I have a new book coming out in September of this year, called 'Travelling the Fairy Path' so today I'd like to offer an excerpt from it. Its going to focus on the more experiential side of my own spirituality but it also includes some discussion of things I've learned from the folklore, with a chapter on the ballad material. This excerpt is from that chapter.
The Queen of
Elfan’s Nourice [the Queen of Elfland’s Nurse]
The
Queen of Elfan’s Nourice is the story of a human woman taken by the Queen of
Fairy to be a nursemaid. It gives us a unique look at one of the common reasons
that the Fey folk were known to take new mothers, from the mother’s point of
view. [I'm including the complete ballad below with the language updated to modern English].
I heard a cow low,
a bonnie cow low,
And a cow low down
in yonder glen;
Long, long will my
young son weep
For his mother to
bid him come in.
I heard a cow low,
a bonnie cow low,
And a cow low down
in yonder fold;
Long, long will my
young son weep
For his mother to take him from the cold.
* * * * *
'Waken, Queen of
Elfland,
And hear your
nurse moan.’
‘O moan you for
your meat,
Or moan you for
your money,
Or moan you for
the other bounties
That ladies are want
to give?’
‘I moan not for my
meat,
Nor moan I for my
money,
Nor moan I for the
other bounties
That ladies are want
to give.
****
But I moan for my
young son
I left at four
nights old.
‘I moan not for my
meat,
Nor yet for my
money,
But I mourn for
Christian land,
It’s there I
gladly would be.’
‘O nurse my child,
nurse,’ she says,
‘Till he stands at
your knee,
And you’ll win
home to Christian land,
Where glad it’s
you would be.
‘O keep my child,
nurse,
Till he goes by
the hand,
And you’ll win home
to your young son
You left at four
nights old.’
* * * *
‘O nurse lay your
head
Upon my knee:
See you not that
narrow road
Up by yon tree?
. . . . .
That’s the road
the righteous goes,
And that’s the
road to heaven.
‘And see not you
that broad road,
Down by yonder
sunny hill?
That’s the road
the wicked go,
And that’s the
road to hell.’
(modified
from Child, 1898)
The
ballad opens seemingly from the human woman’s point of view, as she talks about
how long her son will cry over her loss. The next verse picks up with the Queen
of Elfland being awoken by someone telling her that her nurse is weeping; the
Queen then asks if the nurse is hungry, wanting to be paid or wanting some
other small gift. The nurse replies that she wants none of those things but is
crying for her baby son who she left as a newborn and for mortal earth. The
Queen replies that if she nurses the Fairy Queen’s son until he ‘stands at [her] knee’ and ‘goes by the hand’ – one may assume is
walking on his own – then she will be returned to her own son. Then, as we saw
previously in the ballad of Thomas the Rhymer, we see the Queen comforting the
nurse by telling her to lay her head on the Queen’s knee and showing her a
vision of two roads, one to heaven and one to hell. Obviously since they are
already in Fairy she doesn’t show her a third road, perhaps not wanting to show
her the way to escape back to mortal earth.
It
is interesting that we see here again the idea of the different roads or paths
and that again they are being shown to a mortal by the Fairy Queen herself. In Thomas
the Rhymer this vision was called a ‘wonder’ and it was also used to soothe a
person who was upset. To me this indicates that the idea of the roads has some significance
worth considering. In both poems the road to heaven is described as the less
attractive and more difficult and the road to Hell is more pleasant looking and
‘broad’.
The
Queen of Elfan’s Nourice is a more obscure poem but it is valuable because it
shows us another side of dealing with the Fairy Queen and fairies more
generally. The new mother has been taken by the Fey folk but her unhappiness
does seem to matter to them and the Queen makes some attempt to comfort her,
although at no point is her freedom immediately offered. She is however
promised that when certain conditions are met, in this case nursing the Queen’s
child for a specific period of time, she will be returned to mortal earth and
her own child. There is also the implication in the Queen’s words, asking the nurse
whether she is moaning about money, food, or gifts, that imply she was willing
to pay for the services in other ways as well. Only when the nurse explains
that she doesn’t want those things but is upset about her baby son and her home
is she offered her eventual freedom. This however suggests that negotiation is
an option even with the Fairy Queen.
*******************************************************
Travelling the Fairy Path will represent the third, and I anticipate final, book in my Fairy Witchcraft series.
