Whummil Bore, The [Child 27]

DESCRIPTION: A servant has waited on the king for seven years without ever seeing the princess. One day, peering through a hole in the wall (the whummil bore), he sees her being dressed. He greatly enjoys the sight, but can't stay long.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1825
KEYWORDS: clothes servant
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Bord)) US(SE)
REFERENCES (6 citations):
Child 27, "The Whummil Bore" (1 text)
Bronson 27, "The Whummil Bore" (1 version)
Barry/Eckstorm/Smyth-BritishBalladsFromMaine pp. 437-438, "The Whummil Bore" (notes plus the "With my glimpy" chorus)
Davis-MoreTraditionalBalladsOfVirginia 14, pp. 89-91, "The Whummil Bore" (1 text)
DT 27, WHMLBORE
ADDITIONAL: Walter de la Mare, _Come Hither_, revised edition, 1928; #354, "The Whummil Bore" (1 text)
Roud #3722
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Keyhole in the Door" (plot)
NOTES [167 words]: Bertrand Bronson discusses origin of this piece in "The Interdependence of Ballad Tunes and Texts" (first printed in the California Folklore Quarterly, II, 1944; see now MacEdward Leach and Tristram P. Coffin, eds, The Critics and the Ballad or Bertrand Harris The Ballad as Song (essays on ballads), University of California Press, 1969. The relevant discussion is on pages 89-91 of Leach/Coffin and pp. 50-51 of the Bronson book.
Bronson states that "'The Whummil Bore' appears to me a by-blow of a serious romantic ballad." He then notes a melodic similarity to "Hind Horn" (Child 17), as well as a similar subplot, and proposes that "Hind Horn" is the source for "The Whummil Bore."
The existence of the Virginia text found in Davis seems very suspicious, and I considered the possibility that it is actually some other song (either "Hind Horn" or "The Keyhole in the Door"). But it's much too clean for the latter, and -- though fragmentary -- too full for the former. Call it a curiosity. - RBW
Last updated in version 3.8
File: C027

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