Беликова Е.К., Саратовская Л.Б. - The United Kingdom and United States of America in Past and Present (1268141), страница 13
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Broadsheetballads (also known as broadside ballads) were cheaply printed and soldin English streets from the 16th century. Chapbooks were works ofpopular literature sold for a few pence by pedlars or ‘chapmen’ from the16th to the 19th centuries. They were often topical and humorous. Forexample, the legends of Robin Hood and the pranks of Puck weredisseminated through such broadsheet ballads. New ballads were writtenabout current events like fires, the birth of monstrous animals, and soforth, giving particulars of names and places.
Satirical ballads andRoyalist ballads contributed to the 17th century political discourse. In asense, these ballads were antecedents of the modern newspaper.About the time of the Restoration these broadsheets were gathered bycollectors Lord Dorset, Dryden, and Peppys. Reprints of any note werefirst undertaken in the south by Tom Durfey, in the north by AllanRamsay. Bishop Percy, however, made the great step in this direction bythe publication of his Reliques, which was based on old copies of balladsin a folio MS that had come into his hands. In Scotland Herd publishedwhat had been called the first useful collection from oral tradition in1769.Thomas Percy, Robert Harley, Francis James Child, WalterScott and James Hogg were among early collectors and publishers ofballads from the oral tradition of broadsheets and previous anthologies.Walter Scott in his Border Minstrelsy and Motherwell's collection50(1827) continued work of Herd. Percy's publication of Reliques ofAncient Poetry and Harley's collections, such as The Bagford Ballads,were of great importance for the study of ballads.
Professor Child’sBallads are a collection of 305 ballads from England and Scotland, andtheir American variants, collected in the 19th century. The collection waspublished as The English and Scottish Popular Ballads between 1882and 1898 by Houghton Mifflin in 10 volumes. The ballads vary in age;for instance, a version of "A Gest of Robyn Hode" was printed in the late15th or early 16th century, and the manuscript of "Judas" dates to the13th century. The majority of the ballads, however, date to the 17th and18th centuries; although some probably have very ancient influence.Child's collection was far more comprehensive than any previouscollection of ballads in English.
One number in Child’s collection maycover several ballads, which he considered as variants of the same story,although they may differ in many ways (as in "James Hatley"). Someseparate ballads may contain turns of identical phrases, and even entireverses.The Child Ballads deal with subjects typical to many ballads:romance, supernatural experiences, historical events, morality, riddles,murder, and folk heroes. E.g., some ballads recount identifiable historicalpeople Robin Hood, King Arthur or some historical events.
Someothers retell fairy tales and differ from them only in form as songs inverse.A recent important addition to the series of ballad texts is that ofFurnivall and Hales (London, 1867), taken from the folio MS. of Percy.Other valuable books on the subject are those of Ritson, Kinloch,Jamieson, Sharpe, Aytoun, and Allingham. The old ballads are a veryvaluable part of poetical literature. Some of them are the work of men oftrue artistic genius. Their themes touch on almost all the subjects ofhuman experience. They contain and vividly set forth in their own waythe elements of the deepest tragedy or gayest comedy.
The spring-time ofhistory that gave them light has lent them a delightful brightness ofdelineation both in regard to nature and man.Ballads of that time were among the most popular forms of music oftheir day. Published in thousands, they reached and touched most people,and their appeal was enormous.
Their sentiments often appeal even to us,and songs of a very similar nature are still performed by singers withenormous success on stage and television. Sometimes their sentiments51seem exaggerated in the context of today's taste, but nevertheless mostballads are stories of love with a charming simplicity and a splendidmelodic gift that deserve to be taken seriously today.Ballads are a rich source of data connected with history, social life,feelings and values of the people living on the British Isle. Patriotism isthe main theme of the ballads devoted to the war between England andScotland for independence and the whole history of their relations canbe traced in many of such ballads. For example, the battle of Otterburnwas fought on August 19, 1388 and was prefaced by an invasion andseveral skirmishes. A feud between two great families, Percy and Neville,of northern England was the matter the Scots could not resist to takeadvantage of.
Assembling their armies, which amounted to twelvehundred cavalry and forty thousand foot soldiers, the Scottish barons andknights gathered near the border at Jedburgh.The English barons and knights, having received word back fromheralds and minstrels they had sent north, made preparation for theinvasion, but waited for the Scots movements. They decided to make asimultaneous counter raid. The Scots learned of this plan from an Englishspy they had captured.
They divided their army sending the main bodywest to Carlisle, under command of the king’s son Douglas. At the sametime a detachment of three or four hundred men at arms, supported bytwo thousand soldiers, partly archers, commanded by the Earls of Marchand Murray, struck out for Newcastle with the intention of crossing theriver and burning Durham. There was skirmishing for two days outsidethe city and in the course of a long combat between Douglas and HenryPercy, the Scot got possession of the Englishman's pennon.
