THE

ROMANTIC SCOTTISH BALLADS:

THEIR

EPOCH AND AUTHORSHIP.

ROBERT CHAMBERS.

1849

THE
ROMANTIC SCOTTISH BALLADS:
THEIR
EPOCH AND AUTHORSHIP.

Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, 1765; David Herd's Scottish Songs, 1769; Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, 1802; and Jamieson's Popular Ballads and Songs, 1806, have been chiefly the means of making us acquainted with what is believed to be the ancient traditionary ballad literature of Scotland; and this literature, from its intrinsic merits, has attained a very great fame. I advert particularly to what are usually called the Romantic Ballads, a class of compositions felt to contain striking beauties, almost peculiar to themselves, and consequently held as implying extraordinary poetical attributes in former generations of the people of this country. There have been many speculations about the history of these poems, all assigning them a considerable antiquity, and generally assuming that their recital was once the special business of a set of wandering conteurs or minstrels. So lately as 1858, my admired friend, Professor Aytoun, in introducing a collection of them, at once ample and elegant, to the world, expressed his belief that they date at least from before the Reformation, having only been modified by successive reciters, so as to modernise the language, and, in some instances, bring in the ideas of later ages.

There is, however, a sad want of clear evidence regarding the history of our romantic ballads. We have absolutely no certain knowledge of them before 1724, when Allan Ramsay printed one called Sweet William's Ghost, in his Tea-table Miscellany. There is also this fact staring us in the face, that, while these poems refer to an ancient state of society, they bear not the slightest resemblance either to the minstrel poems of the middle ages, or to the well-known productions of the Henrysons, the Dunbars, the Douglases, the Montgomeries, who flourished in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Neither in the poems of Drummond, and such other specimens of verse—generally wretched—as existed in the seventeenth century, can we trace any feature of the composition of these ballads. Can it be that all editors hitherto have been too facile in accepting them as ancient, though modified compositions? that they are to a much greater extent modern than has hitherto been supposed? or wholly so? Though in early life an editor of them, not less trusting than any of my predecessors, I must own that a suspicion regarding their age and authorship has at length entered my mind. In stating it—which I do in a spirit of great deference to Professor Aytoun and others—I shall lead the reader through the steps by which I arrived at my present views upon the subject.

In 1719, there appeared, in a folio sheet, at Edinburgh, a heroic poem styled Hardyknute, written in affectedly old spelling, as if it had been a contemporary description of events connected with the invasion of Scotland by Haco, king of Norway, in 1263. A corrected copy was soon after presented in the Evergreen of Allan Ramsay, a collection professedly of poems written before 1600, but into which we know the editor admitted a piece written by himself. Hardyknute was afterwards reprinted in Percy's Reliques, still as an ancient composition; yet it was soon after declared to be the production of a Lady Wardlaw of Pitreavie, who died so lately as 1727. Although, to modern taste, a stiff and poor composition, there is a nationality of feeling about it, and a touch of chivalric spirit, that has maintained for it a certain degree of popularity. Sir Walter Scott tells us it was the first poem he ever learned by heart, and he believed it would be the last he should forget.

It is necessary to present a few brief extracts from this poem. In the opening, the Scottish king, Alexander III., is represented as receiving notice of the Norwegian invasion:

The king of Norse, in summer pride,

Puffed up with power and micht,

Landed in fair Scotland, the isle,

With mony a hardy knicht.

The tidings to our gude Scots king

Came as he sat at dine,

With noble chiefs in brave array,

Drinking the blude-red wine.

'To horse, to horse, my royal liege;

Your faes stand on the strand;

Full twenty thousand glittering spears

The king of Norse commands.'

'Bring me my steed, page, dapple-gray,'

Our good king rose and cried;

'A trustier beast in a' the land

A Scots king never tried.'

Hardyknute, summoned to the king's assistance, leaves his wife and daughter, 'Fairly fair,' under the care of his youngest son. As to the former lady—

... first she wet her comely cheeks,

And then her bodice green,

Her silken cords of twirtle twist,

Well plet with silver sheen;

And apron, set with mony a dice

Of needle-wark sae rare,

Wove by nae hand, as ye may guess,

But that of Fairly fair.

In his journey, Hardyknute falls in with a wounded and deserted knight, to whom he makes an offer of assistance:

With smileless look and visage wan,

The wounded knight replied:

'Kind chieftain, your intent pursue,

For here I maun abide.

'To me nae after day nor nicht

Can e'er be sweet or fair;

But soon beneath some dropping tree,

Cauld death shall end my care.'

