The English and Scottish popular ballads, volume 4 (of 5)

Volume 4 — ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS (continued 3)

Reading edition

Lord Jonnie is my name.’

‘If Lord Jonnie be your name,

As I suppose it be,

489I have a champion in my hall

Will fight you till you die.’

‘O go fetch out that gurrley fellow,

Go fetch him out to me;

Before I lose my ain true-love,

We’ll all fight till we die.’

Then out and came that gurrly fellow,

A gurrly fellow was he,

With twa lang sclasps between his eyes,

His shoulders there were three.

The king and all his nobles stood

To see the battle gained;

The queen and all her maries stood

To see Lord Jonnie slain.

The first stroke that Lord Jonnie gave,

He wounded very sore;

The next stroke that Lord Jonnie gave,

The champion could fight no more.

He’s taen a whistle out from his side,

He’s blawn a blast loud and shill:

‘Is there any more of your English dogs

To come here and be killed?’

‘A clerk, a clerk!’ the king did say,

‘To cry her toucher free;’

‘A priest, a priest!’ Lord Jonnie [did] cry

‘To wed my love and me.

‘’Twas for none of your monnie I fought,

Nor for none of your world’s gear;

But it was for my own true-love;

I think I’ve bought her dear.’

“This song (L. Jonnie) I took down from the same girl who sung Hughie Graeme.”

5². supose.

8³. no news thrice: master wrongly, in anticipation of 13³.

In No 139.

4^3,4. That the king’s eldest daughter Goes with child to.

7¹. There is a shift, little boy.

7⁴. parents leave.

8². ye to.

16¹. But she.

16³. father’s hall.

19². They gard.

19⁴. They made.

22². James our.

23¹. name, kind sir.

25¹. out soon.

28². blown it baith loud.

29¹. did cry.

29². tocher fee.

29³. Jonnie cri’s.

30¹. our.

30². Nor none.

S

“Scotch Ballads, Materials for Border Minstrelsy,” No 140, Abbotsford; in the handwriting of James Hogg, who remarks at the end: “The repeater of the above song called the hero once or twice Johny Scott, which I ommitted in the MS., seeing it contradicted in the 22 verse. I thought it best to apprise you of this, in case you might find any tract of its being founded on fact, because, if it is not, it hath little else to reccomend it.”

O Johny’s up thro England gane

Three quarters of a year,

An Johny’s up thro England gane,

The king’s banner to bear.

He had not been in London town

But a very little while

Till the fairest lady in the court

By Johny gaes wi child.

But word is to the kitchin gane,

An word’s gane to the ha,

An word’s gane to yon high, high court,

Amang our nobles a’.

An when the king got wit o that

An angry man was he:

‘On the highest tree in a’ the wood

High hangit shall he be!

‘An for the lady, if it’s true,

As I do fear it be,

I’ll put her in yon castle strong,

An starve her till she die.’

But Johny had a clever boy,

A clever boy was he,

O Johny had a clever boy,

His name was Gregory.

‘O run, my boy, to yon castle,

All windows round about,

An there you’l see a fair lady,

At a window looking out.

‘Ye maun bid her take this silken sark—

Her ain hand sewd the gare—

An bid her come to the green wood,

For Johny waits her there.’

Away he ran to yon castle,

All windows round about,

Where he espy’d a lady fair,

At a window looking out.

49010

‘O madam, there’s a silken sark—

Your ain hand sewd the gare—

An haste ye to the good green wood,

For Johny waits you there.’

‘O I’m confin’d in this castle,

Though lighted round about;

My feet are bound with fetters strong,

That I cannot win out.

‘My gartens are of stubborn ern,

Alas! baith stiff and cold;

My breastplate of the sturdy steel,

Instead of beaten gold.

‘Instead of silken stays, my boy,

With steel I’m lac’d about;

My feet are bound with fetters strong,

And how can I get out?

‘But tell him he must stay at home,

Nor venture here for me;

Else an Italian in our court

Must fight him till he die.’

When Johny he got wit o that,

An angry man was he:

‘But I will gae wi a’ my men

My dearest dear to see.’

But up then spake a noble lord,

A noble lord was he;

‘The best of a’ my merry men

Shall bear you company.’

But up then spake his auld mother,

I wat wi meikle pain;

‘If ye will gae to London, son,

Ye’l neer come back again.’

But Johny turnd him round about,

I wat wi meikle pride:

‘But I will gae to London town,

Whatever may betide.’

When they were a’ on horseback set,

How comely to behold!

For a’ the hairs o Johny’s head

Did shine like threads o gold.

The first ae town that they gaed through,

They gart the bells be rung,

But the neist town that they gaed through

They gart the mass be sung.

But when they gaed to London town

The trumpets loud were blown,

Which made the king and a’ his court

To marvel at the sound.

‘Is this the Duke of Morebattle?

Or James the Scottish king?’

‘No, sire, I’m a Scottish lord,

McNaughten is my name.’

‘If you be that young Scottish lord,

As I believe you be,

The fairest lady in my court

She gaes wi child by thee.’

‘And if she be with child by me,

As I think sae may be,

It shall be heir of a’ my land,

And she my gay lady.’

‘O no, O no,’ the king reply’d,

‘That thing can never be,

For ere the morn at ten o clock

I’ll slay thy men an thee.

‘A bold Italian in my court

Has vanquishd Scotchmen three,

And ere the morn at ten o clock

I’m sure he will slay thee.’

But up then spake young Johny’s boy,

A clever boy was he;

‘O master, ere that you be slain,

There’s mae be slain than thee.’

The king and all his court appeard

Neist morning on the plain,

The queen and all her ladies came

To see youn[g] Johny slain.

Out then stepd the Italian bold,

And they met on the green;

Between his shoulders was an ell,

A span between his een.

When Johny in the list appeard,

Sae young and fair to see,

A prayer staw frae ilka heart,

A tear frae ilka ee.

And lang they fought, and sair they fought,

Wi swords o temperd steel,

Until the blood like draps o rain

Came trickling to their heal.

49132

But Johny was a wannle youth,

And that he weel did show;

For wi a stroke o his broad sword

He clove his head in two.

‘A priest, a priest!’ then Johny cry’d,

‘To wed my love and me;’

‘A clerk, a clerk!’ the king reply’d,

‘To write her tocher free.’

T

‘John, the little Scot;’ in the youthful handwriting of Sir Walter Scott, inserted, as No 4, at the beginning of a MS. volume, in small folio, containing a number of prose pieces, etc., Abbotsford Library, L. 2.

Johnny’s gane up to fair England

Three quarters of a year,

And Johny’s gane up to fair England,

The king’s broad banner to bear.

He had not been in fair England,

Even but a little while,

When that the king’s ae dochter

To Johnny gaes wi child.

And word is gane to the kitchen,

And word’s gane to the ha,

And word’s gane to the high, high court,

Amang the nobles a’.

And word is gane unto the king,

In the chair where he sat,

That his ae dochter’s wi bairn

To John the little Scott.

‘If that I thought she is wi bairn,

As I true weell she be,

I’ll put her up in high prison,

And hunger her till she die.’

‘There is a silken sark, Johnny,

My ain sell sewed the gare,

And if ye come to tak me hence

Ye need nae taken mare.

‘For I am up in high prison,

And O but it is cold!

My garters are o the cold, cold iron,

In place o the beaten gold.’

‘Is this the Duke o York?’ they said,

‘Or James the Scottish king?

Or is it John the little Scott,

Frae Scotland new come hame?’

‘I have an Italian in my bower,

This day he has eaten three;

Before I either eat or sleep

The fourth man ye shall be.’

. . . . . . .

Between his een there was two spans,

His shoulders ells were three.

Johnny drew forth his good braid glaive

And slate it on the plain:

‘Is there any more of your Italian dogs

That wanteth to be slain?’

‘A clerk, a clerk!’ her father cry’d

‘To register this deed;’

‘A priest, a priest!’ her mother cry’d,

‘To marry them wi speed.’

1¹. gane struck out.

1⁴. broad struck out.

8¹. king o Scots, originally, for Duke o York.

9¹. n Italian struck out, and Lion written above.

100. Willie o Winsbury.

P. 399 ff. MS. of Thomas Wilkie, p. 5, in “Scotch Ballads, Materials for Border Minstrelsy,” No 34. From Mrs Hislope, Gattonside. 1813.

The king calld on his merry men all,

By one, by two, and by three;

Lord Thomas should been the foremost man,

But the hindmost man was he.

As he came tripping down the stairs,

His stockings were of the silk,

His face was like the morning sun,

And his hand as white as milk.

‘No wonder, no wonder, Lord Thomas,’ he said,

‘Then my daughter she loved thee;

For, if I had been a woman as I am a man,

Tom, I would hae loved thee.’

492

106. The Famous Flower of Serving-Men.

P. 429. The fragment printed by Scott was given him by the Ettrick Shepherd. It was printed with no important change except in the last stanza, all of which is the editor’s but the second line. The two lines of stanza 7 are scored through in the MS.

“Scotch Ballads, Materials for Border Minstrelsy,” No 133 b, Abbotsford; in the handwriting of James Hogg.

My love he built me a bonny bowr,

An cled it a’ wi lily-flowr;

A brawer bowr ye neer did see

Than my true-love he built to me.

There came a man by middle day,

He spy’d his sport an went away,

An brought the king that very night,

Who brak my bowr, an slew my knight.

He slew my knight, to me sae dear;

He slew my knight, an poind his gear;

My servants all for life did flee,

An left me in extremity.

I sewd his sheet, making my moan;

I watchd the corpse, mysel alone;

I watchd his body night and day;

No living creature came that way.

I took the corpse then on my back,

And whiles I gaed, and whiles I sat;

I digd a grave, and laid him in,

And hapd him wi the sod sae green.

But thinkna ye my heart was sair

When I laid the mool on his yellow hair?

O thinkna ye my heart was wae

When I turnd about, away to gae?

Nae langer there I could remain

Since that my lovely knight was slain;

. . . . . . .

110. The Knight and the Shepherd’s

Daughter.

P. 457 a, 476 f. A. b is printed in the Ballad Society’s ed. of the Roxburghe Ballads, III, 449. It is in the Crawford collection, No 1142. There are four copies in the Douce collection: I, 11 b, 14, 21 b, IV, 33, two of Charles II.’s time, two of no account (Chappell).

