Chapter 109

58. This is Wishart’s account. Another, by Covenanters, makes Montrose to have been more on the alert, and has nothing of the two thousand horse sent to take him in the rear. The royalists are admitted to have maintained their ground with great resolution for almost an hour. The numbers are as given by Gardiner, History of the Great Civil War, II, 335 f.

59. T. Craig-Brown, History of Selkirkshire, 1886, I, 188.

60. Not 1829, as put in the reprint of 1869. “Written hurriedly, in supply of the press, in April and May, 1832. J. R.”: Dr J. Robertson’s interleaved copy of the undated first edition.A cis reprinted (with some errors) in The Great North of Scotland Railway, A Guide, by W. Ferguson, 1881, p. 163.

61. Jamieson writes to the Scots Magazine, October, 1803, p. 699: “The Baron of Braikly begins,O Inverey cam down Dee-sideWhistling and playing;He’s landed at Braikly’s yatesAt the day dawing.Of this I have got a compleat copy, and the story is very interesting; but I have got a fragment of it from another quarter, which, so far as it goes, is superior.” Etc.

61. Jamieson writes to the Scots Magazine, October, 1803, p. 699: “The Baron of Braikly begins,

O Inverey cam down Dee-sideWhistling and playing;He’s landed at Braikly’s yatesAt the day dawing.

O Inverey cam down Dee-side

Whistling and playing;

He’s landed at Braikly’s yates

At the day dawing.

Of this I have got a compleat copy, and the story is very interesting; but I have got a fragment of it from another quarter, which, so far as it goes, is superior.” Etc.

62. A market was established here in 1661 by an act in favor of William Farquharson of Inverey, his heirs, etc. This William had a brother and a son John. William Farquharson of Inverey younger, as “a person of known trust and approven ability,” is appointed to keep a guard “this summer for the sherifdom of Kincardine” against cattle-driving Highlanders, July of the same year. Thomson’s Acts, VII, 18, I, 286: pointed out to me by Mr Macmath.

63. Macfarlane’s Genealogical Collections, MS., in the Advocates’ Library, I, 299 f; already cited by Jamieson, Ballads, I, 108.

64. See a little further on.

65. Gilmour’s Decisions, 1701, p. 43. (Macmath.)

66. Col. H. W. Lumsden’s Memorials of the Families of Lumsdaine, etc., p. 59.

67. History of the Earldom of Sutherland, p. 217 f. To the same effect, Johnstone, Historia Rerum Britannicarum, Amsterdam, 1655, p. 160 f, under the year 1591, and Spotiswood, p. 390, of the editions of 1655, 1666, 1668, under the year 1592. “The History of the Feuds,” etc., p. 67, ed. 1764, merely repeats Sir Robert Gordon. William Gordon’s History of the Family of Gordon, cites Sir Robert Gordon and Johnstone, and calls Gordon of Brackley Alexander.Still another “Gordon, Baron of Brackley in Deeside,” is said to have been murdered by the country people about him in or near 1540: The Genealogy of the Grants, in Macfarlane’s Genealogical Collections, I, 168, and An Account of the Rise and Offspring of the Name of Grant, printed for Sir Archibald Grant, Bart., of Monymusk, 1876, p. 30 ff, where the date is put (perhaps through a misprint) before 1480. A horrible revenge was said to have been taken by the Earl of Huntly and James Grant: see the well-known story of the orphans fed at a trough, in Scott’s Tales of a Grandfather, chap. xxxix.

Still another “Gordon, Baron of Brackley in Deeside,” is said to have been murdered by the country people about him in or near 1540: The Genealogy of the Grants, in Macfarlane’s Genealogical Collections, I, 168, and An Account of the Rise and Offspring of the Name of Grant, printed for Sir Archibald Grant, Bart., of Monymusk, 1876, p. 30 ff, where the date is put (perhaps through a misprint) before 1480. A horrible revenge was said to have been taken by the Earl of Huntly and James Grant: see the well-known story of the orphans fed at a trough, in Scott’s Tales of a Grandfather, chap. xxxix.

68. See the Memorandum for Farquharson in “Fourth Report,” as above, p. 534.

69. Pointed out to me by Mr. Macmath, who, in making this and other communications relating to the Gordons of Brackley, suggested and urged the hypothesis of a mixture of two events in this ballad.

70. Fraser, The Douglas Book, Edinburgh, 1885, II, 277 f, 449 f. The contract, being a mutual paper, may not express to the full the supposed grievances of either party.

