Part 3

'The red that is on my true love's cheek Is like blood-draps on the snaw; The white that is on her breast bare, Like the down o' the white sea-maw.'

The bird arrives at the lady's abode:

And first he sang a low, low note, And syne he sang a clear; And aye the owerword o' the sang Was, 'Your love can no win here.'

_Gil Morrice_ has:

Aye the owerword o' his sang Was, 'My mother tarries lang.'

The lady feigns death, after the device of Juliet:

Then up and rose her seven brethren, And hewed to her a bier; They hewed frae the solid aik, Laid it ower wi' silver clear.

Then up and gat her seven sisters, And sewed to her a kell; And every steek that they put in Sewed to a silver bell.

Here we have the same style of luxurious description of which we have already seen so many examples--so different from the usually bald style of the real homely ballads of the people. It is, further, very remarkable that in _Clerk Saunders_ it is seven brothers of the heroine who come in and detect her lover; and in the _Douglas Tragedy_, when the pair are eloping, Lord William spies his mistress's

... seven brethren bold Come riding o'er the lee.

Both of these ballads, indeed, shew a structure and a strain of description and sentiment justifying the strongest suspicions of their alleged antiquity, and pointing to the same source as the other pieces already noticed.

The ballad of _Fause Foodrage_, which Sir Walter Scott printed for the first time, describes a successful conspiracy by Foodrage and others against King Honour and his queen. The king being murdered, the queen is told, that if she brings forth a son, it will be put to death likewise; so she escapes, and, bringing a male child into the world, induces the lady of Wise William to take charge of it as her own, while she herself takes charge of the lady's daughter. The unfortunate queen then arranges a future conduct for both parties, in language violently figurative:

'And ye maun learn my gay gos-hawk, Right weel to breast a steed; And I sall learn your turtle-dow As weel to write and read.

'And ye maun learn my gay gos-hawk, To wield both bow and brand; And I sall learn your turtle-dow To lay gowd wi' her hand.

'At kirk and market, when we meet, We'll dare make nae avowe, But--Dame, how does my gay gos-hawk? Madam, how does my dow?'

When the royal youth grows up, Wise William reveals to him his history, and how his mother is still in confinement in Foodrage's hands. 'The boy stared wild like a gray gos-hawk' at hearing the strange intelligence, but soon resolves on a course of action:

He has set his bent bow to his breast, And leapt the castle-wa', And soon he has seized on Fause Foodrage, Wha loud for help 'gan ca'.

The slaying of Foodrage and marriage of the turtle-dow wind up the ballad. Now, is not the adoption of the term, 'gay gos-hawk' in this ballad, calculated to excite a very strong suspicion as to a community of authorship with the other, in which a gay gos-hawk figures so prominently? But this is not all. 'The boy stared wild like a gray gos-hawk,' is nearly identical with a line of _Hardyknute_:

Norse e'en like gray gos-hawk stared wild.

Scott was roused by this parallelism into suspicion of the authenticity of the ballad, and only tranquillised by finding a lady of rank who remembered hearing in her infancy the verses which have here been quoted. He felt compelled, he tells us, 'to believe that the author of _Hardyknute_ copied from the old ballad, if the coincidence be not altogether accidental.' Finally, the young prince's procedure in storming the castle, is precisely that of Gil Morrice in gaining access to that of Lord Barnard:

And when he cam to Barnard's yett, He would neither chap nor ca', But set his bent bow to his breast, And lightly lap the wa'.

It may fairly be said that, in ordinary literature, coincidences like this are never 'accidental.' It may be observed, much of the narration in _Fause Foodrage_ is in a stiff and somewhat hard style, recalling _Hardyknute_. It was probably one of the earlier compositions of its author.

The _Lass o' Lochryan_ describes the hapless voyage of a maiden mother in search of her love Gregory. In the particulars of sea-faring and the description of the vessel, _Sir Patrick Spence_ is strongly recalled.

She has garred build a bonny ship; It's a' covered o'er wi' pearl; And at every needle-tack was in't There hung a siller bell.

