Note 125a — THE MYSTERY OF THE BALLAD OF JAMIE TELFER
Reading edition
Aytoun, in The Ballads of Scotland (vol. i. p. 211), says that his copy of Jamie Telfer “is almost verbatim the same as that given in the Border Minstrelsy.” He does not tell us where he got his copy; or why the Captain’s bride’s speech (Sharpe, stanza xxxvi.) differs from the version in Scott and Sharpe. He gives the stanza which comes last in Scott’s copy, and is too bad and enfeebling to be attributed to Scott’s pen. He omits the stanza which has strayed in from other ballads,