A field of battle is thus described:

In thraws of death, with wallowit cheek,

All panting on the plain,

The fainting corps [ [1] ] of warriors lay,

Ne'er to arise again;

Ne'er to return to native land,

Nae mair, with blithesome sounds,

To boast the glories of the day,

And shaw their shining wounds.

On Norway's coast, the widowed dame

May wash the rock with tears,

May lang look o'er the shipless seas,

Before her mate appears.

'Cease, Emma, cease to hope in vain;

Thy lord lies in the clay;

The valiant Scots nae rievers thole [ [2]

To carry life away.'

I must now summon up, for a comparison with these specimens of the modern antique in ballad lore, the famous and admired poem of Sir Patrick Spence. It has come to us mainly through two copies—one comparatively short, published in Percy's Reliques, as 'from two manuscript copies transmitted from Scotland;' the other, containing more details, in Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, also 'from two manuscript copies,' but 'collated with several verses recited by the editor's friend, Robert Hamilton, Esq., advocate.' It is nowhere pretended that any ancient manuscript of this poem has ever been seen or heard of. It acknowledgedly has come to us from modern manuscripts, as it might be taken down from modern reciters; although Percy prints it in the same quasi antique spelling as that in which Hardyknute had appeared, where being quhar; sea, se; come, cum; year, zeir; &c. It will be necessary here to reprint the whole ballad, as given originally by Percy, introducing, however, within brackets the additional details of Scott's copy: [ [3] ]

The king sits in Dunfermline town,

Drinking the blude-red wine:

'O whar will I get a gude sailòr,

To sail this ship of mine?'

Up and spak an eldern knight,

Sat at the king's right knee:

'Sir Patrick Spence is the best sailòr

That sails upon the sea.'

The king has written a braid letter,

And signed it with his hand,

And sent it to Sir Patrick Spence,

Was walking on the sand.

['To Noroway, to Noroway,

To Noroway o'er the faem;

The king's daughter of Noroway,

'Tis thou maun bring her hame.']

The first line that Sir Patrick read,

A loud lauch lauched he:

The next line that Sir Patrick read,

The tear blinded his ee.

'O wha is this hae done this deed,

This ill deed done to me;

To send me out this time o' the year,

To sail upon the sea?

['Be it wind, be it weet, be it hail, be it sleet,

Our ship must sail the faem;

The king's daughter of Noroway,

'Tis we must fetch her hame.'

They hoysed their sails on Monenday morn,

Wi' a' the speed they may;

They hae landed in Noroway,

Upon a Wodensday.

They had na been a week, a week,

In Noroway, but twae,

When that the lords of Noroway

Began aloud to say:

'Ye Scottish men spend a' our king's gowd,

And a' our queenis fee.'

'Ye lie, ye lie, ye liars loud,

Fu' loud I hear ye lie.

'For I hae broucht as much white monie

As gane [ [4] ] my men and me,

And I broucht a half-fou o' gude red gowd,

Out ower the sea wi' me.']

'Mak haste, mak haste, my merry men a',

Our gude ship sails the morn.'

'O say na sae, my master dear, [ [5]

For I fear a deadly storm.

'Late, late yestreen, I saw the new moon

Wi' the auld moon in her arm;

And I fear, I fear, my master dear,

That we will come to harm.'

[They had na sailed a league, a league,

A league but barely three,

When the lift grew dark, and the wind blew loud,

And gurly grew the sea.

The ankers brak, and the topmasts lap,

It was sic a deadly storm,

And the waves cam o'er the broken ship,

Till a' her sides were torn.]

O our Scots nobles were richt laith

To weet their cork-heeled shoon;

But lang ere a' the play was played,

Their hats they swam aboon. [ [6]

[And mony was the feather-bed

That flattered on the faem;

And mony was the gude lord's son

That never mair cam hame.

The ladies wrang their fingers white,

The maidens tore their hair,

A' for the sake of their true loves,

For them they'll see nae mair.]

O lang, lang may the ladies sit,

Wi' their fans into their hand,

Or ere they see Sir Patrick Spence

Come sailing to the land.

O lang, lang may the ladies stand,

Wi' their gold kames in their hair,

Waiting for their ain dear lords,

For they'll see them nae mair.

Half ower, half ower to Aberdour, [ [7]

It's fifty fathom deep;

And there lies gude Sir Patrick Spence

Wi' the Scots lords at his feet.