Let the reader revert to the description of the bier prepared for the seeming dead lady in the _Gay Gos-hawk_.

She had na sailed a league but twa, Or scantly had she three, Till she met wi' a rude rover, Was sailing on the sea.

The reader will remark in _Sir Patrick_:

They had na sailed a league, a league, A league but barely three, &c.

The rover asks:

'Now, whether are ye the queen hersel, Or ane o' her Maries three, Or are ye the Lass o' Lochryan, Seeking love Gregory?'[20]

[20] The above three verses are in the version printed in Lawrie and Symington's collection, 1791.

The queen's Maries are also introduced in _Mary Hamilton_, who, indeed, is represented as one of them:

Yestreen the queen she had four Maries; The night, she has but three; There was Mary Seton and Mary Beaton, And Mary Carmichael and me.

On arriving at love Gregory's castle, beside the sea, the lady calls:

'Oh, open the door, love Gregory; Oh, open and let me in; For the wind blaws through my yellow hair, And the rain draps o'er my chin.'

He being in a dead sleep, his mother answers for him, and turns from the door the forlorn applicant, who then exclaims:

'Tak down, tak down the mast o' gowd; Set up a mast o' tree; It disna become a forsaken lady To sail sae royallie.

'Tak down, tak down the sails o' silk; Set up the sails o' skin; Ill sets the outside to be gay, When there's sic grief within.'

Gregory then awakes:

O quickly, quickly raise he up, And fast ran to the strand, And there he saw her, fair Annie, Was sailing frae the land.

* * *

The wind blew loud, the sea grew rough, And dashed the boat on shore; Fair Annie floated on the faem, But the babie raise no more.

* * *

And first he kissed her cherry cheek, And syne he kissed her chin; And syne he kissed her rosy lips-- There was nae breath within.

The resemblance of these verses to several of the preceding ballads,[21] and particularly to _Sir Patrick Spence_, and their superiority in delicacy of feeling and in diction to all ordinary ballad poetry, is very striking. It chances that there is here, as in _Sir Patrick_, one word peculiarly _detective_--namely, strand, as meaning the shore. In the Scottish language, strand means a rivulet, or a street-gutter--never the margin of the sea.

[21] A passage in _Hardyknute_ maybe quoted as bearing a marked resemblance to one of the above verses:

Take aff, take aff his costly jupe, Of gold well was it twined, &c.

There is a considerable number of other ballads which are scarcely less liable to suspicion as modern compositions, and which are all marked more or less by the peculiarities seen in the above group. Several of them are based, like the one just noticed, on irregular love, which they commonly treat with little reproach, and usually with a romantic tenderness. _Willie and May Margaret_[22] describes a young lover crossing the Clyde in a flood to see his mistress, and as denied access by her mother in a feigned voice, after which he is drowned in recrossing the river; the ballad being thus a kind of counterpart of the _Lass of Lochryan_. In _Young Huntin_, otherwise called _Earl Richard_, the hero is killed in his mistress's bower through jealousy, and we have then a verse of wonderful power--such as no rustic and unlettered bard ever wrote, or ever will write:

[22] Called, in Professor Aytoun's collection, _The Mother's Malison_; and in Mr Buchan's, _The Drowned Lovers_.

'O slowly, slowly wanes the night, And slowly daws the day: There is a dead man in my bower, I wish he were away.'

One called _Fair Annie_ relates how a mistress won upon her lover, and finally gained him as a husband, by patience, under the trial of seeing a new bride brought home.[23] In the latter, the behaviour of the patient mistress is thus described:

[23] A ballad named _Burd Ellen_, resembling _Fair Annie_ in the general cast of the story, is a Scottish modification of the ballad of _Child Waters_, published by Percy, from his folio manuscript, 'with some corrections.' It probably came through the same mill as _Gil Morrice_, though with less change--a conjecture rendered the more probable, for reasons to be seen afterwards, from its having been obtained by Mr Jamieson from Mrs Brown of Falkland.

