“Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border: consisting of historical and romantic
ballads, collected in the southern counties of Scotland; with a few of
modern date, founded upon local tradition”, 1802 by Sir Walter Scott
The 1802 Minstrelsy consisted of two volumes. This picture shows the title
page for the first volume which consists of ‘historical ballads’. These ballads
were considered by Scott to have some grounding in historical fact. This
volume therefore features the ballads which are associated with the border
reiving clans who created epic ballads about their ‘heroes’ and their ‘heroic’
deeds. The second volume contains ‘romantic ballads’ which Scott considered
to have little or no basis in historical fact. The print, included with the title
page, reflects the theme of the first volume displaying a typical border keep
castle which border reivers would have been very familiar with. The
Abbotsford library holds two copies of this first edition of Scott’s Minstrelsy,
one of which is the copy given by Scott to his mother.
“The Fray of Support”, one of three manuscripts bound in a collection of
ballads, letters, etc., [18th century]
‘The Fray of Support’ is a rare example of a ballad for which Scott collected a
version from a live performance by a ballad singer. Scott, and his ballad
collecting friend Robert Shortreed, visited the Liddesdale antiquarian Dr John
Elliot in his house frequently during the 1790s to collect ballads from
manuscripts. However on one visit Scott was not presented with a manuscript,
but with a live performance by the eighty year old Jonathan Graham.
Shortreed said ‘… he made the awfuest and uncoest howling sound I ever
heard. It was a mixture o’ a sort o’ horrible and eldritch cries…’ Graham
passed out in mid-performance due to his ‘animated’ rendition and an excess
of brandy! The Abbotsford library has 3 manuscripts for this ballad one of
which is not in Scott’s handwriting. The manuscript shown is one of the two
copies in Scott’s handwriting.
“The Fray of Support”, contained in ‘Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border”
Vol.1 1802 ed.
The printed version of the ballad is a composite version of four manuscripts,
three of which are held in the Abbotsford Library. Scott thought by selecting
elements from different versions of a ballad he was restoring the ballad to
something like its original form when it was composed by a ‘minstrel’. Scott’s
belief that ballads had a unique composer was controversial even in his
lifetime. The ballad scholar and friend of Scott, Joseph Ritson (1752-1803),
denied this, arguing instead that ballads developed organically as different
communities added and subtracted compositional elements to the storyline.
Modern scholars now agree that Ritson was correct in this assumption. Ritson
none-the-less was full of praise for the ‘Minstrelsy’ when it finally appeared in
1802. “The Fray of Support” describes a ‘hot trod’ when an English resident from
Solport attempts to regain his property stolen by Scottish border reivers. The
‘hot trod’ was the raising of the countryside to come armed for the fray to
reclaim the reivers’ spoil before it could cross the border into Scotland.
“Young Lochinvar” from “A garland of new songs”, ballads collected by
John Bell, Newcastle [between 1810 and 1828]
A ‘chapbook’ is a pocket-sized booklet. The term chapbook was formalised by
bibliophiles of the 19th century, as a variety of ephemera, containing popular
or folk literature. It includes many kinds of printed material such as
pamphlets, political and religious tracts, nursery rhymes, poetry, fairy tales,
children's literature, almanacs, popular ballads and songs. Material from these
chapbooks, such as Scott’s ballad ‘Young Lochinvar’, seen here, would often
enter the oral folk tradition.’Young Lochinvar’ derives from The song of
'Lochinvar' in the fifth canto of Scott’s epic poem ‘Marmion’ which was
modelled on the old ballad 'Katharine Jaffray’. Thus Scott has adapted a
traditional ballad and reused it as material in the high-art form of an epic
poem. The chapbook has then taken Scott’s adaptation of the ballad and
helped re-circulate it back into popular culture. Folklorists were later to collect
Scott’s version of the ballad amongst traditional singers.
“The Blythsome Bridal”, from a collection of ballads collected by John Bell,
Newcastle, [between 1812 and 1820]
Chapbooks were often illustrated with primitive woodcut prints which refer to
their contents. The woodcut in this chapbook shows a newly wedded couple
dancing to the strains of a musician playing the lowland bagpipes. This image
can be traced back to the Dutch artist Jacob de Wit, resident in Scotland in
the late 17th century. Scottish artists, most notably David Allan (1744-1796)
and David Wilkie (1785-1841), later drew on this image. They used it to
suggest that life in the countryside was socially harmonious, with the
aristocracy and peasantry sharing a common popular culture. In this woodcut,
the couple dancing are obviously quite wealthy. The Scottish aristocracy were
great patrons of popular music and song and certain Scottish aristocrats, such
as Lady Nairne (1766-1845), were songwriters themselves. The image refers to
the wedding song ‘Fy, let us to the Bridel’ contained in the chapbook.
“The explication of Thomas Rymer’s prophecies….by the famous Mr Allan
Boyde, MA”, [1790], bound in a volume of “Ballads”
Thomas the Rhymer (c.1220–c.1298), was a famous Scottish prophet who is
also known as Thomas of
Ercildoune, Lord Learmont
and True Thomas. He
occupies much the same
position in Scottish folklore
as Merlin does in Wales and
England. Little is known for
certain of his life but two
charters from 1260–80 and
1294 mention him, the
latter referring to "Thomas de
Ercildounson son and heir of
Thome Rymour de Ercildoun".
