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The Fause Knight Upon the Road

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"The False Knight Upon the Road" is a British ballad, collected and published as Child ballad 3, Roud 20. It features a riddling exchange between a schoolboy and a "false knight", the devil in disguise.[1] As to its provenance, it is presumed to not be much older than its first publication in 1824.[2]

Synopsis

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Across numerous versions differing significantly in lyric content, the consistent themes are:[3]

  • The knight asks the boy where he is going, and what he is carrying (books).
  • He asks after the sheep, which belong to the boy and his mother, and how many belong to the knight – as many as have blue tails.
  • The knight may wish him in a tree, the boy to have a ladder, the knight to have it break, and so on.
  • Throughout any exchange, the boy is described as stood/standing fast/still. This appears to be the condition that will save him.

Commentary

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The boy's ability to evade the devil may spring from the devil's inability to dumbfound him; gaining power over people by this means is a motif found in other folktales.[4] In some respect, the ability of the child to circumvent the fause knight can be seen as a rite of passage.

This ballad's narrative is quite clearly structured as a rite of passage the child's status as a speaker changes. His character is developed, transformed in a story that shows the different ways in which a person moves from one category to the next. The ballad portrays the speech contexts in which the confrontation between the child and a threatening adult is being performed, foreshadowing the speech contexts in which children and adults might interact as equals or, if he learns well, a child travels to school and then out into the world, revealing speech appropriate to and necessary for these contexts. The ballad implies that children in school should answer questions but here an adult in the form of a threatening stranger may be rebutted in a forthright manner. In addition to these very serious and quite obvious rationales of learning to speak well, there may be associated seemingly playful but profound functions in cognitive, social development.[5]

A Swedish variant features the little boy, but an old woman, presumably a witch, in the place of the knight.[4]

Recordings and settings

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Recordings
Settings
  • Runa recorded this song as "The False Knight on the Road" on Current Affairs in 2014.
  • Set by Benjamin Britten in his Eight Folk Song Arrangements (for high voice and harp). There is a recording of this by Philip Langridge and Osian Ellis on #13 of the Naxos English Song Series (8.557222 - Originally released by Collins Classics)

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Francis James Child, English and Scottish Popular Ballads, "The Fause Knight Upon the Road"
  2. ^ Minton, John (1985). "The Fause Knight upon the Road: A Reappraisal". The Journal of American Folklore. 98 (390). University of Illinois Press: 435–455. doi:10.2307/540366. JSTOR 540366. ISSN 0021-8715 and 1535-1882.
  3. ^ "Mainly Norfolk: English and Scottish Folk and Other Good Music". Mainly Norfolk. Retrieved 3 Sep 2020.
  4. ^ a b Francis James Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, v 1, p 20, Dover Publications, New York 1965
  5. ^ See: Minton, John. "The Fause Knight upon the Road: A Reappraisal." The Journal of American Folklore 98.390 (1985): 435-455. (see p. 443)
  6. ^ "365 Days Of Folk: Song List". Retrieved 24 January 2024.
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