"The Holy Well": A Medieval Religious Ballad J A N E T M. G R A V E S 1. As it fell out one May morning, And upon one bright holiday, Sweet Jesus asked of his dear Mother,

If he might go to play.

2. 'To play, to play sweet Jesus shall go, And to play, pray get you gone, And let me hear of n o complaint

At night when you come home.'

3. Sweet Jesus went down to yonder town, As far as the Holy Well, And there did see as fine children

As any tongue can tell.

4. He said, 'God bless you every one, And your bodies Christ save and see: Little children, shall I play with you,

And you shall play with me.'

5. But they made answer to him, 'No:' They were lords' and ladies' sons; And he, the meanest of them all,

Was but a maiden's child, born i n an ox's stall.

6. Sweet Jesus turned him around, And he neither laugh'd nor smil'd, But the tears came trickling from his eyes

Like water from the skies.

7. Sweet Jesus turned him about, T o his Mother's dear home went He, And said, 'I have been in yonder town,

As after you may see.

8. 'I have been down in yonder town, As far as the Holy Well, There did I meet as fine children

As any tongue can tell.

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WESTERN FOLKLORE

9. 'I bid God bless them every one, And their bodies Christ save and see: Little children, shall I play with you, And you shall play with me. 10. 'But they made answer to me, No,

They were lords' and ladies' sons,

And I, the meanest of them all, Was but a maiden's child, born in an ox's stall.'

11. 'Though you are but a maiden's child, Born in an ox's stall, Thou art the Christ, the King of Heaven And the Saviour of them all. 12. 'Sweet Jesus, go down to younder town,

As far as the Holy Well, And take away those sinful souls, And dip them deep in hell.' 13. 'Nay, nay,' sweet Jesus said,

'Nay, nay, that may not be,

For there are too many sinful souls, Crying out for the help of me.'

14. 0 then spoke the Angel Gabriel,

Upon one good Saint Stephen,

Altho' you're but a maiden's child, You are the King of Heaven.' ITS close thematic association with "The Bitter with^,"^ "The Holy Well" has sometimes been considered to be merely a version of the other ballad. Anne Geddes Gilchrist, for example, was drawn to the theory that "The Holy Well" was "truly connected with ' T h e Bitter Withy,' as a

BECAUSE OF

= T h i s version of "The Holy Well" is that which appears in Gordon Hall Gerould's "The Ballad of 'The Bitter Withy'," PMLA, XXIII (Baltimore: 1908), 162-169, and is a reprint of the oldest known printed version, that contained in William Sandys' Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern (London: 1833). Sandys attributes the source of the carol to a popular broadside, which may be one of a series printed between 1822 and 1827, referred to by R. L. Greene in "The Traditional Survival of Two Medieval Carols," Journal of English Literary History, VII (Baltimore: 1940), 223-224. A variant text appeared in an 1861 collection entitled A Garland of Christmas Carols, Ancient and Modern, edited by Joshua Sylvester, and in William Husk's Songs of the Nativity (London: 1868), pp. 91-94. Both of these collections credit an eighteenth-century Gravesend broadside as the carol's source. Convenient reprintings may be found in T h e Oxford Book of Carols, edited by Dearmer, Vaughan Williams, and Shaw (London: 1928); Edith Rickert, Ancient English Carols (London: 1914); and MacEdward Leach, T h e Ballad Book (New York: 1955). T h e carol may be heard on Riverside Recording RLP 12-629, Folklore Series, 1956, "Great British Ballads not included in the Child Collection," as sung by Ewan MacColl and A. L. Lloyd. a MacEdward Leach, The Ballad Book (New York: 1955), p. 689.

"THE HOLY WELL"