It is said that he gained his
powers of prophecy from a
meeting with the Queen of
Elfland. Scott included the
ballad ‘Thomas the Rhymer’
which tells the story of this
meeting in the second
volume of the ‘Minstrelsy’.
When Scott was creating his
estate at Abbotsford he
ensured that a spot known as the Rhymer’s glen was included in the estate.
Scott believed that this was the spot where Thomas and the Queen of Elfland
had met. However popular tradition locates the spot as being near the Eildon
hills.
”Scrapbook”, a collection of newspaper cuttings from the late 18th century
and early 19th century
Scott’s library contains numerous volumes of scrapbooks containing clippings
taken from newspapers as well as broadsides and chapbooks. This volume
contains doggerel poetry, religious tracts, anecdotal stories, articles about
Napoleon Bonaparte, as well as numerous songs and ballads. The song ‘Royal
Charle’ found in the scrapbook is included in volume two of Hogg’s ‘Jacobite
Relics’ entitled ‘Welcome, Royal Charlie’.
“The Jacobite relics of Scotland; being the songs, airs, and legends of the
adherents of the House of Stuart”, collected and illustrated by James Hogg,
1819-1821, volume 1
‘The Ettrick Shepherd’ James Hogg (1770-1835) is nowadays best remembered
for his gothic novel ‘The Confessions of a Justified Sinner’. Hogg was one of
the many collaborators who helped Scott create the ‘Minstrelsy’. Scott first
came into contact with Hogg while conducting research for his third volume
of the ‘Minstrelsy’. Hogg, after reading the first two volumes of the
‘Minstrelsy’, had written down some of his mother’s ballad repertoire and sent
them to the editor. Scott later paid a visit to Ettrick and famously heard
Hogg’s mother sing the ballad ‘Auld Maitland’. Scott and Hogg immediately
struck up a life-long friendship. Hogg, like most other Scottish literary figures
of this period, was himself a composer and collector of Scottish popular songs
and ballads. His two volume work ‘The Jacobite Relics of Scotland’ has
become a classic reference book for Jacobite songs, much as Scott’s
‘Minstrelsy’ has for Scottish ballads. Hogg in fact inherited the idea of creating
his collection from Scott. The song ‘Donald McGillivray’ was actually written
by James Hogg to see if his own composition would be taken for a traditional
Jacobite song by the public. Ironically the advocate Francis Jeffrey (1773-1850)
who condemned the ‘Jacobite Relics’ for its lack of ‘taste’ in an article for the
‘Edinburgh Review’, praised this particular song ‘…which, for sly,
characteristic Scotch humour, seems to us the best,…’!
“Et hundrede udvalde Danske viser”, 1695, by Anders Sorensen Vedel
Originally published in 1591, Vedel’s collection has become the standard text
for all subsequent Danish ballad scholars. Scottish ballad collectors were
interested in Danish ballads as they had features in common with Scottish and
English ballads. Ballad story lines were often international in appeal and
travelled along trade routes. These story lines remained remarkably unchanged
as they traversed national borders. National characteristics to these ballads
were added by the language used and the musical settings. Scott’s interest in
Danish ballads is shown by his use of two Danish ballads – ‘The Elphin Gray’
and ‘The Return of the Dead’ – in his poem ‘The Lady of the Lake’. Scott has
inscribed this copy as previously belonging to Henry Weber, Scott’s literary
assistant and editor of various plays and romances. The book was presented
to Weber by the publisher Blackwood.
‘Sammlung Deutscher Volkslieder…’, 1807, by Johann Gustav Busching and
Friedrich Heinrich von der Hagen
Scotland since the Middle Ages had had a long standing cultural relationship
with France thanks to the ‘Auld Alliance’. With Scott, however, she was about to
forge close links with a national culture which, like Scotland, lacked a centralised
political state – Germany. If French cultural taste had been dominant in Europe
since the late 17th century, Germany was beginning to challenge this dominance
by the late 18th century. German artists, like their Scottish counterparts, began to
become interested in the myths, ballads, popular customs and traditions of the
common people. This was considered to be a purer form of culture than that of
the decadent cosmopolitan art of French classicism. Scott showed great foresight
in realising that German art was now becoming a major force in European
culture. His library contains many volumes of German literature including
works by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) and Friedrich Schiller
(1759-1805). Scott’s library also contains this volume, ‘Sammlung deutscher
volkslieder’, an important collection of German, Dutch and French popular
ballads collected by the medieval scholar Johann Gustav Gottlieb Busching
(1783-1829) and Friedrich Heinrich von der Hagen (1780-1856). They included
a volume of the tunes of the ballads, something that Scott unfortunately
neglected to do for the ‘Minstrelsy’. During a bout of illness in 1819 Scott was to
write an English translation of ‘The Noble Moringer’ from ‘Sammlung deutscher
volkslieder’.