Sir Patrick Spens

(ca. 15th century)

   Sir Patrick Spens is one of the most famous medieval ballads and it believed to have been composed in the late 14th or early 15th century. Its popularity is such that is was revived in British popular song in the 19th century. Although there has been no widely accepted identification of a historical Patrick Spens, most critics agree that the poem refers to the death of the Scottish child-queen Margaret, the “Maid of Norway,” in 1290.Granddaughter of the Norwegian king Eric II, she drowned on her way back to Scotland from Norway to marry the English king Edward I’s eldest son.

   Sir Patrick Spens tells the story of a Scottish king who wishes to send a ship across the North Sea to Norway. Under the advice of “an eldern knicht,” the king designates Sir Patrick Spens to head the voyage. Because of the dangerous time of year and a calamitous harbinger of “the new moone/ wi the auld moone in hir arme,” Spens realizes the voyage will be ill-fated, but proceeds out of a sense of duty. It is precisely these celestial and meteorological details that prove the ballad’s historical accuracy. The ballad ends with the drowning of the lords and the endless wait by their women back home.

   Gwendolyn Morgan (1996) suggests that the ballad was composed by commoners who mocked the aristocratic values of chivalric duty as stupid and judged the aristocracy to be lazy. This is apparent in the perceived treachery to Sir Patrick Spens and the idle mannerisms of the nobles and ladies. Sir Patrick Spens is an enduring poem not only because it acts as an elegy for a poignant event, but also because it stands as an affecting narrative on its own. Generally dated to the 15th century, it has been suggested that the poem may be an 18th century invention, since it is unknown prior to its inclusion in Percy’s Reliques (1765).

   Bibliography

   ■ Child, Francis James, ed. The English and Scottish Popular Ballads. New York: Cooper Square Publishers, 1965.

   ■ Representative Poetry Online, University of Toronto English Library. Sir Patrick Spence. Available online. URL: http://eir.library.utoronto.ca/rpo/display/poem63.html. Accessed on June 30, 2003.

   ■ Morgan, Gwendolyn A., ed. and trans. Medieval Ballads: Chivalry, Romance, and Everyday Life, A Critical Anthology. New York: Peter Lang, 1996.

   ■ Percy, Thomas, ed. Reliques of Ancient English Poetry. London: J. Dodsley, 1763.

   Malene A. Little