Note 6 — THE LEGENDS[6] OF DURHAM By Miss Florence N. Cockburn
Reading edition
No account of the legends of Durham would be complete without some note upon Robert Surtees’ ballads, several of which he foisted upon the unsuspecting Walter Scott as genuine antiques. Perhaps the most weird and effective is the one generally known as the "Legend of Sir John le Spring," the scene of which is in Houghton, the alma mater of the poet’s own schoolboy days. One or two of the verses, which are well known in the North, run:
"Pray for the sowle of Sir John-le-Spring, When the black monks sing— And the Vesper bells ring; Pray for the sprite of a murdered Knight, Pray for the sowle of Sir John-le-Spring. He fell not, before the....—♰ The waning crescent fled, When the Martyr’s palm and golden crown Reward Christ’s soldier dead. "He fell not in the battle-field, Beneath St. George’s banner bright, When the pealing cry of victory— Might cheer the sowle of a dying knight; But at dead of night, in the soft moonlight, In his garden bower—he lay; And the dew of sleep, did his eyelids steep In the arms of his leman gay. "And by murderous hand, and bloody brand, In that guilty bower— With his paramour, Did his sowle from his body fleet, And through mist and mirk, and moonlight gray, Was forc’d away from the bleeding clay, To the dreaded judgment seat."