The Child Ballads: Sir Patrick Spens

»The English and Scottish Popular
Ballads (The Child Ballads) Vol. II«

Songs That Made History: The English and Scottish Ballads by Francis James Child had been originally published in eight volumes in 1860 and reprinted in multiple editions since. Sir Patrick Spens has been one of the most popular ballads, recently recorded by Danish group Basco and unearthed from Peter Bellamy's Maritime England Suite.

"Sir Patrick Spens" is one of the most popular of the Child Ballads (No. 58) (Roud 41), and is of Scottish origin. It is a maritime ballad about a disaster at sea.

Background

Basco @ FROG

www.bascoband.com

Sir Patrick Spens remains one of the most anthologized of British popular ballads, partly because it exemplifies the traditional ballad form. The strength of this ballad, its emotional force, lies in its unadorned narrative which progresses rapidly to a tragic end that has been fore-shadowed almost from the beginning. It was first published in eleven stanzas in 1765 in Bishop Thomas Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, based on "two MS. copies transmitted from Scotland".

Plot

The story as told in the ballad has multiple versions, but they all follow the same basic plot. The King of Scotland has called for the greatest sailor in the land to command a ship for a royal errand. The name "Sir Patrick Spens" is mentioned by a courtier, and the king despatches a letter. Sir Patrick is dismayed at being commanded to put to sea in the dead of winter, clearly realising this voyage could well be his last.

Versions differ somewhat at this point. Some indicate that a storm sank the ship in the initial crossing, thus ending the ballad at this point, while many have Sir Patrick safely reaching Norway. In Norway tension arises between the Norwegian lords and the Scots, who are accused of being a financial burden on the king. Sir Patrick, taking offence, leaves the following day. Nearly all versions, whether they have the wreck on the outward voyage or the return, relate the bad omen of seeing "the new mune late yestreen, with the auld mune in her airms", and modern science agrees the tides would be at maximum force at that time. The winter storms have the best of the great sailor, sending him and the Scottish lords to the bottom of the sea.

Version

Francis James Child collected some eighteen versions of Sir Patrick Spens. There is no one definitive version of more validity than any other, because the song continues in oral tradition and it may be interpreted in both the singing and the transcription. This is one version:

"Sir Patrick Spens"

The king sits in Dunfermline toune
drinking the blude reid wine,
"O whar can I get skeely skipper,
To sail this ship o' mine?"

Up and spak an eldern knicht,
Sat at the kings richt kne:
"Sir Patrick Spens is the best sailor
That sails upon the se."

The king has written a braid letter,
And signed it wi his hand,
And sent it to Sir Patrick Spens,
Was walking on the strand.

To Noroway! to Noroway!
to Noroway oer the faem!
The king's daughter to Noroway
'Tis thou maun bring her hame.

The first line that Sir Patrick red,
A loud lauch lauched he;
The next line that Sir Patrick red,
A teir blinded his ee.

"O wha is this has don this deid,
This ill deid don to me,
To send me out this time o' yeir,
To sail upon the se!

"Mak haste, mak haste, my mirry men,
Our guid ship sails the morne":
"O say na sae, my master deir,
I feir a deadlie storme.

"Yestreen I saw the new moone,
Wi the auld moone in her arme,
And I feir, I feir, my master deir,
That we will cum to harme."

O loth, o loth,
The Scots lords were
To weet their cork-heild schoone;
Bot lang owre a' the play wer playd,
Thair hats they swam aboone.

O lang, lang may the ladies sit,
Wi' their fans into their hand
Or ere they see Sir Patrick Spens
Come sailing to the strand.

O lang, lang may the ladies stand,
Wi thair gold kems in their hair,
Waiting for thair ain deir lords,
For they'll se thame na mair.

Haf owre, haf owre to Aberdour,
Tis fiftie fathom deip,
And thair lies guid Sir Patrick Spens,
The Scots lords at his feit.

Analysis

»The tune of Sir Patrick Spens is basically that which appears in Christie's Traditional Ballad Airs, a collection well worth working through for anyone after some good tunes.«

Nic Jones
@ FROG

www.nicjones.net

»It was when I was about seven or eight that my mother first showed me Sir Patrick Spens, and it was many years before I understood that these things are supposed to be sung. The first tune I heard was from Ewan MacColl and subsequently others from Fairport and the great and marvellously inventive Nic Jones, who dug out what I think is the best tune to carry that song, and which I sing here. Nic recorded it on his first album which lies, along with 80% of his recorded output and a very large chunk of the work of other '70s musicians in a record company's maw. Or should that be mausoleum? Either way, it's sad that such spring heeled guitar playing and singing should lie unheard.«

Martin Carthy
@ FROG

»There are many versions of this well known Scottish ballad, some much longer than others, combining as it does in true tabloid fashion two tales relating to an original fated sea journey and the later voyage, which was sent to bring to Scotland the young “Maid of Norway”, to be betrothed to a son of the Scottish king. It is a bit “economical” with the true facts but makes a good story. However no surprise that a group of Scots Lords out for a party are accused of drinking their hosts dry!«

www.hectorgil
christ.co.uk

The story itself is simple and yet universal in its theme: the courageous knight dutifully obeys the command of his king despite the knowledge that he will almost certainly be going to his death. In the two stanza exchange between Spens and the old sailor, Mark Strand and Eavan Boland have noted "the immediacy, music, and fatalism of the ballad..."

William Bowman Piper identifies a pattern of contrasts between authority, represented by the anonymous king, and nobility, as displayed by Patrick Spens. The references to the women awaiting the arrival of their men describe an experience common to any dangerous enterprise in peacetime or in war, and as old as the Bible.

