Note 130d — Ballads. (continued 2)

Scott reads ‘brim as beare,’ which he interprets ‘fierce as a bear.’ Whitaker’s rendering is correct. Beare is a small hamlet on the Bay of Morecambe, no great distance, as the crow files, from the locale of the poem. There is also a Bear-park in the county of Durham, of which place Bryan might be an inhabitant. Utrum horum, &c.