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 FURTHER ESSAYS ON BORDER BALLADS
 
 FURTHER ESSAYS 
 ON BORDER BALLADS 
 
 BY 
 LiEUT.-CoL. THE HoN. FITZ WILLIAM ELLIOT 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 'THE TRUSTWORTHINESS OF BORDER BALLADS' 
 
 
 
 EDINBURGH 
 ANDREW ELLIOT, 17 PRINCES STREET 
 
 1910
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 In writing the following essays my object has been 
 to determine on the genuineness, or otherwise, of 
 four well-known Border ballads. Three of these, 
 namely, the so-called Scottish version of the ballad 
 of the ' Battle of Otterburn,' ' Auld Maitland,' and 
 ' Kinmont Willie,' were published for the first time 
 by Sir Walter Scott in the Minstrelsy of the Scottish 
 Border ; the fourth was known to but not published 
 by Sir Walter, who for some reason preferred to 
 place in his work what was clearly a later version. 
 ' Auld Maitland ' and the ' Battle of Otterburn ' 
 have frequently been quoted by our great writers as 
 extremely interesting instances of traditions of 
 historic incidents having been handed down orally, 
 ^ in the shape of verse, through very many generations, 
 and so also has ' Kinmont Willie,' though, of course, 
 the interest therein is of less degree, since it relates 
 to comparatively modern times. 
 
 I7i
 
 vi BORDER BALLADS 
 
 The fourth ballad, namely, 'Jamie Telfer i'the Fair 
 Dodliead,' was not made known to the public until 
 Professor Child published his great collection of 
 ballads between 1882 and 1898, and I do not think 
 any writer — myself excepted — has done more than 
 merely note its existence ; they have preferred to 
 dilate on the beauty of certain stanzas in the later 
 version, which is but a perversion of the original. 
 And yet, the ballad, if genuine, is of more than usual 
 interest, partly on account of the vividness with 
 which it describes an insignificant Border foray — 
 and the interest remains, even though the incident 
 were, as one authority on the subject avers, ima- 
 ginary ; partly, because the narrative fits perfectly 
 the topographical requirements of the district : 
 partly, because the persons named in it truly 
 flourished at the time, and were frequently engaged 
 in scenes similar to those depicted ; and partly, 
 because the main incidents appear to be based on 
 facts recorded in official documents. 
 
 No one will deny that these ballads, if genuine, are 
 of extreme interest, and well deserve being recorded 
 in the literary history of the periods to which they 
 severally relate ; on the other hand, if not genuine,
 
 PREFACE vii 
 
 they should be placed in the literature of the period 
 at which they were composed. 
 
 The first essay relates to the Scottish version of 
 the ' Battle of Otterburn,' which I endeavour to 
 show is a compilation, partly of stanzas of modern 
 fabrication, and partly of stanzas belonging to 
 earlier versions, all of which have been composed, 
 or altered, in such a way as to give to the whole the 
 appearance of being an original narrative, consonant 
 with Scottish sentiment, tradition, or history. It 
 has, in my opinion, no claim to the title it bears. 
 
 In the second chapter, the old EngUsh ballads of 
 ' Chevy-Chase ' and ' Otterburn ' are subjected to 
 close analysis, with the intention of showing that 
 they contain many stanzas of Scottish origin, and 
 that these, or at all events such as clearly relate to 
 the battle of Otterburn, if grouped together, con- 
 stitute a Scottish, and a well-connected, intelligible 
 ballad. I suggest the possibility that this recon- 
 structed version may bear a not very remote 
 resemblance in essentials to the old, original ballad, 
 which, there can be but little doubt, truly existed in 
 old days and was composed at a time when the inci- 
 dents referred to were still fresh in the minds of the
 
 viii BORDER BALLADS 
 
 people ; the original ballad, if it was in truth 
 composed not long after the battle, was Scotch, not 
 English. 
 
 The third essay has ' Kinmont Wilhe ' for its 
 theme. Many writers have expressed doubt as to 
 the extent of the emendations, which. Sir Walter 
 Scott told us, he had found necessary to make in the 
 ballad previous to publishing it, and they have 
 suggested that he composed a considerable portion 
 of it himself ; I cannot, however, remember any 
 sound reasons, or indeed any at all, having been 
 given for this view, and consequently I have thought 
 it desirable to investigate the matter. The conclu- 
 sions I come to are, firstly, that the whole ballad is 
 based on the curious old rhymes written by Captain 
 Walter Scot of Satchells in the middle of the 
 seventeenth century, and, secondly, that Sir Walter 
 Scott composed the whole of it. 
 
 The three remaining papers are on ' Jamie Telfer 
 i' the Fair Dodhead ' and ' Auld Maitland.' From a 
 chronological point of view it would liave been 
 preferable for the latter to have been the very first 
 ballad considered in this work, but the circumstances 
 in which it came to light are so closely connected
 
 PREFACE ix 
 
 with those surrounding the birth of the ballad of 
 * Jamie Telfer,' that it would have been inconvenient 
 to deal with them apart. In the first of these three 
 papers the genesis of the two ballads is discussed ; 
 the subject is one upon which Mr. Andrew Lang has 
 already written/ and a considerable portion of what 
 I here say is but a criticism of his views. No very 
 definite conclusions are expressed in this paper, 
 which should be regarded, not as being a complete 
 essay in itself, but merely as an introduction to the 
 tAvo that follow it. 
 
 In the first of these, I answer the question which 
 heads it, namely, ' Is " Jamie Telfer i' the Fair 
 Dodhead " a genuine ballad ? ' After closely con- 
 sidering the pros and cons, I arrive at the conclusion 
 that the weight of evidence is in favour of its being 
 so ; yet I have to admit that to clear it entirely of 
 well-founded suspicion is beyond my power. 
 
 The last essay is on ' Auld Maitland.' The genuine- 
 ness of this ballad has for long been doubted, and 
 
 1 See the Literary Supplement of the Timex, July 30, 1906, and 
 the Scottish Historical Beview for July of the same j^ear, in which 
 Mr. Lang reviewed a book I had shortly before published, entitled 
 The Trustworthiness of Border Ballads ; see also his introduction 
 to Mr. Farrer's Literary Forgeries (1907), and the chapter in that 
 work dealing with ' Ballad Forgeries.'
 
 X BORDER BALLADS 
 
 for this reason, presumably, Professor Child excluded 
 
 it from his collection. I do not think — I may be 
 
 quite wrong in this — that he, or any other authority, 
 
 has clearly mentioned the reasons for suspecting 
 
 more than portions of the ballad to be spurious, 
 
 although beheving the whole to be so. On the other 
 
 hand, Mr. Lang beHeves that the greater part of the 
 
 ballad, or perhaps I should say, the whole, is 
 
 genuine, and in the above-mentioned chapter in 
 
 Ballad Forgeries he fully sets out his reasons. 
 
 The object of my essay is to determine which of 
 
 these antagonistic views is probably the true one ; 
 
 the conclusion drawn is wholly and entirely in favour 
 
 of the former. 
 
 FITZWILLIAM ELLIOT. 
 
 Edisbdrgh, November 1909.
 
 CONTENTS 
 NUMBER I 
 
 PACK 
 
 ON .THE SCOTTISH VERSION OF THE BALLAD OF 
 
 THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN ... 3 
 
 NUMBER II 
 
 ON THE SCOTTISH VERSION OF THE BALLAD OF 
 
 THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN {Continued) . 49 
 
 NUMBER III 
 KINMONT WILLIE 107 
 
 NUMBER IV 
 
 ON THE GENESIS OF THE BALLADS OF 'JAMIE 
 
 TELFER ' AND ' AULD MAITLAND ' . . 155 
 
 NUMBER V 
 
 'JAMIE TELFER I' THE FAIR DODHEAD.' IS IT A 
 
 GENUINE BALLAD? 189 
 
 NUMBER VI 
 'AULD MAITLAND' 219
 
 NUMBER I 
 
 ON THE SCOTTISH VERSION OF THE 
 BALLAD OF THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN
 
 ON THE SCOTTISH VERSION OF THE 
 BALLAD OF THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 
 
 In the following pages I propose to consider whether 
 the ballad, entitled 'The Battle of Otterburn,' 
 pubUshed by Sir Walter Scott in the third edition 
 of the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1806) and 
 subsequent editions, has a just claim to be accepted 
 as an old and genuine Scottish ballad. 
 
 In the first place it will be as well to glance for a 
 moment at two other ballads bearing the same 
 title, one English and one Scottish, which were in 
 existence when the Minstrelsy made its appearance. 
 
 In the English ballad, published in the Reliques of 
 Ancient Poetry (1765), and believed by the editor, 
 Dr. Percy, and also by Mr. Ritson, to have been 
 composed not later than in the reign of Henry vi. 
 (1422-1461), the story of the battle of Otterburn, 
 fought on the 9th (?) August 1388, is told thus :— 
 
 Stanza 
 
 1. About Lammas time (early in August) Earl 
 
 2. Douglas invades England, the Earl of Fife 
 moving via the Solway.
 
 4 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 Stanza 
 
 3. The former marches via Ottercap, etc., and burns 
 
 4. a large part of Northumberland. 
 
 5, 6. He is advised to advance on Newcastle. 
 
 7. Next day he does so, and upon his arrival 
 
 8. challenges Sir Henry Percy and others within 
 
 9. the castle to come out and fight, at the same 
 
 10. time insulting them by telling them that 
 they had burned Northumberland, Percy's 
 heritage. 
 
 11. Percy, from the castle walls, exclaims to Douglas 
 
 12. that for the wrong the latter had done him, 
 one of the two must die. 
 
 13. ' ^Vhere shall I await you ? ' asks the Douglas. 
 
 14. ' At Otterburn,' replies Percy, ' it shall not be 
 
 15. long before I come.' 
 
 16. ' There shall I wait,' says Douglas. 
 ' There shall I come,' says Percy. 
 
 17. Percy then gives wine to Douglas and his men, 
 
 18. who thereupon retire on Otterbourne. Here 
 
 19. Douglas sets up his standard and sends his 
 horses to grass. 
 
 20. At daybreak a knight, who is on guard, becoming 
 
 21. aware of Percy's approach, rushes off to 
 
 22. inform Douglas that the English are advancing 
 with seven standards. 
 
 23, 24. Douglas at first doubts the truth of this re- 
 
 25. port, but subsequently orders his men to be 
 aroused. 
 
 26. He then forms his army into three divisions, gives 
 
 27. the command of one — the advance guard — to 
 
 28. the Earl of Menteith, of another, to Lord 
 Buchan, and he himself takes the third.
 
 THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 6 
 
 Second Fytte 
 
 Stanza 
 
 1. Percy, at the head of his troops, again tells 
 
 2. Douglas that for the trespass he has done, one 
 of the two must die. 
 
 3. To this Douglas points out to Percy that he 
 
 (Douglas) has twenty men for every one of his, 
 
 4. and suggests that Percy should come and verify 
 this for himself. 
 
 5. Percy then dismounts, and his men do likewise. 
 6, 7. He has only 9000 men, the Scots 40,000. 
 
 8.-16. As the battle is commencing, Percy receives a 
 letter from his father bidding him to wait until 
 he should come up. But Percy directs the 
 messenger to reply that his honour forbade his 
 doing so ; at the same time, he orders the 
 archers to shoot, the minstrels to play, and 
 every man to think of his true love, and to 
 commend himself to God. 
 While on the Scottish side the Douglas standard 
 
 17. with the bloody heart flies high, so also on the 
 
 18. English side does the white lion of the Percys. 
 19, 20. The Scots shout ' St. Andrew ! ' the English ' St. 
 
 21. George ! ' 
 
 21. The arrows fly, the soldiers join battle, and many 
 
 fall. 
 22-28. Percy and Douglas meet and fight together ; 
 
 Douglas calls on Percy to yield ; he refuses and 
 
 kills Douglas. 
 29, 30. The battle continued all day and night. 
 31-34. There were slain, on the Scottish side, Sir James 
 
 Douglas, Menteith, etc., and of 44,000 Scots 
 
 went but 18[000 ?] away.
 
 6 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 Stanza 
 
 On the English side were slain, Sir John Fitz- 
 Hugh, Harbottle, etc., and of 9000 men 500 
 came away. 
 
 39. Next morning the dead were removed. 
 
 40. The battle began between night and day. 
 Douglas was killed ; Percy taken prisoner, 
 
 41. Sir Hugh Montgomery was taken prisoner by the 
 
 English and was exchanged for Percy. 
 ' Let us all for the Percy praye, 
 
 42. 
 
 For he was a gentyll knyght.' 
 
 The story is throughout perfectly well connected 
 and is simply and intelligibly told ; there is in it 
 little indicative of poetical imagination, nothing 
 intentionally pathetic, for even stanza 39 of the 
 second part, or fit, namely : 
 
 Then on the morn they mayd them beeres 
 
 Of byrch, and haysell graye ; 
 Many a wydowe with wepyng teyres 
 
 Ther makes they fette awaye — 
 
 is, in fact, merely a narration of occurrences common 
 to every combat and battle in those days. 
 
 But, what is peculiarly striking is the chivalrous 
 spirit attributed to both Douglas and Percy. The 
 latter, after accepting the challenge to fight, supplies 
 his enemies with wine ; later, when Percy at the 
 head of his army approaches the Scottish camp,
 
 THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 7 
 
 Douglas points out to him how much stronger the 
 Scots are than the Enghsh, and offers to let Percy 
 verify this for himself — Douglas has no wish to take 
 advantage of his superior numbers. And again, 
 when the battle was about to commence, Percy 
 declines to wait for the reinforcements which his 
 father is bringing up, for to do so would, he con- 
 sidered, have been inconsistent with honour. 
 
 Now let us look at the other ballad — the Scottish 
 one — which was published in Herd's Ancient and 
 Modern Scottish Songs and Ballads (1776). The 
 story is told thus : — 
 
 Stanzas 
 
 1-4. At about Lammas, Earl Douglas, accompanied 
 by the Lindsays and Gordons, raids England, 
 burning Northumberland and Otter-dale ; here 
 a boy, servant to one of Douglas's kin, reports 
 the advance of an English force. 
 
 5, 6. Douglas tells the boy that if his report be true he 
 shall be rewarded, but if false, hanged. 
 
 7. The boy stabs Douglas, mortally wounding him. 
 Douglas then gives the command of the vanguard 
 
 8. of three divisions to Sir Hugh Montgomery ; he 
 also asks him to bury him at ' yon bracken 
 bush.' 
 
 9-14. Percy and Montgomery meet and fight together ; 
 the latter calls upon the former to yield. 
 Percy then asks to whom it is he is to surrender, 
 and Montgomery tells him to surrender to the 
 bracken bush. ' Never to a bracken bush, nor
 
 8 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 to a brier,' answers Percy, ' but if Douglas or 
 Montgomery were here, I would yield to him.' 
 Then, finding his adversary to be Montgomery, 
 he surrenders. This occurred at Otterbourne 
 about daybreak. Douglas was buried at the 
 bracken bush, Percy led captive away. 
 
 The story is not so well connected as in Percy's 
 version, and is evidently made up of fragments. 
 Thus the second couplet of the second stanza which 
 is as follows — 
 
 He has chosen the Lindsays light, 
 With them the gallant Gordons gay. 
 
 And the Earl of Fyfe withouten strife. 
 
 And Sir Hugh Montgomery upon a grey ' — 
 
 is absurd. The third line occurs in the second stanza 
 of the Reliques version where, however, the reference 
 is perfectly intelhgible, and is historically correct — 
 
 The yerlle of Fyflfe, withowghten stryffe, 
 He bo\\'ynd hym over Sulway. 
 
 Again, lines must surely have been lost which 
 would have explained why the boy, after having 
 been promised by Douglas a reward in the event of 
 his report as to Percy's advance proving true — as 
 it did — should have stabbed him. 
 
 Some of the few facts related by this version agree 
 with those in Percy's version ; others do not.
 
 THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 9 
 
 There is agreement as to the season and district 
 in which the occurrences took place ; also as to 
 Douglas having been warned of the approach of the 
 English, and of his doubting the accuracy of the 
 report ; also as to the vanguard being one of three 
 divisions ; and also as to the broad facts that 
 Douglas, the commander of the Scottish army, 
 was killed, and that Percy, the commander of the 
 English, was taken prisoner. 
 
 They differ as to the manner of Douglas's death — 
 Herd's version ascribing it to assassination by one of 
 his own men, the Eeliques version as the result of a 
 personal combat with Percy ; again, according to 
 the former version, Percy is taken prisoner by 
 Montgomery after a hand-to-hand fight ; according 
 to the latter version, Montgomery was himself 
 taken prisoner, and afterwards exchanged for Percy. 
 The accounts of the combat between Percy and 
 Douglas, in the one version, and between Percy and 
 Montgomery, in the other, are practically identical. 
 
 There is a markedly different note in Herd's 
 stanzas from that in Dr. Percy's ballad — a more 
 pleasing one, perhaps, to those who are not stirred 
 by the high chivalrous sentiments of the latter, and 
 a more imaginative and poetical one. Not that 
 Herd's version is wanting in chivalrous sentiment, 
 for what could be more truly chivalrous, more
 
 10 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 courteous, more characteristic of modest gallantry, 
 than Montgomery's suggestion to Percy that he 
 should surrender, not to him, but to the bracken 
 bush where the great Douglas lay dead ? 
 
 One word more regarding these two ballads ; the 
 one published by Dr. Percy was printed from MSS. 
 in the Cotton Library and in the Harleian Collection, 
 and is thought by some authorities to date from the 
 reign of Henry vi. or even earlier. As to the ballad, 
 or fragments of a ballad published by Herd, I do not 
 think we are told how he became acquainted with 
 them ; the story of Douglas's assassination is told 
 by Hume of Godscroft and was probably very 
 generally believed in, but whether it was true or not 
 is really immaterial ; the main point of interest lies 
 in the fact that the incident related in the ballad is 
 similar to a tradition recorded by a historian of the 
 reign of James vi. 
 
 On the other hand, the story in the Reliques 
 version of Douglas and Percy having fought hand-to- 
 liand at Ottcrburn and of the former having been 
 killed by the latter, is, so far as I know, supported 
 neither by history nor by tradition. 
 
 I have now given a slight sketch of the only two 
 ballads on the battle of Otterburn — if we except that 
 of Chevy-Chase, which will be gone into very fully
 
 THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 11 
 
 in a subsequent chapter — in existence in 1802, when 
 the first two volumes of the Minstrelsy of the Scottish 
 Border were pubHshed by Sir Walter Scott. The 
 ballad of Otterburn therein given is Herd's version.^ 
 
 Shortly afterwards another, and a very different 
 version appeared ! 
 
 In the third edition of the Minstrelsy (1806) the 
 following sentence occurs in the prefatory note to 
 the ballad : ' This song was first published from Mr. 
 Herd's Collection of Scottish Songs and Ballads, 1774 
 (?1776) ; but fortunately two copies have since been 
 obtained from the recitation of old persons residing 
 at the head of Ettrick Forest.' It is, then, upon 
 these recitations that the ballad, now looked upon 
 as the standard Scottish version, is founded as 
 regards those points in which it differs from Herd's 
 version. 
 
 ' Or rather Herd's version 'corrected by a MS. copy.' These 
 seem, however, to have been practically identical, for, with the 
 exception of trivial verbal variations, such as 'Lord' for 'Earl,' 
 ' Bambroshire ' for ' Northshire,' etc., the only important differ- 
 ence between the corrected version, published in the Minstrelsy, 
 and the original, published by Herd, is that the eleventh stanza 
 of the latter, which runs, 
 
 O yield thee to yon bracken bush, 
 That grows upon yon lilye lee, 
 
 is preceded in the Min»trehy version by the couplet, 
 
 Thou shalt not yield to lord nor loun. 
 Nor yet shalt thou yield to me.
 
 12 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 I am afraid I must now make a few remarks with 
 regard to the rehance we ought to place on the 
 authenticity of ballads obtained through recita- 
 tion. 
 
 I presume that when a ballad is said to be thus 
 obtained, we are expected to beheve that it has been 
 passed down orally for generations to the reciter ; 
 there can be no other cause for interest. 
 
 Now, with the advance of civihsation and with 
 the spread of hterature, there can be no question 
 whatever that the habit, which at one period may 
 have been common to all ranks of society, of reciting 
 songs and ballads would have gradually passed away, 
 in the first place from the higher classes, and then, 
 more gradually still, from the peasantry. It is, 
 therefore, natural to think that, since more ballads 
 must have been known to the people in old days than 
 now, ballad-collectors of those times would have 
 obtained a greater number from recitation than would 
 later ballad-collectors. But as a matter of fact, this 
 appears to be the very reverse of what has actually 
 occurred. 
 
 If we examine the notes prefixed to the ballads in 
 Professor Child's enormous collection of Enghsh and 
 Scottish popular ballads — I refer to the smaller 
 edition (Cambridge edition, 1904), for the original 
 edition is far too colossal a \\ ork for the ordinary
 
 THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 13 
 
 reader to make use of — we shall find over a hundred 
 have been obtained from recitation ; of these only 
 about fifteen come from English sources (including 
 four from the United States of America), while the 
 rest are all from Scottish sources. 
 
 Of the English fifteen, five appear to have been 
 recited before 1802 ; the remaining ten were got at 
 various dates between 1843 and 1896. 
 
 Of the Scottish ballads — say, ninety or a hundred 
 — one, namely 'Johnnie Armstrong,' was published, 
 from the recitation of the hero's lineal descendant 
 of the sixth degree, by Allan Ramsay in the Ever- 
 green, 1724. Another was obtained by Herd from 
 the recitation of a milkmaid ; and seven others were 
 recited by Mrs. Brown of Falkland between 1783 and 
 1800. Possibly I may have missed one or two others 
 obtained before 1800. 
 
 With regard to the remaining eighty or ninety 
 ballads, the dates at which they were severally taken 
 down from recitation are very frequently omitted, 
 but of those in which the dates are given, it appears 
 that, between 1800 and 1814, ten were thus obtained ; 
 none during the next ten years ; then between 1824 
 and 1829, there were fifteen ; during the ' thirties,' 
 one ; during the ' forties,' two ; during the ' fifties,' 
 four ; during the sixties,' one ; during the ' seventies,' 
 one ; and between 1880 and 1890, six.
 
 14 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 It must not be thought that I have any wish to 
 throw doubt on the veracity of those who have 
 testified to ballads having been taken down from 
 recitation ; I do not question that point, but I do 
 question very much whether we are right to assume 
 that all these ballads have come down orally from 
 days long past to the reciters. 
 
 For instance, the version of the ballad ' Henry 
 Martyn,' called ' Andrew Bartin,' was, we are told, 
 ' communicated by Mss Louise Porter Haskell as 
 derived from General E. P. Alexander of South 
 Carolina, and derived by him from the singing of a 
 cadet at West Point IVIihtary Academy in the winter 
 1856-7. Two or three sUght corrections have been 
 made by Mrs. A. C. Haskell, sister of Gen. Alexander.' 
 
 Or, again, we read that a version of ' The Farmer's 
 Curst Wife ' was ' taken down by Mr. Macmath from 
 the recitation of his aunt, Miss Jane Webster, 
 Crossmichael, Kirkcudbrightshire, August 27, 1892 ; 
 learned many years ago, at Airds of Kells, from the 
 singing of Samuel Galloway.' There are many very 
 similar notes, though perhaps none in which the 
 facts are borne out by better evidence. I have no 
 doubt of the truth of the statements, but they are 
 not in themselves sufficient to prove the antiquity of 
 the ballads. 
 
