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

No copy of this ballad earlier than the last century is known to me. The Museum Catalogue gives a conjectural date of 1740 to #a# and of 1720 to #b#, and, conjecturally again, a...

4 ‘If anither woman has your heart, O dear, but I am sorry! Ye hie you down to yon ale house, And stay untill ‘t be dawing, And if I be a woman true I’ll meet you in the dawing.’

‘The Dæmon Lover’ was first published in Scott’s Minstrelsy, 5th edition, 1812 (#F#). William Laidlaw, who furnished the copy, inserted four stanzas of his own (6, 12, 17, 18, h...

#e.# Another song of Sir James the Ross; _this following Bruce’s ballad, which has the title_ (_p._ 73) Sir James the Rose or de Ross. #f.# Another song of Sir James de Ross.

11 ‘For I hae three coffers fu o goud, Yer eyen did never see, An I will build a bonny ship for my love, An set her to the sea, And sail she east or sail she wast The ship sal b...

2 ‘Milk on, milk on, my bonny, bonny may, Milk on, milk on,’ said he; ‘Milk on, milk on, my bonny, bonny may; Will ye shew me out-ower the lea?’

3 ‘But gin I had ane o my father’s servans, For he has so mony, That wad gae to the wood o Glentanner, Wi a letter to the rantin laddie!’

10 As I was sitting at my bouer-window, What a blythe sicht did I see! I saw four score of his soldiers bold, And I wishd that they were coming for me.

There is nothing to show whether the lost copy was recovered, unless it be the fact that Jamieson prints about twice as many stanzas as there are in #a#. But Jamieson was not al...

3 Now he has hunted her till her bower, Baith late at night and the mid day, But when he stole her virgin rose Nae mair this maid he would come nigh.

#P.# 142 b, 496 a, III, 499 a. #B# was repeated by Salvadori in Giornale di Filologia Romanza, II, 197; and #E# was first published by Mazzatinti in IV, 69, of the same.

2 ‘Whether is it for the gold sae rid, Or is it for the silver clear? Or is it for the lass in southen land, That she cannot win here.’

3 ‘O pox on thee, Jenny, for being sae slaw! Bonny Earl Ogie is promisd awa:’ This letter was like to mak her heart break, For revealing her mind to a man so ingrate.

14 ‘The warstan stable in a’ your stables, For my puir steed to stand! The warstan bower in a’ your bowers, For me to lie therein! My boots are fu o Clyde’s water, I’m shivering...

A young lord, Willie, asks his ‘gay lady’ whose the child is that she is going with. She owns that a priest is the father, which does not appear to disconcert Willie. A boy is b...

6 ‘Some relief, some relief, thou tall young man! Some relief I pray thee grant me! For I am a lady deep wronged in love, And chased from my own countrie.’

P. 174, 512 a, III, 509 a. M. Gaston Paris has made it strongly probable that Pontoise, and not Toulouse, was originally the scene of the French-Catalan-Italian ballad. Three st...

1 The Earl of Boon’s to London gone, And all his merry men with him; For a’ the ribbonds hang at his horse’s main. He has left his lady behind him.

6 ‘O hold your tongue, my dear,’ he said, ‘And let all your weeping abee, For I’ll soon show to you how the lilies grow On the banks of Italy.’

5 He set her on his bonnie black horse, He set himsel on his gude gray naigie, And they have ridden oer hills and dales, And he’s awa wi his bonnie Peggie.

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...

23 ‘Here, Johnny Armstrong, take thou my sword, That is made of the mettle so fine, And when thou comst to the border-side, Remember the death of Sir Hugh of the Grime.’

13 ‘O hold your tongue, you foolish man, Your speech it’s a’ but folly; For an ye wad wait till the day ye die, I wad neer take John for Geordie.’

1 ‘O stay at hame, my ain son Willie, And let your bride tak Johnie! O stay at hame, my ain son Willie! For my blessing gaes not wi thee.’

The first shore they come to is Troup, #B#, Howdoloot, #C#, Linn, #D#, #E#. The ship is kept off with cannon, #B#, #C#, with spears and bayonets, #D#; is towed in (wrongly), #E#...

14 She’s taen three lachters o her hair, That hung doon her side sae bonny, An she’s tied them roon his middle tight, An she’s carried him hame frae Yarrow.

#B# has nearly the same story with additional circumstances. Patrick wishes that eleven devils may attend his last day should he wed another woman. When he goes to inquire how I...

17 ‘I tald you ere we was wed I was oer low for thee, But now we are wedd and in ae bed laid, And you must be content wi me.

The main points in the traditional story are that John, sixth earl of Cassilis, married, for his first wife, Lady Jean Hamilton, whose affections were preëngaged to one Sir John...

P. 4 a. James Hogg, writing to Scott, June 30, [1802?] says: “I am surprised to find that the songs in your collection differ so widely from my mother’s.... ‘Jamie Telfer’ diffe...

Four-and-twenty Highlanders, the leader of whom is one Willie, come to Strathdon from Carrie (Carvie?) side to steal away Eppie Morrie, who has refused to marry Willie. They tie...

2 ‘What will ye wad,’ says Redesdale, ‘O what will ye wad wi me That there’s na a lady in a’ the land But I wad win wi ae blink o my ee?’

6, 7^{1,2}. His father an his mother came they came a but he came no It was a foul play Lochinvar As his comrades sat drinkine at the wine

“Some years subsequent to the melancholy fate of poor Tifty’s Nanny,” says Jamieson, II, 387, citing the current tradition of Fyvie, “her sad story being mentioned and the balla...