458 b. The Danish ballad is now No 314 of Danmarks gamle Folkeviser, continued by Axel Olrik, V, II, 377, ‘Ebbe Galt—Hr. Tidemand.’ There are four Danish versions, A-D, some of the sixteenth century; a Färöe version in five copies, ‘Ebbin kall,’ Føroyjakvæði, as elaborated by Grundtvig and Bloch, No 123, D. g. F., E; an Icelandic version, ‘Símonar kvæði,’ Íslenzk Fornkvæði, I, 224, No 26. Danish C, Vedel, III, No 17, is compounded of B and a lost version which must have resembled A. The copy in Danske Viser, Abrahamson, No 63, is recompounded from C and one of the varieties of D. Herr Tidemand is the offending knight in A, C; Ebbe Galt in B, D and the Färöe E; Kóng Símon in the Icelandic version. A has fifteen stanzas, B only eleven; the story is extended to sixty-seven in D. A begins directly with a complaint on the part of the injured husband before the King’s Bench; the husband in this version is of a higher class than in the others,—Herr Peder, and not a peasant. The forcing is done at the woman’s house in A and the Icelandic version; in B-E in a wood. In all, the ravisher is capitally punished.

Hr. Olrik is disposed to think ‘The Knight and the Shepherd’s Daughter’ a not very happy patching together of ‘Ebbe Galt,’ a lost ballad, and ‘Tærning-spillet,’ D. g. F., No 248, by a minstrel who may perhaps have had Chaucer’s story in mind. I am not prepared to go further than to admit that there is a gross inconsistency, even absurdity, in the English ballad; the shepherd’s daughter of the beginning could not possibly turn out a duke’s, an earl’s, or a king’s daughter in the conclusion.

‘Malfred og Sallemand,’ p. 458, note §, which has many verses in common with ‘Ebbe Galt,’ is now No 313 of Danmarks gamle Folkeviser, V, II, 367.

M

‘Earl Richmond,’ “Scotch Ballads, Materials for Border Minstrelsy,” No 81, Abbotsford; in the handwriting of James Skene of Rubislaw.

There was a shepherd’s daughter

Kept hogs upo yon hill,

By cam her a gentle knight,

And he would hae his will.

Whan his will o her he had,

[His will] as he had taen,

‘Kind sir, for yer courtesy,

Will ye tell me yer name?’

‘Some they ca me Jock,’ he says,

‘And some they ca me John;

But whan ‘m in our king’s court

Hitchcock is my name.’

4934

The lady being well book-read,

She spelt it oer again:

‘Hitchcock in our king’s court

Is Earl Richard at hame.’

He pat his leg out-oer his steed

And to the get he’s gane;

She keltit up her green clothing,

And fast, fast followed him.

‘Turn back, turn back, ye carl’s daughter,

And dinna follow me;

It sets na carl’s daughters

Kings’ courts for to see.’

‘Perhaps I am a cerl’s daughter,

Perhaps I am nane,

But whan ye gat me in free forest

Ye might ha latten’s alane.’

Whan they cam to yon wan water

That a’ man does call Clyde,

He looket oer his left shuder,

Says, Fair may, will ye ride?

‘I learnt it in my mother’s bowr,

I wis I had learnt it better,

Whan I cam to wan water

To soom as does the otter.’

Or the knight was i the middle o the water,

The lady she was oer;

She took out a came o gold,

To came down her yellow hair.

‘Whar gat ye that, ye cerl’s daughter?

I pray ye tell to me:’

‘I got it fra my mither,’ she says,

‘To beguil sick chaps as thee.’

Whan they cam to our king’s court,

He rade it round about,

And he gade in at a shot-window,

And left the lady without.

She gade to our king hersel,

She fell low down upon her knee:

‘There is a knight into your court

This day has robbed me.’

‘Has he robbd ye o your goud?

Or o yer well-won fee?

Or o yer maidenhead,

The flower o yer body?’

‘He has na robbd me o my goud,

For I ha nane to gee;

But he has robbd me o my maidenhead,

The flower o my body.’

‘O wud ye ken the knight,’ he says,

‘If that ye did him see?’

‘I wud him ken by his well-fared face

And the blyth blink o his ee.’

‘An he be a married man,

High hanged sall he be,

And an he be a free man,

Well wedded to him ye’s be,

Altho it be my brother Richie,

And I wiss it be no he.’

The king called on his merry young men,

By ane, by twa, by three;

Earl Richmond had used to be the first,

But the hindmost was he.

By that ye mith ha well kent

That the guilty man was he;

She took him by the milk-white hand,

Says, This same ane is he.

There was a brand laid down to her,

A brand but an a ring,

Three times she minted to the brand,

But she took up the ring;

A’ that was in our king’s court

Countet her a wise woman.

‘I’ll gi ye five hundred pounds,

To mak yer marriage we,

An ye’l turn back, ye cerl’s daughter,

And fash nae mere wi me.’

‘Gae keep yer five hundred pounds

To mak yer merriage we,

For I’ll hae nathing but yersel

The king he promised me.’

‘I’ll gae ye one thousand pounds

To mak yer marriage we,

An ye’l turn back, ye cerl’s daughter,

And fash nae mere wi me.’

‘Gae keep yer one thousand pounds,

To mak yer merriage we,

For I’ll hae nathing but yersel

The king he promised me.’

49425

He took her down to yon garden,

And clothed her in the green;

Whan she cam up again,

Sh[e] was fairer than the queen.

They gad on to Mary kirk, and on to Mary quire,

The nettles they grew by the dyke:

‘O, an my mither wer her[e],

So clean as she wud them pick!’

‘I wiss I had druken water,’ he says,

‘Whan I drank the ale,

That ony cerl’s daughter

Sud tell me sick a tale.’

‘Perhaps I am a cerl’s daughter,

Perhaps I am nane;

But whan ye gat me in free forest

Ye might ha latten’s alane.

‘Well mat this mill be,

And well mat the gae!

Mony a day they ha filled me pock

O the white meal and the gray.’

‘I wiss I had druken water,’ he says,

‘When I drank the ale,

That ony cerl’s daughter

Sud tell me sick a tale.’

‘Perhaps I am a cerl’s daughter,

Perhaps I am nane;

But whan ye gat me in free forest

Ye might ha latten’s alane.

‘Tak awa yer siller spoons,

Tak awa fra me,

An gae me the gude horn spoons,

It’s what I’m used tee.

‘O an my mukle dish wer here,

And sine we hit were fu,

I wud sup file I am saerd,

And sine lay down me head and sleep wi ony sow.’

‘I wiss I had druken water,’ he says,

‘Whan I drank the ale,

That any cerl’s daughter

Sud tell me sick a tale.’

‘Perhaps I am a cerl’s daughter,

Perhaps I am nane,

But whan ye gat me in free forest,

Ye might ha latten’s alane.’

He took his hat in oer his face,

The tear blindit his ee;

She threw back her yellow locks,

And a light laughter leugh she.

‘Bot an ye be a beggar geet,

As I trust well ye be,

Whar gat ye their fine clothing

Yer body was covered we?’

‘My mother was an ill woman,

And an ill woman was she;

She gat them . . . .

Fra sic chaps as thee.’

Whan bells were rung, and mess was sung,

And aa man bound to bed,

Earl Richard and the carl’s daughter

In a chamer were laid.

‘Lie yont, lie yont, ye carl’s daughter,

Yer hot skin burns me;

It sets na carl’s daughters

In earls’ beds to be.’

‘Perhaps I am a carl’s daughter,

Perhaps I am nane;

But whan ye gat me in free forest

Ye might ha latten’s alane.’

Up it starts the Belly Blin,

Just at their bed-feet.

‘I think it is a meet marrige

Atween the taen and the tither,

The Earl of Hertford’s ae daughter

And the Queen of England’s brither.’

‘An this be the Earl of Hertford’s ae daughter,

As I trust well it be,

Mony a gude horse ha I ridden

For the love o thee.’

1–34. Written as far as 36 in long lines, two to a stanza: there is no division of stanzas..

23, 24, 28, 30, 31, 34, 35, 41, are not fully written out.

29². Possibly mat she gae, but observe the plural in the next line.

495

112. The Baffled Knight.

P. 480 a. There is another variety of D in The Calleen Fuine, to which are added The Shepherd’s Boy, etc. Limerick, Printed by W. Goggin, corner of Bridge-Street. British Museum, 11621. e. 14 (16). Dated 1810? in the catalogue.

This begins:

There was a shepherd’s boy,

He kept sheep upon a hill,

And he went out upon a morning

To see what he could kill.

It’s blow away the morning dew,

It’s blow, you winds, hi ho!

You stole away my morning blush,

And blow a little, blow.

481 a. ‘Lou Cabalier discret’ (‘Je vous passerai le bois’), Daymard, Vieux Chants p. rec. en Quercy, p. 126.

481 b, III, 518 a. Dans le bois elle s’est mise à pleurer: Revue des Traditions Populaires, IV, 514; ‘J’ai fini ma journée,’ Gothier, Recueil de Crâmignons, p. 5, ‘Youp ta deritou la la,’ Terry et Chaumont, Recueil d’Airs de Crâmignons, etc., p. 66, No 34; ‘Après ma journée faite,’ Meyrac, Traditions, etc., des Ardennes, pp. 277, 279.

Varieties: ‘Lou Pastour brégountsous (trop discret),’ Daymard, p. 124; ‘A la ronde, mesdames,’ Terry et Chaumont, p. 22, No 13; ‘La belle et l’ermite,’ ‘La jeune couturière,’ La Tradition, IV, 346, 348, Chansons populaires de la Picardie (half-popular).

482 a. A Breton song gives the essence of the story in seven couplets: Quellien, Chansons et Danses des Bretons, p. 156.

Danish. ‘Den dyre Kaabe,’ Kristensen, Jyske Folkeminder, X, 142, No 38.

482 b, third paragraph. The incident of the boots in Hazlitt, Jest-Books, II, 241 (Tarlton’s Jests, 1611, but printed before 1600).

113. The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry.

P. 494, III, 518. See David MacRitchie, The Finn-Men of Britain, in The Archæological Review, IV, 1–26, 107–129, 190 ff., and Alfred Nutt, p. 232.

A husband who is a man by day, but at night a seal: Curtin, Myths and Folk-Lore of Ireland, p. 51. (G. L. K.)

VOL. III.

114. Johnie Cock.

P. 1. There is a ballad of ‘Bertram, the Bauld Archer’ in Pitcairn’s MSS, III, 51; printed in Maidment’s Scotish Ballads and Songs, 1859, p. 46. Pitcairn derived it from Mrs McCorquodale, Stirling, a farmer’s wife, who remembered it “to have been sung by her grandmother, a woman above eighty years old, who stated that she had it from an old woman, her aunt.” The reciter herself was above sixty-five, and had “first heard it when a little girl.” Nevertheless, Bertram is fustian, of a sort all too familiar in the last century. The story, excepting perhaps the first stanza, is put into the mouth of Bertram’s mistress, à la Gilderoy. The bauld archer has gone to the forest for to mak a robberie. The king has made proclamation that he will give five hunder merk for Bertram’s life. John o Shoumacnair (Stronmaknair, Maidment) proposes to his billies to kill Bertram and get the money. They busk themselves in hodden gray, ‘like to friers o low degree,’ present themselves to Bertram and ask a boon of him, which Bertram grants without inquiry. While they are parleying, Shoumacnair drives his dirk into Bertram’s back. But, though he swirls wi the straik, Bertram draws his awsome bran, kills ane, wounds twa, and then his stalwart, gallant soul takes its flight to heaven.