 Not very many years ago, a ballad entitled ' Little
 
 THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 15 
 
 Jock Elliot ' was published anonymously in some 
 Scottish newspaper — the Scotsman, I think — and was 
 at once hailed as the long-lost ballad relating the 
 hand-to-hand fight between Lord Bothwell (of 
 Queen Mary's time) and John Elliot of the Park. 
 The real author, Mr. Small, at once made it known 
 that it was a creation of his own brain and had no 
 claim whatever to be considered ancient. In spite 
 of this disclaimer, when I published a year or two 
 ago a book entitled The Trustworthiness of Border 
 Ballads, in which a chapter had been devoted to 
 remarks on the fragments still remaining of the 
 ancient song, a very distinguished Borderer wrote to 
 me pointing out the omission I had been guilty of in 
 not reproducing the version which had lately been 
 recovered on the Borders ! 
 
 Now, supposing Mr. Small had not published his 
 verses, and supposing further that his MS. had been 
 lost or destroyed but that his children had learned 
 the stanzas by heart — as might well have happened 
 — and their children also, in course of time the 
 ballad, and various versions too, would doubtless 
 come to light to be greedily seized upon as a 
 thoroughly well-authenticated instance of a genuine 
 old ballad having been handed down orally through 
 many generations. I quote this case merely to 
 show how easily we may quite honestly deceive
 
 16 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 ourselves as to the genuineness of ballads obtained 
 from recitation. 
 
 In the Evergreen (1724) Allan Ramsay tells us that 
 the Scots poems therein contained ' were wrote by 
 the ingenious before 1600,' and only one, namely, 
 ' Johnnie Armstrong,' does he claim as having been 
 obtained from recitation. 
 
 Again, in his Tea-Table Miscellany (1724-40) he 
 tells us that above sixty of the songs are of his own 
 composition, ' about thirty more were done by some 
 ingenious young gentlemen. . . . The rest are such 
 old verses as have been done time out of mind, and 
 only wanted to be cleared from the dross of blunder- 
 ing transcribers and printers.' Not a word is there 
 of getting any from recitation. 
 
 Again, in Dr. Percy's large collection, Reliques of 
 Ancient English and Scottish Poetry (1765), nearly all 
 are from MSS. and printed copies ; very few^ profess 
 to have been obtained from recitation and those 
 few are, I think, all Scotch. ' Hardyknute ' was 
 one ! 
 
 Again, in Herd's preface to the 1776 edition of his 
 collection of Scottish songs, we are told that many 
 of the old ballads ' are recovered from tradition or 
 old MSS. and never before appeared in print.' Such 
 as he ' recovered from tradition ' may, perhaps, have 
 been obtained from recitation, but if so he would, in
 
 THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 17 
 
 all probability, have attached a note to that effect, 
 as in the case of ' The Bonny Hind,' to which the 
 following is prefixed : ' Copied from the mouth of a 
 milkmaid, 1771, by W. L.' ^ 
 
 Again, in the Poetical Museum (Hawick, 1784) all 
 the originals are from MSS. Not one was obtained 
 from recitation. 
 
 Again, in Ritson's Ancient Songs and Ballads, 
 1790, all are, apparently, from printed copies and 
 MS. 
 
 At page Ixxxviii of his Dissertation on Ancient Songs 
 and Poetry, he writes that he ' has frequently heard 
 of traditional songs, but has had very little success 
 in his endeavours to hear the songs themselves.' ^ 
 In a footnote, however, he mentions that Dr. 
 Blacklock, the author of Blacklock's Poems (1756), 
 had ' made allusion to a sort of narrative songs, 
 which make no inconsiderable part of the innocent 
 amusements with which the country people pass the 
 
 ^ See prefatory note to the ' Bonny Hind ' in the Minstrelsy. 
 The ballad is not included in Herd's published collection. 
 
 " That Ritson was not absolutely destitute of success would 
 appear from a statement in Sir Walter Scott's prefatory note to 
 'Rookhope Ryde,' to the effect tliat Ritson took down the ballad 
 from the mouth of a reciter. Possibly, however, Ritson may not 
 have considered it a 'traditional song'; in the Minstrelsy it is 
 referred to as 'a Bisliopric Border song, composed in 1569.' It 
 may be worth noticing that the date of the event recorded in the 
 ballad has ' been precisely ascertained to be the 6th December 
 1572' (!).—(Cadeira edition, 1833.) 
 
 B
 
 18 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 winter nights, and of which the author of the present 
 piece was a faithful rehearser.' Upon this Ritson 
 remarks that ' it is a great pity if these pieces have 
 any merit that some attempt is not made to preserve 
 them.' 
 
 Again, we hear of a large MS. collection of ballads 
 being in the possession of a Dr. Elliot, a clergyman in 
 Liddesdale. Lockhart's Life of Scott (vol. i. p. 197) 
 tells us that, in 1792, Scott became acquainted with 
 it, and Dr. Elliot seeing how much he admired his 
 acquisition, ' exerted himself for several years in 
 seeking out the living depositaries of such lore 
 among the darker recesses of the mountains.' Wliat 
 success Dr. Elliot met with is not recorded, but a 
 close examination of the contents of the Minstrelsy 
 proves that, if he made any discoveries at all, they 
 were not considered of sufficient interest to merit 
 a place in that collection. 
 
 Lastly, we come to Sir Walter Scott's collection in 
 his Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, and here we find 
 that out of about seventy ballads, only thirteen 
 are wholly from MSS. ; thirty- three are from, or 
 owe some stanzas to, recitation ; eleven are from 
 tradition or partly so ; a few are reprints ; and with 
 regard to some the information given is not suffi- 
 ciently precise to enable us to pronounce definitely 
 the source from which they spring.
 
 THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 19 
 
 A change, whether for better or worse, in the art of 
 ballad collecting had indeed come about ! The old 
 well, from which ancient songs hitherto had been 
 drawn, was running dry, and a new spring, gushing 
 forth recitations, had been discovered. It is im- 
 possible not to think of the story told in Lockhart's 
 Life regarding Scott's ' equipping his chapters (in the 
 Waverley Novels) with mottoes of his own fabrica- 
 tion. On one occasion he happened to ask John 
 Ballantyne, who was sitting by him, to hunt for a 
 particular passage in Beaumont and Fletcher. 
 John did as he was bid, but did not succeed in 
 discovering the lines. " Hang it, Johnnie," cried 
 Scott, " I believe I can make a motto sooner than 
 you can find one." He did so, accordingly, and from 
 that hour, Avhenever memory failed to suggest an 
 appropriate epigraph, he had recourse to the 
 inexhaustible mines of " Old Play " or " Old Ballad," 
 to which we owe some of the most exquisite verses 
 that ever flowed from his pen.' Sir Walter himself 
 tells us that he found it too troublesome to look up 
 apposite mottoes, and so ' I drew on my memory as 
 long as I could, and, when that failed, eked it out 
 with invention. I believe that, in some cases, 
 where actual names are affixed to the supposed 
 quotations, it would be to little purpose to seek them 
 in the works of the authors referred to. In some
 
 20 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 cases, I have been entertained when Dr. Watts and 
 other graver authors have been ransacked in vain 
 for stanzas for Avhich the novehst was al"one re- 
 sponsible.' ^ 
 
 It will be rightly said that I am making the 
 suggestion, which some will call outrageous, that 
 since Sir Walter invented mottoes for various 
 chapters in his novels, it is not improbable that he 
 may have also invented ballads for his Minstrelsy of 
 the Scottish Border. Though we cannot help laughing 
 at the joke he played on the public in attaching the 
 names of Dr. Watts and other grave authors to 
 verses of his own composition — verses which in 
 themselves were not only unobjectionable but were 
 of such high merit that any author might have been 
 proud to have written them — yet it would have been 
 better, in my opinion at all events, if he had not 
 done so. 
 
 But whether it was an objectionable thing to have 
 done or not, there can be no question that he, who 
 saw in it nothing but a harmless joke, can equally 
 have seen no harm in the much less trivial offence — 
 if I may use that word — of inserting a stanza into an 
 anonymous poem to complete the sense or to render 
 readable what otherwise would remain unread — and 
 if one stanza, why not two ? or three ? or a dozen ? 
 
 * Introduction to Clironicles of the Canongate.
 
 THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 21 
 
 or why not perpetuate some interesting tradition by 
 throwing it into the form of attractive verse ? 
 
 But, it will be said, since he acknowledged the 
 graver offence, he would not have hesitated, had he 
 been guilty, of confessing also the minor. Well, we 
 must not let ourselves be blind to a good man's 
 actions, simply because he did not see fit to inform 
 us of them, and there can be no doubt whatever that 
 Scott did insert stanzas, strings of stanzas, of his own 
 composition into many of the Minstrelsy ballads ; ^ 
 yet not once, I believe, in the whole of that work 
 does he admit to being the author of a single line ; 
 he goes no further than, in two instances, to mention 
 that ' some conjectured emendations were necessary,' 
 and he does not even specify what these were ; there 
 is reason to think that in one of these instances, they 
 form almost the whole, if not indeed the whole 
 ballad. 
 
 It is not for me to consider the possible motives 
 which may have actuated Sir Walter — this would 
 be more thoroughly and satisfactorily done by those 
 who, unlike myself, see nothing objectionable in 
 what he did — and I shall here say nothing more in 
 his defence than to quote his own words with refer- 
 
 ^ In tlie case of 'Jamie Tclfcr' tliis lias been proved up to the 
 hilt ; see Part iii. of the chapter on that ballad in 77ic Trustworthi- 
 ness of Border Ballads (Blackwood, Edinburgh, 190G). 
 
 /
 
 / 
 
 / 
 
 / 
 
 22 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 ence to so-called ' ballad forgeries ' — ' the world has 
 been more enriched by the contribution than injured 
 by the deception.' ^ 
 
 Of the ballads composing the first two volumes 
 of the Minstrelsy, comparatively few are from 
 recitation or from tradition, while of the twenty- 
 three historical and romantic ballads in the third 
 volume, published in the following year, no less than 
 seventeen are so ; of the remaining six, the sources 
 of four are not clearly stated, and no information 
 whatever is afforded regarding the other two. 
 
 In later editions also many additional ballads 
 are given which were obtained from recitation ; 
 amongst these I include five which had appeared in 
 the first edition — presumably from MSS. — but of 
 which the editor was, he tells us, fortunate enough 
 to recover, since the first publication of his work, 
 more correct copies from recitation. 
 
 Amongst the ballads thus obtained are several 
 communicated by Surtees, who mentions details as 
 to how he procured them ; one was ' from the 
 recitation of Anne Douglas, who weeded in his 
 garden ' ; another was ' taken down from the 
 recitation of a woman eighty years of age, mother of 
 one of the miners in Alston-Moor, by the agent of 
 
 ^ See ' Essay on Imitations of the Ancient Ballad,' Scott's 
 Poetical Works (Cadell's edition), vol. iv. pp. 16-17.
 
 THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 23 
 
 the lead-mines there ' ; another was written down 
 by Surtees himself ' from the recitation of Rose 
 Smith, of Bishop Middleham, a woman aged upwards 
 of ninety-one, whose husband's father and two 
 brothers were killed in the affair in 1715.' 
 
 The whole world knows that these ballads were 
 composed by Surtees himself, and the whole world, 
 while in fact laughing at the joke, professes to think 
 it was very naughty of him to deceive his worthy and 
 innocent friend. But, as a matter of fact, was Scott 
 deceived ? Can we think so poorly of his dis- 
 crimination — of him who for years had searched 
 diligently far and wide through the Border land 
 without, so far as we know, ever once obtaining a 
 single ballad or song from recitation, unless, indeed, 
 we except the more than doubtful instance of ' Auld 
 Maitland ' ? ^ 
 
 I have said nothing with regard to the ballads 
 
 ' I have nowhere come across any definite statement of Sir 
 Walter's that he personally had taken down a song from recita- 
 tion, or had even heard an original ballad recited, though, perhaps, 
 he leads one to infer this. Lockhart's Life gives an account of a 
 Liddesdale farmer singing to Scott the ballad of ' Dick o' the Cow,' 
 but this was not an original ballad, and Scott published it in the 
 MinMreUy from another source. It had been printed at Hawick 
 in 1784, many years before Scott heard it sung, and had doubtless 
 been largely circulated amongst, and well known to, many persons 
 in the district. 
 
 Tiie 'Origin of Auld Maitland' forms the subject of a future 
 chapter.
 
 24 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 and songs ' given from tradition ' or ' taken from 
 tradition,' for I am not very clear as to what is 
 meant by the expression ; but since we are appar- 
 ently intended to understand that they are neither 
 from MSS. nor from recitation, it is to be presumed 
 that in each case the spirit of some old tradition 
 has been endowed with a modern rhythmic body, 
 either by the editor or by the person who communi- 
 cated it to him. 
 
 Now, I do not go so far as to say that we ought not 
 to accept as genuine any of the ballads or stanzas 
 published in the Minstrelsy professing to have been 
 obtained from recitation, but I do say that the 
 presumption is in each case against its being genuine, 
 and therefore that not one ought to be accepted 
 without close examination. 
 
 Scott professed implicit confidence in the genuine- 
 ness of the songs supplied to him by his friend, 
 Surtees ; is it unreasonable to think that his con- 
 fidence with regard to other sources may not have 
 been equally misplaced ? And what were these 
 sources ? I shall not, I hope, be exaggerating in 
 saying that in not more than half a dozen instances 
 are the names of the reciters given. Surtees tells 
 the name of one of his old women ; ' Auld Maitland ' 
 was recited by another old woman, Mrs. Hogg ; 
 the name of the reciter of ' Rookhope Ryde ' is also
 
 THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 25 
 
 mentioned ; two stanzas of ' Sir Patrick Spens ' 
 were from the recitation of the editor's friend, Robert 
 Hamilton, Esq, ; ' Cospatrick ' and ' Prince Robert ' 
 were from the recitation of a lady relative of the 
 editor. The mere fact that names were mentioned 
 in some cases inclines one to fancy they may not 
 have been forthcoming in others. 
 
 Occasionally the names of the persons who took 
 down the ballads from the mouths of the reciters 
 are given ; thus, the ' battle of Pentland Hills ' was 
 taken down by Mr. Livingstone of Airds from the 
 recitation of an old woman living on his estate. 
 ' Sir Hugh le Blonde ' was written down by Mr. 
 Burnet of Monboddo from the recitation of an old 
 woman, long in the service of the Arbuthnot family. 
 ' The Demon Lover ' was taken down by Wm. Laid- 
 law. There may be a few other cases, but in the 
 vast majority we are told neither who the reciter 
 nor who the transcriber was. 
 
 After this long digression let us now resume our 
 examination into the ballad of the battle of Otter- 
 burn, the Minstrelsy version of which must, as I 
 have pointed out, be founded, in respect to those 
 points in which it differs from Herd's version, upon 
 the recitations of old persons dwelling in Ettrick 
 Forest. 
 
 In his prefatory note to the ballad, Sir Walter
 
 26 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 Scott surmises that the ballad published in Percy's 
 Reliques, or one similiar to it, modified by national 
 prejudice, must have been current in Scotland 
 during the reign of James vi., for Godscroft (1560- 
 1630) records that 'the Scots song of Otterbourne 
 telleth the time about Lammas ; and also the 
 occasion, to take preys out of England ; also the 
 dividing armies betwixt the earls of Fife and 
 Douglas, and their several journeys, almost as in 
 the authentic history. It beginneth thus : — 
 
 It fell about the Lammas tide, 
 When yeomen win their hay, 
 
 The dochty Douglas 'gan to ride 
 In England to take a prey ' ; 
 
 and so also does the ballad in the Reliques com- 
 mence with this same stanza ; it also refers to the 
 season, to the occasipn, to the armies of Fife and 
 Douglas, and to their several journeys, or at least 
 to the route followed by Douglas. 
 
 Again, Sir Walter writes that his ballad is 
 essentially different from that published in the 
 Reliques^ and is obviously of Scottish composition. 
 He also informs us that since publishing, in the 
 first edition of the Minstrelsy , the version taken 
 from Herd's collection of songs, he had been 
 fortunate enough to obtain two copies from recita-
 
 THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 27 
 
 tion, by which the story is brought out and com- 
 pleted in a manner much more correspondent to the 
 true history. He does not tell us of a single hne 
 having been borrowed from Dr, Percy's version. 
 
 If, then, we should find, in those portions of the 
 ballad obtained from recitation, stanzas, or lines, 
 strongly resembling others in Dr. Percy's ballad, 
 we may argue, on the one hand, that their presence 
 is what might be fairly expected from Scott's sur- 
 mise and strengthens belief in the genuineness of the 
 portions obtained from recitation ; and, on the other 
 hand, that their presence is due to the reciter having 
 been acquainted with Dr. Percy's version and to his 
 having borrowed from it, and that, consequently, 
 faith as to the genuineness of this portion is greatly 
 shaken. 
 
 The first step towards determining between these 
 antagonistic views is to be clear as to what the differ- 
 ences between Herd's version and the Minstrelsy 
 version really are, that is to say to be clear as to 
 what is due to recitation ; the second step will be 
 to compare the result thus obtained with Dr. 
 Percy's version, and in doing so we shall probably 
 find some points of similarity, some of difference, 
 which may be favourable to, or adverse to, one or 
 other of the lines of argument. 
 
 The chief points of difference, in so far as the
 
 28 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 narrative is concerned, between Herd's version and 
 Scott's consist in the latter mentioning, while the 
 former does not (1) Douglas's advance to New- 
 castle ; (2) his personal combat there with Percy ; 
 (3) his acceptance of a challenge to battle at Otter- 
 burn ; (4) his dream foreboding death and victory ; 
 (5) his death being due to a personal encounter with 
 Percy on the field of battle — Herd's version assigns 
 Douglas's death to assassination. 
 
 These five important points have been obtained, 
 then, through recitation. 
 
 Now, if we look at the Reliques version, we shall 
 find with reference to (1) that mention is made of 
 Douglas's advance to Newcastle ; {2) no mention 
 is made of a combat there between Douglas and 
 Percy ; (3) mention is made of his acceptance of a 
 challenge to fight a battle at Otterburn and of his 
 retreat there ; (4) no mention is made of the dream ; 
 (5) his death is imputed to the same cause, namely, 
 to a personal combat with Percy. 
 
 So Dr. Percy's ballad and Sir Walter's stanzas 
 obtained from recitation agree as to Douglas's 
 advance to Newcastle ; but yet, how differently they 
 tell it ! Scott makes Douglas, upon arrival before 
 the walls, ask : 
 
 ' wha 's the lord of this castle, 
 Or wha '.s the lady o 't ? '
 
 THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 29 
 
 and Percy replies — 
 
 (And but he spake hie !) 
 ' I am the lord of this castle, 
 My wife 's the lady gay.' 
 
 Douglas answers — 
 
 ' If thou 'rt the lord of this castle, 
 Sae weel it pleases me ! 
 For ere I cross the Border fells 
 The tane of us shall dee.' 
 
 In Dr. Percy's version the tale is more simply 
 told :— 
 
 To the Newe Castelle the toke the waye, 
 And thither they cam fulle ryght. 
 
 Sir Henry Percy laye at the New Castelle, 
 I tell you withoutten drede ; 
 
 Sir Harry Percy cam to the walles, 
 The Skottyshe oste for to se ; 
 
 ' If thou hast haryed all Bamborowe shyre, 
 
 Thow hast done me grete envye ; 
 For the trespasse thou hast me done, 
 
 The tone of us schall dye.' 
 
 To my taste Scott's lines approach the bombastic, 
 and to my ear are wanting in the true old ring ; 
 others, however, may differ as to this, and I quite 
 think that ' taste ' and ' ear ' are not sure guides to
 
 30 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 follow. So far, then, there is nothing, save what is 
 due to a, perhaps, fanciful ear, in favour of either line 
 of argument — that is to say either in favour of the 
 reciters having obtained their stanzas through a 
 knowledge of a genuine old Scotch ballad or in favour 
 of their having obtained them through a knowledge 
 of the ballad published by Dr. Percy in the Reliques. 
 
 There is, however, one small point which ought 
 not to be entirely passed by unnoticed, it tells some- 
 what in favour of the latter view. 
 
 The words ' The tane of us shall dye ' are common 
 to both versions, but in the one they are spoken by 
 Percy, in the other by Douglas — an inversion which 
 is clearly not due to Dr. Percy, whose ballad was 
 published nearly forty years before the reciters 
 appeared on the scene. 
 
 The next point of similarity between the English 
 ballad and the stanzas obtained from recitation is 
 that mentioned at (3). 
 
 Of course there is nothing odd in both an English 
 and a Scottish ballad referring to Douglas's move- 
 ment to Otterburn, but there is something suspicious 
 in their both referring to an incident — the challenge 
 to battle — which was probably purely fanciful and 
 imaginary, and, if Ave look into the matter closely we 
 shall find additional reasons for suspecting the 
 genuineness of the Scottish version.
 
 THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 3 J 
 
 In the Reliques version we have Percy thus reply- 
 ing to Douglas's ' Where shall I bide thee ? ' — 
 
 'At Otterborne in the high way, 
 
 Tlier maist thow well logeed be. 
 The roe full rekeles ther sche rinnes, 
 
 To make the game and glee : 
 The fawkon and the fesaunt both, 
 
 Amono; the holtes on hee. 
 
 •'o 
 
 Ther maist thow have thy welth at wyll, 
 
 Well looged ther maist be. 
 It shall not be long, or I com the tyll,' 
 
 Sayd Syr Harry Percye, 
 
 ' Ther scliall I byde the,' sayd the Dowglas, 
 
 ' By the fayth of my bodye.' — 
 ' Thether schall I com,' saj^d Syr Harry Percy ; 
 
 ' My trowth I plyght to the.' 
 
 Now, in the stanzas said to have been obtained 
 from recitation we find absolutely the same matter, 
 and, more than this, we find almost the same words, 
 dressed into prettier verse, but put into different 
 mouths ! After Percy tells Douglas to go to Otter- 
 bourne, it is the latter, not the former, who remarks 
 on the plentifulness of the game ; again, the lines 
 composing the last stanza just quoted are pitch- 
 forked about in a very curious manner — the first and 
 the third change places, and the fourth is transferred 
 from the mouth of Percy into that of Douglas ! 
 
 V
 
 32 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 Again, in the Reliques we read, with reference to 
 Douglas, that 
 
 He took his logeyng at Oterborne 
 And ther he pyght his standard dowyn. 
 
 In the Minstrelsy the same matter is more pictu- 
 resquely depicted : 
 
 They lighted high on Otterbourne, 
 
 Upon the bent sae brown ; 
 They lighted high on Otterbourne, 
 
 And threw their pallions down. 
 
 Again, the following two lines in the Reliques 
 version — 
 
 And syne he warned hys men to goo 
 To chose ther geldyngs gresse — 
 
 are represented by the following in the Minstrelsy 
 version : 
 
 And he that had a bonny boy. 
 Sent out his horse to grass. 
 
 Though ' grass ' is almost the only word the couplets 
 have in common, they are practically identical. 
 The expression ' bonnie boy ' is taken from Herd's 
 version. 
 
 It is more than extraordinary that a detail so 
 trivial as sending horses to grass should have been 
 recorded both by old English MSS. and by persons
 
 THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 33 
 
 residing, many centuries after the occurrence, at 
 the head of Ettrick Forest. 
 
 It would be mere childishness to pretend to think 
 that these similarities, of which the only differences 
 are due to slight verbal alterations, or to inversion, 
 or to the touch of an artistic hand, are only what 
 might fairly be expected, and that they strengthen 
 belief in the genuineness of the stanzas obtained 
 from recitation. That they are in truth due to 
 the composer having been acquainted with Dr. 
 Percy's ballad surely no honest thinking man can 
 doubt. 
 
 It would be unfair, however, not to point out one 
 small matter which may be said to tell the other 
 way. In the Minstrelsy version, Percy, after telling 
 Douglas to go to Otterboume, says, 
 
 ' And if I come not ere three dayis end, 
 A fause knight ca' ye me,' 
 
 to which Douglas replies, 
 
 ' And if you come not at three dayis end, 
 A fause lord I '11 ca' thee.' 
 