71. The Douglas Book, II, 450 f. “Lawrie is mentioned by Lord Fountainhall as ‘late chamberlain to the Marquis of Douglas, and repute a bad instrument between him and his lady in their differences.’ Decisions, I, 196.”What should prompt Lawrie to malice against the marchioness is unknown. Kinloch, Ancient Scottish Ballads, p. 58, accepting the story of the old woman from whom he obtainedE, says: “The Laird of Blackwood and the Marquis of —— were rivals in the affection of a lovely and amiable young lady, who, preferring the latter, became his wife. Blackwood ... vowed revenge,” etc. Chambers, who repeats this account, Scottish Ballads, p. 150, remarks that Lawrie seems to have been considerably advanced in life at the time. Lawrie’s son made a “retour of services” in 1650, and may be supposed then to have been of age. The Marquis of Douglas was in his twenty-fourth year when he married, in 1670, and probably Lady Barbara Erskine was not older. Maidment is surprised that Lawrie, “a man of uncertain lineage,” should have succeeded with the widow Marion Weir. What is to be thought of his aspiring, at the age of sixty, or more, to “the affection of a lovely and amiable young lady” of the family of Mar, one of the most ancient in Scotland?

What should prompt Lawrie to malice against the marchioness is unknown. Kinloch, Ancient Scottish Ballads, p. 58, accepting the story of the old woman from whom he obtainedE, says: “The Laird of Blackwood and the Marquis of —— were rivals in the affection of a lovely and amiable young lady, who, preferring the latter, became his wife. Blackwood ... vowed revenge,” etc. Chambers, who repeats this account, Scottish Ballads, p. 150, remarks that Lawrie seems to have been considerably advanced in life at the time. Lawrie’s son made a “retour of services” in 1650, and may be supposed then to have been of age. The Marquis of Douglas was in his twenty-fourth year when he married, in 1670, and probably Lady Barbara Erskine was not older. Maidment is surprised that Lawrie, “a man of uncertain lineage,” should have succeeded with the widow Marion Weir. What is to be thought of his aspiring, at the age of sixty, or more, to “the affection of a lovely and amiable young lady” of the family of Mar, one of the most ancient in Scotland?

72. Kinloch MSS, I, 95 f. For one or two points see Maidment’s Scotish Ballads and Songs, 1868, II, 262 ff., the preface to the ballad there called ‘Lady Barbara Erskine’s Lament.’

73. “Matthew Crawford, weaver, Howwood, sings ‘Jamie Douglas’ with the conclusion in which the lady dies after her return and reconciliation with her lord.” Motherwell’s Note-Book, p. 56.“I was informed by A. Lile that she has heard a longer set of the ballad in which, while Lady Douglas is continuing her lament, she observes a troop of gentlemen coming to her father’s, and she expresses a wish that these should be sent by her lord to bring her home. They happen to be sent for that purpose, and she accompanies them. On her meeting, however, with her lord, and while putting a cup of wine to her lips, her heart breaks, and she drops down dead at his feet.” Motherwell, note toG, MS., p. 347.Lawrie came near losing his head in 1683 for political reasons, but he survived the revolution of 1688, “got all the proceedings against him annulled, and a complete rehabilitation.” Wodrow, II, 295; Maidment, 1868, II, 268.

73. “Matthew Crawford, weaver, Howwood, sings ‘Jamie Douglas’ with the conclusion in which the lady dies after her return and reconciliation with her lord.” Motherwell’s Note-Book, p. 56.

“I was informed by A. Lile that she has heard a longer set of the ballad in which, while Lady Douglas is continuing her lament, she observes a troop of gentlemen coming to her father’s, and she expresses a wish that these should be sent by her lord to bring her home. They happen to be sent for that purpose, and she accompanies them. On her meeting, however, with her lord, and while putting a cup of wine to her lips, her heart breaks, and she drops down dead at his feet.” Motherwell, note toG, MS., p. 347.

Lawrie came near losing his head in 1683 for political reasons, but he survived the revolution of 1688, “got all the proceedings against him annulled, and a complete rehabilitation.” Wodrow, II, 295; Maidment, 1868, II, 268.

74. All butEhaveb4:Ehasa4. All butA,D,E,L,Mhave 1.A,C,Ehave 10;Jhas 2, 3;Ahas 8;Fhas 9.

75. It must be said, however, that stanza 8, ‘When we came in by Glasgow town,’ etc., hardly suits the song, and would be entirely appropriate to the ballad (as it is inA2). It may have been taken up from this ballad (which must date from the last quarter of the seventeenth century), or from some other.

