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diff --git a/old/wsbms10.txt b/old/wsbms10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..491bd82 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/wsbms10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5214 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy, by Lang +#34 in our series by Andrew Lang + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the laws for your country before redistributing these files!!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. + +Please do not remove this. + +This should be the first thing seen when anyone opens the book. +Do not change or edit it without written permission. 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Hart +and may be reprinted only when these Etexts are free of all fees.] +[Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be used in any sales +of Project Gutenberg Etexts or other materials be they hardware or +software or any other related product without express permission.] + +*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.10/04/01*END* + + + + +SIR WALTER SCOTT AND THE BORDER MINSTRELSY + + + + +Contents: + + Preface + Scott and the Ballads + Auld Maitland + The Ballad of Otterburne + Scott's Traditional Copy and how he edited it + The Mystery of the Ballad of Jamie Telfer + Kinmont Willie + Conclusions + + + +PREFACE + + + +Persons not much interested in, or cognisant of, "antiquarian old +womanries," as Sir Walter called them, may ask "what all the pother +is about," in this little tractate. On my side it is "about" the +veracity of Sir Walter Scott. He has been suspected of helping to +compose, and of issuing as a genuine antique, a ballad, Auld +Maitland. He also wrote about the ballad, as a thing obtained from +recitation, to two friends and fellow-antiquaries. If to Scott's +knowledge it was a modern imitation, Sir Walter deliberately lied. + +He did not: he did obtain the whole ballad from Hogg, who got it +from recitation--as I believe, and try to prove, and as Scott +certainly believed. The facts in the case exist in published works, +and in manuscript letters of Ritson to Scott, and Hogg to Scott, and +in the original MS. of the song, with a note by Hogg to Laidlaw. If +we are interested in the truth about the matter, we ought at least to +read the very accessible material before bringing charges against the +Sheriff and the Shepherd of Ettrick. + +Whether Auld Maitland be a good or a bad ballad is not part of the +question. It was a favourite of mine in childhood, and I agree with +Scott in thinking that it has strong dramatic situations. If it is a +bad ballad, such as many people could compose, then it is not by Sir +Walter. + +The Ballad of Otterburne is said to have been constructed from Herd's +version, tempered by Percy's version, with additions from a modern +imagination. We have merely to read Professor Child's edition of +Otterburne, with Hogg's letter covering his MS. copy of Otterburne +from recitation, to see that this is a wholly erroneous view of the +matter. We have all the materials for forming a judgment accessible +to us in print, and have no excuse for preferring our own +conjectures. + +"No one now believes," it may be said, "in the aged persons who lived +at the head of Ettrick," and recited Otterburne to Hogg. Colonel +Elliot disbelieves, but he shows no signs of having read Hogg's +curious letter, in two parts, about these "old parties"; a letter +written on the day when Hogg, he says, twice "pumped their memories." + +I print this letter, and, if any one chooses to think that it is a +crafty fabrication, I can only say that its craft would have beguiled +myself as it beguiled Scott. + +It is a common, cheap, and ignorant scepticism that disbelieves in +the existence, in Scott's day, or in ours, of persons who know and +can recite variants of our traditional ballads. The strange song of +The Bitter Withy, unknown to Professor Child, was recovered from +recitation but lately, in several English counties. The ignoble lay +of Johnny Johnston has also been recovered: it is widely diffused. +I myself obtained a genuine version of Where Goudie rins, through the +kindness of Lady Mary Glyn; and a friend of Lady Rosalind Northcote +procured the low English version of Young Beichan, or Lord Bateman, +from an old woman in a rural workhouse. In Shropshire my friend Miss +Burne, the president of the Folk-Lore Society, received from Mr. +Hubert Smith, in 1883, a very remarkable variant, undoubtedly +antique, of The Wife of Usher's Well. {0a} In 1896 Miss Backus +found, in the hills of Polk County, North Carolina, another variant, +intermediate between the Shropshire and the ordinary version. {0b} + +There are many other examples of this persistence of ballads in the +popular memory, even in our day, and only persons ignorant of the +facts can suppose that, a century ago, there were no reciters at the +head of Ettrick, and elsewhere in Scotland. Not even now has the +halfpenny newspaper wholly destroyed the memories of traditional +poetry and of traditional tales even in the English-speaking parts of +our islands, while in the Highlands a rich harvest awaits the +reapers. + +I could not have produced the facts, about Auld Maitland especially, +and in some other cases, without the kind and ungrudging aid, freely +given to a stranger, of Mr. William Macmath, whose knowledge of +ballad-lore, and especially of the ballad manuscripts at Abbotsford, +is unrivalled. As to Auld Maitland, Mr. T. F. Henderson, in his +edition of the Minstrelsy (Blackwood, 1892), also made due use of +Hogg's MS., and his edition is most valuable to every student of +Scott's method of editing, being based on the Abbotsford MSS. Mr. +Henderson suspects, more than I do, the veracity of the Shepherd. + +I am under obligations to Colonel Elliot's book, as it has drawn my +attention anew to Auld Maitland, a topic which I had studied +"somewhat lazily," like Quintus Smyrnaeus. I supposed that there was +an inconsistency in two of Scott's accounts as to how he obtained the +ballad. As Colonel Elliot points out, there was no inconsistency. +Scott had two copies. One was Hogg's MS.: the other was derived +from the recitation of Hogg's mother. + +This trifle is addressed to lovers of Scott, of the Border, and of +ballads, et non aultres. + +It is curious to see how facts make havoc of the conjectures of the +Higher Criticism in the case of Auld Maitland. If Hogg was the +forger of that ballad, I asked, how did he know the traditions about +Maitland and his three sons, which we only know from poems of about +1576 in the manuscripts of Sir Richard Maitland? These poems in 1802 +were, as far as I am aware, still unpublished. + +Colonel Elliot urged that Leyden would know the poems, and must have +known Hogg. From Leyden, then, Hogg would get the information. In +the text I have urged that Leyden did not know Hogg. I am able now +to prove that Hogg and Leyden never met till after Laidlaw gave the +manuscript of Auld Maitland to Hogg. + +The fact is given in the original manuscript of Laidlaw's +Recollections of Sir Walter Scott (among the Laing MSS. in the +library of the University of Edinburgh). Carruthers, in publishing +Laidlaw's reminiscences, omitted the following passage. After Scott +had read Auld Maitland aloud to Leyden and Laird Laidlaw, the three +rode together to dine at Whitehope. + +"Near the Craigbents," says Laidlaw, "Mr. Scott and Leyden drew +together in a close and seemingly private conversation. I, of +course, fell back. After a minute or two, Leyden reined in his horse +(a black horse that Mr. Scott's servant used to ride) and let me come +up. 'This Hogg,' said he, 'writes verses, I understand.' I assured +him that he wrote very beautiful verses, and with great facility. +'But I trust,' he replied, 'that there is no fear of his passing off +any of his own upon Scott for old ballads.' I again assured him that +he would never think of such a thing; and neither would he at that +period of his life. + +"'Let him beware of forgery,' cried Leyden with great force and +energy, and in, I suppose, what Mr. Scott used afterwards to call the +SAW TONES OF HIS VOICE." + +This proves that Leyden had no personal knowledge of "this Hogg," and +did not supply the shepherd with the traditions about Auld Maitland. + +Mr. W. J. Kennedy, of Hawick, pointed out to me this passage in +Laidlaw's Recollections, edited from the MS. by Mr. James Sinton, as +reprinted from the Transactions of the Hawick Archaeological Society, +1905. + + + +SCOTT AND THE BALLADS + + + +It was through his collecting and editing of The Border Minstrelsy +that Sir Walter Scott glided from law into literature. The history +of the conception and completion of his task, "a labour of love +truly, if ever such there was," says Lockhart, is well known, but the +tale must be briefly told if we are to understand the following +essays in defence of Scott's literary morality. + +Late in 1799 Scott wrote to James Ballantyne, then a printer in +Kelso, "I have been for years collecting Border ballads," and he +thought that he could put together "such a selection as might make a +neat little volume, to sell for four or five shillings." In December +1799 Scott received the office of Sheriff of Selkirkshire, or, as he +preferred to say, of Ettrick Forest. In the Forest, as was natural, +he found much of his materials. The people at the head of Ettrick +were still, says Hogg, {1a} like many of the Highlanders even now, in +that they cheered the long winter nights with the telling of old +tales; and some aged people still remembered, no doubt in a defective +and corrupted state, many old ballads. Some of these, especially the +ballads of Border raids and rescues, may never even have been written +down by the original authors. The Borderers, says Lesley, Bishop of +Ross, writing in 1578, "take much pleasure in their old music and +chanted songs, which they themselves compose, whether about the deeds +of their ancestors, or about ingenious raiding tricks and +stratagems." {2a} + +The historical ballads about the deeds of their ancestors would be +far more romantic than scientifically accurate. The verses, as they +passed from mouth to mouth and from generation to generation, would +be in a constant state of flux and change. When a man forgot a +verse, he would make something to take its place. A more or less +appropriate stanza from another ballad would slip in; or the reciter +would tell in prose the matter of which he forgot the versified form. + +Again, in the towns, street ballads on remarkable events, as early at +least as the age of Henry VIII., were written or printed. Knox +speaks of ballads on Queen Mary's four Maries. Of these ballads only +one is left, and it is a libel. The hanging of a French apothecary +of the Queen, and a French waiting-maid, for child murder, has been +transferred to one of the Maries, or rather to an apocryphal Mary +Hamilton, with Darnley for her lover. Of this ballad twenty-eight +variants--and extremely various they are--were collected by Professor +Child in his English and Scottish Popular Ballads (ten parts, 1882- +1898). In one mangled form or another such ballads would drift at +last even to Ettrick Forest. + +A ballad may be found in a form which the first author could scarcely +recognise, dozens of hands, in various generations, having been at +work on it. At any period, especially in the seventeenth and +eighteenth centuries, the cheap press might print a sheet of the +ballads, edited and interpolated by the very lowest of printer's +hacks; that copy would circulate, be lost, and become in turn a +traditional source, though full of modernisms. Or an educated person +might make a written copy, filling up gaps himself in late +seventeenth or in eighteenth century ballad style, and this might +pass into the memory of the children and servants of the house, and +so to the herds and to the farm lasses. I suspect that this process +may have occurred in the cases of Auld Maitland and of The Outlaw +Murray--"these two bores" Mr. Child is said to have styled them. + +When Allan Ramsay, about 1720, took up and printed a ballad, he +altered it if he pleased. More faithful to his texts (wherever he +got them), was David Herd, in his collection of 1776, but his version +did not reach, as we shall see, old reciters in Ettrick. If Scott +found any traditional ballads in Ettrick, as his collectors certainly +did, they had passed through the processes described. They needed +re-editing of some sort if they were to be intelligible, and readable +with pleasure. + +In 1800, apparently, while Scott made only brief flying visits from +the little inn of Clovenfords, on Tweed, to his sheriffdom, he found +a coadjutor. Richard Heber, the wealthy and luxurious antiquary and +collector, looked into Constable's first little bookselling shop, and +saw a strange, poor young student prowling among the books. This was +John Leyden, son of a shepherd in Roxburghshire, a lad living in +extreme poverty. + +Leyden, in 1800, was making himself a savant. Heber spoke with him, +found that he was rich in ballad-lore, and carried him to Scott. He +was presently introduced into the best society in Edinburgh (which +would not happen in our time), and a casual note of Scott's proves +that he did not leave Leyden in poverty. Early in 1802, Leyden got +the promise of an East Indian appointment, read medicine furiously, +and sailed for the East in the beginning of 1803. It does not appear +that Leyden went ballad-hunting in Ettrick before he rode thither +with Scott in the spring of 1802. He was busy with books, with +editorial work, and in aiding Scott in Edinburgh. It was he who +insisted that a small volume at five shillings was far too narrow for +the materials collected. + +Scott also corresponded with the aged Percy, Bishop of Dromore, +editor of the Reliques, and with Joseph Ritson, the precise +collector, Percy's bitter foe. Unfortunately the correspondence on +ballads with Ritson, who died in 1803, is but scanty; nor has most of +the correspondence with another student, George Ellis, been +published. Even in Mr. Douglas's edition of Scott's Familiar +Letters, the portion of an important letter of Hogg's which deals +with ballad-lore is omitted. I shall give the letter in full. + +In 1800-01, "The Minstrelsy formed the editor's chief occupation," +says Lockhart; but later, up to April 1801, the Forest and Liddesdale +had yielded little material. In fact, I do not know that Scott ever +procured much in Liddesdale, where he had no Hogg or Laidlaw always +on the spot, and in touch with the old people. It was in spring, +1802, that Scott first met his lifelong friend, William Laidlaw, +farmer in Blackhouse, on Douglasburn, in Yarrow. Laidlaw, as is +later proved completely, introduced Scott to Hogg, then a very +unsophisticated shepherd. "Laidlaw," says Lockhart, "took care that +Scott should see, without delay, James Hogg." {4a} These two men, +Hogg and Laidlaw, knowing the country people well, were Scott's chief +sources of recited balladry; and probably they sometimes improved, in +making their copies, the materials won from the failing memories of +the old. Thus Laidlaw, while tenant in Traquair Knowe, obtained from +recitation, The Daemon Lover. Scott does not tell us whether or not +he knew the fact that Laidlaw wrote in stanza 6 (half of it +traditional), stanza 12 (also a ballad formula), stanzas 17 and 18 +(necessary to complete the sense; the last two lines of 18 are purely +and romantically modern). + +We shall later quote Hogg's account of his own dealings with his raw +materials from recitation. + +In January 1802 Scott published the two first volumes of The +Minstrelsy. Lockhart describes the enthusiasm of dukes, fine ladies, +and antiquarians. In the end of April 1803 the third volume +appeared, including ballads obtained through Hogg and Laidlaw in +spring 1802. Scott, by his store of historic anecdote in his +introductions and notes, by his way of vivifying the past, and by his +method of editing, revived, but did not create, the interest in the +romance of ballad poetry. + +It had always existed. We all know Sidney's words on "The Douglas +and the Percy"; Addison's on folk-poetry; Mr. Pepys' ballad +collection; the ballads in Tom Durfey's and other miscellanies; Allan +Ramsay's Evergreen; Bishop Percy's Reliques of Ancient Poetry; Herd's +ballad volumes of 1776; Evans' collections; Burns' remakings of old +songs; Ritson's publications, and so forth. But the genius of Burns, +while it transfigured many old songs, was not often exercised on old +narrative ballads, and when Scott produced The Minstrelsy, the taste +for ballads was confined to amateurs of early literature, and to +country folk. + +Sir Walter's method of editing, of presenting his traditional +materials, was literary, and, usually, not scientific. A modern +collector would publish things--legends, ballads, or folk-tales-- +exactly as he found them in old broadsides, or in MS. copies, or +received them from oral recitation. He would give the names and +residences and circumstances of the reciters or narrators (Herd, in +1776, gave no such information). He would fill up no gaps with his +own inventions, would add no stanzas of his own, and the circulation +of his work would arrive at some two or three hundred copies given +away! + +As Lockhart says, "Scott's diligent zeal had put him in possession of +a variety of copies in various stages of preservation, and to the +task of selecting a standard text among such a diversity of materials +he brought a knowledge of old manners and phraseology, and a manly +simplicity of taste, such as had never before been united in the +person of a poetical antiquary." + +Lockhart speaks of "The editor's conscientious fidelity . . . which +prevented the introduction of anything new, and his pure taste in the +balancing of discordant recitations." He had already written that +"Scott had, I firmly believe, interpolated hardly a line or even an +epithet of his own." {8a} + +It is clear that Lockhart had not compared the texts in The +Minstrelsy with the mass of manuscript materials which are still at +Abbotsford. These, copied by the accurate Mr. Macmath, have been +published in the monumental collection of English and Scottish +Popular Ballads, in ten parts, by the late Professor Child of +Harvard, the greatest of scholars in ballad-lore. From his book we +often know exactly what kinds of copies of ballads Scott possessed, +and what alterations he made in his copies. The Ballad of Otterburne +is especially instructive, as we shall see later. But of the most +famous of Border historical ballads, Kinmont Willie, and its +companion, Jamie Telfer of the Fair Dodhead, Scott has left no +original manuscript texts. Now into each of these ballads Scott has +written (if internal evidence be worth anything) verses of his own; +stanzas unmistakably marked by his own spirit, energy, sense of +romance, and, occasionally, by a somewhat inflated rhetoric. On this +point doubt is not easy. When he met the names of his chief, +Buccleuch, and of his favourite ancestor, Wat of Warden, Scott did, +in two cases, for those heroes what, by his own confession, he did +for anecdotes that came in his way--he decked them out "with a cocked +hat and a sword." + +Sir Walter knew perfectly well that he was not "playing the game" in +a truly scientific spirit. He explains his ideas in his "Essay on +Popular Poetry" as late as 1830. He mentions Joseph Ritson's +"extreme attachment to the severity of truth," and his attacks on +Bishop Percy's purely literary treatment of the materials of his +Reliques of Ancient Poetry (1765). + +As Scott says, "by Percy words were altered, phrases improved, and +whole verses were inserted or omitted at pleasure." Percy +"accommodated" the ballads "with such emendations as might recommend +them to the modern taste." Ritson cried "forgery," but Percy, says +Scott, had to win a hearing from his age, and confessed (in general +terms) to his additions and decorations. + +Scott then speaks reprovingly of Pinkerton's wholesale fabrication of +ENTIRE BALLADS (1783), a crime acknowledged later by the culprit +(1786). Scott applauds Ritson's accuracy, but regrets his preference +of the worst to the better readings, as if their inferiority was a +security for their being genuine. Scott preferred the best, the most +poetical readings. + +In 1830, Scott also wrote an essay on "Imitations of the Ancient +Ballads," and spoke very leniently of imitations passed off as +authentic. "There is no small degree of cant in the violent +invectives with which impostors of this nature have been assailed." +As to Hardyknute, the favourite poem of his infancy, "the first that +I ever learned and the last that I shall forget," he says, "the +public is surely more enriched by the contribution than injured by +the deception." Besides, he says, the deception almost never +deceives. + +His method in The Minstrelsy, he writes, was "to imitate the plan and +style of Bishop Percy, observing only more strict fidelity concerning +my originals." That is to say, he avowedly made up texts out of a +variety of copies, when he had more copies than one. This is +frequently acknowledged by Scott; what he does not acknowledge is his +own occasional interpolation of stanzas. A good example is The Gay +Gosshawk. He had a MS. of his own "of some antiquity," a MS. of Mrs. +Brown, a famous reciter and collector of the eighteenth century; and +the Abbotsford MSS. show isolated stanzas from Hogg, and a copy from +Will Laidlaw. Mr. T. F. Henderson's notes {10a} display the methods +of selection, combination, emendation, and possible interpolation. + +By these methods Scott composed "a standard text," now the classical +text, of the ballads which he published. Ballad lovers, who are not +specialists, go to The Minstrelsy for their favourite fare, and for +historical elucidation and anecdote. + +Scott often mentions his sources of all kinds, such as MSS. of Herd +and Mrs. Brown; "an old person"; "an old woman at Kirkhill, West +Lothian"; "an ostler at Carlisle"; Allan Ramsay's Tea-Table +Miscellany; Surtees of Mainsforth (these ballads are by Surtees +himself: Scott never suspected him); Caw's Hawick Museum (1774); +Ritson's copies, others from Leyden; the Glenriddell MSS. (collected +by the friend of Burns); on several occasions copies from recitations +procured by James Hogg or Will Laidlaw, and possibly or probably each +of these men emended the copy he obtained; while Scott combined and +emended all in his published text. + +Sometimes Scott gives no source at all, and in these cases research +finds variants in old broadsides, or elsewhere. + +In thirteen cases he gives no source, or "from tradition," which is +the same thing; though "tradition in Ettrick Forest" may sometimes +imply, once certainly does, the intermediary Hogg, or Will Laidlaw. + +We now understand Scott's methods as editor. They are not +scientific; they are literary. We also acknowledge (on internal +evidence) his interpolation of his own stanzas in Kinmont Willie and +Jamie Telfer, where he exalts his chief and ancestor. We cannot do +otherwise (as scholars) than regret and condemn Scott's +interpolations, never confessed. As lovers of poetry we acknowledge +that, without Scott's interpolation, we could have no more of Kinmont +Willie than verses, "much mangled by reciters," as Scott says, of a +ballad perhaps no more poetical than Jock o' the Side. Scott says +that "some conjectural emendations have been absolutely necessary to +render it intelligible." As it is now very intelligible, to say +"conjectural emendations" is a way of saying "interpolations." + +But while thus confessing Scott's sins, I cannot believe that he, +like Pinkerton, palmed off on the world any ballad or ballads of his +own sole manufacture, or any ballad which he knew to be forged. + +The truth is that Scott was easily deceived by a modern imitation, if +he liked the poetry. Surtees hoaxed him not only with Barthram's +Dirge and Anthony Featherstonhaugh, but with a long prose excerpt +from a non-existent manuscript about a phantom knight. Scott made +the plot of Marmion hinge on this myth, in the encounter of Marmion +with Wilfred as the phantasmal cavalier. He tells us that in The +Flowers of the Forest "the manner of the ancient minstrels is so +happily imitated, that it required the most positive evidence to +convince the editor that the song was of modern date." Really the +author was Miss Jane Elliot (1747-1805), daughter of Sir Gilbert +Elliot of Minto. Herd published a made-up copy in 1776. The tune, +Scott says, is old, and he has heard an imperfect verse of the +original ballad - + + +"I ride single on my saddle, +For the flowers o' the forest are a' wede awa'" + + +The CONSTANT use of double rhymes within the line - + + +"At e'en, in the gloaming, nae younkers are roaming," + + +an artifice rare in genuine ballads, might alone have proved to Scott +that the poem of Miss Elliot is not popular and ancient. + +I have cleared my conscience by confessing Scott's literary sins. +His interpolations, elsewhere mere stopgaps, are mainly to be found +in Kinmont Willie and Jamie Telfer. His duty was to say, in his +preface to each ballad, "The editor has interpolated stanza" so and +so; if he made up the last verses of Kinmont Willie from the +conclusion of a version of Archie o' Ca'field, he should have said +so; as he does acknowledge two stopgap interpolations by Hogg in Auld +Maitland. But as to the conclusion of Kinmont Willie, he did, we +shall see, make confession. + +Professor Kittredge, who edited Child's last part (X.), says in his +excellent abridged edition of Child (1905), "It was no doubt the +feeling that the popular ballad is a fluid and unstable thing that +has prompted so many editors--among them Sir Walter Scott, whom it is +impossible to assail, however much the scholarly conscience may +disapprove--to deal freely with the versions that came into their +hands." + +Twenty-five years after the appearance of The Border Minstrelsy, in +1827, appeared Motherwell's Minstrelsy, Ancient and Modern. +Motherwell was in favour of scientific methods of editing. Given two +copies of a ballad, he says, "perhaps they may not have a single +stanza which is mutual property, except certain commonplaces which +seem an integral portion of the original mechanism of all our ancient +ballads . . . " By selecting the most beautiful and striking +passages from each copy, and making those cohere, an editor, he says, +may produce a more perfect and ornate version than any that exists in +tradition. Of the originals "the individuality entirely disappears." + +Motherwell disapproved of this method, which, as a rule, is Scott's, +and, scientifically, the method is not defensible. Thus, having +three ballads of rescues, in similar circumstances, with a river to +ford, Scott confessedly places that incident where he thinks it most +"poetically appropriate"; and in all probability, by a single touch, +he gives poetry in place of rough humour. Of all