The Dæmon-Lover / The Poems of William Laidlaw

The Demon Lover: Engraving by Jane Lydbury

Taken from a miniature Folio Society book from 1994, Sir Patrick Spens and other ballads, probably intended as a free gift for members. The book contains four border ballads, with engravings by Jane Lydbury. 

One was "The Demon Lover", basically in the same form as published in the fifth edition (1812) of Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (Vol 2, pp. 427-432). The Folio Society text has some minor spelling differences and improvements  (I like "won" (=inhabit) for "win" in Stanza 15). But here I'm quoting the 1812 text. 

THE DÆMON-LOVER.

"O where have you been, my long, long love,

    "This long seven years and mair?"

"O I'm come to seek my former vows

    "Ye granted me before."

"O hold your tongue of your former vows,

    "For they will breed sad strife;

"O hold your tongue of your former vows,

    "For I am become a wife."

He turned him right and round about,

    And the tear blinded his e'e;

"I wad never hae trodden on Irish ground,

    "If it had not been for thee.

"I might hae had a king's daughter,

    "Far, far beyond the sea;

"I might have had a king's daughter,

   "Had it not been for love o' thee."

"If ye might have had a king's daughter,

    "Yer sel ye had to blame;

"Ye might have taken the king's daughter,

   "For ye kend that I was nane."

"O faulse are the vows of womankind,

    "But fair is their faulse bodie;

"I never wad hae trodden on Irish ground,

    "Had it not been for love o' thee."

"If I was to leave my husband dear,

    "And my two babes also,

"O what have you to take me to,

    "If with you I should go?"

"I hae seven ships upon the sea,

    "The eighth brought me to land;

"With four-and-twenty bold mariners,

    "And music on every hand."

She has taken up her two little babes,

    Kiss'd them baith cheek and chin;

"O fair ye weel, my ain two babes,

    "For I'll never see you again."

She set her foot upon the ship,

    No mariners could she behold;

But the sails were o' the taffetie,

    And the masts o' the beaten gold.

She had not sail'd a league, a league,

    A league but barely three,

When dismal grew his countenance,

    And drumlie grew his e'e.

The masts, that were like the beaten gold,

    Bent not on the heaving seas;

But the sails, that were o' the taffetie,

    Fill'd not in the east land breeze.

They had not sail'd a league, a league,

    A league but barely three,

Until she espied his cloven foot,

    And she wept right bitterlie.

"O hold your tongue of your weeping," says he,

    "Of your weeping now let me be;

"I will shew you how the lilies grow

    "On the banks of Italy."

"O what hills are yon, yon pleasant hills,
    "That the sun shines sweetly on?"
"O yon are the hills of heaven," he said,
    "Where you will never win."

"O whaten a mountain is yon," she said,
    "All so dreary wi' frost and snow?'
"O yon is the mountain of hell," he cried,
    "Where you and I will go."

And aye when she turn'd her round about,

    Aye taller he seem'd for to be;

Until that the tops o' that gallant ship

    Nae taller were than he.

The clouds grew dark, and the wind grew loud,

     And the levin filled her e'e;

And waesome wail'd the snow-white sprites

    Upon the gurlie sea.

He strack the tap-mast wi' his hand,
   The fore-mast wi' his knee;
And he brake that gallant ship in twain,
   And sank her in the sea.

  *

The lover may be a demon, but he also acts quite convincingly as a certain kind of man: seeking to guilt his love into complying with his desires, and then punishing her when she does. But does he punish her for having married, or for breaking her marriage vows, or maybe because she humiliates him? Or maybe because she's a credulous fool, which can be the worst offence of all to one who credits nothing. 

Or, maybe he believed, too? For in that opening, the pair do seem very much in love. And when on the boat he turns "drumlie" it's perhaps with a disappointment like hers, his lilies on the banks of Italy a desperate last promise, his comment about hell "Where you and I will go" referring not to her crime (whichever it may be) but to their failing relationship.

All these possibilities exist within the stark impersonality of the ballad, but the thoughts come second. What's first apprehended is the ballad as it is, needing no commentary, obvious yet inexplicable.  