76.ais followed in Percy’s Reliques, 1765, III, 144, Herd, Ancient and Modern Scots Songs, 1769, p. 196;b, in the Musical Museum, p. 166, No 158; with slight variations in each copy.

77. Scottish Psalter, 1566, Wood’s MSS, Bassus, Laing’s MSS, University of Edinburgh, MS. Books, 483, III, p. 209. The medley is by a different and later hand: Laing in the Musical Museum, 1853, I, xxviii f., IV, 440*. It is printed in the second edition of Forbes’s Cantus, Aberdeen, 1666.There was a much older stave, or proverb, to the same purport, as we see by Chaucer’s Clerk’s Tale, vv. 855, 57.But sooth is seyd, algate I fynde it trewe,Loue is noght old as whan that it is newe.

There was a much older stave, or proverb, to the same purport, as we see by Chaucer’s Clerk’s Tale, vv. 855, 57.

But sooth is seyd, algate I fynde it trewe,Loue is noght old as whan that it is newe.

But sooth is seyd, algate I fynde it trewe,

Loue is noght old as whan that it is newe.

78. “Public worship was begun by Mr Douglas, when the accounts came to them that Claverhouse and his men were coming upon them, and had Mr King and others their friends prisoners. Upon this, finding evil was determined against them, all who had arms drew out from the rest of the meeting, and resolved to go and meet the soldiers and prevent their dismissing the meeting, and, if possible, relieve Mr King and the other prisoners.” Wodrow’s History, 1722, II, 46.

79. (Postscript: “My lord, I am so wearied and so sleepy that I have written this very confusedly.”) See Russell, in the Appendix to C. K. Sharpe’s edition of Kirkton’s Secret and True History of the Church of Scotland, p. 438 ff.; Napier’s Memorials and Letters of John Graham of Claverhouse, II, 219–223. There is a good account of the affair in Mowbray Morris’s “Claverhouse,” ch. iv.

80. Napier interprets the cornet to be Mr Crafford (Crawford), who, in the preceding February, was a corporal in the troop: Memorials, II, 191. But Creichton, in his Memoirs, mentions “the loss of Cornet Robert Graham” at Drumclog. Russell speaks of a Graham killed at Drumclog, and, like Creichton, tells a story of the disfigurement of his face (which he attributes to the cornet’s own dog). Lawrie of Blackwood, Lord Jamie Douglas’s Jago, was indicted and tried, Nov. 24, 1682–Feb. 7. 1683, for (among other things) countenancing John Aulston, who “in the late rebellion” murdered Cornet Graham: Wodrow, II, 293, 295. Guild, in his Bellum Bothuellianum, cited by Scott, has “signifer, trajectus globulo, Græmus.”Napier will know only of a William Graham as cornet to Claverhouse, “and certainly not killed at Drumclog.” William Graham is referred to in a dispatch of Claverhouse’s, March (?) 1679, as commanding a small garrison: Napier II, 201. A Cornet Graham in Claverhouse’s troop captured a rebel in March, 1682: R. Law’s Memorials, ed. Sharpe, p. 222. A William Graham was “cornet to Claverhouse,” January 3, 1684: Wodrow, II, 338. (See “Clavers, The Despot’s Champion, by a Southern,” London, 1889, p. 48 f., a careful and impartial book, to which I owe a couple of points that I had not myself noticed.)C. K. Sharpe calls Robert Graham Claverhouse’s cousin, Napier, I, 271, but probably would not wish the title to be taken strictly.

Napier will know only of a William Graham as cornet to Claverhouse, “and certainly not killed at Drumclog.” William Graham is referred to in a dispatch of Claverhouse’s, March (?) 1679, as commanding a small garrison: Napier II, 201. A Cornet Graham in Claverhouse’s troop captured a rebel in March, 1682: R. Law’s Memorials, ed. Sharpe, p. 222. A William Graham was “cornet to Claverhouse,” January 3, 1684: Wodrow, II, 338. (See “Clavers, The Despot’s Champion, by a Southern,” London, 1889, p. 48 f., a careful and impartial book, to which I owe a couple of points that I had not myself noticed.)

C. K. Sharpe calls Robert Graham Claverhouse’s cousin, Napier, I, 271, but probably would not wish the title to be taken strictly.

81. Wodrow’s History, 1722, II, 54–67; Creichton’s Memoirs; Russell, in Sharpe’s ed. of Kirkton, p. 447 ff.

82. Russell, as above, p. 464; Wodrow, II, 86.

83. But see “Clavers, the Despot’s Champion,” p. 72 ff.

84. In Notes and Queries, First Series, V, 249.

85. The Works of the late L. Delamer, 1694, The Case of William, Earl of Devonshire, p. 563; which is the plea referred to further on.