this Motherwell +disapproved. (See Kinmont Willie, infra.) + +Aytoun, in The Ballads of Scotland, thought Motherwell hypercritical; +and also, in his practice inconsistent with his preaching. Aytoun +observed, "with much regret and not a little indignation" (1859), +"that later editors insinuated a doubt as to the fidelity of Sir +Walter's rendering. My firm belief, resting on documentary evidence, +is that Scott was most scrupulous in adhering to the very letter of +his transcripts, whenever copies of ballads, previously taken down, +were submitted to him." As an example, Aytoun, using a now lost MS. +copy of about 1689-1702, of The Outlaw Murray, says "Sir Walter has +given it throughout just as he received it." Yet Scott's copy, +mainly from a lost Cockburn MS., contains a humorous passage on +Buccleuch which Child half suspects to be by Sir Walter himself. +{15a} It is impossible for me to know whether Child's hesitating +conjecture is right or wrong. Certainly we shall see, when Scott had +but one MS. copy, as of Auld Maitland, his editing left little or +nothing to be desired. + +But now Scott is assailed, both where he deserves, and where, in my +opinion, he does not deserve censure. + +Scott did no more than his confessed following of Percy's method +implies, to his original text of the Ballad of Otterburne. This I +shall prove from his original text, published by Child from the +Abbotsford MSS., and by a letter from the collector of the ballad, +the Ettrick Shepherd. + +The facts, in this instance, apparently are utterly unknown to +Lieutenant-Colonel the Hon. Fitzwilliam Elliot, in his Further Essays +on Border Ballads (1910), pp. 1-45. + +Again, I am absolutely certain, and can demonstrate, that Scott did +not (as Colonel Elliot believes) detect Hogg in forging Auld +Maitland, join with him in this fraud, and palm the ballad off on the +public. Nothing of the kind occurred. Scott did not lie in this +matter, both to the world and to his intimate friends, in private +letters. + +Once more, without better evidence than we possess, I do not believe +that, in Jamie Telfer, Scott transferred the glory from the Elliots +to the Scotts, and the shame from Buccleuch to Elliot of Stobs. The +discussion leads us into very curious matter. But here, with our +present materials, neither absolute proof nor disproof is possible. + +Finally, as to Kinmont Willie, I merely give such reasons as I can +find for thinking that Scott HAD "mangled" fragments of an old ballad +before him, and did not merely paraphrase the narrative of Walter +Scott of Satchells, in his doggerel True History of the Name of Scott +(1688). + +The positions of Colonel Elliot are in each case the reverse of mine. +In the instance of Auld Maitland (where Scott's conduct would be +unpardonable if Colonel Elliot's view were correct), I have absolute +proof that he is entirely mistaken. For Otterburne I am equally +fortunate; that is, I can show that Scott's part went no further than +"the making of a standard text" on his avowed principles. For Jamie +Telfer, having no original manuscript, I admit DECORATIVE +interpolations, and for the rest, argue on internal evidence, no +other being accessible. For Kinmont Willie, I confess that the poem, +as it stands, is Scott's, but give reasons for thinking that he had +ballad fragments in his mind, if not on paper. + +It will be understood that Colonel Elliot does not, I conceive, say +that his charges are PROVED, but he thinks that the evidence points +to these conclusions. He "hopes that I will give reasons for my +disbelief" in his theories; and "hopes, though he cannot expect that +they will completely dispose of" his views about Jamie Telfer. {17a} + +I give my reasons, though I entertain but slight hope of convincing +my courteous opponent. That is always a task rather desperate. But +the task leads me, in defence of a great memory, into a countryside, +and into old times on the Border, which are so alluring that, like +Socrates, I must follow where the logos guides me. To one conclusion +it guides me, which startles myself, but I must follow the logos, +even against the verdict of Professor Child, notre maitre a tous. In +some instances, I repeat, positive proof of the correctness of my +views is impossible; all that I can do is to show that Colonel +Elliot's contrary opinions also fall far short of demonstration, or +are demonstrably erroneous. + + + +AULD MAITLAND + + + +The ballad of Auld Maitland holds in The Border Minstrelsy a place +like that of the Doloneia, or Tenth Book, in the Iliad. Every +professor of the Higher Criticism throws his stone at the Doloneia in +passing, and every ballad-editor does as much to Auld Maitland. {19a} +Professor Child excluded it from his monumental collection of +"English and Scottish Popular Ballads," fragments, and variants, for +which Mr. Child and his friends and helpers ransacked every +attainable collection of ballads in manuscript, and ballads in print, +as they listened to the last murmurings of ballad tradition from the +lips of old or young. + +Mr. Child, says his friend and pupil, Professor Kittredge, "possessed +a kind of instinct" for distinguishing what is genuine and +traditional, or modern, or manipulated, or, if I may say so, "faked" +in a ballad. + +"This instinct, trained by thirty years of study, had become +wonderfully swift in its operations, and almost infallible. A forged +or retouched piece could not escape him for a moment: he detected +the slightest jar in the ballad ring." {18a} + +But all old traditional ballads are masses of "retouches," made +through centuries, by reciters, copyists, editors, and so forth. +Unluckily, Child never gave in detail his reasons for rejecting that +treasure of Sir Walter's, Auld Maitland. Child excluded the poem +sans phrase. If he did this, like Falstaff "on instinct," one can +only say that antiquarian instincts are never infallible. We must +apply our reason to the problem, "What is Auld Maitland?" + +Colonel Elliot has taken this course. By far the most blighting of +the many charges made by Colonel Elliot against Sir Walter Scott are +concerned with the ballad of Auld Maitland. {19a} After stating +that, in his opinion, "several stanzas" of the ballad are by Sir +Walter himself, Colonel Elliot sums up his own ideas thus: + +"My view is that Hogg, in the first instance, tried to palm off the +ballad on Scott, and failed; and then Scott palmed it off on the +public, and succeeded . . . let us, as gentlemen and honest judges, +admit that the responsibility of the deception rests rather on the +laird (Scott) than on the herd" (Hogg.) {19b} + +If Colonel Elliot's "views" were correct (and it is absolutely +erroneous), the guilt of "the laird" would be great. Scott conspires +with a shepherd, a stranger, to palm off a forgery on the public. +Scott issues the forgery, and, what is worse, in a private letter to +a learned friend, he utters what I must borrow words for: he utters +"cold and calculated falsehoods" about the manner in which, and the +person from whom, he obtained what he calls "my first copy" of the +song. If Hogg and Scott forged the poem, then when Scott told his +tale of its acquisition by himself from Laidlaw, Scott lied. + +Colonel Elliot is ignorant of the facts in the case. He gropes his +way under the misleading light of a false date, and of fragments torn +from the context of a letter which, in its complete form, has never +till now been published. Where positive and published information +exists, it has not always come within the range of the critic's +researches; had it done so, he would have taken the information into +account, but he does not. Of the existence of Scott's "first copy" +of the ballad in manuscript our critic seems never to have heard; +certainly he has not studied the MS. Had he done so he would not +assign (on grounds like those of Homeric critics) this verse to Hogg +and that to Scott. He would know that Scott did not interpolate a +single stanza; that spelling, punctuation, and some slight verbal +corrections, with an admirable emendation, were the sum of his +industry: that he did not even excise two stanzas of, at earliest, +eighteenth century work. + +I must now clear up misconceptions which have imposed themselves on +all critics of the ballad, on myself, for example, no less than on +Colonel Elliot: and must tell the whole story of how the existence +of the ballad first became known to Scott's collector and friend, +William Laidlaw, how he procured the copy which he presented to Sir +Walter, and how Sir Walter obtained, from recitation, his "second +copy," that which he printed in The Minstrelsy in 1803. + +In 1801 Scott, who was collecting ballads, gave a list of songs which +he wanted to Mr. Andrew Mercer, of Selkirk. Mercer knew young Will +Laidlaw, farmer in Blackhouse on Yarrow, where Hogg had been a +shepherd for ten years. Laidlaw applied for two ballads, one of them +The Outlaw Murray, to Hogg, then shepherding at Ettrick House, at the +head of Ettrick, above Thirlestane. Hogg replied on 20th July 1801. +He could get but a few verses of The Outlaw from his maternal uncle, +Will Laidlaw of Phawhope. He said that, from traditions known to +him, he could make good songs, "but without Mr. Scott's permission +this would be an imposition, neither could I undertake it without an +order from him in his own handwriting . . . " {21a} Laidlaw went on +trying to collect songs for Scott. We now take his own account of +Auld Maitland from a manuscript left by him. {21b} + +"I heard from one of the servant girls, who had all the turn and +qualifications for a collector, of a ballad called Auld Maitland, +that a grandfather (maternal) of Hogg could repeat, and she herself +had several of the first stanzas, which I took a note of, and have +still the copy. This greatly aroused my anxiety to procure the +whole, for this was a ballad not even hinted at by Mercer in his list +of desiderata received from Mr. Scott. I forthwith wrote to Hogg +himself, requesting him to endeavour to procure the whole ballad. In +a week or two I received his reply, containing Auld Maitland exactly +as he had received it from the recitation of his uncle Will of +Phawhope, corroborated by his mother, who both said they learned it +from their father, a still older Will of Phawhope, and an old man +called Andrew Muir, who had been servant to the famous Mr. Boston, +minister of Ettrick." Concerning Laidlaw's evidence, Colonel Elliot +says not a word. + +This copy of Auld Maitland, with the superscription outside - + + +MR. WILLIAM LAIDLAW, +BLACKHOUSE, + +all in Hogg's hand, is now at Abbotsford. We next have, through +Carruthers using Laidlaw's manuscript, an account of the arrival of +Scott and Leyden at Blackhouse, of Laidlaw's presentation of Hogg's +manuscript, which Scott read aloud, and of their surprise and +delight. Scott was excited, so that his burr became very +perceptible. {23a} + +The time of year when Scott and Leyden visited Yarrow was not the +AUTUMN vacation of 1802, as Lockhart erroneously writes, {23b} but +the SPRING vacation of 1802. The spring vacation, Mr. Macmath +informs me, ran from 11th March to 12th May in 1802. In May, +apparently, Scott having obtained the Auld Maitland MS. in the vernal +vacation of the Court of Session, gave his account of his discovery +to his friend Ellis (Lockhart does not date the letter, but wrongly +puts it after the return to Edinburgh in November 1802). + +Scott wrote thus: --"We" (John Leyden and himself) "have just +concluded an excursion of two or three weeks through my jurisdiction +of Selkirkshire, where, in defiance of mountains, rivers, and bogs, +damp and dry, we have penetrated the very recesses of Ettrick Forest +. . . I have . . . returned LOADED with the treasures of oral +tradition. The principal result of our inquiries has been a complete +and perfect copy of "Maitland with his Auld Berd Graie," referred to +by [Gawain] Douglas in his Palice of Honour (1503), along with John +the Reef and other popular characters, and celebrated in the poems +from the Maitland MS." (circ. 1575). You may guess the surprise of +Leyden and myself when this was presented to us, copied down from the +recitation of an old shepherd, by a country farmer . . . Many of the +old words are retained, which neither the reciter nor the copyer +understood. Such are the military engines, sowies, SPRINGWALLS +(springalds), and many others . . . " {24a} + +That Scott got the ballad in spring 1802 is easily proved. On 10th +April 1802, Joseph Ritson, the crabbed, ill-tempered, but +meticulously accurate scholar, who thought that ballad-forging should +be made a capital offence, wrote thus to Scott:- + +"I have the pleasure of enclosing my copy of a very ancient poem, +which appears to me to be the original of The Wee Wee Man, and which +I learn from Mr. Ellis you are desirous to see." In Scott's letter +to Ellis, just quoted, he says: "I have lately had from him" +(Ritson) "A COPIE of 'Ye litel wee man,' of which I think I can make +some use. In return, I have sent him a sight of Auld Maitland, the +original MS . . . I wish him to see it in puris naturalibus." "The +precaution here taken was very natural," says Lockhart, considering +Ritson's temper and hatred of literary forgeries. Scott, when he +wrote to Ellis, had received Ritson's The Wee Wee Man "lately": it +was sent to him by Ritson on 10th April 1802. Scott had already, +when he wrote to Ellis, got "the original MS. of Auld Maitland" (now +in Abbotsford Library). By 10th June 1802 Ritson wrote saying, "You +may depend on my taking the utmost care of Old Maitland, and +returning it in health and safety. I would not use the liberty of +transcribing it into my manuscript copy of Mrs. Brown's ballads, but +if you will signify your permission, I shall be highly gratified." +{25} "Your ancient and curious ballad," he styles the piece. + +Thus Scott had Auld Maitland in May 1802; he sent the original MS. to +Ritson; Ritson received it graciously; he had, on 10th April 1802, +sent Scott another MS., The Wee Wee Man: and when Scott wrote to +Ellis about his surprise at getting "a complete and perfect copy of +Maitland," he had but lately received The Wee Wee Man, sent by Ritson +on 10th April 1802. He had made a spring, not an autumn, raid into +the Forest. + +We now know the external history of the ballad. Laidlaw, hearing his +servant repeat some stanzas, asks Hogg for the full copy, which Hogg +sends with a pedigree from which he never wavered. Auld Andrew Muir +taught the song to Hogg's mother and uncle. Hogg took it from his +uncle's recitation, and sent it, directed outside, + +TO MR. WILLIAM LAIDLAW, +BLACKHOUSE, + +and Laidlaw gave it to Scott, in March 12-May 12, 1802. But Scott, +publishing the ballad in The Minstrelsy (1803), says it is given "as +written down from the recitation of the mother of Mr. James Hogg, who +sings, or rather chants, it with great animation" (manifestly he had +heard the recitation which he describes). + +It seems that Scott, before he wrote to Ellis in May 1802, had +misgivings about the ballad. Says Carruthers, he "made another visit +to Blackhouse for the purpose of getting Laidlaw as a guide to +Ettrick," being "curious to see the poetical shepherd." + +Laidlaw's MS., used by Carruthers, describes the wild ride by the +marshes at the head of the Loch of the Lowes, through the bogs on the +knees of the hills, down a footpath to Ramseycleuch in Ettrick. They +sent to Ettrick House for Hogg; Scott was surprised and pleased with +James's appearance. They had a delightful evening: "the qualities +of Hogg came out at every instant, and his unaffected simplicity and +fearless frankness both surprised and pleased the Sheriff." {26a} +Next morning they visited Hogg and his mother at her cottage, and +Hogg tells how the old lady recited Auld Maitland. Hogg gave the +story in prose, with great vivacity and humour, in his Domestic +Manners of Sir Walter Scott (1834). + +In an earlier poetical address to Scott, congratulating him on his +elevation to the baronetcy (1818), the Shepherd says - + + +When Maitland's song first met your ear, +How the furled visage up did clear. +Beaming delight! though now a shade +Of doubt would darken into dread, +That some unskilled presumptuous arm +Had marred tradition's mighty charm. +Scarce grew thy lurking dread the less, +Till she, the ancient Minstreless, +With fervid voice and kindling eye, +And withered arms waving on high, +Sung forth these words in eldritch shriek, +While tears stood on thy nut-brown cheek: +"Na, we are nane o' the lads o' France, +Nor e'er pretend to be; +We be three lads of fair Scotland, +Auld Maitland's sons a' three." + + +(Stanza xliii. as printed. In Hogg's MS. copy, given to Laidlaw +there are two verbal differences, in lines 1 and 4.) + +Then says Hogg - + + +Thy fist made all the table ring, +By -, sir, but that is the thing! + + +Hogg could not thus describe the scene in addressing Scott himself, +in 1818, if his story were not true. It thus follows that his mother +knew the sixty-five stanzas of the ballad by heart. Does any one +believe that, as a woman of seventy-two, she learned the poem to back +Hogg's hoax? That he wrote the poem, and caused her to learn it by +rote, so as to corroborate his imposture? + +This is absurd. + +But now comes the source of Colonel Elliot's theory of a conspiracy +between Scott and Hogg, to forge a ballad and issue the forgery. +Colonel Elliot knows scraps of a letter to Hogg of 30th June 1802. +He has read parts, not bearing on the question, in Mr. Douglas's +Familiar Letters of Sir Walter Scott (vol. i. pp. 12-15), and another +scrap, in which Hogg says that "I am surprised to hear that Auld +Maitland is suspected by some to be a modern forgery." This part of +Hogg's letter of 30th June 1802 was published by Scott himself in the +third volume of The Minstrelsy (April 1803). + +Not having the context of the letter, Colonel Elliot seems to argue, +"Scott says he got his first copy in autumn 1802" (Lockhart's +mistake), "yet here are Hogg and Scott corresponding about the ballad +long before autumn, in June 1802. This is very suspicious." I give +what appears to be Colonel Elliot's line of reflection in my own +words. He decides that, as early as June 1802, "Hogg"(in the +Colonel's 'view'), "in the first instance, tried to palm off the +ballad on Scott, and failed; and that then Scott palmed it off on the +public, and succeeded." + +This is all a mare's nest. Scott, in March-May 1802, had the whole +of the ballad except one stanza, which Hogg sent to him on 30th June. + +I now print, for the first time, the whole of Hogg's letter of 30th +June, with its shrewd criticism on ballads, hitherto omitted, and I +italicise the passage about Auld Maitland:- + + +ETTRICK HOUSE, June 30. + +Dear Sir,--I have been perusing your minstrelsy very diligently for a +while past, and it being the first book I ever perused which was +written by a person I had seen and conversed with, the consequence +hath been to me a most sensible pleasure; for in fact it is the +remarks and modern pieces that I have delighted most in, being as it +were personally acquainted with many of the modern pieces formerly. +My mother is actually a living miscellany of old songs. I never +believed that she had half so many until I came to a trial. There +are some (sic) in your collection of which she hath not a part, and I +should by this time had a great number written for your amusement, +thinking them all of great antiquity and lost to posterity, had I not +luckily lighted upon a collection of songs in two volumes, published +by I know not who, in which I recognised about half-a-score of my +mother's best songs, almost word for word. No doubt I was piqued, +but it saved me much trouble, paper, and ink; for I am carefully +avoiding anything which I have seen or heard of being in print, +although I have no doubt that I shall err, being acquainted with +almost no collections of that sort, but I am not afraid that you too +will mistake. I am still at a loss with respect to some: such as +the Battle of Flodden beginning, "From Spey to the Border," a long +poetical piece on the battle of Bannockburn, I fear modern: The +Battle of the Boyne, Young Bateman's Ghost, all of which, and others +which I cannot mind, I could mostly recover for a few miles' travel +were I certain they could be of any use concerning the above; and I +might have mentioned May Cohn and a duel between two friends, Graham +and Bewick, undoubtedly very old. You must give me information in +your answer. I have already scraped together a considerable +quantity--suspend your curiosity, Mr. Scott, you will see them when I +see you, of which I am as impatient as you can be to see the songs +for your life. But as I suppose you have no personal acquaintance in +this parish, it would be presumption in me to expect that you will +visit my cottage, but I will attend you in any part of the Forest if +you will send me word. I am far from supposing that a person of your +discernment,--d-n it, I'll blot out that, 'tis so like flattery. I +say I don't think you would despise a shepherd's "humble cot an' +hamely fare," as Burns hath it, yet though I would be extremely proud +of a visit, yet hang me if I would know what to do wi' ye. I am +surprised to find that the songs in your collection differ so widely +from my mother's. Is Mr. Herd's MS. genuine? I suspect it. Jamie +Telfer differs in many particulars. Johnny Armstrong of Gilnockie is +another song altogether. I have seen a verse of my mother's way +called Johny Armstrong's last good-night cited in the Spectator, and +another in Boswell's Journal. It begins, "Is there ne'er a man in +fair Scotland?" Do you know if this is in print, Mr. Scott? In the +Tale of Tomlin the whole of the interlude about the horse and the +hawk is a distinct song altogether. {30a} Clerk Saunders is nearly +the same with my mother's, until that stanza [xvi.] which ends, "was +in the tower last night wi' me," then with another verse or two which +are not in yours, ends Clerk Saunders. All the rest of the song in +your edition is another song altogether, which my mother hath mostly +likewise, and I am persuaded from the change in the stile that she is +right, for it is scarce consistent with the forepart of the ballad. +I have made several additions and variations out, to the printed +songs, for your inspection, but only when they could be inserted +without disjointing the songs as they are at present; to have written +all the variations would scarcely be possible, and I thought would +embarrass you exceedingly. I HAVE RECOVERED ANOTHER HALF VERSE OF +OLD MAITLAN, AND HAVE RHYMED IT THUS - + + +REMEMBER FIERY OF THE SCOT +HATH COWR'D ANEATH THY HAND; +For ilka drap o' Maitlen's blood +I'll gie THEE rigs o' land. - + + +THE TWO LAST LINES ONLY ARE ORIGINAL; YOU WILL EASILY PERCEIVE THAT +THEY OCCUR IN THE VERY PLACE WHERE WE SUSPECTED A WANT. I AM +SURPRISED TO HEAR THAT THIS SONG IS SUSPECTED BY SOME TO BE A MODERN +FORGERY; THIS WILL BE BEST PROVED BY MOST OF THE OLD PEOPLE +HEREABOUTS HAVING A GREAT PART OF IT BY HEART; many, indeed, are not +aware of the manners of this place, it is but lately emerged from +barbarity, and till this present age the poor illiterate people in +these glens knew of no other entertainment in the long winter nights +than in repeating and listening to these feats of their ancestors, +which I believe to be handed down inviolate from father to son, for +many generations, although no doubt, had a copy been taken of them at +the end of every fifty years, there must have been some difference, +which the repeaters would have insensibly fallen into merely by the +change of terms in that period. I believe that it is thus that many +very ancient songs have been modernised, which yet to a connoisseur +will bear visible marks of antiquity. The Maitlen, for instance, +exclusive of its mode of description, is all composed of words, which +would mostly every one spell and pronounce in the very same dialect +that was spoken some centuries ago. + +Pardon, my dear Sir, the freedom I have taken in addressing you--it +is my nature; and I could not resist the impulse of writing to you +any longer. Let me hear from you as soon as this comes to your hand, +and tell me when you will be in Ettrick Forest, and suffer me to +subscribe myself, Sir, your most humble and affectionate servant, + +JAMES HOGG. + + +In Scott's printed text of the ballad, two interpolations, of two +lines each, are acknowledged in notes. They occur in stanzas vii., +xlvi., and are attributed to Hogg. In fact, Hogg sent one of them +(vii.) to Laidlaw in his manuscript. The other he sent to Scott on +30th June 1802. + +Colonel Elliot, in the spirit of the Higher Criticism (chimaera +bombinans in vacuo), writes, {31a} "Few will doubt that the +footnotes" (on these interpolations) "were inserted with the purpose +of leading the public to think that Hogg made no other +interpolations; but I am afraid I must go further than this and say +that, since they were inserted on the editor's responsibility, the +intention must have been to make it appear as if no other +interpolations by any other hand had been inserted." + +But no other interpolations by another hand WERE inserted! Some +verbal emendations were made by Scott, but he never put in a stanza +or two lines of his own. + +Colonel Elliot provides us with six pages of the Higher Criticism. +He knows how to distinguish between verses by Hogg, and verses by +Scott! {32a} But, save when Scott puts one line, a ballad formula, +where Hogg has another line, Scott makes no interpolations, and the +ballad formula he probably took, with other things of no more +importance, from Mrs. Hogg's recitation. Oh, Higher Criticism! + +I now print the ballad as Hogg sent it to Laidlaw, between August +1801 and March 1802, in all probability. + +[Back of Hogg's MS.: Mr. William Laidlaw, Blackhouse.] + + + + +OLD MAITLAND +A VERY ANTIENT SONG + +There lived a king in southern land + King Edward hecht his name +Unwordily he wore the crown + Till fifty years was gane. + +He had a sister's son o's ain + Was large o' blood and bane +And afterwards when he came up, + Young Edward hecht his name. + +One day he came before the king, + And kneeld low on his knee +A boon a boon my good uncle, + I crave to ask of thee + +"At our lang wars i' fair Scotland + I lang hae lang'd to be +If fifteen hunder wale wight men + You'll grant to ride wi' me." + +"Thou sal hae thae thou sal hae mae + I say it sickerly; +And I mysel an auld grey man + Arrayd your host sal see." - + +King Edward rade King Edward ran - + I wish him dool and pain! +Till he had fifteen hundred men + Assembled on the Tyne. +And twice as many at North Berwick + Was a' for battle bound + +They lighted on the banks of Tweed + And blew their coals sae het +And fired the Merce and Tevidale + All in an evening late + +As they far'd up o'er Lammermor + They burn'd baith tower and town +Until they came to a derksome house, + Some call it Leaders Town + +Whae hauds this house young Edward crys, + Or whae gae'st