15

collateral, if not direct descendant" of that ballad.3 On the other hand, Frank Sidgwick4 classified it separately, and G. H. Gerould, after considering the possibility that "The Holy Well" was a "debased copy" of "The Bitter Withy," proposed that it was a single ballad, "which in the broadsides fell on evil days." Although it is true that some texts recovered from tradition display a mixture of stanzas from "The Holy Well" and "The Bitter Withy," this seems to be a late development explainable by the fact that the two ballads have certain features in common. Both are derived from legendary materials in the infancy gospels, they have similar opening lines, similar admonitions by the Virgin Mary, and both have Jesus' playmates taunt him for being their social inferior. Yet there are also important differences, and a comparison of the two makes possible some interesting conjectures about the origin and transmission of both ballads. T h e narratives of "The Holy Well" and "The Bitter Withy" are similar in that they deal with certain episodes in the child Jesus' life, recounted in apocryphal legends. In both ballads, Jesus asks and obtains permission of his mother to go out and play; he encounters some children and proposes some sort of game; they refuse, generally on the grounds of their social superiority. Here the trend of the two narratives diverges sharply. In "The Bitter Withy," Jesus revenges himself, without Mary's knowledge, by enticing the children to follow him over a "bridge of sunbeams;" the children fall off and are killed, their mothers complain bitterly to Mary, and Mary punishes Jesus by whipping him with withy (willow) twigs; Jesus then invokes a curse of quick decay on the withy twigs. In "The Holy Well," however, Jesus returns to Mary after the encounter with the children and recounts the incident; Mary reacts indignantly and proposes that Jesus revenge himself on the children, but Jesus refuses and gently rebukes her; the ballad then concludes, in most versions, with the "Angel Gabriel" verse or a slight variation of it. In addition to the divergence in narrative, there are certain other distinguishing features. "The Holy Well" is consistently characterized by the specific setting of the well, by the blessing with which Jesus greets the children, and by his disappointment at their insulting him. These never, or rarely, appear in texts of "The Bitter Withy." On the other hand, "The Bitter Withy" includes elements never found in uncorrupted texts of "The Holy Well." Aside from the obvious examples of the sunbeam bridge and the withy slashes, the children's game is always specified as a ball game, and the children in "The Bitter Withy" are most often characterized in several verses as "three jolly jordans (jerdans, jorrans, Jew-dons, etc.)." Certain features drift between Journal of T h e Folk Song Society (JFFS), IV: 14 (June, 1910), 42.

" 'The Bitter Withy' Ballad," Folk-Lore, XIX (June 30, 1908), 192.

Gerould, loc. cit., 162n.

16

WESTERN FOLKLORE

the two ballads, such as the children's calling Jesus a "silly (or simple) fair maid's child;" and in some versions of "The Bitter Withy," Jesus retorts to the children, "at the latter end, I am above you all," which is perhaps equivalent to the affirmation by Gabriel, or sometimes an unnamed speaker, at the end of "The Holy Well." There is also a parallelism, as I have indicated, between the ballads' opening phrases; however, "The Holy Well" is distinguished by the day's either being in May or a "bright" holiday, whereas in "The Bitter Withy," although it may occasionally be "bright," it is consistently raining, hailing, or snowing, and in one text, the stars are falling. Critics who have studied these two ballads (such as G. H. Gerould, Frank Sidgwick, and the editors of the Journal of the Folk. Song Society) generally agree that "The Bitter Withy" is a more fully developed narrative than "The Holy Well." While I concur in this evaluation, I would also conclude, independently of their theories, that neither ballad as it exists today is in its complete, or even coherent, form, and that the characteristic fragmentation common to both is related to their age, derivation, and means of transmission. In support of this conclusion, I refer to the extensive discussions of "The Bitter Withy" (with references to "The Holy Well") by Anne Geddes Gilchrist and Lucy E. Broadwood in the Journal of the Folk Song Society, IV: 14, pp. 3845. Relying on theories of the ballad's source offered by Gerould, Miss Gilchrist and Miss Broadwood were able to draw a number of striking analogies between the ballad and four different medieval manuscripts, ranging from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century, and consisting of poems based on the legends of the Child Jesus found in the Gospels of Thomas and PseudoMatthew of the Apocryphal New Testament6 and in the Syriac text^.^ These manuscripts consist of a thirteenth-century translation from a French "Enfance," one each from the fourteenth century (British Museum MS Harleian 3954) and fifteenth century (British Museum MS Harleian 2399), which appear to be redactions of a precursor to the fourth, British Museum MS Addit. 31042. This last, in Northern dialect, is independent of the two Harleian MSS, which are in Midland dialect, but all three are believed to have a common ultimate s o u r ~ eIn . ~ the following discussion, I shall refer to the legend as preserved in the British MS Addit. 31042, known as "The Childhood of Jesus." T h e etymological puzzle of the word "jerdans" and its variations, which appear in versions of "The Bitter Withy," is a point of central significance in Miss Gilchrist's analysis. She first suggests that the word is related to the Montague Rhodes James, trans., T h e Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford: 1924).