86. Such poetical propriety as ‘The second, more alarming still,’ 32; ‘The words that passd, alas! presaged’ 183. But really the text was not very much altered. Some verses, here dropped, were added “to give a finish.”

87. See W. S. Gibson, Dilston Hall, etc., 1850, p. 54.

88. Buchanan, Rer. Scot. Hist., fol. 186; Lesley, History of Scotland, p. 251 f.

89. InJ, which cannot be relied on for smaller points, we read that Charles Hay has been hanged, for reasons not given: st. 20.

90. This intimation is repeated inG10, with the ludicrous variation of bloody ‘breeks.’ InB, an English lord, whose competency and interest in the matter are alike difficult to comprehend, declares that he will have Geordie hanged, will have Geordie’s head, before the morrow. A Scottish lord rejoins that he will cast off his coat and fight, will fight in blood up to the knees; and the king adds, there will be bloody heads among us all, before that happens. Who the parties to the fight are to be, unless it is the English lord against Scotland, is not evident.Bis inflated with superfluous verses.

91. It seems to have been familiar in Aberdeen as early as 1627. Joseph Haslewood made an entry in his copy of Ritson’s Scotish Song of a manuscript Lute-Book (presented in 1781 to Dr Charles Burney by Dr Skene of Marischal College) which contained airs noted and collected by Robert Gordon, “at Aberdein, in the yeare of our Lord 1627.” Among some ninety titles of tunes mentioned, there occur ‘Ther wer three ravns’ and ‘God be with the, Geordie.’ (W. Macmath.)

92. Somebody, perhaps J., the editor of The Common-Place Book of Ancient and Modern Ballad, etc., Edinburgh, 1824, attempted an improvement of the later edition of Scott’s ballad. The recension was used by Loève-Veimars for his translation, and is given in his Popular Ballads and Songs from Tradition, Manuscripts, and Scarce Editions, Paris, 1825, p. 71. This copy, with variations, is found in the Campbell MSS, I, 348. The alterations are mostly trivial.

93. ‘Sir James the Ross’ was first printed in The Weekly Magazine, or, Edinburgh Amusement, IX, 371, in 1770 (Grosart, Works of Michael Bruce, p. 257, the ballad at p. 197), and in the same year in “Poems on Several Occasions, by Michael Bruce” (p. 30), with differences, which are attributed to Logan, the editor.

94. “The older ballad, entitled ‘The Young Heir of Baleichan,’ or Baleighan,... is claimed for this parish [Crimond, Aberdeenshire]; while the same ballad is said to be founded on a traditionary tale of Baleichan in Forfarshire.” Smith, A New History of Aberdeenshire, 1875, p. 429.

95. Pinkerton reads Loch Lagan. He also reads ‘the Hichts of Lundie,’ in 104, for ‘the gates of London.’ Lundie is in Forfarshire. I suppose both readings to be Pinkerton’s emendations.

96. Logan has a page, and the page may have come from some previously corrupted version of the popular ballad whichJmay follow. The first half of the stanza corresponding toL12 in Logan is from the popular ballad.

97. Sometimes also with sensible prose, as 72, ‘But I find she has deceived me;’ 123, ‘I dreamed my luive had lost his life.’The loose, though limited, rhyme in this ballad, in ‘The Bonnie House of Airlie,’ etc., does not favor exact recollection, and furnishes a temptation to invention: hence the sparrow inB6, the arrow inD7, the narrow inI12, and, I fear, the harrow inL9, which of itself is good, while all the others are bad.

97. Sometimes also with sensible prose, as 72, ‘But I find she has deceived me;’ 123, ‘I dreamed my luive had lost his life.’

The loose, though limited, rhyme in this ballad, in ‘The Bonnie House of Airlie,’ etc., does not favor exact recollection, and furnishes a temptation to invention: hence the sparrow inB6, the arrow inD7, the narrow inI12, and, I fear, the harrow inL9, which of itself is good, while all the others are bad.

98. It must be noted, however, that in ‘Ye think me an unmeet marrow,’A82, Ye is an editorial reading. I may remark that I have includedM-Pin the second group simply because the hero in these is called love or true-love. The husband, however, has both titles inA.

