  Mr. Child finds the first published version of “the grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spens,” as Coleridge calls it, in Bishop Percy’s Reliques. Here the name is “Spence,” and the middle rhyme—
is not of early date. The “Cork-heeled Shoon,” too, cannot be early, but ballads are subject, in oral tradition, to such modern interpolations. The verse about the ladies waiting vainly is anticipated in a popular song of the fourteenth century, on a defeat of the noblesse in Flanders—
If there be historical foundation for the ballad, it is probably a blending of the voyage of Margaret, daughter of Alexander III., to wed Eric, King of Norway, in 1281 (some of her escort were drowned on their way home), with the rather mysterious death, or disappearance, of Margaret’s daughter, “The Maid of Norway,” on her voyage to marry the son of Edward I., in 1290. A woman, who alleged that she was the Maid of Norway, was later burned at the stake. The great number and variety of versions sufficiently indicate the antiquity of this ballad, wherein exact history is not to be expected.
From The Border Minstrelsy, Sir Walter Scott’s latest edition of 1833: the copy in the edition of 1802 is less complete. The gentle and joyous passage of arms here recorded, took place in August 1388. We have an admirable account of Otterburn fight from Froissart, who revels in a gallant encounter, fairly fought out hand to hand, with no intervention of archery or artillery, and for no wretched practical purpose. In such a combat the Scots, never renowned for success at long bowls, and led by a Douglas, were likely to prove victorious, even against long odds, and when taken by surprise. Choosing an advantage in the discordant days of Richard II., the Scots mustered a very large force near Jedburgh, merely to break lances on English ground, and take loot. Learning that, as they advanced by the Carlisle route, the English intended to invade Scotland by Berwick and the east coast, the Scots sent three or four hundred men-at-arms, with a few thousand mounted archers and pikemen, who should harry Northumberland to the walls of Newcastle. These were led by James, Earl of Douglas, March, and Murray. In a fight at Newcastle, Douglas took Harry Percy’s pennon, which Hotspur vowed to recover. The retreat began, but the Scots waited at Otterburn, partly to besiege the castle, partly to abide Hotspur’s challenge. He made his attack at moonlight, with overwhelming odds, but was hampered by a marsh, and incommoded by a flank attach of the Scots. Then it came to who would pound longest, with axe and sword. Douglas cut his way through the English, axe in hand, and was overthrown, but his men protected his body. The Sinclairs and Lindsay raised his banner, with his cry; March and Dunbar came up; Hotspur was taken by Montgomery, and the English were routed with heavy loss. Douglas was buried in Melrose Abbey; very many years later the English defiled his grave, but were punished at Ancram Moor. There is an English poem on the fight of “about 1550”; it has many analogies with our Scottish version, and, doubtless, ours descends from a ballad almost contemporary. The ballad was a great favourite of Scott’s. In a severe
Mr. Child thinks the command to
unmartial. This does not seem a strong objection, in Froissart’s time. It is explained in an oral fragment—
Mr. Child also thinks that the “dreamy dream” may be copied from Hume of Godscroft. It is at least as probable that Godscroft borrowed from the ballad which he cites. The embroidered gauntlet of the Percy is in the possession of Douglas of Cavers to this day. Tam Lin, or Tamlane.