ROBIN HOOD AND THE BUTCHER

To a quequer Roben went,A god bolt owthe he toke;So ney on to the marke he went,He fayled not a fothe.

All they schot abowthe agen,The screffes men and he;Off the marke he welde not fayle,He cleffed the preke on thre.

The screffes men thowt gret schame,The potter the mastry wan;The screffe lowe and made god game,And seyde, “Potter, thow art a man;Thow art worthey to ber a bowe,Yn what plas that thow gang.”

“Yn mey cart y haffe a bowe,Forsoyt,” he seyde, “and that a godde;Yn mey cart ys the bowThat I had of Robyn Hode.”

“Knowest thow Robyn Hode?” seyde the screffe,“Potter, y prey the tell thou me;”“A hundred torne y haffe schot with hem,Under hes tortyll tree.”

“Y had lever nar a hundred ponde,” seyde the screffe,And swar be the trenitè,[“Y had lever nar a hundred ponde,” he seyde,]“That the fals owtelawe stod be me.

“And ye well do afftyr mey red,” seyde the potter,“And boldeley go with me,And to morow, or we het bred,Roben Hode wel we se.”

“Y well queyt the,” kod the screffe,And swer be god of meythe;Schetyng thay left, and hom they went,Her scoper was redey deythe.

Upon the morow, when het was day,He boskyd hem forthe to reyde;The potter hes carte forthe gan ray,And wolde not [be] leffe beheynde.

He toke leffe of the screffys wyffe,And thankyd her of all thyng:“Dam, for mey loffe, and ye well thys wer,Y geffe yow her a golde ryng.”

“Gramarsey,” seyde the weyffe,“Sir, god eylde het the;”The screffes hart was never so leythe,The feyr forest to se.

And when he cam ynto the foreyst,Yonder the leffes grene,Berdys ther sange on bowhes prest,Het was gret joy to sene.

“Her het ys mercy to be,” seyde Roben,“For a man that had hawt to spende;Be mey horne we schall awetYeff Roben Hode be ner hande.”

Roben set hes horne to hes mowthe,And blow a blast that was full god,That herde hes men that ther stode,Fer downe yn the wodde;“I her mey master,” seyde Leytell John;They ran as thay wer wode.

Whan thay to thar master cam,Leytell John wold not spar;“Master, how haffe yow far yn Notynggam?How haffe yow solde yowr war?”

“Ye, be mey trowthe, Leytyll John,Loke thow take no car;Y haffe browt the screffe of Notynggam,For all howr chaffar.”

“He ys foll wellcom,” seyde Lytyll John,“Thes tydyng ys foll godde;”The screffe had lever nar a hundred ponde[He had never sene Roben Hode.]

“Had I west that beforen,At Notynggam when we wer,Thow scholde not com yn feyr forestOf all thes thowsande eyr.”

“That wot y well,” seyde Roben,“Y thanke god that ye be her;Therfor schall ye leffe yowr horse with hos,And all your hother ger.”

“That fend I godys forbode,” kod the screffe,“So to lese mey godde;”“Hether ye cam on horse foll hey,And hom schall ye go on fote;And gret well they weyffe at home,The woman ys foll godde.

“Y schall her sende a wheyt palffrey,Het hambellet as the weynde;Ner for the loffe of yowr weyffe,Off mor sorow scholde yow seyng.”

Thes parted Robyn Hode and the screffe,To Notynggam he toke the waye;Hes weyffe feyr welcomed hem hom,And to hem gan sche saye:

“Seyr, how haffe yow fared yn grene foreyst?Haffe ye browt Roben hom?”“Dam, the deyell spede him, bothe bodey and bon,Y haffe hade a foll grete skorne.

“Of all the god that y haffe lade to grene wod,He hayt take het fro me,All bot this feyr palffrey,That he hayt sende to the.”

With that sche toke op a lowde lawhyng,And swhar be hem that deyed on tre,“Now haffe yow payed for all the pottysThat Roben gaffe to me.

“Now ye be corn hom to Notynggam,Ye schall haffe god ynowe;”Now speke we of Roben Hode,And of the pottyr onder the grene bowhe.

