Part 58

FAIR ANNIE.—p. 111

From The Border Minstrelsy. There are Danish, Swedish, Dutch, and German versions, and the theme enters artistic poetry as early as Marie de France (Le Lai del Freisne). In Scotch the Earl of Wemyss is a recent importation: the earldom dates from 1633. Of course this process of attaching a legend or Märchen to a well-known name, or place, is one of the most common in mythological evolution, and by itself invalidates the theory which would explain myths by a philological analysis of the proper names in the tale. These may not be, and probably are not, the original names.

THE DOWNIE DENS OF YARROW.—p. 116

From The Border Minstrelsy. Scott thought that the hero was Walter Scott, third son of Thirlestane, slain by Scott of Tushielaw. The “monument” (a standing stone near Yarrow) is really of a very early, rather Post-Roman date, and refers to no feud of Thirlestane, Oakwood, Kirkhope, or Tushielaw. The stone is not far from Yarrow Krik, near a place called Warrior’s Rest. Hamilton of Bangour’s version is beautiful and well known. Quite recently a very early interment of a corpse, in the curved position, was discovered not far from the standing stone with the inscription. Ballad, stone, and interment may all be distinct and separate.

SIR ROLAND.—p. 119

From Motherwell’s Minstrelsy. The authenticity of the ballad is dubious, but, if a forgery, it is a very skilled one for the early nineteenth century. Poets like Mr. Swinburne, Mr. Rossetti, and Mrs. Marriot Watson have imitated the genuine popular ballad, but never so closely as the author of “Sir Roland.”

ROSE THE RED AND WHITE LILY.—p. 123

From the Jamieson-Brown MS., originally written out by Mrs. Brown in 1783: Sir Waiter made changes in The Border Minstrelsy. The ballad is clearly a composite affair. Robert Chambers regarded Mrs. Brown as the Mrs. Harris of ballad lore, but Mr. Norval Clyne’s reply was absolutely crushing and satisfactory.

THE BATTLE OF HARLAW.—p. 131

Fought on July 24, 1411. This fight broke the Highland force in Scotland. The first version is, of course, literary, perhaps a composition of 1550, or even earlier. The second version is traditional, and was procured by Aytoun from Lady John Scott, herself the author of some beautiful songs. But the best ballad on the Red Harlaw is that placed by Scott in the mouth of Elspeth, in The Antiquary. This, indeed, is beyond all rivalry the most splendid modern imitation of the ancient popular Muse.

DICKIE MACPHALION.—p. 142

A great favourite of Scott’s, who heard it sung at Miss Edgeworth’s, during his tour in Ireland (1825). One verse recurs in a Jacobite chant, probably of 1745–1760, but the bibliography of Jacobite songs is especially obscure.

A LYKE-WAKE DIRGE.—p. 143

From the Border Minstrelsy. The ideas are mainly pre-Christian; the Brig o’ Dread occurs in Islamite and Iroquois belief, and in almost all mythologies the souls have to cross a River. Music for this dirge is given in Mr. Harold Boulton’s and Miss Macleod’s Songs of the North.

THE LAIRD OF WARISTOUN.—p. 145

This version was taken down by Sir Walter Scott from his mother’s recitation, for Jamieson’s book of ballads. Jamieson later quarrelled bitterly with Sir Walter, as letters at Abbotsford prove. A variant is given by Kinloch, and a longer, less poetical, but more historically accurate version is given by Buchan. The House of Waristoun is, or lately was, a melancholy place hanging above a narrow lake, in the northern suburbs of Edinburgh, near the Water of Leith. Kincaid was the name of the Laird; according to Chambers, the more famous lairds of Covenanting times were Johnstons. Kincaid is said to have treated his wife cruelly, wherefore she, or her nurse, engaged one Robert Weir, an old servant of her father (Livingstone of Dunipace), to strangle the unhappy man in his own bedroom (July 2, 1600). The lady was beheaded, the nurse was burned, and, later, Weir was also executed. The line

“I wish that ye may sink for sin”

occurs in an earlier ballad on Edinburgh Castle—

“And that all for the black dinner Earl Douglas got therein.”

MAY COLVEN.—p. 147

From Herd’s MS. Versions occur in Polish, German, Magyar, Portuguese, Scandinavian, and in French. The ballad is here localised on the Carrick coast, near Girvan. The lady is called a Kennedy of Culzean. Prof. Bugge regards this widely diffused ballad as based on the Apocryphal legend of Judith and Holofernes. If so, the legend is diablement changé en route. More probably the origin is a Märchen of a kind of Rakshasa fatal to women. Mr. Child has collected a vast mass of erudition on the subject, and by no means acquiesces in Prof. Bugge’s ingenious hypothesis.

JOHNIE FAA.—p. 150

From Pinkerton’s Scottish Ballads. The event narrated is a legend of the house of Cassilis (Kennedy), but is wholly unhistorical. “Sir John Faa,” in the fable, is aided by Gypsies, but, apparently, is not one of the Earls of Egypt, on whom Mr. Crockett’s novel, The Raiders, may be consulted. The ballad was first printed, as far as is known, in Ramsay’s Tea Table Miscellany.

HOBBIE NOBLE.—p. 152

The hero recurs in Jock o’ the Side, and Jock o’ the Mains is an historical character, that is, finds mention in authentic records, as Scott points out. The Armstrongs were deported in great numbers, as “an ill colony,” to Ulster, by James I. Sir Herbert Maxwell’s History of Dumfries and Galloway may be consulted for these and similar reivers.

THE TWA SISTERS.—p. 157

A version of “Binnorie.” The ballad here ends abruptly; doubtless the fiddler made fiddle-strings of the lady’s hair, and a fiddle of her breast-bone, while the instrument probably revealed the cruelty of the sister. Other extant versions are composite or interpolated, so this fragment (Sharpe’s) has been preferred in this place.

MARY AMBREE.—p. 160