ower to me +A grey haired knight set up his head + And cracked right crousely + +Of Scotlands King I haud my house + He pays me meat and fee +And I will keep my goud auld house + While my house will keep me + +They laid their sowies to the wall + Wi' mony heavy peal +But he threw ower to them again + Baith piech and tar barille + +With springs: wall stanes, and good of ern, + Among them fast he threw +Till mony of the Englishmen + About the wall he slew. + +Full fifteen days that braid host lay + Sieging old Maitlen keen +Then they hae left him safe and hale + Within his strength o' stane + +Then fifteen barks, all gaily good, + Met themen on a day, +Which they did lade with as much spoil + As they could bear away. + +"England's our ain by heritage; + And whae can us gainstand, +When we hae conquerd fair Scotland + Wi' bow, buckler, and brande" - + +Then they are on to th' land o' france, + Where auld King Edward lay, +Burning each town and castle strong + That ance cam in his way. + +Untill he cam unto that town + Which some call Billop-Grace +There were old Maitlen's sons a' three + Learning at School alas + +The eldest to the others said, + O see ye what I see +If a' be true yon standard says, + We're fatherless a' three + +For Scotland's conquerd up and down + Landsmen we'll never be: +Now will you go my brethren two, + And try some jeopardy + +Then they hae saddled two black horse, + Two black horse and a grey +And they are on to Edwardes host + Before the dawn of day + +When they arriv'd before the host + They hover'd on the ley +Will you lend me our King's standard + To carry a little way + +Where was thou bred where was thou born + Wherein in what country - +In the north of England I was born + What needed him to lie. + +A knight me got a lady bare + I'm a squire of high renown +I well may bear't to any king, + That ever yet wore crown. + +He ne'er came of an Englishman + Had sic an ee or bree +But thou art likest auld Maitlen + That ever I did see + +But sic a gloom inon ae browhead + Grant's ne'er see again +For many of our men he slew + And many put to pain + +When Maitlan heard his father's name, + An angry man was he +Then lifting up a gilt dager + Hung low down by his kee + +He stab'd the knight the standard bore, + He stabb'd him cruelly; +Then caught the standard by the neuk, + And fast away rade he. + +Now is't na time brothers he cry'd + Now, is't na time to flee +Ay by my soothe they baith reply'd, + We'll bear you company + +The youngest turn'd him in a path + And drew a burnish'd brand +And fifteen o' the foremost slew + Till back the lave did stand + +He spurr'd the grey unto the path + Till baith her sides they bled +Grey! thou maun carry me away + Or my life lies in wed + +The captain lookit owr the wa' + Before the break o day +There he beheld the three Scots lads + Pursued alongst the way + +Pull up portculzies down draw briggs + My nephews are at hame +And they shall lodge wi' me to-night, + In spite of all England + +Whene'er they came within the gate + They thrust their horse them frae +And took three lang spears in their hands, + Saying, here sal come nae mae + +And they shott out and they shott in, + Till it was fairly day +When many of the Englishmen + About the draw brigg lay. + +Then they hae yoked carts and wains + To ca' their dead away +And shot auld dykes aboon the lave + In gutters where they lay + +The king in his pavilion door + Was heard aloud to say +Last night three o' the lads o' France + My standard stole away + +Wi' a fause tale disguis'd they came + And wi' a fauser train +And to regain my gaye standard + These men were a' down slaine + +It ill befits the youngest said + A crowned king to lie +But or that I taste meat and drink, + Reproved shall he be. + +He went before King Edward straight + And kneel'd low on his knee +I wad hae leave my liege he said, + To speak a word wi' thee + +The king he turn'd him round about + And wistna what to say +Quo' he, Man, thou's hae leave to speak + Though thou should speak a day. + +You said that three young lads o' France, + Your standard stole away +Wi' a fause tale and fauser train, + And mony men did slay + +But we are nane the lads o' France + Nor e'er pretend to be +We are three lads o' fair Scotland, + Auld Maitlen's sons a' three + +Nor is there men in a your host, + Dare fight us three to three +Now by my sooth young Edward cry'd, + Weel fitted sall ye be! + +Piercy sall with the eldest fight + And Ethert Lunn wi' thee +William of Lancastar the third + And bring your fourth to me + +He clanked Piercy owr the head + A deep wound and a sair +Till the best blood o' his body + Came rinnen owr his hair. + +Now I've slain one slay ye the two; + And that's good company +And if the two should slay ye baith, + Ye'se get na help frae me + +But Ethert Lunn a baited bear + Had many battles seen +He set the youngest wonder sair, + Till the eldest he grew keen + +I am nae king nor nae sic thing + My word it sanna stand +For Ethert shall a buffet bide, + Come he aneath my brand. + +He clanked Ethert owr the head, + A deep wound and a sair +Till a' the blood of his body + Came rinnen owr his hair + +Now I've slayne two slay ye the one; + Isna that gude company +And tho' the one should slay ye both + Ye'se get nae help o' me. + +The twasome they hae slayn the one + They maul'd them cruelly +Then hang them owr the drawbridge, + That a' the host might see + +They rade their horse they ran their horse, + Then hover'd on the ley +We be three lads o' fair Scotland, + We fain wad fighting see + +This boasting when young Edward heard, + To's uncle thus said he, +I'll take yon lad I'll bind yon lad, + And bring him bound to thee + +But God forbid King Edward said + That ever thou should try +Three worthy leaders we hae lost, + And you the fourth shall be. + +If thou wert hung owr yon drawbrigg + Blythe wad I never be +But wi' the pole-axe in his hand, + Outower the bridge sprang he + +The first stroke that young Edward gae + He struck wi might and main +He clove the Maitlen's helmet stout, + And near had pierced his brain. + +When Matlen saw his ain blood fa, + An angry man was he +He let his weapon frae him fa' + And at his neck did flee + +And thrice about he did him swing, + Till on the ground he light +Where he has halden young Edward + Tho' he was great in might + +Now let him up, King Edward cry'd, + And let him come to me +And for the deed that ye hae done + Ye shal hae earldoms three + +It's ne'er be said in France nor Ire + In Scotland when I'm hame +That Edward once was under me, + And yet wan up again + +He stabb'd him thro and thro the hear + He maul'd him cruelly +Then hung him ower the drawbridge + Beside the other three + +Now take from me that feather bed + Make me a bed o' strae +I wish I neer had seen this day + To mak my heart fu' wae + +If I were once at London Tower, + Where I was wont to be +I never mair should gang frae hame, + Till borne on a bier-tree + + +At the end of his copy Hogg writes (probably of stanza vii.)--"You may +insert the two following lines anywhere you think it needs them, or +substitute two better - + + +And marching south with curst Dunbar + A ready welcome found." + + +II--WHAT IS AULD MAITLAND? + + +Is Auld Maitland a sheer forgery by Hogg, or is it in any sense, and if +so, in what sense, antique and traditional? That Hogg made the whole +of it is to me incredible. He had told Laidlaw on 20th July 1801, that +he would make no ballads on traditions without Scott's permission, +written in Scott's hand. Moreover, how could he have any traditions +about "Auld Maitland, his noble Sonnis three," personages of the +thirteenth and fourteenth centuries? Scott had read about them in +poems of about 1580, but these poems then lay in crabbed manuscripts. +Again, Hogg wrote in words ("springs, wall-stanes") of whose meaning he +had no idea; he took it as he heard it in recitation. Finally, the +style is not that of Hogg when he attempts the ballad. Scott observed +that "this ballad, notwithstanding its present appearance, has a claim +to very high antiquity." The language, except for a few technical +terms, is modern, but what else could it be if handed down orally? The +language of undoubted ballads is often more modern than that which was +spoken in my boyhood in Ettrick Forest. As Sir Walter Scott remarked, +a poem of 1570-1580, which he quotes from the Maitland MSS., "would run +as smoothly, and appear as modern, as any verse in the ballad (with a +few exceptions) if divested of its antique spelling." + +We now turn to the historical characters in the ballad. + +Sir Richard Maitland of Lauder, or Thirlestane, says Scott, was already +in his lands, and making donations to the Church in 1249. If, in 1296, +forty-seven years later, he held his castle against Edward I., as in +the ballad, he must have been a man of, say, seventy-five. By about +1574 his descendant, Sir Richard Maitland, was consoled for his family +misfortunes (his famous son, Lethington, having died after the long +siege of Edinburgh Castle, which he and Kirkcaldy of Grange held for +Queen Mary), by a poet who reminded him that his ancestor, in the +thirteenth century, lost all his sons--"peerless pearls"--save one, +"Burdallane." The Sir Richard of 1575 has also one son left (John, the +minister of James VI.). {41a} + +From this evidence, in 1802 in MS. unpublished, and from other Maitland +MSS., we learn that, in the sixteenth century, the Auld Maitland of the +ballad was an eminent character in the legends of that period, and in +the ballads of the people. {42b} His + + + Nobill sonnis three, +Ar sung in monie far countrie, +ALBEIT IN RURAL RHYME. + + +Pinkerton published, in 1786, none of the pieces to which Scott refers +in his extracts from the Maitland MSS. How, then, did Hogg, if Hogg +forged the ballad, know of Maitland and his "three noble sons"? Except +Colonel Elliot, to whose explanation we return, I am not aware that any +critic has tried to answer this question. + +It seems to me that if the Ballad of Otterburne, extant in 1550 in +England, survived in Scottish memory till Herd's fragment appeared in +1776, a tradition of Maitland, who was popular in the ballads of 1575, +and known to Gawain Douglas seventy years earlier, may also have +persisted. There is no impossibility. + +Looking next at Scott's Auld Maitland the story is that King Edward I. +reigned for fifty years. He had a nephew Edward (an apocryphal person: +such figures are common in ballads), who wished to take part in the +invasion of Scotland. The English are repulsed by old Maitland from +his "darksome house" on the Leader. The English, however, (stanza xv.) +conquer Scotland, and join Edward I. in France. They besiege that +town, + + +Which some call Billop-Grace (xviii.). + + +Here Maitland's three sons are learning at school, as Scots often were +educated in France. They see that Edward's standard quarters the arms +of France, and infer that he has conquered their country. They "will +try some jeopardy." Persuading the English that they are themselves +Englishmen, they ask leave to carry the royal flag. The eldest is told +that he is singularly like Auld Maitland. In anger he stabs the +standard-bearer, seizes the flag, and, with his brothers, spurs to +Billop-Grace, where the French captain receives them. There is +fighting at the gate. The King says that three disguised lads of +France have stolen his flag. The Maitlands apparently heard of this; +the youngest goes to Edward, and explains that they are Maitland's +sons, and Scots; they challenge any three Englishmen; a thing in the +manner of the period. The three Scots are victorious. Young Edward +then challenges one of the dauntless three, who slays him. Edward +wishes himself home at London Tower. + +Such is the story. It is out of the regular line of ballad narrative, +but it does not follow that, in the sixteenth century, some such tale +was not told "in rural rhyme" about Maitland's "three noble sons." +That it is not historically true is nothing, of course, and that it is +not in the Scots of the thirteenth century is nothing. + +Colonel Elliot asks, What in the ballad raised suspicion of forgery (in +1802-03)? The historical inaccuracies are common to all historical +ballads. (In an English ballad known to me of 1578, Henry Darnley is +"hanged on a tree"!) + +Next, "there are occasional lines, and even stanzas, which jar in style +to such a degree that they must have been written by two separate +hands." + +But this, also, is a common feature. In "Professor Child and the +Ballad," Mr. W. M. Hart gives a list of Professor Child's notes on the +multiplicity of hands, which he, and every critic, detect in some +ballads with a genuinely antique substratum. {44a} + +Colonel Elliot quotes, as in his opinion the best, stanzas viii., ix., +x., xi., while he thinks xv., xviii. the worst. I give these stanzas - + + +VIII. + +They lighted on the banks o' Tweed, + And blew their coals sae het, +And fired the Merse and Teviotdale, + All in an evening late. + +IX. + +As they fared up o'er Lammermoor, + They burned baith up and doun, +Until they came to a darksome house, + Some call it Leader Town. + +X. + +"Wha hauds this house?" young Edward cried, + "Or wha gi'est ower to me?" +A grey-hair'd knight set up his head, + And crackit right crousely: + +XI. + +"Of Scotland's king I haud my house, + He pays me meat and fee; +And I will keep my guid auld house, + While my house will keep me." + + +I cannot, I admit, find any fault with these stanzas: cannot see any +reason why they should not be traditional. + +Then Colonel Elliot cites, as the worst - + + +XV. + +Then fifteen barks, all gaily good, + Met them upon a day, +Which they did lade with as much spoil + As they could take away. + +XVIII. + +Until we came unto that town + Which some call Billop-Grace; +There were Auld Maitland's sons, a' three, + Learning at school, alas! + + +Now, if I venture to differ from Colonel Elliot here, I may plead that +I am practised in the art of ballad-faking, and can produce high +testimonials of skill! To me stanzas xv., xviii. seem to differ much +from viii.-xi., but not in such a way as Hogg would have differed, had +he made them. Hogg's error would have lain, as Scott's did, in being, +as Scott said of Mrs. Hemans, TOO POETICAL. + +Neither Hogg nor Scott, I think, was crafty enough to imitate the +prosaic drawl of the printed broadside ballad, or the feeble +interpolations with which the "gangrel scrape-gut," or bankelsanger, +supplied gaps in his memory. The modern complete ballad-faker WOULD +introduce such abject verses, but Scott and Hogg desired to decorate, +not to debase, ballads with which they intermeddled, and we track them +by their modern romantic touch when they interpolate. I take it, for +this reason, that Hogg did not write stanzas xv., xviii. It was hardly +in nature for Hogg, if he knew Ville de Grace in Normandy (a thing not +very probable), to invent "Billop-Grace" as a popular corruption of the +name--and a popular corruption it is, I think. Probably the original +maker of this stanza wrote, in line 4, "alace," an old spelling--not +"alas"--to rhyme with "grace." + +Colonel Elliot then assigns xv., xviii. as most likely of all to be by +Hogg. On that I have given my opinion, with my reasons. + +These verses, with xviii., lead us to France, and whereas Scott here +suspects that some verses have been lost (see his note to stanza +xviii.), Colonel Elliot suspects that the stanzas relating to France +have been interpolated. But the French scenes occupy the whole poem +from xvi. to lxv., the end. + +What, if Hogg were the forger, were his sources? He MAY have known +Douglas's Palice of Honour, which, of course, existed in print, with +its mention of Maitland's grey beard. But how did he know Maitland's +"three noble sons," in 1801-1802, lying unsunned in the Maitland MSS.? + +This is a point which critics of Auld Maitland studiously ignore, yet +it is the essential point. How did the Shepherd know about the three +young Maitlands, whose existence, in legend, is only revealed to us +through a manuscript unpublished in 1802? Colonel Elliot does not +evade the point. "We may be sure," he says, that Leyden, before 1802, +knew Hogg, and Hogg might have obtained from him sufficient information +to enable him to compose the ballad. {47a} But it was from Laidlaw, +not from Leyden, that Scott, after receiving his first copy at +Blackhouse, in spring 1802, obtained Hogg's address. {47b} There is no +hint that before spring 1802 Leyden ever saw Hogg. Had he known him, +and his ballad-lore, he would have brought him and Scott together. In +1801-02, Leyden was very busy in Edinburgh helping Scott to edit Sir +Tristram, copying Arthour, seeking for an East India appointment, and +going into society. Scott's letters prove all this. {47c} + +That Hogg, in 1802, was very capable of writing a ballad, I admit; also +that, through Blind Harry's Wallace, he may have known all about +"sowies," and "portculize," and springwalls, or springald's, or +springalls, mediaeval balistas for throwing heavy stones and darts. +But Hogg did not know or guess what a springwall was. In his stanza +xiii. (in the MS. given to Laidlaw), Hogg wrote - + + +With springs; wall stanes, and good o'ern + Among them fast he threw. + + +Scott saw the real meaning of this nonsense, and read - + + +With springalds, stones, and gads o' airn. + + +In his preface he says that many words in the ballad, "which the +reciters have retained without understanding them, still preserve +traces of their antiquity." For instance, springalls, corruptedly +pronounced springwalls. Hogg, hearing the pronunciation, and not +understanding, wrote, "with springs: wall stanes." A leader would not +throw "wall stanes" till he had exhausted his ammunition. Hogg heard +"with springwalls stones, he threw," and wrote it, "with springs: wall +stones he threw." + +Hogg could not know of Auld Maitland "and his three noble sons" except +through an informant familiar with the Maitland MSS. in Edinburgh +University Library. On the theory of a conspiracy to forge, Scott +taught him, but that theory is crushed. + +Hogg says, in Domestic Manners of Sir Walter Scott, that when his +mother met Scott she told him that her brother and she learned the +ballad from auld Andrew Muir, and he from "auld Babby Mettlin," +housekeeper of the first ("Anderson") laird of Tushielaw. This first +Anderson, laird of Tushielaw, reigned from 1688 to 1721 (?) or 1724. +{48a} Hogg's mother was born in 1730, and was only one remove--filled +up by Andrew Muir--from Babby, who was "ither than a gude yin," and +knew many songs. Does any one think Hogg crafty enough to have +invented Babby Maitland as the source of a song about the Maitlands, +and to have introduced her into his narrative in 1834? I conjecture +that this Maitland woman knew a Maitland song, modernised in time, and +perhaps copied out and emended by one of the Maitland family, possibly +one of the descendants of Lethington. We know that, under James I., +about 1620, Lethington's impoverished son, James, had several children; +and that Lauderdale was still supporting them (or THEIR children) +during the Restoration. Only a century before, ballads on the +Maitlands had certainly been popular, and there is nothing impossible +in the suggestion that one such ballad survived in the Lauderdale or +Lethington family, and came through Babby Maitland to Andrew Muir, then +to Hogg's mother, to Hogg, and to Scott. + +If a manuscript copy ever existed, and was Babby's ultimate source, it +would be of the late seventeenth century. That is the ascertained date +of the oldest known MS. of The Outlaw Murray, as is proved from an +allusion in a note appended to a copy, referring to a Judge of Session, +Lord Philiphaugh, as then alive. The copy was of 1689-1702. {49a} + +Granting a MS. of Auld Maitland existing in any branch of the Maitland +family in 1680-1700, Babby Mettlin's knowledge of the ballad, and its +few modernisms, are explained. + +As Lockhart truly says, Hogg "was the most extraordinary man that ever +wore the maud of a shepherd." He had none of Burns' education. In +1802 he was young, and ignorant of cities, and always was innocent of +research in the crabbed MSS. of the sixteenth century. Yet he gets at +legendary persons known to us only through these MSS. He makes a +ballad named Auld Maitland about them. Through him a farm-lass at +Blackhouse acquires some stanzas which Laidlaw copies. In a fortnight +Hogg sends Laidlaw the whole ballad, with the pedigree--his uncle, his +mother, their father, and old Andrew Muir, servant to the famous Rev. +Mr. Boston of Ettrick. The copy takes in Scott and Leyden. Later, +Ritson makes no objection. Mrs. Hogg recites it to Scott, and, +according to Hogg, gives a casual "auld Babby Maitland" as the original +source. + +Is the whole fraud conceivable? Hogg, we must believe, puts in two +stanzas (xv., xviii.), of the lowliest order of printed stall-copy or +"gangrel scrape-gut" style, and the same with intent to deceive. He +introduces "Billop-Grace" as a deceptive popular corruption of Ville de +Grace. This is far beyond any craft that I have found in the most +artful modern "fakers." One stanza (xlix.) - + + +But Ethert Lunn, a baited bear, +Had many battles seen - + + +seems to me very recent, whoever made it. Scott, in lxii., gives a +variant of "some reciters," for "That Edward once lay under me," they +read "That Englishman lay under me." This, if a false story, was an +example of an art more delicate than Scott elsewhere exhibits. + +One does not know what Professor Child would have said to my arguments. +He never gave a criticism in detail of the ballad and of the +circumstances in which Scott acquired it. A man most reasonable, most +open to conviction, he would, I think, have confessed his perplexity. + +Scott did not interpolate a single stanza, even where, as Hogg wrote, +he suspected a lacuna in the text. He neither cut out nor improved the +cryingly modern stanzas. He kept them, as he kept several stanzas in +Tamlane, which, so he told Laidlaw, were obviously recent, but were in +a copy which he procured through Lady Dalkeith. {51a} + +By neither adding to nor subtracting from his MS. copy of Auld +Maitland, Scott proved, I think, his respect for a poem which, in its +primal form, he believed to be very ancient. We know, at all events, +that ballads on the Maitland heroes were current about 1580. So, late +in the sixteenth century, were the ballads quoted by Hume of Godscroft, +on the murder of the Knight of Liddesdale (1354), the murder of the +young Earl of Douglas in Edinburgh Castle (1440), and the battle of +Otterburn. Of these three, only Otterburne was recovered by Herd, +published in 1776. The other two are lost; and there is no prima facie +reason why a Maitland ballad, of the sort current in 1580, should not, +in favourable circumstances, have survived till 1802. + +As regards the Shepherd's ideas of honesty in ballad-collecting at this +early period, I have quoted his letter to Laidlaw of 20th July 1802. + +Again, in the case of his text from recitation of the Ballad of +Otterburne (published by Scott in The Minstrelsy of 1806), he gave the +Sheriff a full account of his mode of handling his materials, and Scott +could get more minute details by questioning him. + +To this text of Otterburne, freely attacked by Colonel Elliot, in +apparent ignorance, as before, of the published facts of the case, and +of the manuscript, we next turn our attention. In the meantime, Scott +no more conspired to forge Auld Maitland than he conspired to forge the +Pentateuch. That Hogg did not forge Auld Maitland I think I have made +as nearly certain as anything in this region can be. I think that the +results are a lesson to professors of the Higher Criticism of Homer. + + + +THE BALLAD OF OTTERBURNE + + + +Scott's version of the Ballad of Otterburne, as given first in The +Minstrelsy of 1806, comes under Colonel Elliot's most severe censure. +He concludes in favour of "the view that it consists partly of stanzas +from Percy's Reliques, which have undergone emendations calculated to +disguise the source from which they came, partly of stanzas of modern +fabrication, and partly of a very few stanzas and lines from Herd's +version" (1776). {53a} + +As a matter of fact we know, though Colonel Elliot does not, the whole +process of construction of the Otterburne in The Minstrelsy of 1806. +Professor Child published all the texts with a letter. {53b} It is a +pity that Colonel Elliot overlooks facts in favour of conjecture. +Concerning historical facts he is not more thorough in research. The +story, in Percy's Reliques, of the slaying of Douglas by Percy, "is, so +far as I know, supported neither by history nor by tradition." {53c} +If unfamiliar with the English chroniclers (in Latin) of the end of the +fourteenth century, Colonel Elliot could find them cited by Professor +Child. Knyghton, Walsingham, and the continuator of Higden (Malverne), +all assert that Percy killed Douglas with his own hand. {54a} The +English ballad of Otterburne (in MS. of about 1550) gives this version +of Douglas's death. It is erroneous. Froissart, a contemporary, had +accounts of the battle from combatants, both English and Scottish. +Douglas, fighting in the front of the van, on a moonlight night, was +slain by three lance-wounds received in the mellay. The English knew +not whom they had slain. + +The interesting point is that, while the Scottish ballads give either +the English version of Percy's death (in Minstrelsy, 1806) or another +account mentioned by Hume of Godscroft (circ. 1610), that he was slain +by one of his own men, the Scottish versions are ALL deeply affected in +an important point by Froissart's contemporary narrative, which has not +affected the English versions. The point is that the death of Douglas +was by his order concealed from both parties. + +When both the English version in Percy's Reliques (from a MS. of about +1550), and Scott's version of 1806, mention a "challenge to battle" +between Percy and Douglas, Colonel Elliot calls this incident "probably +purely fanciful and imaginary," and suspects Scott's version of being +made up and altered from the English text. But the challenge which +resulted in the battle of Otterburn is not fanciful and imaginary! + +It is mentioned by Froissart. Douglas, he says, took Percy's pennon in +an encounter under Newcastle. Percy vowed that Douglas would never +carry the pennon out of Northumberland; Douglas challenged him to come +and take it from his tent door that night; but Percy was constrained +not to accept the challenge. The Scots then marched homewards, but +Douglas insisted on besieging Otterburn Castle; here he passed some +days on purpose to give Percy a chance of a fight; Percy's force +surprised the Scots; they were warned, as in the ballads, suddenly, by +a man who galloped up; the fight began; and so on. + +Now Herd's version says nothing of Douglas at Newcastle; the whole +scene is at Otterburn. On the other hand, Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe's +MS. text