One king’s daughter said to another ...

[wolfinthewood]

One king’s daughter said to anither,
Brume blumes bonnie and grows sae fair
‘We’ll gae ride like sister and brither.’
And we’ll neer gae down to the brume nae mair.

‘We’ll ride doun into yonder valley,
Whare the greene green trees are budding sae gaily.

‘Wi hawke and hounde we will hunt sae rarely,
And we’ll come back in the morning early.’

They rade on like sister and brither,
And they hunted and hawket in the valley the-gether.

‘Now, lady, hauld my horse and my hawk,
For I maun na ride, and I downa walk.*

‘But set me doun be the rute o this tree,
For there hae I dreamt that my bed sall be.’

The ae king’s dochter did lift doun the ither,
And she was licht in her armis like ony fether.

Bonnie Lady Ann sat doun be the tree,
And a wide grave was houkit whare nane suld be.**

The hawk had nae lure, and the horse had nae master,
And the faithless hounds thro the woods ran faster.

The one king’s dochter has ridden awa,
But bonnie Lady Ann lay in the deed-thraw.***

Anon.

Collected in Scotland in the early nineteenth century by William Motherwell (1797–1835)

*downa: darena’

**houkit: dug

***deed-thraw: death-throe


This ballad (from the Child collection) is more than usually elliptical and enigmatic.

What exactly is going on here? One king’s daughter invites another – the daughter of another king, evidently – to go hunting and hawking with her in the woods in spring-time. They ride out together ‘like sister and brither’ – what is the implication of this? It recalls the story of Rosalind and Celia, in As You Like It. But those two highborn young ladies are running away in disguise. Are these two doing the same thing? If so, why, exactly?

Lady Ann suddenly collapses, and the other woman lifts her off her horse. One implication of this is that there are no attendants around. Which tends to support the running-away idea. They do seem to be on their own.

But someone digs a grave – who? Presumably ‘the ae king’s dochter’, since there’s no one else around to do it.

What is the matter with Lady Ann? Probably, though not absolutely certainly, complications connected with childbirth – pregnancy being a fairly common state for ballad heroines. But in that case, who was/is her lover?

Alternative possibility: she is ‘licht ... as only fether’ because she has starved herself – which in ballads and folksongs is most likely to mean that she is suffering from unrequited love.

And what exactly is the involvement of ‘the ae king’s dochter’? Is she a supportive friend? Or a secret villain, who has somehow brought about Lady Ann’s death? If so, rather a lot has dropped out of the story. Does she ride away after the death? Or while Lady Ann is still dying? I think that last stanza is ambiguous on that point. On the other hand, the digging of the grave suggests that Lady Ann has died. (Otherwise, that particular line strikes a very sinister note.) And what does the other king's daughter do next? Where does she ride off to?

Child treats the ballad as a variant on ‘Sheath and Knife’, in which a lady is pregnant (in most versions by her brother) and goes to the woods with her lover, where she gives birth alone and her lover buries both her and her dead child. The situation has obvious similarities and the ballad shares its refrain with ‘Sheath and Knife’. Perhaps ‘the ae king’s dochter’ is a mere intruder with her origins in textual corruption, as Child would seem to imply. But however this ballad text developed, what we have in it is a different story from ‘Sheath and Knife’, a new story, and to me powerful.


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Comments

[morgan-dhu.livejournal.com]

It also has some echoes, for me, to the various versions of "The Two Sisters" - although that set of ballads is clearly about a rivalry over a man.

You're right, this is a very enigmatic and fascinating ballad, to say the least. Because they 'hunted and hawket in the valley the-gether' the story doesn't seem to be one of flight to me. It seems more to me as if ‘the ae king’s dochter’ is somehow complicit in Lady Ann's death - or perhaps Lady Ann is pregnant and suffers a miscarriage while riding (would a woman near term go out hunting and hawking for pleasure?).

Of course, my queer sensibilities are leading me to speculation that the two women have been lovers (for if they are not running away in disguise, why are they like 'sister and brither') and one is afraid the relationship will become known - or perhaps one has courted the other in vain.

A very interesting ballad.

[wolfinthewood.livejournal.com]

would a woman near term go out hunting and hawking for pleasure?

She might, I suppose, if she were concealing the fact that she was pregnant. (Or she might honestly not realise - I've heard of that kind of thing happening in real life.)

[morgan-dhu.livejournal.com]

Actually, that happened to a friend of mine when she was still rather young - she had no idea she was pregnant until she was about seven months, and so ended up giving the child up for adoption as it was rather late fro an abortion. So yes, that could explain why she went out riding.

So many ways to interpret the narrative in that ballad. I'll be puzzling over it for quite some time, now, I expect.