The People's Songbag

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30478, 27 June 1964, Page 5

The People's Songbag

The Demon Lover

(Specially written, for "TJie Preet* by

DERRICK ROONEY]

English folk-song is rich in supernatural creatures like the Great Silkie of Side Skerry—a selchie, or seal, on the sea, a man on dry land, and always a merman—who had a love affair with a mortal woman, later claimed their child and took it to sea with him, only to be shot by a “gey good gunner,” the woman's husband; or the Ram of Derby, a beast so huge his wool clothed an army and the butcher had to mount a ladder cut his throat—from which gushed a torrent of blood that drowned 25 people.

But the most ominous creatures occur in songs belonging to the genre descended from folk-tales of ghosts (such as "The Unquiet Grave,” in which a girl visits her lover’s grave, where his disembodied voice speaks to her) or demons. “The Fanner’s Curst Wife” is among the latter—the devil carries off a fanner’s henpecking wife, but returns her when she proves too tough even for Hades. “I swept out Hell,” she says, “and burnt up the broom.” Another, perhaps the most popular, is “Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight,” also known in England as “The Outlandish Knight,” “May Colvin,” “The Highway Robber” and “The Old Beau.”

The plot is simple—a young girl is lured from her father’s house by a devil in human form, but outwits him, pushes him into the sea, and returns home before dawn. Hundreds of versions of, the song form an intricately interwoven group in the oral traditions of at least 10 European countries. The variants are more intimately connected than random versions of the same folktale, having structural qualities in common, but their country of origin is still a mystery. Some scholars believe the song reflects the Bluebeard

story, others believe it to be an off-shoot of an old legend or descended from a folk-tale about a malevolent watersprite who transforms himself into a knight and carries off a girl with the intention of taking her to his watery home.

The circulation of the song is remarkable. In this century variants have been discovered in 10 British counties (Cecil Sharp collected 23 in Somerset alone) and a Manx version has been printed. Even towards the end of the last century’, Francis Child was able to remark that “of all ballads this has perhaps obtained the widest circulation.” Child published tt as No. 4 in his collection, and since then variants have been found in a number of American states, and Canada. But for all this activity, its origin remains a mystery. An interesting side-light is that, during the last century, an incident was extracted from near the end of the ballad and turned into a music hall song, ‘Tell-tale Polly.” The girl, returning home after pushing her false lover into the sea, finds the parrot hanging in the window. “Don’t, prattle, don’t prattle, my pretty polly," she tells him, "And you shall have a cage of gold, and be hung on an ivory tree." Her father awakens, shouting: “Who’s there?” “There came three cats on top of my cage, to take my sweet life away,” replies the parrot, “I was just calling on my sweet mistress, to drive -those old cats away." A version of the ballad is available in this country, sung by Pete Seeger. But Seeger has thickened the mystery by calling the ballad “The False Knight Upon The Road." This titlei belongs, in fact, to a separate song about a devil, disguised as a knight, who waylays a schoolboy on his way to school.