“Potter, what was they pottys wortheTo Notynggam that y ledde with me?”“They wer worth two nobellys,” seyd he,“So mot y treyffe or the;So cowde y had for tham,And y had ther be.”

“Thow schalt hafe ten ponde,” seyde Roben,“Of money feyr and fre;And yever whan thou comest to grene wod,Wellcom, potter to me.”

Thes partyd Robyn, the screffe, and the potter,Ondernethe the grene-wod tre;God haffe mersey on Robyn Hodys solle,And saffe all god yemanrey!

Come, all you brave gallants, and listen awhile,With hey down,down,an a down,That are in the bowers within;For of Robin Hood, that archer good,A song I intend for to sing.

Upon a time it chancèd so,Bold Robin in forrest did ’spyA jolly butcher, with a bonny fine mare,With his flesh to the market did hye.

“Good morrow, good fellow,” said jolly Robin,“What food hast [thou]? tell unto me;Thy trade to me tell, and where thou dost dwell,For I like well thy company.”

The butcher he answer’d jolly Robin,“No matter where I dwell;For a butcher I am, and to NottinghamI am going, my flesh to sell.”

“What’s [the] price of thy flesh?” said jolly Robin,“Come, tell it soon unto me;And the price of thy mare, be she never so dear,For a butcher fain would I be.”

“The price of my flesh,” the butcher repli’d,“I soon will tell unto thee;With my bonny mare, and they are not too dear,Four mark thou must give unto me.”

“Four mark I will give thee,” saith jolly Robin,“Four mark it shall be thy fee;The mony come count, and let me mount,For a butcher I fain would be.”

Now Robin he is to Nottingham gone,His butchers trade to begin;With good intent to the sheriff he went,And there he took up his inn.

When other butchers did open their meat,Bold Robin he then begun;But how for to sell he knew not well,For a butcher he was but young.

When other butchers no meat could sell,Robin got both gold and fee;For he sold more meat for one penyThen others could do for three.

But when he sold his meat so fast,No butcher by him could thrive;For he sold more meat for one penyThan others could do for five.

Which made the butchers of NottinghamTo study as they did stand,Saying, “Surely he ‘is’ some prodigal,That hath sold his fathers land.”

The butchers stepped to jolly Robin,Acquainted with him for to be;“Come, brother,” one said, “we be all of one trade,Come, will you go dine with me?”

“Accurst of his heart,” said jolly Robin,“That a butcher doth deny;I will go with you, my brethren true,As fast as I can hie.”

But when to the sheriffs house they came,To dinner they hied apace,And Robin Hood he the man must beBefore them all to say grace.

“Pray God bless us all,” said jolly Robin,“And our meat within this place;A cup of sack so good will nourish our blood,And so do I end my grace.”

“Come fill us more wine,” said jolly Robin,“Let us be merry while we do stay;For wine and good cheer, be it never so dear,I vow I the reck’ning will pay.

“Come, ‘brothers,’ be merry,” said jolly Robin,“Let us drink, and never give ore;For the shot I will pay, ere I go my way,If it cost me five pounds and more.”

“This is a mad blade,” the butchers then said;Saies the sheriff, “He is some prodigàl,That some land has sold for silver and gold,And now he doth mean to spend all.

“Hast thou any horn beasts,” the sheriff repli’d,“Good fellow, to sell unto me?”“Yes, that I have, good master sheriff,I have hundreds two or three;

“And a hundred aker of good free land,If you please it to see:And Ile make you as good assurance of it,As ever my father made me.”

The sheriff he saddled his good palfrèy,And, with three hundred pound in gold,Away he went with bold Robin Hood,His horned beasts to behold.

Away then the sheriff and Robin did ride,To the forrest of merry Sherwood;Then the sheriff did say, “God bless us this dayFrom a man they call Robin Hood!”

But when a little farther they came,Bold Robin he chancèd to spyA hundred head of good red deer,Come tripping the sheriff full nigh.

“How like you my horn’d beasts, good master sheriff?They be fat and fair for to see;”“I tell thee, good fellow, I would I were gone,For I like not thy company.”