Percy, at the close of his copy of Sir Patrick Spence, tells us that 'an ingenious friend' of his was of opinion that 'the author of Hardyknute has borrowed several expressions and sentiments from the foregoing [ballad], and other old Scottish songs in this collection.' It does not seem to have ever occurred to the learned editor, or any friend of his, however 'ingenious,' that perhaps Sir Patrick Spence had no superior antiquity over Hardyknute, and that the parity he remarked in the expressions was simply owing to the two ballads being the production of one mind. Neither did any such suspicion occur to Scott. He fully accepted Sir Patrick Spence as a historical narration, judging it to refer most probably to an otherwise unrecorded embassy to bring home the Maid of Norway, daughter of King Eric, on the succession to the Scottish crown opening to her in 1286, by the death of her grandfather, King Alexander III., although the names of the ambassadors who did go for that purpose are known to have been different. [ [8] ] The want of any ancient manuscript, the absence of the least trait of an ancient style of composition, the palpable modernness of the diction—for example, 'Our ship must sail the faem,' a glaring specimen of the poetical language of the reign of Queen Anne—and, still more palpably, of several of the things alluded to, as cork-heeled shoon, hats, fans, and feather-beds, together with the inapplicableness of the story to any known event of actual history, never struck any editor of Scottish poetry, till, at a recent date, Mr David Laing intimated his suspicions that Sir Patrick Spence and Hardyknute were the production of the same author. [ [9] ] To me it appears that there could not well be more remarkable traits of an identity of authorship than what are presented in the extracts given from Hardyknute and the entire poem of Sir Patrick—granting only that the one poem is a considerable improvement upon the other. Each poem opens with absolutely the same set of particulars—a Scottish king sitting—drinking the blude-red wine—and sending off a message to a subject on a business of importance. Norway is brought into connection with Scotland in both cases. Sir Patrick's exclamation, 'To Noroway, to Noroway,' meets with an exact counterpart in the 'To horse, to horse,' of the courtier in Hardyknute. The words of the ill-boding sailor in Sir Patrick, 'Late, late yestreen, I saw the new moon'—a very peculiar expression, be it remarked—are repeated in Hardyknute:

'Late, late the yestreen I weened in peace,'

To end my lengthened life.'

The grief of the ladies at the catastrophe in Sir Patrick Spence, is equally the counterpart of that of the typical Norse lady with regard to the fate of her male friend at Largs. I am inclined, likewise, to lay some stress on the localities mentioned in Sir Patrick Spence—namely, Dunfermline and Aberdour—these being places in the immediate neighbourhood of the mansions where Lady Wardlaw spent her maiden and her matron days. A poet, indeed, often writes about places which he never saw; but it is natural for him to be most disposed to write about those with which he is familiar; and some are first inspired by the historical associations connected with their native scenes. True, as has been remarked, there is a great improvement upon Hardyknute in the 'grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spence,' as Coleridge calls it, yet not more than what is often seen in compositions of a particular author at different periods of life. It seems as if the hand which was stiff and somewhat puerile in Hardyknute, had acquired freedom and breadth of style in Sir Patrick Spence. For all of these reasons, I feel assured that Sir Patrick is a modern ballad, and suspect, or more than suspect, that the author is Lady Wardlaw. [ [10] ]

Probably, by this time, the reader will desire to know what is now to be known regarding Lady Wardlaw. Unfortunately, this is little, for, as she shrank from the honours of authorship in her lifetime, no one thought of chronicling anything about her. We learn that she was born Elizabeth Halket, being the second daughter of Sir Charles Halket of Pitfirran, Baronet, who was raised to that honour by Charles II., and took an active part, as a member of the Convention of 1689, in settling the crown upon William and Mary. Her eldest sister, Janet, marrying Sir Peter Wedderburn of Gosford, was the progenitress of the subsequent Halkets, baronets of Pitfirran, her son being Sir Peter Halket, colonel of the 44th regiment of foot, who died in General Braddock's unfortunate conflict at Monongahela in 1755. A younger sister married Sir John Hope Bruce of Kinross, baronet, who died, one of the oldest lieutenant-generals in the British service, in 1766. Elizabeth, the authoress of Hardyknute, born on the 15th of April 1677, became, in June 1696, the wife of Sir Henry Wardlaw of Pitreavie (third baronet of the title), to whom she bore a son, subsequently fourth baronet, and three daughters. [ [11] ]