—p. 10Burns’s version, in Johnson’s Museum (1792). Scott’s version is made up of this copy, Riddell’s, Herd’s, and oral recitations, and contains feeble literary interpolations, not, of course, by Sir Walter. The Complaint of Scotland (1549) mentions the “Tale of the Young Tamlene” as then popular. It is needless here to enter into the subject of Fairyland, and captures of mortals by Fairies: the Editor has said his say in his edition of Kirk’s Secret Commonwealth. The Nereids, in Modern Greece, practise fairy cantrips, and the same beliefs exist in Samoa and New Caledonia. The metamorphoses are found in the Odyssey, Book iv., in the winning of Thetis, the Nereid, or Fairy Bride, by Peleus, in a modern Cretan fairy tale, and so on. There is a similar incident in Penda Baloa, a Senegambian ballad (Contes Populaires de la SÉnÉgambie, Berenger Ferand, Paris, 1885). The dipping of Tamlane has precedents in Old Deccan Days, in a Hottentot tale by Bleek, and in Les Deux FrÈres, the Egyptian story, translated by Maspero (the Editor has already given these parallels in a note to Border Ballads, by Graham R. Thomson). Mr. Child also cites Mannhardt, “Wald und Feldkulte,” ii. 64–70. Thomas Rymer.—p. 16From The Border Minstrelsy; the original was derived from a lady living near Erceldoune (Earlston), and from Mrs. Brown’s MSS. That Thomas of Erceldoune had some popular fame as a rhymer and soothsayer as early as 1320–1350, seems to be established. As late as the Forty Five, nay, even as late as the expected Napoleonic invasion, sayings attributed to Thomas were repeated with some measure of belief. A real Thomas Rymer of Erceldoune witnessed an undated deed of Peter de Haga, early in the thirteenth century. The de Hagas, or Haigs of Bemersyde, were the subjects of the prophecy attributed to Thomas,
and a Haig still owns that ancient chÂteau on the Tweed, which has a singular set of traditions. Learmont is usually given as the Erceldoune family name; a branch of the family owned Dairsie in Fifeshire, and were a kind of hereditary provosts of St. Andrews. If Thomas did predict the death of Alexander III., or rather report it by dint of clairvoyance, he must have lived till 1285. The date of the poem on the Fairy Queen, attributed to Thomas, is uncertain, the story itself is a variant of “Ogier the Dane.” The scene is Huntly Bank, under Eildon Hill, and was part of the lands acquired, at fantastic prices, by Sir Walter Scott. His passion for land was really part of his passion for collecting antiquities. The theory of Fairyland here (as in many other Scottish legends and witch trials) is borrowed from the Pre-Christian Hades, and the Fairy Queen is a late refraction from Persephone. Not to eat, in the realm of the dead, is a regular precept of savage belief, all the world over. Mr. Robert Kirk’s Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns, and Fairies may be consulted, or the Editor’s Perrault, p. xxxv. (Oxford, 1888). Of the later legends about Thomas, Scott gives plenty, in The Border Minstrelsy. The Sir Hugh.—p. 19The date of the Martyrdom of Hugh is attributed by Matthew Paris to 1225. Chaucer puts a version in the mouth of his Prioress. No doubt the story must have been a mere excuse for Jew-baiting. In America the Jew becomes “The Duke” in a version picked up by Mr. Newells, from the recitation of a street boy in New York. The daughter of a Jew is not more likely than the daughter of a duke to have been concerned in the cruel and blasphemous imitation of the horrors attributed by Horace to the witch Canidia. But some such survivals of pagan sorcery did exist in the Middle Ages, under the influence of “Satanism.” Son Davie.—p. 22Motherwell’s version. One of many ballads on fratricide, instigated by the mother: or inquired into by her, as the case may be. “Edward” is another example of this gloomy situation. The Wife of Usher’s Well.—p. 24Here
having a middle rhyme, can scarcely be of extreme antiquity. Probably, in the original poem, the dead return to rebuke the extreme grief of the Mother, but the poem is perhaps really more affecting in the absence of a didactic motive. Scott obtained it from an old woman in West Lothian. Probably the reading “fashes,” (troubles), “in the flood” is correct, not “fishes,” or “freshes.” The mother desires that the sea may never cease to be troubled till her sons return (verse 4, line 2). The peculiar doom of women dead in child-bearing occurs even in Aztec mythology.
