"Clerk Colvill" or "Clerk Colven" (Roud 147, Child 42) otherwise known as "The Mermaid", is a traditional English-language folk ballad. [1] [2] This ballad was one of 25 traditional works included in Ballads Weird and Wonderful (1912), where it was illustrated by Vernon Hill.
Clerk Colvill, ignoring the advice of his lady or his mother, goes to a body of water, where a mermaid seduces him. His head starts to ache, and the mermaid tells him he will die of it. He goes home and dies.
In some variants, she offers that he may go to sea with her instead of dying, at the end, and he refuses.
Francis James Child regarded the ballad as incomplete, and that Clerk Colvill is not an innocent victim of jealousy, but has clearly had a relationship with the mermaid, so that she inflicts death as the penalty for his infidelity, a motif found in many German and Scandinavian tales. [3]
The detail of the mermaid washing a sark or silk garment may descend from Scandinavian originals of an elf-woman offering a shirt to the man she is enamored with as a sign of betrothal (see §Similar ballads below). [4]
Similar ballads exist in the Nordic countries. The ballad is called "Elveskud" (DgF 47) in Danish, "Olav Liljekrans" (NMB 36) in Norwegian, "Herr Olof och älvorna" (SMB 29) in Swedish, "Ólavur Riddararós og álvamoy" (CCF 154) in Faroese and "Kvæði af Ólafi liljurós" (IFkv 1) in Icelandic. In these ballads the role of the mermaid is taken by an elf woman. [5] [6]
Also, the "Johnny Collins" version of the Child ballad "Lady Alice" (No. 85) is in fact identifiable with "Clerk Colvill" which tells the same story. [7] [lower-alpha 1]
A maiden "washing marble-white stone" in "Johnny Collins" seems nonsensical, but the mermaid is "washing silk upon a stane" in "Clerk Colvill" which makes all the sense, and the close similarity of these details is offered as compelling evidence for equating the two ballads. [8] [10] This mermaid-laundered clothing is paralleled in the Faroese version by the clean shirt. [11] A piece of garment offered as gift is a form or seduction, or more precisely an invitation to become betrothed, and this is in Scottish tradition preserved in ballads, as well as being attested in the Scandinavian ballad Elveskud (DgF 47), where Sir Olav (Olaf) is offered a shirt in such a manner. [4]
An elf is a type of humanoid supernatural being in Germanic folklore. Elves appear especially in North Germanic mythology, being mentioned in the Icelandic Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda.
"Scarborough Fair" is a traditional English ballad. The song lists a number of impossible tasks given to a former lover who lives in Scarborough, North Yorkshire. The "Scarborough/Whittingham Fair" variant was most common in Yorkshire and Northumbria, where it was sung to various melodies, often using Dorian mode, with refrains resembling "parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme" and "Then she'll be a true love of mine." It appears in Traditional Tunes by Frank Kidson published in 1891, who claims to have collected it from Whitby.
The Child Ballads are 305 traditional ballads from England and Scotland, and their American variants, anthologized by Francis James Child during the second half of the 19th century. Their lyrics and Child's studies of them were published as The English and Scottish Popular Ballads. The tunes of most of the ballads were collected and published by Bertrand Harris Bronson in and around the 1960s.
Selkies are mythological creatures that can shapeshift between seal and human forms by removing or putting on their seal skin. They feature prominently in the oral traditions and mythology of various cultures, especially those of Celtic and Norse origin. The term “selkie” derives from the Scots word for “seal”, and is also spelled as silkies, sylkies, or selchies. Selkies are sometimes referred to as selkie folk, meaning 'seal folk'. Selkies are mainly associated with the Northern Isles of Scotland, where they are said to live as seals in the sea but shed their skin to become human on land.
"Matty Groves", also known as "Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard" or "Little Musgrave", is a ballad probably originating in Northern England that describes an adulterous tryst between a young man and a noblewoman that is ended when the woman's husband discovers and kills them. It is listed as Child ballad number 81 and number 52 in the Roud Folk Song Index. This song exists in many textual variants and has several variant names. The song dates to at least 1613, and under the title Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard is one of the Child ballads collected by 19th-century American scholar Francis James Child.
"The Elfin Knight" is a traditional Scottish folk ballad of which there are many versions, all dealing with supernatural occurrences, and the commission to perform impossible tasks. The ballad has been collected in different parts of England, Scotland, Ireland, the US, and Canada. As is the case with most traditional folk songs, there have been countless completely different versions recorded of the same ballad. The first broadside version was printed before 1674, and the roots of the song may be considerably older.
Willie O Winsbury is a traditional English-language folk ballad. The song, of which there are many variants, is a traditional Scottish ballad that dates from at least 1775, and is known under several other names, including "Johnnie Barbour" and "Lord Thomas of Winesberry".
"Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight" is the English common name representative of a very large class of European ballads.
"The Two Sisters" is a traditional murder ballad, dating at least as far back as the mid 17th century. The song recounts the tale of a girl drowned by her jealous sister. At least 21 English variants exist under several names, including "Minnorie" or "Binnorie", "The Cruel Sister", "The Wind and Rain", "Dreadful Wind and Rain", "The Bonny Swans" and the "Bonnie Bows of London". The ballad was collected by renowned folklorist Francis J. Child as Child Ballad 10 and is also listed in the Roud Folk Song Index. Whilst the song is thought to originate somewhere around England or Scotland, extremely similar songs have been found throughout Europe, particularly in Scandinavia.
"The Maid Freed from the Gallows" is one of many titles of a centuries-old folk song about a condemned maiden pleading for someone to buy her freedom from the executioner. Other variants and/or titles include "The Gallows Pole", "The Gallis Pole", "Hangman", "The Prickle-Holly Bush", "The Golden Ball", and "Hold Up Your Hand, Old Joshua She Cried." In the collection of ballads compiled by Francis James Child in the late 19th century, it is indexed as Child Ballad number 95; 11 variants, some fragmentary, are indexed as 95A to 95K. The Roud Folk Song Index identifies it as number 144.
"Kemp Owyne" or "Kempion" is a traditional English-language folk ballad.
"Hind Etin" is a folk ballad existing in several variants.
Fair Annie is a traditional folk ballad, existing in several variants.
The Heir of Linne is a traditional folk song existing in several variants.
"King John and the Bishop" is an English folk-song dating back at least to the 16th century. It is catalogued in Child Ballads as number 45 and Roud Folk Song Index 302.
"Töres döttrar i Wänge" or "Per Tyrssons döttrar i Vänge" is a medieval Swedish ballad, upon which Ingmar Bergman's 1960 film The Virgin Spring is partly based. The ballad type is found throughout Scandinavia, with variants in Danish, Faroese, Icelandic, and Norwegian. The Child Ballad "Babylon" is analogous to the Scandinavian songs.
Thomas o Yonderdale is an English-language folk song, catalogued as Child ballad number 253 and Roud number 3890. Child assessed that this "apocryphal" ballad seemed like a recent fabrication from a pastiche of other ballads.
"Elveskud" or "Elverskud" is the Danish, and most widely used, name for one of the most popular ballads in Scandinavia.
Colvill may refer to:
The Gwerz an Aotrou Nann is a gwerz in the Barzaz Breiz, previously entitled La Korik and Le Seigneur Nann et la Korrigan.
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