I wandered over to the nonfiction section earlier, which prompted me to open my copy of The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Just scanning it randomly I came across the tale of how the sorceress, Ceridwen, transformed the boy, Gwion Bach, into the legendary Welsh poet, Taliesin.
Though there are some differences, I'm betting "The Allansford Pursuit" is a version of this tale. I read it as a call and response with the two characters and a chorus.
http://www.pantheon.org/articles/t/taliesin.html
For ease of comparison:
I appreciate the information about Isabel Gowdie, Penny.The Allansford Pursuit
Cunning and art he did not lack
But aye her whistle would fetch him back.
O, I shall go into a hare
With sorrow and sighing and mickle care,
And I shall go in the Devil's name
Aye, till I be fetched hame.
--Hare, take heed of a bitch greyhound
Will harry thee all these fells around,
For here come I in Our Lady's name
All but for to fetch thee hame.
Cunning and art he did not lack
But aye her whistle would fetch him back.
Yet, I shall go into a trout
With sorrow and sighing and mickle doubt,
And show thee many a crooked game
Ere that I be fetched hame,
---Trout, take heed of an otter lank
Will harry thee close from bank to bank,
For here come I in Our Lady's name
All but for to fetch thee hame.
Cunning and art he did not lack
But aye her whistle would fetch him back.
Yet I shall go into a bee
With muckle horror and dread of thee
And flit to hive in the Devil's name
Ere that I be fetched hame.
---Bee, take heed of a swallow hen
Will harry thee close, both butt and ben,
For here come I in Our Lady's Name
All but for to fetch thee hame.
Cunning and art he did not lack
But aye her whistle would fetch him back.
Yet I shall go into a mouse
And haste me unto the miller's house,
There in his corn to have good game
Ere that I be fetched hame.
---Mouse, take heed of a white tib-cat
That never was baulked of mouse or rat,
For I'll crack thy bones in our Lady's name:
Thus shalt thou be fetched hame.
Cunning and art he did not lack
But aye her whistle would fetch him back.
ROBERT GRAVES
A restoration of the fragmentary seventeenth-century text, sung by north-country witches at their sabbaths.