From the third volume of Border Minstrelsy, derived by Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe from a traditional version. The English version, “Three Ravens,” was published in Melismata, by T. Ravensworth (1611). In Scots, the lady “has ta’en another mate” his hawk and hound have deserted the dead knight. In the English song, the hounds watch by him, the hawks keep off carrion birds, as for the lady—
Probably the English is the earlier version. The Bonnie Earl of Murray.—p. 27Huntly had a commission to apprehend the Earl, who was in the disgrace of James VI. Huntly, as an ally of Bothwell, asked him to surrender at Donibristle, in Fife; he would not yield to his private enemy, the house was burned, and Murray was slain, Huntly gashing his face. “You have spoiled a better face than your own,” said the dying Earl (1592). James Melville mentions contemporary ballads on the murder. Ramsay published the ballad in his Tea Table Miscellany, and it is often sung to this day. Clerk Saunders.—p. 30First known as published in Border Minstrelsy (1802). The apparition of the lover is borrowed from “Sweet Willie’s Ghost.” The evasions practised by the lady, and the austerities vowed by her have many Norse, French, and Spanish parallels in folk-poetry. Scott’s version is “made up” from several sources, but is, in any case, verse most satisfactory as poetry. Waly, Waly.—p. 35From Ramsay’s Tea Table Miscellany, a curiously composite gathering of verses. There is a verse, obviously a variant, in a sixteenth century song, cited by Love Gregor.—p. 37There are French and Romaic variants of this ballad. “Lochroyal,” where the ballad is localized, is in Wigtownshire, but the localization varies. The “tokens” are as old as the Return of Odysseus, in the Odyssey: his token is the singular construction of his bridal bed, attached by him to a living tree-trunk. A similar legend occurs in Chinese. See Gerland’s Alt-Giechische MÄrchen. The Queen’s Marie—Mary Hamilton.—p. 41A made-up copy from Scott’s edition of 1833. This ballad has caused a great deal of controversy. Queen Mary had no Mary Hamilton among her Four Maries. No Marie was executed for child-murder. But we know, from Knox, that ballads were recited against the Maries, and that one of the Mary’s chamberwomen was hanged, with her lover, a pottinger, or apothecary, for getting rid of her infant. These last facts were certainly quite basis enough for a ballad, the ballad echoing, not history, but rumour, and rumour adapted to the popular taste. Thus the ballad might have passed unchallenged, as a survival, more or less modified in time, of Queen Mary’s period. But in 1719 a Mary Hamilton, a Maid of Honour, of Scottish descent, was executed in Russia, for infanticide. Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe conceived that this affair was the origin of the ballad, and is followed by Mr. Child. We reply (1) The ballad has almost the largest number of variants on record. This is a proof of antiquity. Variants so many, differing in all sorts of points, could not have arisen between 1719, and the age of Burns, who quotes the poem. (2) This is especially improbable, because, in 1719, the old vein of ballad poetry had run dry, popular song (3) There is no example of a popular ballad in which a contemporary event, interesting just because it is contemporary, is thrown back into a remote age. (4) The name, Mary Hamilton, is often not given to the heroine in variants of the ballad. She is of several names and ranks in the variants. (5) As Mr. Child himself remarked, the “pottinger” of the real story of Queen Mary’s time occurs in one variant. There was no “pottinger” in the Russian affair. All these arguments, to which others might be added, seem fatal to the late date and modern origin of the ballad, and Mr. Child’s own faith in the hypothesis was shaken, if not overthrown. Kinmont Willie.—p. 45From The Border Minstrelsy. The account in Satchells has either been based on the ballad, or the ballad is based on Satchells. After a meeting, on the Border of Salkeld of Corby, and Scott of Haining, Kinmont Willie was seized by the English as he rode home from the tryst. Being “wanted,” he was lodged in Carlisle Castle, and this was a breach of the day’s truce. Buccleugh, as warder, tried to obtain Willie’s release by peaceful means. These failing, Buccleugh did what the ballad reports, April 13, 1596. Harden and Goudilands were with Buccleugh, being his neighbours near Branxholme. Dicky of Dryhope, with others, Armstrongs, was also true to the call of duty. A few verses in the ballad are clearly by aut Gualterus aut diabolus, and none the worse for that. Salkeld, of course, was not really slain; and, if the men were “left for dead,” probably they were not long in that debatable condition. In the rising of 1745 Prince Charlie’s men forded Eden as boldly as Buccleuch, the Prince saving a drowning Highlander with his own hand. Jamie Telfer.