P. 240, 513 a, III, 514. Mabillon cites Balderic’s history of the first crusade, whose words are: “Multi etiam de gente plebeia crucem sibi divinitus innatam jactando ostentaban...

12 ‘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.’

14 ‘My life, my life, my brave old man, My life I’ll give to thee, And the coat of green that’s on my back You shall have for your fee.

This affray occurred in September, 1666. The account of it given by the Gordons (the son of the murdered laird and the Marquis of Huntly) was that John Gordon of Brackley, havin...

The copy in The New Deeside Guide, by James Brown [Joseph Robertson], Aberdeen, 1832, p. 26, is #B a# with a few editorial changes. It is repeated in The Deeside Guide, Aberdeen...

7 An English lord, who by that stage did stand, Threw Devonshire another, and he got it in his hand: ‘Play low for your life, brave Devonshire,’ said he, ‘Play low for your life...

8 ‘Then harp and carp, Thomas,’ she said, ‘Then harp and carp alang wi me; But it will be seven years and a day Till ye win back to yere ain countrie.’

‘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 piece...

15 ‘Rise up, rise up, thou lazy lass, And, een as the sun it shines sae clear, I’ll wager my life against a groat The foal was better than ever the mare.’

The Duke of Gordon’s Garland, composed of several excellent New Songs. I. The Duke of Gordon’s Daughter. II. A new song calld Newcastle Ale. Licensed and enterd according to order.

The copy of ‘May Collin’ which follows is quite the best of the series #C-G#. It is written on the same sheet of paper as the “copy of some antiquity” used by Scott in making up...

Scott, by whom this ballad was first published, and to whom alone it seems to be known, gives us no information how he came by it. He says, “There is another ballad, under the s...

6 ‘But gin my guid lord had been at hame, As he is wi Prince Charlie, There durst not a rebel on a’ Scotch ground Set a foot on the bonnie green of Airly.

23 She laid her mouth then to the yates, And aye the tears drapt frae her ee; Says, Fare ye well, Earl Crawford’s yates, You again I’ll nae mair see.

7 Then out it spake her sister, Whose name was Lady Jane; ‘Had I been Lady Errol,’ she says, ‘Or come of sic a clan, I would not in this public way Have sham’d my own gudeman.’

28 She’s put her hand into her purse And taen out fifty merks and three: ‘If this be the Earl Bichet’s castle, Tell him to speak three words wi me.

This little ballad might perhaps rightfully have come in earlier, if I had known what to make of it. There is a resemblance, remarkable as far as it goes, to ‘Little Kirstin’s D...

30 ‘O well do I mind, kind sir,’ she said, ‘As ye rode over the hill; Ye took frae me my maidenhead, Fell sair against my will. ‘O the broom, the bonny, bonny broom, The broom o...

2 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.

“The year of God one thousand six hundred thirty-six, some of the Marquis of Huntly’s followers and servants did invade the rebel James Grant and some of his associates, hard by...

Laing, Broadsides Ballads, No. 61, not dated but considered to have been printed towards the end of the seventeenth or the beginning of the eighteenth century, and probably at E...

“Poetical justice requires that I should subjoin the concluding stanza of the fragment, which could not be introduced into the text; as the reader cannot be displeased to learn...

6 ‘To the hunting, ho!’ cried Parcy Reed, ‘The morning sun is on the dew; The cauler breeze frae off the fells Will lead the dogs to the quarry true.

19 ‘I meant to make my bed fu wide, But you may make it narrow; For now I’ve nane to be my guide But a deid man drowned in Yarrow.’

15 ‘My father delights in horse and kye, In sheep and goats and a’, ladie, And thee wi me and thirty merks Will mak me a man fu braw, ladie.

14 ‘Had it been me as it was him, An don as she has don him tee, I wad ha geen them frogs instead o fish, An taen their bride away.’

6 ‘How far, how far,’ cries Henry Martyn, ‘How far do you make it?’ said he; ‘For I am a robber all on the salt seas, To maintain us brothers three.’

#a.# From Mrs Helena Titus Brown of New York. #b.# From Miss Emma A. Clinch of New York. Derived, 1820, or a little later, #a# directly, #b# indirectly, from the singing of Miss...

3 She turned her roun on her heel, An a very loud laughter gaed she: ‘I wad like to ken whar I was ganging, And wha I was gaun to gang wi.’

These eight heads would correspond very neatly to the number of gypsies executed in 1624. But in the circumstantial account given by Chambers we are told that the house belongin...

3 ‘Here is a letter for you, madam, Here is a letter for you, madam; The Earl of Aboyne has a noble design To be a suitor to you, madam.’

After some years of feud, the two chiefs, “by the industry of certain wise gentlemen of the Johnstones,” surprised all Scotland by making a treaty of peace. On April 1, 1592, th...

Spalding tells us that it was reported that, the morning after the fire, Lady Frendraught, riding on a small nag, and with no attendants but a boy to lead her horse, came weepin...

31 She spread her mantle on the ground, Dear, but she spread it bonny! Some gae her crowns, some ducadoons, And some gae dollars mony: Then she tauld down ten thousand crowns, ‘...

The brother is Peter o Whitfield. ‘Jock o the Side,’ #A#, begins, ‘Peeter a Whifeild _he_ hath slaine, and John a Side he is tane.’ ‘The great Earl of Whitfield,’ 10^3, seemed t...

Vol. I—Part I, 1882; Part II, 1884 Vol. II—Part III, 1885; Part IV, 1886 Vol. III—Part V, 1888; Part VI, 1889 Vol. IV—Part VII, 1890; Part VIII, 1892 Vol. V—Part IX, 1894; Part...

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, Edinb...