Part IX

Here is what Clinton Heylin has to say about the Price text. [a long quote!]

"Establishing the revenant nature of the former lover adds an important dimension to an otherwise mundane tale of temptation and guilt. What it does not afford is an explanation of the supernatural powers with which our 'Dæmon Lover' is endowed on his return. The final verse of the Greig-Buchan text confirms that it is the spirit of 'James Harris' that causes the ship to sink (unlike in the familiar broadside texts); that the storm is invoked by the revenant; and that the white lillies on the banks of Italy were intended to contrast with the white fishes/lillies at the bottom of the sea. Though Buchan's text does not depict the advent of the storm, Robert Scott's North Eastern text does, as do both of William Motherwell's variants, his Minstrelsy text bearing the more authentic tone:

They had not sailed a mile awa,
Never a mile but three,
When dark, dark, grew his eerie looks,
And raging grew the sea.2

Motherwell's nine-verse text appeared in the 1827 edition of his Minstrelsy, Ancient & Modern. An American text, collected from New England by the same indefatigible collector who had previously located the 'George Allis' fragment, suggests that Motherwell's text drew upon an enduring tradition. This eight-verse 'condensation', transcribed in October 1945, despite narrative holes, is an excellent text, another rare rendition to have survived in America without the debilitating input of De Marsan. It also adds an important piece to our jigsaw - the notion of the lady in the song becoming increasingly aware that her former lover is not all that he seems. In the Motherwell-Price text/s encroaching dread consumes the song long before the destruction of the ship.

Thankfully not only did one Edith Ballenger Price, from Newport, Rhode Island, recall that fine verse about "his eerie looks" but she also provided the only American text to date to contain an all-important reference to "his cloven foot." The image of the lady catching sight of 'her lover's' cloven foot is one of the most dramatic snapshots in all of popular balladry. Ms. Price says that she learnt the song from a lady whose family came from England, the only real suggestion that the 'dæmonic' version might have once had a foothold in English tradition. Comparing Ms. Price's rendition with the one in Motherwell's Minstrelsy affords an invaluable insight into how the strings of tradition can preserve the supernatural. The similarities are striking: [here follows a comparison verse by verse]
......
Perhaps one is doing Ms. Price a disservice referring to her rendition as a condensation. Her eight verses accord remarkably well with Motherwell's nine. Perhaps, as the English and American broadsides elected to start the tale in act three, some long-forgotten Scottish wag decided to take Mr. Graves at his word and begin proceedings in "the last act of the play." As it is, Motherwell's reciter and Ms. Price both start and end on the same verse and inbetween agree on all the main particulars (the absence of mariners, the banks of Italy, the cloven foot, the raging sea and a fine 'lingering' quartet that builds to its climax four miles/leagues from shore).
Indeed, the two texts - recorded a hundred and twenty five years and three thousand miles apart - correspond so well that it begs the question: could Motherwell's version, which was after all a published text, have spawned its own rivulet of tradition? I think not. Setting aside the fact that Motherwell's work remained largely unknown outside antiquarian circles (and indeed the text in question Motherwell only apologetically included as a preface for what he deemed the more authoritative version, t'wit that published by Scott), the imagery in Price's rendition is, if anything, more convincing than Motherwell's. In particular, the penultimate verse, slightly Anglicized in Motherwell, rings with an authentic Scottish brogue in Price:

They hadna' sailed a league, a league,
A league but only three,
When dark and fearsome grow his looks
And gurly grow the sea.5

I presume that our New England lady was not in the habit of using the word 'gurly' despite the fact that, when imbued with some vocal gravel, it acquires a fine onomatopoeic quality. That her recollection had an authentic basis can be confirmed by reference to page 297 of George Kinloch's manuscript:

Till grim, grim grew his countenance,
And gurly grew the sea.6

Ms. Price's version also bypasses the strange offer made by the revenant, "mariners to wait upon us" - subsequently contradicted by the lady's protestation, "woe be to the dim mariners/ that nowhere can I see!" In Ms. Price's rendition, "She set her foot unto the ship/ no mariners did she behold." Her second verse, though it finds no real parallel in Motherwell, replicates - almost word-for-word - verse nine of Scott. The absence of mariners on this spectral ship is a lovely touch, one whose disappearance (sic) from tradition is much to be mourned."