IE. A. Wallis Budge, ed. & trans., T h e History of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the History of the Likeness of Christ (London: 1899). John Edwin Wells, A Manual o f the Writings in Middle English, 1050-1400 (New Haven: 1925), p. 325. 8 ~ . - Horstmann, ~ . ed., "Nachtrige zu den Legenden," Archiv f. d . Stud. d . n . Sfrachen, LXXIV (1885), 327-339.

"THE HOLY WELL"

17

water jugs known as "jordans," used by pilgrims throughout the Middle Ages to bring back holy water from Jerusalem, and she connects this term to an episode in the legend in which Jesus and his playmates hang their water-pots on sunbeams; Jesus' water-pot remains suspended, but the other children's jugs fall off, break, and are then miraculously mended by Jesus. Miss Gilchrist suggests that, if this is indeed the origin of the term in the ballad, it lost its meaning in the process of oral tradition and eventually came to be interpreted as "children," thereby relating logically to the "lords' and ladies' sons" in subsequent verses of the ballad; this theory would also account for the children themselves falling from the sunbeams in the course of the narrative. In considering the relationship between "The Holy Well" and "The Bitter Withy," she states, I cannot help thinking that the "Bitter Withy" ballad has originally opened with a water-drawing scene, hinted at in the "Holy Well," and that the pitcher opening dropped out when--or before-the "jerdans" became "rich young lords," for whom ball-play seemed a more suitable occupation than drawing water.1°

As far as this goes, it is a tempting suggestion, but I do not think it is the most direct connection that can be made between "The Bitter Withy" and the legend. In the first place, there is, in "The Childhood of Jesus," in addition to the incident of the water-pots, an actual incident of the children themselves falling from the sunbeams; so the connections made between the children and "jordans," "jerdans," etc., may be unnecessarily involved. Further, although there are four separate incidents of playing at or going to a well or stream, there is also one specific reference to a "balle" game; so it need not be supposed that the ball game in "The Bitter Withy" was not one of its original elements. T h e remark about the ball game as "a more suitable occupation" for "rich young lords" is interesting in another connection, however, which I shall take up later on. Miss Gilchrist's second hypothesis on the problem of the word "jerdans" seems to me to be potentially more cogent. This is that the word "jerdans" is a corruption of "Jew dons" or "Jew dons' sons," since, in the "Childhood" legend, Jesus' playmates are Jews or "Jewen children." If, for the sake of discussion, we consider that the corruption of the original word moved from "Jewen children" in the original legend to "Jew dons" in the vernacular during a time of strongly anti-Semitic sentiments, being then corrupted to "jerdans" in oral tradition, and finally becoming rationalized into the explicit "three fine children" of "The Holy Well,"ll then there exists the possibility lo JFFS, IV: 14, p. 42. =For evidence of alteration in oral tradition, note the many variations on "jolly jerdans" which appear in "The Bitter Withy" texts and the "chil-der-een" which appear in oral texts of "The Holy Well" (JFFS, V: 18 Dan., 19141, 2 4 ) . The suggested development described

18

WESTERN FOLKLORE

of developing further interesting connections between both ballads and the legends. With the exception of the withy slashes and Jesus' curse of the withy (which are generally considered to have their origins in Hereford folklore), every element in "The Bitter Withy" can be related directly to "The Childhood of Jesus." In a somewhat less direct, but nevertheless relevant way, it is my intention to propose an analogous connection between "The Holy Well" and "The Childhood of Jesus," bearing on the way in which these and other ballads of a similar apocryphal nature may have been introduced into the stream of popular transmission. T h e main body of "The Childhood" consists of incidents centering around Jesus and his playmates. In all, Jesus either performs a miracle or an act of destruction; the usual sequence of events is then that the children run complaining to their parents, or the town elders, who threaten the Holy Family with some catastrophe. Mary admonishes Jesus and pleads for him to undo whatever mischief lies at the base of the complaint-which, in several cases, consists of his causing- the death of one or all of the children-and he complies. There are three extremely interesting cases, however, in the legend, in which the pattern varies, and if my theory is correct, these would go a long way in explaining what most puzzled me when I first read the ballad (and what most sharply distinguishes it from "The Bitter Withy7')-that is, the position of Mary as avenger rather than the conventional medieval portrait of Mary as merciful intercessor. In lines 149-160 of "The Childhood," Jesus and the children are playing on a Sabbath morning by the water; Jesus makes two "dams" (they are "pools" in the gospels), a boy named Judas breaks them, and Jesus strikes him dead. T h e other children complain to "Sir Keuxe," the "aldiremanne" (11. 161-172), and the Jews threaten Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Mary and Joseph are afraid, Mary questions Jesus, and he recounts the incident to her; Mary then pleads with Jesus to raise Judas. In the verse that follows (11. 185-192), Jesus first tells Mary he will do as she says, but the stanza (four lines of which are, unfortunately, missing) ends with Jesus' predicting Judas' future treachery, and while it is not explicitly stated here what Judas' fate is, we can be reasonably confident that he was restored to life. A little later, when Jesus is in school, he annoys "Sir Kayface" (= Caiaphas) to such a point that the "maistir" strikes him, and, in turn, "Kayface thare his lyfe he leuede" (11. 193-255). Again, Mary intercedes, and Jesus apparently raises Kayface; but Jesus makes a prophesy similar to the previous one concerning Judas, predicting that Kayface will inflict pain here is also supported by a corruption found in American versions of "Sir Hugh, or the Jew's Daughter" (Child 155), where in several texts "the Jew's daughter" becomes the "jeweler's daughter."