2b. Braid. “This version [‘Johnie of Braidisbank,’ I] was taken down by Motherwell and me from the recitation of Mr James Knox, land-surveyor at Tipperlinne, near Edinburgh, in the month of May, 1824, when we met him in the good town of Paisley. At 17 a tradition is mentioned which assigns Braid to have been the scene of this woeful hunting. Mr Knox is the authority for this tradition. Braid is in the neighborhood of Tipperlinne.” Note by Mr P. A. Ramsay in a copy of the Minstrelsy which had belonged to Motherwell. (W. Macmath.)

Wolves in Scotland. “It is usually said that the species was extirpated about 1680 by Sir Ewen Cameron of Lochiel, but the tradition to that effect appears to be true only of Sir Ewen’s own district of western Invernessshire.” The very last wolf may have been killed in 1743. R. Chambers, Domestic Annals of Scotland, III, 690.

7. F was made up from several copies, one of which was the following, ‘John o Cockielaw,’ in Scott’s youthful handwriting, inserted, as No 3, at the beginning of a MS. volume, in small folio, containing a number of prose pieces, and beginning with excerpts from Law’s Memorials. Abbotsford Library, L. 2.

Johnny got up in a May morning,

Calld for water to wash his hands:

‘Gar louse to me my good gray dogs

That are tied with iron bands.’

When Johnny’s mother got word o that,

For grief she has lain down:

‘O Johnny, for my benison,

I red you bide at hame!’

He’s putten on his black velvet,

Likewise his London brown,

496And he’s awa to Durrisdeer,

To hunt the dun deer down.

Johnny shot, and the dun deer lap,

And he wounded her on the side;

Between the water and the brae,

There he laid her pride.

He’s taken out the liver o her,

And likewise sae the lungs,

And he has made a’ his dogs to feast

As they had been earl’s sons.

They eat sae much o the venison,

And drank sae much of the blood,

That they a’ then lay down and slept,

And slept as they had been dead.

And bye there cam a silly ald man,

And an ill death might he die!

And he’s awa to the seven forresters,

As fast as he can drie.

‘As I cam down by Merriemas,

And down aboon the scroggs,

The bonniest boy that ever I saw

Lay sleeping amang his doggs.

‘The shirt that was upon his back

Was of the holland fine,

The cravat that was about his neck

Was of the cambrick lawn.

‘The coat that was upon his back

Was of the London brown,

The doublet . . . .

Was of the Lincome twine.’

Out and spak the first forrester,

That was a forrester our them a’;

If this be John o Cockielaw,

Nae nearer him we’ll draw.

Then out and spak the sixth,

That was . forrester amang them a’;

If this is John o Cockielaw,

Nearer to him we’ll draw.

Johnny shot six of the forresters,

And wounded the seventh, we say,

And set him on a milk-white steed

To carry tidings away.

4⁴. Wi He there he (he written in place of another word). Wi He struck out.

6³. Originally, That they lay a’ them down.

7². Originally, And a silly ald man was he.

11². was hed. hed struck out.

116. Adam Bell, etc.

P. 18. The Tell story in The Braemar Highlands, by Elizabeth Taylor, Edinburgh, 1869, pp. 99–103, is a transparent plagiarism, as indeed the author of the book seems to be aware.

117. A Gest of Robyn Hode.

P. 40 ff. Thomas Robinhood is one of six witnesses to a grant in the 4th of Richard II. (June 22, 1380–June 21, 1381). See Historical MSS Commission, Fifth Report, Appendix, p. 511, col. 2. The pronunciation, Robinhood (p. 41 a, note †), is clearly seen in the jingle quoted by Nash, Strange Newes, 1593, Works, ed. Grosart, II, 230: “Ah, neighbourhood, neighbourhood, Dead and buried art thou with Robinhood.”

Among the disbursements of John Lord Howard, afterwards Duke of Norfolk, occurs the following: “And the same day, my Lord paide to Robard Hoode for viij. shafftys xvj. d.” (This is Friday, Sept. 26, 1483.) Household Books of John Duke of Norfolk and Thomas Earl of Surrey, temp. 1481–1490, ed. by J. P. Collier, 1844, Roxburghe Club, p. 464. Collier, p. 525, remarks that “the coincidence that the duke bought them of a person of the name of Robin Hood is singular.”

The Crosscombe Church-Wardens’ Accounts (in Church-Wardens’ Accounts of Croscombe, Pilton, Yatton, etc., ranging from 1349 to 1560, ed. by Right Rev. Bishop Hobhouse, Somerset Record Soc. Publications, IV, 1890):

“Comes Thomas Blower and John Hille, and presents in xl s. of Roben Hod’s recones.” 1476 7 (accounts for 147⅚), p. 4.

“Comys Robin Hode and presents in xxxiij s. iv d.” 148⅔ (for 148½), p. 10.

“Ric. Willes was Roben Hode, and presents in for yere past xxiij s.” 148¾ (for 148⅔), p. 11.

“Comys Robyn Hode, Wyllyam Wyndylsor, and presents in for the yere paste iij l. vj s. viij d. ob.” 1486 7 (for 148⅚), p. 14.

“Robyn Hode presents in xlvj s. viij. d.” 149⅘ (for 149¾), p. 20.

And so of later years.

A pasture called Robynhode Closse is mentioned in the Chamberlains’ Accounts of the town of Nottingham in 1485, 1486, and 1500: Records of the Borough of Nottingham, III, 64, 230, 254. A Robynhode Well near the same town is mentioned in a presentment at the sessions of July 20, 1500 (III, 74), and again in 4971548 as Robyn’s Wood Well (IV, 441). Robin Hood’s Acre is mentioned in 162⅘ (IV, 441). Robbin-hoodes Wele is mentioned in Jack of Dover, his Quest of Inquirie, 1604, Hazlitt, Jest-Books, II, 315. (The above by G. L. K.)

49 b. Italian robber-songs. “Sulle piazze romane e napoletane ognuno ha potuto sentire ripetere i canti epici che celebrano le imprese di famosi banditi o prepotenti, Meo Pataca, Mastrilli, Frà Diavolo:” Cantù, Documenti alla Storia universale (1858), V, 891.

53 a. Note on 243–47. The same incident in The Jests of Scogin, Hazlitt’s Jest-Books, II, 151. (G. L. K.)

53 f., 519 a. See also the traditional story how Bishop Forbes, of Corse, lent his brother a thousand marks on the security of God Almighty, in The Scotsman’s Library, by James Mitchell, 1825, p. 576. (W. Macmath.)

121. Robin Hood and the Potter.

P. 108 a. Compare the Great-Russian bylinas about Il’ja of Murom and his son (daughter). Il’ja is captain of the march-keepers, Dobrynja second in command. No man, on foot or on horse, no bird or beast, undertakes to pass. But one day a young hero crosses, neither greeting nor paying toll. One of the guards, commonly Dobrynja, is sent after him, but comes back in a fright. Il’ja takes the matter in hand, has a fight with the young man, is worsted at first, but afterwards gets the better of him. Wollner, Volksepik der Grossrussen, p. 115. (W. W.)

141. Robin Hood rescuing Will Stutly.

P. 186. Stanzas 19, 20. The boon of being allowed to fight at odds, rather than be judicially executed, is of very common occurrence in South-Slavic songs, generally with the nuance that the hero asks to have the worst horse and the worst weapon. A well-known instance is the Servian song of Jurišić Janko, Karadžić, II, 319, No 52, and the older Croat song of Svilojević (treating the same matter), Bogišić, p. 120 No 46. (W. W.)

155. Sir Hugh, or, The Jew’s Daughter.

P. 241. For the subject in general, and particularly ‘el santo niño de la Guardia,’ see further H. C. Lea, in The English Historical Review, IV, 229, 1889.

242 b, fourth paragraph. See J. Loeb, Un mémoire de Laurent Ganganelli sur la calomnie du meurtre rituel, in Revue des Etudes juives, XVIII, 179 ff., 1889. (G. L. K.) For the other side: Il sangue cristiano nei riti ebraici della moderna sinagoga. Versione dal greco del Professore N. F. S. Prato, 1883. Henri Desportes, Le mystère du sang chez les Juifs de tous les temps. Paris, 1889.

246 b. E 5. The following stanza was inserted by Motherwell as a variation in a copy of his Minstrelsy afterwards acquired by Mr P. A. Ramsay:

She went down to the Jew’s garden,

Where the grass grows lang and green,

She pulled an apple aff the tree,

Wi a red cheek and a green,

She hung it on a gouden chain,

To wile that bonnie babe in.

249 ff. A version resembling H-M, O has been kindly communicated by Mr P. Z. Round.

S

Written down April, 1891, by Mrs W. H. Gill, of Sidcup, Kent, as recited to her in childhood by a maid-servant in London.

It rained so high, it rained so low,

. . . . . . .

In the Jew’s garden all below.

Out came a Jew,

All clothëd in green,

Saying, Come hither, come hither, my sweet little boy,

And fetch your ball again.

‘I won’t come hither, I shan’t come hither,

Without my school-fellows all;

My mother would beat me, my father would kill me,

And cause my blood to pour.

‘He showed me an apple as green as grass,

He showed me a gay gold ring,

He showed me a cherry as red as blood,

And that enticed me in.

‘He enticed me into the parlour,

He enticed me into the kitchen,

And there I saw my own dear sister,

A picking of a chicken.

‘He set me in a golden chair

And gave me sugar sweet;

He laid me on a dresser-board,

And stabbed me like a sheep.

‘With a Bible at my head,

A Testament at my feet,

498A prayer-book at the side of me,

And a penknife in so deep.

‘If my mother should enquire for me,

Tell her I’m asleep;

Tell her I’m at heaven’s gate,

Where her and I shall meet.’

156. Queen Eleanor’s Confession.

Pp. 258 ff.

G

‘Earl Marshall,’ “Scotch Ballads, Materials for Border Minstrelsy,” No 4 b, Abbotsford; in the handwriting of William Laidlaw.

The queen of England she is seek,

And seek and like to dee;

She has sent for friers out of France,

To bespeek hir speed[i]ly.

The king has cald on his merrymen,

By thirtys and by threes;

Earl Marshall should have been the formest man,

But the very last man was he.

‘The queen of England s[h]e is seek,

And seek and like to dee,

And she has sent for friers out of France,

To bespeek hir speedyly.

‘But I will put on a frier’s weeg,

And ye’l put on another,

And we’ll away to Queen Helen gaits,

Like friers both together.’

‘O no, no,’ says Earl Marshall,

‘For this it must not be;

For if the queen get word of that,

High hanged I will be.’

‘But I will swear by my septer and crown,

And by the seas so free,

I will swear by my septer and crown,

Earl Marshall, thow’s no dee.’