—p. 52Scott, for once, was wrong in his localities. The Dodhead of the poem is not that near Singlee, in The Douglas Tragedy.—p. 59The ballad has Norse analogues, but is here localized on the Douglas Burn, a tributary of Yarrow on the left bank. The St. Mary’s Kirk would be that now ruinous, on St. Mary’s Loch, the chapel burned by the Lady of Branxholme when she
in the Lay of the Last Minstrel. The ancient keep of Blackhouse on Douglas Burn may have been the home of the heroine, if we are to localize. The Bonny Hind.—p. 62Herd got this tragic ballad from a milkmaid, in 1771. Mr. Child quotes a verse parallel, preserved in Faroe, and in the Icelandic. There is a similar incident in the cycle of Kullervo, in the Finnish Kalevala. Scott says that similar tragedies are common in Scotch popular poetry; such cases are “Lizzie Wan,” and “The King’s Dochter, Lady Jean.” A sorrow nearly as bitter occurs in the French “Milk White Dove”: a brother kills his sister, metamorphosed into a white deer. “The Bridge Young Beichan, or Young Bicham.—p. 65This is the original of the Cockney Loving Ballad of Lord Bateman, illustrated by Cruikshank, and by Thackeray. There is a vast number of variants, evidence to the antiquity of the story. The earliest known trace is in the familiar legend of the Saracen lady, who sought and found her lover, Gilbert Becket, father of Thomas À Becket, in London (see preface to Life of Becket, or Beket), Percy Society, 1845. The date may be circ. 1300. The kind of story, the loving daughter of the cruel captor, is as old as Medea and Jason, and her search for her lover comes in such MÄrchen as “The Black Bull o’ Norraway.” No story is more widely diffused (see A Far Travelled Tale, in the Editor’s Custom and Myth). The appearance of the “True Love,” just at her lover’s wedding, is common in the MÄrchen of the world, and occurs in a Romaic ballad, as well as in many from Northern Europe. The “local colour”—the Moor or Saracen—is derived from Crusading times, perhaps. Motherwell found the ballad recited with intervals of prose narrative, as in Aucassin and Nicolette. The notes to Cruikshank’s Loving Ballad are, obviously, by Thackeray. The Bonny House o’ Airly.—p. 73Lord Airly’s houses were destroyed by Argyll, representing the Covenanters, and also in pursuance of a private feud, in 1639, or 1640. There are erroneous versions of this ballad, in which Lochiel appears, and the date is, apparently, transferred to 1745. Montrose, in his early Covenanting days, was not actually concerned in the burning of the Bonnie House, which he, when a Royalist, revenged on the possessions of “gleyed Argyll.” The reference to “Charlie” is out of keeping; no one, perhaps, ever called Charles I. Rob Roy.—p. 75The abductors of the widowed young heiress of Edenhelly were Rob’s sons, Robin Oig, who went through a form of marriage with the girl, and James Mohr, a good soldier, but a double-dyed spy and scoundrel. Robin Oig was hanged in 1753. James Mohr, a detected traitor to Prince Charles, died miserably in Paris, in 1754. Readers of Mr. Stevenson’s Catriona know James well; information as to his villanies is extant in Additional MSS. (British Museum). This is probably the latest ballad in the collection. It occurs in several variants, some of which, copied out by Burns, derive thence a certain accidental interest. In Mr. Stevenson’s Catriona, the heroine of that name takes a thoroughly Highland view of the abduction. Robin Oig, in any case, was “nane the waur o’ a hanging,” for he shot a Maclaren at the plough-tail, before the Forty-Five. The trial of these sons of Alpen was published shortly after Scott’s Rob Roy. Killiecrankie.—p. 77Fought on July 27, 1689. Not on the haugh near the modern road by the railway, but higher up the hill, in the grounds of Urrard House. Two shelter trenches, whence Dundee’s men charged, are still visible, high on the hillside above Urrand. There is said, by Mr. Child, to have been a contemporary broadside of the ballad, which is an example of the evolution of popular ballads from the old traditional model. There is another song, by, or attributed to, Burns, and of remarkable spirit and vigour.