The ballad of Hardyknute, though printed in a separate brochure by James Watson in 1719, had been previously talked of or quoted, for the curiosity of Lord Binning was excited about it, apparently in a conversation with Sir John Hope Bruce, the brother-in-law of Lady Wardlaw. Pinkerton received from Lord Hailes, and printed, an extract from a letter of Sir John to Lord Binning, as follows: 'To perform my promise, I send you a true copy of the manuscript I found a few weeks ago in a vault at Dunfermline. It is written on vellum, in a fair Gothic character, but so much defaced by time as you'll find the tenth part not legible.' Sir John, we are told by Pinkerton, transcribed in this letter 'the whole fragment first published, save one or two stanzas, marking several passages as having perished, from being illegible in the old manuscript.' [ [12] ]

Here is documentary evidence that Hardyknute came out through the hands of Lady Wardlaw's brother-in-law, with a story about its discovery as an old manuscript, so transparently fictitious, that one wonders at people of sense having ever attempted to obtain credence for it—which consequently forms in itself a presumption as to an authorship being concealed. Pinkerton rashly assumed that Sir John Bruce was the author of the poem, and on the strength of that assumption, introduced his name among the Scottish poets.

The first hint at the real author came out through Percy, who, in his second edition of the Reliques (1767), gives the following statement:

'There is more than reason to suspect that it [Hardyknute] owes most of its beauties (if not its whole existence) to the pen of a lady within the present century. The following particulars may be depended on. Mrs [mistake for Lady] Wardlaw, whose maiden name was Halket ... pretended she had found this poem, written on shreds of paper, employed for what is called the bottoms of clues. A suspicion arose that it was her own composition. Some able judges asserted it to be modern. The lady did in a manner acknowledge it to be so. Being desired to show an additional stanza, as a proof of this, she produced the two last, beginning with "There's nae light, &c.," which were not in the copy that was first printed. The late Lord President Forbes and Sir Gilbert Elliot of Minto (late Lord Justice-clerk for Scotland), who had believed it ancient, contributed to the expense of publishing the first edition, in folio, 1719. This account was transmitted from Scotland by Sir David Dalrymple (Lord Hailes), [ [13] ] who yet was of opinion that part of the ballad may be ancient, but retouched and much enlarged by the lady above mentioned. Indeed, he had been informed that the late William Thomson, the Scottish musician, who published the Orpheus Caledonius, 1733, declared he had heard fragments of it repeated in his infancy before Mrs Wardlaw's copy was heard of.'

The question as to the authorship of Hardyknute was once more raised in 1794, when Sir Charles Halket, grandson of Mary, third daughter of Lady Wardlaw, wrote a letter to Dr Stenhouse of Dunfermline, containing the following passage: 'The late Mr Hepburn of Keith often declared he was in the house with Lady Wardlaw when she wrote Hardyknute.' He also gave the following particulars in a manuscript account of his family, as reported by George Chalmers (Life of Allan Ramsay, 1800): 'Miss Elizabeth Menzies, daughter of James Menzies, Esq., of Woodend, in Perthshire, by Elizabeth, the daughter of Sir Henry Wardlaw [second baronet], wrote to Sir Charles Halket that her mother, who was sister-in-law to Lady Wardlaw, told her that Lady Wardlaw was the real authoress of Hardyknute; that Mary, the wife of Charles Wedderburn, Esq., of Gosford, told Miss Menzies that her mother, Lady Wardlaw, wrote Hardyknute. Sir Charles Halket and Miss Elizabeth Menzies concur in saying that Lady Wardlaw was a woman of elegant accomplishments, who wrote other poems, and practised drawing, and cutting paper with her scissors, and who had much wit and humour, with great sweetness of temper.'

In the middle of the last century appeared two editions of a brochure containing the now well-known ballad of Gil Morrice; the date of the second was 1755. Prefixed to both was an advertisement setting forth that the preservation of this poem was owing 'to a lady, who favoured the printers with a copy, as it was carefully collected from the mouths of old women and nurses;' and 'any reader that can render it more correct or complete,' was desired to oblige the public with such improvements. Percy adopted the poem into his collection, with four additional verses, which meanwhile had been 'produced and handed about in manuscript,' but which were in a florid style, glaringly incongruous with the rest of the piece. He at the same time mentioned that there existed, in his folio manuscript, (supposed) of Elizabeth's time, an imperfect copy of the same ballad, under the title of Child Maurice.

