Hans Sachs, who derived his version from “Cento Novelli,” a translation of the Decameron by Steinhöwel (1482). Hans Sachs names his heroine Lisabetha and retains the Italian tradition that Messina was the town where the rich merchant and his family dwelt. It is interesting to observe that this ballad is one of the very few that succeeded in eluding the notice of Professor Child.
The words of both the versions that I have collected were very corrupt, so that the lines given in the text have received some editing. For the original sets the student is referred to the Journal of the Folk-Song Society, quoted above.
No. 3. The Knight and the Shepherd’s Daughter
Two versions of this ballad, under the above title, are in the Roxburghe Collection and in Percy’s Reliques. Percy states that his version is “given from an old black-letter copy with some corrections,” and that it was popular in the time of Queen Elizabeth, being usually printed with her picture before it.” The fifth verse is quoted in Fletcher’s comedy of The Pilgrim (1621).
Buchan gives two traditional forms of the ballad, “Earl Richard, the Queen’s Brother,” and “Earl Lithgow” (volume ii, pp. 81–91, ed. 1828). See also Motherwell’s Minstrelsy (p. 377); Christie’s Traditional Ballad Airs of Scotland (volume i, p. 184); and Kinloch’s Ancient Scottish Ballads (pp. 15 and 25).
Kinloch says: “The Scottish language has given such a playful naïveté to these ballads that one would be apt to suppose that version to be the original, were it not that the invariable use of English titles, which are retained in all Scottish copies, betrays the ballad to have emanated from the south, although it has otherwise assumed the character of a northern production."
I have collected several variants of this ballad, four of which may be seen in the Journal of the Folk-Song Society (volume v, pp. 86—90). For two other versions see the third volume of the same publication (pp. 222 and 280).
The words in the text have been compiled from the several sets in my possession. With the exception of the lines in the second stanza, they are printed practically without alteration.
No. 4. Robin Hood and the Tanner
This was sung to me by a blind man, eighty-two years of age, who told me that he learned it when a lad of ten, but that he had not sung it, or heard it sung, for forty years or more. He varied the several phrases of the tune, which is in the Dorian mode, in a very free and interesting manner (see English Folk Song: Some Conclusions, p. 21). I have chosen from these variations those which seemed to me to be the most characteristic. Except for one or two minor alterations, the words are given in the text precisely as they were sung to me.
The Robin Hood ballads,which, centuries ago, were extremely popular (although they were constantly denounced by the authorities), are now but rarely sung by the country folk. Those that have recently been collected are printed in the Journal of the Folk-Song Society (volume i, pp. 144 and 247; volume ii, p. 155; volume iii, pp. 61 and 268; and volume v, p. 94).
The words in the text follow with astonishing accuracy the corresponding stanzas of a black-letter broadside, which formerly belonged to Anthony à Wood, and is now preserved in the Bodleian Library. A copy of this broadside is printed in Ritson’s Robin Hood, by Child (No. 126), and also on two 17th century Garlands. The full title on the black-letter is:
“Robin Hood and the Tanner; or, Robin Hood met with his Match. A merry and pleasant song relating the gallant and fierce combat fought between Arthur Bland, a tanner of Nottingham, and Robin Hood, the greatest and noblest archer in England. Tune is, Robin Hood and the Stranger.”
The first verse runs:
In Nottingham there lives a jolly tanner
With a hey down, down, a down, down.
His name is Arthur-a-Bland,
There is never a squire in Nottinghamshire
Dare bid bold Arthur stand.