DID bring Douglas to Newcastle. Of this Colonel Elliot says +nothing. The English version says NOTHING OF PERCY'S LOSS OF HIS +PENNON TO DOUGLAS (nor does Sharpe's), and gives the challenge and +tryst. Scott's version says nothing of Percy's pennon, but Douglas +takes Percy's SWORD and vows to carry it home. Percy's challenge, in +the English version, is accompanied by a gross absurdity. He bids +Douglas wait at Otterburn, where, pour tout potage to an army absurdly +stated at 40,000 men, Percy suggests venison and pheasants! In the +Scottish version Percy offers tryst at Otterburn. Douglas answers +that, though Otterburn has no supplies--nothing but deer and wild +birds--he will there tarry for Percy. This is chivalrous, and, in +Scott's version, Douglas understands war. In the English version Percy +does not. (To these facts I return, giving more details.) Colonel +Elliot supposes some one (Scott, I daresay) to have taken Percy's,--the +English version,--altered it to taste, concealed the alterations, as in +this part of the challenge, by inverting the speeches and writing new +stanzas of the fight at Otterburn, used a very little of Herd (which is +true), and inserted modern stanzas. + +Now, first, as regards pilfering from the English version, that +version, and Herd's undisputed version, have undeniably a common +source. Neither, as it stands, is "original"; of an ORIGINAL +contemporary Otterburn ballad we have no trace. By 1550, when such +ballads were certainly current both in England and Scotland, they were +late, confused by tradition, and, of what we possess, say Herd's, and +the English MS. of 1550, all were interblended. + +The Scots ballad version, known to Hume of Godscroft (1610), may have +been taken from the English, and altered, as Child thought, or the +English, as Motherwell maintained, may have been borrowed from the +Scots, and altered. One or the other process undeniably occurred; the +second poet, who made the changes, introduced the events most +favourable to his country, and left out the less favourable. By +Scott's time, or Herd's, the versions were much degraded through decay +of memory, bad penny broadsides (lost), and uneducated reciters. +Herd's version has forgotten the historic affair of the capture of +Percy's pennon (and of the whole movement on Newcastle, preserved in +Sharpe's and Scott's); Scott's remembers the encounter at Newcastle, +forgets the pennon, and substitutes the capture by Douglas of Percy's +sword. The Englishman deliberately omits the capture of the pennon. +The Scots version (here altered by Sir Walter) makes Percy wound +Douglas at Otterburn - + + +Till backward he did flee. + + +Now Colonel Elliot has no right, I conceive, to argue that this Scots +version, with the Newcastle incident, the captured sword, the +challenge, the "backward flight" of Douglas, were introduced by a +modern (Scott?) who was deliberately "faking" the English version. +There is no reason why tradition should NOT have retained historical +incidents in the Scottish form; it is a mere assumption that a modern +borrowed and travestied these incidents from Percy's Reliques. We +possess Hogg's UNEDITED original of Scott's version of 1806 (an +original MS. never hinted at by Colonel Elliot), and it retains clear +traces of being contaminated with a version of The Huntiss of Chevet, +popular in 1459, as we read in The Complaynte of Scotland of that date. +There is also an old English version of The Hunting of the Cheviot +(1550 or later, Bodleian Library). The UNEDITED text of Scott's +Otterburne then contained traces of The Huntiss of Chevet; the two were +mixed in popular memory. In short, Scott's text, manipulated slightly +by him in a way which I shall describe, was A THING SURVIVING IN +POPULAR MEMORY: how confusedly will be explained. + +The differences between the English version of 1550 and the Scots +(collected for Scott by Hogg), are of old standing. I am not sure that +there was not, before 1550, a Scottish ballad, which the English +ballad-monger of that date annexed and altered. The English version of +1550 is not "popular"; it is the work of a humble literary man. + +The English is a very long ballad, in seventy quatrains; it greatly +exaggerates the number of the Scots engaged (40,000), and it is the +work of a professional author who uses the stereotyped prosaic stopgaps +of the cheap hack - + + +I tell you withouten dread, + + +is his favourite phrase, and he cites historical authority - + + +The cronykle wyll not layne (lie). + + +Scottish ballads do not appeal to chroniclers! A patriotic and +imbecile effort is made by the Englishman to represent Percy as +captured, indeed, but released without ransom - + + +There was then a Scottysh prisoner tayne, +Sir Hew Mongomery was his name; +For sooth as I yow saye, +He borrowed the Persey home agayne. + + +This is obscure, and in any case false. Percy WAS taken, and towards +his ransom Richard II. paid 3000 pounds. {59a} + +It may be well to quote the openings of each ballad, English and Scots. + + +ENGLISH (1550) + +I. + +It fell about the Lammas tyde, + When husbands win their hay, +The doughty Douglas bound him to ride, + In England to take a prey. + +II. + +The Earl of Fife, withouten strife, + He bound him over Solway; +The great would ever together ride + That race they may rue for aye. + +III. + +Over Hoppertop hill they came in, + And so down by Rodcliff crag, +Upon Green Linton they lighted down, + Stirring many a stag. + +IV. + +And boldly brent Northumberland, + And harried many a town, +They did our Englishmen great wrong, + To battle that were not boune. + +V. + +Then spake a berne upon the bent . . + + +SCOTTISH, HERD (1776) + +I. + +It fell and about the Lammas time, + When hushandmen do win their hay; +Earl Douglas is to the English woods, + And a' with him to fetch a prey. + +II. + +He has chosen the Lindsays light, + With them the gallant Gordons gay; +And the Earl of Fyfe, withouten strife, + And Hugh Montgomery upon a grey. +(THE LAST LINE IS OBVIOUSLY A RECITER'S STOPGAP.) + +III. + +They have taken Northumberland, + And sae hae they THE NORTH SHIRE, +And the Otterdale they hae burned hale, + And set it a' into fire. + +IV. + +Out then spak a bonny boy; + + +Manifestly these copies, so far, are not independent. But now Herd's +copy begins to vary much from the English. + +In both ballads a boy or "berne" speaks up. In the English he +recommends to the Scots an attack on Newcastle; in the Scots he +announces the approach of an English host. Douglas promises to reward +the boy if his tale be true, to hang him if it be false. THE SCENE IS +OTTERBURN. The boy stabs Douglas, in a stanza which is a common ballad +formula of frequent occurrence - + + +The boy's taen out his little pen knife, + That hanget low down by his gare, +And he gaed Earl Douglas a deadly wound, + Alack! a deep wound and a sare. + + +Douglas then says to Sir Hugh Montgomery - + + + Take THOU the vanguard of the three, +And bury me at yon bracken bush, + That stands upon yon lilly lea. (Herd, 4-8.) + + +Hume of Godscroft (about 1610), author of the History of the Douglases, +was fond of quoting ballads. He gives a form of the first verse in +Otterburn which is common to Herd and the English copy. He says that, +according to some, Douglas was treacherously slain by one of his own +men whom he had offended. "But this narration is not so probable," and +the fact is fairly meaningless in Herd's fragment (the boy has no +motive for stabbing Douglas, for if his report is true, he will be +rewarded). The deed is probably based on the tradition which Godscroft +thought "less probable,"--the treacherous murder of the Earl. + +In the English ballad, Douglas marches on Newcastle, where Percy, +without fighting, makes a tryst to meet and combat him at Otterburn, on +his way home from Newcastle to Scotland. Thither Douglas goes, and is +warned by a Scottish knight of Percy's approach: as in Herd, he is +sceptical, but is convinced by facts. (This warning of Douglas by a +scout who gallops up is narrated by Froissart, from witnesses engaged +in the battle.) After various incidents, Percy and Douglas encounter +each other, and Douglas is slain. After a desperate fight, Sir Hugh +Montgomery, a prisoner of the English, + + +Borrowed the Percy home again. + + +This is absurd. The Scots fought on, took Percy, and won the day. +Walsingham, the contemporary English chronicler (in Latin), says that +Percy slew Douglas, so do Knyghton and the continuator of Higden. + +Meanwhile we observe that the English ballad says nothing of Douglas's +chivalrous fortitude, and soldier-like desire to have his death +concealed. Here every Scottish version follows Froissart. In Herd's +fragment, Montgomery now attacks Percy, and bids him "yield thee to yon +bracken bush," where the dead Douglas's body lies concealed. Percy +does yield--to Sir Hugh Montgomery. The fragment has but fourteen +stanzas. + +In 1802, Scott, correcting by another MS., published Herd's copy. In +1806 he gave another version, for "fortunately two copies have since +been obtained from the recitation of old persons residing at the head +of Ettrick Forest." {62a} + +Colonel Elliot devotes a long digression to the trivial value of +recitations, so styled, {62b} and gives his suggestions about the copy +being made up from the Reliques. When Scott's copy of 1806 agrees with +the English version, Colonel Elliot surmises that a modern person, +familiar with the English, has written the coincident verses in WITH +DIFFERENCES. Percy and Douglas, for example, change speeches, each +saying what, in the English, the other said in substance, not in the +actual words. When Scott's version touches on an incident known in +history, but not given in the English version, the encounter between +Douglas and Percy at Newcastle (Scott, vii., viii.), Colonel Elliot +suspects the interpolator (and well he may, for the verses are mawkish +and modern, not earlier than the eighteenth century imitations or +remaniements which occur in many ballads traditional in essence). + +So Colonel Elliot says, "We are not told, either in The Minstrelsy or +in any of Scott's works or writings, who the reciters were, and who the +transcribers were." {63a} We very seldom are told by Scott who the +reciters were and who the transcribers, but our critic's information is +here mournfully limited--by his own lack of study. Colonel Elliot goes +on to criticise a very curious feature in Scott's version of 1806, and +finds certain lines "beautiful" but "without a note of antiquity," that +he can detect, while the sentiment "is hardly of the kind met with in +old ballads." + +To understand the position we must remember that, IN THE ENGLISH, Percy +and Douglas fight each other thus (1.) - + + +The Percy and the Douglas met, + That either of other was fain, +They swapped together while that they sweat, + With swords of fine Collayne. (Cologne steel.) + + +Douglas bids Percy yield, but Percy slays Douglas (as in Walsingham's +and other contemporary chronicles, stanzas li.-lvi.). The Scottish +losses are then enumerated (only eighteen Scots were left alive!), and +stanza lix. runs - + + +This fray began at Otterburn + Between the night and the day. +There the Douglas lost his life, + And the Percy was led away. + + +Herd ends - + + +This deed was done at Otterburn, + About the breaking of the day, +Earl Douglas was buried at the bracken bush, + And Percy led captive away. + + +Manifestly, either the maker of Herd's version knew the English, and +altered at pleasure, or the Englishman knew a Scots version, and +altered at pleasure. The perversion is of ancient standing, +undeniably. But when Scott's original text exhibits the same phenomena +of perversion, in a part of the ballad missing in Herd's brief lay, +Colonel Elliot supposes that NOW the exchanges are by a modern ballad- +forger, shall we say Sir Walter? By Sir Walter they certainly are NOT! +One tiny hint of Scots originality is dubious. In the English, and in +all Scots versions, men "win their hay" at Lammastide. In Scotland the +hay harvest is often much later. But if the English ballad be +NORTHUMBRIAN, little can be made out of that proof of Scottish origin. +If the English version be a southern version (for the minstrel is a +professional), then Lammastide for hay-making is borrowed from the +Scots. + +The Scots version (Herd's) insists on Douglas's burial "by the bracken +bush," to which Montgomery bids Percy surrender. This is obviously +done to hide his body and keep his death secret from both parties, AS +IN FROISSART HE BIDS HIS FRIENDS DO. The verse of the English (l.) on +the fight between Douglas and Percy, is borrowed by, or is borrowed +from, the Scottish stanza (ix.) in Herd, where Sir Hugh Montgomery +fights Percy. + + +Then Percy and Montgomery met, + And weel a wot they warna fain; +They swaped swords, and they twa swat, + And ay the blood ran down between. + + The Persses and the Mongomry met, + + +as quoted, is already familiar in The Complaynte of Scotland (about +1549), and this line is not in the English ballad. So far it seems as +if the English balladist borrowed the scene from a Scots version, and +perverted it into a description of a fight, between Percy, who wins, +and Douglas--in place of the Scots version, the victory over Percy of +Sir Hugh Montgomery. + +This transference of incidents in the English and Scottish ballads is a +phenomenon which we are to meet again in the ballad of Jamie Telfer of +the Fair Dodhead. One "maker" or the other has, in old times, pirated +and perverted the ballad of another "maker." + + + +SCOTT'S TRADITIONAL COPY AND HOW HE EDITED IT + + + +As early as December 1802-January 1803, Scott was "so anxious to have a +complete Scottish Otterburn that I will omit the ballad entirely in the +first volume (of 1803), hoping to recover it in time for insertion in +the third." {67a} + +The letter is undated, but is determined by Scott's expressed interest +"about the Tushielaw lines, which, from what you mention, must be worth +recovering." In a letter (Abbotsford MSS.) from Hogg to Scott (marked +in copy, "January 7, 1803") Hogg encloses "the Tushielaw lines," which +were popular in Ettrick, but were verses of the eighteenth century. +They were orally repeated, but literary in origin. + +Scott, who wanted "a complete Scottish Otterburn" in winter 1802, did +not sit down and make one. He waited till he got a text from Hogg, in +1805, and published an edited version in 1806. + +SCOTT'S PUBLISHED stanza i. is Herd's stanza i., with slight verbal +changes taken from the Hogg MS. text of 1805. (?) Hogg's MS. and +Scott, in stanza ii., give Herd's lines on the Lindsays and Gordons, +adding the Grahams, and, in place of Herd's + + + The Earl of Fife, +And Sir Hugh Montgomery upon a grey, + + +they end thus - + + +But the Jardines wald not wi' him ride, + And they rue it to this day. + + +This is from Hogg's copy; it is a natural Border variant. No Earl of +Fife is named, but a reproach to a Border clan is conveyed. + +For Herd's iii. (they take Northumberland, and burn "the North shire," +and the Otter dale), Hogg's reciters gave - + + +And he has burned the dales o' Tyne, + And part o' ALMONSHIRE, +And three good towers in Roxburgh fells, + He left them all on fire. + + +Hogg, in his letter accompanying his copy, says that "Almonshire" may +stand for the "Bamborowshire" of the English vi., but that he leaves in +"Almonshire," as both reciters insist on it. Scott printed +"Bambroughshire," as in the English version (vi.). + +Now here is proof that Hogg had a copy, from reciters--a copy which he +could not understand. "Almonshire" is "Alneshire," or "Alnwickshire," +where is the Percy's Alnwick Castle. In Froissart the Scots burn and +waste the region of Alneshire, all round Alnwick, but the Earl of +Northumberland holds out in the castle, unattacked, and sends his sons, +Henry and Ralph Percy, to Newcastle to gather forces, and take the +retreating Scots between two fires, Newcastle and Alnwick. But the +Scots were not such poor strategists as to return by the way they had +come. In a skirmish or joust at Newcastle, says Froissart, Douglas +captured Percy's lance and pennon, with his blazon of arms, and vowed +that he would set it up over his castle of Dalkeith. Percy replied +that he would never carry it out of England. To give Percy a +chivalrous chance of recovering his pennon and making good his word, +Douglas insists on waiting at Otterburn to besiege the castle there; +and he is taken by surprise (as in the ballads) when a mounted man +brings news of Percy's approach. No tryst is made by Percy and Douglas +at Otterburn in Froissart; Douglas merely tarried there by the courtesy +of Scotland. + +In Hogg's version we have a reason why Douglas should tarry at +Otterburn; in the English ballad we have none very definite. No +captured pennon of Percy's is mentioned, no encounter of the heroes "at +the barriers" of Newcastle. Percy, from the castle wall, merely +threatens Douglas vaguely; Douglas says, "Where will you meet me?" and +Percy appoints Otterburn as we said. He makes the absurd remark that, +by way of supplies (for 40,000 men), Douglas will find abundance of +pheasants and red deer. {69a} + +We see that the English balladist is an unwarlike literary hack. The +author of the Ettrick version knew better the nature of war, as we +shall see, and his Douglas objects to Otterburn as a place destitute of +supplies; nothing is there but wild beasts and birds. If the original +poem is the sensible poem, the Scott version is the original which the +English hath perverted. + +In Hogg, Douglas jousts with Percy at Newcastle, and gives him a fall. +Then come two verses (viii.-ix.). The second is especially modern and +mawkish - + + +But O how pale his lady look'd, + Frae off the castle wa', +When down before the Scottish spear + She saw brave Percy fa'! +How pale and wan his lady look'd, + Frae off the castle hieght, +When she beheld her Percy yield + To doughty Douglas' might. + + +Colonel Elliot asks, "Can any one believe that these stanzas are really +ancient and have come down orally through many generations?" {70a} + +Certainly not! But Colonel Elliot does not allow for the fact, +insisted on by Professor Child, that traditional ballads, from the +sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, were often printed on broad- +sheets as edited by the cheapest broadside-vendors' hacks; that the +hacks interpolated and messed their originals; and that, after the +broadside was worn out, lost, or burned, oral memory kept it alive in +tradition. For examples of this process we have only to look at +William's Ghost in Herd's copy of 1776. This is a traditional ballad; +it is included in Scott's Clerk Saunders, but, as Hogg told him, is a +quite distinct song. In Herd's copy it ends thus - + + +"Oh, stay, my only true love, stay," + The constant Marg'ret cry'd; +Wan grew her cheeks, she closed her eyes, + Stretched her soft limbs, and dy'd. + + +Let THIS get into tradition, and be taken down from recitation, and the +ballad will be denounced as modern. But it is essentially ancient. + +These two modern stanzas, in Hogg's copy, are rather too bad for Hogg's +making; and I do not know whether they are his (he practically says +they are not, we shall see), or whether they are remembered by reciters +from a stall-copy of the period of Lady Wardlaw's Hardyknute. + +After that, Hogg's copy becomes more natural. Douglas says to the +discomfited Percy (x.) - + + +Had we twa been upon the green, + And never an eye to see, +I should hae had ye flesh and fell, + But your sword shall gae wi' me. + + +That rings true! Moreover, had either Hogg or Scott tampered here +(Scott excised), either would have made Douglas carry off--not Percy's +SWORD, but the historic captured PENNON of Percy. Scott really could +not have resisted the temptation had he been interpolating a son devis. + + +But your PENNON shall gae wi' me! + + +It was easy to write in that! + +Percy had challenged Douglas thus - + + +But gae ye up to Otterburn, + And there wait days three (xi.), + + +as in the English (xiii.). In the English, Percy, we saw, promises +game enough there; in Hogg, Douglas demurs (xii., xiii., xiv.). There +are no supplies at Otterburn, he says - + + + To feed my men and me. + +The deer rins wild frae dale to dale, + The birds fly wild frae tree to tree, +And there is neither bread nor kale, + To fend my men and me. + + +These seem to me sound true ballad lines, like - + + +My hounds may a' rin masterless + My hawks may fly frae tree to tree, + + +in Child's variant of Young Beichan. The speakers, we see, are +"inverted." Percy, in the English, promises Douglas's men pheasants-- +absurd provision for the army of 40,000 men of the English ballad. In +the Ettrick text Douglas says that there are no supplies, merely ferae +naturae, but he will wait at Otterburn to give Percy his chance. + +Colonel Elliot takes the inversion of parts as a proof of modern +pilfering and deliberate change to hide the theft; at least he mentions +them, and the "prettier verses," with a note of exclamation (!). {73a} +But there are, we repeat, similar inversions in the English and in +Herd's old copy, and nobody says that Scott or Hogg or any modern faker +made the inversions in Herd's text. The differences and inversions in +the English and in Herd are very ancient; by 1550 "the Percy and the +Montgomery met," in the line quoted in The Complaynte of Scotland. At +about the same period (1550) it was the Percy and the Douglas who met, +in the English version. Manifestly there pre-existed, by 1550, an old +ballad, which either a Scot then perverted from the English text, or an +Englishman from the Scots. Thus the inversions in the Ettrick and +English version need not be due (they are not due) to a MODERN "faker." + +In the Hogg MS. (xxiii.), Percy wounds Douglas "till backwards he did +flee." Hogg was too good a Scot to interpolate the flight of Douglas; +and Scott was so good a Scot that--what do you suppose he did?--he +excised "till backwards he did flee" from Hogg's text, and inserted +"that he fell to the ground" FROM THE ENGLISH TEXT! + +In the Hogg MS. (xviii., xix.), in Scott xvii., xviii., Douglas, at +Otterburn, is roused from sleep by his page with news of Percy's +approach. Douglas says that the page lies (compare Herd, where Douglas +doubts the page) - + + +For Percy hadna' men yestreen +To dight my men and me. + + +There is nothing in this to surprise any one who knows the innumerable +variants in traditional ballads. But now comes in a very curious +variation (Hogg MS. xx., Scott, xix.). Douglas says (Hogg MS. xx.) - + + +But I have seen a dreary dream + Beyond the Isle o' Skye, +I saw a dead man won the fight, + And I think that man was I. + + +Here is something not in Herd, and as remote from the manner of the +English poet, with his + + +The Chronicle will not lie, + + +as Heine is remote from, say,--Milman. The verse is magical, it has +haunted my memory since I was ten years old. Godscroft, who does not +approve of the story of Douglas's murder by one of his men, writes that +the dying leader said:- + +"First do yee keep my death both from our own folke and from the enemy" +(Froissart, "Let neither friend nor foe know of my estate"); "then that +ye suffer not my standard to be lost or cast downe" (Froissart, "Up +with my standard and call DOUGLAS!";) "and last, that ye avenge my +death" (also in Froissart). "Bury me at Melrose Abbey with my father. +If I could hope for these things I should die with the greater +contentment; for long since I HEARD A PROPHESIE THAT A DEAD MAN SHOULD +WINNE A FIELD, AND I HOPE IN GOD IT SHALL BE I." {75a} + + +I saw a dead man won the fight, + And I think that man was I! + + +Godscroft, up to the mention of Melrose and the prophecy, took his tale +direct from Froissart, or, if he took it from George Buchanan's Latin +History, Buchanan's source was Froissart, but Froissart's was evidence +from Scots who were in the battle. + +But who changed the prophecy to a dream of Douglas, and who versified +Godscroft's "a dead man shall winne a field, and I hope in God it shall +be I"? Did Godscroft take that from the ballad current in his time and +quoted by him? Or did a remanieur of Godscroft turn HIS words into + + +I saw a dead man win the fight, + And I think that man was I? + + +Scott did not make these two noble lines out of Godscroft, he found +them in Hogg's copy from recitation, only altering "I saw" into "I +dreamed," and the ungrammatic "won" into "win"; and "THE fight" into "A +fight." + +The whole dream stanza occurs in a part of the ballad where Hogg +confesses to no alteration or interpolation, and I doubt if the +Shepherd of Ettrick had read a rare old book like Godscroft. If he had +not, this stanza is purely traditional; if he had, he showed great +genius in his use of Godscroft. + +In Hogg's Ettrick copy, Douglas, after telling his dream, rushes into +battle, is wounded by Percy, and "backward flees." Scott (xx.), +following a historical version (Wyntoun's Cronykil), makes + + +Douglas forget the helmit good + That should have kept his brain. + + +Being wounded, in Hogg's version, and "backward fleeing," Douglas sends +his page to bring Montgomery (Hogg), and from stanza xxiv. to xxxiv., +in Hogg, all is made up by himself, he says,--from facts given "in +plain prose" by his reciters, with here and there a line or two given +in verse. Scott omitted some verses here, amended others slightly, by +help of Herd's version, LEFT OUT A BROKEN LAST STANZA (xl.) and put in +Herd's concluding lines (stanza lxviii. in the English text). + + +This deed was done at the Otterburn. (Herd.) + +The fraye began at Otterburn. (English.) + + +Now what was the broken Ettrick stanza that Scott omitted in his +published Otterburne (1806)? It referred to Sir Hugh Montgomery, who, +in Herd, captured Percy after a fight; in the English version is a +prisoner apparently exchanged for Percy. In the Ettrick MS. the +omitted verse is + + +He left not an Englishman on the field +. . . +That he hadna either killed or taen + Ere his heart's blood was cauld. + + +Scott ended with Herd's last stanza; in the English version the last +but two. + +Now the death, at Otterburn, of Sir Hugh, is recorded in an English +ballad styled The Hunting of the Cheviot. By 1540-50 it was among the +popular songs north of Tweed. The Complaynte of Scotland (1549) +mentions among "The Songis of Natural Music of the Antiquitie" +(volkslieder), The Hunttis of Chevet. Our copy of the English version +is in the Bodleian (MS. Ashmole, 48). It ends: "Expliceth, quod +Rychard Sheale," a minstrel who recited ballads and tales at Tamworth +(circ. 1559). The text was part of his stock-in-trade. + +The Cheviot ballad, in a Scots form popular in 1549, is later in many +ways than the English Battle of Otterburne. It begins with a brag of +Percy, a vow that, despite Douglas, he will hunt in the Cheviot hills. +While Percy is hunting with a strong force, Douglas arrives with +another. Douglas offers to decide the quarrel by single combat with +Percy, who accepts. Richard Witherington refuses to look on quietly, +and a general engagement ensues. + + +At last the Duglas and the Perse met, +Lyk to Captayns of myght and of mayne, +They swapte together tylle they both swat +With swordes that wear of fyn myllan." + + +We are back in stanza I. of the English Otterburne, in stanza xxxv. +(substituting Hugh Montgomery for Douglas) of the Hogg MS. In The +Hunting, Douglas is slain by an English arrow (xxxvi.