99. ‘Wi athrustyrapier,’J, which I feel compelled to understand as the commonplace ‘trusty;’ but, guided by ‘a rusted rapier,’K, we ought perhaps to read ‘rusty.’ InLthe lady kisses and combs the swain, and sets him on her milk-white steed.—Since I suppose lover to have been substituted for husband in the course of tradition, I shall not be so precise as to distinguish the two when this would be inconvenient.

100. Nine is the number also inH, as we see from st. 5, compared withE, 5, 11.

101. It will be remembered that green is an unlucky color: see II, 181 f.

102. She tears the ribbons from her head inD11,I12, when she hears the tidings: but this belongs to the bride in the ballad which succeeds, No 215.

103. Ten inF, to include the lord with his nine foemen. But why only nine inE,G,M? Is it not because one of the brothers had not been mortally wounded, the brother who is said to kill the husband (lover) inL,M,N, and who may reasonably be supposed to do this inE,F,G? Such a matter would not be left in obscurity in the original ballad.

104. This is disagreeable, assuredly, and unnatural too. It is ‘drank,’ probably, that is softened to ‘wiped’ inA14. Scott, to avoid unpleasantness, reads ‘She kissd them (his wounds) till her lips grew red;’ which would not take long. This is all nicely arranged inL: ‘She laid him on her milk-white steed, and bore him home from Yarrow; she washed his wounds in yon well-strand, and dried him wi the hollan.’ The washing and drying are done inJon the spot, where there might have been water, but no hollan.

105. The reciters ofAandJ, whether they gave what they had received, or tried to avoid the material difficulties about the hair, graze upon absurdity. Her hair was three quarters long, she tied it round ‘her’ (for his?) white hause-bane—and died,A15. His hair was three quarters long, she’s wrapt it round her middle—and brought it home,J16. The hair comes in again in the next two ballads, and causes difficulty. Wonderful things are done with hair in ballads and tales: seeI, 40 b, and the note at 486 b.

106.L19 is also found only in that copy. It seems to me, but only becauseLdoes not strike me as being of an original cast—rather a ballad improved by reciters,—to be an adaptation of No 215,A2.

107. James Chalmers, in Archæologia Scotica, III, 261, says that Hamilton’s ballad was contributed to the second volume of the Tea Table Miscellany in 1724. It is not in the Dublin edition of 1729. It is at p. 242 of the London edition of 1733; in Thomson’s Orpheus Caledonius, II, 34, of the same year; at p. 46 of the first edition of [Hamilton’s] Poems on Several Occasions, Glasgow, 1748. The author died in 1754. The copy in the second edition of Hamilton’s Poems, 1760, p. 67, says Chalmers, is somewhat altered.In Hamilton’s ballad it is a lover, and not a husband, who is slain, and he is thrown into the Yarrow. It is a question whether Hamilton’s ballad did not affect tradition in the case ofJ,K,L, particularlyL. The editorial Douglas inA11 is from Hamilton 24. ‘Wi her tears she bathed his wounds,’I133, looks like Hamilton 91. The ‘dule and sorrow’ ofO42is a recurring phrase in Hamilton, and ‘slain the comeliest swain,’O43, is in Hamilton 63.In Hamilton’s ballad the slayer of the lover endeavors to induce the lady to marryhim, as is done in the Icelandic ballad spoken of under No 89, II, 297 f.A song by Ramsay, T. T. M., Dublin, 1729, p. 139, has nearly the same first four lines as Hamilton’s ballad, and these have been thought to be traditional.

In Hamilton’s ballad it is a lover, and not a husband, who is slain, and he is thrown into the Yarrow. It is a question whether Hamilton’s ballad did not affect tradition in the case ofJ,K,L, particularlyL. The editorial Douglas inA11 is from Hamilton 24. ‘Wi her tears she bathed his wounds,’I133, looks like Hamilton 91. The ‘dule and sorrow’ ofO42is a recurring phrase in Hamilton, and ‘slain the comeliest swain,’O43, is in Hamilton 63.

In Hamilton’s ballad the slayer of the lover endeavors to induce the lady to marryhim, as is done in the Icelandic ballad spoken of under No 89, II, 297 f.

A song by Ramsay, T. T. M., Dublin, 1729, p. 139, has nearly the same first four lines as Hamilton’s ballad, and these have been thought to be traditional.

108. Minstrelsy, 1833, III, 144. For a criticism of Sir Walter Scott’s remarks and a correction of some errors, with much new information, see Mr T. Craig-Brown’s History of Selkirkshire, Edinburgh, 1886, I, 14–16, 311–15, of which work grateful use is here made.