From The Border Minstrelsy Scott says that these are the original words of the tune of “Allan Water,” and that he has added two verses from a variant with a fortunate conclusion. “Allan Water” is a common river name; the stream so called joins Teviot above Branxholme. Annan is the large stream that flows into the Solway Frith. The Gate-slack, in Annandale, fixes the locality. The Elphin Nourrice.—p. 81This curious poem is taken from the reprint of Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe’s tiny Ballad Book, itself now almost introuvable. It does not, to the Editor’s knowledge, occur elsewhere, but is probably authentic. The view of the Faery Queen is more pleasing and sympathetic than usual. Why mortal women were desired as nurses (except to attend on stolen mortal children, kept to “pay the Kane to hell”) is not obvious. Irish beliefs are precisely similar; in England they are of frequent occurrence. Johnnie Armstrang.—p. 87Armstrang of Gilnockie was a brother of the laird of Mangertoun. He had a kind of Robin Hood reputation on the Scottish Border, as one who only robbed the English. Pitscottie’s account of his slaying by James V. (1529) reads as if the ballad were his authority, and an air for the subject is mentioned in the Complaint of Scotland. In Sir Herbert Maxwell’s History of Dumfries and Galloway is an excellent account of the historical facts of the case. Edom o’ Gordon.—p. 92Founded on an event in the wars between Kingsmen and Queensmen, in the minority of James VI., while Queen Mary was imprisoned in England. “Edom” was Adam Gordon of Auchindown, brother of Huntley, and a Queen’s man. He, by his retainer, Car, or Ker, Lady Anne Bothwell’s Lament.—p. 98Tradition has confused the heroine of this piece with the wife of Bothwelhaugh, who slew the Regent Murray. That his motive was not mere political assassination, but to avenge the ill-treatment and death of his wife, seems to be disproved by Maidment. The affair, however, is still obscure. This deserted Lady Anne of the ballad was, in fact, not the wife of Bothwelhaugh, but the daughter of the Bishop of Orkney; her lover is said to have been her cousin, Alexander Erskine, son of the Earl of Mar. Part of the poem (Mr. Child points out) occurs in Broome’s play, The Northern Lass (1632). Though a popular favourite, the piece is clearly of literary origin, and has been severely “edited” by a literary hand. This version is Allan Ramsay’s. Jock o’ The Side.—p. 101A Liddesdale chant. Jock flourished about 1550–1570, and is commemorated as a receiver by Sir Richard Maitland in a poem often quoted. The analogies of this ballad with that of “Kinmont Willie” are very close. The reference to a punch-bowl sounds modern, and the tale is much less plausible than that of “Kinmont Willie,” which, however, bears a few obvious marks of Sir Walter’s own hand. A sceptical editor must choose between two theories: either Scott of Satchells founded his account of the affair of “Kinmont Willie” on a pre-existing ballad of that name, or the ballad printed by Scott is based on the prose narrative of Scott of Satchells. The former hypothesis, everything considered, is the more probable.