-xxxviii.). + +Sir Hugh Montgomery now charges and slays Percy (who, of course, was +merely taken prisoner). An archer of Northumberland sends an arrow +through good Sir Hugh Montgomery (xliii.-xlvi.). Stanza lxvi. has + + +At Otterburn begane this spurne, + Upon a Monnynday; +There was the doughte Douglas slean, + The Perse never went away. + + +This is a form of Herd's stanza xiv. of the English Otterburn +(lxviii.), made soon after the battle. We see that the ORIGINAL ballad +has protean variants; in time all is mixed in tradition. + +Now the curious and interesting point is that Hogg, when he collected +the ballad from two reciters, himself noticed that the Cheviot ballad +had merged, in some way, into the Otterburn ballad, and pointed this +out to Scott. I now publish Hogg's letter to Scott, in which, as +usual, he does not give the year-date: I think it was 1805. + + +ETTRICK HOUSE, Sept. 10, [?1805]. + +Dear Sir,--Though I have used all diligence in my power to recover the +old song about which you seemed anxious, I am afraid it will arrive too +late to be of any use. I cannot at this time have Grame and Bewick; +the only person who hath it being absent at a harvest; and as for the +scraps of Otterburn which you have got, THEY SEEM TO HAVE BEEN SOME +CONFUSED JUMBLE MADE BY SOME PERSON WHO HAD LEARNED BOTH THE SONGS YOU +HAVE, {79a} AND IN TIME HAD BEEN STRAITENED TO MAKE ONE OUT OF THEM +BOTH. But you shall have it as I had it, saving that, as usual, I have +sometimes helped the metre without altering one original word. + +Hogg here gives his version from recitation as far as stanza xxiv. + +Here Hogg stops and writes:- + + +The ballad, which I have collected from two different people, a crazy +old man and a woman deranged in her mind, seems hitherto considerably +entire; but now, when it becomes most interesting, they have both +failed me, and I have been obliged to take much of it in plain prose. +However, as none of them seemed to know anything of the history save +what they had learned from the song, I took it the more kindly. Any +few verses which follow are to me unintelligible. + +He told Sir Hugh that he was dying, and ordered him to conceal his +body, and neither let his own men nor Piercy's know; which he did, and +the battle went on headed by Sir Hugh Montgomery, and at length - + + +Here follow stanzas up to xxxviii. + +Hogg then goes on thus:- + + +Piercy seems to have been fighting devilishly in the dark. Indeed my +narrators added no more, but told me that Sir Hugh died on the field, +but that + + +He left not an Englishman on the field, +. . . +That he hadna either killed or ta'en + Ere his heart's blood was cauld. + + +Almonshire (Stanza iii.) may probably be a corruption of Bamburghshire, +but as both my narrators called it so I thought proper to preserve it. +The towers in Roxburgh fells (Stanza iii.) may not be so improper as we +were thinking, there may have been some [English] strength on the very +borders.--I remain, Dear Sir, your most faithful and affectionate +servant, JAMES HOGG. + + +Hogg adds a postscript: + + +Not being able to get the letter away to the post, I have taken the +opportunity of again pumping my old friend's memory, and have recovered +some more lines and half lines of Otterburn, of which I am becoming +somewhat enamoured. These I have been obliged to arrange somewhat +myself, as you will see below, but so mixed are they with original +lines and sentences that I think, if you pleased, they might pass +without any acknowledgment. Sure no man will like an old song the +worse of being somewhat harmonious. After stanza xxiv. you may read +stanzas xxv. to xxxiv. Then after xxxviii. read xxxix. + + +Now we know all that can be known about the copy of the ballad which, +in 1805, Scott received from Hogg. Up to stanza xxiv. it is as given +by the two old reciters. The crazy man may be the daft man who recited +to Hogg Burns's Tam o' Shanter, and inspired him with the ambition to +be a poet. The deranged woman, like mad Madge Wildfire, was rich in +ballad scraps. From stanza xxv. to xxxiv., Hogg confessedly +"harmonises" what he got in plain prose intermixed with verse. Stanza +xxxix. is apparently Hogg's. The last broken stanza, as Hogg said, is +a reminiscence of the Hunting of the Cheviot, in a Scots form, long +lost. + +Hogg was not a scientific collector: had he been, he would have taken +down "the plain prose" and the broken lines and stanzas verbally. But +Hogg has done his best. + +We have next to ask, How did Scott treat the material thus placed +before him? He dropped five stanzas sent by Hogg, mainly from the part +made up from "plain prose"; he placed in a stanza and a line or two +from Herd's text; he remade a stanza and adopted a line from the +English of 1550, and inserted an incident from Wyntoun's Cronykil +(about 1430). He did these things in the effort to construct what +Lockhart calls "a standard text." + +1. In stanza i., for Hogg's "Douglas WENT," Scott put "bound him to +ride." +2. (H) "With the Lindsays." + (S.) "With THEM the Lindesays." +3. (H) "Almonshire." + (S.) "Bamboroughshire." + (H) "Roxburgh." + (S.) "Reidswire." +6. (H.) "The border again. + (S.) "The border fells." +7. (H) "MOST furiously." + (S.) "RIGHT furiouslie." +9. (H.) A modernised stanza. + (S.) Scott deletes it. +15. (H) Scott rewrites the stanza thus, + (H.) +But I will stay at Otterburn, + Where you shall welcome be; +And if ye come not at three days end, + A coward I'll call thee. + (S.) +"Thither will I come," proud Percy said, + "By the might of Our Ladye." +"There will I bide thee," said the Douglas, + "My troth I'll plight to thee." +19. (H.) "I have SEEN a dreary dream." +20. (S.) "I have DREAMED a dreary dream." +21. (H) +Where he met with the stout Percy + And a' his goodly train. +21. (S.) +But he forgot the helmet good +That should have kept his brain. +(From Wyntoun.) +22. (H.) Line 2. "Right keen." + (S.) Line 2. "Fu' fain." +Line 4. + The blood ran down like rain. +Line 4. + The blood ran them between. +23. (H.) +But Piercy wi' his good broadsword + Was made o' the metal free, +Has wounded Douglas on the brow + Till backward did he flee. +24. (S.) +But Piercy wi' his broadsword good + That could so sharply wound, +Has wounded Douglas on the brow, + Till he fell to the ground. +25. (H.) Here Hogg has mixed prose and verse, and does his best. +Scott deletes Hogg's 25. +27. (H.) Douglas repeats the story of his dream. Scott deletes the +stanza. +28. In Hogg's second line, + Nae mair I'll fighting see. +Scott gives, from Herd, + Take thou the vanguard of the three. +29. Hogg's verse is +But tell na ane of my brave men + That I lie bleeding wan, +But let the name of Douglas still + Be shouted in the van. + +This is precisely what Douglas does say, in Froissart, but Scott +deletes the stanza. Probably Hogg got the fact from his reciters, "in +plain prose," with a phrase or two in verse. + +31. (H.) Line 4. + On yonder lily lee. +27. (S.) + That his merrie men might not see. +33. (H) Scott deletes the stanza. +35. (H) + When stout Sir Hugh wi' Piercy met. +30. (S.) +The Percy and Montgomery met. {83a} +36. (H.) +"O yield thee, Piercy," said Sir Hugh, + "O yield, or ye shall die!" +"Fain would I yield," proud Percy said, + "But ne'er to loon like thee." +31. (S.) +"Now yield thee, yield thee, Percy," he said, + "Or else I vow I'll lay thee low," +"To whom must I yield," quoth Earl Percy, + "Now that I see it must be so?" + +Scott took this from Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe's MS. copy. {84a} + +38. (H) +38. (S.) Scott makes a slight verbal alteration. +39. (H) Line 1. +34. (S.) Line 1. +Scott substitutes Herd's + As soon as he knew it was Montgomery. + +40. (H) Hogg's broken stanza on the death of Montgomery, derived from +a lost form of the Huntiss of Chevets, named in The Complaynte of +Scotland. + +35. (S.) Scott omits giving the formula common to the English of 1550 +and to Herd. This was the whole of Scott's editorial alteration. Any +one may discover the facts from Professor Kittredge's useful +abbreviation of Child's collection into a single volume (Nutt. London, +1905). Colonel Elliot quotes Professor Kittredge's book three or four +times, but in place of looking at the facts he abounds in the Higher +Criticism. Colonel Elliot says that Scott does not tell us of a single +line having been borrowed from Percy's version. {84a} Scott has only +"a single line" to tell of, the fourth line in his stanza xxii., "Till +he fell to the ground." + +For the rest, the old English version and Herd's have many inter- +borrowings of stanzas, but we do not know whether a Scot borrowed from +an Englishman, or vice versa. Thus, in another and longer traditional +version--Hogg's--more correspondence must be expected than in Herd's +fourteen stanzas. It is, of course, open to scepticism to allege that +Hogg merely made his text, invented the two crazy old reciters, and the +whole story about them, and his second "pumping of their memories," +invented "Almonshire," which he could not understand, and invented his +last broken stanza on the death of Montgomery, to give the idea that +The Huntiss of Chevets was mingled in the recollections of the reciters +with The Battle of Otterburn. He also gave the sword in place of the +pennon of Percy as the trophy of Douglas, "and the same with intent to +deceive," just as he pretended, in Auld Maitland, not to know what +"springwalls" were, and wrote "springs: wall-stanes." If this +probable theory be correct, then Scott was the dupe of Truthful James. +At all events, though for three years Scott was moving heaven and earth +and Ettrick Forest to find a copy of a Scottish ballad of Otterburn, he +did not sit down and make one, as, in Colonel Elliot's system, he +easily could and probably would have done. + +Before studying his next ill deed, we must repeat that the Otterburn +ballads prove that in early times one nation certainly pirated a ballad +of a rival nation, and very ingeniously altered it and inverted the +parts of the heroes. + +We have next to examine a case in a later generation, in which a maker +who was interested in one clan, pirated, perverted, and introverted the +roles of the heroes in a ballad by a maker interested in another clan. +Either an Elliotophile perverted a ballad by a Scottophile, or a +Scottophile perverted a ballad by an Elliotophile. + +This might be done at the time when the ballad was made (say 1620-60). +But Colonel Elliot believes that the perversion was inflicted on an +Elliotophile ballad by a Scottophile impostor about 1800-1802. The +name of this desperate and unscrupulous character was Walter Scott, +Sheriff of Ettrick Forest, commonly called Selkirkshire. + +In this instance I have no manuscript evidence. The name of "Jamie of +the Fair Dodhead," the ballad, appears in a list of twenty-two ballads +in Sir Walter's hand, written in a commonplace book about 1800-1801. +Eleven are marked X. "Jamie" is one of that eleven. Kinmont Willie is +among the eleven not marked X. We may conjecture that he had obtained +the first eleven, and was hunting for the second eleven,--some of which +he never got, or never published. + + + +THE MYSTERY OF THE BALLAD OF JAMIE TELFER + + + +I--A RIDING SONG + +The Ballad of Jamie Telfer of the Fair Dodhead has many charms for +lovers of the Border. The swift and simple stanzas carry us through a +great tract of country, which remains not unlike what it was in the +days when Scotts, Armstrongs, and Elliots rode the hills in jack and +knapscap, with sword and lance. The song leads us first, with a +foraging party of English riders, from Bewcastle, an English hold, east +of the Border stream of the Liddel; then through the Armstrong tribe, +on the north bank; then through more Armstrongs north across Tarras +water ("Tarras for the good bull trout"); then north up Ewes water, +that springs from the feet of the changeless green hills and the +pastorum loca vasta, where now only the shepherd or the angler wakens +the cry of the curlews, but where then the Armstrongs were in force. +We ride on, as it were, and look down into the dale of the stripling +Teviot, electro clarior (then held by the Scotts); we descend and ford +"Borthwick's roaring strand," as Leyden sings, though the burn is +usually a purling brook even where it joins Teviot, three miles above +Hawick. + +Next we pass across the green waves of moorlands that rise to the +heights over Ettrick (held by the Scotts), whence the foragers of the +song gallop down to "The Fair Dodhead," now a heap of grass-covered +stones, but in their day a peel tower, occupied, ACCORDING TO THE +BALLAD, by one James Telfer. The English rob the peel tower, they +drive away ten cows, and urge them southwards over Borthwick water, +then across Teviot at Coultart Cleugh (say seven miles above Hawick), +then up the Frostily burn, and so down Ewes water as before; but the +Scottish pursuers meet them before they cross the Liddel again into +English bounds. The English are defeated, their captain is shot +through the head (which in no way affects his power of making +speeches); he is taken, twenty or thirty of his men are killed or +wounded, his own cattle are seized, and his victim Telfer, returns +rejoicing to Dodhead in distant Ettrick. + +C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre! These events never +occurred, as we shall see later, yet the poet has the old reiving +spirit, the full sense of the fierce manly times, and possesses a +traditional knowledge of the historical personages of the day, and +knows the country,--more or less. + +The poem has raised as many difficulties as Nestor's long story about +raided cattle in the eleventh book of the Iliad. Historical Greece +knew but dimly the places which were familiar to Nestor, the towns that +time had ruined, the hill where Athene "turned the people again." We, +too, have to seek in documents of the end of the sixteenth century, or +in an old map of 1654 (drawn about 1600), to find Dodhead, Catslack, or +Catloch, or Catlock hill, and Preakinhaugh, places essential to our +inquiry. + +I see the student who has ventured so far into my tract wax wan! He +does not,--she does not,--wish to hear about dusty documents and +ancient maps. For him or for her the ballad is enough, and a very good +ballad it is. I would shake the faith of no man in the accuracy of the +ballad tale, if it were not necessary for me to defend the character of +Sir Walter Scott, which, on occasion of this and other ballads, is +impugned by Colonel the Hon. FitzWilliam Elliot. He "hopes, though he +cannot expect," that I will give my reasons for not sharing his belief +that Sir Walter did a certain thing which I could not easily palliate.' + + +II--THE BALLAD IMPOSSIBLE + + +My attempts to relieve Colonel Elliot from his painful convictions +about Sir Walter's unsportsmanlike behaviour must begin with proof that +the ballad, as it stands, cannot conceivably be other than "a pack o' +lees." Here Colonel Elliot, to a great extent and on an essential +point, agrees with me. In sketching rapidly the story of the ballad,-- +the raid from England into Ettrick, the return of the raiders, the +pursuit,--I omitted the clou, the pivot, the central point of dramatic +interest. It is this: in one version of the ballad,--call it A for +the present,--the unfortunate Telfer runs to ask aid from the laird of +Buccleuch, at Branksome Hall, some three and a half or four miles above +Hawick, on the Teviot. From the Dodhead it was a stiff run of eight +miles, through new-fallen snow. The farmer of Dodhead, in the centre +of the Scott country, naturally went for help to the nearest of his +neighbours, the greatest chief in the mid-Border. In version A (which +I shall call "the Elliot version"), "auld Buccleuch" (who was a man of +about thirty in fact) was deaf to Telfer's prayer. + + +Gae seek your succour frae Martin Elliot, + For succour ye's get nane frae me, +Gae seek your succour where ye paid blackmail, + For, man, ye ne'er paid money to me. + + +This is impossibly absurd! As Colonel Elliot writes, "I pointed out in +my book" (The Trustworthiness of Border Ballads) "that the allegation +that Buccleuch had refused to strike a blow at a party of English +raiders, who had insolently ridden some twenty-five miles into Scottish +ground and into the very middle of his own territory, was too absurd to +be believed . . . " {91a} + +Certainly; and the story is the more ridiculous as Buccleuch (who has +taken Telfer's protection-money, or "blackmail") pretends to believe +that Telfer--living in Ettrick, about nine miles from Selkirk--pays +protection-money to Martin Elliot, residing at Preakinhaugh, high up +the water of Liddel. Martin was too small a potentate, and far too +remote to be chosen as protector by a man living near the farm of +Singlee on Ettrick, and near the bold Buccleuch. + +All this is nonsense. Colonel Elliot sees that, and suggests that all +this is not by the original poet, but has been "inserted at some later +period." {91a} But, if so, WHAT WAS THE ORIGINAL BALLAD BEFORE THE +INSERTION? As it stands, all hinges on this impossible refusal of +Buccleuch to help his neighbour and retainer, James Telfer. If Colonel +Elliot excises Buccleuch's refusal of aid as a later interpolation, and +if he allows Telfer to reach Branksome and receive the aid which +Buccleuch would rejoice to give, then the Elliot version of the ballad +cannot take a further step. It becomes a Scott ballad, Buccleuch sends +out his Scotts to pursue the English raiders, and the Elliots, if they +come in at all, must only be subordinates. But as the Elliot version +stands, it is Buccleuch's refusal to do his duty that compels poor +Jamie to run to his brother-in-law, "auld Jock Grieve" in +Coultartcleugh, four miles higher on Teviot than Branksome. Jock gives +him a mount, and he rides to "Martin's Hab" at "Catlockhill," a place +unknown to research thereabout. Thence they both ride to Martin Elliot +at Preakinhaugh, high up in Liddesdale, and the Elliots under Martin +rescue Jamie's kye. + +Now the original ballad, if it did not contain Buccleuch's refusal of +aid to Telfer (which refusal is a thing "too absurd to be believed") +must merely have told about the rescue of Jamie's kye by the Scotts, +Wat of Harden, and the rest. If Buccleuch did not refuse help he gave +it, and there was no ride by Telfer to Martin Elliot. Therefore, +without a passage "too absurd to be believed" (Buccleuch's refusal), +THERE COULD BE NO ELLIOTS IN THE STORY. The alternative is, that +Telfer in Ettrick DID pay blackmail to a man so remote as Elliot of +Preakinhaugh, though Buccleuch was his chief and his neighbour. This +is absurd. Yet Colonel Elliot firmly maintains that the version, in +which the Elliots have all the glory and Buccleuch all the shame, is +the original version, and is true on essential points. + +That is only possible if we cut out the verses about Buccleuch and make +an Ettrick man not appeal to him, but go direct to a Liddesdale man for +succour. He must run from Dodhead to Coultartcleugh, get a horse from +Jock Grieve (Buccleuch's man and tenant), and then ride into Liddesdale +to Martin. But an Ettrick man, in a country of Scotts, would +inevitably go to his chief and neighbour, Buccleuch: it is +inconceivable that he should choose the remote Martin Elliot as his +protector, and go to HIM. + +Thus, as a corollary from Colonel Elliot's own disbelief in the +Buccleuch incident, the Elliot version of the ballad must be absolutely +false and foolish. + +If Colonel Elliot leaves in the verses on Buccleuch's refusal, he +leaves in what he calls "too absurd to be believed." If he cuts out +these verses as an interpolation, then Buccleuch lent aid to Telfer, +and there was no occasion to approach Martin Elliot. Or, by a third +course, the Elliot ballad originally made an Ettrick man, a neighbour +of the great Buccleuch, never dream of appealing to HIM for help, but +run to Coultartcleugh, four miles above Buccleuch's house, and thence +make his way over to distant Liddesdale to Martin Elliot! Yet Colonel +Elliot says that in what I call "the Elliot version," "the story defies +criticism." {93a} Now, however you take it,--I give you three +choices,--the story is absolutely impossible. + +This Elliot version was unknown to lovers of the ballads, till the late +Professor Child of Harvard, the greatest master of British ballad-lore +that ever lived, in his beautiful English and Scottish Popular Ballads, +printed it from a manuscript belonging to Mr. Macmath, which had +previously been the property of a friend of Scott, Charles Kirkpatrick +Sharpe. This version is entitled "Jamie Telfer IN the Fair Dodhead," +not "OF": Jamie was a tenant (there was no Jamie Telfer tenant of +Dodhead in 1570-1609, but concerning that I have more to say). Jamie +was no laird. + +Before Professor Child's publication of the Elliot version, we had only +that given by Scott in The Border Minstrelsy of 1802. Now Scott's +version is at least as absurdly incredible as the Elliot version. In +Scott's version the unhappy Jamie runs, not to Branksome and Buccleuch, +to meet a refusal; but to "the Stobs's Ha'"(on Slitterick above Hawick) +and to "auld Gibby Elliot," the laird. Elliot bids him go to Branksome +and the laird of Buccleuch, + + +For, man, ye never paid money to me! + + +Naturally Telfer did not pay to Elliot: he paid to Buccleuch, if to +any one. More, till after the Union of 1603, and the end of Border +raids, Gilbert Elliot, a cousin and friend of Buccleuch, WAS NOT THE +OWNER OF STOBS. The Hon. George Elliot pointed out this fact in his +Border Elliots and the Family of Minto: Colonel Elliot rightly insists +on this point. + +The Scott version is therefore as hopelessly false as the Elliot +version. The Elliot version, with the Buccleuch incident, is "too +absurd to be believed," and could not have been written (except in +banter of Buccleuch), while men remembered the customs of the sixteenth +century. The Scott version, again, could not be composed before the +tradition arose that Gilbert Elliot WAS laird of Stobs before the Union +of the Crowns in 1603. Now that tradition was in full force on the +Border before 1688. We know that (see chapter on Kinmont Willie, +infra), for, in 1688, a man born in 1613, Captain Walter Scott of +Satchells, in his Metrical History of the Honourable Families of the +Names of Scott and Elliot, represents Gilbert Elliot of Stobs as riding +with Buccleuch in the rescue of Kinmont Willie, in 1596. {95a} Now +Satchells's own father rode in that fray, he says, {95b} and he gives a +minute genealogy of the Elliots of Stobs. {95c} + +Thus the belief that Gilbert Elliot was laird of Stobs by 1596 was +current in the traditions of a man born seventeen years after 1596. +THE SCOTT VERSION RESTS ON THAT TRADITION, and is not earlier than the +rise of that erroneous belief. + +Neither the Scott nor Elliot version is other than historically false. +But the Scott version, if we cut out the reference to auld Gibby +Elliot, offers a conceivable, though not an actual, course of events. +The Elliot version, if we excise the Buccleuch incident, does not. +Cutting out the Buccleuch incident, Telfer goes all the way from +Ettrick to Liddesdale, seeking help in that remote country, and never +thinks of asking aid from Buccleuch, his neighbour and chief. This is +idiotic. In the Scott version, if we cut out the refusal of Gilbert +Elliot of Stobs, Telfer goes straight to his brother-in-law, auld Jock +Grieve, within four miles of Buccleuch at Branksome; thence to another +friend, William's Wat, at Catslockhill (now Branksome-braes), and so to +Buccleuch at Branksome. This is absurd enough. Telfer would have gone +straight to Branksome and Buccleuch, unless he were a poor shy small +farmer, WHO WANTED SPONSORS, known to Buccleuch. Jock Grieve and +William's Wat, both of them retainers and near neighbours of Buccleuch, +were such sponsors. Granting this, the Scott version runs smoothly, +Telfer goes to his sponsors, and with his sponsors to Buccleuch, and +Buccleuch's men rescue his kye. + + +III--COLONEL ELLIOT'S CHARGE AGAINST SIR WALTER SCOTT + + +Colonel Elliot believes generally in the historical character of the +ballad as given in the Elliot version, but "is inclined to think that" +the original poet "never wrote the stanza" (the stanza with Buccleuch's +refusal) "at all, and that it has been inserted at some later period." +{97a} In that case Colonel Elliot is "inclined to think" that an +Ettrick farmer, robbed by the English, never dreamed of going to his +neighbour and potent chief, but went all the way to Martin Elliot, high +up in Liddesdale, to seek redress! Surely few can share the Colonel's +inclination. Why should a farmer in Ettrick "choose to lord" a remote +Elliot, when he had the Cock of the Border, the heroic Buccleuch, +within eight miles of his home? + +Holding these opinions, Colonel Elliot, with deep regret - + + +I wat the tear blinded his ee - + + +accuses Sir Walter Scott of having taken the Elliot version--till then +the only version--and of having altered stanzas vii.-xi. (in which +Jamie goes to Branksome, and is refused succour) into his own stanzas +vii.