109. Buchan’s note toEis, for a wonder, to the purpose. With his usual simplicity, he informs us that “the unfortunate hero of this ballad was a factor to the laird of Kinmundy.” He then goes on to say: “As the young woman to whom he was to be united in connubial wedlock resided in Gamery, a small fishing-town on the east coast of the Murray Frith, the marriage was to be solemnized in the church of that parish; to which he was on his way when overtaken by some of the breakers which overflow a part of the road he had to pass, and dash with impetuous fury against the lofty and adamantine rocks with which it is skirted.” I, 315.

110. Professor Veitch has remarked on the incongruousness of this stanza in Blackwood’s Magazine, June, 1890, p. 739 ff. Something like it, but adjusted to the circumstances of a maid, occurs in the ballad which he there prints as the “Original Ballad of the Dowie Dens.” See No 214, p. 174,L19.

111. Mr Macmath informs me that in “A Collection of Old Ballads, etc., printed at Edinburgh between the years 1660 and 1720,” No 7228 of the catalogue issued by John Stevenson, Edinburgh, 1827, there is this item: “Be valiant still, etc., a new song much in request; also Logan Water, or, A Lover in Captivity.”

112. “Hire a horse,” in an “old fragment”?—Cunningham gives the first two stanzas of the ballad, with variations in the first, in his edition of Burns, 1834, V, 107.

113. This volume came in 1836 into the hands of Motherwell’s friend, Mr P. A. Ramsay. The entries have been communicated to me by Mr Macmath.

114. The cane in 181of this copy is a touch of “realism” which we have had in a late copy of Tam Lin; seeJ16, III, 505.

115. The attempt to lessen the disproportion of the match seems to me a decidedly modern trait. InH27, 28, this goes so far that the maid has twenty ploughs and three against the laird’s thirty and three. InM3–5, the maid’s father was once a landed laird, but gambles away his estate, and then both father and mother take to drinking!

116. OfD, W. Laidlaw writes as follows, September 11, 1802: “I had the surprise of a visit from my crack-brained acquaintance Mr Bartram of Biggar, the other day. He brought me a copy of the ‘Laird of Laminton,’ which has greatly disappointed my expectations. It is composed of those you have and some nonsense. But it overturns the tradition of this country, for it makes the wedding and battle to have been at Lauchinwar.” Letters addressed to Sir Walter Scott, I, No 73, Abbotsford.For the particulars of the compilation of the copies in the Minstrelsy, see the notes toB,C.

For the particulars of the compilation of the copies in the Minstrelsy, see the notes toB,C.

117. This phrase, owing to the accidents of tradition, comes in without much pertinency in some places; as inA11,K22, whereshegars the trumpet sound foul play (altered inJ17, 18, to ‘a weel won play’ and ‘a’ fair play’).

118. And inA, as here printed; but in the MS., by misplacement of 3, 5, theloveris absurdly made to omit telling the lass till her wedding-day.

119. Four-and-twenty bonnie boys of the bridegroom’s party are inC13 clad in ‘the simple gray;’ for which Scott reads ‘Johnstone grey,’ ‘the livery of the ancient family of Johnstone.’ This circumstance, says this editor, appears to supportJ, “which gives Katharine the surname of Johnstone.” But the grey is the livery of Lord ‘Faughanwood’ inC, and the Johnstone seems to be a purely capricious venture of Scott’s.

120. “Caddon bank,” says W. Laidlaw in a letter to Scott, September 28,[1802], “is a very difficult pass on Tweedside opposite Innerliethen. The road is now formed through the plantation of firs. The bank is exceedingly steep, and I would not think it difficult even yet with ten clever fellows to give a hundred horsemen a vast of trouble.” Letters addressed to Sir Walter Scott, I, No 74, Abbotsford.—Callien, etc., may be taken to be corruptions of Caden. Foudlin, in the northernK, might be Foudland, Aberdeenshire.

121. The heroine of this ballad, an historical lady of high rank, was the third in a regular line to be forcibly carried off by a lover. The date is 1287. Her mother and her grandmother were taken by the strong hand out of a convent in 1245 and about 1210; these much against their will, the other not so reluctantly, according to ballads in which they are celebrated, for curiously enough each has her ballad. See Grundtvig, vol. iii, Nos 138, 155, and No. 181, as above, and his remarks, p. 234, third note, and p. 738 f.