O she has served the lang tables Wi' the white bread and the wine; And aye she drank the wan water, To keep her colour fine.

The expression, the wan water, occurs in several of this group of ballads. Thus, in _Johnie of Bradislee_:

Is there ever a bird in this hale forest Will do as mickle for me, As dip its wing in the wan water, And straik it o'er my ee-bree?

And in the _Douglas Tragedy_:

O they rade on, and on they rade, And a' by the light o' the moon, Until they cam to yon wan water, And there they lighted down.

See further in _Young Huntin_:

And they hae ridden along, along, All the long summer's tide, Until they came to the wan water, The deepest place in Clyde.

The circumstance is very suspicious, for we find this phrase in no other ballads.

In _Clerk Saunders_, the hero is slain in his mistress's bower, by the rage of one of her seven brothers, whose act is described in precisely the same terms as the slaughter of _Gil Morrice_ by the bold baron:

He's ta'en out his trusty brand, And straikt it on the strae, And through and through Clerk Saunders' side He's gart it come and gae.[24]

_Sweet William's Ghost_, a fine superstitious ballad, first published in Ramsay's _Tea-table Miscellany_, 1724, is important as the earliest printed of all the Scottish ballads after the admittedly modern _Hardyknute_:

There came a ghost to Margaret's door, With many a grievous groan; And aye he tirled at the pin, But answer made she none.

* * *

'O sweet Margaret! O dear Margaret! I pray thee, speak to me; Give me my faith and troth, Margaret, As I gave it to thee.'

'Thy faith and troth thou 's never get, Nor yet will I thee lend, Till that thou come within my bower, And kiss my cheek and chin.'[25]

'If I should come within thy bower, I am no earthly man; And should I kiss thy rosy lips, Thy days will not be lang.

* * *

'My bones are buried in yon kirk-yard, Afar beyond the sea; And it is but my spirit, Margaret, That's now speaking to thee.'

She stretched out her lily hand, And for to do her best, 'Ha'e there's your faith and troth, Willie; God send your soul good rest.'

Now she has kilted her robes of green A piece below her knee, And a' the live-lang winter night, The dead corp followed she.

'Is there any room at your head, Willie, Or any room at your feet? Or any room at your side, Willie, Wherein that I may creep?'

'There's no room at my head, Margaret; There's no room at my feet; There's no room at my side, Margaret; My coffin's made so meet.'[26]

Then up and crew the red, red cock, And up then crew the gray, ''Tis time, 'tis time, my dear Margaret, That you were going away.'

* * *

[24]

Now he has ta'en his trusty brand, And slait it on the strae, And through Gil Morrice's fair bodie He garred cauld iron gae.--_Gil Morrice._

[25]

And first he kissed her cherry cheek, And syne he kissed her chin; And syne he kissed her rosy lips-- There was nae breath within.--_Lass o' Lochryan._

To kiss cheek and chin in succession is very peculiar; and it is by such peculiar ideas that identity of authorship is indicated.

[26] That is, so exactly measured.

So far, the ballad appears as composed in the style of those already noticed--a style at once simple and poetical--neither shewing the rudeness of the common peasant's ballad, nor the formal refinement of the modern English poet. But next follow two stanzas, which manifestly have been patched on by some contemporary of Ramsay:

No more the ghost to Margaret said, But with a grievous groan Evanished in a cloud of mist, And left her all alone, &c.

No such conclusion, perhaps, was needed, for it may be suspected that the verse here printed _sixth_ is the true _finale_ of the story, accidentally transferred from its proper place.

There is a slight affinity between the above and a ballad entitled _Tam Lane_, to which Scott drew special attention in his _Border Minstrelsy_, by making it a peg for eighty pages of prose dissertation _On the Fairies of Popular Superstition_. It describes a lover as lost to his mistress, by being reft away into fairy-land, and as recovered by an effort of courage and presence of mind on her part. It opens thus:

O I forbid ye maidens a', That wear gowd in your hair, To come or gae by Carterhaugh, For the young Tam Lane is there.

