Sir Hugh is a traditional British folk song, Child ballad # 155, Roud # 73.
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Some boys are playing with a ball, in Lincoln. They accidentally throw it over the wall of a Jew's house (or castle). The daughter of the Jew comes out, dressed in green, and beckons to a boy to come in to fetch it. He replies that can't do this without his playmates. She entices him in with fruit and a gold ring. Once he has sat down on a throne, she stabs him in the heart "like a sheep". There is much blood. When the boy fails to come home, his mother concludes that he is skylarking. She sets out to find him, with a rod to beat him. From beyond the grave, the boy asks his mother to prepare a funeral winding sheet, and that he is "asleep". In some versions he asks that if his father calls for him, the father is to be told that he is "dead." In some versions the boy's corpse shines "like gold". In some versions the Jew's daughter catches the blood in a basin and puts a prayerbook at his head and a bible at his feet. Several Scottish versions have the boys playing with a ball in Scotland. and are suddenly (and inexplicably) transferred to Lincoln later in the song.
The incidental details about the sheep, the basin and the bible at his feet all suggest that there is some kind of ritual killing taking place. In medieval times such frightful anti-Semitic tales were common. Jews had been expelled from England in 1290, and did not return until 1658. It seems unlikely that crude propaganda would be deliberately concocted and spread in the late 17th century, since Britain had become a refuge for persecuted religious minorities. The artist and poet Matthew Paris (fl. c 1217 - 1259) has a Latin fragment of this ballad in his "Chronicle". There is a tale that in 1255 a boy was kidnapped by Jews, and crucified. His body was found in a well, and many Jews were convicted and hanged for the crime. This ghastly story appears in "Annals of Waverley". The "Jewish Virtual Library" gives a version of the story here. In those unenlightened times foreigners were persecuted all across Europe, on flimsy evidence or mere rumour.
The song has been found in England, Scotland, Ireland, Canada and the USA. It was still "popular" in the early nineteenth century. The title "Sir Hugh" for a boy is unusual. Possibly there was some confusion because of Saint Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln. See Hugh of Lincoln.
Folksongs are snapshots of social relationships at a point in history. Because of the historical context in which folk songs are usually presented, singing this song is no more an indicator that the singer is anti-semitic than singing "The Cooper O' Fife" is a sign that the singer approves of wife-beating. Reading the novels of Patrick O'Brian doesn't mean that the reader hates the French. One of the earliest professional recordings of the song was by A. L. Lloyd on "The English and Scottish Popular Ballads Vol 2" in 1956. The editor and producer was Kenneth Goldstein, himself a Jew. MacColl described it as "the barbaric functioning of medieval thinking". Early collectors were so surprised to find evidence of medieval ways of thinking that they wrote entire books on the subject. James Orchard Halliwell wrote "Ballads and Poems Respecting Hugh of Lincoln" in 1849. In the same year, and unknown to Halliwell, Irishman Abraham Hume wrote the book "Sir Hugh of Lincoln, or, an Examination of a Curious Tradition respecting the Jews, with a notice of the Popular Poetry connected with it". None of the ballad versions mention any punishment for the killing.
Child cites this as being one of the oldest ballads, because it appears to belong to the Middle Ages, perhaps as old as the thirteenth century. The Columbia State University Website [1] discusses it. On Mudcat the words are given [2] and the controversy is discussed [3].
Percy's "Reliques" has a version from Scotland. David Herd (1776) had a version, and so did Robert Jameison (1806).
As well the proposterous Scottish versions which magically relocate from Scotland to Lincoln, there is a version from Northamptonshire which says the boy was killed "like a swine". A version from Northumberland sets the events at Easter. An American version of the early 20th century, by Nelstone's Hawaiians, collected on Harry Smith's "Anthology of American Folk Music", replaces the Jewish villainess with "a Gypsy lady, all dressed in yellow and green."
There is an Anglo-Norman version (medieval French) and a fragment in Latin (Matthew Paris's "Chronicles").
Little Sir Hugh - Steeleye Span, from the album Commoner's Crown (1975, Chrysalis Records)
The idea of a corpse speaking (sending thoughts) to the living occurs in the ballad "The Murder of Maria Marten", "The Cruel Mother" (Child 20) and in "The Unquiet Grave". Gruesome killings are quite common in Child ballads.
Geoffrey Chaucer mentions the legend (not the ballad) of the Blood libel against Jews in "The Prioress's Tale". Martin Luther wrote the book "On The Jews and Their Lies". Shakespeare's Shylock in "The Merchant of Venice" demands a pound of flesh, and this play is sometimes claimed as being an anti-semitic play. In 1905 "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" appeared, but did not suggest that Jews are involved in the ritual killing of children. However, from 1840 through the present era, many books have sought to revive the Blood Libel legend for contemporary audiences. For instance, in The Matzah Of Zion, written by the Syrian Defense Minister, Mustafa Tlass in 1986, the Blood Libel is described as a factual event.
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There was no printed tune for the ballad until Edward Francis Rimbault's "Musical Illustrations of Bishob Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry" (1850).
| Album/Single | Performer | Year | Variant | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fatal Flower Garden (Victor Records, 78 rpm) | Nelstone's Hawaiians | 1930 | Fatal Flower Garden | The earliest known professional recording; re-issued in 1952 on the Harry Smith Anthology of American Folk Music. |
| The English and Scottish Popular Ballads vol 3 | A. L. Lloyd | 1956 | Sir Hugh | . |
| The Max Hunter Folksong Collection | Mrs. Allie Long Parker | 1958 | The Jew's Garden | . |
| Southern Journey, Vol. 7: Ozark Frontier | Ollie Gilbert | 1959 | It Rained a Mist | . |
| The Max Hunter Folksong Collection | Fran Majors | 1959 | The Jew's Garden | . |
| Classic Ballads of Britain & Ireland | Cecilia Costello | 1961 | The Jew's Garden | . |
| The Long Harvest Vol 5 | Ewan MacColl | 1967 | Sir Hugh | . |
| The Cock Doth Craw | Ian Campbell | 1968 | Little Sir Hugh | . |
| Commoner's Crown | Steeleye Span | 1975 | Little Sir Hugh | . |
| Shreds and Patches | John Kirkpatrick and sue Harris | 1977 | Little Sir William | . |
| Lost Lady Found | Vikki Clayton | 1997 | Sir Hugh of Lincoln | . |
| The Swimming Hour | Andrew Bird's Bowl of Fire | 2001 | Fatal Flower Garden | . |
| Heading for Home | Peggy Seeger | 2003 | Fatal Flower Garden | . |
| BRITTEN: Folk Song Arrangements | Philip Langridge, Tenor, with Graham Johnson, Piano. | 2005 | Little Sir William | . |
| The Harry Smith Project | Gavin Friday | 2006 | Fatal Flower Garden | Essentially a cover of the 1930 version by Nelstone's Hawaiians, as re-issued on the Harry Smith Anthology of American Folk Music. |
| The Elixir That'll Fix 'Er | The Black Strap Molasses Family | 2008 | Fatal Flower Garden | . |
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A school in Woodhall Spa Lincolnshire is named St Hughs' School after this story. The school badge is a picture of the ball going over the wall in white on a red background