122. At the end of the account of the parish of Livingstone, in The Statistical Account of Scotland, XX, 17, 1798, there is this paragraph: “It may also be expected that something should be said of the Bonny Lass of Livingstone, so famed in song; but although this ballad and the air to which it is sung seem to have as little claim to antiquity as they have to merit, yet we cannot give any satisfactory information upon the subject. All we can say is, that we have heard that she kept a public house at a place called the High House of Livingstone, about a mile west of the church; that she was esteemed handsome, and knew how to turn her charms to the best account.” Dr Robertson, at the place above cited, treats this passage as pertaining to the ballad before us. But the reference is certainly to a song known as the “Lass o Livingston,” beginning, ‘The bonie lass o Liviston;’ concerning which see Cromek’s Reliques of Robert Burns, p. 204 of the edition of 1817, and Johnson’s Museum, IV, 18, 1853.

123. I will add one more corn to a heap. “Mrs Wharton, who was lately stole, is returned home to her friends, having been married against her consent to Captain Campbell” (November, 1690). Luttrell’s Relation, II, 130. There is partial comfort, but somewhat cold, in the fact that the ravisher was in many cases ultimately unsuccessful in his object, as he is in all the ballads here given.

124. I owe the knowledge of these letters to Mr Macmath, who sent me a copy that he was allowed to make by the courtesy of the Messrs Brodie of Edinburgh, in whose possession they now are.

125. “Being her guardian as well as waiting-maid, as appointed by old Mrs Gibb when on her death-bed, they being, as the saying is, cousins once removed.” Letter of July 30.

126. The jury, in James’s trial, brought in a special verdict with the intent to save his life, but no such effort was made in favor of Rob Oig, though there was a mitigating circumstance in his case. For Jean Key “had informed her friends that, on the night of her being carried off, Robin Oig, moved by her cries and tears, had partly consented to let her return, when James came up, with a pistol in his hand, and asking whether he was such a coward as to relinquish an enterprise in which he had risked everything to procure him a fortune, in a manner compelled his brother to persevere.” It may be remarked, by the way, that Duncan MacGregor had his trial as well, but was found not guilty. (Scott, Introduction to “Rob Roy,” which I have mostly followed, introducing passages from the indictment in James MacGregor’s case when brevity would allow.)

127. “Such, at least, was his general character; for when James Mohr [the Big], while perpetrating the violence at Edinbelly, called out, in order to overawe opposition, that Glengyle was lying in the moor with a hundred men to patronise his enterprise, Jean Key told him he lied, since she was confident Glengyle would never countenance so scoundrelly a business.” Scott, Introduction to “Rob Roy,” ed. 1846, p. c.

128. “Leezie Lindsay from a maid-servant in Aberdeen, taken down by Professor Scott:” Jamieson to Scott, November, 1804, Letters addressed to Sir Walter Scott, I, No 117, Abbotsford.

129. It would have come in earlier (as No 195), had it been discovered in time.

130. “It is a received superstition in Scotland,” says Motherwell, “that when friends or lovers part at a bridge they shall never again meet.” Surely, lovers who were of this way of thinking would not appoint a bridge for a meeting.

131. But not homely enough whileC2, 42 are retained. The mystical verses with whichAandBbegin are also not quite artless.

132. The Scotsman newspaper, November 16, 1888.

133. Buchan, by the Rev. John B. Pratt, 3d ed., 1870, p. 324 f.

134. An Aberdeen newspaper of April, 1885, from which I have a cutting.

135. Buchan gives the year as 1631, and is followed by Chambers and Aytoun. The original tombstone having become “decayed,” Mr Gordon of Fyvie had it replaced in 1845 with “a fac-simile in every respect.” A headstone in the form of a cross of polished granite was added in 1869, by public subscription. (New Statistical Account of Scotland, XII, 325; Mill o Tifty’s Annie, Peterhead, 1872, p. 4.)

136. “I have lately, by rummaging in a by-corner of my memory, found some Aberdeenshire ballads which totally escaped me before. They are of a different class from those I sent you, not near so ancient, but may be about a century ago. I cannot boast much of their poetical merits, but the family incidents upon which they are founded, the local allusions which they contain, may perhaps render them curious and not uninteresting to many people. They are as follows: 1st, ‘The Baron of Braichly’ [No 203]; 2d, ‘The Lass of Philorth [No 239 ?];’ 3d, ‘The Tryal of the Laird of Gycht’ [No 209]; 4th, ‘The Death of the Countess of Aboyne’ [No 235]; 5[th], ‘The Carrying-off of the Heiress of Kinady.’ All these I can recollect pretty exactly. I never saw any of them either in print or manuscript, but have kept them entirely from hearing them sung when a child.” Letter to Alexander Fraser Tytler, December 23, 1800.‘Charlie MacPherson’ should have been put with Nos 221–5.