It may be remarked how often before we have seen maidens described as wearing gold in their hair. One maiden defies the prohibition:

Janet has kilted her green kirtle A little aboon her knee, And she has braided her yellow hair A little aboon her bree.

This, it will be observed, is all but the very same description applied to Margaret in the preceding ballad. The narrative goes on:

She had na pu'd a red, red rose, A rose but barely three, Till up and starts a wee, wee man At Lady Janet's knee.

Remember Sir Patrick's voyage:

They had na sailed a league, a league, A league but barely three.

Let it also here be noted that the eldern knight in that ballad sits 'at the king's knee,' and the nurse in _Gil Morrice_ is not very necessarily described as having 'the bairn upon her knee.' Why the knee on these occasions, if not a habitual idea of one poet?[27]

[27] In _Childe Maurice_, in Percy's folio manuscript, the hero says:

'... come hither, thou little foot-page, That runneth lowly by my knee.'

The author of _Sir Patrick Spence_, and the other ballads in question, might have known this version, and from it caught this expression.

The consequences of the visit having been fatal to Lady Janet's health and peace, she goes back to see her elfin lover, Tam Lane, who instructs her how to recover him from his bondage to the queen of fairy-land.

'The night it is good Halloween, When fairy folk will ride; And they that wad their true love win, At Miles Cross they maun bide.'

'But how shall I thee ken, Tam Lane, Or how shall I thee knaw, Amang so many unearthly knights, The like I never saw?'

'The first company that passes by, Say na, and let them gae; The next company that passes by, Say na, and do right sae; The third company that passes by, Then I'll be ane o' thae.

'First let pass the black, Janet, And syne let pass the brown; But grip ye to the milk-white steed, And pu' the rider down.'

Compare the first two of these stanzas with the queries put by the gay gos-hawk to his master:

'But how shall I your true love find, Or how suld I her know? I bear a tongue ne'er wi' her spoke, An eye that ne'er her saw.'

'O weel sall ye my true love ken, Sae sore as ye her see,' &c.

As to the latter three stanzas, they exhibit a formula of description, which appears in several of the suspected ballads, consisting of a series of nearly identical statements, apparently for the sake of amplitude. For example, the progress of the seeming funeral of the lady in the _Gay Gos-hawk_:

At the first kirk of fair Scotland, They gart the bells be rung; At the second kirk of fair Scotland, They gart the mass be sung.

At the third kirk of fair Scotland, They dealt gold for her sake; And the fourth kirk of fair Scotland, Her true love met them at.

Or the following, in _Sweet Willie and Fair Annie_, which is almost the same incident and relation of circumstances as the said seeming funeral; only the lady in this case is dead:

The firsten bower that he cam till, There was right dowie wark; Her mother and her sisters three Were making to Annie a sark.

The next bower that he cam till, There was right dowie cheer; Her father and her seven brethren Were making to Annie a bier.

The lasten bower that he cam till, O heavy was his care; The waxen lights were burning bright, And fair Annie streekit there.

In Scott's version of _Tam Lane_ there are some stanzas of so modern a cast as to prove that this poem has been at least tampered with. For example, the account of fairy life:

'And all our wants are well supplied From every rich man's store, Who thankless sins the gifts he gets, And vainly grasps for more.'

Without regard, however, to such manifest patches, the general structure and style of expression must be admitted to strongly recall the other ballads which have been already commented on.

Only a wish to keep this dissertation within moderate bounds forbids me to analyse a few other ballads, as the _Douglas Tragedy_, _Sweet Willie and Fair Annie_, _Lady Maiery_, the _Clerk's Two Sons of Owsenford_, and a Scotch _Heir of Linne_ lately recovered by Mr J. H. Dixon, all of which, besides others which must rest unnamed, bear traces of the same authorship with the ballads already brought under notice.

