld and deid.''

And as she cam to the innermost ha', Her bairnies lay greetin', ane and a'.

The first frae his bed she has ta'en and dressed; She has combed and kissed the hair o' the

The third she has dandled on her knee; The fourth she has fondled couthily.

She has ta'en the fifth in the bield o' her arm; The sixth in her bosom she's keepit warm.

To her dochter turnin', she quo', quo' she: "Gae, tell your father to come to me."

And when the Earl had come inby She spak to him richt angrily.

"I left you wi' routh o' ale and breid; My bairnies are deein' in bitter need.

"I left you wi' bonnie beds o' blue; On the straw my bairnies are lyin' noo.

"I left you eneugh o' candle licht; My bairnies lie in the mirk a' nicht.

"And aye, gin you gar me come back to ye, It's care and a curse ye sal get frae me.'

"And I charge you "-(this to the hound she spak) "To see that nane o' my bairnies lack."

* * * * And aye when they heard the hound snarl laigh, They filled the bairnies' dish and quaich.

And when the hound barked loud, in haste They crossed themselves at the thocht o' the ghaist.

And when the hound yowled lang and clear, They trummled, kennin' the deid was near.

A. G.