Wolle Ye Iheren of Twelte Day

DESCRIPTION: "Wolle ye iheren of twelte day, Wou the present was ibroust In to Betlem ther Iesus lay?" Three kings sought him. A star led them. Herod heard them. They came far. Jesus does wonderful deeds and is to be thanked "for alle deis that tou doest"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: c. 1300 (ms. Cambridge Trinity College B 14.39, also sometimes called ms. Trinity Cambridge 323)
KEYWORDS: religious Jesus travel gift MiddleEnglish
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Brown/Robbins-IndexOfMiddleEnglishVerse, #4170
DigitalIndexOfMiddleEnglishVerse #6686
ADDITIONAL: Carleton Fairchild Brown, _English Lyrics of the XIIIth Century_, Clarendon University Press, 1932, pp. 39-41, 185-186, "The Journey of the Three Kings (1 text plus fragments of another)
MANUSCRIPT: {MSCambridgeTrinity323}, Cambridge University, Trinity College MS. 323, folio 35 (second copy apparently scribbled on folio 33 and after)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Judas" [Child 23] (subject: The Earliest English Ballad) and references there
NOTES [670 words]: This text is old enough to use archaic Middle English letters; the first lines actually read
Wolle ye iheren of twelte day,
Wou þe present was ibroust
In to Betlem þer Iesus lay
þer þre kinges him habbet isoustt,
a sterre wiset hem þe way.
suc nas neuer non wroust,
ne werde he nouþer fou ne grey,
þe louerd þat us alle hauet iwroust.
The piece is very old; it is in the same thirteenth/fourteenth century manuscript as "Judas" [Child 23]; see that piece for information about the manuscript source. "Judas" is followed by a sermon, "Bele Aliz" (in a different hand); "Wolle Ye Iheren" follows "Bele Aliz" (Brown, p. 184), and is is the same hand as "Judas" (Brown, p. 186). On the basis of that manuscript dating, Albert B. Friedman, The Ballad Revival, University of Chicago Press, 1961, p. 15, classes this among ballads older than 1500 -- making it only the sixth such piece by his count. On pp. 72-73, he cites W. W. Greg to the effect that it is, "if not a true ballad, then a thirteenth-century literary imitation of one, and all the more important therefore." In which case it becomes yet another candidate for the "Oldest English Ballad."
In this case, there is one ink copy and another copy of the final verses, seemingly a draft, in much faded lead pencil, only partly legible, both in the same manuscript; it appears the one was practice for the other. Furthermore, Brown, p. 186, thinks that the pencil copy was actually *the original draft of the poem*, which the scribe was composing as he went, with the ink copy being his final draft.
Severs/Hartung, p. 397, labels this "Ballad of Twelfth Day" and says that "It occurs in MS Trinity Cambridge 323 just before the Trinity Poem on Biblical History ... with evidence on the pages of the Trinity Poem that the writer or scribe of that poem was working on the composition of the Ballad of Twelfth Day.... The affinity of subject matter in the two poems offers the possibility that the Trinity Poem suggested the Ballad to the writer.... With its more sophisticated metrical pattern, and further removed as it is from the true ballad tradition, the Ballad of Twelfth Day might be looked upon as a thirteenth century imitation of a popular ballad."
So why hasn't it gotten more attention? Part of the reason is probably the obscurity of the manuscript; it should be recalled that Trinity College MS. B 14.39 was lost for some decades, so scholars, including Child, had to rely on inaccurate transcripts.
And it doesn't look like a ballad; Brown prints it in ten eight-line stanzas-line stanzas. The rhyme scheme isn't much help, The first stanza is rhymed abababab, the second abcbabab, the third ab(a)badef, and so forth with additional irregularity. The meter looks imperfect to me, but I think the poet was trying for four foot lines throughout, not 4343. Brown, p. 186, seems to agree, but thinks the scribe was accustomed to 4343, which is the reason for the metrical irregularities: he wasn't used to writing in that meter. To put it another way: The author messed up (rather badly) because he wanted to be writing in ballad meter.
Am I convinced by that argument? Not really. And even if true, does that make it a ballad? No. I think it's just another religious poem. But I'm filing it here because we try to cover every candidate for "The Earliest English Ballad."
The basis for this song is Matthew 2:1-12. The story has been expanded and modified heavily, however. We note the following:
1. There is no reason to believe that there were three visitors. All we know is that they gave three gifts. Their names are completely unknown, and we certainly don't know if they were old or young. They may not even have been from the east (the orient).
2. The visitors were not kings and were not wise men. They were "magi" -- Babylonian mystics and perhaps astrologers. Jews would generally consider magi to be evil sorcerers.
For more on the common misconceptions about the visitors, see the notes to "The Golden Carol (The Three Kings)." - RBW
Bibliography

Brown: Carleton Brown, editor, English Lyrics of the XIIIth Century, Oxford University Press, 1932 (I use the 1962 reprint)
Friedman: Albert B. Friedman, The Ballad Revival, University of Chicago Press, 1961
Severs/Hartung: J. Burke Severs and Albert Hartung, editors, A Manual of the Writings in Middle English 1050-1500, in ten volumes with continuous page numbering; Volume 2 (edited by Severs), Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1970

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