Then Robin set his horn to his mouth,And blew but blasts three;Then quickly anon there came Little John,And all his company.

“What is your will, master?” then said Little John,“Good master come tell unto me;”“I have brought hither the sheriff of NottinghamThis day to dine with thee.”

“He is welcome to me,” then said Little John,“I hope he will honestly pay;I know he has gold, if it be but well told,Will serve us to drink a whole day.”

Then Robin took his mantle from his back,And laid it upon the ground:And out of the sheriffs portmantleHe told three hundred pound.

Then Robin he brought him thorow the wood,And set him on his dapple gray;“O have me commanded to your wife at home;”So Robin went laughing away.

Mr. Childfinds the first published version of “the grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spens,” as Coleridge calls it, in Bishop Percy’sReliques. Here the name is “Spence,” and the middle rhyme—

“Haf owre, haf owre to Aberdour,”

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 thenoblessein Flanders—

“Their ladies them may abide in bower and hall well long!”

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.

FromThe 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 severeillness, thinking of Lockhart, not yet his son-in-law, he quoted—

“My wound is deep, I fain would sleep,Take thou the vanguard of the three.”

Mr. Child thinks the command to

“yield to the bracken-bush”

unmartial. This does not seem a strong objection, in Froissart’s time. It is explained in an oral fragment—

“For there lies aneth yon bracken-bushWha aft has conquered mair than thee.”

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.

Burns’s version, in Johnson’sMuseum(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’sSecret Commonwealth. The Nereids, in Modern Greece, practise fairy cantrips, and the same beliefs exist in Samoa and New Caledonia. The metamorphoses are found in theOdyssey, Book iv., in the winning of Thetis, theNereid,or Fairy Bride, by Peleus, in a modern Cretan fairy tale, and so on. There is a similar incident inPenda Baloa, a Senegambian ballad (Contes Populaires de la Sénégambie, Berenger Ferand, Paris, 1885). The dipping of Tamlane has precedents inOld Deccan Days, in a Hottentot tale by Bleek, and inLes Deux Frères, the Egyptian story, translated by Maspero (the Editor has already given these parallels in a note toBorder Ballads, by Graham R. Thomson). Mr. Child also cites Mannhardt, “Wald und Feldkulte,” ii. 64–70.Carterhaugh, the scene of the ballad, is at the junction of Ettrick and Yarrow, between Bowhill and Philiphaugh.

FromThe 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,

“Betide, betide, whate’er betide,There will aye be a Haig in Bemersyde,”

and a Haig still owns that ancientchâteauon 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’sSecret Commonwealth of Elves,Fauns,and Fairiesmay be consulted, or the Editor’sPerrault, p. xxxv. (Oxford, 1888). Of the later legends about Thomas, Scott gives plenty, inThe Border Minstrelsy. Thelong ancient romantic poem on the subject is probably the source of the ballad, though a local ballad may have preceded the long poem. Scott named the glen through which the Bogle Burn flows to Chiefswood, “The Rhymer’s Glen.”

The 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.”

Motherwell’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.

Here

“The cock doth craw, the day doth daw,”

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 ofBorder Minstrelsy, derived by Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe from a traditional version. The English version, “Three Ravens,” was published inMelismata, 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—

“She buried him before the prime,She was dead herselfe ere evensong time.”

Probably the English is the earlier version.

Huntly 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 hisTea Table Miscellany, and it is often sung to this day.

First known as published inBorder 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.

From Ramsay’sTea Table Miscellany, a curiously composite gathering of verses. There is a verse, obviously a variant, in a sixteenth century song, cited byLeyden. St. Anthon’s Well is on a hill slope of Arthur’s Seat, near Holyrood. Here Jeanie Deans trysted with her sister’s seducer, inThe Heart of Midlothian. The Cairn of Nichol Mushat, the wife-murderer, is not far off. The ruins of Anthony’s Chapel are still extant.

There 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 theOdyssey: 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’sAlt-Giechische Märchen.

A 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 songhad chosen other forms, and no literary imitator could have written Mary Hamilton in 1719.