 In the Reliques version no time is specified, no 
 suggestion made of either knight proving false ; 
 since, then, neither the words nor the idea are 
 borrowed from the Reliques, the presence of the lines 
 may be said to argue in favour of the genuineness of 
 
 c
 
 34 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 the verses. The argument would be sound were 
 there not another alternative — the verses may be of 
 modern fabrication, a suggestion which applies also 
 to all the stanzas in the Minstrelsy version having 
 no counterpart in either of the other two versions. 
 
 There remains one other point to be remarked on — 
 and the remark I am about to make is apphcable to 
 other stanzas than those which we are now consider- 
 ing. I refer to the beauty of some of the lines in 
 the Minstrelsy version and to the satirical tone in 
 one of the stanzas. Beauty is certainly not a 
 common attribute of genuine old ballads, nor is 
 satire, at all events of the refined nature, found here. 
 
 To Percy's suggestion that Douglas should await 
 him at Otterbourne, the latter replies : 
 
 ' The Otterbourne 's a bonnie burn ; 
 'Tis pleasant there to be ; 
 But there is nought at Otterbourne, 
 To feed my men and me. 
 
 The deer rins wild on hill and dale, 
 The birds fly wild from tree to tree ; 
 
 But there is neither bread nor kale, 
 To fend my men and me.' 
 
 The last point of similarity between the story 
 obtained from recitation and that given in the 
 Reliques lies in Douglas's death being ascribed in 
 both to the result of a hand-to-hand fight with
 
 THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 35 
 
 Percy. Even the words are very similar ; in the 
 Reliques we have — 
 
 The Percy and the Dowglas mette, 
 
 That ether of other was faync ; 
 They schapped together, whyll that the swette, 
 
 With swords of fyne Collayne. 
 
 The stanza in the Minstrelsy version is practically 
 the same, except that for the last line we have 
 
 And the blood ran down like rain, 
 
 which words are in fact taken from the couplet 
 immediately following the above quoted stanza in 
 the Reliques, which runs thus : 
 
 Tyll the bloode from ther bassonets ranne, 
 As the roke ^ doth in the rayne. 
 
 Again, the Reliques version refers to swords 
 ' sharp and long ' that ' sore can byte,' and it relates 
 that Percy ' smote the Dowglas at the swordes 
 length, That he felle to the grounde.' So in Scott's 
 version we read — 
 
 But Percy with his good broad sword, 
 
 That could so sharply wound, 
 Has wounded Douglas on the brow, 
 
 Till he fell to the ground.'^ 
 
 1 Rock. 
 
 ^ Surely the composer of these stanzas in the Minstrelsy must 
 have been studying Richcsource, Professor of ' Plagianism,' an art 
 ' whicli consists in giving a new order to the parts, changing the
 
 36 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 The only important difference is that the Reliques 
 version makes no reference to the story, told in the 
 Minstrelsy, of Douglas having forgotten to put on his 
 helmet before going into the field. National vanity, 
 I fear, required an explanation of how it happened 
 that a Douglas should have been slain by a Percy, 
 and this was obtained by borrowing hnes, from 
 Herd's version, relating to another matter altogether, 
 namely, that of the assassination ! 
 
 We must now consider the main points of difference 
 — (2) and (4) — between the story obtained from 
 recitation and that given in the Reliques. 
 
 We see that the former relates, while the latter 
 does not, that a personal encounter took place at 
 Newcastle between Douglas and Percy, in which the 
 latter was worsted. 
 
 This appears to be in accordance \\ith history, and 
 Sir Walter refers to it, in his prefatory note, thus : 
 
 phrases, the words, etc. An orator, for instance, having said that 
 a plenipotentiary should possess three qualities — probity, capacity, 
 and courage ; the plagiarist, on the contrary, may employ courage, 
 capacity, and probity. This is only for a general rule, for it is too 
 simple to practise frequently. To render the part perfect we must 
 make it more complex by changing the whole of the expressions. 
 Tiie plagiarist in place of courage will put force, constancy, or 
 vigour. For probity he may say religion, virtue, or sinceritj-. 
 Instead of capacity he may sul)!5titutc erudition, ability, or science. 
 Or he may disguise the whole by saying that the plenipotentiary 
 should be firm, virtuous, and able.' — {Curiosities of Literatiire, by 
 I. Disraeli, Esq., vol. ii. p. 221, 9th edition.)
 
 THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 37 
 
 ' In a skirmish before the walls Percy's lance with 
 the pennon, or guidon, attached to it, was taken by- 
 Douglas — as most authors affirm, in a personal 
 encounter betwixt the heroes.' Nothing is more 
 likely than that the incident should have been 
 introduced into a Scottish ballad, omitted from an 
 English one. But ' omission ' is not quite the right 
 word to apply to its non-appearance in the latter — 
 there was no place for it there, it would have been 
 inconsistent with the courtesy, therein related, of 
 Percy having provided refreshments to Douglas and 
 the Scots. The two stories are in fact opposed to 
 each other, and the one, that told in the Minstrelsy, 
 is in accordance with history, the other is not. 
 
 Now, that this extremely valuable portion of an 
 ancient Scottish historical ballad amending the 
 history related by an English ballad obtained from 
 ancient MSS., should have sprung to light, centuries 
 after the former had been lost, through the recitation 
 of persons living in the wilds of Ettrick Forest, is a 
 fact so remarkable, so interesting to historians, to 
 antiquarians, to lovers of lore generally, that one 
 would have expected more than ordinary care to 
 have been taken to authenticate the manner of its 
 discovery ; yet we are not told, either in the 
 Minstrelsy or in any of Scott's works or writings, 
 who the reciters were, who the transcribers were.
 
 38 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 The stanzas in the Minstrelsy referring to the 
 occurrence are as follows (they come immediately 
 after Douglas's words to Percy : ' For, ere I cross 
 the Border fells, The tane of us shall dee) : — 
 
 He took a lang spear in his hand, 
 
 Shod with the metal free. 
 And for to meet the Douglas there, 
 
 He rode right furiouslie. 
 
 But how pale his lady looked, 
 
 Frae aff the castle wa', 
 When down before the Scottish spear. 
 
 She saw proud Percy fa'. 
 
 ' Had we twa been upon the green. 
 
 And never an eye to see, 
 I wad hae had you, flesh and fell ; 
 
 But your sword shall gae wi' me.' 
 
 Can any one believe that these stanzas are really 
 ancient and have come down orally through many 
 generations ? 
 
 We now come to the tradition of the dream, 
 obtained through recitation, which has been inserted 
 into the Minstrelsy version in lieu of the tradition, 
 given in Herd's stanzas, regarding Douglas's assassi- 
 nation by one of his own men. It has been intro- 
 duced in a somewhat curious manner. 
 
 It will be remembered that, in the Reliques version, 
 when Douglas is warned of the approach of the
 
 THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 39 
 
 English, he at first doubts the truth of the report, 
 but subsequently orders his men to be aroused. 
 This is perfectly natural. 
 
 Again, in Herd's version, Douglas rejoices at the 
 news brought to him and promises to reward the 
 messenger, adding that he will hang him if it is not 
 true. This is also an excellent picture of how a hot, 
 high-spirited man is likely to have received such 
 news. 
 
 But what have we in the Minstrelsy version 'i 
 Douglas, when the news is brought to him, flies into 
 a passion, tells the bearer of it he is a liar, and then — 
 relates his ' dreary dream ' ! This is not what one 
 would expect to find in an old heroic ballad. 
 
 Again, after Douglas has been wounded by Percy, 
 
 ... he called on his little foot-page. 
 
 And said — ' Run speedilie, 
 And fetch my ain dear sister's son. 
 
 Sir Hugh IMontgomery.' 
 
 ' My nephew good,' the Douglas said, 
 ' What recks the death of ane ! 
 
 Last night I dreamed a dreary dream, 
 And I ken the day 's thy ain. 
 
 My wound is deep ; I fain would sleep ; 
 
 Take thou the vanguard of the three, ^ 
 And hide me by the bracken bush V 
 
 That grows on yonder lilye lee. J
 
 40 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 bury me by the bracken bush,\ 
 
 Beneath the blooming brier, i 
 Let never Uving mortal ken, 
 
 That a kindly Scot lies here.' 
 
 He lifted up that noble lord, 
 
 Wi' the saut tears in his ee ; 
 He hid him in the bracken bush, 
 
 That his merrie-men might not see. 
 
 Since none of these beautiful lines, save those I 
 have marked, nor the thoughts expressed, are in 
 Herd's version, we are perforce required to profess 
 belief in their having been obtained through recita- 
 tion ; but can we ? I can detect not a note of 
 antiquity in them, and the sentiment which may, 
 perhaps, be to the taste of modern times is hardly of 
 the kind met with in old ballads. 
 
 It seems curious that Scott, the antiquary, should 
 have preferred to accept as the genuinely old story. 
 that of the dream to that of the assassination. 
 Though the former is in accordance with history — 
 inasmuch as Godscroft records that Douglas, when 
 lying mortally wounded, spoke of an old prophecy 
 that a dead man should gain a field — so also is the 
 latter ; it, too, is recorded by Godscroft, and surely 
 there can be no question that the original ballad is 
 more likely to have recorded it than the former, that 
 is to say is more likely to have recorded the manner
 
 THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 41 
 
 of the hero's death than a few ivords of his relating to 
 a dream, for, it must be remembered, ballad-makers 
 were rarely poets ; had he been so in this instance, 
 he might doubtless have preferred the prophetic 
 dream to the ugly murder, but, otherwise, he would 
 never have allowed himself to be led away from a 
 simple relation of the facts. Now, Scott was above 
 all things a poet, far more so than he was an anti- 
 quary, and this may possibly explain why he rejected 
 the murder and accepted the dream. 
 
 But the dream-story did not sujEfice for a Scottish 
 ballad of the Battle of Otterburn ; to complete 
 this, it was essential that the death of their leader 
 should be related, and that, too, in a heroic manner. 
 Most fortunately Ettrick Forest was able to supply 
 what was needful ; most fortunately, also, the 
 stanzas drawn from that bounteous source were 
 found to be in accordance, not with Scottish his- 
 tory, not with Scottish tradition, but with the 
 ballad printed in the Reliques from ancient English 
 MSS. ! 
 
 With reference to the assassination story, Sir 
 Walter Scott writes, in his prefatory note to the 
 ballad in the llinstrelsy, that ' it seems to have no 
 foundation but the common desire of assigning some 
 remote and extraordinary cause for the death of a 
 great man.' But, an even more common desire
 
 42 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 exists, particularly with poets, to assign to their 
 heroes a death more glorious than Fate in fact gave 
 to them, and this, I cannot but think, may have been 
 one of the influences which inclined Scott to follow 
 the English ballad rather than the Scottish tradition. 
 If Scott's view as to how the story arose be sound, 
 it affords of course some grounds for thinking that 
 Herd's stanza relating the murder may have been 
 composed in ancient days when the desire for 
 assigning extraordinary causes for the deaths of 
 great men prevailed. The stanza is as follows : — 
 
 The boy 's taen out his little penknife. 
 That hanget low doA^Ti by his gare, 
 
 And he gae Earl Douglas a deadly wound, 
 Alack ! a deep wound and a sare. 
 
 But against this is the suspicious fact that the first 
 couplet is common to many ballads which had been 
 published long before Herd's collection saw the 
 light,^ and it is impossible, for me at all events, to 
 l>elieve that these two lines could have belonged to 
 the original ballad of Otterburn. 
 
 In connection with this subject I may point out 
 that the two stanzas immediately preceding the 
 above are also to be found in ballads published prior 
 
 ' See 'Glasgerion,' 'Lord Thomas and Fair Elinor,' both in Dr. 
 Percy's collection; also 'The Jew's Daughter' and 'The Bonnie 
 Lass o' Lochryan ' in Herd's collection.
 
 THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 43 
 
 to the appearance of Herd's Songs. The stanzas run 
 thus — 
 
 If this be true, my Httle boy, 
 
 And it be troth that thou tells me, 
 
 The brawest bower in Otterburn 
 This day shall be thy morning fee. 
 
 But if it be false, my little boy, 
 
 But and a lie that thou tells me. 
 On the highest tree that 's in Otterburn 
 
 With my awin hands I '11 hing thee hie. 
 
 In the ballad entitled ' Little Musgrave and Lady 
 Barnard,' published in Percy's Beliques and the 
 composition of which is assigned by Ritson to the 
 time of Edward vi. or Queen Elizabeth, we have the 
 lines : — 
 
 If this be true, thou little tiny page, 
 This thing thou toll's to me, 
 
 But if it be a lye, thou little tiny page, 
 
 This thing thou tell'st to me. 
 On the highest tree in Bucklesford Bury, 
 
 There liansed shalt thou be. 
 
 *»■■ 
 
 Again, in ' Sir Aldingar ' (Percy's Beliques) we 
 have ; — 
 
 If this be true, thou Aldingar, 
 
 The tyding thou tellest to me. 
 Then will I make thee a rich, rich knight, 
 
 Rich both of gold and fee.
 
 44 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 But if it be false, Sir Aldingar, 
 
 As God never grant it be ! 
 Thy body, I sweare by the holye rood, 
 
 Shall hing on the gallows tree. 
 
 It is somewhat the fashion amongst writers on 
 ballad literature to hold the convenient theory that 
 no significance need be attached to the recurrence in 
 different ballads of similar passages ; these they 
 look upon as the ballad-makers' stock-in-trade, or as 
 ' commonplaces ' equivalent to idiomatic phrases in 
 language. Though I think this view requires very 
 considerable qualification, I do not intend to discuss 
 the question here ; it will suffice for my present 
 purpose to point out that, since three out of 
 Herd's fourteen stanzas are composed chiefly of 
 ' commonplaces,' the value of that version in a 
 historic, literary, or antiquarian sense is very 
 considerably diminished. 
 
 In short, in my opinion there is almost as little 
 reason to believe that Herd's stanzas relating to the 
 assassination are ancient as to believe that those 
 obtained in Ettrick Forest from recitation regarding 
 the dream are so. 
 
 I have now concluded the task I set myself in the 
 opening sentence of this chapter ; I have considered 
 every point I can think of at all bearing upon the 
 question as to whether the ballad of the Battle of
 
 THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 45 
 
 Otterburn, published in the third and later editions 
 of the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, has a just 
 claim to be looked upon as the genuine old Scottish 
 ballad, and the conclusions arrived at on each are 
 adverse to it ; taken together, these constitute an 
 overwhelming argument 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 modem fabrication, and partly of a few 
 stanzas and lines from Herd's version. 
 
 That there was in fact, however, an old Scotch 
 ballad on Otterburn, there can, I think, be no doubt, 
 and further, I think, with a little dihgence it w411 be 
 possible to find a sufficiency of material to allow of 
 the reconstruction of a version, probably not very 
 dissimilar to the original. To do this will be the aim 
 of the following paper.
 
 NUMBER II 
 
 ON THE SCOTTISH VERSION OF THE 
 BALLAD OF THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 
 
 (Continued)
 
 ON THE SCOTTISH VERSION OF THE 
 BALLAD OF THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 
 
 {Continued) 
 
 That a Scottish ballad of the Battle of Otterburn 
 existed prior to the time of Hume of Godscroft 
 (1560-1G30) is surely unquestionable, since he not 
 only referred to it but even quoted the stanza with 
 which it opened and the sense of some others. It 
 may, no doubt, be said that as this stanza is identical 
 with the first stanza of the so-called Enghsh version, 
 acquired by Sir R. Cotton (1570-1631) and published 
 in Percy's Reliques, he may have obtained his 
 knowledge from that source ; but this argument is 
 really untenable, and I think it will be admitted 
 to be so by all who take the trouble to read this 
 paper, the main purport of which is to prove that 
 important portions of the old Scotch ballad have 
 been embodied in the English ballads of Chevy- 
 Chase and Otterburn.^ 
 
 It may be convenient to the reader if I were to 
 
 ^ This ballad is given in full at the end of this chapter. 
 
 D
 
 60 PORDER BALLADS 
 
 state briefly the general drift of my argument, which, 
 I fear, may be found somewhat interlaced. In the 
 first place I endeavour to show that the EngUsh 
 ballads above mentioned are not nearly so old as 
 Dr. Percy seems to think in his Reliques of English 
 Poetry — that is to say that they were not composed, 
 or compiled, until many generations after the battle 
 of Otterburn. My next step is to prove that both 
 ballads contain stanzas of apparently Scottish origin, 
 and that these, or at all events the greater number of 
 them, clearly refer to the battle of Otterburn. If 
 my argument is sound, it follows of course that the 
 Scottish ballad from which these stanzas have been 
 taken must have been older than either of the English 
 ballads. 
 
 Dr. Percy thinks that the ballad of the Battle of 
 Otterburn, which he published in the Reliques, is of 
 as early a date as that of Chevy-Chase, if not 
 earlier, arguing that such ' may be inferred from the 
 minute circumstances with which the story is 
 related, many of which are recorded in no chronicle, 
 and were probably preserved in the memory of old 
 people.' It is really amusing to note how eagerly 
 ballad-collectors invoke the memory of old people 
 and ignore the possible ingenuity of others ; but, 
 accepting Dr. Percy's inference as sound, let us see 
 what he says regarding the date of composition
 
 THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 51 
 
 of the ballad of Chevy-Chase. He tells us that 
 Hearne printed it in 1719 from a MS. copy to which 
 ' is subjoined the name of the author, Rychard 
 Sheale ; whom Hearne has so little judgment as to 
 suppose to be the same as a R. Sheale, who was 
 living in 1588.' Percy's reasons for disagreeing on 
 this point with Hearne are that ' the language and 
 idiom ' of the ballad show it to be the production of 
 an earher poet, and that ' the style and orthography 
 incline him to place the poem not lower than the 
 time of Henry vi.' So we are asked to believe in 
 the existence of an earher poet of the same, not very 
 common, name. Now, even if the language, idiom, 
 style and orthography do resemble those of a period 
 long anterior to that in which R. Sheale Hved, there 
 is no reason why he should not have composed the 
 ballad and have imitated the style, etc., of the age 
 to which the subject referred ; he would thus have 
 been doing merely what many later poets have done, 
 differing from many of them only in honestly putting 
 his name to his work. There is also a possibility — 
 and not an unUkely possibility — that he may have 
 been acquainted with an old version and transcribed 
 it with such emendations as might have appeared 
 desirable, as has also been so frequently done in 
 later days by other collectors and authors of ballads. 
 The language, the idiom, the style and orthography
 
 52 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 would, of course, have been carefully retained. It 
 is really impossible to rely upon these characteristics 
 to guide us to a safe conclusion as to the period in 
 which a ballad was composed ; even Dr. Percy 
 appears to admit this, for when he finally fixes upon 
 Henry vi.'s reign, in preference to earlier reigns, as 
 the period of its composition, he is influenced not by 
 these characteristics, but by the presence of certain 
 anachronisms forbidding an earlier date to be as- 
 signed. blessed anachronisms ! if it were not for 
 them we should doubtless have been told that the 
 language, idiom, style and orthography clearly prove 
 the ballad of Chevy-Chase to have been written in 
 the time of Henry iv., and that of the Battle of 
 Otterburn perhaps even earlier — in Richard ii.'s 
 time. 
 
 Dr. Percy mentions one other reason for disagree- 
 ing with Hearne, namely, that ' It (the ballad of 
 Chevy-Chase) is expressly mentioned among some 
 very ancient songs in an old book intituled. The 
 Complaint of Scotland (1549), under the title of the 
 Huntis of Chevet, where the two following lines are 
 also quoted : 
 
 The Pcrssee and the Mongumrye mette, 
 That day, that day, that gentil day : 
 
 Which, though not quite the same as they stand in
 
 THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 53 
 
 the ballad, yet differ not more than might be owing 
 to the author's quoting from memory.' 
 
 Let us see how these lines 'stand in the ballad.' 
 The words 
 
 That day, that day, that dredfull day, 
 
 form the first line of the last stanza of the first fytte, 
 and the words, 
 
 At last the Duglas and the Perse met, 
 
 form the first line of the seventh stanza of the second 
 fytte. The t^^•o lines in the ballad have nothing 
 whatever to do with each other, yet Dr. Percy links 
 them together and then connects them with the lines 
 in The Complaint of Scotland. Again, in the list of 
 songs enumerated in this work (see Literary History 
 of Scotland, p. 221) we find that ' The Hunts of 
 Cheviot,' ' The Percy and Montgomery met,' and 
 ' That day, that day, that gentle day ' are separate 
 entries ; they are the titles of distinct songs which 
 have no more connection with each other than with 
 the songs which intervene between them on the list, 
 or which precede or follow them ! ^ 
 
 ^ Since writing the above I have examined the passage in The 
 Complaynt of Scotland (edited by J. H. Murray, 1S7-), and it ought 
 in fairness to be said that there is no absolute certainty whetlier 
 the lines ' The Percy and Montgomery met ' and ' That day, that 
 day, that gentil day ' form one couplet or are the titles of two 
 songs. In the list, the names of the songs follow each other in
 
 54 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 Such are the reasons which have caused Dr. Percy 
 to be so severe on Heame for identifying the writer 
 of the MS. of ' Chevy-Chase ' with an individual who 
 was ahve in 1588, and in my opinion they are ex- 
 tremely feeble. 
 
 We must now see whether anything can be said 
 in favour of the view that ' Chevy-Chase ' was not 
 written until long after the time assigned by Dr. 
 Percy. 
 
 He draws attention to several anachronisms. We 
 read in the ballad that 
 
 Word is commyn to lovely London, 
 Till the fourth Harry our King, 
 
 and also that 
 
 Word is come to Edenborrowe, 
 To Jamy the Scottish King. 
 
 But no King James set foot in Edinburgh or in 
 
 lines, not columns, and are sometimes separated only by ommas ; 
 consequently a doubt occasionally arises as to where the name of 
 one song ends and the other begins. The editor appears to agree 
 with the author of A Literary History of Scotland that, in this 
 instance, the lines indicate two songs, since both agree as to the 
 total number of songs named. Possibly they were influenced to 
 form this opinion by the absurdity of describing as 'gentle' the 
 day on wliich a Percy and a Montgomery met. 
 
 But even assuming their view to be wrong, and that in fact the 
 two lines formed a couplet, there is absolutely no reason to connect 
 them with the ' Hiintis of Cheviot,' nor, of course, with the Otter- 
 burn ballad. This latter is not mentioned in the list.
 
 THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 55 
 
 Scotland until the year 1424, that is not until two 
 years after the commencement of the reign of Henry 
 VI. ! Dr. Percy accordingly admits that the ballad 
 must have been written after this date, but, never- 
 theless, he implies that it was composed about this 
 period. Now, it is almost inconceivable that so 
 outrageous an anachronism could have been made 
 by an educated man had he lived anywhere near this 
 period ; surely the probability is greater that it was 
 perpetrated by a writer of the sixteenth century, 
 such as Sheale, than by a writer of the first half of 
 the fifteenth century. 
 
 Let us return to the Otterburn ballad. In Dr. 
 Percy's note to the ballad, he remarks that ' Although 
 the battle was fought in Richard ii.'s time, the song 
 is evidently of later date, as appears from the poet's 
 quoting the chronicles in Pt. ii. ver. 26.' It may be 
 interesting to pursue the line of thought here 
 suggested and inquire to what chronicles the poet 
 was probably referring. 
 
 What English chronicles can be named as having 
 been published between 1388 — the date of the battle 
 — and 1424 ? I pretend to no knowledge of the 
 history of English literature and cannot name one ; 
 but assuming any to have been written, it seems 
 most improbable for the ballad-maker to have 
 appealed to them with reference to an incident of
 
 56 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 quite recent occurrence. The appeal implies that the 
 authority was ancient, and we may infer therefrom 
 that the ballad was not written until long after 1424. 
 
