"Sir Aldingar" ( Eng. Sir Aldingar ; Child 59 , Roud 3969 [1] ) is an English - Scottish folk ballad . Known in two versions, from English and Scottish sources. The first was contained in a 17th-century manuscript collection, rescued and published by Thomas Pursey under the title Monuments of Old English Poetry in 1765. The manuscript was fragmented, and Percy independently supplemented the existing text. Later, in 1867-1868, Hales and Furnivell published an original version, without copyright inserts. The second, Scottish version was recorded by an unknown old lady, Williamson Barnet. This version is much shorter and lacks many plot details; in 1803, Walter Scott [2] published it in his collection “ Songs of the Scottish Border ”.
Ignatius Mikhailovich Ivanovsky translated the ballad into Russian [2] .
Story
Sir Aldingar seeks the Queen's love, but she resolutely refuses him. Offended, he decides to denigrate her and arranges so that the king finds a vagabond in the bed of his wife. An enraged spouse intends to send the queen to the fire, and the beggar to the noose. The queen speaks of a dream she had had the day before, as a beast carried her jewelry away, but a small falcon ( merlion - the English name for derbnik ) overtook him and killed him. The king allows her to find a defender of her honor, so that a judicial duel determines the correctness of her or Sir Aldingar. A knight the size of a five-year-old boy responds to the call. Despite his size, he chopped off Oldingar's legs knee-deep. Feeling the approach of death, Sir Aldingar repents, and the kinglet forgives him [2] .
Plots where a noble lady or queen are falsely convicted of infidelity are widespread in European and world folklore, and in various chronicles there is documentary evidence of such cases. This ballad, although it contains names, is not associated with specific historical persons and events. Child mentions a Scandinavian ballad with a parallel plot, Ravengaard og Memering , in which Gunhild of Denmark appears as the heroine. This story appears in the Spanish romance Olivia , in the chanson de geste Doon l'Alemanz , in the legend of Genevieve Brabant , as well as in the English romances Sir Triamour , and , the last of which is based on the old French romance with the same name [2] [3] [4] .
Notes
- ↑ Vaughan Williams Memorial Library
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 English and Scottish Folk Ballad: Compilation / Comp. L. M. Arinstein. - M: Rainbow, 1988 .-- 512 p. - ISBN 5-05-001852-8 .
- ↑ Sir Aldingar [Child 59] . The Traditional Ballad Index. An annotated source to folk song from the English-speaking world . Robert B. Waltz. Date of treatment January 4, 2017.
- ↑ Francis James Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads , v 2, Dover Publications, New York 1965