Ballads: "False Foudrage"
The Child Ballads: discuss. Are they songs? Stories? Jacobean tragedies? Poems? Horror/SF/fantasy for a pre-cinema society? As far as I'm concerned the answer is yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes, and YEAH for anybody who wants to sing me one. Francis James Child (who was a Harvard professor and not the Englishman most people think him) did the world a great service in assembling English and Scottish Popular Ballads. Mind you, he wasn't faultless. (There are people who will tell you that any song not in Child does not count as a ballad. Pah.) He did leave out some good ballads for no clear reason, and he did include some rubbish (why do we have to have the hilariously stupid "The Queen of Scotland" and umpty-ump Robin Hood ballads, and not "Polly Vaughn" and "Long A-Growing"?). But he had way more hits than misses. He created anthologies that brought hundreds of ballads (305, to be exact) to popular attention, and gave incredibly detailed scholarship on related ballads in practically every other European language.
You've got your supernatural ballads, and your non-overtly-supernatural ballads of human drama. There's a wide debatable land between the two--the supernatural is often accepted matter-of-factly in ballad stories where, say, the foully murdered hero turns right up again as a ghost, or one of the warrior protagonists has a wife who can see people at the other end of the country by looking through a gold ring.
This is one of the latter sort, and one of the best of a great bunch. I first heard it sung by Brian Peters, back in, oh, 2001 or earlier. As he puts it in the notes to a recent recording, it has "lust, jealousy, murder, revenge, codewords, and surrogate parenthood." Not to mention, pregnancy in difficult circumstances (oh boy, is there). I love the ballad for a lot of reasons.
I'd better get this out of the way to start: "False Foudrage" is a character's name. (A psychopath's name, in fact. How could he help being a villain, with a name like that?) Every time this song is mentioned, there is a fannish debate as to what the hell "Foudrage", "Foodrage", "Footrage", or what-have-you means or is related to. None of these discussions get us any forwarder, because everyone is reluctant to say, "I don't know", so people usually end by making vile puns and leave it at that.
Under the cut: Brian Peters' version of the lyrics, the best take on the song I've heard. Here are notes on assembling the song from different versions). Here are the two complete renditions and one fragment as they appear in Child.
Now the Eastmure king and the Westmure king
And the king of Honorie
They've courted of a fair young maid
All from the North Countrie
King Eastmure's courted her for gold
King Westmure for her fee
But the king of Honor's won her heart
His bride all for to be
King Eastmure swore a dreadful oath
All on their wedding day
And he has sent for False Foudrage
The king all for to slain
And at the dead hour of the night
When all were fast a-bed
False Foudrage so soft crept in
Stood at king Honor's head
And his Lady she awakened
All from her drowsy dream
She saw her bride-bed swim with blood
And her good lord lay slain
O spare my life, False Foudrage
Until I lighter be
Spare me that I may bear the child
King Honor's left with me
Well, if it be a lass - he said
Well nursed shall she be
But if it be a little boy
Then hangéd he will be
For I'll not spare him for his tender age
Nor yet for his noble kin
But on the day that he is born
He'll mount the gallows-pin
Then four and twenty valiant knights
Were set the Queen for to guard
And four stood at her bower-door
To keep both watch and ward
Ah, but when her time drew near its end
She's given them beer and wine
And she has made them all as drunk
As any wildwood swine
And she's slipped out of the window
She's wandered out and in
And in the very swines' stye
The Queen brought forth a son
Then they've cast lots all in the town
For who should go to the Queen
And the lot it fell on Wise William
And he's sent his wife for him
This favour, Wise William's wife
This favour grant to me
Change your lass for my little boy
That King Honor's left with me
And you will learn my gay goshawk
Well how to breast a steed
And I will learn your turtle-dove
As well to write and read
And you will learn my gay goshawk
To wield the bow and brand
And I will learn your turtle-dove
To lay gold all with her hand
When we meet at the market-place
We must no more avow
Than - Madam, how does my gay goshawk?
Lady, how does my dove?
Now, when days were gone and years come on
Wise William he thought long
And he has ta'en King Honor's son
And they've a-hunting gone
Do you see that high high castle
With walls and towers so fair?
Well, if every man had back his own
Of it you'd be the heir
For if you should slain False Foudrage
You'd set the wrong to right
For he has slain your father
E'er you ever saw the light
And if you should slain False Foudrage
There's no man would you blame
For he keeps your mother prisoner
And she dare not take you home
So he's set his bow all to his breast
He's climbed the castle's wall
And there he's met with False Foudrage
A-walkin' in the hall
Oh, what ails thee, my bonny boy?