So he has put on a frier’s wig,

And the king has put on another,

And they are away to Queen Helen gaits,

Like friers both together.

When they came to Queen Helen gaits,

They tirled at the pin;

There was non so ready as the queene herself

To open and let them in.

‘O are you two Scottish dogs?—

And hanged you shall be—

Or are [you] friers come out of France,

To bespeek me speedily?’

‘We are not two Scottish dogs,

Nor hanged we shall be;

For we have not spoken a wrong word

Since we came over the sea.’

‘Well then, the very first that ever I sind

I freely confess to thee;

Earl Marshall took my maidenhead

Below yon greenwood tree.’

‘That is a sin, and very great sin,

But the Pope will pardon thee;’

‘Amene, Amene,’ says Earl Marshall,

But a feert, feert heart had he.

‘The very next sin that ever I sind

I freely confess to thee;

I had [poisen] seven years in my breast

To poisen King Hendry.’

‘That is a sin, and very great sin,

But the Pope forgiveth thee;’

‘Amene, Amene,’ says Earl Marshall,

But a feert, feert heart had he.

‘The very next sin that ever I sind

I freely confess to thee;

I poisened one of my court’s ladies,

Was far more fairer than me.’

‘That is a sin, and a very great sin,

But the Pope forgiveth thee;’

‘Amene, Amene,’ says Earl Marshall,

But a feert, feert heart had he.

‘Do you see yon bony boys,

Playing at the baw?

The oldest of them is Earl Marshall’s,

And I like him best of all.’

‘That is a sin, and very great sin,

But the Pope forgiveth thee;’

499‘Amene, Amene,’ says Earl Marshall,

But a feert, feert heart had he.

‘Do ye see two bony [boys],

Playing at the baw?

The youngest of them is King Hendry’s,

And I like him worst of all.

‘Because he is headed like a bull,

And his nose is like a boar;’

‘What is the matter?’ says King Henry,

‘For he shall be my heir.’

Now he put off his frier’s wig

And drest himself [in] red;

She wrung hir hands, and tore hir hair,

And s[w]ore she was betraid.

‘Had I not sworn by my septer and crown,

And by the seas so free,

Had I not sworn by my septer and crown,

Earl Marshall, thowst have died.’

4². yet.

4³. will.

14². they.

19². is Earl Marshall’s.

158. Hugh Spencer’s Feats in France.

III, 276, note †. I had remarked that this ballad was after the fashion of Russian bylinas. Professor Wollner indicates especially the bylina of Dobrynja and Vasilij Kazimirović, which in a general way is singularly like ‘Hugh Spencer.’ In this very fine ballad, Vladimir is in arrears with his tribute to a Saracen king, and appoints Vasilij his envoy, to make payment. Vasilij asks that he may have Dobrynja go with him, and Dobrynja asks for Ivanuka’s company. (Compare B.) Dobrynja beats the king at chess and at the bow (which corresponds to the justing in the English ballad); then follows a great fight, the result of which is that the Saracen king is fain to pay tribute himself. Wollner, Volksepik der Grossrussen, pp. 123–125.

Other examples of difficult feats done in foreign lands, commonly by comrades of the hero, in Karadić, II, 445, 465, Nos 75, 79; also II, 132, No 29; and the Bulgarian Sbornik, II, 130, 1, 132, 3. (W. W.)

161. The Battle of Otterburn.

Pp. 294, 520. St George Our Lady’s Knight. ‘Swete Sainct George, our ladies knyght,’ Skelton, ‘Against the Scottes,’ v. 141, Dyce, I, 186; ‘Thankyd be Saynte Gorge our ladyes knythe,’ in the ‘Ballade of the Scottysche Kynge,’ p. 95 of the fac-simile edition by J. Ashton, 1882 (where the passage is somewhat different). In his note, II, 220, to the poem ‘Against the Scottes,’ Dyce remarks that St George is called Our Lady’s Knight “in a song written about the same time as the present poem, Cott. MS. Domit. A. xviii. fol. 248.” This appears to be the song quoted from the same MS. by Sir H. Ellis, Original Letters, First Series, I, 79:

‘Swet Sent Jorge, our Ladyes knyte,

Save Kyng Hary bothe be day and nyȝth.’

In his Chorus de Dis, super triumphali victoria contra Gallos, etc., Skelton speaks of St George as Gloria Cappadocis divæ milesque Mariæ, v. 13; Dyce, I, 191. See also John Anstis, The Register of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, London, 1724, I, 122; II, 27, 48 f. (G. L. K.)

299. C. First published in the second edition of the Minstrelsy, 1803, I, 27. 1^3,4 there read The doughty earl of Douglas rode Into England, to catch a prey; 31¹, Yield thee, O yield thee, etc., and 31³, Whom to shall I yield, said, etc.

For his later edition of ‘The Battle of Otterburn,’ Scott says he used “two copies ... obtained from the recitation of old persons residing at the head of Ettrick Forest.” James Hogg sent Scott, in a letter dated September 10 (1802?), twenty-nine stanzas “collected from two different people, a crazy old man and a woman deranged in her mind,” and subsequently recovered, by “pumping” his “old friends’ memory,” other lines and half lines out of which (using the necessary cement, and not a little) he built up eleven stanzas more, and these he seems to have forwarded in the same letter. These two communications are what is described by Scott as two copies. They will be combined here according to Hogg’s directions, and the second set of verses bracketed for distinction.

The materials out of which C was constructed can now easily be separated. We must bear in mind that Scott allowed himself a liberty of alteration; this he did not, however, carry very far in the present instance. 1–13, 15–19, 23 are taken, with slight change or none, from Hogg’s first “copy” of verses; 24, 26–29 from the second; 30–35 are repeated from Scott’s first edition. 14 is altered from A 16; 20=Hogg 21^1,2 + Scott; 21=Hogg 22¹ + Hogg 35^2–4; 22=Hogg 23^1,3 + Scott; 25=Hogg 28¹ + B 8^2–4. Scott did well to drop Hogg 9, and ought to have dropped Hogg 8.

“Scotch Ballads, Materials for Border Minstrelsy,” No 132, Abbotsford, stanzas 1–24, 35–38, 40; the same, No 5, stanzas 25–34, 39. Communicated to Scott, in a letter, by James Hogg.

It fell about the Lammas time,

When the muir-men won their hay,

That the doughty Earl Douglas went

Into England to catch a prey.

5002

He chose the Gordons and the Graemes,

With the Lindsays light and gay;

But the Jardines wadna wi him ride,

And they rued it to this day.

And he has burnt the dales o Tine

And part of Almonshire,

And three good towers on Roxburgh fells

He left them all on fire.

Then he marchd up to Newcastle,

And rode it round about:

‘O whae’s the lord of this castle,

Or whae’s the lady o ‘t?’

But up spake proud Lord Piercy then,

And O but he spak hie!

I am the lord of this castle,

And my wife’s the lady gaye.’

‘If you are lord of this castle,

Sae weel it pleases me;

For ere I cross the border again

The ane of us shall die.’

He took a lang speir in his hand,

Was made of the metal free,

And for to meet the Douglas then

He rode most furiously.

But O how pale his lady lookd,

Frae off the castle wa,

When down before the Scottish spear

She saw brave Piercy fa!

How pale and wan his lady lookd,

Frae off the castle hieght,

When she beheld her Piercy yield

To doughty Douglas’ might!

‘Had we twa been upon the green,

And never an eye to see,

I should have had ye flesh and fell;

But your sword shall gae wi me.’

‘But gae you up to Otterburn,

And there wait dayes three,

And if I come not ere three days’ end

A fause lord ca ye me.’

‘The Otterburn’s a bonny burn,

’Tis pleasant there to be,

But there is naught at Otterburn

To feed my men and me.

‘The deer rins wild owr hill and dale,

The birds fly wild frae tree to tree,

And there is neither bread nor kale

To fend my men and me.

‘But I will stay at Otterburn,

Where you shall welcome be;

And if ye come not ere three days’ end

A coward I’ll ca thee.’

‘Then gae your ways to Otterburn,

And there wait dayes three;

And if I come not ere three days’ end

A coward ye’s ca me.’

They lighted high on Otterburn,

Upon the bent so brown,

They lighted high on Otterburn,

And threw their pallions down.

And he that had a bonny boy

Sent his horses to grass,

And he that had not a bonny boy

His ain servant he was.

But up then spak a little page,

Before the peep of the dawn;

‘O waken ye, waken ye, my good lord,

For Piercy’s hard at hand!’

‘Ye lie, ye lie, ye loud liar,

Sae loud I hear ye lie!

The Piercy hadna men yestreen

To dight my men and me.

‘But I have seen a dreary dream,

Beyond the isle o Sky;

I saw a dead man won the fight,

And I think that man was I.’

He belted on his good broad-sword

And to the field he ran,

Where he met wi the proud Piercy,

And a’ his goodly train.

When Piercy wi the Douglas met,

I wat he was right keen;

They swakked their swords till sair they swat,

And the blood ran them between.

50123

But Piercy wi his good broad-sword,

Was made o the metal free,

Has wounded Douglas on the brow

Till backward he did flee.

Then he calld on his little page,

And said, Run speedily,

And bring my ain dear sister’s son,

Sir Hugh Montgomery.

[Who, when he saw the Douglas bleed,

His heart was wonder wae:

‘Now, by my sword, that haughty lord

Shall rue before he gae.’

‘My nephew bauld,’ the Douglas said,

‘What boots the death of ane?

Last night I dreamd a dreary dream,

And I ken the day’s thy ain.

‘I dreamd I saw a battle fought

Beyond the isle o Sky,

When lo, a dead man wan the field,

And I thought that man was I.

‘My wound is deep, I fain wad sleep,

Nae mair I’ll fighting see;

Gae lay me in the breaken bush

That grows on yonder lee.

‘But tell na ane of my brave men

That I lye bleeding wan,

But let the name of Douglas still

Be shouted in the van.

‘And bury me here on this lee,

Beneath the blooming brier,

And never let a mortal ken

A kindly Scot lyes here.’

He liftit up that noble lord,

Wi the saut tear in his ee,

And hid him in the breaken bush,

On yonder lily lee.

The moon was clear, the day drew near,

The spears in flinters flew,

But mony gallant Englishman

Ere day the Scotsmen slew.

Sir Hugh Montgomery he rode

Thro all the field in sight,

And loud the name of Douglas still

He urgd wi a’ his might.

The Gordons good, in English blood

They steepd their hose and shoon,

The Lindsays flew like fire about,

Till a’ the fray was doon.]

When stout Sir Hugh wi Piercy met,

I wat he was right fain;

They swakked their swords till sair they swat,

And the blood ran down like rain.

‘O yield thee, Piercy,’ said Sir Hugh,

‘O yield, or ye shall die!’

‘Fain wad I yield,’ proud Piercy said,

‘But neer to loun like thee.’

