Who is Jock O' Hazeldean? The Various Lives of Walter Scott's Folksong

Abstract:This essay considers the genre and reception of Scott's 'Jock of Hazeldean' in its association with Child Ballad 293, as an independent poem, and as a song. This opens questions of what is meant by a ballad (since Jock of Hazeldean does not actually appear in the song ostensibly about him), and of the nature of the text as such. Paradoxically, shifting the originally Scottish location to England moves the work closer to a traditional Scottish ballad. Scott's piece has existed and continues to exist in a number of different forms. The brief work has gone from folksong origins (in the single verse which Scott reworked) to become first a formal and parlour song and then a folksong again, subject to the variations of oral transmission. Modern technology and the availability of recordings (some with a visual dimension) through the internet now offer increased possibilities for investigation into the reception of the work.