What ails thee at me?
For I did never do you wrong
Your face I ne'er did see
O hold your tongue, False Foudrage
For I know you and who you be
And he has pierced him through the heart
And set his mother free
And he has given to Wise William
The best part of this land
And he has wed his turtle-dove
With a ring from off his hand
You've got your supernatural ballads, and your non-overtly-supernatural ballads of human drama. There's a wide debatable land between the two--the supernatural is often accepted matter-of-factly in ballad stories where, say, the foully murdered hero turns right up again as a ghost, or one of the warrior protagonists has a wife who can see people at the other end of the country by looking through a gold ring.
This is one of the latter sort, and one of the best of a great bunch. I first heard it sung by Brian Peters, back in, oh, 2001 or earlier. As he puts it in the notes to a recent recording, it has "lust, jealousy, murder, revenge, codewords, and surrogate parenthood." Not to mention, pregnancy in difficult circumstances (oh boy, is there). I love the ballad for a lot of reasons.
I'd better get this out of the way to start: "False Foudrage" is a character's name. (A psychopath's name, in fact. How could he help being a villain, with a name like that?) Every time this song is mentioned, there is a fannish debate as to what the hell "Foudrage", "Foodrage", "Footrage", or what-have-you means or is related to. None of these discussions get us any forwarder, because everyone is reluctant to say, "I don't know", so people usually end by making vile puns and leave it at that.
Under the cut: Brian Peters' version of the lyrics, the best take on the song I've heard. Here are notes on assembling the song from different versions). Here are the two complete renditions and one fragment as they appear in Child.
Now the Eastmure king and the Westmure king
And the king of Honorie
They've courted of a fair young maid
All from the North Countrie
King Eastmure's courted her for gold
King Westmure for her fee
But the king of Honor's won her heart
His bride all for to be
King Eastmure swore a dreadful oath
All on their wedding day
And he has sent for False Foudrage
The king all for to slain
And at the dead hour of the night
When all were fast a-bed
False Foudrage so soft crept in
Stood at king Honor's head
And his Lady she awakened
All from her drowsy dream
She saw her bride-bed swim with blood
And her good lord lay slain
O spare my life, False Foudrage
Until I lighter be
Spare me that I may bear the child
King Honor's left with me
Well, if it be a lass - he said
Well nursed shall she be
But if it be a little boy
Then hangéd he will be
For I'll not spare him for his tender age
Nor yet for his noble kin
But on the day that he is born
He'll mount the gallows-pin
Then four and twenty valiant knights
Were set the Queen for to guard
And four stood at her bower-door
To keep both watch and ward
Ah, but when her time drew near its end
She's given them beer and wine
And she has made them all as drunk
As any wildwood swine
And she's slipped out of the window
She's wandered out and in
And in the very swines' stye
The Queen brought forth a son
Then they've cast lots all in the town
For who should go to the Queen
And the lot it fell on Wise William
And he's sent his wife for him
This favour, Wise William's wife
This favour grant to me
Change your lass for my little boy
That King Honor's left with me
And you will learn my gay goshawk
Well how to breast a steed
And I will learn your turtle-dove
As well to write and read
And you will learn my gay goshawk
To wield the bow and brand
And I will learn your turtle-dove
To lay gold all with her hand
When we meet at the market-place
We must no more avow
Than - Madam, how does my gay goshawk?
Lady, how does my dove?
Now, when days were gone and years come on
Wise William he thought long
And he has ta'en King Honor's son
And they've a-hunting gone
Do you see that high high castle
With walls and towers so fair?
Well, if every man had back his own
Of it you'd be the heir
For if you should slain False Foudrage
You'd set the wrong to right
For he has slain your father
E'er you ever saw the light
And if you should slain False Foudrage
There's no man would you blame
For he keeps your mother prisoner
And she dare not take you home
So he's set his bow all to his breast
He's climbed the castle's wall
And there he's met with False Foudrage
A-walkin' in the hall
Oh, what ails thee, my bonny boy?
What ails thee at me?
For I did never do you wrong
Your face I ne'er did see
O hold your tongue, False Foudrage
For I know you and who you be
And he has pierced him through the heart
And set his mother free
And he has given to Wise William
The best part of this land
And he has wed his turtle-dove
With a ring from off his hand