Published in Percy’s Reliques, from a Scotch manuscript, “with some corrections.” The situation, with various differences in detail and conclusion, is popular in Norse and Romaic ballads, and also in many MÄrchen of the type of The Black Bull of Norraway. Fair Annie.—p. 111From The Border Minstrelsy. There are Danish, Swedish, Dutch, and German versions, and the theme enters artistic poetry as early as Marie de France (Le Lai del Freisne). In Scotch the Earl of Wemyss is a recent importation: the earldom dates from 1633. Of course this process of attaching a legend or MÄrchen to a well-known name, or place, is one of the most common in mythological evolution, and by itself invalidates the theory which would explain myths by a philological analysis of the proper names in the tale. These may not be, and probably are not, the original names. The Downie Dens of Yarrow.—p. 116From The Border Minstrelsy. Scott thought that the hero was Walter Scott, third son of Thirlestane, slain by Scott of Tushielaw. The “monument” (a standing stone near Yarrow) is really of a very early, rather Post-Roman date, and refers to no feud of Thirlestane, Oakwood, Kirkhope, or Tushielaw. The stone is not far from Yarrow Krik, near a place called Warrior’s Rest. Hamilton of Bangour’s version is beautiful and well known. Quite recently a very early interment of a corpse, in the curved position, was discovered not far from the standing stone with the inscription. Ballad, stone, and interment may all be distinct and separate. Sir Roland.—p. 119From Motherwell’s Minstrelsy. The authenticity of the ballad is dubious, but, if a forgery, it is a very Rose the Red and White Lily.—p. 123From the Jamieson-Brown MS., originally written out by Mrs. Brown in 1783: Sir Waiter made changes in The Border Minstrelsy. The ballad is clearly a composite affair. Robert Chambers regarded Mrs. Brown as the Mrs. Harris of ballad lore, but Mr. Norval Clyne’s reply was absolutely crushing and satisfactory. The Battle of Harlaw.—p. 131Fought on July 24, 1411. This fight broke the Highland force in Scotland. The first version is, of course, literary, perhaps a composition of 1550, or even earlier. The second version is traditional, and was procured by Aytoun from Lady John Scott, herself the author of some beautiful songs. But the best ballad on the Red Harlaw is that placed by Scott in the mouth of Elspeth, in The Antiquary. This, indeed, is beyond all rivalry the most splendid modern imitation of the ancient popular Muse. Dickie Macphalion.—p. 142A great favourite of Scott’s, who heard it sung at Miss Edgeworth’s, during his tour in Ireland (1825). One verse recurs in a Jacobite chant, probably of 1745–1760, but the bibliography of Jacobite songs is especially obscure. A Lyke-Wake Dirge.—p. 143From the Border Minstrelsy. The ideas are mainly pre-Christian; the Brig o’ Dread occurs in Islamite and Iroquois belief, and in almost all mythologies the souls have to cross a River. Music for this dirge is given in Mr. Harold Boulton’s and Miss Macleod’s Songs of the North.
This version was taken down by Sir Walter Scott from his mother’s recitation, for Jamieson’s book of ballads. Jamieson later quarrelled bitterly with Sir Walter, as letters at Abbotsford prove. A variant is given by Kinloch, and a longer, less poetical, but more historically accurate version is given by Buchan. The House of Waristoun is, or lately was, a melancholy place hanging above a narrow lake, in the northern suburbs of Edinburgh, near the Water of Leith. Kincaid was the name of the Laird; according to Chambers, the more famous lairds of Covenanting times were Johnstons. Kincaid is said to have treated his wife cruelly, wherefore she, or her nurse, engaged one Robert Weir, an old servant of her father (Livingstone of Dunipace), to strangle the unhappy man in his own bedroom (July 2, 1600). The lady was beheaded, the nurse was burned, and, later, Weir was also executed. The line
occurs in an earlier ballad on Edinburgh Castle—
