So, except for the parrot, the plot is essentially the same as Adams’ version. But if you drill down to the lyrics you’ll see how different they are in some ways.
Appalachian communities were almost fully isolated from one another until the Civil War, and a hundred miles might as well have been a thousand for most of the common folks living thereabouts in those days. We saw in the last post that this is one of the oldest ballads extant in the English language, so we can be almost certain that variants of it went west with the folks who followed and in every emigrant wave thereafter. The differences between these two Appalachian variants then are remarkable, but not surprising. Still, such subtleties matter in the way one hears the song – and, perhaps in the deeper message.
Until he gained her low consent…Ritchie’s version feels older, though I have no direct evidence. It’s longer than Adams’, 17 stanzas to 12, though that alone proves nothing. Still, more is made in Ritchie’s version of the heroine’s class and wealth (“her father’s only heir”) and the villain has a noble title, “Sir John”, instead of just a name and description as a “proper tall young man” as in Adams’. This perhaps suggests a more immediate connection to an old world provenance. And the lyrics overall seem more ‘decorative’ and less direct, though we can’t know for sure if that indicates relative age. Either way it seems clear that, though it sits geographically to the west, this variant is not derived from the one that Adams sings. There are just too many differences.Adams’ version uses euphemism and suggestion to describe their sexual liaison, as discussed in my first post, while Ritchie’s seems to leave it out altogether. In Ritchie’s, the knight woos May Colvin ‘until he gainsher low consent to mount and ride away.’ I’m at a loss to explain the phrase “until he gained her low consent”, so I suppose that leaves open the possibility that she agreed to ride off with him after a sexual encounter. But it just doesn’t strike me that way – my gut tells me the meaning of the phrase is something more like ‘she went with him for the wrong reasons’. If anyone has insight, please comment!Whether they consummate their relationship or not, as in Adams’ version May Colvin rides away willingly with her suitor, and not empty-handed. She takes her parents’ gold and horses clearly of her own free will. Nothing else here suggests that May Colvin has been charmed by magic as in many of the old world variants. Goldstein’s notes for Ritchie’s recording suggest that such is the case for most examples collected in the early 20th century, American or European. (The liner notes were written in 1961.)
The sentient parrot though persists on both continents. But before we get to that strange ending, there is one other difference in these two Appalachian versions that feels significant. In Ritchie’s version, May Colvin kills Sir John by pushing him in to the water with her “tender little arms.” She is strong of spirit, but not of body as Polly is in Adams’ version where she “manfully” throws William to his watery grave. How do we know then that Ritchie’s May Colvin is strong of spirit? In this variant, and not Adams’, we see a strand common in others wherein the false knight begs for her help to be saved. He promises to take her home if she rescues him. But she has none of it, no matter how pitiful his pleas – she tells him the bed he has now is as cold as what he’d meant to give her – and she leaves him to drown. Strong of spirit, indeed! So, both young women are heroines that save themselves, but Ritchie’s May Colvin plays the traditionally weak English maiden while Adams’Polly appears much more like a strong American farm girl than a dainty young gentle lady. It would seem then that our heroine’s physical strength is a variable that a might tweak to make a point, set a tone, or identify a social norm or ideal.I’ll buy you a cage of beaten gold with spokes of ivory…So, May Colvin kills the man that would have killed her, then rides one horse back and leads the other carrying her parents’ gold. At daybreak she makes it home and finds herself interrogated by her bird, and therein enters an ultimately successful negotiation to keep him from ‘singing’. (It’s only implied in Ritchie’s version, but there are variants wherein the parrot goes on to lie to May’s father on her behalf, after the bribe of course.)
Then up spoke that little parrot,said, “May Colvin, where have you been?And what have you done with false Sir Johnthat went with you riding?”“Oh, hold your tongue my pretty parrot,and tell no tales on me,and I’ll buy you a cage of beaten goldwith spokes of ivory.”We’ve seen birds before in the blog, most notably in “” (and again on that ballad.) In that ballad, the bird is witness to a man’s murder at the hands of a jealous lady, though that bird’s silence can’t be bought. And indeed, many traditional and Child ballads include birds, and often specifically parrots, in their narrative. Of course, since that’s true, it turns out that folklorists and ballad scholars have been trying to get those birds to sing for awhile now! Some posit that they say little or nothing in the narratives, and others see worlds of meaning in their voices.I instinctively fall on the side of the latter. As , “Trusting that parrots have not fallen into the ballads by mere coincidence, I see no reason toview them simply as the live ancestors of our plastic yard flamingos; indeed, I believe there is persuasive evidence that a ballad parrot provides symbolic depth in addition to its use as a communicative device.” To what will no doubt be your great relief, I’m not going to outline all that here; instead I’ll pick the interpretation that comes closest to what I’ve felt in my amateur, untrained mind as I considered the parrot in this ballad over the last several days. And it connects to that piece of art by Fareha Zeba with which I started today’s post.My intuition told me in listening to Ritchie’s and other versions of the ballad that the parrot was somehow a reflection of May Colvin, perhaps her conscience. Certainly the bird in “Young Hunting” refuses to let the woman off the hook for her foul crime, even with the bribe, whereas May Colvin’s bird in this group of variants is more than willing to let the mortal sin of murder slide for a shiny new cage. That may be toopsychologically modern a read for a medieval ballad. Perhaps more simply it functions as a signal to the listener concerning how one is supposed to feel about the woman’s crime morally; ‘hey, if the parrot’s cool with it, you should be too!’ But I wasn’t satisfied with either of those as a full explanation, though I see some truth in both.When, in looking for eye-candy for this post, I on painting, I knew I’d found the visual representation of my intuitive read on the parrot. But how to put it in to words? I was feeling that, despite the celebration of the heroine’s wiles and her spiritual or physical strength, there is still an ultimately stifling view of womanhood embedded in the narrative. Really, the young woman is the one in the cage. It’s a pretty cage – lavish even – but boy was she willing to fly the coop for the promise of something fun and exciting; for the promise of freedom! She managed to get out of a bad spot when her new-found freedom turned potentially lethal,
“What does this ending mean in terms of the ballad action? As far as simple communication goes, it means that the would-be victim is safely back in her parents’ house without having to worry about punishment for having run off, having endangered her life and virtue, and having potentially been lost to her father’s royal family. But why couldn’t the potential tattletale be a younger sister or a servant? – they abound in other ballads. What does a parrot offer to this scene that a nosy sister would not? And why wouldn’t an earnest bribe offer something a parrot would like – such as great food or even a companion parrot?
For one thing, the parrot (potentially suggestive of sexuality) being saved from a predator who was “a thief I could not see” is certainly parallel to the heroine’s situation. The endangered king’s daughter is now back in her castle; the parrot is in a cage (and has the promise of an even better one). Both are single, potentially vulnerable actors protected from predatory intrusion by the proverbial idea… that “safety is better than freedom.” Clearly the cage (its gold and ivory of much greater value to humans than to parrots) is far more than a convenient bribe: it is a metaphor for a human condition within a culturally constructed set of values.”