 John Harding and Douglas of Glastonbury, who 
 flourished during the latter part of the fifteenth 
 century, and Fabyan, who died in 1512, wrote 
 Chronicles of England, but, even assuming they 
 referred to Otterburn, no one writing before the 
 middle of the sixteenth century is Ukely to have 
 referred to them as ancient authorities. 
 
 Froissart's Chronicles were written only a few 
 years after the battle, but the writer of the ballad 
 would not have referred his readers, or hearers, to a 
 work in a foreign tongue. But after Lord Berners 
 had pubhshed his translation — which he did in 1523 
 — they might indeed well have been appealed to 
 as being ancient, unimpeachable, and of common 
 kno^^•ledge. 
 
 Moreover, it should be noticed that the appeal was 
 in support of the accuracy of the statements that 
 Percy's force numbered ' But nyne thowzand, ther 
 was no moo,' and that ' Forty thowsande Skottes 
 and fowre That day fowght them agayne.' Well, 
 Froissart gives Percy's strength on leaving Newcastle 
 for Otterburn as six hundred spears and upwards of 
 eight thousand infantry, and the total strength of 
 the Scottish forces that entered England as twelve
 
 THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 57 
 
 hundred spears and forty thousand other men.^ 
 In another stanza in the ballad, the strength of the 
 Scots is put at forty thousand. 
 
 There is, then, some ground for asserting that 
 the stanza containing these statements was not 
 composed and that the MS. of the Reliques version 
 of the ballad of the Battle of Otterburn was not 
 written until after the appearance, in 1523, of the 
 translation of Froissart's Chronicles, and, in this case, 
 there would be nothing improbable in Hearne's 
 statement that the writer of the Chevy-Chase MS. 
 was alive in 1588 — assuming, of course, the accuracy 
 of Dr. Percy's suggestion that the Chevy-Chase 
 ballad was not written until after the other. 
 
 No further appeal is made to the Chronicles, and 
 I can see nothing in the ballad to give rise to the 
 thought of its having been based on them, i.e. on the 
 Froissart Chronicles. Except as regards the move- 
 ment of the Earl of Fife to the west Borders, the 
 accounts given by the Chronicles and by the ballad 
 are peculiarly different ; the former relate that the 
 force under Douglas marched from Zedon - direct to 
 Durham, ravaged that county, and jell back to 
 
 ' In his account of the battle, however, Froissart estimates the 
 strength of the Scots very differently ; he puts it at ' three or four 
 hundred spears, and two thousand stout infantry and archers, all 
 well mounted.' 
 
 - In a footnote, initialled W. S. ( ? Walter Scott), in Johnes'
 
 58 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 Newcastle ; the latter tells us it advanced direct to 
 Newcastle ; the former say that when the Scots 
 crossed the Border, the Earl of Northumberland lay 
 at Alnwick, whence he despatched his two sons to 
 Newcastle to hold it, with the ulterior intention of 
 combining forces and so surrounding the invaders ; 
 in the latter, though lines 33-40 of the second fit to 
 some extent confirm this, the account as a whole 
 cannot be thought to have been taken from Froissart. 
 Again, whereas Froissart gives very full information 
 
 edition of Froissart, Zedon is identified with Yetholm, but I cannot 
 think this is correct. An advance by Yetholm would have led the 
 Scots far too much to the east of their true line and would almost 
 necessarily have brought them to no great distance of Alnwick 
 Castle, where the Earl of Northumberland lay with a strong force. 
 I do not think there can be much doubt but that Zedon is identical 
 with Southdean, which is still pronounced 'Sooden.' This small 
 hamlet is situated about seven miles south-west of Jedburgh, and 
 Froissart would have correctly described it — as he did — as being in 
 Jed-forest, a description inapplicable to Yetholm. The remains of 
 ancient ecclesiastical buildings are still visible, and on this point 
 again it agrees with Froissart. But to my mind there is yet a 
 stronger reason for believing "n the identity of Zedon and South- 
 dean. At Zedon the Scottish leaders determined to divide the army 
 into two divisions, the one, under Douglas, to march direct into 
 England, the other, under the Earl of Fife, to march towards the 
 west frontier. Now, Southdean is the spot whence the most likely 
 route for troops moving to the west frontier diverges from the 
 direct route into England, over the Carter. Tlie former is that 
 which, in much later times, was followed, though in the opposite 
 direction, by one of the wings of Lord Dacre's army in his great 
 raid of November 1513, and again ten years later by Lord Dacre 
 himself when advancing from Carlisle to take part in the siege of 
 Jedburgh.
 
 THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 59 
 
 regarding the movements of both armies, the ballad 
 confines itself almost entirely to those of the Scots. 
 Lastly, Froissart mentions the deaths of three Scots, 
 namely Douglas, his squire, David Campbell, and 
 Sir Robert Hart, and of no EngHsh. The ballad, 
 however, mentions seven Scots, other than those 
 named by Froissart, and three English knights as 
 having been killed. 
 
 The conclusion I draw is that though the Reliques 
 version of the ballad was not written until after the 
 publication of the translation of Froissart, it has not 
 been based to any extent on that work. 
 
 But I have pointed out the improbability of other 
 chronicles having existed upon which it could have 
 been based, and consequently there is some ground 
 for thinking it may have been so upon some other 
 authority — possibly some old ballad. Let us then 
 see whether it contains within itself traces of such 
 a ballad. 
 
 In The Complaint of Scotland (1549 ?) a list is 
 given of old songs ' sung by shepherds,' in which is 
 one entitled ' The hunts of Cheviot,' and it seems 
 highly probable that this was in existence before the 
 sixteenth century.^ But may we also assume that 
 
 1 The songs named in The Complaint of Scotland are therein 
 referred to as ' sweet melodious songs of natural music of the 
 antiquity,' nevertheless some of them cannot have been very old 
 at the time the book was written, for instance, the one commencing
 
 60 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 ' The hunts of the Cheviot ' is but another name for 
 ' Chevy-Chase ' ? Dr. Percy beUeves so, but the 
 only reason he gives for his behef — namely, the 
 co-existence in the two ballads of two Hues — does 
 not admit of examination, as we have already seen. 
 Professor Child, also, assumes it quite as a matter of 
 course, without, I think, giving any reason at all. 
 I shall, too, make the same assumption, but neither 
 can I give any better reason than that the subject- 
 matter of the English ballad of Chevy-Chase — if 
 certain stanzas were eliminated — might have 
 formed quite an appropriate theme for a Scottish 
 ballad entitled ' The Hunts of Cheviot.' 
 
 Now, Hume of Godscroft tells us that the latter 
 was ' a song distinct from the Scots song made of 
 Otterburn,' and consequently we may assert that 
 such stanzas as relate to the battle of Otterburn, 
 occurring in the modern version of ' Chevy-Chase,' 
 or ' Hunts of Cheviot,' did not belong to the ancient 
 ballad. 
 
 Godscroft further tells us that the ballad ' which is 
 commonly sung of the Hunting of Cheviot seemeth 
 indeed poetical, and a mere fiction, perhaps to stir 
 
 ' God send the Duke had bidden in France, and De la Bastie 
 had never come home.' Wo may, however, be tolerably sure that 
 'The Hunts of Cheviot ' and 'Percy and Montgomery met' were 
 correctly described as 'of the antiquity.'
 
 THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 61 
 
 up virtue ; yet a fiction whereof there is no mention 
 in the Scottish or Enghsh chronicles.' This descrip- 
 tion is quite inappropriate to the modern version, 
 many stanzas of which evidently refer to the 
 historic battle of Otterburn. To render it ap- 
 propriate, we must purge the ballad, as we have it, 
 of all stanzas relating to that battle. Let us now 
 attempt to do this. 
 
 Although in the first part, or fit, there is nothing 
 in the least suggestive of the battle of Otterburn, we 
 shall, if we read it carefully, see some reason for 
 thinking that it is not quite as it originally stood. 
 Up to near the end of the fit, the story is told in 
 a perfectly intelligible manner and hangs well to- 
 gether ; but suddenly a change occurs. Douglas 
 had suggested to Percy that, in order to avoid the 
 slaughter necessarily consequent upon a general 
 action, they should settle their dispute by a single- 
 handed combat, or duel, and to this Percy agreed. 
 (See stanzas 18-21.) 
 
 But from this point the story ceases to be well 
 connected. After the brave words used one would 
 expect to read of a personal combat between the 
 two ; but not a bit of it ! A certain Squire Wyth- 
 arynton — the same of whom we are subsequently 
 told in the second fit that ' when both his leggis 
 wear hewyne in to. Yet he knyled and fought on hys
 
 62 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 kne ' — strikes in, exclaiming that he will not consent 
 to stand by and look on while his captain is fighting ; 
 and then come the last four lines of the fit, lines 
 which seem to have little connection with each other : 
 
 That day, that day, that dredfuU day : 
 
 The first fit here I fynde. 
 And youe wyll here any mor athe hountyng, 
 athe Chyviat, 
 
 Yet ys ther mor behynde. 
 
 In short, the concluding fourteen lines of the first 
 part of the ballad are decidedly disappointing ; 
 nevertheless since they may be ' poetical and a mere 
 fiction,' there is no very sound reason for saying 
 they did not belong to the original version, but, if 
 they did, they must surely be no longer in their 
 proper position. Let us then omit them from the 
 first fit and perhaps a more suitable position else- 
 where may offer itself. 
 
 The second fit opens with an account of a general 
 engagement — the very thing which Douglas and 
 Percy had agreed to prevent — and it is not until the 
 seventh stanza is reached that we read of the two 
 meeting in a hand-to-hand fight. 
 
 It will be seen that the first six stanzas may relate 
 either to a matter which is mere fiction or to the 
 historical battle of Otterburn, but I think the 
 probability is in favour of the latter ; this follows
 
 THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 63 
 
 from the second stanza, and more particularly from 
 the third wherein we are told that ' The Douglas 
 parted his host in three,' a statement which is borne 
 out by historical accounts of the battle of Otterburn 
 and which is also in accordance with Herd's version 
 of the ballad : 
 
 Earl Douglas said to Sir Hugh Montgomery, 
 Tack thou the vanguard of the three. 
 
 Again, it is almost impossible to think that, in a 
 fictitious poem, stanzas relating that Earl Douglas 
 ' Yet bides upon the bent ' and that he drew up his 
 army in three divisions, should have intervened 
 between the stanza telling of his challenge to Percy 
 and the stanza telling of his fight with him. 
 
 It is, of course, clear that these stanzas do not 
 belong to that part of the ballad relating to events 
 subsequent to the duel and Douglas's death. 
 
 For these reasons it seems probable that they 
 belong rather to the ballad of the Battle of Otter- 
 burn than to that of Chevy-Chase. 
 
 Now, if we strike out these six stanzas — as we 
 have already done the concluding stanzas of the first 
 fit — we shall have the seventh, relating how ' the 
 Douglas and the Percy met, Lyk to captains of 
 myght and main,' and the four succeeding ones, 
 giving details of the duel, following, as one would
 
 64 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 naturally expect, immediately after those of the 
 first fit recording Percy's acceptance of Douglas's 
 challenge. 
 
 We now come to stanza 12 of the second fit, and 
 here again we find another break in the continuity 
 of the story. 
 
 The preceding stanzas tell us that Douglas had 
 ' conquered ' Percy, but that the latter, on being 
 called upon to surrender, replied — 
 
 11. 'I told it the beforne, 
 
 That I wolde never yeldyde be 
 To no man of a woman born ' — 
 
 words which are immediately followed by — 
 
 12. With that ther cam an arrowe hastely 
 
 Forthe off a mightie wane, 
 Hit hathe streckene the yerle Duglas 
 In at the brest bane. 
 
 The latter stanza follows on so badly after the 
 former, that it seems probable that others must have 
 intervened, for the ballad-maker is hardly Ukely, 
 after recounting the chivalrous duel between Percy 
 and Douglas, to have, thus suddenly and without 
 leading up to the subject in the very least, related 
 an act of what appears to have been despicable 
 treachery. My view is that between these two 
 stanzas should come those relating to Squire Wyth-
 
 THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 65 
 
 arynton, which have been ah-eady aUuded to as 
 being out of their proper position in the first fit. 
 Although the act would no doubt still read as one of 
 treachery, it would be, if not materially softened, 
 at least somewhat explained. We should then 
 understand from the ballad that when Wytharynton 
 saw Percy about to succumb to Douglas, to remain 
 idly looking on was more than flesh and blood could 
 stand. His words would follow those spoken by 
 Percy in reply to Douglas quite appropriately, and 
 would themselves be followed equally appropriately 
 by the immediately succeeding stanzas. 
 
 I must draw attention to a somewhat curious 
 point connected with these verses. We are told, in 
 the first place, that Percy was being worsted by 
 Douglas in a hand-to-hand fight. Now , if the ballad 
 is purely a fictitious one, as Godscroft assures us, it 
 must be admitted that this fiction is more likely to 
 have originated in a Scottish than in an English 
 brain. In the second place, the fiction of a gross act 
 of treachery having been committed by an Enghsh- 
 man is also more likely to have originated in a 
 Scottish brain. Stanzas 22 and 23, fit 1, are, however, 
 clearly English, and have possibly been composed as 
 substitutes for Scottish ones of a different com- 
 plexion. 
 
 Again, supposing the ballad is not fictitious, that 
 
 E
 
 66 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 is to say supposing these stanzas really belonged to 
 the ballad of Otterburn and have been pitchforked 
 into Chevy-Chase : well, then again, as before, 
 we have the Scots bragging that Douglas was over- 
 coming Percy, and further we have them explaining 
 away the historic fact of Douglas's death by an act 
 of treachery on the part of the English. An Enghsh 
 ballad-maker would never have written thus, even 
 had the circumstances been true, which there is 
 absolutely no reason whatever to think. The 
 conclusion I draw, then, is that whether these 
 stanzas, i.e. 9-13, relate to a purely fictitious matter 
 or to the historic battle of Otterburn, they are in 
 either case essentially of Scottish origin. 
 
 But, though this may be interesting, it does not 
 help us in the least in our present inquiry, which is 
 not into the origin of the ballad of Chevy-Chase, 
 but into that of the ballad of Otterburn, and, 
 unfortunately, no sufficient grounds exist for assert- 
 ing that the stanzas in question belonged originally 
 to the latter ballad. 
 
 We must now pass on to the consideration of 
 the stanzas which follow the account of Douglas's 
 death. 
 
 What would one naturally expect to find in 
 them ? 
 
 Two rival forces, longing to be at each other's
 
 THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 67 
 
 throats, had been watching a hand-to-hand combat 
 between their leaders ; an archer of the one force 
 lets fly his arrow at and kills the leader of the other ; 
 an immediate general engagement is certain to have 
 resulted, and therefore it is of such one would expect 
 to read. As a fact, however, the ballad gives no 
 account of a general battle, and the seven stanzas 
 following those above referred to are entirely taken 
 up with the relation of another hand-to-hand fight. 
 
 We then come to certain stanzas, 23-27, which 
 surely could not have been composed had there been 
 no previous reference to a general fight, and it 
 consequently seems highly probable that, in the 
 original ballad, some stanzas, relating to a general 
 engagement, may have intervened between Percy's 
 words to the dead Douglas — at stanza 15 — and 
 stanza 23. 
 
 We must now consider the stanzas which, as a 
 matter of fact, do intervene. There are seven 
 (16-22) ; the first four relate a very gallant 
 exploit on the part of a Scottish knight, kSir Hew 
 Montgomery, who kills Percy ; the last three recount 
 the knight's death at the hand of an English archer. 
 Do these belong to the historical ballad of Otter- 
 burn ? or to the ballad entitled ' The Percy and the 
 Montgomery met,' mentioned in the Comjjiaint of 
 Scotland ? or to the fictitious ballad of Chevy-
 
 68 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 Chase ? And, if to the last named, are they not at 
 least based on history, or on ballads relating to the 
 battle of Otterburn ? 
 
 Now, were it not for the introduction of Sir Hew 
 Montgomery's name, I should not hesitate to leave 
 them where we find them in the ballad of Chevy- 
 Chase, for nothing would have been more likely than 
 that the composer of this fictitious ballad should 
 have balanced the death of one leader by that of the 
 other, and should have also introduced into it the 
 death of the Scottish knight. It may also be pointed 
 out that these stanzas might well have formed part 
 of an account of the general engagement which, as 
 I have said, probably intervened between stanzas 
 15 and 23. These considerations point strongly 
 to their having belonged to the original ' Chevy- 
 Chase.' 
 
 On the other hand, we cannot get over the broad 
 fact that they record a struggle between Percy and 
 Montgomery, and that there was such a personal 
 struggle at the battle of Otterburn we are told by 
 scraps of old Scotch verse and also by history.^ 
 
 It seems, then, that though these stanzas may 
 quite well have belonged to the original ballad of 
 
 ' Sir Hew Montgomery was killed at the battle of Otterburn. 
 It was not Sir Hew, but his father, Sir John, who 'with his own 
 hands' took Sir Henry Percy prisoner. — {JJouijlan J'eei-a(je, under 
 'Eglinton.')
 
 THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN G9 
 
 Chevy-Chase, yet if they did, they must have been 
 borrowed from, or founded upon, some older ballad 
 relating to the battle of Otterburn. 
 
 We must now pass on to the five stanzas succeed- 
 ing stanza 27. In them mention is made of twelve 
 English and Scottish knights who were slain. Now, 
 all of these, with, I think, three exceptions, are 
 mentioned either in history or in the ballad of the 
 Battle of Otterburn as having played a part in 
 that battle ; consequently it seems reasonable to 
 say that they belonged in the first instance to that 
 ballad — in which, indeed, almost identical stanzas 
 occur — and have been interpolated into ' Chevy- 
 Chase.' I strike these out, namely stanzas 28-32. 
 
 We now come to stanzas 33 and 34. These follow 
 very well after stanza 27 (28-32 being omitted) ; 
 the former, however, occurs also in the ' Battle of 
 Otterburn,' where it is equally well placed, and 
 therefore we ought, perhaps, to assume that it and 
 also the latter stanza — since the two clearly go 
 together — belong more properly to the older ballad ; 
 yet as this is by no means certain I shall not claim 
 them for ' Otterburn.' 
 
 With regard to the remaining stanzas of the ballad 
 I can see no sufficient reason for thinking they did 
 not all belong to the original ' Chevy-Chase.' It 
 may, however, be as well for me to explain \\ hy I
 
 70 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 think so in the case of those stanzas in A^hich 
 reference is made, by name, to Otterburn, for it is 
 only natural to imagine that they must have 
 belonged to the ballad commemorating the battle 
 fought at that place. Moreover, in one stanza men- 
 tion is made both of ' the hunting in the Cheviot ' 
 and of ' the battle of Otterburn,' and it might 
 reasonably be thought that this goes some way to 
 prove that the two ballads were either versions of 
 the same ballad or that, if distinct from each other, 
 both referred to the same subject. 
 
 At the very commencement of the ballad we are 
 told that Percy formed the intention of hunting in 
 the Cheviots for the purpose of defying the Douglas, 
 and we are given to understand that there was no 
 little audacity in so doing. Now, one cannot con- 
 ceive why to hunt in the neighbourhood of Otterburn 
 should have been a peculiarly bold act, or one in the 
 least calculated to offend the Douglas. Otterburn is 
 many miles on the English side of the frontier ; it is 
 only some thirty miles from Newcastle, and about 
 the same distance from Alnwick ; it is due south of, 
 and not many miles from, Harbottle. One cannot 
 believe that any Englishman, least of all a Percy, 
 could have miagined he was either doing anything 
 bold in hunting in this district, or that by so doing 
 he was defying the Scots. It would not be a whit
 
 THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 71 
 
 more absurd to say that had Douglas hunted in 
 Teviotdale ^ he would have been boldly defying the 
 House of Percy and the English ! 
 
 Percy's expressed intention was to hunt in the 
 Cheviots, and Otterburn is not in the Cheviots — at 
 all events it is no more ' in Cheviot the hills so hie ' 
 than is Jedburgh. // Percy carried out his inten- 
 tion, and if he and Douglas fought at Otterburn in 
 Northumberland, it follows necessarily that the 
 former must have retreated from the Cheviots, 
 pursued by the latter, and this is absolutely opposed 
 to the spirit of the song. 
 
 But it would have been in consonance with the 
 spirit of the song, it would have been a bold and 
 defiant act on the part of a Percy to have hunted 
 high up in the hills, more especially on the Scottish 
 side, fully prepared to fight Douglas where he met 
 him. 
 
 It seems to me, then, not improbable that the 
 author of the original ballad, when mentioning 
 Otterburn, referred to the place of that name near 
 Morebattle in Kale Water, a district which perhaps 
 was more subject to English raids than any other on 
 the Borders of Scotland. Otterburn is about five 
 miles within the Scottish frontier, and about eight 
 
 ^ At this time the strong castles of Roxburgh and Jedburgh in 
 Teviotdale were held by English troops.
 
 72 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 or nine from ' High Cheviot,' as the highest hill in 
 the range is locally called.^ 
 
 Again, there is another possibility ; the author of 
 ' Chevy-Chase,' with a view to rendering his imagi- 
 nary tale as realistic as possible, may have borrowed 
 from the older ballad not only the names of his 
 heroes but also the name of the locality in which 
 they were to play their parts, ignorant or careless 
 of the fact that its geographical position rendered it 
 unsuitable to the commencement of his story. 
 
 Such are the reasons which make me hesitate before 
 rejecting these stanzas from the ballad of Chevy- 
 Chase and transferring them to that of the Battle 
 of Otterburn. 
 
 I have now concluded my examination into the 
 ballad of Chevy-Chase, and I think I have shown 
 fairly good reasons for believing that the Reliques 
 version is in fact a compilation of two, or perhaps 
 three, ballads relating to two distinct subjects, and 
 
 ^ In Font's atlas, published by Blaeu in 1G54, the name is spelt 
 'Otleburn.' 
 
 It may be worth while to draw attention to one small point 
 somewhat indicative of the battle referred to in ' Clicvy-Chasc ' not 
 being the same as that fought in Northumberland in the year 1388. 
 In 'Chevy-Chase' we read that the battle began 'upon a monnyn 
 day'; in the Otterburn ballad we are told that Doui^las 'tooke 
 his logeyng at Otterburn upon a Wcdyns-day,' but, of course, we 
 ought not to look for agreement as to dates amongst ballad-makers 
 anymore than amongst historians. In the MinMreIxy the battle 
 is said to have been fonglit on the ISth August— a Saturday ; 
 Burton's Ilislory of Scotland gives the date as the 19th— a Wednes- 
 day ; and Haydn's Dictionary of Date >i gives the 10th— a Monday.
 
 THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 73 
 
 that consequently Richard Sheale, the writer of the 
 MS., though he may have copied the MSS. of two 
 older ballads, could not possibly have been the author 
 of either. 
 
 Since the MS. of ' Chevy-Chase,' or possibly I 
 ought to say, since the old ballads from which the 
 MS. of ' Chevy-Chase ' may have been transcribed, 
 are — if my argument is sound — older than the MS. 
 of ' Otterburn,' so must of course also be the stanzas 
 relating to the battle of Otterburn Avhich, I have 
 pointed out, are present in the ballad of Chevy- 
 Chase. The point to be noAv considered is whether 
 these stanzas, in number eighteen, appear to be of 
 English or of Scottish origin. 
 
 As to the first six — namely stanzas 1-6, fit 2 — it 
 may be thought that the words ' our English 
 archery ' — see stanza 4 — imply an EngHsh origin, 
 but too much w eight ought not to be attached to 
 the one word ' our ' ; it may be, and in my opinion 
 probably is, an ' emendation.' 
 