Historicity

Peter Bellamy
@ FROG

William H. Matchett considers the ballad probably to be fiction.

The events of the ballad are similar to, and may chronicle, an actual event:

• In 1290 the bringing home of the Scottish heir to the throne, the seven-year-old Margaret, Maid of Norway was being conveyed across the North Sea to Scotland, when she took sick and died. Her mother, Margaret was married to Eric II of Norway in the summer of 1281. She was conducted to the wedding in Bergen by a number of knights and nobles, who were drowned on the return voyage.
• The name "Patrick Spens" has no historical record, and, like many of the heroes of such ballads, is probably an invention, although some historians believe that he was actually Sir Patrick Vans of Barnbarroch. Vans was the original ambassador sent to negotiate the marriage between James VI and Anne of Denmark, and accompanied James VI when he set out during tempestuous weather in October 1589 to bring home his bride, who had been driven back to the coast of Norway by storms. It was Thomas Finlayson Henderson’s theory that the ballad was most likely based on this voyage.

The opening lines refer to a king who is located in Dunfermline where historically there was a royal residence, Malcolm's Tower.

Earl's Knowle on Papa Stronsay is traditionally thought to be the final resting place of Sir Patrick Spens. The history relating to the burial of Sir Patrick Spens on Earl’s Knowle on Papa Stronsay is related by William Edmonstoune Aytoun (b. Edinburgh 21 June 1813, d. 4 August 1865), Sheriff and Lord Admiral of Orkney and Shetland. It was after his retirement from this position that he edited a collection of Scottish poetry in which the first poem is Sir Patrick Spens. In his foreword to the poem Aytoun, he writes:

“It is true that the name of Sir Patrick Spens is not mentioned in history; but I am able to state that tradition has preserved it. In the little island of Papa Stronsay, one of the Orcadian group, lying over against Norway, there is a large grave or tumulus, which has been known to the inhabitants, from time immemorial, as ‘The grave of Sir Patrick Spens’. The Scottish ballads were not early current in Orkney, a Scandinavian country; so it is very unlikely that the poem could have originated the name. The people know nothing beyond the traditional appellation of the spot, and they have no legend to tell. Spens is a Scottish, not a Scandinavian name. Is it, then, a forced conjecture, that the shipwreck took place off the iron bound coast of the northern islands, which did not then belong to the Crown of Scotland? ‘Half ower to Aberdour’ signifies nothing more than that the vessel went down half-way between Norway and the port of embarkation.”

Influence

• Samuel Taylor Coleridge opens "Dejection: An Ode" quoting the old sailor's apprehension of the weather having seen "... the new Moon, With the old Moon in her arms".
• In The Old Seaport David Macbeth Moir cites Spens as an heroic seaman, mirrored in the men of Culross.
• In the 1903 Edinburgh: Picturesque Notes, Robert Louis Stevenson quotes the verse "O lang, lang may the ladies sit, Wi' their fans into their hand..." comparing them to the sailors' wives of Leith and the fisherwomen of Cockenzie "...crowding to the tail of the harbor with a shawl about their ears..." looking for the return of the boats.
• Herbert Howells: "Sir Patrick Spens", Op. 23 (1917)
• In Euphoria by author Lily King the lead characters Nell and Bankston, fictionalized versions of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson recite part of the poem, alternating the opening lines, during a tense night encamped with a primitive tribe in New Guinea.

Recordings

• Buffy Sainte Marie recorded this song on her album Little wheel spin and spin, released in 1966.
• Ewan MacColl has recorded the song numerous times.
• Fairport Convention included this song on their 1970 album Full House while an earlier but previously unreleased version with Sandy Denny is included as a 'bonus track' in the reissue of Liege & Lief.
• Nic Jones recorded this song on his 1970 album, Ballads and Songs.
• Jackie Leven recorded this song on his 1997 album Fairytales For Hard Men.
• Martin Carthy recorded this song on his 1998 album Signs of Life.
• John Roberts recorded this song on his 2003 album Sea Fever, as well as a song derived from fellow Child Ballad The Sweet Trinity.
• June Tabor recorded this song in 2003 for her album An Echo of Hooves.
• James Yorkston recorded this song on his 2005 mini-album, Hoopoe.
• Robin Williamson recorded this song on his 2006 album, The Iron Stone.
• Kris Drever recorded this song on his 2006 mini-album Black Water titled as "Patrick Spence".
• Martin Simpson recorded this song on his 2009 album True Stories.
• Anais Mitchell recorded this and other Child Ballads with fellow folk musician Jefferson Hamer on the album Child Ballads.
• John Langstaff recorded this song on his 1964 album Nottamun Town.
• Michiel Schrey recorded a version of this ballad, and it was used as a soundtrack to the game Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag.

 Listen to Sir Patrick Spens from:
       Peter Bellamy, Basco, Martin Carthy, Kris Drever, Jim Malcolm, Jim Malcolm (Live),
       Anais Mitchell & Jefferson Hamer, Martin Simpson, June Tabor

 Watch Sir Patrick Spens from:
       Basco, Martin Carthy, Conor Doherty, Fairport Convention, Jesse Ferguson, Nic Jones,
       Ewan MacColl, Anais Mitchell & Jefferson Hamer, Matthew Ord, Martin Simpson

Date: October 2018.

Photo Credits: (1) 'The English and Scottish Popular Ballads (The Child Ballads)', (2) Basco, (3) Nic Jones, (4) Peter Bellamy, (5) Martin Carthy, (6) Hector Gilchrist (unknown/website); (7) 'Sir Patrick Spens' (by ABC Notations).

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