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).