"THE HOLY WELL"

19

on him in the future, and Mary, in effect, says it would be better to leave him dead (11. 256-267). Finally, there is another case of one of the children dying; in this instance, it is a child other than Jesus who is the cause, but the children falsely accuse Jesus to the elders; he causes the dead boy to rise, but only long enough to tell the truth, whereupon the unfortunate child becomes "Starke-dede alse he was are" (11. 521-544). Although there is some confusion in the next few lines as to which child is dead and which should be raised-the boy who originally met death or the one who caused the death-the distinction is not necessary for the point I believe is involved in these incidents. At any rate, the Jews complain, Mary intercedes, Jesus agrees to raise the child, but once again he paints for Mary a bitterly prophetic picture of the future, predicting the scene of the crucifixion and of the Jew-children, his playmates-becomeadults, reviling him. And once again, as in the case of Kayface, Mary's attitude is one of dismay and indignation (11. 573-584), and the implication is clear that it would suit her were these children to die before they should be able to crucify Jesus. These three episodes all have one thing in common: a prevision of three dramatically vital events in the future life of Christ: the betrayal, the trial and condemnation, and the crucifixion with its accompanying indignities. Further, two of them are explicitly distinct from all other episodes in "The Childhood" in this respect: In all other instances of complaint against Jesus, Mary directs her scolding to him; she is shown to be either merciful toward the complainants or perhaps prudent in her concern with saving her family from the immediate vengeance of the injured parties. But in these two unfragmented instances involving prediction of the future, Mary's attitude is undeniably vindictive. In the third instance, that involving "Judas," it is impossible, of course, to say with certainty what the missing four lines contained. I would suggest, however, the strong possibility that they may have been intended to indicate a similar occasion of Mary's wrath at Jesus' antagonists.12 Thus, in these three episodes of "The Childhood" the poet would have been In keeping with this suggestion that the fragmented "Judas" verse might reasonably be expected to include a n expression of Mary's wrath, a short indication of legendary background seems relevant here. In the Greek text of the Gospel of Thomas, 111, and in the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, XXVIII, the child who breaks the pools or dams is designated as the "son of Annas," the "scribe" or "priest." I t does not seem to me that too great a stretch of the imagination is necessary to consider that the poet of "The Childhood" or its precursor probably had this feature of the legend in mind, in fact, that he may not even have classed it as legendary. As an analogy to this suggestion, I would cite the delightful display of medieval credulity in "The Childhood" in relating "Barabas" to "Dismas" (the thief who was subsequently to die on Christ's right hand) as father and son. I t seems to me highly likely that the poet of "The Childhood" would have known of the tradition relating Annas, Caiaphas, and Judas, and if so, the connection between the Judas and "Kayface" incidents is somewhat more tenable. Perhaps it is not made explicit, due to imperfect copying from the original source, or because the poet could take for granted that it would be a familiar notion to his audience.

20

WESTERN FOLKLORE

able to express his view of Mary's attitude toward Jesus' most significant enemies: Judas, the Sadducees, and the general run of disbelievers. There are other, minor parallels between the legend and the ballad; for instance, Jesus' recounting to Mary the Judas incident can be compared to the repetitive pattern in "The Holy Well." At first, I took this to be a "filler" or mnemonic device, but I now think its presence must owe something to repetitions in "The Childhood" legend itslf. Another parallel is the social position of the children-they are always, in a temporal sense, Jesus' superiors, whereas in a divine sense they are not, which is made explicit in the poem at the time of one of the fatalities when Jesus says, "Why wenys thou, Osepe, thay felle so sare?

ffor thay wende alle to be my pere."