He told Percyhe would raise it on the highest point of his castle at Dalkeith. Percyresponded that Douglas would never accomplish self-glorifying boast,and never manage to carry the pennon out of Northumberland.Thus the stage was set for the battle at Otterburn (1388), thirty milesnorthwest from Newcastle, where there was a castle or tower set inmarshy ground.
Percy, greatly mortified at the loss of his pennon,presented his case and the affront to his honor to the knights ofNorthumberland. Convinced that Douglas was backed by the wholepower of Scotland, they replied that it was better to lose a pennon than toexpose the country to further risk. Later, scouts arrived with informationthat Douglas was encamped at Otterburn, but that the main army haddeparted for Carlisle to join their countrymen there. In reality, they had52made themselves huts in the trees and driven their cattle into the bogs.
Inthe end, the losses of the English were put at 1,040 prisoners, 1,860 killedand more than 1,000 wounded. Those of the Scots were about 100 killed,including the Douglas himself, and 200 captured. Douglas was interred atMelrose Abbey. Over his body a tomb of stone was built, and above thisthe Earl of Northumberland's pennon was raised.The Hunting of the Cheviot is about two noblemen of opposite sides ofthe border region between England and Scotland – Percy ofNorthumberland, England and Douglas of Scotland – square off in thislengthy ballad . In a departure from classic tales of border warfare, whichusually involve cattle rustling, this ballad begins with a dispute aboutdeer hunting and evolves into an alternate version of The Battle ofOtterburn.Another historical ballad tells about the battle of Harlaw, fought on July24, 1411. To maintain his claim to the Earldom of Ross Donald of theIsles invaded the country south of the mountains with ten thousandislanders and men of Ross.
He was met at Harlaw, eighteen milesnorthwest of Aberdeen by Alexander Stewart, the Earl of Mar and sheriffof Angus Alexander Ogilby. The Highlanders lost more than ninehundred men, the Lowlanders five hundred, including nearly all thegentry of Buchan. The story is told by a Highlander, and begins with hismeeting with Sir James the Rose and Sir John the Gryme (Graham), whoasked for information about Macdonell (Donald of the Isles).English Fairy Tales.This is the usual English term for a group of oral narratives centered onmagical stories, quests, and transformations, which are found throughoutEurope (and in Asia too). The term ‘fairy tale’ appeared in the 18thcentury, as a translation from French.
It is universally understood, but notin fact accurate, since many of the best-loved stories have no fairies inthem. So some scholars prefer the terms ‘Wonder Tales’ or ‘MagicTales’. Fairy tales with very similar plots, characters, and motifs arefound in many different cultures. Joseph Jacobs compared the Scottishtale The Ridere of Riddles with the version collected by the BrothersGrimm, the Riddle, and despite the difference saw a lot in common.Sometimes the influence of different tales on one another is quiteobvious.
Two theories have attempted to explain the common elementsin fairy tales. One is that fairy tales are the remains of ancient myths53which lived over the centuries and. spread over continents. The other isthat such fairy tales stem from common human experience and thereforecan appear separately in many different countries anecdotes (E.g., Mr.Fox), and the local legends.When discussing English Fairy Tales, one must begin by defining terms,the first of which is the word English. Some who discuss English fairytales focus on the fairy tale tradition among the English speaking nations,primarily on the British Isles. Others use the term to designate the fairytale tradition specifically in England.
The second term that needsclarification is fairy. It is the English word for a class of folktale (a talethat is part of the oral narrative tradition that characterized pre-literatesocieties). The term fairy is also loosely applied to such beings asbrownies, gnomes, elves, nixies, goblins, trolls, dwarfs, pixies, kobolds,banshees, sylphs, sprites, and undines. The folk imagination not onlyconceives the fairyland as a distinct domain, but also imagines fairies asliving in everyday surroundings such as hills, trees, and streams. Thebelief in fairies was an almost universal attribute of early folk culture. Inancient Greek literature the sirens in Homer's Odyssey are fairies, and anumber of the heroes in his Iliad have fairy lovers in the form of nymphs.The Gandharvas (celestial singers and musicians), who figure in Sanskritpoetry, were fairies, as were the Hathors, or female genii, of ancientEgypt (see also my Egypt Chapter), who appeared at the birth of a childand predicted the child's future.
Tales are stories that tell of miraculousand fantastic happenings. Besides fairies the main characters in fairy talesare often supernatural giants, trolls, witches, wizards, elves and can do allsorts of extraordinary things. Fairies appear in both fairy tales (in animaginary world) and in legends (in the real world).Many tales do not generally have anything to do with fairies, as theEnglish term implies. They are identified by the presence of certain talemotifs (such as wicked stepmothers, fairy godmothers, magicaltransformations, etc.); they usually take place in an undefined time andplace. In their marvelous world, peopled by supernatural beings, magicalobjects, and enchantments, heroes (or heroines) overcome evil, succeedto kingdoms and marry princesses (or princes).
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