Johnny O' Cockley's Well

A poem by Frank Sidgwick

The Text is taken almost entirely from a copy which was sent in 1780 to Bishop Percy by a Miss Fisher of Carlisle; in the last half of the first stanza her version gives, unintelligibly:

'But little knew he that his bloody hounds
Were bound in iron bands':

and I have therefore substituted lines from a later text. The correction in 20.1 and 21.1 is also essential.


The Story will be familiar to many as Johnie of Breadislee, a title given by Sir Walter Scott to his version, the first that was published, in the Minstrelsy (1802). In the present version, however, Johnny certainly belongs to Cockley's Well, Bradyslee being only the name of his hunting-ground. In other variants, his name is Johnny Cock, Johnny Cox, Johnny o' Cockis, o' Cockerslee, of Cockielaw, of Cocklesmuir, or Johnny Brad. The name of the hunting-ground varies also, though not so widely; and, as usual, the several editors of the ballad have carefully noted that its topography (though the nomenclature is corrupted) connects it with this district or that--Percy's ballad is Northumbrian, Scott's is of Dumfriesshire.

Percy considered that the mention of wolves (17.1) was an indication of the antiquity of the ballad; whereupon Child quotes Holinshed (1577) as saying that 'though the island is void of wolves south of the Tweed, yet the Scots cannot boast the like, since they have grievous wolves.' Yet how can one reconcile the mention of wolves with the reference to 'American leather' (13.3)?

Professor Child calls this a 'precious specimen of the unspoiled traditional ballad,' and Professor Gummere points out that 'it goes with a burden, this sterling old song, and has traces of an incremental repetition that has been reduced to lowest terms by impatient transcribers' (The Popular Ballad, p. 268). In his Old English Ballads Gummere gives a text very ingeniously compounded of Percy's and Kinloch's; and Professor Brandl has attempted to restore the original text.


JOHNNY O' COCKLEY'S WELL

1.
Johnny he has risen up i' the morn,
Call'd for water to wash his hands;
And he has called for his good grey-hounds
That lay bound in iron bands, bands,
That lay bound in iron bands.

2.
Johnny's mother has gotten word o' that,
And care-bed she has taen.
'O Johnny, for my benison,
I beg you'll stay at hame;
For the wine so red, and the well-baken bread,
My Johnny shall want nane.

3.
'There are seven forsters at Pickeram Side,
At Pickeram where they dwell,
And for a drop of thy heart's bluid
They wad ride the fords of hell.'

4.
Johnny he's gotten word of that,
And he's turned wondrous keen;
He's put off the red scarlet,
And he's put on the Lincoln green.

5.
With a sheaf of arrows by his side,
And a bent bow in his hand,
He's mounted on a prancing steed,
And he has ridden fast o'er the strand.

6.
He's up i' Bradyslee, and down i' Bradyslee,
And under a buss o' broom;
And there he found a good dun deer
Feeding in a buss of ling.

7.
Johnny shot, and the dun deer lap,
And she lap wondrous wide,
Until they came to the wan water,
And he stem'd her of her pride.

8.
He has taen out the little pen-knife,
'Twas full three quarters long,
And he has taen out of that dun deer
The liver but and the tongue.

9.
They eat of the flesh, and they drank of the blood,
And the blood it was so sweet,
Which caused Johnny and his bloody hounds
To fall in a deep sleep.

10.
By then came an old palmer,
And an ill death may he die!
For he's away to Pickeram Side,
As fast as he can drie.

11.
'What news, what news?' says the Seven Forsters,
'What news have ye brought to me?'
'I have no news,' the palmer said,
'But what I saw with my eye.

12.
'High up i' Bradyslee, low down i' Bradyslee,
And under a buss of scroggs,
O there I spied a well-wight man
Sleeping among his dogs.

13.
'His coat it was of the light Lincoln,
And his breeches of the same,
His shoes of the American leather,
And gold buckles tying them.'

14.
Up bespake the Seven Forsters,
Up bespake they ane and a':
'O that is Johnny o' Cockley's Well,
And near him we will draw.'

15.
O the first ae stroke that they gae him,
They struck him off by the knee;
Then up bespake his sister's son:
'O the next'll gar him die!'

16.
'O some they count ye well-wight men,
But I do count ye nane;
For you might well ha' waken'd me,
And ask'd gin I wad be taen.

17.
'The wildest wolf in a' this wood
Wad not ha' done so by me;
She'd ha' wet her foot i' th' wan water,
And sprinkled it o'er my bree,
And if that wad not ha' waken'd me,
She wad ha' gone and let me be.

18.
'O bows of yew, if ye be true,
In London, where ye were bought,
Fingers five, get up belive,
Manhuid shall fail me nought.'

19.
He has kill'd the Seven Forsters,
He has kill'd them all but ane,
And that wan scarce to Pickeram Side,
To carry the bode-words hame.

20.
'Is there never a bird in a' this wood
That will tell what I can say;
That will go to Cockley's Well,
Tell my mither to fetch me away?'

21.
There was a bird into that wood,
That carried the tidings away,
And many ae was the well-wight man
At the fetching o' Johnny away.