"O wha is this has don this deid, This ill deid don to me, To send me out this time o' the yeir, 5 "Mak haste, mak haste, my mirry men all, Our guid schip sails the morne." "O say na sae1, my master deir, For I fear a deadlie storme. "Late, late yestreen2 I saw the new moone NOTES AND QUESTIONS Historical Note. The old folk-ballads, of which this one is an excellent example, have all come down to us from the far-off past. Such ballads are not the work of any one author, but, like the stories of King Arthur, were preserved mainly in the memories of men. Some of them were sung or recited to the music of the harp or lute by minstrels who wandered from village to village, and from castle to castle, entertaining their hearers in return for food and lodging; or by the bards and minstrels who were maintained by kings and nobles to entertain them and to celebrate their deeds and honors. Often these ballads were made by the people, not by professional singers, and were expressions of the folk love of adventure. Indeed, the best definition of a popular, or folk, ballad is "a tale telling itself in song." This means that it always tells a story; that it has no known author, being composed by several people or by a community and then handed down orally, without ever being put into writing, from generation to generation; and finally, that it is sung, not recited. In this way such folk-ballads as "Sir Patrick Spens" were transmitted for generations, in different versions, before they were written down and became a part of what we call literature. When the invention of the printing press made it possible to put these old ballads into permanent form, they were collected from the recitations of old men and women who knew them, and printed. Thus they have become a precious literary possession, telling us something of the life, the history, and the standards, superstitions, and beliefs of distant times, and thrilling us with their stirring stories. The beauty of these old ballads lies in the stories they tell, and in their directness and simplicity. They are almost wholly without literary ornament; their language is the language of the people, not of the king's court. Many modern poets have written stories in verse which are also called ballads. Some of these imitate the old ballads not only in form and simple, unadorned language, but also in the use of old-fashioned words and expressions. Other modern ballads are simple narratives in verseshort stories dealing with stirring subjects, with battle, adventure, etc. But while the true old ballad directs the attention to the story only, the modern ballads often introduce descriptions of the characters. Discussion. 1. Why did the king choose Sir Patrick Spens? 2. What did Sir Patrick say when he had read the king's letter? 3. What signs of a storm had been noticed? 4. Point out all the ways in which the ballad tells that the ship was wrecked. 5. How have the old ballads come down to us? 6. Have you read any other old ballad? 7. Tell how the old ballads came into being, and name a characteristic of them. 8. What do the old ballads tell us of the life of the early people? 9. How does a modern ballad differ from a folk, or popular, ballad? 10. You will enjoy hearing phonograph records of present-day ballads, such as Kipling's "FuzzyWuzzy," "Gypsy Trail," "Rolling Down to Rio," and "On the Road to Mandalay." Class Reading. Bring to class and read "The Wreck of the Hesperus," Longfellow. Library Reading. Another version of "Sir Patrick Spens" (in The Ballad Book, Bates); Some British Ballads, illustrated by Rackham; Selected ballads from English Popular Ballads, Hart; "The Loss of the White Ship," Blaisdell (in Stories from English History); "Steering Without a Compass," Kobbé (in Sea-Stories Retold from St. Nicholas). Suggestions for Theme Topics. 1. A comparison of the story of Sir Patrick Spens in this ballad with the version in The Ballad Book, Bates. 2. A comparison of Sir Patrick Spens, the captain, with the skipper of the Hesperus, as to courage and skill. 3. A captain of a modern lake or ocean steamer, his duties and his qualifications. THE SKELETON IN ARMOR HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW "Speak! speak! thou fearful guest! 5 Wrapt not in Eastern balms, |