 Usually we read of ' archers of England ' or of 
 ' the English archers,' and of ' spearmen of Scotland ' 
 or of ' the Scottish spearmen,' and not of ' our 
 archers ' or of ' their spearmen.' 
 
 It is curious, too, that in another version of this 
 ballad, given by Professor Child (see Cambridge 
 edition, 1904, page 397), in which the stanza to which 
 T am referring does not occur, the imphcation that
 
 74 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 the verses are of English origin is nevertheless main- 
 tained by the substitution of ' our ' for ' the ' in the 
 first hne of stanza 1. 'The Yngghshe hade ther 
 bowys yebent ' is altered into ' Our Englyshe,' etc. 
 
 It should be noticed also that in these six stanzas 
 the troops are specified as English no less than three 
 times, whereas the Scots are not called Scots once — 
 they are simply ' spearmen ' or ' suar speares.' This 
 is just what one would expect from a Scottish author ; 
 it is not what one would expect of an English author, 
 who would have been more likely to have named 
 the nationahty of his enemy's troops than of his 
 own. 
 
 Again, the spirit of these stanzas is undoubtedly 
 Scottish ; their meaning is simply that the Scottish 
 spears broke through the English archery. 
 
 In my opinion, then, the probability is strongly in 
 favour of these six stanzas being of Scottish origin, 
 and that the word ' our ' has simply been substituted 
 for ' the.' 
 
 The next of the eighteen stanzas to be considered 
 are the seven, 16-22. It has already been stated 
 that the first four of these mention a very gallant 
 exploit of a Scottish knight. Sir Hew Montgomery, 
 and the last three tell of his death — a fact con- 
 firmed by Scottish records. We may, then, conclude 
 that all these are of Scottish origin.
 
 THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 75 
 
 With regard to stanzas 28-32, I can see no good 
 reason for saying that they owe their origin to one 
 source rather tlian to the other. 
 
 Thus of the eighteen stanzas in ' Chevy-Chase ' 
 relating to the battle of Otterburn, thirteen appear 
 to be of Scottish origin and therefore presumably 
 belonged to some old Scottish ballad. I do not 
 reckon stanzas 9-13 which, though clearly of Scottish 
 origin, I have not been able to connect with the battle 
 of Otterburn. 
 
 Now, in the Reliques version of the ballad of 
 Otterburn are nine stanzas which, for reasons I 
 shall give, appear to have belonged to the old 
 ' Scots song of Otterburn,' mentioned by Godscroft, 
 and which song, we can hardly doubt, must have 
 existed long prior to the MS. of the ballad, which I 
 have shown could not have been written before 1523.^ 
 
 The following are the stanzas I refer to : — 
 
 First Fit 
 
 Yt felle aboglit the Laiiiasse tyde. 
 Whan husbonds wynn tlicr haye, 
 
 The dowghtye Dowglasse bowynd hym to ryde, 
 In Ynglond to take a praye. 
 
 ^ lu addition to tliese nine stanzas there are several ■vvhicli could 
 bo shown to be older than the MS. ; for instauce, stanza 39, which 
 is identical with 33 of ' Chevy-Chase.'
 
 76 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 The yerlle of Fyffe, withoughten stryfFe, 
 
 He bowynd hym over Sulway : 
 The grete wolde ever together ryde ; 
 
 That rayce they may rue for aye.^ 
 
 3 
 Over Ottercap hyll they came in, 
 
 And so doAAyn by Rodeclyfife cragge, 
 Upon Grene Leyton they lyghted dowyn, 
 
 Styrande many a stagge. 
 
 4 
 And boldely brente Northomberlonde, 
 
 And haryd many a towyn : 
 They dyd owr Ynglysh men grete wrange, 
 
 To battel! that were not boAvyn. 
 
 5 
 Than spake a berne upon the bent, 
 
 Of comforte that was not colde, 
 And sayd, We have brent Northomberlonde, 
 
 We have all welth in holde. 
 
 6 
 
 Now we have haryd all Bamboroweshyre, 
 All the welth in the worlde have wee ; 
 
 I rede we ryde to Newe Castell, 
 So styll and stalwurthlye. 
 
 ' This line doubtless has reference to the grief of the Earl of 
 Fife and his force in not liaving shared in tlic victory at Otterburn.
 
 THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 77 
 
 7 
 Uppon the morowe, when it was daye, 
 
 Tlie standards schonc fulle bryght ; 
 To the New Castellc tlic toke the wave, 
 
 And thether they cam fulle ryght. 
 
 Stanzas 18 and 19 need not be quoted ; they merely 
 relate that Douglas retired from Newcastle to Otter- 
 burn, where he pitched his camp. 
 
 As regards stanza 1, there can be no question that 
 it belonged to the old Scots song, since Godscroft 
 quoted it as the opening stanza ; that the six 
 succeeding stanzas did so also may, perhaps, be 
 inferred from their appearing to be closely connected 
 with, indeed to form a continuation of, stanza 1. 
 There is also another reason for thinking so ; Gods- 
 croft tells us that the old song mentioned ' the 
 dividing armies between the Earls of Fife and 
 Douglas and their several journeys ' ; these stanzas, 
 as also stanza 18 and 19, do this. 
 
 It may be fairly said that the second couplet of 
 stanza 4 tells against the view that the stanzas 
 are of Scottish origin, but it must be remembered 
 that any stanzas interpolated into an English ballad 
 are certain to have suffered from ' emendation ' if, 
 from an English point of view, this should have 
 appeared desirable. 
 
 Perhaps it would be too great an assumption to
 
 78 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 assert that the thirteen stanzas of Scottish origin in 
 ' Chevy-Chase ' come from the same old ballad as do, 
 in my opinion, these nine — that is to say from the 
 old ' Scots song of Otterburn ' ; but it is tolerably 
 clear that some of them do so, and if others do not, 
 these must surely have belonged to the song entitled 
 ' The Percy and the Montgomery met,' mentioned 
 in the Complaint of Scotland, and which very 
 probably related to the same subject. 
 
 And now we come to the last point to be considered, 
 namely, whether this old Scots song was the original 
 ballad of the Battle of Otterburn, 
 
 It will be generally admitted that the original 
 ballad was in all probability composed by the 
 victors, since it is rare, indeed, for the conquered to 
 commemorate defeat. As exceptions to this rule, 
 some songs may no doubt be quoted, but in them 
 the predominating note will, I think, be found to be 
 not of triumph but of woe ; defeat is not described as 
 victory. Thus the ' Flowers of the Forest,' referring 
 to the defeat at Flodden, is a lament, a wail over the 
 fallen ; the lines on the death of Sir John Moore 
 at Corunna were not written to commemorate the 
 withdrawal of our army from Spain, but as a wail 
 over the death of a hero. In his ' Charge of the 
 Light Brigade ' Tennyson strikes perhaps a note of 
 triumph, but it is not of triumph over the enemy so
 
 THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 79 
 
 much as of triumph gained by disciphne, by duty, by 
 
 self-sacrifice. 
 
 I must name one exception to the rule that defeat 
 
 is never joyously acclaimed in verse ; of the battle 
 
 of Sheriffmuir the poet, who appears to have been 
 
 present, wrote — 
 
 And we ran, and they ran, 
 And they ran, and we ran, 
 And we ran, and they ran awa', man. 
 
 There is, then, very strong reason for the assertion 
 that, if the original ballad of the Battle of Otter- 
 burn dates from shortly after the occurrence, it 
 was composed by the victors. 
 
 If some one who had never read the Reliques 
 version of the ballad were asked to do so and to say 
 whether, in his opinion, it was of Scottish or of 
 English origin, he would probably reply that the 
 first part, or fit, was apparently of the former, since 
 it relates almost exclusively to the Scots, and every 
 individual named, except one, is a Scot. Moreover, 
 if he happened to be acquainted with the history of 
 the period, he would remark that though consistent 
 with it in the main, there was a curious omission of 
 reference to the Scots having overrun Durham, and 
 also to the doings of the force under the Earl of Fife, 
 saving a few words which seem to indicate an omis- 
 sion of stanzas relating to the subject.
 
 80 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 As to the second fit, his judgment would be differ- 
 ent. He would say that though undoubtedly some 
 of the stanzas might appropriately have belonged to 
 a Scottish ballad, it is on the whole essentially 
 English, and, he would add, untrue to history, for an 
 English defeat reads like an English victory. 
 
 He would say that the ballad has the appearance 
 of having been adapted from a Scottish one, but if 
 it has not been so, *'/ it is truly an original ballad, 
 then it cannot have been composed until long after 
 the period to which it relates, not until all recollec- 
 tion of the true facts had ceased to exist. 
 
 Some few readers may exclaim that I have no 
 right to assume that the battle of Otterburn resulted 
 in a Scottish victory, and they may remark that Dr. 
 Percy himself, in his note to the ballad, accepts only 
 hesitatingly the accuracy of the precise and detailed 
 account of the campaign given by Froissart, while 
 he carefully points out that the story is related in 
 the ballad in much the same manner as it is recorded 
 in the English chronicle. 
 
 Dr. Percy does not say to what English chronicle 
 he refers, but from a footnote it seems likely that it 
 was to that of Stow or Speed. Now, since the 
 former's great work was not written till towards the 
 end of the sixteenth century, and the latter's not till 
 some years later — about 1G14 — how can they, or
 
 THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 81 
 
 indeed any English chronicle, be put in the balance 
 against that of Froissart ? 
 
 Writing very shortly after the event the latter 
 tells us ' that he was made acquainted with all the 
 particulars of this battle by knights and squires 
 who had been actors in it on each side. There were 
 also, with the English, two valiant knights from the 
 county of Foix, whom I had the good fortune to 
 meet the year after the battle had been fought. . . . 
 On my return from Foix, I met likewise a knight and 
 two squires from Scotland, of the party of the earl 
 Douglas. They knew me again from recollections 
 I brought to their minds of their own country ; for 
 in my youth, I the author of this history, travelled 
 all through Scotland, and was full fifteen days 
 resident with William, earl Douglas, father of earl 
 James, at his castle of Dalkeith. ... I had my 
 information, therefore, from both parties, who agree 
 that it was the hardest and most obstinate battle 
 that was ever fought.' Every reader of Froissart 's 
 account will most assuredly admit that he was a 
 thoroughly impartial and unprejudiced writer. 
 Better evidence than his as to the Scots having 
 obtained a decisive victory is inconceivable ; it 
 cannot be shaken even though all the English 
 chronicles of the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth 
 centuries combined were to witness otherwise. 
 
 F
 
 82 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 We must, then, take it as an indisputable fact 
 that the battle of Otterburn was a decisive Scottish 
 victory, crowning a highly successful invasion of the 
 north of England, and consequently we may con- 
 fidently assert that the original ballad relating to it 
 was a Scottish one. 
 
 On this point few will disagree with me, but m.any, 
 I fear, will refuse to accept ray further conclusions, 
 namely, that those stanzas in the English ballads 
 of Chevy-Chase and of Otterburn, which I have 
 shown reason for thinking are of Scottish origin, are, 
 in truth, fragments of the original ballad. But I go 
 even further than this ; there are many stanzas in 
 Dr. Percy's ballad the appearance of which favours 
 neither source more than the other ; I claim these 
 for a Scottish origin, on the following grounds. 
 
 It is clear that an English ballad-maker has been 
 possessed of a Scottish ballad and that he has either 
 perverted it to suit his own views or has interpolated 
 some of its stanzas into an English ballad ; but one 
 cannot conceive why he should have wished to 
 introduce Scottish stanzas into an English ballad, 
 and, on the other hand, to pervert a Scottish ballad 
 recording a Scottish victory into an Enghsh ballad 
 recording an English victory is intelligible enough. 
 In my opinion, then, we ought to look upon the 
 ballad as a whole as being of Scottish origin ; we
 
 THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 83 
 
 ought to look upon lines which are clearly English 
 as having been grafted upon it ; we ought not to 
 think that Scottish stanzas have been grafted upon 
 an English ballad. 
 
 With a view to showing clearly the result of my 
 conclusions I have reconstructed the ballad of the 
 Battle of Otterburn on the lines I have indicated, 
 that is to say, I have struck out of Dr. Percy's ballad 
 all stanzas of a purely English origin and interpolated 
 into it those stanzas belonging to Chevy-Chase, 
 which appear to have a Scottish origin and at the 
 same time relate to Otterburn. I do not, of course, 
 mean to imply that the ballad so reconstructed 
 represents the original ballad ; there may be much 
 in it that was not in the original ; there may be much 
 omitted from it — perhaps some of the Scottish 
 stanzas of ' Chevy-Chase ' Avhich do not appear to 
 belong necessarily to the ' Otterburn ' ballad ; but 
 however remote it may be from the truth, I cannot 
 but think it must be less so than the so-called 
 ' Scottish version ' of the Minstrelsy. 
 
 One word more ; if my conclusions are sound, the 
 old ' Scots song of Otterburn ' may be quoted as an 
 instance of the historical ' Trustworthiness of Border 
 Ballads ' ; if they are considered unsound, if the 
 English ballad is held to be the original, the latter 
 must be cited not merely as an instance of un-
 
 84 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 trustworthiness, not merely as an instance of 
 inaccuracy, but as an instance of actual perversion 
 of fact. 
 
 CHEVY-CHASE 
 
 (From Ediques of Ancient English Poetry) 
 
 The First Fit 
 
 The Perse owt of Northombarlande, 
 
 And a vowe to God mayd he, 
 That he wolde hunte in the mountayns 
 
 Off Chyviat within dayes thre. 
 In the mauger of doughte Dogles, 
 
 And all that ever with him be. 
 
 2 
 
 The fattiste hartes in all Cheviat 
 
 He sayd he wold kill, and carry them away : 
 Be my feth, sayd the dougheti Doglas aga5'n, 
 
 I wyll let that hontyng yf that I may. 
 
 3 
 Then the Perse owt of Bamborowe cam, 
 
 With him a myghtye meany ; 
 With fifteen hundrith archares bold ; 
 
 The wear chosen out of shyars thre. 
 
 4 
 This begane on a monday at morn 
 
 In Cheviat the hillys so he ; 
 The chyld may rue that ys un-born, 
 
 It was the mor pitte.
 
 THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 85 
 
 5 
 The dryvars thorowe the woodes went 
 
 For to reas the dear ; 
 Boraen bickarte uppone the bent 
 
 Wit thcr browd aras cleare. 
 
 6 
 Then the \vyld thorowe the woodes went 
 
 On every syde shear ; 
 Grea-hondes thorowe the greves glent 
 
 For to kyll thear dear. 
 
 7 
 The begane in Chyviat the hyls above 
 
 Yerly on a monnyn day ; 
 Be that it drewe to the oware off none 
 
 A hondrith fat hartes ded ther lay. 
 
 8 
 The blewe a mort uppone the bent, 
 
 The semblyd on sydes shear ; 
 To the quj'rry then the Perse went 
 
 To se the bryttlynge off the deare. 
 
 9 
 He sayd, It was the Duglas promys 
 
 This day to meet me hear ; 
 But I Avyste he wol fayllc veramcnt ; 
 
 A gret oth the Perse swear. 
 
 lO 
 
 At the laste a squyar of Northombelonde 
 
 Lokyde at his hand full ny, 
 He was war ath the doughetie Doglas comynge : 
 
 With him a myghte meany,
 
 86 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 II 
 
 Both with spear, byll, and brande : 
 
 Yt was a myghti sight to se. 
 Hardyar men both off hart nar hande, 
 
 Wear not in Christiante. 
 
 12 
 
 The wear twenty hondrith spear-men good 
 
 Withouten any fayle ; 
 The wear borne a-long be the watter a TA\-yde, 
 
 Yth bo\\Tides of Tividale. 
 
 13 
 Leave off the brytlyng of the dear, he sayde. 
 
 And to your boA^ys look ye tayk good heed ; 
 For never sithe ye wear on your mothars borne 
 
 Had ye never so mickle need. 
 
 14 
 The dougheti Dogglas on a stede 
 
 He rode att his men beforne ; 
 His armor glytteryde as dyd a glede ; 
 
 A bolder barne was never born. 
 
 Tell me what men ye ar, he says, 
 
 Or whos men that ye be : 
 Who gave youe leave to hunte in this 
 
 Chyviat chays in the spyt of me ? 
 
 16 
 The first mane that ever him an answear mayd, 
 
 Yt was the good lord Perse : 
 We wyll not tell the what men wc ar, he says, 
 
 Nor whos men that we be ;
 
 THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 87 
 
 But \vc wyll hount hear in this chays 
 In the spyte of thyne, and of the. 
 
 17 
 The fattiste hartes in all Chyviat 
 
 We have kyld, and cast to carry them a- way. 
 Be my troth, sayd the doughte Doggies agayn, 
 
 Ther-for the ton of us shall de this day. 
 
 18 
 
 Then sayd the doughte Doglas 
 
 Unto the lord Perse : 
 To kyll all thes giltless men, 
 
 A-las ! it wear great pitte. 
 
 19 
 But, Perse, thowe art a lord of lande, 
 
 I am a yerle callyd within my contre ; 
 Let all our men uppone a parti stande ; 
 
 And do the battell off the and of me. 
 
 20 
 
 Nowe Cristes cors on his crowne, sayd the lord Perse, 
 
 Who-soever ther-to says nay. 
 Be my troth, doughte Doglas, he says, 
 
 Thow shalt never se that day ; 
 
 21 
 
 Nethar in Ynglonde, Skottlonde, nar France, 
 
 Nor for no man of a woman born. 
 But and fortune be my chance, 
 
 I dar met him on man for on.
 
 88 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 22 
 
 Then bespayke a squyar off Northombarlonde, 
 
 Ric. Wytharynton was his nam ; 
 It shall never be told in Sothe-Yngionde, he says, 
 
 To kyng Herry the fourth for sham. 
 
 I wat youe byn great lordes twaw, 
 
 I am a poor squyar of lande ; 
 I wyll never se my captayne fyght on a fylde, 
 
 And stande my-selffe, and looke on, 
 But whyll I may my weppone welde. 
 
 I wyll not fayl both harte and hande. 
 
 24 
 That day, that day, that dredfull day : 
 
 The first fit here I fynde. 
 And youe Avyll here any mor athe hountyng athe 
 Chyviat, 
 Yet ys ther mor behynde. 
 
 The Second Fit 
 I 
 The Yngglishe men hade ther bowys yebent, 
 
 Ther hartes were good yenoughe ; 
 The first of arros that the shote off, 
 Seven skore spear-men the sloughe. 
 
 2 
 
 Yet bydys the yerle Doglas uppon the bent, 
 
 A captayne good yenoughe. 
 And that was sene verament. 
 
 For he wrought hom both woo and wouche.
 
 THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 89 
 
 3 
 The Dogglas pertyd his ost in thre, 
 
 Lyk a cheffe cheften oflf pryde, 
 With suar speares olT myghtte tre 
 
 Tlie cum in on every syde. 
 
 4 
 Thrughe our Yngghshe archery 
 
 Gave many a wounde full wyde ; 
 Many a doughete the garde to dy, 
 
 Which ganyde them no pryde. 
 
 5 
 The Yngglyshe men let thear bowys be, 
 
 And pulde owt brandes that wer bright ; 
 It was a hevy syght to se 
 
 Bryghtswordes on basnites lyght. 
 
 6 
 Thorowc ryche male, and myne-ye-plc 
 
 Many sterne the stroke do^vne streght ; 
 Many a freyke, that was full free, 
 
 Ther undar foot dyd lyght. 
 
 7 
 At last the Duglas and the Perse met, 
 
 Lyk to captayns of myght and mayne ; 
 The swapte together tyll the both swat 
 
 With swordes, that wear of fyn myllan. 
 
 8 
 Thcs worthe freckys for to fyght 
 
 Ther-to the wear full fayne, 
 Tyll the bloode owte off thear basnetes sprente, 
 
 As ever dyd heal or rayne.
 
 90 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 9 
 Holde the, Perse, sayd the Doglas, 
 
 And i' feth I shall the brynge 
 Wlier thowe shalte have a yerls wagis 
 
 Of Jamy our Scottish kynge. 
 
 lO 
 
 Thou shalte have thy ransom fre, 
 
 I hight the hear this thinge, 
 For the manfullyste man yet art thowe, 
 
 That ever I conqueryd in filde fightyng. 
 
 1 1 
 
 Nay then sayd the lord Perse, 
 
 I tolde it the beforne. 
 That I wolde never yeldyde be 
 
 To no man of a woman born. 
 
 12 
 
 With that there cam an arrow hastely 
 
 Forthe off a mightie wane, 
 Hit hathe strekene the yerle Duglas 
 
 In at the brest bane. 
 
 13 
 
 Thoroue lyvar and longs bathe 
 
 The sharp arrowe ys gane. 
 That never after in all his lyffe days, 
 
 He spake mo words but ane, 
 That was, Fyghte ye, my merry men, whyllys ye 
 may. 
 
 For my lyff days ben gan.
 
 THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 91 
 
 14 
 The Perse leanyde on his brande, 
 
 And sawe the Duglas de ; 
 He tooke the dede man be the hande, 
 
 And sayd, Wo ys me for the ! 
 
 15 
 
 To have savyde thy lyffe I wold have pertyd with 
 
 My landes for years thre, 
 For a better man of hart, nare of hande 
 
 Was not in all the north countre. 
 
 16 
 Off all that se a Skottishe knyght, 
 
 Was callyd Sir Hewe the Mongon-byrry, 
 He sawe the Duglas to the deth was dyght ; 
 
 He spendyd a spear a trusti tre ; 
 
 17 
 He rod uppon a corsiare 
 
 Throughe a hondrith archery ; 
 He never styntyde, nar never blane, 
 
 Tyll he came to the good lord Perse. 
 
 18 
 He set uppone the lord Perse 
 
 A dyntc, that was full soare ; 
 With a suar spear of a myghte tre 
 
 Clean thorow the body he the Perse bore. 
 
 19 
 Athe tothar syde, that a man myght se, 
 
 A large cloth yard and mare : 
 Towe bettar captayns wear nat in Christiante, 
 
 Then that day slain wear ther.
 
 92 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 20 
 An archar off Nortliomberlonde 
 
 Say slean was the lord Perse, 
 He bare a bende-bow in his hande, 
 
 Was made oflf trusti tre : 
 
 21 
 
 An arrow, that a cloth yarde was lang, 
 
 To th'hard stele halyde he ; 
 A dynt, that was both sad and soar, 
 
 He sat on Sir Hewe the Mongon-byrry. 
 
 22 
 The dynt yt was both sad and sar. 
 
 That he of Mongon-byrry sete ; 
 The swane-fethars, that his arrowe bar. 
 
 With his hart blood the wear wete. 
 
 23 
 Ther was never a freake wonc foot woldc fie, 
 
 But still in stour dyd stand, 
 HeaA^yng on yche othar, why 11 the niyght dre, 
 
 With many a bal-ful brande. 
 
 24 
 This battell begane in Chyviat 
 
 An owar before the none. 
 And when even-song bell was rang 
 
 The battell was nat half done. 
 
 25 
 The tooke on on ethar hand 
 
 Be the lyght off the mono ; 
 Many liadc no strcnght for to stande, 
 
 In Chyviat the hyllys aboun.
 
 THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 93 
 
 26 
 
 Of fifteen hondrith archars of Ynglonde 
 
 Went away but fifti and thre ; 
 Of twenty hondrith spear-men of Skotlonde, 
 
 But even five and fifti : 
 
 27 
 But all wear slayne Cheviat within : 
 
 The hade no strengthe to stand on hie ; 
 The chylde may rue that ys un- borne, 
 
 It was the mor pitte. 
 
 28 
 Thear was slayne with the lord Perse 
 
 Sir John of Agerstone, 
 Sir Roger tlie hinde Hartly, 
 
 Sir Wyllyam the bolde Hearone. 
 