-xi., in which Jamie goes to Stobs and is refused succour. This +evil thing Scott did, thinks Colonel Elliot. Scott had no copy, he +thinks, of the ballad except an Elliot copy, which he deliberately +perverted. + +We must look into the facts of the case. I know no older published +copy of the ballad than that of Scott, in Border Minstrelsy, vol. i. p. +91 et seqq. (1802). Professor Child quotes a letter from the Ettrick +shepherd to Scott of "June 30, 1802" thus: "I am surprised to find +that the songs in your collection differ so widely from my mother's; +Jamie Telfer differs in many particulars." {98a} (This is an +incomplete quotation. I give the MS. version later.) + +Scott himself, before Hogg wrote thus, had said, in the prefatory note +to his Jamie Telfer: "There is another ballad, under the same title as +the following, in which nearly the same incidents are narrated, with +little difference, except that the honour of rescuing the cattle is +attributed to the Liddesdale Elliots, headed by a chief there called +Martin Elliot of the Preakin Tower, whose son, Simm, is said to have +fallen in the action. It is very possible that both the Teviotdale +Scotts and the Elliots were engaged in the affair, and that each +claimed the honour of the victory." + +Old Mrs. Hogg's version, "differing in many particulars" from Scott's, +must have been the Elliot version, published by Professor Child, as +"A*," "Jamie Telfer IN" (not "OF") "the Fair Dodhead," "from a MS. +written about the beginning of the nineteenth century, and now in the +possession of Mr. William Macmath"; it had previously belonged to +Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe. {98b} + +There is one great point of difference between the two forms. In Sir +Walter's variant, verse 26 summons the Scotts of Teviotdale, including +Wat of Harden. In his 28 the Scotts ride with the slogan "Rise for +Branksome readily." Scott's verses 34, 36, and the two first lines of +38, are, if there be such a thing as internal evidence, from his own +pen. Such lines as + + +The Dinlay snaw was ne'er mair white +Nor the lyart locks o' Harden's hair + + +are cryingly modern and "Scottesque." + +That Sir Walter knew the other version, as in Mr. Macmath's MS. of the +early nineteenth century, is certain; he describes that version in his +preface. That he effected the whole transposition of Scotts for +Elliots is Colonel Elliot's opinion. {99a} + +If Scott did, I am not the man to defend his conduct; I regret and +condemn it; and shall try to prove that he found the matter in his +copy. I shall first prove, beyond possibility of doubt, that the +ballad is, from end to end, utterly unhistorical, though based on +certain real incidents of 1596-97. I shall next show that the Elliot +version is probably later than the Scott version. Finally, I shall +make it certain (or so it seems to me) that Scott worked on an old copy +which was NOT the copy that belonged to Kirkpatrick Sharpe, but +contained points of difference, NOT those inserted by Sir Walter Scott +about "Dinlay snaw," and so forth. + + +IV--WHO WAS THE FARMER IN THE DODHEAD IN 1580-1609? + + +Colonel Elliot has made no attempt to prove that one Telfer was tenant +of the Dodhead in 1580-1603, which must, we shall see, include the +years in which the alleged incidents occur. On this question--was +there a Telfer in the Dodhead in 1580-1603?--I consulted my friend, Mr. +T. Craig Brown, author of an excellent History of Selkirkshire. In +that work (vol. i. p. 356) the author writes: "Dodhead or Scotsbank; +Dodhead was one of the four stedes of Redefurd in 1455. In 1609 Robert +Scot of Satchells (ancestor of the poet-captain) obtained a Crown +charter of the lands of Dodbank." For the statement that Dodhead was +one of the three stedes in 1455, Mr. Craig Brown quotes "The Retoured +Extent of 1628," "an unimpeachable authority." For the Crown charter +of 1609, we have only to look up "Dodbank" in the Register of the Great +Seal of 1609. The charter is of November 24, 1609, and gratifies +"Robert Scott of Satscheillis" (father of the Captain Walter Scott who +composed the Metrical History of the Scotts in 1688) with the lands, +which have been occupied by him and his forefathers "from a time past +human memory." Thus, writes Mr. Craig Brown to me, "Scott of Satchells +was undoubtedly Scott of Dodhead also in 1609." + +In "The Retoured Extent of 1628," "Dodhead or Dodbank" appears as +Harden's property. Thus in 1628 the place was "Dodhead or Dodbank," a +farm that had been tenanted by Scotts "from beyond human memory." But +Mr. Craig Brown proves from record that one Simpson farmed it in 1510. + +So where does Jamie Telfer come in? + +The farmers were Scotts, it was to their chief, Buccleuch, that they +went when they needed aid. {101a} + +Thus vanishes the hero of the ballad, Jamie Telfer in the Fair Dodhead, +and thus the ballad is pure fiction from end to end. + + +V--MORE IMPOSSIBILITIES IN THE BALLAD + + +This is only one of the impossibilities in the ballad. That the +Captain of Bewcastle, an English hold, stated in a letter of the period +to be distant three miles from the frontier, the Liddel water, should +seek "to drive a prey from the Ettrick, far through the bounds of his +neighbours and foes, Grahams, Armstrongs, Scotts, and Elliots, is a +ridiculously absurd circumstance. + +Colonel Elliot attempts to meet this difficulty by his theory of the +route taken by the Captain, which he illustrates by a map. {102a} The +ballad gives no details except that the Captain found his first guide +"high up in Hardhaughswire," which Colonel Elliot cannot identify. The +second guide was "laigh down in Borthwick water." If this means on the +lower course of the Borthwick, the Captain was perilously near +Branksome Hall and Harden, and his ride was foolhardy. But "laigh +down," I think, means merely "on lower ground than Hardhaughswire." + +The Captain, as soon as he crossed the Ritterford after leaving +Bewcastle, was in hostile and very watchful Armstrong country. This +initial difficulty Colonel Elliot meets by marking on his map, as +Armstrong country, the north bank of the Liddel down to Kershope burn; +and the Captain crosses Liddel below that burn at Ritterford. Thence +he goes north by west, across Tarras water, up Ewes water, up +Mickledale burn, by Merrylaw and Ramscleugh and so on to Howpasley, +which is not on the lower but the upper Borthwick. + +Looking at Colonel Elliot's chart of the Captain's route, all seems +easy enough for the Captain. He does not try to ride into Teviotdale, +for which he is making, up the Liddel water, and thence by the +Hermitage tributary on his left. Colonel Elliot studs that region with +names of Armstrong and Elliot strongholds. He makes the Captain, +crossing Liddel by the Ritterford, bear to his left, through a space +empty of hostile habitations, in his map. This seems prudent, but the +region thus left blank was full of the fiercest and most warlike of the +Armstrong name. That road was closed to the Captain! + +Colonel Elliot has failed to observe this fact, which I go on to prove, +from a memoir addressed in 1583 to Burleigh, by Thomas Musgrave, the +active son of the aged Captain of Bewcastle, Sir Simon Musgrave. +Thomas describes the topography of the Middle Marches. He says that +the Armstrongs hold both banks of Liddel as far south as "Kershope +foot" (the junction of the Kershope with the Liddel), and hold the +north side of the Liddel as far as its junction with the Esk. {103a} +Thus on crossing Liddel by the Ritterford, the Captain had at once to +pass through the hostile Armstrongs. Thereby also were Grahams with +whom the Musgraves of Bewcastle were in deadly feud. Farther down Esk, +west of Esk, dwelt Kinmont Willie, an Armstrong, "at a place called +Morton." If he did pass so far through Armstrongs, the Captain met +them again, farther north, on Tarras side, where Runyen Armstrong lived +at Thornythaite. Near him was Armstrong of Hollhouse, Musgrave's great +enemy. North of Tarras the Captain rode through Ewesdale; there he had +to deal with three hundred Armstrong men of the spear. {104a} When he +reached Ramscleuch (which he never could have done), the Colonel's map +makes the Captain ride past Ramscleuch, then farmed by the Grieves, +retainers of Buccleuch, who would warn Branksome. When the Captain +reached Howpasley on Borthwick water, he would be observed by the men +of Scott of Howpasley, the Grieves, who could send a rider some six +miles to warn Branksome. + +We get the same information as to the perils of the Captain's path from +the places marked on Blaeu's map of 1600-54. There are Hollhouse and +Thornythaite, Armstrong towers, and the active John Armstrong of +Langholm can come at a summons. + +It seems to be a great error to suppose that the route chosen for the +Captain by Colonel Elliot could lead him into anything better than a +death-trap. I must insist that it would have been madness for a +Captain of Bewcastle to ride far through Armstrong country, deep into +Buccleuch's country, and return on another line through Scott, and near +Elliot, and through Armstrong country--and all for no purpose but to +steal ten cows in remote Selkirkshire! + +Here I may save the reader trouble, by omitting a great mass of detail +as to the deplorable condition of Bewcastle itself in 1580-96. Sir +Simon, the Captain, declares himself old and weary. The hold is +"utterly decayed," the riders are only thirty-seven men fairly +equipped. Soldiers are asked for, sometimes fifty are sent from the +garrison of Berwick, then they are withdrawn. Bewcastle is forayed +almost daily; "March Bills" minutely describe the cattle, horses, and +personal property taken from the Captain and the people by the +Armstrongs and Elliots. + +Once, in 1582, Thomas Musgrave slew Arthur Graham, a near neighbour, +and took one hundred and sixty kye, but this only caused such a feud +that the Musgraves could not stir safely from home. From 1586 onwards, +Thomas Musgrave, officially or unofficially, was acting Captain of +Bewcastle. He had no strength to justify him in raiding to remote +Ettrick, through enemies who penned him in at Bewcastle. + +I look on Musgrave as the Captain whose existence is known to the +ballad-maker, and I find the origin of the tale of his defeat and +capture in the ballad, in a distorted memory of his actual capture. + +On 3rd July 1596, Thomas (having got Scrope's permission, without which +he dared not cross the Border on affairs of war) attempted a +retaliatory raid on Armstrongs within seven miles of the Border, the +Armstrongs of Hollace, or Hollhouse. "He found only empty houses;" he +"sought a prey" in vain; he let his men straggle, and returning +homeward, with some fifteen companions, he was ambushed by the +Armstrongs near Bewcastle, was refused shelter by a Graham, was taken +prisoner, and was sent to Buccleuch at Branksome. On 15th July he came +home under a bond of 200 pounds for ransom. {106a} As every one did, +in his circumstances, the Captain made out his Bill for Damages. It +was indented on 28th April 1597. We learn that John (Armstrong) of +Langholm, Will of Kinmont (not Liddesdale men), and others, who took +him, are in the Captain's debt for "24 horses and mares, himself +prisoner, and ransomed to 200 pounds, and 16 other prisoners, and +slaughter." The charges are admitted by the accused; the Captain is to +get 400 pounds. {106b} + +In my opinion this capture of the Captain of Bewcastle and others, +poetically handled, is, with other incidents, the basis of the ballad. +Colonel Elliot says that the incident "is no proof that a Captain of +Bewcastle was not also taken or killed at some other place or at some +other time." But WHAT Captain, and when? Sir Simon, in 1586, had been +Captain, he says, for thirty years. Thenceforth till near the Union of +the Crowns, Thomas was Captain, or acting Captain. + +So considerable an event as the taking of a Captain of Bewcastle, who, +in the ballad, was shot through the head and elsewhere, could not +escape record in dispatches, and the periodical "March Bills," or +statements of wrongs to be redressed. Colonel Elliot's reply takes the +shape of the argument that the ballad may speak of some other Captain, +at some other time; and that, in one way or another, the sufferings and +losses of THAT Captain may have escaped mention in the English +dispatches from the Border. These dispatches are full of minute +details, down to the theft of a single mare. I am content to let +historians familiar with the dispatches decide as to whether the +Captain's mad ride into Ettrick, with his dangerous wounds, loss of +property, and loss of seventeen men killed and wounded (as in the +ballad), could escape mention. + +The capture of Thomas Musgrave, I think, and two other incidents,-- +confused in course of tradition, and handled by the poet with poetic +freedom,--are the materials of Jamie Telfer. One of the other +incidents is of April 1597. {107a} Here Buccleuch in person, on the +Sabbath, burned twenty houses in Tynedale, and "slew fourteen men who +had been in Scotland and brought away their booty." Here we have +Buccleuch "on the hot trod," pursuing English reivers, recovering the +spoils probably, and slaying as many of the raiders as the Captain +lost, in the ballad. Again, not a SON of Elliot of Preakinhaugh (as I +had erroneously said), but a NEPHEW named Martin, was slain in a +Tynedale raid into Liddesdale. {108a} Soldiers aided the English +raiders. A confused memory of this death of Elliot's nephew in 1597 +may be the source of the story of the death of his son, Simmy, in the +ballad. + +Our traditional ballads all arise out of some germs of history, all +handle the facts romantically, and all appear to have been composed, in +their extant shapes, at a considerable time after the events. I may +cite Mary Hamilton; The Laird of Logie is another case in point; there +are many others. + +Colonel Elliot does not agree with me. So be it. + +Colonel Elliot writes that,--in place of my saying that Jamie Telfer +"is a mere mythical perversion of carefully recorded facts,"--"it would +surely be more correct to say that it is a fairly true, though jumbled, +account of actual incidents, separated from each other by only short +periods of time . . . " {108b} If he means, or thinks that I mean, +that the actual facts were the capture of Musgrave near Bewcastle in +1596 by the Armstrongs, with Buccleuch's hot-trod, and Martin Elliot's +slaying in 1597, I entirely agree with him that the facts are +''jumbled." But as to the opinion that the ballad is "fairly true" +about the raid to Ettrick (the Captain could not ride a mile beyond the +Border without the Warden's permission), about the nonexistent Jamie +Telfer, about the shooting, taking, and plundering of the Captain, +about his loss of seventeen men wounded and slain (he lost about as +many prisoners),--I have given reasons for my disbelief. + + +VI--IS THE SCOTT VERSION, WITH ELLIOTS AND SCOTTS TRANSPOSED, THE LATER +VERSION? + + +We now come to the important question, Is the Scott version of the +ballad (apart from Sir Walter's decorative stanzas) necessarily LATER +than the Elliot version in Sharpe's copy? The chief argument for the +lateness of the Scott version, the presence of a Gilbert Elliot of +Stobs at a date when this gentleman had not yet acquired Stobs, I have +already treated. If the ballad is no earlier than the date when Elliot +was believed (as by Satchells) to have obtained Stobs before 1596, the +argument falls to the ground. + +Starting from that point, and granting that a minstrel fond of the +Scotts wants to banter the Elliots, he may make Telfer ask aid at +Stobs. After that, which version is better in its topography? Bidden +by Stobs to seek Buccleuch, Telfer runs to Teviot, to Coultartcleugh, +some four miles above Branksome. Branksome was nearer, but Telfer was +shy, let us say, and did not know Buccleuch; while at Coultartcleugh, +Jock Grieve was his brother-in-law. Jock gives him a mount, and takes +him to "Catslockhill." + +Now, no Catslockhill is known anywhere, to me or to Colonel Elliot. +Mr. Henderson, in a note to the ballad, {110a} speaks of "Catslack in +Branxholm," and cites the Register of the Privy Seal for 4th June 1554, +and the Register of the Privy Council for 14th October 1592. The +records are full of THAT Catslack, but it is not in Branksome. Blaeu's +map (1600-54) gives it, with its appurtenances, on the north side of +St. Mary's Loch. There is a Catslack on the north side of Yarrow, near +Ladhope, on the southern side. Neither Catslack is the Catslockhill of +the Scott ballad. But on evidence, "and it is good evidence," says +Colonel Elliot, {110b} I prove that, in 1802, a place called +"Catlochill" existed between Coultartcleugh and Branksome. The place +(Mrs. Grieve, Branksome Park, informs me) is now called Branksome- +braes. On his copy of The Minstrelsy of 1802, Mr. Grieve, then tenant +of Branksome Park, made a marginal note. Catlochill was still known to +him; it was in a commanding site, and had been strengthened by the art +of man. His note I have seen and read. + +Thus, on good evidence, there was a Catlochill, or Catlockhill, between +Coultartcleugh and Branksome. The Scott version is right in its +topography. + +This fact was unknown to Colonel Elliot. Not knowing a Catslackhill or +Catslockhill in Teviot, he made Scott's Telfer go to an apocryphal +Catlockhill in Liddesdale. Professor Veitch had said that the +Catslockhill of the ballad "IS TO BE SOUGHT" in some locality between +Coultartcleugh and Branxholm. Colonel Elliot calls this "a really +preposterously cool suggestion." {111a} Why "really preposterously +cool"? Being sought, the place is found where it had always been. +Jamie Telfer found it, and in it his friend "William's Wat," who took +him to the laird of Buccleuch at Branksome. + +In the Elliot version, when refused aid by Buccleuch, Jamie ran to +Coultartcleugh,--as in Scott's,--on his way to Martin Elliot at +Preakinhaugh on the Liddel. Jamie next "takes the fray" to "the +Catlockhill," and is there remounted by "Martin's Hab," an Elliot (not +by William's Wat), and THEY "take the fray" to Martin Elliot at +Preakinhaugh in Liddesdale. This is very well, but where IS this +"Catlockhill" in Liddesdale? Is it even a real place? + +Colonel Elliot has found no such place; nor can I find it in the +Registrum Magni Sigilli, nor in Blaeu's map of 1600-54. + +Colonel Elliot's argument has been that the Elliot version, the version +of the Sharpe MS., is the earlier, for, among other reasons, its +topography is correct. {112a} It makes Telfer run from Dodhead to +Branksome for aid, because that was the comparatively near residence of +the powerful Buccleuch. Told by Buccleuch to seek aid from Martin +Elliot in Liddesdale, Telfer does so. He runs up Teviot four miles to +his brother-in-law, Jock Grieve, who mounts him. He then rides off at +a right angle, from Teviot to Catlockhill, says the Elliot ballad, +where he is rehorsed by Martin's Hab. The pair then take the fray to +Martin Elliot at Preakinhaugh on Liddel water, and Martin summons and +leads the pursuers of the Captain. + +This, to Colonel Elliot's mind, is all plain sailing, all is feasible +and natural. And so it IS feasible and natural, if Colonel Elliot can +find a Catlockhill anywhere between Coultartcleugh and Preakinhaugh. +On that line, in Mr. Veitch's words, Catlockhill "is to be sought." +But just as Mr. Veitch could find no Catslockhill between +Coultartcleugh and Branksome, so Colonel Elliot can find no Catlockhill +between Coultartcleugh and Preakinhaugh. He tells us {112b} indeed of +"Catlockhill on Hermitage water." But there is no such place known! +Colonel Elliot's method is to take a place which, he says, is given as +"Catlie" Hill, "between Dinlay burn and Hermitage water, on Blaeu's map +of 1654." We may murmur that Catlie Hill is one thing and Catlock +another, but Colonel Elliot points out that "lock" means "the meeting +of waters," and that Catlie Hill is near the meeting of Dinlay burn and +the Hermitage water. But then why does Blaeu call it, not Catlockhill, +nor Catlie hill, nor "Catlie" even, but "Gatlie," for so it is +distinctly printed on my copy of the map? Really we cannot take a +place called "Gatlie Hill" and pronounce that we have found +"Catlockhill"! Would Colonel Elliot have permitted Mr. Veitch--if Mr. +Veitch had found "Gatlie Hill" near Branksome, in Blaeu--to aver that +he had found Catslockhill near Branksome? + +Thus, till Colonel Elliot produces on good evidence a Catlockhill +between Coultartcleugh and Preakinhaugh, the topography of the Elliot +ballad, of the Sharpe copy of the ballad, is nowhere, for neither +Catliehill nor Gatliehill is Catlockhill. That does not look as if the +Elliot were older than the Scott version. (There was a Sim ARMSTRONG +of the CATHILL, slain by a Ridley of Hartswell in 1597. {113a}) + +We now take the Scott version where Telfer has arrived at Branksome. +Scott's stanza xxv. is Sharpe's xxiv. In Scott, Buccleuch; in Sharpe, +Martin Elliot bids his men "warn the waterside" (Sharpe), "warn the +water braid and wide" (Scott). Scott's stanza xxvi. is probably his +own, or may be, for he bids them warn Wat o' Harden, Borthwick water, +and the Teviot Scotts, and Gilmanscleuch--which is remote. Then, in +xxvii., Buccleuch says - + + +Ride by the gate of Priesthaughswire, + And warn the Currors o' the Lee, +As ye come down the Hermitage slack + Warn doughty Wiliie o' Gorrinberry. + + +All this is plain sailing, by the pass of Priesthaughswire the Scotts +will ride from Teviot into Hermitage water, and, near the Slack, they +will pass Gorrinberry, will call Will, and gallop down Hermitage water +to the Liddel, where they will nick the returning Captain at the +Ritterford. + +The Sharpe version makes Martin order the warning of the waterside +(xxiv.), and then Martin says (xxv.) - + + +When ye come in at the Hermitage Slack, +Warn doughty Will o' Gorranherry. + + +Colonel Elliot {114a} supposes Martin (if I follow his meaning) to send +Simmy with his command, BACK OVER ALL THE COURSE THAT TELFER AND +MARTIN'S HAB HAVE ALREADY RIDDEN: back past Shaws, near Braidley (a +house of Martin's), past "Catlockhill," to Gorranberry, to "warn the +waterside." But surely Telfer, who passed Gorranberry gates, and with +Hab passed the other places, had "taken the fray," and warned the water +quite sufficiently already. If this be granted, the Sharpe version is +taking from the Scott version the stanza, so natural there, about the +Hermitage Slack and Gorranberry. But Colonel Elliot infers, from +stanzas xxvi., xxx., xxxi., that Simmy has warned the water as far as +Gorranberry (AGAIN), has come in touch with the Captain, "between the +Frostily and the Ritterford," and that this is "consistent only with +his having moved up the Hermitage water." + +Meanwhile Martin, he thinks, rode with his men down Liddel water. But +here we get into a maze of topographical conjecture, including the +hypothesis that perhaps the Liddel came down in flood, and caused the +English to make for Kershope ford instead of Ritterford, and here they +were met by Martin's men on the Hermitage line of advance. I cannot +find this elegant combined movement in the ballad; all this seems to me +hypothesis upon hypothesis, even granting that Martin sent Simmy back +up Hermitage that he might thence cut sooner across the enemy's path. +Colonel Elliot himself writes: "It is certain that after the news of +the raid reached Catlockhill" (AND Gorranberry, Telfer passed it), "it +must have spread rapidly through Hermitage water, and it is most +unlikely for the men of this district to have delayed taking action +until they received instructions from their chief."' + +That is exactly what I say; but Martin says, "When ye come in at the +Hermitage Slack, warn doughty Will o' Gorranberry." Why go to warn +him, when, as Colonel Elliot says, the news is running through +Hermitage water, and the men are most probably acting on it,--as they +certainly would do? + +Martin's orders, in Sharpe xxv., are taken, I think, from Buccleuch's, +in Scott's xxvii. + +The point is that Martin had no need to warn men so far away as +Gorranberry,--they were roused already. Yet he orders them to be +warned, and about a combined movement of Martin and Simmy on different +lines the ballad says not a word. All this is inference merely, +inference not from historical facts, but from what may be guessed to +have been in the mind of the poet. + +Thus the Elliot or Sharpe version has topography that will not hold +water, while the Scott topography does hold water; and the Elliot song +seems to borrow the lines on the Hermitage Slack and Gorranberry from a +form of the Scott version. This being the case, the original version +on which Scott worked is earlier than the Elliot version. In the Scott +version the rescuers must come down the Hermitage Slack: in the Elliot +they have no reason for riding BACK to that place. + + +VII--SCOTT HAD A COPY OF THE BALLAD WHICH WAS NOT THE SHARPE COPY + + +Did Scott know no other version than that of the Sharpe MS.? In +Scott's version, stanza xlix., the last, is absent from the Elliot +version, which concludes triumphantly, thus - + + +Now on they came to the fair Dodhead, + They were a welcome sight to see, +And instead of his ain ten milk-kye + Jamie Telfer's gotten thirty and three. + + +Scott too gives this, but ends with a verse not in Sharpe - + + +And he has paid the rescue shot + Baith wi' goud and white money, +And at the burial o' Willie Scott + I wat was mony a weeping ee. + + +Did Scott add this? Proof is impossible; but the verse is so prosaic, +and so injurious to the triumphant preceding verse, that I think Scott +found it in his copy: in which case he had another copy than Sharpe's. + +Scott (stanza xviii.) reads "Catslockhill" where the Sharpe MS. reads +"Catlockhill." In Scott's time it was a mound, but the name was then +known to Mr. Grieve, the tenant of Branksome Park. To-day I cannot +find the mound; is it likely that Scott, before making the change, +sought diligently for the mound and its name? If so, he found +"CATLOCHILL," for so Mr. Grieve writes it, not Catslockhill. + +Meanwhile Colonel Elliot, we know, has no Catlockhill where he wants +it; he has only Gatliehill, unless his Blaeu varies from my copy, and +Gatliehill is not Catlockhill. + +Scott gives (xlviii.) the speech of the Captain after he is shot +through the head and in another dangerous part of his frame - + + +"Hae back thy kye!" the Captain said, + "Dear kye, I trow, to some they be, +For gin I suld live a hundred years, + There will ne'er fair lady smile on me." + + +This is not in Sharpe's MS., and I attribute this redundant stanza to +Scott's copy. The Captain, remember, has a shot "through his head," +and another which must have caused excruciating torture. In these +circumstances would a poet like Scott put in his mouth a speech which +merely reiterates the previous verse? No! But the verse was in +Scott's copy. + +Colonel Elliot has himself noted a more important point than these: he +quotes Scott's stanza xii., which is absent from the Sharpe MS. - + + +My hounds may a' rin masterless, + My hawks may fly frae tree to tree, +My lord may grip my vassal lands, + For there again maun I never be! + + +"They are, doubtless, beautiful lines, but their very beauty jars like +a false note. One feels they were written by another hand, by an +artist of a higher stamp than a Border 'ballad-maker.' And not only is +it their beauty that jars, but so also does their inapplicability to +Jamie Telfer and to the circumstances in which he found himself--so +much so, indeed, that it may well occur to one that the stanza belongs +to some other ballad, and has accidentally been pitchforked into this +one. It would not have been out of place in the ballad of The Battle +of Otterbourne, and, indeed, it bears some resemblance to a stanza in +that ballad." Here the Colonel says that the lines "one feels were +written by another hand, by an artist of a higher stamp than a Border +ballad-maker." But "it may also occur to one that the stanza belongs +to some other ballad, and has ACCIDENTALLY" (my italics) "been +pitchforked into this": a very sound inference. + +Now if Scott had only the Sharpe version, he was the last man to +"pitchfork" into it, "accidentally," a stanza from "some other ballad," +that stanza being as Colonel Elliot says "inapplicable" to Telfer and +his circumstances. Poor Jamie, a small tenant-farmer, with ten cows, +and, as far as we learn, not one horse, had no hawks and hounds; no +"vassal lands," and no reason to say that at the Dodhead he "maun never +be again." He could return from his long run! Scott certainly did not +compose these lines; and he could not have pitchforked them into Jamie +Telfer, either by accident or design. + +Professor Child remarked on all this: "Stanza xii. is not only found +elsewhere (compare Young Beichan, E vi.), but could not be more +inappropriately brought in than here; Scott, however, is not +responsible for that." {120a} + + +The hawk that flies from tree to tree + + +is a formula; it comes in the Kinloch MS. copy of the ballad of Jamie +Douglas, date about 1690. + +I know no proof that Scott was acquainted with variant E of Young +Beichan. {120a} If he had been, he could not have introduced into +Jamie Telfer lines so utterly out of keeping with Telfer's +circumstances, as Colonel Elliot himself says that stanza xii. is. It +may be argued, "if Scott DID find stanza xii. in his copy, it was in +his power to cut it out; he treated his copies as he pleased." This is +true, but my position is that, of the two, Scott is more likely to have +let the stanza abide where he found it (as he did with his MS. of +Tamlane, retaining its absurdities) in his copy, than to "pitchfork it +in," from an obscure variant of Young Beichan, which we cannot prove +that he had ever heard or read. But as we can never tell that Scott +did NOT know any rhyme, we ask, why did he "pitchfork in" the stanza, +where it was quite out of place? Child absolves him from this +absurdity. + +Thus Scott had before him another than the Sharpe copy; had a copy +containing stanza xii. That copy presented the perversion--the +transposition of Scott's and Elliot's--and into that copy Scott wrote +the stanzas which bear his modern romantic mark. Colonel Elliot, we +saw, is uncertain whether to attribute stanza xii. to "another hand, an +artist of higher stamp than a Border ballad-maker," or to regard it as +belonging "to some other ballad," and as having been "accidentally +pitchforked into this one." The stanza is, in fact, an old floating +ballad stanza, attracted into the cantefable of Susie Pye, and the +ballad of Young Beichan (E), and partly into Jamie Douglas. Thus Scott +did not MAKE the stanza, and we cannot suppose that, if he knew the +stanza in any form, he either "accidentally pitchforked" or wilfully +inserted into Jamie Telfer anything so absurdly inappropriate. The +inference is that Scott worked on another copy, not the Sharpe copy. + +If Scott had not a copy other than Sharpe's, why should he alter +Sharpe's (vii.) + + +The moon was up and the sun was down, + +into + +The sun wasna up but the moon was down? + + +What did he gain by that? WHY DID HE MAKE JAMIE "OF" NOT "IN" THE +DODHEAD, IF HE FOUND "IN" IN HIS COPY? "In" means "tenant in," "of" +means "laird of," as nobody knew better than Scott. Jamie is evidently +no laird, but "of" was in Scott's copy. + +If the question were about two Greek texts, the learned would admit +that these points in A (Scott) are not derived from B (Sharpe). +Scott's additions have an obvious motive, they add picturesqueness to +his clan. But the differences which I have noticed do nothing of that +kind. When they affect the poetry they spoil the poetry, when they do +not affect the poetry they are quite motiveless, whence I conclude that +Scott followed his copy in these cases, and that his copy was not the +Sharpe MS. + +If I have satisfied the reader on that point I need not touch on +Colonel Elliot's long and intricate argument to prove, or suggest, that +Scott had before him no copy of the ballad except one supposed by the +Colonel to have been taken by James Hogg from his mother's recitation, +while that copy, again, is supposed to be the Sharpe MS.