This early ballad of Child Maurice, which Mr Jamieson afterwards printed from Percy's manuscript, gives the same story of a gentleman killing, under jealousy, a young man, who proved to be a son of his wife by a former connection. But it is a poor, bald, imperfect composition, in comparison with Gil Morrice. It was evident to Percy that there had been a 'revisal' of the earlier poem, attended by 'considerable improvements.'

Now, by whom had this improving revisal been effected? Who was the 'lady' that favoured the printers with the copy? I strongly suspect that the reviser was Lady Wardlaw, and that the poem was communicated to the printers either by her or by some of her near relations. The style of many of the verses, and even some of the particular expressions, remind us strongly of Sir Patrick Spence; while other verses, again, are more in the stiff manner of Hardyknute. The poem opens thus:

Gil Morrice was an earl's son,

His name it waxed wide;

It was na for his great riches,

Nor yet his mickle pride;

But it was for a lady gay,

That lived on Carron side.

'Whar sall I get a bonny boy,

That will win hose and shoon;

That will gae to Lord Barnard's ha',

And bid his lady come?

'And ye maun rin my errand, Willie,

And ye may rin wi' pride,

When other boys gae on their foot,

On horseback ye sall ride.'

'O no! O no! my master dear,

I dare nae for my life;

I'll ne gae to the bauld baron's,

For to tryst forth his wife.'

'O say na sae, my master dear,

For I fear a deadly storm.'

What next follows is like Hardyknute:

'But, O my master dear,' he cried,

In green wood ye're your lane;

Gie ower sic thoughts, I wad ye reid,

For fear ye should be tane.'

'Haste, haste! I say, gae to the ha';

Bid her come here wi' speed:

If ye refuse my heigh command,

I'll gar your body bleed.'

When the boy goes in and pronounces the fatal message before Lord Barnard:

Then up and spak the wily nurse,

The bairn upon her knee:

'If it be come frae Gil Morrice,

It's dear welcome to me.'

Compare this with the second verse of Sir Patrick Spence:

O up and spak an eldern knight,

Sat at the king's right knee, &c.

The messenger replies to the nurse:

'Ye lied, ye lied, ye filthy nurse,

Sae loud I heard ye lie,' &c.

Identical with Sir Patrick's answer to the taunt of the Norwegian lords:

'Ye lie, ye lie, ye liars loud,

Fu' loud I hear ye lie.'

When the youth has been slain by Lord Barnard, the lady explains that he was her son, and exclaims:

'To me nae after days nor nichts

Will e'er be saft or kind;

I'll fill the air wi' heavy sighs,

And greet till I am blind.'

How nearly is this the same with the doleful complaint of the wounded knight in Hardyknute!

'To me nae after day nor night

Can e'er be sweet or fair,' &c.

Lord Barnard pours out his contrition to his wife:

'With waefu' wae I hear your plaint,

Sair, sair I rue the deed,

That e'er this cursed hand of mine

Had garred his body bleed.'

'Garred his body bleed' is a quaint and singular expression: it occurs in Hardyknute, and nowhere else:

'To lay thee low as horse's hoof,

My word I mean to keep:'

Syne with the first stroke e'er he strake,

He garred his body bleed.

Passages and phrases of one poem appear in another from various causes—plagiarism and imitation; and in traditionary lore, it is easy to understand how a number of phrases might be in general use, as part of a common stock. But the parallel passages above noted are confined to a particular group of ballads—they are not to such an extent beauties as to have been produced by either plagiarism or imitation; it is submitted that they thus appear by an overwhelmingly superior likelihood as the result of a common authorship in the various pieces.

