"Fause Foodrage" (from the English. - "Despicable Food"; Child 89 , Roud 57 [1] ) - a folk ballad of Scottish origin. Francis James Child in his collection cites three versions of it, from Tytler's manuscripts (he was the first to see the light in 1802 in Walter Scott 's collection “ Songs of the Scottish Border ”), Motherwell and Harris, as well as a melody in the appendix [2] .
Story
Three kings (their names, according to different options - Easter / Eastmure king, Wester / Westmure king and Honor / Onorie / Luve ) take care of a noble lady, and the third seeks his love. On the wedding day, one of the rivals kills the groom and takes his place. In the first version, further events develop prosaically and uncharacteristically for the ballad: after four months, an uprising of the nobility takes place, and a nobleman named Despicable Foods kills the king. He spares the widow and is also ready to spare the unborn child if he turns out to be a girl. Further developments are described in more detail in the first version of the text. The Queen manages to escape before the birth of her son and bring him to light in a pig stall. She is found by a woman (in the first version - the wife of a certain Wise William), and the widow convinces her to exchange babies, because she has a newborn daughter. When the boy grows up, William reveals to him that he is the rightful heir. A young man kills Foodridge and marries the daughter of his guardian [2] .
The plot of the ballad bears a certain resemblance to the next according to Child’s numbering, “ Jellon Grame ” (Child 90). The first version of her text contains a stanza similar to that contained in the poem by “Hardeknute” from the second volume of Percy's collection (he considered it authentic). For this reason, Scott doubts its authenticity, but Child believes that the performer Mrs. Brown could have unknowingly included this verse in the text, since “Hardeknud” was well known at that time [3] [2] .
Notes
- ↑ Vaughan Williams Memorial Library
- ↑ 1 2 3 Francis James Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads , volume 2
- ↑ Fause Foodrage [Child 89] . The Traditional Ballad Index. An annotated source to folk song from the English-speaking world . Robert B. Waltz. Date of treatment January 7, 2017.