‘Thou shalt not yield to knave nor loun,

Nor shalt thou yield to me;

But yield thee to the breaken bush

That grows on yonder lee.’

‘I will not yield to bush or brier,

Nor will I yield to thee;

But I will yield to Lord Douglas,

Or Sir Hugh Montgomery.’

[When Piercy knew it was Sir Hugh,

He fell low on his knee,

But soon he raisd him up again,

Wi mickle courtesy.]

He left not an Englishman on the field

. . . . . . .

That he hadna either killd or taen

Ere his heart’s blood was cauld.

35³. swords still.

Hogg writes:

“As for the scraps of Otterburn which I have got, they seem to have been some confused jumble, made by some person who had learned both the songs which you have, and in time had been straitened to make one out of them both. But you shall have it as I had it, saving that, as usual, I have sometimes helped the measure, without altering one original word.”

After 24: “This ballad, which I have collected from two different people, a crazy old man and a woman deranged in her mind, seems hitherto considerably entire; but now, when it becomes most interesting, they have 502both failed me, and I have been obliged to take much of it in plain prose. However, as none of them seemed to know anything of the history save what they had learned from the song, I took it the more kindly. Any few verses which follow are to me unintelligible.

“He told Sir Hugh that he was dying, and ordered him to conceal his body, and neither let his own men nor Piercy’s know; which he did, and the battle went on headed by Sir Hugh Montgomery, and at length” (35, etc.).

After 38: “Piercy seems to have been fighting devilishly in the dark; indeed, my relaters added no more, but told me that Sir Hugh died on the field, but that” (40).

In the postscript, Hogg writes:

“Not being able to get the letter away to the post, I have taken the opportunity of again pumping my old friends’ memory, and have recovered some more lines and half lines of Otterburn, of which I am become somewhat enamourd. These I have been obliged to arrange somewhat myself, as you will see below; but so mixed are they with original lines and sentences that I think, if you pleased, they might pass without any acknowledgment. Sure no man will like an old song the worse of being somewhat harmonious. After [24] you may read [25–34]. Then after [38] read [39].”

Of Almonshire [3²] Hogg writes: “Almon shire may probably be a corruption of Banburgh shire, but as both my relaters called it so, I thought proper to preserve it.”

Andrew Livingston writes to Scott, Airds by Castle Douglas, 28th April, 1806, Letters, I, No 183: “My mother recollects seven or eight verses of the ballad of ‘The Battle of Otterburn’ different from any I have seen either in the first and second editions of the Minstrelsy or in Percy’s Reliques.... In several parts they bear a great resemblance to the copy in the first edition of the Minstrelsy.”

162. The Hunting of the Cheviot.

P. 306. Fighting on or with stumps, etc.

Ketilbjörn’s foot is cut off at the ankle-joint. He does not fall, but hobbles against his enemies and kills two of them before his strength gives out: Gull-þóris Saga, c. 18, ed. Maurer, p. 75. Gnúpr fought on his knees after his foot was off: Vemundar Saga ok Vígaskútu, c. 13, Rafn, Íslendinga Sögur, II, 266. Sörli kills eleven men with his club, hobbling round on one foot and one stump (apparently, though Sörli and Hárr are perhaps confused in the narrative): Göngu-Hrólfs Saga, c. 31, Rafn, Fornaldar Sögur, III, 329, Ásmundarson, III, 214 (wrongly, 114). Már fights when both his hands are off: Gull-þóris Saga, c. 10, Maurer, p. 59. Compare the exploits of Sölvi after both his hands have been cut off: Göngu-Hrólfs Saga, c. 31, Rafn, F. S., III, 331, Ásmundarson, III, 215 (wrongly 115); and Röndólfr’s performances after one of his hands has been cut off and all the toes of one foot, in the same saga, c. 30, Rafn, p. 324 f., Ásmundarson, p. 211 (111); and Göngu-Hrólfr’s, who has had both feet cut off while he slept, the same saga, c. 25, Rafn, pp. 307–9, Ásmundarson, 197 f. The Highlander at the battle of Gasklune had his predecessor in Ali, in the same saga, c. 30, Rafn, p. 324, Ásmundarson, p. 210 (110). (G. L. K.)

167. Sir Andrew Barton.

P. 338 b. Gold to bury body. So in the story of Buridan and the Queen of France, Haupt’s Zeitschrift II, 364. (G. L. K.)

In Apollonius of Tyre: puellam in loculo conposuit . . . et uiginti sestertios ad caput ipsius posuit, et scripturam sic continentem: Quicumque corpus istud inuenerit et humo tradiderit medios sibi teneat, medios pro funere expendat; et misit in mare. C. 25, ed. Riese, p. 29. Cf. Jourdains de Blaivies, 2222–33, K. Hofmann, Amis et Amiles und Jourdains de Blaivies, 1882, p. 168 f. (P. Z. Round.)

‘The Sonnge of Sir Andraye Barton, Knight,’ English Miscellanies, edited by James Raine, Surtees Society, vol. lxxxv, p. 64, 1890; from a MS. in a hand of the sixteenth century now in York Minster Library.

This very interesting version of Sir Andrew Barton, the editor informs us, was originally No 25 of a ballad-book in small quarto. It came recently “into the possession of the Dean and Chapter of York with a number of papers which belonged in the seventeenth century to the episcopal families of Lamplugh and Davenant.” If, as is altogether probable, there were copies of other ballads in the same book in quality as good as this, and if, as is equally probable, no more of the book can be recovered, our only comfort is the cold one of having had losses. In several details this copy differs from that of the Percy MS., but not more than would be expected. The English sail out of the Thames on the morrow after midsummer month, July 1, and come back the night before St Maudlen’s eve, or the night of July 20, stanzas 17, 74. In stanza 42 Barton boasts that he had once sent thirty Portingail heads home salted— ‘to eat with bread’! We read in Lesley’s History that the Hollanders had taken and spoiled divers Scots ships, and had cruelly murdered and cast overboard the merchants and passengers; in revenge for which Andrew Barton took many ships of that country, and filled certain pipes with the heads of the Hollanders and sent them to the Scottish king. (Ed. 1830, p. 74; ed. 1578, p. 329.) The eating is a ferocious addition of the ballad. Several passages of this copy are corrupted. A throws light upon some of these places, but others remain to me unamendable.

5031

It fell against a midsomer moneth,

When birds soonge well in every tree,

Our worthë prence, Kinge Henrye,

He roode untoe a chelvellrye.

And allsoe toe a forrest soe faire,

Wher his Grace wente toe tak the ayre;

And twentye marchantes of London citie

Then on there knees they kneelled there.

‘Ye are welcome home, my rich merchantes,

The best salers in Christentie!’

‘We thanke yowe; by the rood, we are salers good,

But rich merchantes we cannot be.

‘To France nor Flanders we der not goe,

Nor a Burgesse voy[a]ge we der not fare,

For a robber that lyes abrod on the sea,

And robs us of oure merchantes-ware.’

King Henry was stout, and turnd hime about;

He sware by the lord that was mickell of might,

‘Is ther any rober in the world soe stoute

Der worke toe England that unrighte?’

The merchantes answered, soore they sight,

With a woefull harte to the kinge againe,

‘He is one that robes us of our right,

Were we twentie shippes and he but one.’

King Henrye lookte over his shoulder agayne,

Amongst his lordes of hye degree:

‘Have I not a lord in all my land soe stoute

Der take yon robber upon the sea?’

‘Yes,’ then did answeer my lord Charls Howwarde,

Neare the kinge’s grace that he did stande;

He saide, If your Grace will give me leave,

My selfe will be the onlie man,

‘That will goe beat Sir Andrewe Barton

Upon the seas, if he be there;

I’le ether bringe hime and his shippe toe this lande,

Ore I’le come in England never more.’

‘Yow shall have five hundrethe men,’ saide Kinge Henrye,

‘Chuse them within my realme soe free,

Beside all other merriners and boys,

Toe gide the great shippe on the sea.’

The first of all the lord up cald,

A noble gunner he was one;

This man was thre score yeares and ten,

And Petter Symond height his name.

‘Petter,’ quoeth he, ‘I must saill the sea,

Toe looke an enemye, God be my speede!

As thowe arte ould, I have chossen the

Of a hundreth gunners to be the headde.’

He said, If your Honor have chossen me

Of a hundreth gunners to be the headd,

On your mayn-mast-tre let me be hangd,

If I miss thre mille a pennye breed.

Then next of all my lord up cald,

A noble boweman he was ane;

In Yorkeshier was this gentleman borne,

And William Horsley height his name.

‘Horsley,’ saide he, ‘I must saill the sea,

To meete an enemee, thow must knowe;

I have oft [been] told of thy artillorye,

But of thy shootinge I never sawe.

‘Yet fore thye drawght that thowe dost drawe,

Of a hundreth bowemen to be the heade;’

Said Horsley then, Let me be hang[d]e,

If I mis twelve score a twelt penc[e] breed.

Yea, pickmen more, and bowmen both,

This worthë Howward tooke to the sea;

On the morowe after midsomer moneth

Out of Temes mouth saillëd he.

Hee had not sailled one daie but three,

After his Honor tooke to the sea,

When he mette with one Harrie Huntte,

In Newcastell ther dwelte hee.

When he sawe the lion of England out blaisse,

The streemers and the roose about his eye,

Full soonne he let his toppe-saill fall;

That was a tooken of curtissie.

My lord he cald of Henry Huntte,

Bad Harry Hunt both stay and stande;

Saies, Tell me where thy dwellinge is,

And whome unto thye shippe belonnges.

50421

Henrye Hunt he answered, sore he sight,

With a woefull hart and a sorrowefull minde,

‘I and this shippe doth both belonge

Unto the Newe Castell that stands upon Tyne.’

‘But haist thowe harde,’ said my lord Charles Hawward,

‘Wher thowe haist travelled, by daie or by night,

Of a robber that lies abroode on the sea,

They call him Sir Andrewe Barton, knight?’

‘Yes,’ Harye answered, sore he sight,

With a woefull hart thus did he saye;

‘Mary, overwell I knowe that wight,

I was his pressoner yesterdaie.

‘Toe frome home, my lord, that I was boune,

A Burgess voyage was boune so faire,

Sir Andrewe Barton met with me,

And robd me of mye merchantes-waire.

‘And I ame a man in mickle debte,

And everye one craves his owne of mee;

And I am boune to London, my lorde,

Fore toe comepleanne to good King Henrye.’

‘But even I pray the,’ saies Lord Charlles Howeerd,

‘Henrye, let me that robber see,

Where that Scoott hath teyne from the a grootte,

I’le paye the back a shillinge,’ said hee.

‘Nay, God forbid! yea, noble lord,

I heare your Honor speake amisse;

Christ keepe yowe out of his companye!

Ye wott not what kine a man he is.

‘He is brase within and steelle without,

He beares beames in his topcastle hye,

He hath threscore peece on ether side,

Besides, my lorde, well mande is he.