‘Charlie MacPherson’ should have been put with Nos 221–5.

137. Epitaphs and Inscriptions . . . in the North East of Scotland, by Andrew Jervise, 1875, I, 17. (W. Macmath.)

138. The House of Drum is a well-known mansion in Liberton, near Edinburgh, and there is a note toF aimporting (wrongly) that the ballad refers to this place.

139. Lady Jean Gordon was divorced from the Earl of Bothwell in 1567, “being then twenty years of age,” says Sir Robert Gordon. His continuator puts her death at 1629, in her eighty-fourth year. Genealogy of the Earls of Sutherland, pp. 143, 145, 169, 469.

140. There is, to tell the whole truth, an allusion inA,Hto Jean’s portion, or tocher, as not being sufficient to justify the breaking of a previous engagement. One would wish to think that ‘portion’ inA5 is a corruption of ‘fortune,’ and that what is meant is that her luck is hard. But tocher inH3 is not easily disposed of.

141. The gross and uncalled-for language of father and mother inA7, 10, has slipped in by a mere trick of memory, I am convinced, from ‘Lady Maisry,’ No 65,B,C. See again the ballad which follows this.

142. I owe the knowledge of Marshall’s and Fittis’s publications to Mr Macmath.

143. Carruthers, Abbotsford Notanda, appended to R. Chambers’s Life of Scott, 1871, p. 122.In the last edition of Sharpe’s Ballad Book (1880), p. 158, we find this note by Scott: “I remember something of another ballad of diablerie. A man sells himself to the fause thief for a term of years, and the devil comes to claim his forfeit. He implores for mercy, or at least reprieve, and, if granted, promises this:‘And I will show how the lilies growOn the banks of Italy.’Satan, being no horticulturist, pays no attention to this proffer.” Scott’s memory seems to have gone quite astray here.

143. Carruthers, Abbotsford Notanda, appended to R. Chambers’s Life of Scott, 1871, p. 122.

In the last edition of Sharpe’s Ballad Book (1880), p. 158, we find this note by Scott: “I remember something of another ballad of diablerie. A man sells himself to the fause thief for a term of years, and the devil comes to claim his forfeit. He implores for mercy, or at least reprieve, and, if granted, promises this:

‘And I will show how the lilies growOn the banks of Italy.’

‘And I will show how the lilies grow

On the banks of Italy.’

Satan, being no horticulturist, pays no attention to this proffer.” Scott’s memory seems to have gone quite astray here.

144. Why the ghost should wait four years, and what is meant in st. 18 by his travelling seven years, it is not easy to understand. The author would probably take up the impregnable position that he was simply relating the facts as they occurred.

145. We must not be critical about copies which have been patched by tradition, butF3 is singularly out of place for a “dæmon lover.”

146. Justifying Thackeray’s ‘Little Billee.’

147. Five are named inC3, 4, but that is too many to allow. Probably two versions may have been combined here.Bhas only the three mentioned inC4; the three ofA3 are repeated inA9; and there are three only inE7–9. The Black Burgess ofC3 occurs inA3, and ‘the smack calld (caud) Twine’ ofC3 looks like a corruption of ‘the small (sma’) Cordvine.’

148. In a note at the end ofE(which he regarded as a variety of ‘Sir Patrick Spens’), Burton says: “There appears to be still lurking in some part of Aberdeenshire a totally different version of this ballad, connected with the localities of the North [that is, not with Dunfermline, with which ‘Young Allan’ has no concern, or with Linn or Lee, which are in Outopia]. A person who remembered having heard it said that it ends happily, with the mariners drinking the bluid-red wine at Aberdeen. It mentions Bennachie, or the Hill of Mist, a celebrated hill in Aberdeenshire, which is seen far out at sea, and seems to have guided the gallant mariner to the shore.” All the copies “end happily” so far as Young Allan is concerned, and this is all that we are supposed to care for.

149. Mr Macmath informs me that all the traditional pieces in “Scottish Songs” are in the hand of Scott, of about 1795. At folio 11 (the top part of which has been torn away), Scott says: “These ballads are all in the Northern dialect, but I recollect several of them as recited in the south of Scotland divested of their Norlandisms, and also varying considerably in other respects. In a few instances where my memory served me, I have adopted either additional verses or better readings than those in Mr Tytler’s collection. Such variations can excite no reasonable surprise in any species of composition which owes preservation to oral tradition only.”

Back to Index Next