(11. 228-229)

This contrast of earthly and divine status seems to me to be strongly related to the contrast between the children's social status and the affirmation of Jesus as "king of heaven" in the ballad. Finally, there is the relationship of the "bright holy-day" and the "May morning" in "The Holy Well" to the Sabbath morn setting of the Judas episode (and other episodes in "The Childhood"). This also suggests a rather tenuous, but nevertheless provoking, parallel to one of the oldest of ballads, "Judas" (Child 23). First, consider the similarity of these 1ines:'z As it fell out one May morning,

And upon one bright holiday,

Our Saviour asked of his dear Mother

If he might go to play.

("The Holy Well")

Hit wes upon a Scere-thorsday that ure loverd aros;

Ful mild were the words he spec to Judas.

(" Judas")

Bot son the(r)-aftire appone anothere day, ("The Childhood of Jesus") Thane appone ane other daye,

("The Childhood of Jesus")

This is the type of phrase we commonly associate with "once upon a time," and, of course, "As it fell out" is a common opening for other popular and widely divergent ballads, such as "Dives and Lazarus" (Child 56), "Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard" (Child 81), and "John Dory" (Child 284). But in pursuing the matter of etymology once more, I would point out two possibilities in the "Judas" opening. "Scere (or Shere)-thorsday," according to Skeat, =Sandys' text of "The Holy Well;" 13th cent. Trinity College MS of "Judas" (Leach, The Ballad Book, p. 108); "The Childhood of Jesus," 11.280 and 472.

"THE HOLY WELL"

21

designates the Thursday in Holy Week. But the derivative "schere" also carries the meaning of "pure, bright, clear"; hence, the "Scere-thorsday" of "Judas" could easily be transformed into the "bright holy day" of "The Holy Well." There is also a similarity in tone between the opening stanzas of "The Holy Well" and "Judas," even though the objects of Jesus' address are radically different. Notice also the parallels between the endings of the two ballads in the attitudes of Peter and Mary, and Jesus' rebuke to both. I have been referring throughout this discussion to "The Holy Well" and "The Bitter Withy" as "ballads"; yet it seems plain that, like such ballads as "Judas," "Dives and Lazarus," "The Cherry Tree Carol" (Child 54), and "St. Stephen and Herod" (Child 22), they are in some ways different from the majority of those Child chose to include in his collection, and would more aptly be designated "carols." Their consistent inclusion in carol collections shows that they are associated by both scholars and the "folk" with specifically religious occasions; further, their subject matter indicates indebtedness to literary sources having a very particular kind of orientation. All of the compositions of this type I have seen suggest to me, in their close thematic affinities and frequent borrowings, that many of these pieces which are considered as entities in themselves were, at one time, parts of a longer work, such as "The Childhood of Jesus." This legend and those associated with it cover the period in Christ's life beginning with the Nativity and ending just prior to the Ministry; in many cases, the occasions for the stories are parallel to those in the canonical New Testament-such as the Flight into Egypt and the Confounding of the Elders-but their details can only come from the apocryphal legends that were so popular during the Middle Ages, and it is these details that express the dramatic core of the carols discovered in oral tradition. Note especially the selections contained in the section "0 Jesu Parvule" of Edith Rickert's c ~ l l e c t i o nIncluded .~~ here, with "The Holy Well" and "The Bitter Withy," is "The Cherry Tree Carol" l5 with its "bowing-of-the-tree" miracle and, in this version, a faint hint of the combined themes of the Annunciation and the "Righteous Joseph" carol,l6 both of which are also contained in "Joseph Being an Aged Man."17 In the Rickert version of "The Carnal and the Crane"18 there is the miracle of the cock crowing, a verse that traditionally belongs to "St. Stephen was a Clerk" (or "St. Stephen and Herod"); this verse is followed by an account of the Flight into Egypt, complete with the miracle of the wild beasts (which I have not seen separately in any other carol) and the miracle of the harvest. I n the "Ancient English Carols (London: 1914). l5Zbid., pp. 88-90. laDearmer, Vaughn Williams, and Shaw, eds., T h e Oxford Book of Carols (London: 1928), Carol No. 41. lT Rickert, o p . cit., p. 25. Zbid., pp. 91-98.

