Two swords in one scabbard

[resonant]

If I weren't a lazy slob who hates to do research, I'd be slashing some antique English ballads.

I have a new folk CD (John Wesley Harding's "Trad Arr Jones," which is decent but not fabulous, if you're curious) with a version of "Little Musgrave" that I've never heard, and it's slashy as hell. All the versions of it are slashy as hell, actually.

You know the ballad? Little Musgrave meets Lord Barnard's wife at church, and she invites him to come and sleep with her while her husband's away. Lord Barnard comes home, catches them in bed together, challenges Musgrave to a swordfight, kills him, taunts his wife, gets an answer he doesn't like, kills the wife. In the oldest versions he then waxes poetic about how beautiful they are, and in some cases kills himself.



(I'm working from five versions of the ballad -- the three collected by Childe in my ballad book, the one on Harding's CD, and the Fairport Convention one. The names vary quite a bit, but it's all the same story.)

The first thing that sets off my slashdar is calling the young man Little Musgrave. (I'm assuming that's a physical descriptor; for all I know it might just mean he's from the lesser family of Musgraves or something. Hate research. Told you.) You don't often get physical descriptions of men in ballads unless they're being described by women who are in love with them (For Annachie Gordon, oh he's bonny and he's braw / He'd entice any woman that ever him saw), so right there it's telling me to look at the guy like a lover.

Then there's the confrontation. Lord Barnard finds the two of them in bed -- in one version he actually pulls back the coverlet to look at them -- and he says,

And how do you like my bed, Musgrave,
and how do you like my sheet?
And how do you like my lady wife
who lies in your arms asleep?

'Tis well I like your bed, he said,
'tis well I like your sheet,
But best I like your lady wife
who lies in my arms asleep.

Get up, get up, Lord Barnard cried,
Get up as quick as you can.
It'll never be said in fair England
I slew a naked man.

That's when Musgrave points out that he's unarmed, and Barnard tells him that he has two swords in one scabbard, for some reason, and he'll let Musgrave take one of them. They fight; Musgrave wounds Barnard; Barnard kills Musgrave. Then he goes back to his wife and mocks her:

And how do you like his cheek, lady,
and how do you like his chin?
And how do you like his fair body
now there's no life within?

His wife (depending on the version) says "He's still lovelier than you in all your finery" or "I like him better than all your kith and kin" or "I'll pray for his soul, but I wouldn't pray for yours." So he kills her. (In some versions he cuts her breasts off first.)

Then he turns on his servants and says, "How could you let me do this?"

For I have slaine the bravest sir knight
that ever rode on steed;
so have I done the fairest lady
that ever did woman's deed.

He calls for them to be buried in one grave (with his wife on top because she was of noble birth), or else he calls for a three-person-sized grave and kills himself:

Then he put the heel of the sword to the floor
and the point unto his breast,
Saying, Was there ever three lovers
more easily laid at rest?

Go dig my grave, go dig my grave,
go dig it both wide and deep,
and place my fair lady at my side
and Young Lagrue at my feet.

So since I'm a hopeless mix of the arcane and the prurient, I'm half hoping that some English-lit scholar will read this and be moved to write some Barnard/(Barnard)/Musgrave slash. If that doesn't qualify for RareSlash, I don't know what would.

Comments

[kitsune13.livejournal.com]

DUDE. Try "Lambkin," or "Edward" (slashy incest!) or "The Twa Brothers" (likewise) or "Willie Macintosh" (Willie + Huntly=4EVA) or "Bewick and Graham" or "The Twa Sisters" (femmeslashy incest!)!

Why yes, I'm a folklore geek.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Willie + Huntly=4EVA

Bloodthirsty, aincha?

Why yes, I'm a folklore geek.

I confess I thought there'd be more folklore geeks out there who'd be eager to take the challenge. Oh well.