 29 
 
 Sir Jorg the worthe Lovele 
 
 A knyght of great renowen, 
 Sir Raff the ryche Rugbe 
 
 With dyntes wear beaten dowene. 
 
 30 
 
 For Wetharryngton my harte was wo, 
 
 That ever he slayne shulde be ; 
 For when both his leggis wear hewyne in to. 
 
 Yet he knyled and fought on hys kne. 
 
 31 
 
 There was slayne with the dougheti Douglas 
 
 Sir Hewe the Mongon-byrry, 
 Sir Davye Lwdale, that worthe was, 
 
 His sistars son was he :
 
 94 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 32 
 Sir Charles a Murre, in that place, 
 
 That never a foot wolde fle ; 
 Sir Hewe Maxwell, a lorde he was, 
 
 With the Duglas dyd he dey. 
 
 33 
 So on the morrowe the mayde them byears 
 
 Off byrch, and hasell so gray ; 
 Many wedous with \A'epyng tears, 
 
 Cam to fach ther makys a-way. 
 
 34 
 Tivydale may carpe off care, 
 
 Northombarlond may mayk grat mone, 
 For towe such captayns, as slayne wear thear. 
 
 On the march perti shall never be none. 
 
 35 
 Word ys commen to Edden-burrowe, 
 
 To Jamy the Skottishe kyng. 
 That dougheti Duglas, the lyff-tena,nt of the Merches, 
 
 He lay slean Chyviot with-in. 
 
 36 
 His handdes dyd he weal and wryng. 
 
 He sayd, Alas, and woe ys me ! 
 Such another captayn Skotland within. 
 
 He sayd, y-seth shuld never be. 
 
 37 
 Worde ys commyn to lovely Londone 
 
 Till the fourth Harry our kyng. 
 That lord Perse, leyff-tcnnante of the Merchis, 
 
 He lay slayne Chyviat within.
 
 THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 95 
 
 38 
 God have merci on his soil, sayd kyng Harry, 
 
 Good lord, yf thy will it be ! 
 I have a hondrith captayns in Ynglonde, he sayd, 
 
 As good as ever was hee : 
 But Perse, and I brook my lyffe, 
 
 Thy deth well quyte shall be. 
 
 39 
 As our noble kyng made his a-vowe, 
 
 Lyke a noble prince of renowen, 
 For the deth of the lord Perse, 
 
 He dyd the battel of Hombyll-do^^Ti : 
 
 40 
 
 Where syx and thritte Skottish knyghtes 
 
 On a day wear beaten down : 
 Glendale glytteryde on tlier armor bryglit, 
 
 Over castell, to war and town. 
 
 41 
 This was the hontynge off the Cheviat ; 
 
 That tear begane this spurn : 
 Old men that knowen the grownde w^ell yenoughe, 
 
 Call it the Battell of Otterburn, 
 
 42 
 
 At Otterburn began this spurne 
 
 Uppon a monnyn day : 
 Ther was the doughte Doglas slean, 
 
 The Perse never went away.
 
 96 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 43 
 Ther was never a tym on the march partes 
 
 Sen the Doglas and the Perse met, 
 But yt was marvele, and the redde blude ronne not. 
 
 As the reane doys in the street. 
 
 44 
 Jhesue Christ our balys bete, 
 
 And to the blys us brynge ! 
 Thus was the hountynge of the Chevyat : 
 
 God send us all goog ending ! 
 
 RECONSTRUCTED BALLAD OF THE BATTLE 
 OF OTTERBURN 
 
 It fell abought the Lamasse tyde, 
 Whan husbandes Avynne their haye, 
 
 The doughtye Dowglasse bowynd hym to ryde, 
 In Ynglond to take a praye. 
 
 The yerle of Fyffe, wythowghten stryffe. 
 He bowynd hym over Sulway ; 
 
 The grete wolde ever to-gether ryde ; 
 That raysse they may re we for aye. 
 
 3 
 Over Hoppertope hyll they cam in, 
 
 And so down by Rodclyffe crage ; 
 Upon Grene Lynton they lyghted dowyn, 
 
 Stryande many a stage.
 
 THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 97 
 
 4 
 They have taken Northumberland, 
 
 And sae they hae the north shire, 
 And the Otter Dale, they hae burnt it hale, 
 
 And set it a' into fire. 
 
 5 
 Than spake a berne vpon the bent. 
 
 Of comfort that was not colde, 
 And sayd. We haue brente Northomberlond, 
 
 We haue all welth in holde. 
 
 6 
 Now we haue haryed all Bamborowe schyre, 
 
 All the welth in the worlde haue wee, 
 I rede we ryde to Newe Castell, 
 
 So styll and stalworthlye. 
 
 7 
 Vpon the morowe, when it was day, 
 
 The standerds schone full bryght ; 
 To the Newe Castell the toke the waye, 
 
 And thether they cam full ryght. 
 
 8 
 Syr Henry Perssy laye at the New Castell, 
 
 T tell you Avj'thowtten drede ; 
 He had byn a march-man all hys dayes. 
 
 And kepte Barwyke vpon Twede. 
 
 9 
 To the Newe Castell when they cam. 
 The Skottes they cryde on hyght, 
 ' Syr Hary Perssy, and thou byste within, 
 Com to the fylde, and fyght. 
 G
 
 98 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 lO 
 
 For we haue brente Northomberlonde, 
 
 Thy erytage good and ryglit, 
 And syne my logeyng I haue take 
 
 Wyth my brande dubbyd many a knyght.' 
 
 1 1 
 Syr Harry Perssy cam to the walles, 
 
 The Skottvssch oste for to se, 
 And sayd, And thou hast brente Northomberlond, 
 
 Full sore it re wyth me. 
 
 12 
 
 Yf thou hast haryed all Bamborowe schyre, 
 
 Thou hast done me grete envye ; 
 For the trespasse thow hast me done, 
 
 The tone of vs schall dye. 
 
 13 
 ' Where schall I byde the ? ' sayd the Dowglas, 
 
 ' Or where wylte thow com to me ? ' 
 ' At Otterborne, in the hygh way, 
 
 Ther mast thow Avell logeed be. 
 
 14 
 The roo full rekeles ther schc rinnes, 
 
 To make the game and glee : 
 The fawkon and the fesaunt both, 
 
 Amonge the lioltes on hee. 
 
 15 
 Ther maist thow have thy welth at vvyll, 
 
 Well looged ther maist be. 
 Yt schall not be long, or I com the tyll,' 
 
 Sayd Syr Harry Pcrcye.
 
 THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 99 
 
 i6 
 Ther schall I byde the, sayd the Dowglas, 
 
 By the fayth of my bodye. 
 Thether schall I com, sayd Syr Harry Percy ; 
 
 My trowth I plyght to the. 
 
 A pype of wyne he gave them over the walles, 
 
 For soth, as I yow saye : 
 Ther he mayd the Dowglas drynke, 
 
 And all hys oste that daye. 
 
 i8 
 The Dowglas tumyd him homewarde agayne, 
 
 For soth withowghten naye, 
 He tooko his logejmg at Oterborne 
 
 Uppon a Wedyns-day : 
 
 ^9 
 And ther he pyght hys standerd dowyn, 
 
 Hys gettjoig more and lesse, 
 And syne he warned hys men to goo 
 
 To chose ther geldyngs gresse. 
 
 20 
 A Skottysshe knyght hoved upon the bent, 
 
 A wache I dare well saye : 
 So was he ware on the noble Percy 
 
 In the dawnynge of the daye. 
 
 21 
 He prycked to his pavyleon dore, 
 
 As faste as he myght ronne, 
 Awaken, Dowglas, cryed the knyght, 
 
 For hys love, that syttes yn trone.
 
 100 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 22 
 
 Awaken, Dowglas, cryed the knyght, 
 For tliow maist waken wyih wynne : 
 
 Yender have I spyed the prowde Percy, 
 And seven standardes wyth hym. 
 
 23 
 Nay by my trowth, the Douglas sayed, 
 
 It ys but a fayned taylle : 
 He durst not loke on my bred banner, 
 
 For all Ynglonde so hay lie. 
 
 24 
 Was I not yesterday e at the Newe Castell, 
 
 That stonds so fayre on Tyne ? 
 For all the men the Percy hade, 
 
 He cowde not garre me ones to dyne. 
 
 25 
 He stepped owt at hys pavelyon dore, 
 
 To loke and it were lesse ; 
 Araye yow, lordyngs, one and all, 
 
 For here bygynnes no peysse. 
 
 26 
 
 The yerle of Mentaye, thow arte my eme, 
 
 The forwarde I gyve to the : 
 The yerlle of Huntlay caAvte and kene, 
 
 He schall wyth the be. 
 
 27 
 The lorde of Bowglian in armurc bryght 
 
 On the other hand he schall be : 
 Lorde Jhonstone, and lorde Maxwell, 
 
 They to schall be with me.
 
 THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 101 
 
 28 
 Swynton, fayre fylde upon your pryde ! 
 
 To batell make yow bowen : 
 Syr Davy Scotte, Syr Walter Stewards, 
 
 Syr Jhon of Agurstone. 
 
 29 
 The Ynoglishe men hade tlier bowys yebent, 
 
 Ther hartes wore good yenoughe ; 
 The first of arros that the shote off, 
 
 Seven skore spear-men the sloughe. 
 
 30 
 Yet bydys the yerle Doglas uppon the bent, 
 
 A captayne good yenoughe. 
 And that was sene verament, 
 
 For he wrought hom both woo and wouche. 
 
 "O' 
 
 31 
 
 The Dogglas pertyd his oste in thre, 
 Lyk a cheffe cheften off pryde ; 
 
 With suar speares off myghtte tre, 
 Tlie cum in on every syde ; 
 
 32 
 Thrughe the Yngglyshe archery 
 
 Gave many a wounde fullc wyde ; 
 Many a doughete the garde to dy, 
 
 Wliich ganyde them no pryde. 
 
 33 
 The Yngglyshe men let thear bowys be. 
 
 And pulde owt brandes that wer bright ; 
 It was a hevy syght to se 
 
 Bryght swordes on basnites lyght.
 
 102 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 34 
 Thorowe ryche male, and myne-ye-ple 
 
 Many sterne the stroke downe streght : 
 Many a freyke, that was full free, 
 
 Ther undar foot dyd lyght. 
 
 35 
 Ther was no freke that ther wolde flye, 
 
 But styffely in stowre can stond, 
 Ychone hewyng on other whyll they myght drye, 
 
 Wyth many a bayllefull bronde. 
 
 Ther was slayne upon the Skottes syde, 
 
 For soth and sertenly, 
 Syr James a Dowglas ther was slayne, 
 
 That daye that he cowde dye. 
 
 37 
 Ther was slayne with the dougheti Douglas 
 
 Sir Hewe the Mongon-byrry, 
 Sir Davye Lwdale, that worthe was, 
 
 His sistar's son was he : 
 
 38 
 Sir Charles a Murre, in that place, 
 
 That never a foot Avolde fie ; 
 Sir Hewe Maxwell, a lorde he was, 
 
 With the Duglas dyd he dey. 
 
 39 
 The yerlle Mentaye of he was slayne, 
 
 Grysely groned uppon the growynd ; 
 Syr Davy Scotte, Syr Walter Steward, 
 
 Syr John of Agurstonne.
 
 THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 103 
 
 40 
 Ther was slayne upon the Skottes syde, 
 For soth as I yow saye, 
 
 41 
 Ther was slayne upon the Ynglysshe syde, 
 
 For soth and sertenlye, 
 A gentell knyght, Sir Jolm Fitz-hughe, 
 
 Yt was the more petye. 
 
 42 
 Syr James Harebotell ther was slayne 
 
 For hym ther hartes were sore, 
 The gentyll Lovelle ther was slayne, 
 
 That the Percyes standerd bore. 
 
 43 
 Ther was slayne with the lord Perse 
 
 Sir John of Agerstone, 
 Sir Roger the hinde Hartly, 
 
 Sir Wyllyam the bolde Hearone. 
 
 44 
 Sir Jorg the worthe Lovele, 
 
 A knyght of great renowen, 
 Sir Raff the ryche Rugbe 
 
 With dyntes wear beaten dowene. 
 
 45 
 Ther was slayne uppon the Ynglyssh perte, 
 
 For soth as I yow saye ; 
 Of nyne thowsand Ynglyssh men 
 
 Fyve hondert cam awaye.
 
 104 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 46 
 
 Thys fraye bygan at Otterborne, 
 Bytwene the nyghte and the day : 
 
 Ther the Dowglas lost hys lyfe, 
 And the Percy was lede awaye.
 
 NUMBER III 
 KINMONT WILLIE
 
 KINMONT WILLIE 
 
 ' In " Kinmont Willie " Scott has been suspected of 
 making the whole ballad,' so writes Mr. Andrew 
 Lang,^ but without mentioning the names of the 
 sceptics or the grounds for their suspicions. 
 
 On the other hand, belief in the essential genuine- 
 ness of the ballad has been professed by many of 
 our great authorities on ballad literature. 
 
 Professor Child, in his English and Scottish Popular 
 Ballads, draws attention to Sir Walter Scott's state- 
 ment that the original ballad had been ' much 
 mangled by reciters,' and that ' some conjectural 
 emendations were absolutely necessary to render it 
 intelligible,' and he further adds that ' probably a 
 great deal more emendation was done than Scott's 
 observation would indicate. One would like, for 
 example, to see stanzas 10-12 and 31 in their mangled 
 condition.' From this, we must understand, as weU 
 as from the fact that he included the ballad in his 
 great collection — and in the case of ' Auld Maitland,' 
 he did not do so, on the ground, presumably, that he 
 
 ^ Introduction to Literary Forgeries, p. xxiv. 
 
 107
 
 108 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 believed it to be spurious — that this great authority 
 had no soHd reasons for doubting the substantial 
 correctness of Sir Walter's assertions. 
 
 Professor Veitch was, of course, a firm believer. 
 
 Mr. Walter Riddell Carre, a very well-known and 
 valued authority on Border subjects, referred to the 
 ballad as ' one of the finest in all the literature of the 
 Border,' ^ and he surely would not have written thus 
 had he doubted its genuineness. 
 
 Sir George Douglas, another Border authority, 
 also appears to be without suspicions. He compares 
 the narrative given in the ballad with that in the 
 English State Papers, and observes small dis- 
 crepancies ; but these, he adds, ' are in the nature 
 of perfectly legitimate poetic ornament, and on the 
 whole, after comparing the flights of the Scottish 
 poet with the statement of the English official, one 
 remains impressed not by the license but by the 
 closeness to fact in essentials of the former.' ^ Sir 
 George clearly takes the ballad seriously, for his 
 remarks are of interest only if the ballad is genuine. 
 Indeed, the very closeness with which the ballad is 
 said to adhere to fact may, in some minds, arouse 
 suspicion. 
 
 Again, Mr. J. H. Millar refers to the ballad as a 
 
 ' Border Memories, by W. R. Carre, 1S76, j). 368. 
 
 '•' A History of Roxhunjh, etc., by Sir G. Douglas, Bart, p. 332.
 
 KINMONT WILLIE 109 
 
 typical specimen of its class, and as ' saturated with 
 the " folk-spirit " ' ; and further he mentions it, 
 together with other ballads, as exemplifying ' the 
 magnificent simplicity with which the effects are 
 achieved, the astonishing directness with which the 
 minstrel hastens to his mark, the masterly touch with 
 which the deepest chords of emotion in the human 
 breast are swept.' ^ The author, like Sir George 
 Douglas, is evidently sincere, and writes in a sense 
 he would never have done had he had the faintest 
 suspicion of the ballad's genuineness. 
 
 Mr. T. F. Henderson, in his edition of the 
 Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1902), says nothing 
 to make it appear that he believes Sir Walter 
 invented the ballad. He writes : ' The originals of 
 Scott's version have not been preserved ; but Scott 
 practically admits that he has partly rewritten it ; 
 and this is quite evident without any confession of 
 his. When the deeds of his ancestors were con- 
 cerned, it was impossible for him to resist the 
 temptation to employ some of his own minstrel art 
 on their behalf — even to the extent of inventing 
 completely new stanzas, as, for example, stanza xxxi. 
 of this ballad. Stanzas ix.-xii. must likewise be 
 credited mainly to Scott ; and there are numerous 
 
 ^ A Literary History of Scotland, by J, H. Millar (1903), pp. 
 191-193.
 
 110 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 other touches throughout the ballad which also 
 betray the niore finished art of the modern versifier.' ^ 
 In all this, Mr. Henderson practically says no more 
 than did Professor Child. The only construction to 
 be put upon his words is that he believes in Sir 
 Walter having really discovered an original ballad, 
 or scraps of an original ballad, which he worked up 
 into the form we know. 
 
 The last great writer I shall name as expressing 
 belief is Mr. A. Lang. He writes : ' That there 
 really was a ballad appears, I think, from reminis- 
 cences of it to be found in Scott of Satchells' rhyming 
 History (1688). Certainly, too, Sir Walter never 
 composed this stanza : 
 
 He has called him forty marchmen bauld, 
 I trow they were of his ain name, 
 
 Except Sir Gilbert Elliot, called 
 
 The laird of Stobs, I mean the same.' - 
 
 Now, I cannot admit, without some sound reason 
 being given — and Mr. Lang gives none — that 
 reminiscences of an old ballad are to be found in 
 Satchells' work ; nor can I admit that it is impossible 
 for Sir Walter to have composed the stanza quoted. 
 Has Mr. Lang forgotten his own words : ' The busi- 
 ness of the forger is to avoid being too poetical ' ? ^ 
 
 1 Vol. ii. p. ST. 
 
 2 Literary Forgeries, Introduction, p. xxiv. 
 
 3 Tbid., p. 2G6.
 
 KINMONT WILLIE 111 
 
 Whether Mr. Lang has, or has not, reasons for the 
 above assertions, it is evident his faith in the ex- 
 istence of an old ballad is not founded solely on Sir 
 Walter's words, and it occurs to me that possibly he 
 may consider the meaning of these words somewhat 
 obscure. I may as well give them at length. 
 
 ' This ballad is preserved by tradition on the 
 west borders, but much mangled by reciters, so 
 that some conjectured emendations have been 
 absolutely necessary to render it intelligible. In 
 particular, the " Eden " has been substituted for 
 the Eske, the latter name being inconsistent with 
 topography.' ^ 
 
 Now, we invariably find in the prefatory notes 
 to the original ballads in the Minstrelsy that they 
 are said sometimes to have been ' obtained from 
 tradition,' sometimes ' from recitation,' and some- 
 times ' partly from tradition, partly from recita- 
 tion ' ; the two sources are treated as being perfectly 
 distinct. Sir Walter evidently assigned different 
 meanings to the two terms. But such is not the 
 case here, and consequently there is — to my mind at 
 all events — a want of clearness in the words, a 
 shadow of a doubt as to their meaning. But we 
 ought not to attempt to read between the lines here, 
 
 ^ Remarks regarding this substitution of names are made at 
 p. 124.
 
 112 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 any more than in any other case, and we must, I 
 fear, take Sir Walter's meaning to be that which 
 any ordinary reader would give to his words, 
 namely, that an old ballad in truth existed in his 
 time and that individuals were living who still 
 recited it. 
 
 Notwithstanding the views of the distinguished 
 writers I have named, I must rank myself amongst 
 those to whom Mr. Lang has referred as suspecting 
 Scott of having made the whole ballad. 
 
 I beheve 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. 
 I think that the cause for the narrative at times 
 diverging from that recorded by the rhymes is due, 
 partly to artistic considerations, partly to the 
 author having wished to bring it more or less into 
 conformity with history. 
 
 I shall now endeavour to explain the reasons which 
 have forced me, very much against my own inclina- 
 tion and prejudice, to adopt this opinion. 
 
 In Sir Walter Scott's prefatory note to the ballad, 
 after referring to a few facts mentioned by Satchells 
 regarding the raid, he writes : — 
 
 ' In many things, Satchells agrees with the ballads 
 current in his time, from which in all probability he 
 derived most of his information as to past events,
 
 KINMONT WILLIE 113 
 
 and from which he sometimes pirates whole verses, 
 as 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 were therefore probably well known in his 
 days.' 
 
 Mr. Lang also, like Sir Walter, assumes that an old 
 — or ought we not to say ' a new ' ? — ballad existed 
 in Satchells' time ; he writes, ' If Scott, as Professor 
 Child suspects, wrote verse 31,^ then he took the idea 
 from Satchells, whereas Satchells more probably 
 took it from the ballad.' The ballad ! what 
 ballad ? 
 
 But as Satchells was born in 1612 or 1613 — say 
 only seventeen years after the exploit, when the 
 incidents, as Sir Walter remarks, must have been 
 well known — he is much less likely to have derived 
 his information from ' ballads current in his time ' — 
 and really we do not know that there were any such 
 — than from persons engaged in the exploit itself — 
 his father was one — or who were ahve at the time, 
 and believed themselves to be fully acquainted with 
 the particulars. The probability of Satchells having 
 obtained his information from a hypothetical ballad 
 is really quite an inadmissible argument. 
 
 ' The ballad will be found at the end of this chapter. 
 
 H
 
 114 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 But, in support of his view, Scott points out 
 that Satchells mentions the prisoner's large spurs 
 ' and some other httle incidents noticed in the 
 ballad.' Some other little incidents indeed ! Why, 
 almost every one mentioned in the ballad is 
 referred to by Satchells ! No doubt in the former 
 they are habited in such pretty poetic garments as 
 to be sometimes almost unrecognisable, they are 
 made more heroic, more thrilling ; a dark, foggy 
 night is converted into one of thunder and storm, a 
 river ' in no great rage ' becomes ' great and mickle 
 of spait,' etc. etc. But there is something much 
 more remarkable than this ; the incidents are re- 
 lated in almost precisely the same sequence ! 
 
 Now, no two individuals ever gave independent 
 accounts of the same series of occurrences, whether 
 relating to military exploits or to anything else, 
 and arranged the particulars in the same order. 
 When we find narratives so arranged, we may be 
 certain one has been composed with the aid of the 
 other. 
 
 In view of what we are told by Sir Walter himself 
 as to emendations being necessary in order that the 
 ballad might be rendered intelligible, we may surely 
 conclude that it is not arranged in precisely the same 
 manner as was the ' original ' ballad. It follows, 
 then, that Satchells' arrangement — which is identical
 
 KINMONT WILLIE 115 
 
 with Scott's — was not adopted from the ' original,' 
 and hence it also follows that Scott must have 
 adopted his arrangement from Satchells. 
 
 At the end of this chapter the ballad and the 
 rhymes will be found placed in juxtaposition, and 
 it will be seen how regularly they pass from the same 
 theme to the same theme, though differing no doubt 
 in detail. One can imagine the rhymes lying before 
 the author of the ballad as he was composing it ; 
 one can picture him now reading a few hnes, then 
 converting them into verse, now wading through 
 pages of tedious matter, then transferring the spirit 
 into a few brilliant stanzas, and finally linking the 
 whole together with others created purely by his 
 own imagination, inspired, perhaps, by ideas latent 
 in the rhymes. 
 
 It will now, I think, be interesting to consider 
 some points concerning which the ballad and the 
 rhymes are very dissimilar ; fortunately they are 
 not very numerous. 
 
 The first to be noticed is in the relation of the 
 cause and manner of Kinmont's capture by the 
 English. 
 
 Satchells tells us that Lord Scroope made a sudden 
 dash by night into Scotland and captured Kinmont 
 in revenge for a highly successful raid which the 
 latter had shortly before made into England. There
 
 116 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 is not the faintest suggestion of treachery or of 
 truce having been broken. 
 