May Colven.—p. 147From Herd’s MS. Versions occur in Polish, German, Magyar, Portuguese, Scandinavian, and in French. The ballad is here localised on the Carrick coast, near Girvan. The lady is called a Kennedy of Culzean. Prof. Bugge regards this widely diffused ballad as based on the Apocryphal legend of Judith and Holofernes. If so, the legend is diablement changÉ en route. More probably the origin is a MÄrchen of a kind of Rakshasa fatal to women. Mr. Child has collected a vast mass of erudition on the subject, and by no means acquiesces in Prof. Bugge’s ingenious hypothesis. Johnie Faa.—p. 150From Pinkerton’s Scottish Ballads. The event narrated is a legend of the house of Cassilis (Kennedy), Hobbie Noble.—p. 152The hero recurs in Jock o’ the Side, and Jock o’ the Mains is an historical character, that is, finds mention in authentic records, as Scott points out. The Armstrongs were deported in great numbers, as “an ill colony,” to Ulster, by James I. Sir Herbert Maxwell’s History of Dumfries and Galloway may be consulted for these and similar reivers. The Twa Sisters.—p. 157A version of “Binnorie.” The ballad here ends abruptly; doubtless the fiddler made fiddle-strings of the lady’s hair, and a fiddle of her breast-bone, while the instrument probably revealed the cruelty of the sister. Other extant versions are composite or interpolated, so this fragment (Sharpe’s) has been preferred in this place. Mary Ambree.—p. 160Taken by Percy from a piece in the Pepys Collection. The girl warrior is a favourite figure in popular romance. Often she slays a treacherous lover, as in Billy Taylor. Nothing is known of Mary Ambree as an historical personage; she may be as legendary as fair maiden Lilias, of Liliarid’s Edge, who “fought upon her stumps.” In that case the local name is demonstrably earlier than the mythical Lilias, who fought with such tenacity. Alison Gross.—p. 165Jamieson gave this ballad from a manuscript, altering the spelling in conformity with Scots orthography. Mr. Child prints the manuscript; here Jamieson’s more The Heir of Lynne.—p. 167From Percy’s Folio Manuscript. There is a cognate Greek epigram—
Gordon of Brackley.—p. 172This, though probably not the most authentic, is decidedly the most pleasing version; it is from Mackay’s collection, perhaps from his pen. Edward.—p. 175Percy got this piece from Lord Hailes, with pseudo-antiquated spelling. Mr. Swinburne has published a parallel ballad “From the Finnish.” There are a number of parallel ballads on Cruel Brothers, and Cruel Sisters, such as Son Davie, which may be compared. Fratricides and unconscious incests were motives dear to popular poetry.
From the Border Minstrelsy. That corpses might begin to “thraw,” if carelessly watched, was a prevalent superstition. Scott gives an example: the following may be added, as less well known. The watchers had left the corpse alone, and were dining in the adjoining room, when a terrible noise was heard in the chamber of death. None dared enter; the minister was sent for, and passed into the room. He emerged, asked for a pair of tongs, and returned, bearing in the tongs a bloody glove, and the noise ceased. He always declined to say what he had witnessed. Ministers were exorcists in the last century, and the father of James Thomson, the poet, died suddenly in an interview with a guest, in a haunted house. The house was pulled down, as being uninhabitable. Auld Maitland.—p. 180From The Border Minstrelsy. This ballad is inserted, not for its merit, still less for its authenticity, but for the problem of its puzzling history. Scott certainly got it from the mother of the Ettrick Shepherd, in 1801. The Shepherd’s father had been a grown-up man in 1745, and his mother was also of a great age, and unlikely to be able to learn a new-forged ballad by heart. The Shepherd himself (then a most unsophisticated person) said, in a letter of June 30, 1801, that he was “surprized to hear this song is suspected by some to be a modern forgery; the contrary will be best proved by most of the old people, here about, having a great part of it by heart.” The two last lines of verse seven were, confessedly, added by Hogg, to fill a lacuna. They are especially modern in style. Now thus to fill up sham lacunÆ in sham ballads of his own, with lines manifestly modern, was a favourite trick of Surtees of Mainsforth. He used the device in “Barthram’s Dirge,” which entirely took in Sir Walter, and was guilty of many other supercheries, especially of the “Fray of Suport Mill.” Could