‘He hath a pennis is dearelye deighte,

She is dearelye deighte and of mickell pried;

His pennis hath ninescorre men and more,

And thirtene peece on ethere side.

‘Were yowe twentie shippes, my lorde,

As your Honor is but one,

Ethere bye lerbord or by lowe

That Scootte would overcome yowe, everye one.’

‘Marye, that’s ill hartinge,’ saies my lord Charlls Howeward,

‘Harye, to welcome a stranger to the sea;

I’le ether bringe thatt Scootte and his shippe toe England,

Or into Scootteland hee [’s] carrye me.’

‘Well, since the matter is soe flatte,

Take heed, I’le tell yowe this before;

If yowe Sir Andrewe chance toe borde,

Let noe man toe his topcastle goe.

‘Excepte yowe have a gunner goode

That can well marke with his eye;

First seeke to gette his pennis sunk,

The soonner overcome his selfe may bee.

‘Yesterdaie I was Sir Andrewe’s pressonner,

And ther he tooke me sworne,’ saide hee;

‘Before I’le leave off my serving God,

My wild-maide oeth may brooken be.

‘Will yowe lend me sexe peece of ordenance, my lord,

To carye into my shippe with mee?

Toe morrowe by seven a clocke, and souner,

In the morne yowe shall Sir Andrewe see.

‘Fore I will set yowe a glasse, my lord,

That yowe shall saille forth all this night;

Toe morrowe be seven a clocke, and souner,

Yow’s se Sir Andrewe Barton, knight.’

Nowe will we leave talkinge of Harry Hunt;

The worthye Howwarde tooke to the sea;

By the morne, by seven a clocke, and souner,

My lord hee did Sir Andrewe see.

A larborde, wher Sir Andrewe laye,

They saide he tould his gold in the light;

‘Nowe, by my faith,’ saide my lord Charlles Howwarde,

‘I se yonne Scootte, a worthë wight!

‘All our greatt ordienance wee’ll take in;

Fetch downe my streemers,’ then saide hee,

‘And hange me forth a white willowe-wande,

As a marchante-man that sailles by the sea.’

50540

By Sir Andrewe then mye lord he past,

And noe topsaille let fall would hee:

‘What meanes yonne English dogg?’ he saies,

‘Dogs doe knowe noe curtissie.

‘For I have staid heare in this place

Admirall more then yearës three;

Yet was not ther Englisheman or Portingaill

Could passe by me with his liffe,’ saide he.

‘Once I met with the Portingaills,

Yea, I met with them, ye, I indeed;

I salted thirtie of ther heades,

And sent them home to eate with breade.

‘Nowe by me is yoen pedler past;

It greves me at the hart,’ said hee;

‘Fetch me yoen English dogs,’ he saide,

‘I’le hange them al on my mayn-mast-tree.’

Then his pennis shotte of a peec[e] of ordenance;

The shootte my lord might verye well ken,

Fore he shootte downe his missonne-mast,

And kild fifteen of my lordë’s men.

‘Come hether, Peter Simond,’ said my lord Charles Howward,

‘Letes se thi word standis in steede;

On my mayn-mast-tre thowe must be hunge,

If thowe misse three mill a penney breed.’

Petter was ould, his hart was bould;

He tooke a peece frome hie and laid hir beloue;

He put in a chean of yeard[ë]s nine,

Besides all other greate shoote and smalle.

And as he maide that gune to goe,

And verye well he marke[d] with his eie,

The first sight that Sir Andrewe sawe,

He sawe his penis sunke in the sea.

When Sir Andrewe sawe his pennis sunke,

That man in his hart was no thinge well:

‘Cut me my cabells! let me be lousse!

I’le fetch yoen English dogges me selne.’

When my lord sawe Sir Andrewe from his anker loouse,

Nay, Lord! a mighty man was hee:

‘Let my drumes strike up and my trumpetes sound,

And blaise my banners vailliantlie.’

Peter Simon’s sonne shoote of a gune;

That Sir Andrewe might very well ken;

Fore he shoott throughe his over-decke,

And kild fifttie of Sir Andrewe’s men.

‘Ever alack!’ said Sir Andrewe Barton,

‘I like not of this geare,’ saide hee;

‘I doubt this is some English lorde

That’s comed to taik me on the sea.’

Harrye Hunt came in on the other side;

The shoote Sir Andrewe might very well ken;

Fore he shoote downe his misson-mast,

And kild other fortye of his men.

‘Ever alacke!’ said Sir Andrewe Barton,

‘What maye a trewe man thinke or saye?

He is becomed my greatest enymye

That was my pressonner yesterdaie.

‘Yet feare no English dogges,’ said Sir Andrew Barton,

‘Nor fore ther forse stand ye [in] no awe;

My hands shall hange them all my selfe,

Froe once I let my beames downe fawe.

‘Come hether quick, thou Girdon goode,

And come thou hether at my call,

Fore heare I may noe longer staye;

Goe up and let my beames down fall.’

Then he swarmd up the maine-mast-tree,

With mickell might and all his maine;

Then Horsley with a broode-headed arrowe

Stroke then Girdon throughe the weame.

And he fell backe to the hatches againe,

And in that wound full sore did bleed;

The blood that ran soe fast from hime,

They said it was the Girdon’s deed.

‘Come hether, thow James Hamelton,

Thowe my sister’s sonne, I have noe moe;

I’le give the five hundreth pound,’ he saide,

‘Ife thowe wilt toe the top[ca]saille goe.’

Then he swarmd up the mayn-mast-tree.

With mickell might and all his mayne;

506Then Horsley with a broode-arrowe-head

Tooke hime in at the buttuke of the utuer beame.

Yet frome the tre he would not parte,

But up in haist he did prossed;

Then Horsley with anotheir arrowe

Strooke then Hamelton throughe the heade.

When Sir Andrewe sawe his sister’s sonne slayne,

That man in his heart was nothinge well:

‘Fight, maisters!’ said Sir Andrewe Barton,

‘It’s time I’le to the top myselne.’

Then he put on the armere of prooffe,

And it was guilt with gold full cleare:

‘My brother John of Barton,’ he saide,

‘Full longe against Portingaill he it weare.’

When he had on that armore of prooffe,

Yea, on his bodye he had that on,

Marry, they that sawe Sir Andrewe Barton

Said arrowes nor guns he feared none.

Yet Horsley drewe a broode-headed arrowe,

With mickell might and all his mayne;

That shaft against Sir Andrewe’s brest

Came back to my lord Howwarde’s shippe agayne.

When my lord he sawe that arrowe comme,

My lord he was a woefull wight;

‘Marke well thine ame, Horsley,’ he saide,

‘Fore that same shoote I’le make the knight.’

‘Ever alacke!’ said Horsley then,

’ For howe soe ever this geare doth goe,

If I for my service louse my heade,

I have in this shippe but arrowe[s] towe.’

Yet he mar[k]t hime with the one of them,

In a previe place and a secrete pert;

He shoote hime in at the left oxtere,

The arrowe quiett throughe [the] harte.

‘Feight, maisters!’ said Sir Andrewe Barton,

‘I’se a lettle hurt, but I ame not slayne;

I’le lie me downe and bleede a whill,

I’le risse and feight with yowe agayne.

‘Yet feare noe English dogges,’ said Sir Andrewe Barton,

‘Nore fore there force stand ye [in] noe awe;

Stick stifeley to Sir Andrewe Barton,

Feight till ye heare my whisstill blowe.’

The could noe skill of the whisstill heare;

Quoeth Hary Hunt, I der lay my heade,

My lord, yowe maye take the shippe when yowe will,

I se Sir Andrewe Barton [’s] deade.

And then they borded that noble shippe,

On both the sides, with all ther men;

Ther was eighten [score] Scootes a live,

Besides all other was hurte and slayne.

Then up my lord tooke Sir Andrewe Barton,

And of he cutt the dead man’s head:

‘I would forsweare England for twenty years,

Toe have the quicke as thowe art deade.

But of he cut the dead man’s heade,

And bounde his bodye toe borden tre,

And tiede five hundreth angels about his midle,

That was toe cause hime buried toe bee.

Then they sailled toe Ingland agayne,

With mickle merienes, as I weane;

They entred Englishe land agayn

On the night before S^te Maudlen even.

Toe mete my lord came the kinge an quen,

And many nobles of hie degree;

They came fore noe kind of thinge

But Sir Andrewe Barton they would see.

Quoth my lord, Yowe may thanke Allmighty God,

And foure men in the shippe with mee,

That ever we scaipt Sir Andrewe [’s] hands;

England had never such an enniemie.

‘That’s Henrye Hunt and Petter Symon,

William Horsley and Petter Symon [’s] sonne;

Reward all thoesse fore there paynes,

They did good service att that time.’

‘Henry Hunt shall have his whistle and chean,

A noble a daie I’le give him,’ quoeth hee,

507‘And his coustome betwexte Trent tid and Tyne,

Soe longe as he doth use the sea.

‘Petter Symon shall have a crowne a daie,

Halfe a crowne I’le give his sonne;

That was fore a shoott he sente

Sir Andrew Barton with his gune.

‘Horsley, right I’le make the a knight,

In Yorkshiere shall thy dwellinge be;

My lord Charlles Howwarde shall be an earle,

And soe was never Howward before,’ quoth he.

‘Everye Englishe man shall have eightten pens a daie

That did mainetayne [t]his feight soe free,

And everye Scotchman a shillinge a daie

Till they come atte my brother Jamie.’

In eight-line stanzas.

1⁴. chelvellrye. chevachie? or some sort of vallie?

3¹. Yea.

4². farre.

10³. and blause.

10⁴. give the the.

14⁴. height: was interlined.

16². thou’s be?

19². sterne. For streemers, see 39², and B 33².

23³. weight.

28³. threscoree.

29⁴. sidde.

30¹. Were yare. Perhaps thare.

30³. by lowe. Cf. A 29²:==hull?

32³. you and.

38⁴, 65². weight.

44⁴. xv^th.

45². the word.

46³. ninee.

47³. sawee.

52¹. sidde.

54². yea no.

55¹. hether, drinke.

58². noe more.

58⁴, 66². goee.

59³. Probably broode-headed arrowe, as in 56³, 64¹.

59⁴. utuer==outer? bane? But I do not understand.

62⁴. Portingaill they weare: cf. A 59⁴.

72³. xx^th.

73³. 5: angles.

75¹. Toe might.

78². An noble.

79⁴. gunee.

81⁴. Jamie, Jamiee.

168. Flodden Field.

P, 351 b, 12. See an account of the exhumation of a corpse wrapped in a hide without a covering of lead, in Archæologia, I, 34. (G. L. K.)

169. Johnie Armstrong.

P. 367, note †. A new-born child thrown into the water by its mother tells her that she has lost Paradise: ‘L’Enfant noyé,’ La Tradition, V, 116.