 History, however, relates the matter differently. 
 The Deputy- Wardens of the two Marches had held 
 a meeting to settle various matters in dispute 
 at Kershope-foot. (Kershope bum forms the 
 boundary between the two kingdoms, and flows 
 into the river Liddell from the east. Below Kers- 
 hope-foot the Liddell forms the frontier until it 
 joins the Esk.) The days on which such meetings 
 were held were said to be ' days of truce,' since all 
 persons attending them were exempt from the lia- 
 bility of arrest, and, in order that individuals might 
 return safely to their homes without fear of molesta- 
 tion, the truce remained good until sunrise next day. 
 On the present occasion, after the meeting was 
 over, the Enghsh Deputy, Sakelde, was returning 
 homewards down the Liddell when he saw Kinmont 
 on the other, that is the Scottish, side of the river, 
 also on his way home. Sakelde despatched a body of 
 horsemen to pursue him ; he was captured, taken to 
 CarUsle, and there handed over to Lord Scroope, 
 the English Warden. It was a treacherous act and 
 a breach of Border law. 
 
 Well, the ballad follows, not the account given by 
 Satchells, which presumably was in accordance with 
 popular belief at the time he wrote, but the historical
 
 KINMONT WILLIE 117 
 
 account. This, in itself, is somewhat suspicious ; 
 yet, if a ballad in truth existed before Satchells' 
 time, there should be no cause for surprise in its 
 relating the actual facts ; but, then, what happens 
 to the theory that Satchells derived his information 
 from ' the ballad ' ? 
 
 I may be asked to give my reasons for the assertion 
 that the ballad follows the historical account. 
 
 This is showTi first of all in its reference to Sakelde, 
 who is mentioned in history ^ as the Enghsh official 
 who seized Kinmont ; he is not named by Satchells. 
 Again, the word ' fause ' applied so frequently to 
 him, and the statement in stanza 11 that Kinmont 
 was taken ' against the truce of Border tide,' which 
 clearly refers to the non-observance of ' the day of 
 truce,' imply treachery on Sakelde's part ; history 
 depicts the capture as a deed of treachery, Satchells 
 does not. Again, the reference to the ' Liddell 
 rack ' is consistent with Kinmont having been seized 
 in the manner related by history ; it is inconsistent 
 with Satchells' account, since Kinmont's residence 
 was on the right bank of the Esk, and had he been 
 captured there, the Liddell would not have been 
 crossed at all. 
 
 Again, the ballad, in agreement with history, 
 
 ' I refer to the account of the Cai-lislc raid given in the MS. 
 published by Sir W. Scott in the prefatory note to the balhid.
 
 118 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 refers to the raiders having been pursued by a part 
 of the garrison after the release of Kinmont ; 
 Satchells says distinctly there was no pursuit. 
 
 There can surely be little doubt that the author 
 of the baUad washed to make it approximate to 
 history, and a curious little sHp in the endeavour to 
 do so indicates that this endeavour was not made 
 until after the pubhcation of Satchells' rhymes. 
 
 It has already been pointed out that history 
 relates how Kinmont was taken prisoner by Sakelde 
 when the latter was returning home from the meeting 
 with the Scottish Deputy- Warden, that is to say, 
 then, by day. Now, although the ballad adheres in 
 the main to the historical account, it nevertheless 
 makes the inconsistent statement that the capture 
 was made ' between the hours of night and day,' 
 that is to say in the early hours of the morning, a 
 statement which is in accordance with Satchells' 
 words that it occurred ' before daylight came.' 
 It is evident that the balladist, or at all events the 
 author of stanza 8 in which this occurs, borrowed it 
 from Satchells. 
 
 It may be as well here to draw attention to the 
 fact that two theories exist to account for similarities 
 between the ballad and the rhymes ; one is that 
 Satchells got his information from the balladist ; 
 the other — which I hold — is that the balladist got
 
 KINMONT WILLIE 119 
 
 his information from Satchells — to which informa- 
 tion he has supplemented his knowledge of facts 
 derived from history. If the former view be correct, 
 then it follows that the differences which I have 
 brought to notice are due to Satchells having 
 perverted truth into fiction — and for no conceivable 
 object ; if the latter is true, then it follows that the 
 balladist, or the author of the stanzas concerned, 
 converted fiction into truth — and the object for so 
 doing is transparent. As to which hypothesis is 
 the more probable there cannot surely be much 
 question. 
 
 I shall now make some remarks on individual 
 stanzas, or series of stanzas. 
 
 It is unnecessary to draw attention to the fact 
 that many lines in the ballad are very similar to 
 some of the rhymes — indeed in stanza 2 they are 
 almost identical. No reader can fail to note this 
 for himself if he will look at pages 132 and 133, 
 where the ballad and the rhymes are placed oppo- 
 site to each other ; and even in instances where 
 the similarity is not so marked, as in stanzas 6-8, 
 he will surely see how closely connected they are in 
 sense. 
 
 However, there are a great number of stanzas 
 which have no counterpart in the rhymes ; this is 
 due sometimes to the narrative diverging from that
 
 120 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 told in the rhymes to that related by history, as for 
 instance stanzas 3 and 4 ; sometimes it is due to the 
 necessity the author has been under of introducing a 
 new stanza in order to lead up to a subject mentioned 
 in the rhymes and which he intends to utilise, e.g. 
 stanza 5 ; sometimes it appears to be due to the 
 author's sense of the impossibiUty of adliering closely 
 to the prosaic facts in the rhymes without detriment 
 to the artistic beauty with which he wished to endow 
 his ballad, e.g. stanzas 9-15, relating to Buccleuch's 
 anger on hearing of Kinmont's capture, and again 
 stanzas 21-25, relating to false rumours put about by 
 Buccleuch to account for his entering England. 
 With regard to these, I need only point out that the 
 rhymes are of a stamp which one might expect from 
 ' An old Soldier, and no Scholar, And one that can 
 write nane, But just the letters of his name,' whereas 
 the stanzas are of a stamp which could have been 
 produced by only one of our greatest balladists ; 
 no mere ' ballad-maker ' wrote them ; they were 
 written by an artist of a higher rank than the author 
 of ' Dick o' the Cow,' or of ' Hobbie Noble,' or of 
 ' Jock o' the Syde,' or of the original version of 
 ' Jamie Telfer,' or of the ' Battle of Philiphaugh.' 
 They were written by a poet, and no Border poet can 
 be named who flourished between the time of the 
 raid to Carlisle and that of the publication of
 
 KINMONT WILLIE 121 
 
 Satchells' work. By whom, then, can these 
 stanzas have been written ? 
 
 Let us now consider one or two stanzas in detail, 
 and, in the first place, stanzas 16 and 17. 
 
 The rhymes tell us that Buccleuch called together 
 some of his kinsmen — and also Gilbert Elhot who 
 ' was not of his name ' — for the purpose of obtaining 
 their advice. Later on Satchells repeats that 
 Buccleuch assembled his kinsmen — ' These gentle- 
 men were all Scotts, except Gilbert Elhot of the 
 Stobs ' — but this time it was for action. 
 
 Now, in the ballad we find the same repetition, 
 but it is for emphasis only — the men are not sum- 
 moned for two distinct purposes, but for one. 
 
 Again, Satchells makes two references, separated 
 from each other by some fifty or sixty lines, to 
 Gilbert Elhot ; in the first, we read, ' He was not of 
 his name,' which phraseology is adopted in stanza 
 16 ; in the second reference, Gilbert Elhot is defined 
 as ' of the Stobs,' and this is again adopted in the same 
 stanza. Surely, then, it is clear that this stanza has 
 been compiled by some one who had been studying 
 Satchells' rhymes ; it is also clear that the first 
 couplet of stanza 17, too, is based on Satchells' 
 rhymes, and consequently we may assert that these 
 two stanzas were written at one and the same time, 
 and by the hand that wrote the remainder of stanza
 
 122 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 17. There can, I think, be little doubt as to who 
 wrote them and the succeeding stanza 18. 
 
 Let us glance backward from stanza 16. The very 
 line preceding it is in truth nothing more than 
 Satchells' words — ' That he must into Carhsle ride, 
 and fetch the Kinmont out ' — poetically expressed. 
 So this stanza too has been written by some one 
 versed in Satchells. 
 
 Going still further back, we find that stanzas 10-12 
 are ascribed to Sir Walter Scott by Professor Child, 
 by Mr. Henderson, and by Mr. Lang ; Mr. Lang also 
 believes Scott wrote stanza 9, but why he does not 
 include stanza 8 is to me incomprehensible ; and 
 why all three authorities stop at stanza 12 and do 
 not include stanzas 13-14 is equally so. They give 
 no reasons for the opinion they have formed, and I 
 can only presume it is based on the style of writing ; 
 but is the style of stanzas 13-14 so markedly 
 different to that of stanzas 10-12, as to entitle us 
 to say they were composed by different authors ? 
 I do not think so. I should like to ask Mr. Hender- 
 son and Mr. Lang two questions : firstly, why do 
 you think Scott wrote stanzas 10-12 ? and, secondly, 
 why do you think he did not write stanzas 13-14 — 
 or, indeed, any other stanza in the whole ballad ? 
 
 Let us now look at stanzas 26 and 27. The first 
 thought that occurs to one is that the cart has been
 
 KINMONT WILLIE 123 
 
 put before the horse, for the stanza recording the 
 steps taken by Buccleuch on reaching the river 
 comes after that relating how it was crossed. 
 Both stanzas are clearly based on Satchells' 
 rhymes, yet in these the incidents are arranged in 
 their proper order. How is this ? The reason is 
 simply that the rhymes refer to two dififerent rivers, 
 firstly, to ' the Esk, her furious streams,' secondly, 
 to the Eden. The author of the stanzas, however, 
 was of necessity obhged to make them refer to 
 only one river, and that the Eden ; this was due 
 to his having, when paraphrasing the antecedent 
 lines into stanzas 18-20, slightly altered their 
 sense. 
 
 According to Satchells, when Buccleuch reached 
 Woodhouselee (on the Scottish side of the Esk), he 
 halted to allow the wrights to do their work, and he 
 then put abroad false reports as to his intentions. 
 When ' the day was past,' he commenced the eight- 
 mile march to Carlisle and forthwith crossed the 
 river — ' the water was strong,' says Satchells, and 
 when indeed is the Esk otherwise ? — then he pushed 
 on across the muir to the Eden. Upon reaching this 
 river, he detailed a part of his force to halt, pre- 
 sumably with the object of protecting his line of 
 retreat. He and the rest of his men then crossed 
 to the left bank.
 
 124 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 But the author of the stanzas makes no halt at the 
 Woodhouselee ; the Esk is not mentioned ; Buc- 
 cleuch's force finds itseK at once in England. It is 
 after they are in England that the false reports are 
 spread. Consequently when the author, before whom 
 I have imagined Satchells' rhymes were lying, came 
 to the lines which I have placed opposite stanzas 
 26 and 27 on pages 142-145, he was obliged to treat 
 them as if they referred to but one river, the Eden. 
 This explains Scott's words that for topographical 
 reasons he had substituted the ' Eden ' for the 
 ' Esk ' ; to do so was most certainly necessary for 
 his ballad. We can understand also how it happens 
 that in the ballad the Eden is described as ' great 
 and mickle of spait,' which words, in truth, merely 
 paraphrase Satchells' apposite description of the 
 Esk. As a matter of fact the Eden does not appear 
 to have been very high at the time — the Scots could 
 not have crossed it had it been so. The MS. account 
 given in Scott's prefatory note says no more than 
 that the river was ' weel thick,' and Satchells refers 
 to it as ' in no great rage.' 
 
 I must now pass on to stanza 31, which the three 
 great authorities I have referred to credit to Sir 
 Walter Scott, without, however, mentioning the 
 grounds for so doing. I entirely agree with them, 
 but shall venture to give my reasons. In this
 
 KINMONT WILLIE 125 
 
 instance ' style ' has no weight with me ; has it with 
 them ? 
 
 In the first place, I may observe that this stanza 
 affords the only instance in which the ballad does 
 not adhere to the sequence of events followed by 
 Satchells — minor details excepted. This fact, how- 
 ever, does not weaken the argument I have put 
 forward on the point, since really no one can beUeve 
 that, if an original ballad ever existed, the stanza 
 in question could have been in its present position. 
 
 The incident here related is, of course, identical 
 with that told us by Satchells ; but, whereas when 
 the latter mentions that ' The Wardens Trumpets 
 did most sweetly sound,' and again ' the Trum- 
 pets sounded, Come if ye dare,' he is referring to a 
 time after Kinmont had been released, after the 
 critical moment had passed ; the ballad refers to 
 the moment immediately following that in which 
 the English sentry had been crept up to and sur- 
 prised, 'preceding the forcing of an entry into the 
 prison, 'preceding the crisis ! The old soldier, 
 Satchells, who may be sneered at for his rhymes, 
 would never have made such a glaring blunder 
 as this ! nor would an ancient ballad-maker. 
 
 Satchells says the trumpets sounded, ' Come if ye 
 dare.' Now, no tune of this title exists, or ever did — 
 so far as is now known ; but there is, and ^vas, an
 
 126 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 old Liddesdale tune entitled ' Wha daur meddle \vi' 
 me ? ' which may, quite possibly, have been the 
 very tune sounded on this occasion, since the party 
 was chiefly composed of Liddesdale men.^ But 
 then, why did not Satchells refer to it by its ordin- 
 ary name ? My answer is that Satchells, having 
 incorrectly stated that the whole party consisted 
 of Scotts, may have realised the absurdity of their 
 trumpets sounding a purely Liddesdale tune, the 
 gathering song of a rival clan,^ and that he con- 
 sequently made a slight alteration in the name, 
 though not in the sense. But then again, it will be 
 asked, if the view as to the ballad having been founded 
 on Satchells' rhymes be true, why did not the author 
 adhere to the name therein given, ' Come if ye dare ' ? 
 For two reasons : firstly, because he may not have 
 wished to follow the words of Satchells too closely — 
 it would, indeed, have been suspicious had the ballad 
 and the rhymes both used one and the same fanciful 
 appellation ! Secondly, for the same reason that 
 induced him to bring the narrative into agreement 
 with history — to give it an appearance of being 
 
 ^ It was to this same tune thai oenturies later, on the occasion 
 of a false report that a Frencli army of invasion had landed, the 
 Liddesdale men marched into Hawick on their way to the rendez- 
 vous. 
 
 - The refrain of tlie song is, 
 
 My name is little Jock Elliot, 
 And wha daur meddle wi' me?
 
 KINMONT WILLIE 127 
 
 genuine. It should be observed, too, that although 
 the tune was in fact quite an inappropriate one for 
 the Scotts to have sounded. Sir Walter endeavoured 
 to give his readers the opposite impression. In a 
 footnote to the stanza he tells us that ' Wha daur 
 meddle wi' me ? ' is the name of an old Border tune 
 or slogan. This is quite true, but is nevertheless 
 misleading. It makes the reader believe that this 
 Border tune is one hkely to have been sounded by 
 the Border Scotts. 
 
 In The Trustworthiness of Border Ballads I have 
 made some conjectures as to why Sir Walter Scott 
 did not include this song, which is generally believed 
 to have originated from the combat between an 
 EUiot and Lord Bothwell in the time of Queen 
 Mary, and is therefore of some historical interest, in 
 his great collection of Border ballads. To these con- 
 jectures I must now add one other : possibly he may 
 not have wished to draw attention to the fact that 
 the mention, in the ballad of ' Kinmont WilHe,' of 
 the Elliot Slogan having been sounded would tell 
 against the probability of the assertion, in that ballad, 
 that the exploit to Carhsle was carried out solely by 
 Scotts — with one exception. However, whatever 
 his reason may have been it is a curious fact that the 
 only occasion on which he referred to this old song 
 was when it had been put — in my opinion by him-
 
 128 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 self — into the trumpets of his own clan ! How can 
 we pretend not to connect the hand which did this, 
 with the hand which, in the Minstrelsy version of 
 the ballad of ' Jamie Telfer,' attributed to an Elhot 
 the dishonourable conduct which in an older ballad 
 had been charged — unjustly, I think — to a Scott ? 
 
 Stanzas 40 and 41 are worth looking at. Stanzas 
 37-38 and the first couplet of 39 follow the 
 story told by Satchells, but at this point there is a 
 divergence. According to the rhymes, Kinmont, 
 immediately upon his being brought down the ladder, 
 is mounted upon a horse, and the party returns ' with 
 speed ' into Scotland by the way they had come. 
 After riding for a considerable distance, Kinmont 
 complained of the pain caused by his fetters which 
 he likened to large spurs. 
 
 According to the ballad, however, after Kinmont 
 has come down the ladder, he still sticks to Red 
 RoAvan, ' the starkest man in Teviotdale,' and con- 
 sequently the joke about the spurs — a perfectly 
 natural one as told by Satchells — becomes somewhat 
 far-fetched. To bring it in, Kinmont is made to ride 
 off, not on horseback, but on Red Rowan's back ! 
 No old ' ballad-makar ' made these lines, for no such 
 would ever have indulged in this flight of fancy. 
 Can any one seriously profess to believe that these 
 stanzas were written before Satchells' rhymes ?
 
 KINMONT WILLIE 129 
 
 And how about stanzas 35-36 and 43-46 ? 
 The two former are not required for the narrative, 
 have no counterpart in the rhymes, and appear to 
 have been inserted solely for the purpose of embellish- 
 ment. Similar hnes occur in ' Jock o' the Syde,' 
 relating to his escape from Newcastle jail — 
 
 ' Sleeps thou, wakes thou, Jock o' the Syde, 
 Or art thou weary of thy thrall ? ' 
 
 Jock answers thus wd' dolefu' tone ; 
 ' Aft, aft I wake — I seldom sleep.' 
 
 With regard to the latter four, namely stanzas 
 43-46, if the ballad was, as I assert, founded on the 
 rhymes, some such stanzas as these were absolutely 
 necessary in order to bring the ballad to a termina- 
 tion, for in Satchells' rhymes the narrative does not 
 end with Buccleuch's return into Scotland. In 
 writing them, the author must surely have had in 
 his mind the concluding stanzas of ' Jock o' the 
 Syde,' or of ' Archie o' Ca'field,' or of both ; it is 
 impossible not to notice the general resemblance 
 between Buccleuch's challenge to Scroope, after the 
 Scots had safely re-crossed to the right bank of the 
 Eden — ' In fair Scotland come visit me ! ' — and 
 Archie o' Ca'field's challenge to the English leader, 
 after the Scots had re-crossed the Annan — ' Come 
 
 I
 
 130 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 thro', come thro', Ueutenant Gordon ! Come thro' 
 and drink some wine wi' me ! ' 
 
 I have now completed my task ; I have given 
 the reasons which have influenced me in forming 
 the opinion that Sir Walter Scott not merely made 
 more emendations than he had indicated, as sug- 
 gested by Professor Child, not merely invented some 
 whole stanzas and touched up others, as stated by 
 Mr. Henderson and admitted by Mr. Lang, but that 
 he wrote the whole ballad from beginning to end. 
 To him only is the merit ! Let us deceive ourselves 
 no longer ; let us no longer refer to this ballad as 
 evidence of the poetic genius of our sturdy old 
 ancestors, or think of it as being impregnated with 
 the ' folk-spirit ' of a bygone day. As Hterature, 
 let us frankly acknowledge that it belongs to the 
 early nineteenth century, not to the early seven- 
 teenth.
 
 THE BALLAD and SCOT OF SATCHELLS' 
 
 RHYMES PLACED IN JUXTAPOSITION TO SHOW 
 HOW CLOSELY THEY AGREE IN REGARD TO THE 
 MAIN FACTS AND TO THE ORDER IN WHICH 
 THESE ARE NARRATED.
 
 132 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 Satchells. 
 
 After relating that the inhabitants of Northumberland 
 had complained to Lord Scroup, the English Warden, 
 regarding a raid lately made by Kinmont Willie, Sat- 
 chells proceeds thus : — 
 
 Kinmonfs Capture. 
 
 The Lord Scroup heard their complaint, 
 
 And bade them go home and no more lament, 
 
 For before the Sun did rise or set 
 
 He should be reveng'd on Kinment : 
 
 Anone he charg'd the Trumpeters, they should sound 
 
 Booty-sadle, 
 Just at that time the Moon was in her prime 
 He needed no Torch-light : 
 Lord Scroup he did to Scotland come. 
 Took Kinment the self same night : 
 If he had had but ten men more, that had been as stout 
 
 as he. 
 Lord Scroup had not the Kinment tane with all his 
 
 Company ; 
 
 Kinmont is taken to Carlisle.
 
 KINMONT WILLIE 133 
 
 The Ballad. 
 
 KinmonCs Capture. 
 I 
 have j^c na heard o' the fause Sakeld ? 
 O have ye na heard o' the keen lord Scroup ? 
 How they hae ta'en bauld Kinmont WilUe, 
 On Haribee to hang him up ? 
 
 2 
 
 Had WilHe 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. 
 
 Kinmont is taken to Carlisle. 
 
 3 
 They band his legs beneath tlie steed, 
 They tied his hands behind his back ! 
 They guarded him fivesome on each side, 
 And they brought him ower the Liddel-rack.
 
 134 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 But Kinment being Prisoner, lord Scroup he had him 
 
 tane, 
 In CarHsle Castle he him laid, in irons and fetters strong. 
 
 Lord Scroup and Kinmont handy words. 
 
 Then scornfully lord Scroup did say, 
 
 In this Castle thou must ly, 
 
 Before thou goest away, thou must 
 
 Even take thy leave of me ; 
 
 He meant that he should suffer death before he went 
 
 away ; 
 By the Cross of my Sword, says Willie then, 
 I 'le take my leave of thee, 
 Before I go away, whether I live or die. 
 
 News of Kinmout^s capture is brougJd to Buccleuck. 
 
 These News came furth to bold Buckcleugh, 
 Lord Warden at that time, 
 How lord Scroup, Carlisles Governour, 
 Had Kinment Willie Tanc ;
 
 KINMONT WILLIE 135 
 
 4 
 They led him thro' the Liddel-rack, 
 And also thro' the CarUsle sands ; 
 They brought him to Carhsle Castell, 
 To be at my lord Scroope's commands. 
 
 Lord Scroup and Kinmont handy words. 
 
 5 
 ' My hands are tied, but my tongue is free, 
 And whae will dare this deed avow ? 
 Or answer by the Border law ? 
 Or answer to the bauld Buccleuch ? ' 
 
 6 
 
 ' Now, baud thy tongue, thou rank reiver ! 
 There 's never a Scot shall set thee free ; 
 Before ye cross my castle j^ate, 
 1 trow ye shall take farewell o' me.' 
 
 7 
 ' Fear naye that, my lord,' quo' Willie : 
 ' By the faith o' my body, lord Scroope,' he said, 
 ' I never yet lodged in a hostelrie. 
 But I paid my lawing before I gaed.' 
 
 News of KinmonVs capture is brought to Buccleuch. 
 
 8 
 Now word is gane to the bauld keeper, 
 In Branksome Ha', where that he lay, 
 That lord Scroope has ta'en the Kinmont Willie, 
 Between the hours of night and day.
 
 136 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 Buccleuch^s Anger. 
 Is it that way Buckcleugli did say, 
 Lord Scroup must understand, 
 That he has not only done me wrong. 
 But my Soveraign James of Scotland ; 
 My Soveraign Lord King of Scotland 
 Thinks not his Cousin Queen, 
 Will offer to invade his Land, 
 Without leave asked and given ; 
 Thou stole into my Masters Land, 
 Which is Avithin my Command, 
 And in a plundering hostile way, 
 I 'le let thee understand ; 
 Before Day-light came thou stole a man. 
 And like a Thief thou run aAvay ; 
 This Letter came to Lord Scroups hand, 
 Which from Buckcleugli was sent, 
 Charging him then to release Kinment, 
 Or else he should repent ; 
 
 This Message by a Drummer sent, 
 To the Governour Lord Scroup ; 
 A frivolous answer he returned, 
 Which made bold Buckcleugli to doubt, 
 That he must into Carlisle ride, 
 And fetch the Kinment out. 
 