--all sheer +conjecture. {122a} Not that I fear to encounter Colonel Elliot on this +ground, but argufying on it is dull, and apt to be inconclusive. + +In the letter of Hogg to Scott (June 30, 1803) as given by Mr. Douglas +in Familiar Letters, Hogg says, "I am surprised to find that the songs +in your collection differ so widely from my mother's . . . Jamie Telfer +differs in many particulars." {123a} The marks of omission were all +filled up in Hogg's MS. letter thus: "Is Mr. Herd's MS. genuine? I +suspect it." Then it runs on, "Jamie Telfer differs in many +particulars." + +I owe this information to the kindness of Mr. Macmath. What does Hogg +mean? Does "Is Mr. Herd's MS. genuine?" mean all Herd's MS. copies +used by Scott? Or does it refer to Jamie Telfer in especial? + +Mr. Macmath, who possesses C. K. Sharpe's MS. copy of the Elliot +version, believes that it is Herd's hand as affected by age. Mr. +Macmath and I independently reached the conclusion that by "Mr. Herd's +MS." Hogg meant all Herd's MSS., which Scott quoted in The Minstrelsy +of 1803. Their readings varied from Mrs. Hogg's; therefore Hogg +misdoubted them. He adds that Jamie Telfer differs from his mother's +version, without meaning that, for Jamie, Scott used a Herd MS. + + +CONCLUSION + + +I have now proved, I hope, that the ballad of Jamie Telfer is entirely +mythical except for a few suggestions derived from historical events of +1596-97. I have shown, and Colonel Elliot agrees, that refusal of aid +by Buccleuch (or by Elliot of Stobs) is impossible, and that the +ballad, if it existed without this incident, must have been a Scott, +and could not be an Elliot ballad. No farmer in Ettrick would pay +protection-money to an Elliot on Liddel, while he had a Scott at +Branksome. I have also disproved the existence of a Jamie Telfer as +farmer at "Dodhead or Dodbank" in the late sixteenth century. + +As to the character of Sir Walter Scott, I have proved, I hope, that he +worked on a copy of the ballad which was not the Elliot version, or the +Sharpe copy; so that this copy may have represented the Scotts as +taking the leading part; while for the reasons given, it is apparently +earlier than the Elliot version--cannot, at least, be proved to be +later--and is topographically the more correct of the two. I have +given antique examples of the same sort of perversions in Otterburn. +If I am right, Colonel Elliot's charge against Scott lacks its base-- +that Scott knew none but the Sharpe copy, whence it is inferred that he +not only decorated the song (as is undeniable), but perverted it in a +way far from sportsmanlike. + +I may have shaken Colonel Elliot's belief in the historicity of the +ballad. His suspicions of Scott I cannot hope to remove, and they are +very natural suspicions, due to Scott's method of editing ballads and +habit of "giving them a cocked hat and a sword," as he did to stories +which he heard; and repeated, much improved. + +Absolute proof that Scott did, or did not, pervert the ballad, and turn +a false Elliot into a false Scott version, cannot be obtained unless +new documents bearing on the matter are discovered. + +But, I repeat, as may be read in the chapter on The Ballad of +Otterburne, such inversions and perversions of ballads occurred freely +in the sixteenth century, and, in the seventeenth, the process may have +been applied to Jamie Telfer. {125a} + + + +KINMONT WILLIE + + + +If there be, in The Border Minstrelsy, a ballad which is still popular, +or, at least, is still not forgotten, it is Kinmont Willie. This hero +was an Armstrong, and one of the most active of that unbridled clan. +He was taken prisoner, contrary to Border law, on a day of "Warden's +Truce," by Salkeld of Corby on the Eden, deputy of Lord Scrope, the +English Warden; and, despite the written remonstrances of Buccleuch, he +was shut up in Carlisle Castle. Diplomacy failing, Buccleuch resorted +to force, and, by a sudden and daring march, he surprised Carlisle +Castle, rescued Willie, and returned to Branksome. The date of the +rescue is 13th April 1596. The dispatches of the period are full of +this event, and of the subsequent negotiations, with which we are not +concerned. + +The ballad is worthy of the cool yet romantic gallantry of the +achievement. Kinmont Willie was a ruffian, but he had been unlawfully +seized. This was one of many studied insults passed by Elizabeth's +officials on Scotland at that time, when the English Government, +leagued with the furious pulpiteers of the Kirk, and with Francis +Stewart, the wild Earl of Bothwell, was persecuting and personally +affronting James VI. + +In Buccleuch, the Warden of the March, England insulted the man who was +least likely to pocket a wrong. Without causing the loss of an English +life, Buccleuch repaid the affront, recovered the prisoner, broke the +strong Castle of Carlisle, made Scrope ridiculous and Elizabeth +frantic. + +In addition to Kinmont Willie there survive two other ballads on +rescues of prisoners in similar circumstances. One is Jock o' the +Side, of which there is an English version in the Percy MSS., John a +Side. Scott's version, in The Border Minstrelsy, is from Caw's Museum, +published at Hawick in 1784. Scott leaves out Caw's last stanza about +a punch-bowl. There are other variations. Four Armstrongs break into +Newcastle Tower. Jock, heavily ironed, is carried downstairs on the +back of one of them; they ride a river in spait, where the English dare +not follow. + +Archie o' Cafield, another rescue, Scott printed in 1802 from a MS. of +Mr. Riddell of Glenriddell, a great collector, the friend of Burns. He +omitted six stanzas, and "made many editorial improvements, besides +Scotticising the spelling." In the edition published after his death +(1833) he "has been enabled to add several stanzas from recitation." +Leyden appears to have collected the copy whence the additional stanzas +came; the MS., at Abbotsford, is in his hand. In this ballad the +Halls, noted freebooters, rescue Archie o' Cafield from prison in +Dumfries. As in Jock o' the Side and Kinmont Willie, they speak to +their friend, asking how he sleeps; they carry him downstairs, irons +and all, and, as in the two other ballads, they are pursued, cross a +flooded river, banter the English, and then, in a version in the Percy +MSS., "communicated to Percy by Miss Fisher, 1780," the English +lieutenant says - + + +I think some witch has bore thee, Dicky, + Or some devil in hell been thy daddy. +I would not swam that wan water, double-horsed, + For a' the gold in Christenty. + + +Manifestly here was a form of Lord Scrope's reply to Buccleuch, in the +last stanza of Kinmont Willie - + + +He is either himself a devil frae hell, + Or else his mother a witch may be, +I wadna hae ridden that wan water + For a' the gowd in Christentie. + + +Scott writes, in a preface to Archie o' Cafield and Jock o' the Side, +that there are, with Kinmont Willie, three ballads of rescues, "the +incidents in which nearly resemble each other; though the poetical +description is so different, that the editor did not feel himself at +liberty to reject any one of them, as borrowed from the others. As, +however, there are several verses, which, in recitation, are common to +all these three songs, the editor, to prevent unnecessary and +disagreeable repetition, has used the freedom of appropriating them to +that in which they have the best poetical effect." {129a} + +Consequently the verse quoted from the Percy MS. of Archie o' Cafield +may be improved and placed in the lips of Lord Scrope, in Kinmont +Willie. But there is no evidence that Scott ever saw or even heard of +this Percy MS., and probably he got the verse from recitation. + +Now the affair of the rescue of Kinmont Willie was much more important +and resonant than the two other rescues, and was certain to give rise +to a ballad, which would contain much the same formulae as the other +two. The ballad-maker, like Homer, always uses a formula if he can +find one. But Kinmont Willie is so much superior to the two others, so +epic in its speed and concentration of incidents, that the question +rises, had Scott even fragments of an original ballad of the Kinmont, +"much mangled by reciters," as he admits, or did he compose the whole? +No MS. copies exist at Abbotsford. There is only one hint. In a list +of twenty-two ballads, pasted into a commonplace book, eleven are +marked X (as if he had obtained them), and eleven others are unmarked, +as if they were still to seek. Unmarked is Kinmount Willie. + +Did he find it, or did he make it all? + +In 1888, in a note to Kinmont Willie, I wrote: "There is a prose +account very like the ballad in Scott of Satchells' History of the Name +of Scott" (1688). Satchells' long-winded story is partly in unrhymed +and unmetrical lines, partly in rhymes of various metres. The man, +born in 1613, was old, had passed his life as a soldier; certainly +could not write, possibly could not read. + +Colonel Elliot "believes that Sir Walter wrote the whole from beginning +to end, and that it is, in fact, a clever and extremely beautiful +paraphrase of Satchells' rhymes." {130a} + +This thorough scepticism is not a novelty, as Colonel Elliot quotes me +I had written years ago, "In Kinmont Willie, Scott has been suspected +of making the whole ballad." I did not, as the Colonel says, "mention +the names of the sceptics or the grounds of their suspicions." "The +sceptics," or one of them, was myself: I had "suspected" on much the +same grounds as Colonel Elliot's own, and I shall give my reasons for +adopting a more conservative opinion. One reason is merely subjective. +As a man, by long familiarity with ancient works of art, Greek gems, +for example, acquires a sense of their authenticity, or the reverse, so +he does in the case of ballads--or thinks he does--but of course this +result of experience is no ground of argument: experts are often +gulled. The ballad varies in many points from Satchells', which +Colonel Elliot explains thus: "I think that the cause for the +narrative at times diverging from that recorded by the rhymes (of +Satchells), is due, partly to artistic considerations, partly to the +author having wished to bring it more or less into conformity with +history." {131a} + +Colonel Elliot quotes Scott's preface to the ballad: "In many things +Satchells agrees with the ballads current in his time" (1643-88), "from +which in all probability he derived most of his information as to past +events, and from which he occasionally pirates whole verses, as we +noticed in the annotations upon the Raid of the Reidswire. In the +present instance he mentions the prisoner's large spurs (alluding to +fetters), and some other little incidents noticed in the ballad, which +therefore was probably well known in his day." + +As Satchells was born in 1613, while the rescue of Kinmont Willie by +Buccleuch, out of Carlisle Castle, was in 1596, and as Satchells' +father was in that adventure (or so Satchells says) he probably knew +much about the affair from fresh tradition. Colonel Elliot notices +this, and says: "The probability of Satchells having obtained +information from a hypothetical ballad is really quite an inadmissible +argument." + +This comes near to begging the question. As contemporary incidents +much less striking and famous than the rescue of Kinmont Willie were +certainly recorded in ballads, the opinion that there was a ballad of +Kinmont Willie is a legitimate hypothesis, which must be tested on its +merits. For example, we shall ask, Does Satchells' version yield any +traces of ballad sources? + +My own opinion has been anticipated by Mr. Frank Miller in his The +Poets of Dumfriesshire (p. 33, 1910), and in ballad-lore Mr. Miller is +well equipped. He says: "The balance of probability seems to be in +favour of the originality of Kinmont Willie," rather than of Satchells +(he means, not of our Kinmont Willie as Scott gives it, but of a ballad +concerning the Kinmont). "Captain Walter Scott's" (of Satchells) "True +History was certainly gathered out of the ballads current in his day, +as well as out of formal histories, and his account of the assault on +the Castle reads like a narrative largely due to suggestions from some +popular lay." + +Does Satchells' version, then, show traces of a memory of such a lay? +Undoubtedly it does. + +Satchells' prolix narrative occasionally drops or rises into ballad +lines, as in the opening about Kinmont Willie - + + +It fell about the Martinmas +When kine was in the prime + + +that Willie "brought a prey out of Northumberland." The old ballad, +disregarding dates, may well have opened with this common formula. +Lord Scrope vowed vengence:- + + +Took Kinmont the self-same night. + +If he had had but ten men more, + That had been as stout as he, +Lord Scroup had not the Kinmont ta'en + With all his company. + + +Scott's ballad (stanza i.) says that "fause Sakelde" and Scrope took +Willie (as in fact Salkeld of Corby DID), and + + +Had Willie had but twenty men, + But twenty men as stout as he, +Fause Sakelde had never the Kinmont ta'en, + Wi' eight score in his cumpanie. + + +Manifestly either Satchells is here "pirating" a verse of a ballad (as +Scott holds) or Scott, if he had NO ballad fragments before him, is +"pirating" a verse from Satchells, as Colonel Elliot must suppose. + +In my opinion, Satchells had a memory of a Kinmont ballad beginning +like Jamie Telfer, "It fell about the Martinmas tyde," or, like +Otterburn, "It fell about the Lammas tide," and he opened with this +formula, broke away from it, and came back to the ballad in the stanza, +"If he had had but ten men more," which differs but slightly from +stanza ii. of Scott's ballad. That this is so, and that, later, +Satchells is again reminiscent of a ballad, is no improbable opinion. + +In the ballad (iii.-viii.) we learn how Willie is brought a prisoner +across Liddel to Carlisle; we have his altercation with Lord Scrope, +and the arrival of the news at Branksome, where Buccleuch is at table. +Satchells also gives the altercation. In both versions Willie promises +to "take his leave" of Scrope before he quits the Castle. + +In Scott's ballad (Scrope speaks) (stanza vi.). + + +Before ye cross my castle yate, +I trow ye shall take fareweel o' me. + + +Willie replies - + + +I never yet lodged in a hostelrie, +But I paid my lawing before I gaed. + + +In Satchells, Lord Scrope says - + + +"Before thou goest away thou must + Even take thy leave of me?" +"By the cross of my sword," says Willie then, + "I'll take my leave of thee." + + +Now, had Scott been pirating Satchells, I think he would have kept "By +the cross of my sword," which is picturesque and probable, Willie being +no good Presbyterian. In Otterburne, Scott, ALTERING HOGG'S COPY, +makes Douglas swear "By the might of Our Ladye." + +It is a question of opinion; but I do think that if Scott were merely +paraphrasing and pirating Satchells, he could not have helped putting +into his version the Catholic, "'By the cross of my sword,' then Willy +said," as given by Satchells. To do this was safe, as Scott had said +that Satchells does pirate ballads. On the other hand, Satchells, +composing in black 1688, when Catholicism had been stamped out on the +Scottish Border, was not apt to invent "By the cross of my sword." It +LOOKS like Scott's work, for he, of course, knew how Catholicism +lingered among the spears of Bothwell, himself a Catholic, in 1596. +But it is NOT Scott's work, it is in Satchells. In both Satchells and +the ballad, news comes to Buccleuch. Here Satchells again balladises - + + +"It is that way?" Buckcleugh did say; + "Lord Scrope must understand +That he has not only done me wrong + But my Sovereign, James of Scotland. + +"My Sovereign Lord, King of Scotland, + Thinks not his cousin Queen, +Will offer to invade his land + Without leave asked and gi'en." + + +I do not see how Satchells could either invent or glean from tradition +the gist of Buccleuch's diplomatic remonstrances, first with Salkeld, +for Scrope was absent at the time of Willie's capture, then with +Scrope. Buccleuch, in fact, wrote that the taking of Willie was "to +the touch of the King," a stain on his honour, says a contemporary +manuscript. {135a} + +In a CONTEMPORARY ballad, a kind of rhymed news-sheet, the facts would +be known and reported. But at this point (at Buccleuch's reception of +the news of Kinmont), Scott is perhaps overmastered by his opportunity, +and, I think, himself composes stanzas ix., x., xi., xii. + + +O is my basnet a widow's curch? +Or my lance a wand o' the willow tree? + + +and so on. Child and Mr. Henderson are of the same opinion; but it is +only sense of style that guides us in such a matter, nor can I give +other grounds for supposing that the original ballad appears again in +stanza xiii. + + +O were there war between the lands, + As well I wot that there is none, +I would slight Carlisle castle high, + Tho' it were built o' marble stone! + + +Thence, I think, the original ballad (doubtless made "harmonious," as +Hogg put it) ran into stanza xxxi., where Scott probably introduced the +Elliot tune (if it be ancient) - + + +O wha dare meddle wi' me? + + +Satchells next, through a hundred and forty lines, describes +Buccleuch's correspondence with Scrope, his counsels with his clansmen, +and gives all their names and estates, with remarks on their +relationships. He thinks himself a historian and a genealogist. The +stuff is partly in prose lines, partly in rhymed couplets of various +lengths. There are two or three more or less ballad-like stanzas at +the beginning, but they are too bad for any author but Satchells. + +Scott's ballad "cuts" all that, omits even what Satchells gives-- +mentions of Harden, and goes on (xv.) - + + +He has called him forty marchmen bauld, + I trow they were of his own name. +Except Sir Gilbert Elliot called + The Laird of Stubs, I mean the same. + + +Now I would stake a large sum that Sir Walter never wrote that "stall- +copy" stanza! Colonel Elliot replies that I have said the ballad-faker +should avoid being too poetical. The ballad-faker SHOULD shun being +too poetical, as he would shun kippered sturgeon; but Scott did not +know this, nor did Hogg. We can always track them by their too +decorative, too literary interpolations. On this I lay much stress. + +The ballad next gives (xvi.-xxv.) the spirited stanzas on the ride to +the Border - + + +There were five and five before them a', + Wi' hunting horns and bugles bright; +And five and five came wi' Buccleuch, + Like Warden's men arrayed for fight. + +And five and five like a mason gang, + That carried the ladders lang and hie; +And five and five like broken men, + And so they reached the Woodhouselee. + + +- a house in Scotland, within "a lang mile" of Netherby, in England, +the seat of the Grahams, who were partial, for private reasons, to the +Scottish cause. They were at deadly feud with Thomas Musgrave, Captain +of Bewcastle, and Willie had married a Graham. + +Now in my opinion, up to stanza xxvi., all the evasive answers given to +Salkeld by each gang, till Dicky o' Dryhope (a real person) replies +with a spear-thrust - + + +"For never a word o' lear had he," + + +are not an invention of Scott's (who knew that Salkeld was not met and +slain), but a fantasy of the original ballad. Here I have only +familiarity with the romantic perversion of facts that marks all +ballads on historical themes to guide me. + +Salkeld is met - + + +"As we crossed the Batable land, +When to the English side we held." + + +The ballad does not specify the crossing of Esk, nor say that Salkeld +was on the English side; nor is there any blunder in the reply of the +"mason gang" - + + +"We gang to harry a corbie's nest, +That wons not far frae Woodhouselee." + + +Whether on English or Scottish soil the masons say not, and their +pretence is derisive, bitterly ironical. + +Colonel Elliot makes much of the absence of mention of the Esk, and +says "it is AFTER they are in England that the false reports are +spread." {139a} But the ballad does not say so--read it! All passes +with judicious vagueness. + + +"As we crossed the Batable land, +When to the English side we held." + + +Satchells knows that the ladders were made at Woodhouselee; it took +till nightfall to finish them. The ballad, swift and poetical, takes +the ladders for granted--as a matter of fact, chronicled in the +dispatches, the Grahams of Netherby harboured Buccleuch: Netherby was +his base. + +"I could nought have done that matter without great friendship of the +Grames of Eske," wrote Buccleuch, in a letter which Scrope intercepted. +{139b} + +In Satchells, Buccleuch leaves half his men at the "Stonish bank" +(Staneshaw bank) "FOR FEAR THEY HAD MADE NOISE OR DIN." An old soldier +should have known better, and the ballad (his probable half-remembered +source here) DOES know better - + + +"And there the laird garr'd leave our STEEDS, + For fear that they should stamp and nie," + + +and alarm the castle garrison. Each man of the post on the ford would +hold two horses, and also keep the ford open for the retreat of the +advanced party. The ballad gives the probable version; Satchells, when +offering as a reason for leaving half the force, lest they should make +"noise or din," is maundering. Colonel Elliot does not seem to +perceive this obvious fact, though he does perceive Buccleuch's motive +for dividing his force, "presumably with the object of protecting his +line of retreat," and also to keep the horses out of earshot, as the +ballad says. {140a} + +In Satchells the river is "in no great rage." In the ballad it is +"great and meikle o' spait." And it really was so. The MS. already +cited, which Scott had not seen when he published the song, says that +Buccleuch arrived at the "Stoniebank beneath Carleile brig, the water +being at the tyme, through raines that had fallen, weill thick." + +In Scott's ORIGINAL this river, he says, was the Esk, in Satchells it +is the Eden, and Scott says he made this necessary correction in the +ballad. In Satchells the storming party + + +Broke a sheet of leid on the castle top. + + +In the ballad they + + +Cut a hole through a sheet o' lead. + + +Both stories are erroneous; the ladders were too short; the rescuers +broke into a postern door. Scrope told this to his Government on the +day after the deed, 14th April. {140b} + +In xxxi. the ballad makes Buccleuch sound trumpets when the castle-roof +was scaled; in fact it was not scaled. The ladders were too short, and +the Scots broke in a postern door. The Warden's trumpet blew "O wha +dare meddle wi' me," and here, as has been said, I think Scott is the +author. Here Colonel Elliot enters into learning about "Wha dare +meddle wi' me?" a "Liddesdale tune," and in the poem an adaptation, by +Scott, of Satchells' "the trumpets sounded 'Come if ye dare.'" + +Satchells makes the trumpets sound when the rescuers bring Kinmont +Willie to the castle-top on the ladder (which they did not), and again +when the rescuers reach the ground by the ladder. They made no use at +all of the ladders, which were too short, and Willie, says the ballad, +lay "in the LOWER prison." They came in and went out by a door; but +the trumpets are not apocryphal. They, and the shortness of the +ladders, are mentioned in a MS. quoted by Scott, and in Birrell's +contemporary Diary, i. p. 57. In the MS. Buccleuch causes the trumpets +to be sounded from below, by a detachment "in the plain field," +securing the retreat. His motive is to encourage his party, "and to +terrify both castle and town by imagination of a greater force." +Buccleuch again "sounds up his trumpet before taking the river," in the +MS. Colonel Elliot may claim stanza xxxi. for Scott, and also the tune +"Wha dare meddle wi' me?" he may even claim here a suggestion from +Satchells' "Come if ye dare." Colonel Elliot says that no tune of this +title ever existed, a thing not easy to prove. {142a} + +In the conclusion, with differences, there are resemblances in the +ballad and Satchells. Colonel Elliot goes into them very minutely. +For example, he says that Kinmont is "made to ride off; not on +horseback, but on Red Rowan's back!" + +The ballad says not a word to that effect. Kinmont's speech about Red +Rowan as "a rough beast" to ride, is made immediately after the stanza, + + +"Then shoulder high, with shout and cry, + We bore him down the ladder lang; +At every stride Red Rowan made, + I wot the Kinmont's airns played clang." {142b} + + +After this verse Kinmont makes his speech (xl.