Having so traced a probable common authorship, and that modern, from Hardyknute to Sir Patrick Spence, and from these two to the revised and improved edition of Gil Morrice, I was tempted to inquire if there be not others of the Scottish ballads liable to similar suspicion as to the antiquity of their origin? May not the conjectured author of these three have written several of the remainder of that group of compositions, so remarkable as they likewise are for their high literary qualities? Now, there is in Percy a number of Scottish ballads equally noteworthy for their beauty, and for the way in which they came to the hands of the editor. There is Edward, Edward, 'from a manuscript copy transmitted from Scotland;' the Jew's Daughter, 'from a manuscript copy sent from Scotland;' Gilderoy, 'from a written copy that appears to have received some modern corrections;' likewise, Young Waters, 'from a copy printed not long since at Glasgow, in one sheet octavo,' for the publication of which the world was 'indebted to Lady Jean Home, sister to the Earl of Home;' and Edom o' Gordon, which had been put by Sir David Dalrymple to Foulis's press in 1755, 'as it was preserved in the memory of a lady that is now dead'—Percy, however, having in this case improved the ballad by the addition of a few stanzas from a fragment in his folio manuscript. Regarding the Bonny Earl of Murray, the editor tells us nothing beyond calling it 'a Scottish song.' Of not one of these seven ballads, as published by Percy, has it ever been pretended that any ancient manuscript exists, or that there is any proof of their having had a being before the eighteenth century, beyond the rude and dissimilar prototypes (shall we call them?) which, in two instances, are found in the folio manuscript of Percy. No person was cited at first as having been accustomed to recite or sing them; and they have not been found familiar to the common people since. Their style is elegant, and free from coarsenesses, while yet exhibiting a large measure of the ballad simplicity. In all literary grace, they are as superior to the generality of the homely traditionary ballads of the rustic population, as the romances of Scott are superior to a set of chap-books. Indeed, it might not be very unreasonable to say that these ballads have done more to create a popularity for Percy's Reliques than all the other contents of the book. There is a community of character throughout all these poems, both as to forms of expression and style of thought and feeling—jealousy in husbands of high rank, maternal tenderness, tragic despair, are prominent in them, though not in them all. In several, there is the same kind of obscure and confused reference to known events in Scottish history, which editors have thought they saw in Sir Patrick Spence.

Let us take a cursory glance at these poems.

Young Waters is a tale of royal jealousy. It is here given entire.

About Yule, when the wind blew cool,

And the round tables began,

A! there is come to our king's court

Mony a well-favoured man.

The queen looked ower the castle-wa',

Beheld baith dale and down,

And then she saw Young Waters

Come riding to the town.

His footmen they did rin before,

His horsemen rade behind,

Ane mantel o' the burning gowd

Did keep him frae the wind.

Gowden graithed his horse before,

And siller shod behind;

The horse Young Waters rade upon

Was fleeter than the wind.

But then spak a wily lord,

Unto the queen said he:

'O tell me wha's the fairest face

Rides in the company?'

'I've seen lord, and I've seen laird,

And knights of high degree;

But a fairer face than Young Waters

Mine een did never see.'

Out then spak the jealous king,

And an angry man was he:

'O if he had been twice as fair,

You might have excepted me.'

'You're neither lord nor laird,' she says,

'But the king that wears the crown;

There's not a knight in fair Scotland,

But to thee maun bow down.'

For a' that she could do or say,

Appeased he wadna be,

But for the words which she had said,

Young Waters he maun dee.

They hae tane Young Waters, and

Put fetters to his feet;

They hae tane Young Waters, and

Thrown him in dungeon deep.

Aft hae I ridden through Stirling town,

In the wind but and the weet,

But I ne'er rade through Stirling town

Wi' fetters at my feet.

Aft hae I ridden through Stirling town,

In the wind both and the rain,

But I ne'er rade through Stirling town

Ne'er to return again.

They hae tane to the heading-hill

His young son in his cradle;

They hae tane to the heading-hill

His horse both and his saddle.

They hae tane to the heading-hill

His lady fair to see;

And for the words the queen had spoke,

Young Waters he did dee.

Now, let the parallel passages be here observed. In verse second, the lady does exactly like the mother of Gil Morrice, of whom it is said:

The lady sat on the castle-wa',

Beheld baith dale and down,

And there she saw Gil Morrice' head

Come trailing to the town.

Dale and down, let it be observed in passing, are words never used in Scotland; they are exotic English terms. The mantle of the hero in verse third recalls that of Gil Morrice, which was 'a' gowd but the hem'—a specialty, we may say, not likely to have occurred to a male mind. What the wily lord does in verse fifth is the exact counterpart of the account of the eldern knight in Sir Patrick Spence:

Up and spak an eldern knight,

Sat at the king's right knee.

Observe the description of the king's jealous rage in Young Waters; how perfectly the same is that of the baron in Gil Morrice:

Then up and spak the bauld baron,

An angry man was he * *

'Nae wonder, nae wonder, Gil Morrice,

My lady lo'es thee weel,

The fairest part of my bodie

Is blacker than thy heel.'

Even in so small a matter as the choice of rhymes, especially where there is any irregularity, it may be allowable to point out a parallelism. Is there not such between those in the verse descriptive of Young Waters's fettering, and those in the closing stanza of Sir Patrick Spence? It belongs to the idiosyncrasy of an author to make feet rhyme twice over to deep. Finally, let us observe how like the tone as well as words of the last lines of Young Waters to a certain verse in Hardyknute:

The fainting corps of warriors lay,