Scott's headnote says: 

This ballad, which contains some verses of merit, was taken down from recitation by Mr William Laidlaw, tenant in Traquair-know. It contains a legend, which, in various shapes, is current in Scotland. I remember to have heard a ballad, in which a fiend is introduced paying his addresses to a beautiful maiden; but disconcerted by the holy herbs which she wore in her bosom, makes the following lines the burden of his courtship:

Gin ye wish to be layman mine,

Lay aside the St Johns wort and the vervain. 

The heroine of the following tale was unfortunately without any similar protection.

This ballad, under various names and forms, is Child 243. The oldest printed version, perhaps c. 1693-1695, is a broadside ballad in the Pepys collection, "A Warning for Married Women" (EBBA 33773): there the lady is Jane Reynolds of Plymouth, who plighted her troth to a sailor (James Harris) before marrying a carpenter. She has three children, but is tempted away by the revenant spirit-lover.  After the lady leaves "the English shore" and "was never seen no more", the rest of the broadside ballad is concerned with the carpenter's lamentation and suicide.

The lover boasts that he might have married a king's daughter, and that his ship has sails of finest silk and a mast of shining gold: apart from the general situation, those are about the only details that also show up in the border ballad collected by Laidlaw. 

Laidlaw wrote to Scott about hearing the ballad on 3rd January, 1803 (the letter is quoted by Child). It was recited to him by Walter Grieve. "I remember but very few verses", he says. He quoted the first half of Stanza 4 (with differences), then added "The description of her setting her child on the nurse's knee and bidding him farewell is waesome, but I have forgot it" (cf. St. 9), then quoted a substantially different Stanza 10, then Stanza 11, Stanza 13, a somewhat different Stanza 14, and Stanza 15. 

Child knew from a note in Chambers' Life of Scott (1871) that Laidlaw himself had definitely composed Stanzas 6, 12, 17 and 18 (which, accordingly, he and many other editors omit). I should think Laidlaw (and/or Scott) may have composed more than that, though there's seemingly independent testimony for e.g. the opening two stanzas, the missing mariners of St 10 and the topmast of St 19. 

In the Mintrelsy ballad the lady's "husband dear" has no part to play (nor does the nurse mentioned in Laidlaw's letter). The effect is transformative, turning the ballad into an intense two-hander.

However it was put together, I find this 1812 version of "The Dæmon-Lover" a very satisfactorily complete poem; ample but not overfreighted or overstated; a ballad for reading that still feels like it might be sung. (Is it just me, or is there a trace of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner about it?)

*

William Laidlaw was the son of a farmer and a farmer himself. With James Hogg he helped Scott collect materials for the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.  In 1817, after a couple of farming projects failed, he became Scott's steward at Abbotsford. He was also one of the amanuenses when Scott was ill, writing out much of The Bride of Lammermoor,  A Legend of Montrose, and Ivanhoe. 

Biographical note on William Laidlaw (1780 - 1845):

https://electricscotland.com/history/nation/laidlaw.htm

Laidlaw was not an out-and-out poet like James Hogg, who had been his father's shepherd, but the above note does mention three of his poems. 

The best known is "Lucy's Flittin'", published by Hogg in 1810. As I've got this far down the road, I might as well paste together a complete edition of The Poems of William Laidlaw. 

Lucy's Flittin'.

1   'TWAS when the wan leaf frae the birk tree was fa'in,

     And Martinmas dowie had wound up the year,

     That Lucy row'd up her wee kist wi' her a' in't,

     And left her auld maister and neebours sae dear:

     For Lucy had served in the glen a' the simmer;

     She cam' there afore the flower bloomed on the pea;

     An orphan was she, and they had been kind till her,

     Sure that was the thing brocht the tear to her e'e.

2   She gaed by the stable where Jamie was stannin';

     Richt sair was his kind heart the flittin' to see;

     "Fare ye weel, Lucy!" quo' Jamie, and ran in,

     'The gatherin' tears trickling fast frae his e'e.

     As down the burn-side she gaed slow wi' the flittin',

     "Fare ye weel, Lucy!" was ilka bird's sang;

     She heard the craw sayin't, high on the tree sittin',

     And robin was chirpin't the brown leaves amang.

3   "Oh, what is't that puts my puir heart in a flutter?

     And what gars the tears come sae fast to my e'e?

     If I wasna ettled to be ony better,

     Then what gars me wish ony better to be?