It is now to be remarked of the ballads published by the successors of Percy, as of those which he published, that there is not a particle of positive evidence for their having existed before the eighteenth century. Overlooking the one given by Ramsay in his _Tea-table Miscellany_, we have neither print nor manuscript of them before the reign of George III. They are not in the style of old literature. They contain no references to old literature. As little does old literature contain any references to them. They wholly escaped the collecting diligence of Bannatyne. James Watson, who published a collection of Scottish poetry in 1706-1711, wholly overlooks them. Ramsay, as we see, caught up only one. Even Herd, in 1769, only gathered a few fragments of some of these poems. It was reserved for Sir Walter Scott and Robert Jamieson, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, to obtain copies of the great bulk of these poems--that is, the ballads over and above the few published by Percy--from A LADY--a certain 'Mrs Brown of Falkland,' who seems to have been the wife of the Rev. Andrew Brown, minister of that parish in Fife--is known to have been the daughter of Professor Thomas Gordon, of King's College, Aberdeen--and is stated to have derived her stores of legendary lore from the memory of her aunt, a Mrs Farquhar, the wife of a small proprietor in Braemar, who had spent the best part of her life among flocks and herds, but lived latterly in Aberdeen. At the suggestion of Mr William Tytler, a son of Mrs Brown wrote down a parcel of the ballads which her aunt had heard in her youth from the recitation of nurses and old women.[28] Such were the external circumstances, none of them giving the least support to the assumed antiquity of the pieces, but rather exciting some suspicion to the contrary effect.

[28] _Minstrelsy Scot. Border_, I. cxxvi.

When we come to consider the internal evidence, what do we find? We find that these poems, in common with those published by Percy, are composed in a style of romantic beauty and elevation distinguishing them from all other remains of Scottish traditionary poetry. They are quite unlike the palpably old historical ballads, such as the _Battle of Otterbourne_ and the _Raid of the Reidswire_. They are unlike the Border ballads, such as _Dick o' the Cow_, and _Jock o' the Syde_, commemorating domestic events of the latter part of the sixteenth century. They are strikingly unlike the _Burning of Frendraught_, the _Bonny House o' Airly_, and the _Battle of Bothwell Bridge_, contemporaneous metrical chronicles of events of the seventeenth century. Not less different are they from a large mass of ballads, which have latterly been published by Mr Peter Buchan and others, involving romantic incidents, it is true, or eccentricities in private life, but in such rude and homely strains as speak strongly of a plebeian origin. In the ballads here brought under question, the characters are usually persons of condition, generally richly dressed, often well mounted, and of a dignified bearing towards all inferior people. The page, the nurse, the waiting-woman, the hound, the hawk, and other animals connected with the pageantry of high life, are prominently introduced. Yet the characters and incidents are alike relieved from all clear connection with any particular age: they may be said to form a world of their own, of no particular era, wherein the imagination of the reader may revel, as that of the author has done. It may be allowably said, there is a tone of _breeding_ throughout these ballads, such as is never found in the productions of rustic genius. One marked feature--the pathos of deep female affections--the sacrifice and the suffering which these so often involve--runs through nearly the whole. References to religion and religious ceremonies and fanes are of the slightest kind. We hear of bells being rung and mass sung, but only to indicate a time of day. Had they been old ballads continually changing in diction and in thought, as passed down from one reciter to another, they could not have failed to involve some considerable trace of the intensely earnest religious life of the seventeenth century; but not the slightest tincture of this enthusiastic feeling appears in them, a defect the more marked, as they contain abundant allusion to the superstitions which survived into the succeeding time of religious indifference, and indeed some of their best _effects_ rest in a dexterous treatment of these weird ideas. There is but one exception to what has been observed on the obscurity of the epoch pointed to for the incidents--the dresses, properties, and decorations, are sometimes of a modern cast. The writer--if we may be allowed to speculate on a single writer--seems to have been unable to resist an inclination to indulge in description of the external furnishings of the heroes and heroines, or rather, perhaps, has been desirous of making out _effect_ from these particulars; but the finery of the court of Charles II. is the furthest point reached in the retrospect--although, I must admit, this is in general treated with a vagueness that helps much to conceal the want of learning.