Reliques of Ancient English Poetry
Consisting of Old Heroic Ballads, Songs, and Other Pieces of our Earlier Poets

This three-volume collection of historical ballads, compiled from multiple sources, achieved great popularity upon its publication in 1765.

Thomas Percy (Edited by)

9781108077262, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 29 January 2015

404 pages, 5 b/w illus.
21.6 x 13.9 x 2.4 cm, 0.55 kg

While visiting a friend, the writer and cleric Thomas Percy (1729–1811) noticed a neglected folio whose pages were being used by the maids to light the fire. Upon inspection, this manuscript was found to be a seventeenth-century collection of historical ballads. Following this discovery, Percy collected further ballads and songs from a number of sources, which he published in this three-volume work in 1765, although ultimately only a quarter of the texts he presented came from that original manuscript. Although this work proved to be incredibly popular, Percy's idiosyncratic editorial practices also received much criticism. The collection centres on historical ballads and romances, demonstrating the development of language, customs and traditions, to which Percy added contemporary ballads for his readers' enjoyment. Volume 3 includes ballads of Sir Gawain, King Arthur and St George and the Dragon, and contains the additions and corrections to all three volumes.

Part I: 1. The boy and the mantle
2. The marriage of Sir Gawaine
3. King Ryence's challenge
4. King Arthur's death, a fragment
5. The legend of King Arthur
6. A dittye to hey downe
7. Glasgerion
8. Old Sir Robin of Portingale
9. The gaberlunzie man, a Scottish song
10. Child waters
11. Phillida and Corydon
12. Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard
13. The ew-bughts Marrion, a Scottish song
14. The knight and shepherd's daughter
15. The shepherd's address to his muse
16. Lord Thomas and fair Ellinor
17. Cupid and Campaspe
18. The lady turned servingman
19. Gil Morrice
Part II: 1. Legend of Sir Guy
2. Guy and Amarant
3. The shepherd's resolution
4. Fair Margaret and sweet William
5. Barbara Allen's cruelty
6. Sweet William's ghost, a Scottish ballad
7. Sir John Grehme and Barbara Allen, ditto
8. The bailiff's daughter of Islington
9. The willow tree, a pastoral dialogue
10. The lady's fall
11. Waly, waly, love be bonny, a Scottish song
12. The wanton wife of Bath
13. The auld good man, a Scottish song
14. Lady Isabella's tragedy
15. A hue and cry after Cupid
16. The king of France's daughter
17. The sweet neglect
18. The children in the wood
19. A lover of late was I
20. The king and the miller of Mansfield
21. Dulcina
22. The wandering prince of Troy
23. The witches song
24. Robin Good-fellow
25. The fairy queen
26. The fairies farewell
Part III: 1. The birth of St George
[2.] George Barnwell
2. St George and the dragon
3. Love will find out the way
4. The baffled knight, or lady's policy
5. Why so pale
6. The Spanish virgin, or effects of jealousy
7. The aspiring shepherd
8. Constant Penelope
9. To Lucasta, on going to the wars
10. Valentine and Ursine
11. The dragon of Wantley
12. St George for England, the first part
13. St George for England, the second part
14. Lucy and Colin
15. Margaret's ghost
16. The boy and the mantle, revised
Glossary
Additional notes to Volume 1
Additional notes to Volume 2
Additional notes to Volume 3
Errata
To the binder.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: general [DSB]