(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 oftennotgiven 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.

FromThe 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 byaut 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.

Scott, for once, was wrong in his localities. The Dodhead of the poem isnotthat near Singlee, inEttrick, but a place of the same name, near Skelfhill, on the southern side of Teviot, within three miles of Stobs, where Telfer vainly seeks help from Elliot. The other Dodhead is at a great distance from Stobs, up Borthwick Water, over the tableland, past Clearburn Loch and Buccleugh, and so down Ettrick, past Tushielaw. The Catslockhill is not that on Yarrow, near Ladhope, but another near Branxholme, whence it is no far cry to Branxholme Hall. Borthwick Water, Goudilands (below Branxholme), Commonside (a little farther up Teviot), Allanhaugh, and the other places of the Scotts, were all easily “warned.” There are traces of a modern hand in this excellent ballad. The topography is here corrected from MS. notes in a first edition of theMinstrelsy, in the library of Mr. Charles Grieve at Branxholme’ Park, a scion of “auld Jock Grieve” of the Coultart Cleugh. Names linger long in pleasant Teviotdale.

The 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

“gathered a bandOf the best that would ride at her command,”

in theLay 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.

Herd 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 FinnishKalevala. 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 Bridgeof Death” (French) seems to hint at something of the same kind; or rather the Editor finds that he has arbitrarily read “The Bonny Hind” into “Le Pont des Morts,” in Puymaigre’sChants Populaires du Pays Messin, p. 60. (Ballads and Lyrics of Old France, p. 63)

This is the original of the CockneyLoving 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 toLife of Becket, or Beket), Percy Society, 1845. The date may becirc.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 suchMärchenas “The Black Bull o’ Norraway.” No story is more widely diffused (seeA Far Travelled Tale, in the Editor’sCustom and Myth). The appearance of the “True Love,” just at her lover’s wedding, is common in theMärchenof 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 inAucassin and Nicolette. The notes to Cruikshank’sLoving Balladare, obviously, by Thackeray.

Lord 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.by that affectionate name. Lady Ogilvie had not the large family attributed to her: her son, Lord Ogilvie, escaped from prison in the Castle of St. Andrews, after Philiphaugh. A Lord Ogilvie was out in 1745; and, later, had a regiment in the French Service. Few families have a record so consistently loyal.

The 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’sCatrionaknow 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’sCatriona, 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’sRob Roy.

Fought on July 27, 1689.Noton 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.

FromThe Border MinstrelsyScott 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.

This curious poem is taken from the reprint of Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe’s tinyBallad Book, itself now almostintrouvable. 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.

Armstrang 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 theComplaint of Scotland. In Sir Herbert Maxwell’sHistory of Dumfries and Gallowayis an excellent account of the historical facts of the case.

Founded 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,burned Towie House, a seat of the Forbes’s. Ker recurs in the long and more or less literary ballad ofThe Battle of Balrinnes. In variants the localities are much altered, and, in one version, the scene is transferred to Ayrshire, and Loudoun Castle. All the ballads of fire-raising, a very usual practice, have points in common, and transference was easy.

Tradition 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.

A 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’sReliques, 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 manyMärchenof the type ofThe Black Bull of Norraway.

FromThe 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 orMärchento 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.

FromThe 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.

From Motherwell’sMinstrelsy. The authenticity of the ballad is dubious, but, if a forgery, it is a veryskilled one for the early nineteenth century. Poets like Mr. Swinburne, Mr. Rossetti, and Mrs. Marriot Watson have imitated the genuine popular ballad, but never so closely as the author of “Sir Roland.”

From the Jamieson-Brown MS., originally written out by Mrs. Brown in 1783: Sir Waiter made changes inThe 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.

Fought 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, inThe Antiquary. This, indeed, is beyond all rivalry the most splendid modern imitation of the ancient popular Muse.

A 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.

From theBorder 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’sSongs 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

“I wish that ye may sink for sin”

occurs in an earlier ballad on Edinburgh Castle—

“And that all for the black dinnerEarl Douglas got therein.”