172. Musselburgh Field.

P. 378. Is this the song quoted by Sir Toby in Twelfth Night, II, 3 (and hitherto unidentified), “O, the twelfth day of December”? (G. L. K.)

173. Mary Hamilton.

Pp. 379–97. I a was first printed in the second edition of the Minstrelsy, 1803, II, 163. (Read in 1², on her; in 3², hand.) The copy principally used was one furnished by Sharpe, which was not A a, and has not so far been recovered. Besides this, “copies from various quarters” were resorted to. (Half a dozen stanzas are found in G, but G itself is very likely a compilation). Eight copies from Abbotsford are now printed for the first time. Two of these may have been in Scott’s hands in time to be used, two were certainly not, and for the others we have no date.

There is only one novel feature in all these copies: in U 13 Mary’s paramour is a pottinger. The remark that there is no trace of an admixture of the Russian story with that of the apothecary, page 383, must therefore be withdrawn.^[151] Mary in this version, as in E, F, Q, T, U, V, Y, is daughter of the Duke of York.

X, like E, F, has borrowed from No 95: see 13–15.

S

Finlay sent Scott, March 27, 1803, the following copy of ‘The Queen’s Marie,’ as he “had written it down from memory:” Letters addressed to Sir Walter Scott, I, No 87, Abbotsford. Stanzas 10, 9, 12 appear in the second volume of the Minstrelsy, 1802, p. 154, with the variation of a couple of words, as ‘The Lament of the Queen’s Marie’ (here I b). Perhaps Finlay adopted these three stanzas into his copy. Stanzas 1, 3, 6, 8, with very slight variations, were printed by Finlay in the preface to his Scottish Ballads, 1808 (O).

There lived a lord into the South,

An he had daughters three;

The youngest o them’s gaen to the king’s court,

To learn some courtesie.

She had na been in the king’s court

A twelvemonth an a day,

When word is thro the kitchen gaen,

An likewise thro the ha,

That Mary Moil was gane wi child

To the highest steward of a’.

5083

She rowd it into a basket

An flang’t into the sea,

Saying, Sink ye soon, my bonny babe,

Ye’se neer get mair o me.

She rowd it into a basket

An flang’t into the faem,

Saying, Sink ye soon, my bonny babe,

I’se gang a maiden hame.

O whan the news cam to the king

An angry man was he;

He has taen the table wi his foot,

An in flinders gart it flie.

‘O woe be to you, ye ill woman,

An ill death may ye die!

Gin ye had spared the sweet baby’s life,

It might have been an honour to thee.

‘O busk ye, busk ye, Mary Moil,

O busk, an gang wi me,

For agen the morn at ten o clock

A rare sight ye sall see.’

She wadna put on her gown o black,

Nor yet wad she o brown,

But she wad put on her gown o gowd,

To glance thro Embro town.

O whan she cam to the Netherbow Port

She gied loud laughters three,

But whan she cam to the gallows-foot

The tear blinded her ee.

Saying, O ye mariners, mariners,

That sail upon the sea,

Let not my father nor mother to wit

The death that I maun die.

‘For little did father or mother wit,

The day they cradled me,

What foreign lands I should travel in,

Or what death I should die.

‘Yestreen the Queen had four Maries,

The night she’ll hae but three;

There was Mary Seton, an Mary Beaton,

An Mary Carmichael, an me.’

3³, 4³. We should read Sink ye, soom ye, as in A 3³, U 14³, X 4³, and other copies.

T

Communicated to Sir Walter Scott by Mrs Christiana Greenwood, London, 21st February and 27th May, 1806, from the recitation of her mother and her aunt, who learned the ballad above fifty years before from Kirstan Scot, then an old woman, at Longnewton, near Jedburgh: Letters at Abbotsford, I, Nos 173, 189.

There was a duke, and he dwelt in York,

And he had daughters three;

One of them was an hostler-wife,

And two were gay ladies.

O word’s gane to Queen Mary’s court,

As fast as it coud gee,

That Mary Hamilton’s born a bairn,

And the baby they coud na see.

Then came the queen and a’ her maids,

Swift tripping down the stair:

‘Where is the baby, Mary,

That we heard weep sae sair?’

‘O say not so, Queen Mary,

Nor bear ill tales o me,

For this is but a sore sickness

That oft times troubles me.’

They sought it up, they sought it down,

They sought it below the bed,

And there the[y] saw the bonny wee babe,

Lying wallowing in its bluid.

‘Now busk ye, busk ye, Mary Hamilton,

Busk ye and gang wi me,

For I maun away to Edinbro town,

A rich wedding to see.’

Mary wad na put on the black velvet,

Nor yet wad put on the brown,

But she’s put on the red velvet,

To shine thro Edinbro town.

When she came unto the town,

And near the Tolbooth stair,

There stood many a lady gay,

Weeping for Mary fair.

‘O haud yeer tongue[s], ye ladys a’,

And weep na mair for me!

O haud yeer tongues, ye ladys a’,

For it’s for my fault I dee.

50910

‘The king he took me on his knee

And he gae three drinks to me,

And a’ to put the babie back,

But it wad na gang back for me.

‘O ye mariners, ye mariners a’,

That sail out-owr the sea,

Let neither my father nor mother get wit

What has become o me!

‘Let neither my father nor mother ken,

Nor my bauld brethren three,

For muckle wad be the gude red bluid

That wad be shed for me.

‘Aft hae I laced Queen Mary’s back,

Aft hae I kaimed her hair,

And a’ the reward she’s gein to me’s

The gallows to be my heir.

‘Yestreen the queen had four Marys,

The night she’l hae but three;

There was Mary Seatoun, and Mary Beatoun,

An Mary Carmichal, an me.’

U

‘Lament of the Queen’s Marie,’ “Scotch Ballads, Materials for Border Minstrelsy,” No 92, Abbotsford. Communicated to Scott, 7th January, 1804, by Rev. George Paxton, Kilmaurs, near Kilmarnock, Ayrshire (afterwards professor of divinity at Edinburgh); from the mouth of Jean Milne, his “aged mother, formerly an unwearied singer of Scotish songs.”

‘My father was the Duke of York,

My mother a gay ladye,

And I myself a daintie dame;

The queen she sent for me.

‘But the queen’s meat it was sae sweet,

And her clothing was sae rare,

It made me long for a young man’s bed,

And I rued it evermair.’

But word is up, and word is down,

Amang the ladyes a’,

That Marie’s born a babe sin yestreen,

That babe it is awa.

But the queen she gat wit of this,

She calld for a berry-brown gown,

And she’s awa to Marie’s bower,

The bower that Marie lay in.

‘Open your door, my Marie,’ she says,

‘My bonny and fair Marie;

They say you have born a babe sin yestreen,

That babe I fain wad see.’

‘It is not sae wi me, madam,

It is not sae wi me;

It is but a fit of my sair sickness,

That oft times troubles me.’

‘Get up, get up, my Marie,’ she says,

‘My bonny and fair Marie,

And we’ll away to Edinburgh town,

And try the verity.’

Slowly, slowly, gat she up,

And slowly pat she on,

And slowly went she to that milk-steed,

To ride to Edinburgh town.

But when they cam to Edinburgh,

And in by the Towbooth stair,

There was mony a virtuous ladye

Letting the tears fa there.

‘Why weep ye sae for me, madams?

Why weep ye sae for me?

For sin ye brought me to this town

This death ye gar me die.’

When she cam to the Netherbow Port,

She gae loud laughters three;

But when she cam to the gallows-foot

The tear blinded her ee.

‘Yestreen the queen had four Maries,

The night she’ll hae but three;

There was Marie Seton, and Marie Beatoun,

And Marie Carmichael, and me.

‘My love he was a pottinger,

Mony drink he gae me,

And a’ to put back that bonnie babe,

But alas! it wad na do.

‘I pat that bonny babe in a box,

And set it on the sea;

O sink ye, swim ye, bonny babe!

Ye’s neer get mair o me.

‘O all ye jolly sailors,

That sail upon the sea,

510Let neither my father nor mother ken

The death that I maun die.

‘But if my father and mother kend

The death that I maun die,

O mony wad be the good red guineas

That wad be gien for me.’

V

“Scotch Ballads, Materials for Border Minstrelsy,” No 9, Abbotsford; in the handwriting of William Laidlaw.

‘My father was the Duke of York,

My mother the gay ladie,

An I myself a maiden bright,

An the queen desired me.’

But there word gane to the kitchen,

There’s word gane to the ha,

That Mary mild she gangs wi child

To the uppermost stewart of a’.

Than they sought but, and they sou[ght] ben,

They sought aneath the bed,

An there the fand the bonnie lad-bairn,

Lyin lappin in his blood.

‘Gae buss ye, Marie Hamilton,

Gae buss ye, buss ye bra,

For ye maun away to Edin[brough] town,

The queen’s birthday ...’

She wadna put on her black, bla[ck] silk,

Nor wad she put on the brown,

But she pat on the glisterin stufs,

To glister in Edinbrough town.

An whan she cam to the water-gate

Loud laughters gae she three,

But whan she cam to the Netherbow Port

The tear blinded Marie’s ee.

’Twas up than spak Queen Marie’s nurse,

An a sorry woman was she:

‘Whae sae clever o fit and ready o wit

Has telld sic news o thee!’

‘Oft have I Queen Marie’s head

Oft have I caimd her hair,

An a’ the thanks I’ve gotten for that

Is the gallows to be my heir!

‘Oft have I dressd Queen Marie’s head,

An laid her in her bed,

An a’ the thanks I’ve gotten for that

Is the green gallows-tree to tread!

‘O spare, O spare, O judge,’ she cried,

‘O spair a day for me!’

‘There is nae law in our land, ladie,

To let a murderer be.’

‘Yestreen the queen had four Maries,

The night she’ll hae but three;

There was Marie Seaton, and Ma[rie] Bea[ton],

An Marie Carmichael, an me.

‘O if my father now but kend

The death that I’m to die,

O muckle, muckle wad be the red gowd

That he wad gie for me.

‘An if my brothers kend the death

That I am now to die,

O muckle, muckle wad be the red blood

That wad be shed for me.’

2^3,4. Or:

That Mary Hamilton’s born a bairn

An murderd it at the wa.

3¹, 11³. Edge bound in.

8¹. caimd written, but struck out.

8³. & I the.

W

“Scotch Ballads, Materials for Border Minstrelsy,” No 85, Abbotsford.

There lived a man in the North Countree

And he had doghters three;

The youngest o them’s to Edinbourgh gaen,

Ane o the queen’s Marys to be.

Queen Mary’s bread it was sae white,

And her wine it ran sae clear,

It shewed her the way to the butler’s bed,

And I wait she’s bought dear.

For Mary’s to the garden gaen,

To eat o the saven tree,

And a’ ‘s to pit her young son back,

But back he wad na be.

5114

So Mary’s to her chamber gaen,

. . . . . . .