the unlettered Shepherd, fond of hoaxes as he was, have invented this stratagem, sixteen years before he joined the Blackwood set? And is it conceivable that his old mother, entering into the joke, would “Maitland upon auld beird gray” is mentioned by Gawain Douglas, in his Palice of Honour, which the Shepherd can hardly have read, and Scott identified this Maitland with the ancestor of Lethington; his date was 1250–1296. On the whole, even the astute Shepherd, in his early days of authorship, could hardly have laid a plot so insidious, and the question of the authenticity and origin of the ballad (obvious interpolations apart) remains a mystery. Who could have forged it? It is, as an exercise in imitation, far beyond Hardyknute, and at least on a level with Sir Roland. The possibility of such forgeries is now very slight indeed, but vitiates early collections. If we suspect Leyden, who alone had the necessary knowledge of antiquities, we are still met by the improbability of old Mrs. Hogg being engaged in the hoax. Moreover, Leyden was probably too keen an antiquary to take part in one of the deceptions which Ritson wished to punish so severely. Mr. Child expresses his strong and natural suspicions of the authenticity of the ballad, and Hogg is, certainly, a dubious source. He took in Jeffrey with the song of “Donald Macgillavray,” and instantly boasted of his triumph. He could not have kept his secret, after the death of Scott. These considerations must not be neglected, however suspicious “Auld, Maitland” may appear.
From Buchan’s Ballads of the North of Scotland. There are Elizabethan references to the poem, and a twelfth century romance turns on the main idea of sleep magically induced. The lover therein is more fortunate than the hero of the ballad, and, finally, overcomes the spell. The idea recurs in the Norse poetry. Willie’s Ladye.—p. 193Scott took this ballad from Mrs. Brown’s celebrated Manuscript. The kind of spell indicated was practised by Hera upon Alcmena, before the birth of Heracles. Analogous is the spell by binding witch-knots, practised by Simaetha on her lover, in the second Idyll of Theocritus. Montaigne has some curious remarks on these enchantments, explaining their power by what is now called “suggestion.” There is a Danish parallel to “Willie’s Ladye,” translated by Jamieson. Robin Hood Ballads.—p. 196There is plentiful “learning” about Robin Hood, but no real knowledge. He is first mentioned in literature, as the subject of “rhymes,” in Piers Plowman (circ. 1377). As a topic of ballads he must be much older than that date. In 1439 his name was a synonym for a bandit. Wyntoun, the Scots chronicler, dates the outlaw in the time of Edward I. Major, the Scots philosopher and master of John Knox, makes a guess (taken up by Scott in Ivanhoe) as the period of Richard I. Kuhn seeks to show that Hood is a survival of Woden, or of his Wooden, “wooden horse” or hobby horse. The Robin Hood play was parallel with the May games, which, as Mr. Frazer shows in his Golden Bough, were really survivals of a world-wide religious practice. But Robin Hood need not be confused with the legendary May King. Mr. Child judiciously rejects these mythological conjectures, based, as they are, on far-fetched etymologies and analogies. Robin is an idealized bandit, reiver, or Klepht, as in modern Romaic ballads, and his adventures are precisely such as popular fancy everywhere Robin Hood and the Monk.—p. 196This copy follows in Mr. Child’s early edition, “from the second edition of Ritson’s Robin Hood, as collated by Sir Frederic Madden.” It is conjectured to be “possibly as old as the reign of Edward II.” That the murder of a monk should be pardoned in the facile way described is manifestly improbable. Even in the lawless Galloway of 1508, McGhie of Phumpton was fined six merks for “throwing William Schankis, monk, from his horse.” (History of Dumfries and Galloway, by Sir Herbert Maxwell, p. 155.) Robin Hood and the Potter.—p. 209Published by Ritson, from a Cambridge MS., probably of the reign of Henry VII. Robin Hood and the Butcher.—p. 221Published by Ritson, from a Black Letter copy in the collection of Anthony Wood, the Oxford antiquary. |
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