Origin: Chylde Owlett (Child #291)

Subject: can any one help????
From:
Date: 28 Jan 03 - 04:17 PM

can any one help me out with regards to the ballad 'Chld Owlett' ? where it's from etc.I'd love to have some more knowledge...!thanks

Subject: RE: can any one help????
From: Hollowfox
Date: 28 Jan 03 - 06:53 PM

Any hints you can give us will help a lot. Any lyrics you remember, who you heard perform it (live or recorded), etc.

Subject: RE: can any one help????
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Jan 03 - 07:00 PM

Child ballad 291, included in the Buchan's collection of 'Ballads from the North of Scotland' Here is a page with a sound file of John Erskine singing it.

Subject: RE: can any one help????
From: Sorcha
Date: 28 Jan 03 - 07:05 PM

And the words and MIDI file are in the DT....spelled Chylde.

Subject: RE: can any one help????
From: michaelr
Date: 28 Jan 03 - 07:05 PM

Digitrad lyrics are here. The song does not appear to have been discussed in the forum, so I'm sorry I can't point you to any information.


Cheers,
Michael

Subject: RE: can any one help????
From: nutty
Date: 28 Jan 03 - 07:06 PM

You could well get more info on Bruce Olson's site .... here

Roots of Folk

Subject: RE: can any one help????
From: michaelr
Date: 28 Jan 03 - 07:15 PM

You may also be interested in this thread.

Subject: RE: can any one help???? Chylde Owlett
From: Hollowfox
Date: 28 Jan 03 - 07:32 PM

Since it's a Child ballad, you should visit your library (public, or failing that, your nearest college library) and look it up in Francis JAmes Child's collection: English and Scottish Popular Ballads. For origins, history, etc. you probably won't get any better source.

Subject: RE: can any one help???? Chylde Owlett
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 28 Jan 03 - 08:19 PM

The DT set was taken from a Ewan MacColl record, and is much the same as the sole text in Child (quoted from Peter Buchan's Ancient Songs and Ballads of the North of Scotland, 1828), for which no tune was recorded; though it is a little longer and some of it (in particular the eccentrically-spelled title) is "Scottified" to the point of affectation; something which MacColl did do from time to time, perhaps over-compensating for the fact that his natural accent wasn't Scottish at all.

Child himself was dubious about the ballad's authenticity, though he did note in his Additions and Corrections (English and Scottish Popular Ballads, vol.V p.305) the following:

"Mr MacMath has called my attention to a ballad on the story of Child Owlet by William Bennet in The Dumphries Monthly Magazine, II, 402, 1826. This piece, called 'Young Edward', "is founded upon a tradition still current in the district in which Morton Castle is situated". Its quality is that of an old magazine ballad."

Apparently, then, there was at least a local story current in Dumphries during the 19th century on which ballad and poem were based. Apart from that, most of the little there is to say about this ballad was said in a previous discussion here, Help: chylde owlet. What we don't know is where MacColl got his text and tune; he gave no source information on his record. Until we know where they came from, I for one will continue to doubt that they are genuine. Maddy Prior has recorded it, using MacColl's tune and a text collated from his and from Buchan's; offhand I can't tell if John Faulkner (see above) is using MacColl's tune or not!

Subject: RE: can any one help???? Chylde Owlett
From: Sorcha
Date: 29 Jan 03 - 10:12 AM

e mail sent

Subject: RE: can any one help???? Chylde Owlett
From: Hollowfox
Date: 29 Jan 03 - 10:55 AM

Thanks, Sorcha.

Subject: RE: can any one help???? Chylde Owlett
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 29 Jan 03 - 11:59 AM

For what it's worth, Morton Castle is in Nithsdale (Dumfries and Galloway), and was built in the late 14th(?) century on the site of an earlier fortified dwelling. In the later 15th century a branch of the Douglas Family (later Earls of Morton) acquired it. It has been uninhabited since the early 18th century, and is now a ruin. Loch Morton, by which it stands, is apparently a man-made loch. One of the tourist websites mentions a phantom coach and horses, but I haven't found much else; and tourist sites will always add a ghost if they can.

The history of the name Edgar has the following to say; no source seems to be identified for the text, which at least reads as if taken from a 19th century source:

"There are place-names in its vicinity which show that the possessor of the barony had the right of pit and gallows. At some little distance on the hill east of the castle stood an aged thorn, which was uprooted many years ago by a hurricane of wind, but which was known as Judgment Thorn, and the tradition of the country still points out the spot where it grew; while close to the farm-steading of Morton Mains are Gallows Flat and Hangingshaw, where doom of judgment was carried into execution."

I have corrected a number of textual errors, likely the result of pasting in an OCR scan without checking it. Of course, that may all be completely irrelevant. A great deal of our spare time in those days was spent in murdering each other on the slightest pretext.

Nathan Rose of Harvard has done some work on the ballad, and presented a paper entitled "A literary history of 'Child Owlet' (Child 291)" at the 26th International Ballad Conference (Swansea, 1996); I don't remember if it has been published.

I see that John Faulkner's recording also appears on a CD titled 20 Famous Irish Ballads. I should imagine that he is rather embarrassed about that.

A search for instances of "Chylde" Owlet returned more than enough, though with no useful information; mostly crediting the lyric to Peggy Seeger(!) Most or all examples of the text available on the web have clearly been copied directly from the DT, and are of no additional use.