From 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 isdiablement changé en route. More probably the origin is aMärchenof a kind ofRakshasafatal 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.

From Pinkerton’s Scottish Ballads. The event narrated is a legend of the house of Cassilis (Kennedy),but is wholly unhistorical. “Sir John Faa,” in the fable, is aided by Gypsies, but, apparently, is not one of the Earls of Egypt, on whom Mr. Crockett’s novel,The Raiders, may be consulted. The ballad was first printed, as far as is known, in Ramsay’sTea Table Miscellany.

The hero recurs inJock 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’sHistory of Dumfries and Gallowaymay be consulted for these and similar reivers.

A 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.

Taken 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 inBilly 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.

Jamieson gave this ballad from a manuscript, altering the spelling in conformity with Scots orthography. Mr. Child prints the manuscript; here Jamieson’s morefamiliar spelling is retained. The idea of the romance occurs in a RomaicMärchen, but, in place of the Queen of Faery, a more beautiful girl than the sorceress (Nereid in Romaic), restores the youth to his true shape. Mr. Child regarded the tale as “one of the numerous wild growths” fromBeauty and the Beast. It would be more correct to say thatBeauty and the Beastis a late, courtly, French adaptation and amplification of the original popular “wild growth” which first appears (in literary form) asCupid and Psyche, in Apuleius. Except for the metamorphosis, however, there is little analogy in this case. The friendly act of the Fairy Queen is without parallel in British Folklore, but Mr. Child points out that the Nereid Queen, in Greece, is still as kind as Thetis of old, not a sepulchral siren, the shadow of the pagan “Fairy Queen Proserpina,” as Campion calls her.

From Percy’s Folio Manuscript. There is a cognate Greek epigram—

Χρυσὸν ἀνὴρ εὗρων ἔλιπε βρόχον αὐτὰρ ὁ χρυσόνὍν λίπεν, οὐχ εὑρών, ἥφεν τον εὗρε βρόχον.

This, though probably not the most authentic, is decidedly the most pleasing version; it is from Mackay’s collection, perhaps from his pen.

Percy 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 asSon Davie, which may be compared. Fratricides and unconscious incests were motives dear to popular poetry.

From theBorder Minstrelsy. That corpsesmightbegin 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 tongsa 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.

FromThe 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 alacuna. They are especially modern in style. Now thus to fill up shamlacunæin 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 othersupercheries, 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 theBlackwoodset? And is it conceivable that his old mother, entering into the joke, wouldcommit her son’s fraudulent verses to memory, and recite them to Sir Walter as genuine tradition? She said to Scott, that the ballad “never was printed i’ the world, for my brothers and me learned it and many mae frae auld Andrew Moore, and he learned it frae auld Baby Mettlin” (Maitland?) “wha was housekeeper to the first laird o’ Tushilaw.” (On Ettrick, near Thirlestane. She doubtless meant the first of the Andersons of Tushielaw, who succeeded the old lairds, the Scotts.) “She was said to hae been another or a guid ane, and there are many queer stories about hersel’, but O, she had been a grand singer o’ auld songs an’ ballads.” (Hogg’sDomestic Manners of Sir Walter Scott, p. 61, 1834.)

“Maitland upon auld beird gray” is mentioned by Gawain Douglas, in hisPalice 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 beyondHardyknute, and at least on a level withSir 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’sBallads 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.

Scott 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.

There is plentiful “learning” about Robin Hood, but no real knowledge. He is first mentioned in literature, as the subject of “rhymes,” inPiers 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 inIvanhoe) as the period of Richard I. Kuhn seeks to show that Hood is a survival of Woden, or of hisWooden, “wooden horse” or hobby horse. The Robin Hood play was parallel with the May games, which, as Mr. Frazer shows in hisGolden 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 everywhereattaches to such popular heroes. An historical Robin there may have been, butpremit nox alta.

This copy follows in Mr. Child’s early edition, “from the second edition of Ritson’sRobin 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.)

Published by Ritson, from a Cambridge MS., probably of the reign of Henry VII.

Published by Ritson, from a Black Letter copy in the collection of Anthony Wood, the Oxford antiquary.

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