Queen Mary she came down the stair,

And a’ her maids afore her:

‘Oh, Mary Miles, where is the child

That I have heard greet sae sore O?’

‘There is no child with me, madam,

There is no child with me;

It was only a bit of a cholick I took,

And I thought I was gawen to dee.’

So they looked up, and they looked down,

And they looked beneath the bed-foot,

And there they saw a bonnie boy,

Lying weltering in his blood.

. . . . . . .

‘Since that you have killed your own dear child,

The same death you shall dee.’

When Mary came afore the court,

A loud laugh laughed she;

But when she came to the [gallows-]fit

The tear blinded her ee.

* * * * * *

‘O wha will comb Queen Mary’s heed?

Or wha will brade her hair?

And wha will lace her middle sae jimp

Whan [I] am nae langer there?

‘Yestreen the queen [had] four Maries,

The night she’ll hae but three;

There was Mary Seaten, and Mary Beaten,

And Mary Carmichal, and me.

* * * * * *

‘I’ll not put on my robes of black,

Nor yet my robes of brown,

But I’ll put on a shining braw garb,

That will shine thro Edinbourgh town.’

* * * * * *

Oh, whan she came to the Cannongate,

The Cannongate sae hee,

There mony a lord and belted knight

Was grieved for her beautee.

* * * * * *

And whan she came to [the] Hee Town,

The Hee Town sae hee,

* * * * * *

10¹. Oh.

11^1,2. Added in a different hand.

12³. shinning.

X

‘The Queen’s Maries,’ “Scotch Ballads, Materials for Border Minstrelsy,” No 91, Abbotsford.

There livd a lord in the West Country,

And he had daughters three;

The youngest o them’s to the queen’s court,

To learn some courtesy.

She hadna been at the queen’s court

A year but and a day

Till she has fa’n as big wi child,

As big as she coud gae.

She’s gane into the garden

To pu the sycamore tree,

And taen the bony bairn in her arms

And thrown it in the sea.

She rowd it in her apron

And threw it in the sea:

‘Gae sink or soom, my bony sweet babe,

Ye’ll never get mair o me.’

Then in an came Queen Mary,

Wi gowd rings on her hair:

‘O Mary mild, where is the child

That I heard greet sae sair?’

‘It wasna a babe, my royal liege,

Last night that troubled me,

But it was a fit o sair sickness,

And I was lyken to dee.’

‘O hold yere tongue, Mary Hamilton,

Sae loud as I hear ye lee!

For I’ll send you to Enbro town,

The verity to see.’

5128

She wadna put on the ribbons o black,

Nor yet wad she the brown,

But she wad put on the ribbons o gowd,

To gae glittring through Enbro town.

As she rade up the Sands o Leith,

Riding on a white horse,

O little did she think that day

To die at Enbro Corss!

As she rade up the Cannongate,

She leugh loud laughters three,

And mony a lord and lady said,

‘Alas for that lady!’

‘Ye needna say Oh, ye needna cry Eh,

Alas for that lady!

Ye’ll neer see grace in a graceless face,

As little ye’ll see in me.’

When she came to the Netherbow Port,

She leugh loud laughters three,

But ere she came to the gallows-foot

The tear blinded her eie;

Saying, Tye a white napkin owr my face,

For that gibbet I downa see.

‘O hold yere hand, Lord Justice!

O hold it a little while!

I think I see my ain true-love

Come wandring mony a mile.

‘O have ye brought me ony o my gowd?

Or ony o my weel-won fee?

Or are ye come to see me hangd,

Upon this gallows-tree?’

‘O I hae brought ye nane o yere gowd,

Nor nane o yere weel-won fee,

But I am come to see ye hangd,

And hangit ye shall be.’

‘O all ye men and mariners,

That sail for wealth or fame,

Let never my father or mother get wit

But what I’m coming hame.

‘O all ye men and mariners,

That sail upon the sea,

Let never my father or mother get wit

The death that I maun dee.

‘Yestreen the queen had four Maries,

The night she’ll hae but three;

There was Mary Seaton, and Mary Beaton,

And Mary Carmichael, and me.’

Y

‘The Queen’s Marys,’ “Scotch Ballads, Materials for Border Minstrelsy,” No 144, Abbotsford.

‘Yestreen the queen had four Marys,

The night she’ll hae but three;

She had Mary Beaton, and Mary Seaton,

And Mary Carmichael, and me.

‘My feather was the Duke of York,

My mother a gay lady,

And I mysell a bonnie young may,

And the king fell in love we me.

‘The king’s kisses they were so sweet,

And his wine it was so strong,

That I became a mother

Before fifteen years old.’

‘O tell the truth now, Mary,

And sett this matter right;

What hae ye made o the babey

Was greeting yesternight?’

‘O I will tell you, madam the queen,

I winna tell a lie;

I put it in a bottomless boat

And bad it sail the sea.’

‘Ye lie, ye lie now, Mary,

Sae loud’s I hear you lie!

You wasnae out o the palace,

So that coud never be.’

‘Weel I will tell you, madam,

Though it should gar me weep;

I stabbd it we my little pen-knife,

And bad it take a sleep.’

When she came up the Netherbow,

She geed loud laughters three;

But when she came out o the Parliament Close

The tear blinded her ee.

‘O little does my feather ken

The death I am to die,

Or muckel wad be the red, red gould

Wad be payed doun for me.

51310

‘O little does my mother think

The death that I am to die,

Or monie wad be the saut, saut tears

That she wad shed for me.

‘O never lett my brothers ken

The death that I am to die,

For muckel wad be the red, red blood

That wad be shed for me.

‘Aft hae I washd the king’s bonnie face,

Kaimd doun his yellow hair,

And this is a’ the reward he’s geen me,

The gallows to be my share.’

Z

‘The Queen’s Marie,’ “Scotch Ballads, Materials for Border Minstrelsy,” No 90 a, Abbotsford; in the handwriting of John Leyden.

‘Buss ye, bonny Marie Hamilton,

Buss and gae wi me,

For ye maun gae to Edinborough,

A great wedding to see.’

‘Ride hooly, hooly, gentlemen,

Ride hooly now wi me,

For never, I’m sure, a wearier bride

Rode in your cumpany.’

Little wist Marie Hamilton,

When she rode on the brown,

That she was gawn to Edinborough,

And a’ to be put down.

When she came to the Council stairs,

She ga loud laughters three;

But or that she came down again

She was condemmd to dee.

‘O ye mariners, mariners, mariners,

When ye sail oer the faem,

Let never my father nor mother to wit

But I’m just coming hame.

‘Let never my father nor mother to wit,

Nor my bauld brether[en] three,

Or meckle wad be the red, red gowd

This day be gien for me.

‘Let never my father or mother to wit,

Nor my bauld brethren three,

Or meckle war the red, red blude

This day wad fa for me.’

AA

“Scotch Ballads, Materials for Border Minstrelsy,” No 142, Abbotsford; in the handwriting of James Hogg.

‘Oft hae I kaimd Queen Mary’s head,

An oft hae I curld her hair,

An now I hae gotten for my reward

A gallows to be heir.’

178. Captain Car, or, Edom o Gordon.

P. 426, note *. This history borrows from Sir Robert Gordon. See what he says, p. 166 f., and also previously, p. 164 ff.

428 a. F, G. “I have a manuscript where the whole scene is transferred to Ayrshire, and the incendiary is called Johnnie Faa.” Note of Sir W. Scott in Sharpe’s Ballad Book, ed. 1880, p. 142.

This copy has not as yet been recovered, but there is another at Abbotsford, a fine fragment, in which Lady Campbell is the heroine. As to Adam McGordon, the c of Mac is often dropped, so that Adam MaGordon and Adam o Gordon are of pretty much the same sound (a remark of Mr Macmath). The Andrew Watty of 13³ is noted on the last page of the MS. to be “a riding man.”

H

“Scotch Ballads, Materials for Border Minstrelsy,” No 75, Abbotsford. Communicated to Scott November 6, 1803, by Brace Campbell, Sornbeg, Galston, Ayrshire, through David Boyle, Advocate, afterwards Lord Justice General of Scotland.

It fell about the Martinmass time,

When the wind blew shill and cald,

That Adam McGordon said to his men,

Where will we get a hall?

‘There is a hall here near by,

Well built with lime and stone;

There is a lady there within

As white as the . . bone.’

‘Seven year and more this lord and I

Has had a deadly feud,

And now, since her good lord’s frae hame,

His place to me she’ll yield.’

She looked oer her castle-wall,

And so she looked down,

514And saw Adam McGordon and his men

Approaching the wood-end.

‘Steik up, steik up my yett,’ she says,

‘And let my draw-bridge fall;

There is meickle treachery

Walking about my wall.’

She had not the sentence past,

Nor yet the word well said,

When Adam McGordon and his men

About the walls were laid.

She looked out at her window,

And then she looked down,

And then she saw Jack, her own man,

Lifting the pavement-stane.

‘Awa, awa, Jack my man!

Seven year I paid you meat and fee,

And now you lift the pavement-stane

To let in the low to me.’

‘I yield, I yield, O lady fair,

Seven year ye paid me meat and fee;

But now I am Adam McGordon’s man,

I must either do or die.’

‘If ye be Adam McGordon’s man,

As I true well ye be,

Prove true unto your own master,

And work your will to me.’

‘Come down, come down, my lady Campbell,

Come down into my hand;

Ye shall lye all night by my side,

And the morn at my command.’

‘I winna come down,’ this lady says,

‘For neither laird nor lown,

Nor to no bloody butcher’s son,

The Laird of Auchindown.

‘I wald give all my kine,’ she says,

‘So wald I fifty pound,

That Andrew Watty he were here;

He would charge me my gun.

‘He would charge me my gun,

And put in bullets three,

That I might shoot that cruel traitor

That works his wills on me.’

He shot in, and [s]he shot out,

The value of an hour,

Until the hall Craigie North

Was like to be blawn in the air.

He fired in, and she fired out,

The value of houris three,

Until the hall Craigie North

The reik went to the sea.

‘O the frost, and ae the frost,

The frost that freezes fell!

I cannot stay within my bower,

The powder it blaws sae bald.’

But then spake her oldest son,

He was both white and red;

‘O mither dear, yield up your house!

We’ll all be burnt to deed.’

Out then spake the second son,

He was both red and fair;

‘O brother dear, would you yield up your house,

And you your father’s heir!’

Out then spake the little babe,

Stood at the nurse’s knee;

‘O mither dear, yield up your house!

The reik will worry me.’

Out then speaks the little nurse,

The babe upon her knee;

‘O lady, take from me your child!

I’ll never crave my fee.’

‘Hold thy tongue, thou little nurse,

Of thy prating let me bee;

For be it death or be it life,

Thou shall take share with me.

‘I wald give a’ my sheep,’ she says,

Notes in this chapter

Note 1 · Scott suggested that the passage in Knox was the foundation of the ballad, January, 1802, in the first edition of his Minstrelsy, where only