22

WESTERN FOLKLORE

religious ballads section of Sophie Jewett's collection of southern European songs,19 there is also a Provenqal carol, "The Flight Into Egypt," containing, in addition to the harvest and fruit tree miracles, the episode of the robbers encountered during the flight, which suggests a relationship to the encounter with "Barabas" and "Dismas" in "The Childhood" legend. All of these elements, in fact, are elements that appear in "The Childhood of Jesus," and just as they are combined differently in the various apocryphal carols, so do they exist in different combinations and variations in the three legends related to "The Childhood," as well as in other MSS of the same general period, notably the immensely popular "Cursor Mundi." According to the definitions of "carol" offered by R. L. GreeneZ0and R. H. R ~ b b i n s however, ,~~ such pieces as I have named above would not qualify strictly as carols. Both of these scholars are emphatic in defining a carol as a composition of fixed form, with particular insistence on its containing a burden or a chorus. I have some reservations concerning the rigidity of this definition, but if it is an accurate one, there still remains a question concerning carols such as the ones I have named, carols for which there is no early written evidence. My remarks on this point are confined particularly to "The Holy Well," but they may serve as a direction for study of similar religious ballads. There is a fairly consistent irregularity in the fifth and tenth stanzas of "The Holy 'CVell," particularly in those printed versions which have not been "improved," and in several oral versions. These are the repetitive stanzas in which the "lords' and ladies' sons" refuse Jesus' offer to play. In one version, apparently taken from a c ~ p y - b o o kthere , ~ ~ seems to have been an attempt to force the repetitive verse into a 4-3-4-3, ABCB pattern, but this results in an awkward six-line stanza (or a four and two, since this text is quite badly confused at this point) and several lines with extra stresses. In Sandys' version stanzas 5 and 10 take a 4-4-4-6 form, and stanzas 5, 6, and 10 have an ABCC rhyme. Two oral versions collected in H e r e f ~ r contain d ~ ~ the same peculiarity as the Sandys text. One of the difficulties here can, of course, be attributed to the apparent fact that the carol has no "original" tune; I have found no two exactly the same, and the JFFS editors have cited several that are generally associated with other ballads and children's songs. But beyond this, I am wondering if the difficulty may not be explained by some such process of evolution as this: 1) the text, having come from a more sophisticated source, was set to an available melody which provided for a chorus or burden; 2) the omission or compression of the chorus or burden occurred during such times as printed Folk Ballads of Southern Europe (New York and London: 1913), pp. 181-187.

English Carols (Oxford: 1935).

"Early English Christmas Carols (New York: 1961).

"William Howitt, T h e Rural Life of England (London: 1837 and 1840), pp. 468f.

JFFS, IV: 14, pp. 26-27.

" T h e Early

"THE HOLY WELL"

23

and oral versions interacted with one another,24yet the singers or copyists were reluctant to give up the incremental epithets in Stanzas 5 and 10; and 3) certain narrative elements were lost due to inaccurate copying or confusion of memory, and Stanza 6, which appears to me intrusive, was substituted in an attempt to create a pathetic, or possibly pietistic, effect. This is purely hypothetical, I admit, but there is a complexity built into this carol and others of its type that seems to admit of such a development. Not the least important question that must be asked involves the process by which the carol entered the stream of oral tradition. Miss Rickert connects these carols with performances of mystery plays as a means by which they were popularized. There is, however, another theory that I would propose, one which establishes an almost undeniable connection between the apocryphal ballads and the metrical legendary material of the period. John Edwin Wells describes the readings drawn from gospels and collections of commentaries and homilies in the Lectio portion of the Mass and on festival days with particular developments in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. He states that gradually "the legends pushed aside the Scriptures and the homilies in the Lectiones-though often only a part of the legend was read. T o meet these conditions, to satisfy enthusiasm for an individual story . . . isolated or special legend pieces were composed."25W. A. Pantin also observes that treatises in the vernacular intended for both the laity and unlearned priests were most often in verse; there was the obvious advantage in the greater ease of learning them by heart, but there was the additional value, equally important, of their greater potential in competing with profane literature, especially in the form of romances.26G. R. Owst indicates the ease with which treatises, homilies, tracts, and sermons were i n t e r ~ h a n g e dand , ~ ~ further, in his chapter on "Sermon-Making," shows most interestingly the steps involved in the "proper" construction of a sermon: The first step is to put forward a theme, or text from Scripture, "in which the message is virtually contained." . . . Next follows the ante-theme. Here there For an interesting description of this process, see R. L. Greene's "The Traditional Survival of Two Medieval Carols," in Journal of English Literary History, VII (Baltimore: 1940), 238. Greene sees a process analogous to this in the survival of "Sweet Jesus" and "Gloria Tibi, Domine," both of which appear in MS form in the fifteenth century. "Sweet Jesus" reappeared in a nineteenth-century penny-carol sheet; "Gloria Tibi, Domine" was recovered by Davis Gilbert in 1824 from a private collection of 1777; both carols had undergone formal change affecting what appeared to be a burden of chorus in their original forms. Greene lays emphasis on his conclusion that "in some parts of England the late medieval conditions of circulation, a combined manuscript and oral tradition, were continued into modern times," i.e., through the media of folk singers' memories and rendering, concurrent with garlands and penny press propagation of single-sheets. 25 Manual, p. 286 (italics Wells'). = % T h eEnglish Church in the 14th Century (Cambridge: 1955), p. 221. T h e poet of the "Cursor Mundi" also states that his intent is to compete with secular "romances, gestes and rimes." Preaching in Medieval England (Cambridge: 1926), p. 284.