     I'm just like a lammie that loses its mither;

     Nae mither or friend the puir lammie can see;

     I fear I hae tint my puir heart a'thegither,

     Nae wonder the tears fa' sae fast frae my e'e.

4   "Wi' the rest o' my claes I hae rowed up the ribbon,

     The bonnie blue ribbon that Jamie gae me;

     Yestreen, when he ga'e me't, and saw I was sabbin',

     I'll never forget the wae blink o' his e'e.

     Though now he said naething but 'Fare ye weel, Lucy!'

     It made me I neither could speak, hear, nor see;

     He could say nae mair but just 'Fare ye weel, Lucy!'

     Yet that I will mind till the day that I dee."

5   The lamb likes the gowan wi' dew when its droukit,

     The hare likes the brake and the braird on the lea;

     But Lucy likes Jamie - she turn'd and she lookit,

     She thocht the dear place she wad never mair see.

     Ah, weel may young Jamie gang dowie and cheerless!

     And weel may he greet on the bank o' the burn!

     For bonnie sweet Lucy, sae gentle and peerless,

     Lies cauld in her grave, and will never return!

[Poem source.]

Her bonnie black e'e.

On the banks o' the burn while I pensively wander,

⁠The mavis sings sweetly, unheeded by me;

I think on my lassie, her gentle mild nature,

⁠I think on the smile o' her bonnie black e'e.

When heavy the rain fa's, and loud loud the win' blaws,

⁠An' simmer's gay cleedin' drives fast frae the tree;

I heedna the win' nor the rain when I think on

⁠The kind lovely smile o' my lassie's black e'e.

When swift as the hawk, in the stormy November,

⁠The cauld norlan' win' ca's the drift owre the lea;

Though bidin' its blast on the side o' the mountain,

⁠I think on the smile o' her bonnie black e'e.

When braw at a weddin' I see the fine lasses,

⁠Tho' a' neat an' bonnie, they're naething to me;

I sigh an' sit dowie, regardless what passes,

⁠When I miss the smile o' her bonnie black e'e.

When thin twinklin' sternies announce the grey gloamin',

⁠When a' round the ingle's sae cheerie to see;

Then music delightfu', saft on the heart stealin',

⁠Minds me o' the smile o' her bonnie black e'e.

When jokin', an' laughin', the lave they are merry,

⁠Tho' absent me heart like the lave I maun be;

Sometimes I laugh wi' them, but oft I turn dowie,

⁠An' think on the smile o' my lassie's black e'e.

Her lovely fair form frae my mind's awa' never,

⁠She's dearer than a' this hale warld to me;

An' this is my wish, May I leave it, if ever

⁠She row on another her love-beaming e'e.

[Poem source.]

Alake for the Lassie.

Alake for the lassie! she's no right at a',

That lo'es a dear laddie, an' he far awa';

But the lassie has muckle mair cause to complain,

That lo'es a dear lad, when she's no lo'ed again.

The fair was just comin', my heart it grew fain

To see my dear laddie, to see him again;

My heart it grew fain, an' lap light at the thought

Of milkin' the ewes my dear Jamie wad bught.

The bonnie grey morn scarce had open'd her e'e,

When we set to the gate a' wi' nae little glee;

I was blythe, but my mind oft misga'e me right sair,

For I hadna seen Jamie for five months an' mair.

I' the hirin' right soon my dear Jamie I saw,

I saw nae ane like him, sae bonnie an' braw;

I watch'd an' baid near him, his motion to see,

In hopes aye to catch a kind glance o' his e'e.

He never wad see me in ony ae place:

At length I gaed up an' just smiled in his face,

I wonder aye yet my heart brackna in twa,—

He just said, "How are ye?" and steppit awa'.

My neeber lads strave to entice me awa';

They roos'd me, an' hecht me ilk thing that was braw;

But I hatit them a', an' I hatit the fair,

For Jamie's behaviour had wounded me sair.

His heart was sae leal, and his manners sae kind!

He's someway gane wrang, he may alter his mind;

An' sud he do sae, he's be welcome to me;

I'm sure I can never like ony but he.

[Poem source.]

William Laidlaw (1780-1845), artist and date unknown.

[Image Source: https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/6757 . In the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. Copyright: Creative Commons.]

Sir Walter Scott's novels: a brief guide