THE NUT-BROWN MAID: ROBERT HENRYSON.

OLD BALLADS.- -A.D. 1450 TO A.D. 1508.

BALLADS and poems written for recitation to the people followed the romances, lays, and fabliaux written, like Sir Cleges, for the lords in hall. In the latter part of the fifteenth century our literature was enriched with ballads of "Robin Hood," "Chevy Chase," and other such pieces, which usually survive in later versions. "The Nut-brown Maid" (to which a moral is attached in the last stanza, derived, no doubt, through Chaucer, from Petrarch's version of "Griselda") certainly belongs to the fifteenth century, for it was printed as early as 1502 in Richard Arnold's book on the customs of London, known as his Chronicle. Arnold was a Londoner trading to Flanders, and, as he was executor to a will in 1473, he could not have been born at a later date than 1452. Nut-brown was the old English word for brunette, and there was a saying that "A nut-brown girl is neat and blithe by nature."

It may be that many of the old ballads were written by ladies. Dr. R. C. A. Prior, in the introduction to his excellent translation of Ancient Danish Ballads, says that "the MSS. in which they are preserved are almost every one of them in female handwriting, which alone might lead us to expect that females had composed them. But it is also remarkable that wives invariably give their husbands the best possible advice, and that men who are pictured as fine characters follow their advice. Now as gallantry towards the fair was not a prominent characteristic of the Danes or any other Scandinavians in former times, we cannot suppose that anything so flattering to them was composed by men, but feel justified in admitting the conclusion to which Oehlenschläger, N. M. Petersen, and other Danish critics have arrived, that we are indebted for most of them to ladies. There is almost as conclusive internal evidence that they are in great part also the work of persons of education and refinement." Among the English ballads written by women some are disposed to include the "Nut-brown Maid." "We" in the last stanza would in that case be put into the mouth of the male reciter of the ballad to the listeners in castle hall or by the wayside.

1 I am the knight. The reciter of the tale is telling its plan and preparing his hearers for its dialogue form, that would presently be represented with dramatic spirit. As first printed each stanza contains six long lines, but I follow the usual division of them, and also insert "He" and "She."

2 Standeth. Here the final th did not more necessarily than a final s cause the preceding e to be sounded as a separate syllable.

3 The ton, in original; ton is an old contraction of "that one," as Lother of that other."

4 Rede, counsel.

5 Can, know.

She.

"Now, sith that ye have shewed to me

The secret of your mind,

I shall be plain to you again,

Like as ye shall me find.

Sith it is so, that ye will go,

I will not leave behind.

Shall never be said, the Nut-brown Maid

Was to her love unkind:

Make you readý, for so am I,

Although it were anone:

For, in my mind, of all mankinċ
I love but you alone."

He.

"Yet I you redé take good heed
When men will think and say:
Of young, of old, it shall be told,
That ye be gone away,
Your wanton will for to fulfil,

In green wood you to play;
And that ye might from your delight
No longer make delay.

Rather than ye should thus for me

Be called an ill womán,

Yet would I to the green wood go,

Alone, a banished mar.."

She.

"Though it be sung of old and young,

That I should be to blame,

Theirs be the charge that speak so large

In hurting of my name:

For I will prove, that faithful love

It is devoid of shame

In your distress and heaviness

To part with you the same;

And sure all tho that do nct so,
True lovers are they none:
For, in my mind, of all mankind
I love but you alone.”

He.

"I counsel you, Remember how
It is no maiden's law
Nothing to doubt, but to run out
To wood with an outlaw;

For

ye must there in your hand bear A bow to bear and draw;

And, as a thief, thus must ye live,

Ever in dread and awe;

By which to you great harm might grow:

Yet had I liever than

That I had to the green wood go,

Alone, a banished man."

She.

"I think not nay, but as ye say, It is no maiden's lore;

But love may make me for your sake,
As ye have said before,

To come on foot, to hunt and shoot
To get us meat and store;
For so that I your company
May have, I ask no more;

• Part, divide; is not ashamed to share.

FAIR ALICE.

"My bird, now will I fare."

[Was never] a word that she might speak, But swownit that sweit of swair 12

For kindness,

Of Peebles to the Play.

He fippilit 13 like a fatherless foal; And "Be still, my sweet thing!"

"By the haly ruid of Peblis

I may not rest for greeting." 14

He whistlit and he pipit baith

To make her blithe that meeting;

"My honey heart, how says the sang, There sall be mirth at our meeting

Yet."

Of Peebles to the Play.

By that the sun was settand shaftis,

And near done was the day;

There men might hear schriken of chaftis 15

When that they went their way.

238

248

11 Winklottis, damsels; when the girls and their wooers twynet, parted.

12 Swownit of swair, fainted on his neck. First English "sweor," the neck.

13 Fippilit, whimpered.

14 Greeting, weeping. First English "græ'tan," to weep.

15 Chaftis, chaps. Icelandic "kjaptr," older form "kjöptr," the jaw, in a vulgar sense. The holiday-makers end their day with shrieking noises on the way home, still familiar to those who live anywhere upon the path of Whitsun or other popular holiday-makers. The tailpiece on the next page is taken, like the other figures representing humours of a popular festival, as carved by a Cruikshank of more than 350 years ago, through Carter's "Ancient Architecture of England," from the wall of St. John's Church, Cirencester.