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WESTERN FOLKLORE

is general agreement among the authorities that prayer and invocation are to be the keynote.. . .2s It seems apparent from the first lines of "The Childhood" quoted below that the scribe or poet of the legend is subscribing to a method identical to that of the sermon-maker, suggesting that the legend was either intended to be a sermon or at least was readily adaptable to that purpose: Here Bigynnys the Romance of the

childhode of Jhesu Criste bat clerkes

callys Ipokrephum.

Allemyghty god in Trynytee,

pat boughte mane on be Rode so dere,

Lene bame grace wele for to thee

pat lystenys me with mylde chere,

And for be lufe of Marie free

pat saues alle with hire prayere !

And 3e will herkene a stownde to me,

A grete solaunce now may ge here:

Of hym that moste es of vertu

A litille tale I wille gowe telle,

Of a childe that highte Jhesu,

And 3ee wille herkene and duelle.

(11. 1-12)

Further, when one considers the great popularity and familiarity of legends such as "The Childhood of Jesus," their didactic potential as moral and religious treatises, and their easily understood, entertaining style, it does not seem to me difficult to imagine a very great step in transposing them into popular song. T h e possibility of such a transposition would further be strengthened by the immediate availability of an existing tune, or tunes, that framed an existing secular text, or texts, which was objectionable to the Church and which could conceivably be replaced by a text of a more edifying nature-a process much like that involved in utilizing the form of profane metrical romances to support literature of a more devout and moral nature. T h e fragmenting of the legends themselves during the period of reading and preaching might account also for the fragmenting and intermingling of the texts of apocryphal carols. One such intermingling pertinent to "The Holy Well" is seen in those versions which open with a line from "The Seven virgin^,"^^ a carol which involves the same sort of prevision indicated in the three episodes I have cited from "The Childhood of Jesus." "Ibid., p. 316. Of course, sermon-makers were not restricted to canonical scripture themes; as Owst observes, "The anecdote, the fable, the entertaining legend and marvel provide us with our third great element from sermon-making of the past, in a word, everything that sprang from contact with the people and the popular taste." "Compare "The Holy Well" text in Howitt, Rural Life (reprinted in Leach, The Ballad Book), to "The Seven Virgins" text in Dearmer, et al., Oxford Carols.

"THE HOLY WELL"

25

This theory of sermon into song is particularly tempting when one considers the line in "The Holy Well," "As you shall after see." It may relate thematically to the prophesies in "The Childhood," but it may also indicate the prominence of a performer, such as a minstrel, who might well be expected to be present at almost any gathering, secular or religious, during this period. This kind of line is uncharacteristic of "folk" tradition, but evident in most of the highly developed "minstrelsy" ballads of the Robin Hood type. Pantin and Owst deal also with the matter of sermon and treatise themes. There are frequent allusions by Owst to two themes pertinent to this discussion of "The Holy Well": first, the criticism, and often threats, directed toward recalcitrant children and their parents. As an example of this he quotes: Chaste well youre childeryn, wyll thay ben yong,

Of werke, of dede, of speche, of tong:

For yf ye leten hym be to bold

Hit wol yow greve wen they ben ~lde.~O

T h e second relevant theme is criticism of the nobility:

.. . again,

if I speak to temporal lords, knights and squires. . . how lords oppress the poor, tyranically robbing them of their possessions in their unbridled greed, how they promote and maintain quarrels with their neighbours. . . .31 These two themes, of course, are plainly contained in both "The Bitter Withy" and "The Holy Well" and are made particularly emphatic by equating the irreverent children with the "lords' and ladies' sons," a critical attitude that might be characterized in terms of a synthesis of Karl Marx and an unsympathetic Dr. Spock. There is another attitude in "The Holy Well," not quite as explicit as the two mentioned above, but relevant, I think, to the unconventional picture the carol gives of Mary. Part of the motivation for her vindictiveness, of course, is love for her son, but notice that, in "The Bitter Withy," Mary assumes the attitude of the majority of episodes in "The Childhood," that is, she chastises Jesus, whereas in "The Holy Well" she takes a position analogous to the three episodes in which she condemns his antagonists. Further, if I am correct in relating the age of the carol to the age of the legend, then neither is very far removed from the period of the Crusades and the expulsion of the Jews. These observations suggest very strongly to me that at last part of the primary impulse of "The Holy Well" is grounded in the strongly anti-Semitic bias of the Middle Ages and may be intended to indicate the accepted limits beyond which Mary's compassion need not extend. T h e development between the period of the manuscripts, the mystery plays, From MS Worc. Cath. Libr. F. 19, £01. 166; quoted by Owst, p. 272.

"From MS Hari. 4894, £01. 180b ff.; quoted by Owst, p. 182.

26

WESTERN FOLKLORE

the Lectiones and sermons of the Middle Ages, and the outburst of broadsides in the eighteenth century is difficult to assess. But it does not seem to me probable that the eighteenth-century Gravesend broadside printer of "The Holy Well" would see commercial value in a ballad of apocryphal nature unless it were already, to some extent at least, known in tradition or through some continuity of circulation. Hyder Edward Rollins points out that the black letter ballads of the Tudor period were chiefly concerned with the ProtestantCatholic struggle and that "ballads dealing with the life and miracles of Christ were a staple production of the professional ballad-m0ngers."3~There is no clue to "The Holy Well" offered in Rollins' compilation of the Stationers' R e g i ~ t e rbut , ~ ~since not all broadside printers complied with regulations, this is no proof of the existence or non-existence of the ballad. Considering, however, the peculiar element of "The Holy Well"-Mary's vindictiveness-it strikes me that this ballad could very easily have been adapted to suit the ideological needs of the Tudor period; not only could it continue to carry the anti-Semitic bias, but there would be the bonus of the anti-Catholic prejudice as well; in this and succeeding religious struggles, Jesus' somewhat prim, pietistic rebuke of Mary could also conceivably appeal to the extreme self-righteous position taken by some factions of Puritanism as well as subscribers to the sentiments of anti-Marianism. I am in wholehearted agreement with Miss Gilchrist's statement made half a century ago that "any solution, at this date, can hardly be more than a guess at the truth, and the 'probabilities' remain ~nprovable."3~ But this does not prevent me from considering the hypothesis of origin and transmission I have proposed to have a certain degree of probability. I can readily conceive, in my mind's eye and ear, the stages at which the poet, the scribe, the priest, the minstrel, the folk, and the printed word entered into the development of "The Holy Well," and how each marked it. As a final word on its evolution, I am particularly struck by what seems to be a most appropriate instance of poetic justice: Since the early part of the twentieth century, collectors of "The Holy Well" seem to have printed or recorded it as a curiosity more than anything else. Yet two of the tunes to which it has been set in the past have found their way back into the church as hymn melodies,35indicating graphically the way in which separate strands characteristically combine and diverge in the folk song tradition. University of Washington 3a Old English Ballads, 1553-1625 (Cambridge: 1920), p. 384. = A n analytical index to the ballad entries (1557-1709) in the register o f the company of stationers of London (Chapel Hill: 1924). "JFFS, IV: 14, p. 45. %Erik Routley, T h e English Carol (London: 1958), p. 100. Routley states that the tune to which "The Holy Well" was set in Husk's Songs of the Nativity is that now used for Hymn No. 277 in Hymns Ancient and Modern (rev. ed., 1950) and that an alternate ballad tune (known as "Butler") appears in Songs of Praise (London: 1933) as No. 378.