Part 71

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.”

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 114:

The cane in 18^1 of this copy is a touch of “realism” which we have had in a late copy of Tam Lin; see #J# 16, III, 505.

Footnote 115:

The attempt to lessen the disproportion of the match seems to me a decidedly modern trait. In #H# 27, 28, this goes so far that the maid has twenty ploughs and three against the laird’s thirty and three. In #M# 3–5, the maid’s father was once a landed laird, but gambles away his estate, and then both father and mother take to drinking!

Footnote 116:

Of #D#, 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 to #B#, #C#.

Footnote 117:

This phrase, owing to the accidents of tradition, comes in without much pertinency in some places; as in #A# 11, #K# 22, where _she_ gars the trumpet sound foul play (altered in #J# 17, 18, to ‘a weel won play’ and ‘a’ fair play’).

Footnote 118:

And in #A#, as here printed; but in the MS., by misplacement of 3, 5, the _lover_ is absurdly made to omit telling the lass till her wedding-day.

Footnote 119:

Four-and-twenty bonnie boys of the bridegroom’s party are in #C# 13 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 support #J#, “which gives Katharine the surname of Johnstone.” But the grey is the livery of Lord ‘Faughanwood’ in #C#, and the Johnstone seems to be a purely capricious venture of Scott’s.

Footnote 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 northern #K#, might be Foudland, Aberdeenshire.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.)

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 129:

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

Footnote 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.

Footnote 131:

But not homely enough while #C# 2, 42 are retained. The mystical verses with which #A# and #B# begin are also not quite artless.

Footnote 132:

The Scotsman newspaper, November 16, 1888.

Footnote 133:

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

Footnote 134:

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

Footnote 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.)

Footnote 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.

Footnote 137:

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

Footnote 138:

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

Footnote 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.

Footnote 140:

There is, to tell the whole truth, an allusion in #A#, #H# to Jean’s portion, or tocher, as not being sufficient to justify the breaking of a previous engagement. One would wish to think that ‘portion’ in #A# 5 is a corruption of ‘fortune,’ and that what is meant is that her luck is hard. But tocher in #H# 3 is not easily disposed of.

Footnote 141:

The gross and uncalled-for language of father and mother in #A# 7, 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.

Footnote 142:

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

Footnote 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 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 145:

We must not be critical about copies which have been patched by tradition, but #F# 3 is singularly out of place for a “dæmon lover.”

Footnote 146:

Justifying Thackeray’s ‘Little Billee.’

Footnote 147:

Five are named in #C# 3, 4, but that is too many to allow. Probably two versions may have been combined here. #B# has only the three mentioned in #C# 4; the three of #A# 3 are repeated in #A# 9; and there are three only in #E# 7–9. The Black Burgess of #C# 3 occurs in #A# 3, and ‘the smack calld (caud) Twine’ of #C# 3 looks like a corruption of ‘the small (sma’) Cordvine.’

Footnote 148:

In a note at the end of #E# (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.

Footnote 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.”

Footnote 150:

‘C,’ safely to be identified with John Wilson Croker, says Colonel W. F. Prideaux, who, in Notes and Queries, VI, xii, 223, has brought together most of the matter pertaining to this ballad. If Colonel Prideaux’s supposition is well founded, ‘The Grey Cock’ was known in Ireland in the last century.

Footnote 151:

Scott suggested that the passage in Knox was the foundation of the ballad, January, 1802, in the first edition of his Minstrelsy, where only three stanzas were given. The Rev. Mr Paxton, however, first saw Scott’s fragment not long before 1804, and then in the second number of the Edinburgh Review, where there is no mention of the apothecary. Thereupon, he says, I “instantly” wrote the enclosed piece from the mouth of my aged mother. There is no room, consequently, for the supposition that either mother or son might have taken a hint from Knox, and put in the pottinger.

Footnote 152:

Compare here ‘Adam Bell,’ V, 28, stanzas 125, 128.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

Page Changed from Changed to

49 Motherwelll’s MS. Motherwell’s MS.

2^1. wi birk and brume. Note: The ‘i’ in “birk” appears 77 to have a ring instead of a dot.

#O.# ‘Lord Jamie Douglas,’ “#N.# ‘Lord Jamie Douglas,’ Motherwell’s Minstrelsy, Motherwell’s Minstrelsy, Appendix, p. v, the last three Appendix, p. v, the last three 90 stanzas. stanzas. #N.# ‘Jamie Douglas,’ #O.# ‘Jamie Douglas,’ Motherwell’s Minstrelsy, Motherwell’s Minstrelsy, Appendix, p. xvii, IX, one Appendix, p. xvii, IX, one stanza. stanza.

1. Except as noted, all spelling errors were left uncorrected. 2. All punctuation was left uncorrected, except as follows. 3. A beginning or ending quote mark was added for obviously unbalanced pairs of quotes. 4. Full stops and commas were made consistent for the verse & line references, for example, “12^1,” was corrected to “12^1.” 5. Footnotes have been re-indexed using numbers and collected together at the end of the last chapter. 6. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. 7. Enclosed bold font in #number signs#. 8. Enclosed letter spaced font in _double angle quotation marks_. 9. Superscripts are denoted by a caret before a single superscript character or a series of superscripted characters enclosed in curly braces, e.g. M^r. or M^{ister}. 10. Superscript letters centered over subscript periods or colons are denoted by [th :].