-xli.). But if he DID +ride on Red Rowan's back to Staneshaw bank, it was the best thing that +a heavily ironed man could do. In the ballad (xxvii.) no horses of the +party were waiting at the castle, ALL horses were left behind at +Staneshaw bank (Satchells brings horses, or at least a horse for +Willie, to the castle). On what could Willie "ride off," except on Red +Rowan? {142c} + +Stanzas xxxv., xxxvi. and xliv. are related, we have seen, to passages +in Jock o' the Side and Archie o' Cafield, but ballads, like Homer, +employ the same formulae to describe the same circumstances: a note of +archaism, as in Gaelic poetic passages in Marchen. + +I do not pretend always to know how far Scott kept and emended old +stanzas mangled by reciters: there are places in which I am quite at a +loss to tell whether he is "making" or copying. + +I incline to hold that Satchells was occasionally reminiscent of a +ballad for the reasons and traces given, and I think that Scott when +his and Satchells' versions coincide, did not borrow direct from +Satchells, but that both men had a ballad source. + +That ballad was later than the popular belief, held by Satchells, that +Gilbert Elliot was at the time (1596) laird of Stobs, which he did not +acquire till after the Union (1603), and that he (the only man not a +Scot, says Satchells, wrongly) rode with Buccleuch. Elliot is not +accused of doing so in Scrope's dispatches, but he may have come as far +as Staneshaw bank, where half the company were left behind, says +Satchells, with the horses, which were also left, says the ballad. In +that case Elliot would not be observed in or near the Castle. Yet it +may have been known in Scotland that he was of the party. + +He was, as Satchells says, a cousin, he was also a friend of +Buccleuch's, and he may conceivably have taken a part in this glorious +adventure, though he could not, AT THE MOMENT, be called laird of +Stobs. Were I an Elliot, this opinion would be welcome to me! Really, +Salkeld was in a good position to know whether Elliot rode with +Buccleuch or not. + +The whole question is not one on which I can speak dogmatically. A +person who suspects Scott intensely may believe that there were no +ballad fragments of Kinmont in his possession. The person who, like +myself, thinks Satchells, with his "It fell about the Martinmas," knew +a ballad vaguely, believes that Satchells HAD some ballad sources +bemuddled in his old memory. + +A person who cannot conceive that Scott wrote + + +Except Sir Gilbert Elliot, called + The laird of Stobs, I mean the same, + + +will hold that Scott knew some ballad fragments, disjecta membra. But +I quite agree with Colonel Elliot, that the ballad, AS IT STANDS (with +the exception, to my mind, of some thirty stanzas, themselves emended), +"belongs to the early nineteenth century, not to the early +seventeenth." The time for supposing the poem, AS IT STANDS, to be +"saturated with the folk-spirit" all through is past; the poem is far +too much contaminated by the genius of Scott itself; like Burns' +transfiguration of "the folk-spirit" at its best. + +Near the beginning of this paper I said, in answer to a question of +Colonel Elliot's, that I myself was the person who had suspected Scott +of composing the whole of Kinmont Willie, and I have given my reasons +for not remaining constant to my suspicions. But in a work which +Colonel Elliot quotes, the abridged edition of Child's great book by +Mrs. Child-Sargent and Professor Kittredge (1905), the learned +professor writes, "Kinmont Willie is under vehement suspicion of being +the work of Sir Walter Scott." Mr. Kittredge's entire passage on the +matter is worth quoting. He first says--"The traditional ballad +appears to be inimitable by any person of literary cultivation," "the +efforts of poets and poetasters" end in "invariable failure." + +I do not think that they need end in failure except for one reason. +The poet or poetaster cannot, now, except by flat lying and laborious +forgery of old papers, produce any documentary evidence to prove the +AUTHENTICITY of his attempt at imitation. Without documentary evidence +of antiquity, no critic can approach the imitation except in a spirit +of determined scepticism. He knows, certainly, that the ballad is +modern, and, knowing that, he easily finds proofs of modernism even +where they do not really exist. I am convinced that to imitate a +ballad that would, except for the lack of documentary evidence, beguile +the expert, is perfectly feasible. I even venture to offer examples of +my own manufacture at the close of this volume. I can find nothing +suspicious in them, except the deliberate insertion of formulae which +occur in genuine ballads. Such wiederholungen are not reasons for +rejection, in my opinion; but they are SUSPECT with people who do not +understand that they are a natural and necessary feature of archaic +poetry, and this fact Mr. Kittredge does understand. + +Mr. Kittredge speaks of Sir Walter's unique success with Kinmont +Willie; but is Sir Walter successful? Some of his stanzas I, for one, +can hardly accept, even as emended traditional verses. + +Mr. Kittredge writes--"Sir Walter's success, however, in a special kind +of balladry for which he was better adapted by nature and habit of mind +than for any other, would only emphasise the universal failure. And it +must not be forgotten that Kinmont Willie, if it be Scott's work, is +not made out of whole cloth; it is a working over of one of the best +traditional ballads known (Jock o' the Side), with the intention of +fitting it to an historical exploit of Buccleuch. Further, the subject +itself was of such a nature that it might well have been celebrated in +a ballad,--indeed, one is tempted to say, it must have been so +celebrated." + +Not a doubt of THAT! + +"And, finally, Sir Walter Scott felt towards 'the Kinmont' and 'the +bold Buccleuch' precisely as the moss-trooping author of such a ballad +would have felt. For once, then, the miraculous happened. . . . " +{146a} Or did not happen, for the exception is "solitary though +doubtful," and "under vehement suspicion." But Mr. Kittredge must +remember that no known Scottish ballad "is made out of whole cloth." +All have, in various degrees, the successive modifications wrought by +centuries of oral tradition, itself, in some cases, modifying a much +modified printed "stall-copy" or "broadside." + +Take Jock o' the Side. The oldest version is in the Percy MS. {147a} +As Mr. Henderson says, "it contains many evident corruptions," + + +"Jock on his lively bay, Wat's on his white horse behind." + + +There is an example of what the original author could not have written! + +We do not know how good Jock was when he left his poet's hands; and +Scott has not touched him up. We cannot estimate the original +excellence of any traditional poem by the state in which we find it, + + +Corrupt by every beggar-man, +And soiled by all ignoble use. + + + +CONCLUSIONS + + + +We have now examined critically the four essentially Border ballads +which Sir Walter is suspected of having "edited" in an unrighteous +manner. Now he helps to forge, and issues Auld Maitland. Now he, or +somebody, makes up Otterburne, "partly of stanzas from Percy's +Reliques, which have undergone emendations calculated to disguise the +source from which they came, partly of stanzas of modern fabrication, +and partly of a few stanzas and lines from Herd's version." {148a} +Thirdly, Scott, it is suggested, knew only what I call "the Elliot +version" of Jamie Telfer, perverted that by transposing the roles of +Buccleuch and Stobs, and added picturesque stanzas in glorification of +his ancestor, Wat of Harden. Fourthly, he is suspected of "writing the +whole ballad" of Kinmont Willie, "from beginning to end." + +Of these four charges the first, and most disastrous, we have +absolutely disproved. Scott did not write one verse of the Auld +Maitland; he edited it with unusual scrupulosity, for he had but one +copy, and an almost identical recitation. He could not "eke and alter" +by adding verses from other texts, as he did in Otterburne. + +Secondly, Scott did not make up Otterburne in the way suggested by his +critic. He took Hogg's MS., and I have shown minutely what that MS. +was, and he edited it in accordance with his professed principles. He +made "a standard text." It is only to be regretted that Hogg did not +take down VERBATIM the words of his two reciters and narrators, and +that Scott did not publish Hogg's version, with his letter, in his +notes; but that was not his method, nor the method of his +contemporaries. + +Thirdly, as to Jamie Telfer, long ago I wrote, opposite + + +"The lyart locks of Harden's hair," + + +aut Jacobus aut Diabolus, meaning that either James Hogg or the devil +composed that stanza. I was wrong. Hogg had nothing to do with it; on +internal evidence Scott was the maker. But that he transposed the +Scott and Elliot roles is incapable of proof; and I have shown that +such perversions were made in very early times, where national, not +clan prejudices were concerned. I have also shown that Scott's version +contains matter not in the Elliot version, matter injurious to the +poem, as in one stanza, certainly not composed by himself, the stanza +being an inappropriate stray formula from other ballads. But, in the +absence of manuscript materials I can only produce presumptions, not +proofs. + +Lastly, Kinmont Willie, and Scott's share in it, is matter of +presumption, not of proof. He had been in quest of the ballad, as we +know from his list of desiderata; he says that what he got was +"mangled" by reciters, and that, in what he got, one river was +mentioned where topography requires another. He also admits that, in +the three ballads of rescues, he placed passages where they had most +poetical appropriateness. My arguments to show that Satchells had +memory of a Kinmont ballad will doubtless appeal with more or less +success, or with none, to different students. That an indefinite +quantity of the ballad, and improvements on the rest, are Scott's, I +cannot doubt, from evidence of style. + +"Sir Walter Scott it is impossible to assail, however much the +scholarly conscience may disapprove," says Mr. Kittredge. {150a} Not +much is to be taken by assailing him! "Business first, pleasure +afterwards," as, according to Sam Weller, Richard III. said, when he +killed Henry VI. before smothering the princes in the Tower. I proceed +to pleasure in the way of presenting imitations of "the traditional +ballad" which "appears to be inimitable by any person of literary +cultivation," according to Mr. Kittredge. + + +IMITATIONS OF BALLADS + + +The three following ballads are exhibited in connection with Mr. +Kittredge's opinion that neither poet nor poetaster can imitate, to- +day, the traditional ballad. Of course, not one of my three could now +take in an expert, for he would ask for documentary evidence of their +antiquity. But I doubt if Mr. Kittredge can find any points in my +three imitations which infallibly betray their modernity + +The first, Simmy o' Whythaugh, is based on facts in the Border +despatches. Historically the attempt to escape from York Castle +failed; after the prisoners had got out they were recaptured. + +The second ballad, The Young Ruthven, gives the traditional view of the +slaying of the Ruthvens in their own house in Perth, on 5th August +1600. + +The third, The Dead Man's Dance, combines the horror of the ballads of +Lizzy Wan and The Bonny Hind, with that of the Romaic ballad, in +English, The Suffolk Miracle (Child, No. 272). + + +I--SIMMY O' WHYTHAUGH + +O, will ye hear o' the Bishop o' York, + O, will ye hear o' the Armstrongs true, +How they hae broken the Bishop's castle, + And carried himsel' to the bauld Buccleuch? + +They were but four o' the Lariston kin, + They were but four o' the Armstrong name, +Wi' stout Sim Armstrong to lead the band, + The Laird o' Whythaugh, I mean the same. + +They had done nae man an injury, + They had na robbed, they had na slain, +In pledge were they laid for the Border peace, + In the Bishop's castle to dree their pain. + +The Bishop he was a crafty carle, + He has ta'en their red and their white monie, +But the muddy water was a' their drink, + And dry was the bread their meat maun be. + +"Wi' a ged o' airn," did Simmy say, + "And ilka man wi' a horse to ride, +We aucht wad break the Bishop's castle, + And carry himsel' to the Liddel side. + +"The banks o' Whythaugh I sall na see, + I never sall look upon wife and bairn; +I wad pawn my saul for my gude mear, Jean, + I wad pawn my saul for a ged o' airn." + +There was ane that brocht them their water and bread; + His gude sire, he was a kindly Scot, +Says "Your errand I'll rin to the Laird o' Cessford, + If ye'll swear to pay me the rescue shot." + +Then Simmy has gi'en him his seal and ring, + To the Laird o' Cessford has ridden he - +I trow when Sir Robert had heard his word + The tear it stood in Sir Robert's e'e. + +"And saIl they starve him, Simmy o' Whythaugh, + And sall his bed be the rotten strae? +I trow I'll spare neither life nor gear, + Or ever I live to see that day! + +"Gar bring up my horses," Sir Robert he said, + "I bid ye bring them by three and three, +And ane by ane at St. George's close, + At York gate gather your companie." + +Oh, some rade like corn-cadger men, + And some like merchants o' linen and hose; +They slept by day and they rade by nicht, + Till they a' convened at St. George's close. + +Ilka mounted man led a bridded mear, + I trow they had won on the English way; +Ilka belted man had a brace o' swords, + To help their friends to fend the fray. + +Then Simmy he heard a hoolet cry + In the chamber strang wi' never a licht; +"That's a hoolet, I ken," did Simmy say, + "And I trow that Teviotdale's here the nicht!" + +They hae grippit a bench was clamped wi' steel, + Wi' micht and main hae they wrought, they four, +They hae burst it free, and rammed wi' the bench, + Till they brake a hole in the chamber door. + +"Lift strae frae the beds," did Simmy say; + To the gallery window Simmy sped, +He has set his strength to a window bar, + And bursten it out o' the binding lead. + +He has bursten the bolts o' the Elliot men, + Out ower the window the strae cast he, +For they bid to loup frae the window high, + And licht on the strae their fa' would be. + +To the Bishop's chamber Simmy ran; + "Oh, sleep ye saft, my Lord!" says he; +"Fu' weary am I o' your bread and water, + Ye'se hae wine and meat when ye dine wi' me." + +He has lifted the loon across his shoulder; + "We maun leave the hoose by the readiest way!" +He has cast him doon frae the window high, + And a' to hansel the new fa'n strae! + +Then twa by twa the Elliots louped, + The Armstrongs louped by twa and twa. +"I trow, if we licht on the auld fat Bishop, + That nane the harder will be the fa'!" + +They rade by nicht and they slept by day; + I wot they rade by an unkenned track; +"The Bishop was licht as a flea," said Sim, + "Or ever we cam' to the Liddel rack." + +Then "Welcome, my Lord," did Simmy say, + "We'll win to Whythaugh afore we dine, +We hae drunk o' your cauld and ate o' your dry, + But ye'll taste o' our Liddesdale beef and wine." + +II--THE YOUNG RUTHVEN + +The King has gi'en the Queen a gift, + For her May-day's propine, +He's gi'en her a band o' the diamond-stane, + Set in the siller fine. + +The Queen she walked in Falkland yaird, + Beside the hollans green, +And there she saw the bonniest man + That ever her eyes had seen. + +His coat was the Ruthven white and red, + Sae sound asleep was he +The Queen she cried on May Beatrix, + That bonny lad to see. + +"Oh! wha sleeps here, May Beatnix, + Without the leave o' me?" +"Oh! wha suld it be but my young brother + Frae Padua ower the sea! + +"My father was the Earl Gowrie, + An Earl o' high degree, +But they hae slain him by fause treason, + And gar'd my brothers flee. + +"At Padua hae they learned their leir + In the fields o' Italie; +And they hae crossed the saut sea-faem. + And a' for love o' me!" + +* * * * + +The Queen has cuist her siller band + About his craig o' snaw; +But still he slept and naething kenned, + Aneth the hollans shaw. + +The King was walking thro' the yaird, + He saw the siller shine; +"And wha," quo' he, "is this galliard + That wears yon gift o' mine?" + +The King has gane till the Queen's ain bower, + An angry man that day; +But bye there cam' May Beatrix + And stole the band away. + +And she's run in by the little black yett, + Straight till the Queen ran she: +"Oh! tak ye back your siller band, + On it gar my brother dee!" + +The Queen has linked her siller band + About her middle sma'; +And then she heard her ain gudeman + Come sounding through the ha'. + +"Oh! whare," he cried, "is the siller band + I gied ye late yestreen? +The knops was a' o' the diamond-stane, + Set in the siller sheen." + +"Ye hae camped birling at the wine, + A' nicht till the day did daw; +Or ye wad ken your siller band + About my middle sma'!" + +The King he stude, the King he glowered, + Sae hard as a man micht stare: +"Deil hae me! Like is a richt ill mark, - + Or I saw it itherwhere! + +"I saw it round young Ruthven's neck + As he lay sleeping still; +And, faith, but the wine was wondrous guid, + Or my wife is wondrous ill!" + +There was na gane a week, a week, + A week but barely three; +The King has hounded John Ramsay out, + To gar young Ruthven dee! + +They took him in his brother's house, + Nae sword was in his hand, +And they hae slain him, young Ruthven, + The bonniest in the land! + +And they hae slain his fair brother, + And laid him on the green, +And a' for a band o' the siller fine + And a blink o' the eye o' the Queen! + +Oh! had they set him man to man, + Or even ae man to three, +There was na a knight o' the Ramsay bluid + Had gar'd Earl Gowrie dee! + +III--THE DEAD MAN'S DANCE + +"The dance is in the castle ha', + And wha will dance wi' me?" +"There's never a man o' living men, + Will dance the nicht wi' thee!" + +Then Margaret's gane within her bower, + Put ashes on her hair, +And ashes on her bonny breast + And on hen shoulders bare. + +There cam' a knock to her bower-door, + And blythe she let him in; +It was her brother frae the wars, + She lo'ed abune her kin. + +"Oh, Willie, is the battle won? + Or are you fled?" said she, +"This nicht the field was won and lost, + A' in a far countrie. + +"This nicht the field was lost and won, + A' in a far countrie, +And here am I within your bower, + For nane will dance with thee." + +"Put gold upon your head, Margaret, + Put gold upon your hair, +And gold upon your girdle-band, + And on your breast so fair!" + +"Nay, nae gold for my breast, Willie, + Nay, nae gold for my hair, +It's ashes o' oak and dust o' earth, + That you and I maun wear! + +"I canna dance, I mauna dance, + I daurna dance with thee. +To dance atween the quick and the deid, + Is nae good companie." + +* * * + +The fire it took upon her cheek, + It took upon her chin, +Nae Mass was sung, nor bells was rung, + For they twa died in deidly sin. + + + +Footnotes: + +{0a} Child, part vi. p. 513. + +{0b} Child, part x. p. 294. + +{1a} Hogg to Scott, 30th June 1802, given later in full. + +{2a} See De Origine, Moribus, et Rebus Gestis Scotorum, p. 60 (1578). + +{4a} Lockhart, vol. ii. p. 60 (1839). + +{8a} Lockhart, vol. ii. pp. 130-135 (1839). + +{10a} Minstrelsy, iii. 186-198. + +{15a} Child, part ix., 187. + +{17a} Further Essays, p. 184. + +{18a} Child, vol. i. p. xxx. + +{19a} Minstrelsy, 2nd edition, vol iii. (1803). + +{19b} Further Essays, pp. 247, 248. + +{21a} Carruthers, "Abbotsford Notanda," in R. Chambers's Life of +Scott, pp. 115-117 (1891). + +{21b} Ibid., p. 118. + +{23a} Carruthers, "Abbotsford Notanda," in R. Chambers's Life of +Scott, pp. 115-117 (1891). + +{23b} Lockhart, vol. ii. p. 99. + +{24a} Lockhart, Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart., vol. ii. pp. 99, 100 +(1829). + +{25a} Ritson of 10th April 1802, in his Letters of Joseph Ritson, +Esq., vol. ii. p. 218. Letter of 10th June 1802, Ibid., p. 207. +Ritson returned the original manuscript of Auld Maitland on 28th +February 1803, Ibid., p. 230. + +{26a} Carruthers, pp. 128, 131. + +{30a} Sweet William's Ghost. + +{31a} Further Essays, pp. 225, 226. + +{32a} Further Essays, pp. 227-234. + +{41a} Minstrelsy, vol. iii. pp. 307-310 (1833). + +{41b} Ibid., vol. iii. p. 314. + +{44a} Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, xxi. +4, pp. 804-806. + +{47a} Further Essays, p. 237. + +{47b} Carruthers, p. 128. + +{47c} Lockhart, vol. ii. pp. 67, 70, 71, 72, 74, 75, 79. + +{48a} Craig Brown, History of Selkirkshire. + +{49a} Child, part ix. p. 185. + +{51a} Scott to Laidlaw, 21st January 1803; Carruthers, pp. 121, 122. + +{53a} Further Essays, p. 45. + +{53b} Child, part viii. pp. 499-502. + +{53c} Further Essays, p. 10, where only two references to sources are +given. + +{54a} Child, part vi. p. 292. + +{54b} Ibid., part ix. p. 243. Herd, 1776; also C. K. Sharpe's MS. + +{59a} Bain, Calendar, vol. iv. pp. 87-93. + +{62a} This is scarcely accurate. Hogg, in fact, made up one copy, in +two parts, from the recitation of two old persons, as we shall see. + +{62b} Further Essays, pp. 12-27. + +{63a} Further Essays, p. 37. + +{67a} Scott to Laidlaw, Carruthers, p. 129. + +{69a} English version, xi.-xv. + +{70a} Further Essays, p. 58. + +{73a} Further Essays, p. 31. + +{75a} Godscroft, ed. 1644, p. 100; Child, part vi. p. 295. + +{79a} The Hunting of the Cheviot, and Herd's Otterburn. + +{83a} Herd, and Complaynte of Scotland, 1549. + +{84a} Child, part ix. p. 244, stanza xiii. + +{84b} Further Essays, p. 27. + +{89a} Further Essays on Border Ballads, p. 184. Andrew Elliot, 1910. +To be quoted as F. E. B. B. The other work on the subject is Colonel +Elliot's The Trustworthiness of the Border Ballads. Blackwoods, 1906. + +{91a} F. E. B. B., p. 199. + +{91b} F. E. B. B., p. 200. + +{93a} Trustworthiness of the Border Ballads, p. vi. + +{95a} Satchells, pp. 13, 14. Edition of 1892. + +{95b} Ibid., p. 14. + +{95c} Ibid., part ii. pp. 35, 36. + +{97a} F. E. B. B., p. 200. + +{98a} Child, English and Scottish Popular Ballads, part viii. p. 518. +He refers to "Letters I. No. 44" in MS. + +{98b} See Sargent and Kittredge's reduced edition of Child, p. 467, +1905. They publish this Elliot version only. The version has modern +spelling. On this version and its minor variations from Scott's, I say +more later; Colonel Elliot gives no critical examination of the +variations which seem to me essential. + +{99a} F. E. B. B., p. 184. + +{101a} Robert Scott (the poet Satchells's father) "had Southinrigg for +his service" to Buccleuch, says Sir William Fraser, in his Memoirs of +the House of Buccleuch. (See Satchells, 1892, pp. vii., viii.) But +the "fathers" of Satchells "having dilapidate and engaged their Estate +by Cautionary," poor Satchells was brought up as a cowherd, till he +went to the wars, and never learned to write, or even, it seems, to +read; as he says in the Dedication of his book to Lord Yester. + +{102a} The Trustworthiness of the Border Ballads, opp. p. 36. + +{103a} Border Papers, vol. i. pp. 120-127. + +{104a} Border Papers, vol. i. p. 106. + +{106a} Scrope, in Border Papers, vol. ii. pp. 148-152. + +{106b} Border Papers, vol. ii. p. 307, No. 606. + +{107a} Border Papers, vol. ii. pp. 299-303 + +{108a} Border Papers, vol. ii. p. 356. + +{108b} F. E. B. B., p. 161. + +{110a} See his Border Minstrelsy, vol. ii. p. 15. + +{110b} F. E. B. B., p. 156. + +{111a} T. B. B., p. 14. + +{112a} T. B. B., p. 12. + +{112b} T. B. B., p. 12. + +{113a} Memoirs of Robert Carey, p. 98, 1808. + +{114a} T. B. B., pp. 19, 20. + +{115a} T. B. B., p. 20. + +{120a} Child, part vii. p. 5. + +{120b} Variant E is a patched-up thing from five or six MS. sources +and a printed "stall copy." Jamieson published it in 1817. Motherwell +had heard a cantefable, or version in alternate prose and verse, which +contained the stanza. It is not identical with stanza xxxii. in +Scott's Jamie Telfer, but runs thus - + + +My hounds they all go masterless, +My hawks they fly from tree to tree, +My younger brother will heir my lands, +Fair England again I'll never see. + +Child, part ii. p. 454 et seqq. The speaker is young Beichan, a +prisoner in the dungeon of a professor of the Moslem faith. + +{122a} F. E. B. B., pp. 179-185. + +{123a} Child, part viii. p. 518. + +{125a} Aytoun, in The Ballads of Scotland (vol. i. p. 211), says that +his copy of Jamie Telfer "is almost verbatim the same as that given in +the Border Minstrelsy." He does not tell us where he got his copy; or +why the Captain's bride's speech (Sharpe, stanza xxxvi.) differs from +the version in Scott and Sharpe. He gives the stanza which comes last +in Scott's copy, and is too bad and enfeebling to be attributed to +Scott's pen. He omits the stanza which has strayed in from other +ballads, + + +"My hounds may a' rin masterless." + + +But as Aytoun confessedly rejected such inappropriate stanzas, he may +have found it in his copy and excised it. + +{129a} Minstrelsy, vol. iii. p. 76, 1803. + +{130a} Further Essays, p. 112. + +{131a} Further Essays, p. 112. + +{135a} In Minstrelsy, vol. ii. p. 35 (1833). + +{139a} Further Essays, p. 124. + +{139b} Border Papers, vol. ii. p. 367. + +{140a} Further Essays, pp. 123, 124. + +{140b} Border Papers, vol. ii. p. 121. + +{142a} Further Essays, p. 125. + +{142b} Birrell's Diary vouches for the irons. + +{142c} Further Essays, p. 128. + +{146a} Sargent and Kittredge, pp. xxix., xxx. + +{147a} Hales and Furnivall, ii. pp. 205-207. + +{148a} Further Essays, p. 45. + +{150a} Ballads, p. xxix. + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy + diff --git a/old/wsbms10.zip b/old/wsbms10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2b3131b --- /dev/null +++ b/old/wsbms10.zip |