 It was for the honour of Scotland, 
 By reason he was Lord Warden ; 
 He stormed that any should presume 
 To enter the Scots Border, 
 Either Cornish, Irish, English, Welch, 
 Unless they had his Order ;
 
 KINMONT WILLIE 137 
 
 Buccleucli's Anger. 
 
 9 
 He has ta'en the table wi' his hand, 
 He garr'd the red wine spring on hie — 
 ' Now Christ's curse on my head,' he said, 
 ' But avenged of lord Scroope I '11 be ! 
 
 lO 
 
 ' O is my basnet a widow's cureh ? 
 
 Or my lance a wand of the willow-tree ? 
 
 Or my arm a ladye's lilye hand, 
 
 That an English lord should lightly me ? 
 
 1 1 
 ' And have they ta'en him, Kinmont Willie, 
 Against the truce of Border tide ? 
 And forgotten that the bauld Buccleuch 
 Is keeper here on the Scottish side ? 
 
 12 
 
 ' And have they ta'en him, Kinmont Willie, 
 Withouten either dread or fear ? 
 And forgotten that the bauld Buccleuch 
 Can back a steed, or shake a spear ? 
 
 13 
 ' were there war between the lands. 
 As well I wot that there is none, 
 I would slight Carlisle Castell high, 
 Though it were builded of marble stone. 
 
 14 
 ' I would set that castell in a lowe, 
 And sloken it with English blood ! 
 There 's never a man in Cumberland, 
 Should ken where Carlisle castell stood.
 
 138 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 Action taken by Bucdeuch. 
 
 Thus being vext, he shew the Friends of the Name, 
 How the Lord Scroup had Willy Kinment tane ; 
 And said, if they would but take part with him, 
 He knew a way to bring him back again : 
 To which demand they presently did conclude, 
 They would serve his Honour to the last drop of their 
 blood : 
 
 His Friends advice that he desir'd to know, 
 
 Was . , . [here follow names of various members of the 
 
 Scott clan] 
 And Gilbert Elliot, he Avas not of his Name, 
 But was his Honours Cousin-gcrman ; 
 Those Gentlemen in Vote did all agree, 
 Five hundred to march in his Honours company ; 
 He thank'd them for their Vote, and said, that must not 
 
 be, 
 Pick me out chosen men no more but thirty-three ; 
 [The vximes of the thirty-three are then recounted at con- 
 siderable length. '\ 
 These gentlemen were all Scotts, 
 Except Gilbert Elliot of the Stobs, 
 Which was a valiant Gentleman, 
 And, as said before, my Lord's Cousin-German ;
 
 KINMONT WILLIE 139 
 
 15 
 ' But since nae war 's between the lands, 
 And there is peace, and peace should be, 
 I 'II neither harm English lad or lass, 
 And yet the Kinraont freed shall be ! ' 
 
 Action taken by Buccleuch. 
 16 
 He has call'd him forty raarchmen bauld, 
 I trow they were of his ain name, 
 Except sir Gilbert Elliot, call'd 
 The laird of Stobs, I mean the same. 
 
 17 
 He has call'd him forty marchmen bauld, 
 Were kinsmen to the bauld Buccleuch ; 
 With spur on heel, and splent on spauld, 
 And gleuves of green, and feathers blue.
 
 140 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 These gentlemen did all conveen, 
 
 At Branksome-Gate His Honour to attend 
 
 The Ilarch to the Border. 
 
 Buckcleugh from Branksom took the way, 
 
 Through the Woods of Esk in a full Carier went he. 
 
 To the Woodhouselej^s which is near to Netherbie 
 
 And there awhile continued he, 
 
 He brought Wrights along in his Company ; 
 
 And caused them Scaling-ladders make. 
 
 Although the Wrights knew not for what ; 
 
 Both artificial, long and strong, 
 
 There was six Horsemen to carry them along ; 
 
 In a high Carier ni}'- Lord did ride. 
 
 To the Woodhouslies on the Border-side ; 
 
 For Netherbie is in English ground, 
 
 But the Woodhouslies is in Scotland ; 
 
 There is a long Mile them between. 
 
 Divided by the River of Esk her furious Streams ; 
 
 Buccleuch spreads false reports.
 
 KINMONT WILLIE 141 
 
 The March to the Border. 
 i8 
 
 There were five and five before them a' 
 Wi' hunting-horns and bugles bright : 
 And five and five came wi' Bucclcuch, 
 Like Warden's men, array'd for fight. 
 
 And five and five, hke a mason gang. 
 That carried the ladders lang and hie ; 
 And five and five, like broken men ; 
 And so they reach'd the Woodhouselee. 
 
 20 
 
 And as we cross'd the Bateable land. 
 When to the English side we held, 
 The first o' men that we met wi', 
 Whae suld it be but fause Sakelde ? 
 
 Buccleuch spreads false reports. 
 21 
 
 ' Where be ye gaun, ye hunters keen ? ' 
 Quo' fause Sakelde ; ' come tell to me ! ' 
 ' We go to hunt an English stag. 
 Has trespass'd on the Scots countrie.'
 
 142 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 My Lord caused raise a vulgar report, 
 
 That he was only come to hold a Justice-Court : 
 
 Which caused Fugitives to flee, 
 
 Unto the Woods and Mountains high : 
 
 And for the Ladders tight and tall, 
 
 Was made for the Towers of Branksom-hall ; 
 
 Though it was made long and strong, and most compleat, 
 
 To reach Carelisles Castles Battlement ; 
 
 Such excuses there was for every thing, 
 
 But for 's Honours intention there was no din ; 
 
 Most privately he his course did steer. 
 
 About Christmas, the hinder end of the year. 
 
 The Advance to Carlisle, 
 The state of the weather and rivers. 
 
 The day was past before the Wrights had done. 
 Then it was long eight Mile to Carelisle Toav71 ; 
 The way was deep, and the Water was strong,^ 
 And the Ladder was fifty Foot long ; 
 
 ' The river here referred to ia the Esk, at all times a very rapid 
 stream.
 
 KINMONT WILLIE 143 
 
 22 
 
 ' ^^Hiere be ye gaun, ye marshal men ? ' 
 Quo' fause Sakelde ; ' come tell me true ! ' 
 ' We go to catch a rank reiver, 
 Has broken faith with the bauld Buccleuch ' 
 
 23 
 ' 'Where are ye gaun, ye mason lads, 
 Wi' a' your ladders, lang and hie ? ' 
 ' We gang to harry a corbie's nest, 
 That wons not far frae Woodhouselec.' 
 
 24 
 
 ' Where be ye gaun, ye broken men ? ' 
 Quo' fause Sakelde ; ' come tell to me ! ' 
 Now Dickie of Dryhope led that band. 
 And the nevir a word of lear had he. 
 
 25 
 ' Why trespass ye on the English side ? 
 Row-footed outlaws, stand ! ' quo' he ; 
 The nevir a word had Dickie to say, 
 Sae he thrust his lance through his fause bodie. 
 
 The Advance to Carlisle. 
 
 The state of the weather and rivers. 
 
 26 
 
 Then on we held for Carlisle toun, 
 And at Staneshaw-bank the Eden we cross'd ; 
 The water was great and mickle of spait 
 But the nevir a horse nor man we lost.
 
 144 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 [Here follows a metapJiorical account of the weather, which, 
 in plain English, appears to have been dark and foggy, 
 hut not stormy. There was no thunderstorm.] 
 
 Juno mask'd in a Fog, the Night was no way clear, 
 
 But yet his Honour did no longer bide. 
 
 But paced throughout the Muir to the River Eden-side ; 
 
 Near the Stonish-bank my Lord a time did stay, 
 
 And left the one half of his Company, 
 
 For fear they had made noise or din, 
 
 Near the Castle they should come. 
 
 The River was in no great rage, 
 
 They cross'd near half a mile below the Bridge ; 
 
 The Assault. 
 
 Then along the Sands with no noise at all. 
 They come close under the Castle Wall ; 
 
 Then masked Midnight slowth did keep, 
 And mortal eyes was inclined to sleep ;
 
 KINMONT WILLIE 145 
 
 27 
 And when we reached the Staneshaw-bank 
 The w ind was rising loud and hie ; 
 And tliere the laird garr'd leave our steeds, 
 For fear that they should stamp and nie. 
 
 28 
 And when we left the Stane-shaw-bank, 
 The wind began full loud to blaw ; 
 But 'twas wind and weet, and fire and sleet, 
 When we came beneath the castle wa'. 
 
 The Assault. 
 29 
 We crept on knees, and held our breath, 
 Till we placed the ladders against the wa' ; 
 And sae ready was Buccleuch himsell 
 To mount the first before us a'. 
 
 30 
 He has ta'en the watchman bv the throat, 
 He flung him down upon the lead — 
 ' Had there not been peace between our lands, 
 Upon the other side thou had'st gaed ! ' 
 
 31 
 ' Now sound out, trumpets ! ' quo' Buccleuch ; 
 ' Let 's waken lord Scroope right merrilie ! ' 
 Then loud the Warden's trumpet blew — 
 ' O wha daur meddle wi' me ? ' 
 
 K
 
 146 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 Immediately the}' did their Ladder plant. 
 WTiich reach'd the Castles Battlement ; 
 Then up the Ladder they reer but doubt. 
 And broke a sheet of lead on the Castle-top, 
 A passage made, and in they came, 
 The Cape-house-door they burst in twain ; 
 
 Then dowTi the stairs they came amain, 
 Where Kinment fettered lay within, 
 Then with Fore-hammers Doors they broke down. 
 Amazing the lord Scroup and all his Garrison ;
 
 KINMONT WILLIE 147 
 
 32 
 Then spe(^dilie to wark we gaed, 
 And raised the slogan ane and a', 
 And cut a hole thro' a sheet of lead, 
 And so we wan the castle ha'. 
 
 33 
 They thought king James and a' his men 
 Had won the house wi' bow and spear ; 
 It was but twenty Scots and ten, 
 That put a thousand in sic a steir ! ^ 
 
 34 
 Wi' coulters, and wi' forehammei's, 
 We garr'd the bars bang mcrrilie, 
 Until we came to the inner j^rison. 
 Where Willie o' Kinmont he did lie. 
 
 35 
 And when we came to the lower prison, 
 Where Willie o' Kinmont he did lie — 
 ' sleep ye, wake ye, Kinmont Willie, 
 Upon the morn that thou 's to die ? ' 
 
 36 
 ' O T sleep saft, and 1 wake aft ; 
 It 's lang since sleeping was fley'd frae me ! 
 Gic my service back to my wife and bairns, 
 And a' gude fellows that speir for me.' 
 
 '- This stanza appears to be founded on lines 4, o, and G from 
 the top of page 148.
 
 148 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 Kinmont is removed from the Castle and bids 
 Lord Scroup Farewell ! 
 
 They hors'd Kinment with his bolts upon a strong mans 
 
 back, 
 And to the Castle-top in the Ladder they did him set, 
 The Wardens Trumpets did most sweetly sound, 
 WTiich put the Garison in a fear, 
 That all Scotland was come ; 
 The Governour thought the Castle had been gone 
 He intended for to run and surely to save none ; 
 Then Kinment said, when first here I did come, 
 Lord Scroup engaged me to take leave of him ; 
 Then with a turning voice he did cry out, 
 Farewell, farewell to my good lord Scroup, 
 Which terrified the English more, 
 By an hundred times than they were before ; 
 Then down the Ladder in haste they Willy gat. 
 And set him Sadle-aside upon a Horses back. 
 
 ', The Retreat to Scotland. 
 
 Mean time the Trumpets sounded, Come if yo dare. 
 They were the last men that came down the wooden stair, 
 They mounted all with speed, and safely did return 
 The self Bame way they formerly did come ;
 
 KINMONT WILLIE 149 
 
 Kinmont is removed from the Castle and bids 
 Lord Scroup Farewell ! 
 
 37 
 Then Red Rowan has hcnte him up, 
 The starkest man in Teviotdale — 
 
 ' Abide, abide now. Red Rowan, 
 
 Till of my lord Scroope I take farewell. 
 
 38 
 ' Farewell, farewell, my gude lord Scroope ! 
 My gude lord Scroope, farewell ! ' he cried — 
 ' I '11 pay you for my lodging maill. 
 When first we meet on the Border side.' 
 
 39 
 
 Then shoulder high, with shout and cry, 
 We bore him down the ladder gang ; 
 At every stride Red Rowan made, 
 I wot the Kinmont's aims play'd clang ! 
 
 The Retreat to Scotland. 
 40 
 ' mony a time,' quo' Kinmont Willie, 
 ' I have ridden a horse baitli wild and wud ; 
 But a rougher beast than Red Rowan 
 I ween my legs have ne'er bestrode.
 
 150 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 They observ'd neither file nor rank, 
 
 They met with the rest of their Party at Stenicks banlc 
 
 Carhsles Dark-muirs they did pass through, 
 
 There was never a man did them pursue, 
 
 To Lines-water they come with speed, 
 
 Then past the Muirs on the other side ; 
 
 Then Kinment Willy cry'd out Avith pain, 
 
 And said his irons had him undone, 
 
 The which to his Legs stuck like Burs, 
 
 He never rode before with such large Spurs ; 
 
 They stayed for no smith on the English ground. 
 
 At Canninbie they arrived into Scotland 
 
 Without loss or hurt to any man.
 
 KINMONT WILLIE 151 
 
 41 
 ' And mony a time,' quo' Kinmont Willie, 
 ' I 've pricked a horse out oure the furs ; 
 But since the day I back'd a steed, 
 I never wore sic cumbrous spurs 1 ' 
 
 42 
 We scarce had won the Staneshaw-bank, 
 When a' the Carlisle bells were rung, 
 And a thousand men on horse and foot, 
 Cam wi' the keen lord Scroope along. 
 
 43 
 Buccleuch has turn'd to Eden Water, 
 Even where it flowed frae bank to brim. 
 And he has plung'd in wi' a' his band. 
 And safely swam them through the stream. 
 
 44 
 He turn'd him on the other side, 
 And at lord Scroope his glove flung he — 
 ' If ye like na my visit in merry England 
 In fair Scotland come visit me ! ' 
 
 45 
 All sore astonish'd stood lord Scroope, 
 He stood as still as rock of stane ; 
 He scarcely dared to trew his eyes, 
 When through the water he had gane. 
 
 46 
 ' He is either himsell a devil frae heli^ 
 Or else his mother a witch maun be ; 
 I wadna have ridden that wan Mater 
 For a' the go\vd in Christentie.'
 
 NUMBER IV 
 
 ON THE GENESIS OF THE BALLADS OF 
 'JAMIE TELFER' AND 'AULD MAITLAND'
 
 ON THE GENESIS OF THE BALLADS OF 
 MAMIE TELFER' AND 'AULD MAITLAND ' 
 
 In the Scottish Historical Beview for July 190G, Mr. 
 Andrew Lang, in reviewing a book I had shortly 
 before published, ^ made his chief comments on that 
 portion referring to the ballad of ' Jamie Telfer,' 
 and in so doing revealed himself as the writer of 
 another review which appeared in the Literary 
 Supplement of the Times of July 30. 
 
 The object I had in view was to show that there 
 were very strong grounds for accepting the story told 
 in the ballad as essentially true, but since two 
 versions, giving irreconcilable accounts of the same 
 incidents, exist, it became necessary in the first 
 place to determine which of these was the older. 
 Mr. Lang agrees with me in the conclusion reached, 
 namely that the EUiot version, as he calls it, is 
 older than the one published by Sir Walter Scott 
 in the 3Iinstrelsy,- and this being so, I do not under- 
 
 ^ The Tritsttoorthimss of Border Ballads. (William Blackwood 
 and Sons, Edinburgh, 1906.) 
 
 - Mr. Lang's words are: 'Later a bard, Elliot we tliink, pro- 
 duced the ballad, and a Scott, we think, altered it.' 
 
 I quite agree that 'a Scott' altered it, but I can see no reason 
 
 155
 
 156 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 stand why he should bestow the labour he does in 
 attempting to shake my arguments as to the 
 Minstrelsy version being inconsistent with our 
 knowledge of history and with topography ; this is 
 all the more surprising since, in his essay on the 
 ' Ballads ' in Chambers's Encydojjcedia of English 
 Literature (1901), he wrote that had Scott invented 
 ' Jamie Telfer ' he ' would have made the topo- 
 graphy plausible.'' 
 
 In adducing evidence — and it is good evidence — 
 of the existence in former days of a Catslock Hill 
 near Branxholm, he is simply drawing a red herring 
 across the track of the argument, for it does not 
 matter whether there was or was not. In my book 
 I assumed for the sake of argument that there was 
 such a place bet\veen Coultart Cleugh and Branx- 
 holm, and I showed this in no way rendered the story 
 told in the Minstrelsy version of the ballad more 
 credible.^ I willingly accept Mr. Lang's assurance 
 that there was a Catslock Hill close to Branxholm 
 and that it was a very important place, for the 
 
 for thinking that an Elliot produced it. It does not do honour to 
 the Elliot clan— as Mr. Lang asserts I claim— nor to any clan in 
 particular. In my book (pages 48-9) I drew attention to the fact 
 that in the respect of not mentioning clans, it is similar to other 
 Border ballads of the period, while markedly dissimilar to the 
 Minstrels;/ version. 
 
 1 The TrustworthineBS of Border Ballads, pp. 14-15.
 
 JAMIE TELFER AND AULD MAITLAND 157 
 
 nearer to Branxholm, the more important the place, 
 the stronger becomes my argument as to its unsuit- 
 ability to the tale. Mr. Lang may, perhaps, be success- 
 ful in picking out trivial inaccuracies of which I may 
 have been guilty — though I do not admit he has done 
 even this so far — but he will never shake my main 
 topographical argument until he can prove that the 
 localities named in the ballad, namely, Branxholm, 
 Stobs and Coultart Cleugh, have changed their 
 relative positions during the last three centuries, or 
 that two sides of a triangle are not longer than the 
 third. And even if he successfully wrestles with 
 either or both of these alternatives, I shall remain 
 indifferent so long as he continues to agree with me 
 that the Minstrelsy version is the later of the two. 
 
 Since there is but little beauty in the original 
 version its chief, perhaps its only, interest lies in its 
 claim to being a fairly true picture — allowance being 
 made for poetical licence — of events which occurred 
 more than three hundred years ago. 
 
 In my book I showed (1) that the ballad is con- 
 sistent with topography ; (2) that, in so far as the 
 related actions of individuals are concerned, it is 
 consistent with common sense, with possibility, and 
 with probability ; (3) that it is consistent with 
 history, in so far that four of the chief actors in the 
 scene flourished at the time in question.
 
 158 BORDER BALLADE 
 
 With regard to (1) and (2) Mr, Lang appears to 
 agree with me. As to (3) he differs with regard to 
 the accuracy of the ballad in referring to one of the 
 individuals. He points to the mention of ' auld 
 Buccleuch ' ; Buccleuch, he says, must have been 
 under thirty-eight years of age at the time, and 
 therefore there was, in fact, no auld ' Buccleuch,' 
 and therefore the version is historically untrust- 
 worthy. 
 
 I am really in doubt whether I should take such 
 an argument as seriously intended, and consequently 
 it is with diffidence that I venture to point out that 
 the adjective old or auld, is sometimes employed 
 otherwise than to indicate advanced in years ; the 
 expressions old hoy, old fellow, occur to one at once ; 
 and frequently they carry a suggestion of sagacity 
 or slyness — e.g. auld thief — and this is, in my 
 opinion, the sense in which it is used in both versions 
 of the ballad. 
 
 Then, Mr. Lang makes the definite assertion that 
 the facts as given in the ballad never occurred at all. 
 When he writes that ' the story in both ballads is 
 wholly unhistorical ' ^ he is doubtless correct, inas- 
 
 ' Mr. Lang appears to have altered his views since writing his 
 essay on 'The Ballads' in Cliambcrs'a h'liri/rlopirdia of EiKjlish 
 LituriUurc, 1901. Referring to the Scottish liistorical ballads, in 
 whicli he included the MiiiHtrelsy version of ' Jamie Telfer,' he 
 wrote, ' Tliey rest on recent history.'
 
 JAMIE TELFER AND AULD JMAITLAND 159 
 
 much as no documentary record of it exists, or, 
 perhaps I should say, is known to exist. If we could 
 only learn all the facts relating to the past we should 
 probably find our histories to be as remarkable for 
 their omissions as they doubtless are for their fables. 
 
 Now, what reason does Mr. Lang give for his bold 
 statement ? Merely this : The incident is not, he 
 says, mentioned in Bain's Border Papers. 
 
 Consequently he is forced into an attempt to show 
 that this negative reason is in itself conclusive of his 
 affirmation. In this, in my opinion, he fails ; the 
 facts he brings forward, indeed, rather add to than 
 detract from the probability of those referred to in 
 the ballad being essentially true. 
 
 ' The published despatches,' he writes {Times 
 article), ' from the Border officials to the English 
 Government during 1596-97 occupy four hundred 
 printed pages. These contain the minutest records 
 of every Border incident.' Now, even assuming 
 that the published despatches include all the 
 despatches written — and I understand from Mr. 
 Bain's preface that this is not the case — I cannot for 
 one moment believe that every incident which took 
 place on the Borders during the many years in which 
 possibly this one may have occurred can have been 
 mentioned. Simmy Elliot, who, the ballad tells us, 
 was killed in the fight, was alive in 1592, and there-
 
 160 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 fore the incident may have occurred during any of 
 the eleven years between then and 1603, the date 
 of the Union of the Crowns. And if Simmy was not 
 killed — and really ballads ought not to be read 
 absolutely literally in their references to killed and 
 wounded — the raid might have occurred even before 
 1592. We may, surely, be absolutely certain that 
 many ' an unfortunate incident ' occurring in so long 
 a period was not mentioned, and even more certain — 
 if that be possible — that of those that were reported 
 many a detail, not by any means always of the 
 ' minutest ' nature, must have been omitted. 
 
 ' By referring to Bain's Border Papers anybody 
 can find out,' writes Mr. Lang in the Scottish Histori- 
 cal Review, ' how and when the Captain of Bewcastle 
 was taken, where and by whom ; namely by 
 Kinmont Willie and the Armstrongs (July 3, 1596).' 
 This is interesting information, but it is no proof that 
 a Captain of Bewcastle was not also taken or killed 
 at some other place and at some other time, while it 
 corroborates, to some extent, the story of the ballad 
 as to a Captain of Bewcastle having been defeated 
 by Liddesdale men. 
 
 Then Mr. Lang tells us, on the authority of Bain's 
 Border Papers, of three historical facts, namely, the 
 defeat of the Captain of Bewcastle in 1596, the 
 repulse by Liddesdale men (the Elliots) of Tynedalc
 
 JAMIE TELFER AND AULD MAITLAND 161 
 
 raiders (the date is not mentioned), and, as a result 
 of this repulse, the killing, in 1597, not of Simmy 
 Elliot but of his brother Martin. Mr. Lang appears 
 to suggest that the ballad had its origin in these 
 events ; as to this I shall not express an opinion 
 but shall confine myself to asking the following 
 question : Assuming this conjecture to be true, is 
 Mr. Lang justified in writing, ' The ballad is thus a 
 mere late mythical perversion of carefully recorded 
 historical 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, the historical 
 record of which in the English State Papers could 
 not possibly have been known to the composer. 
 
 Mr. Laiig lays stress on the fact that the ballad 
 records — incorrectly, he says — the death of Simmy 
 Elliot. It is astounding with what absolute assur- 
 ance he makes the following definite statements : 
 ' No Simmy Elliot was killed ' {i.e. in the raid of 
 1596). ' In 1597, not Simmy but his brother Martin 
 was slain.' The point seems to me to be very 
 unimj)ortant, for there is little to be surprised at in 
 a mistake as to the name having occurred in a ballad 
 which, if authentic, has been handed down orally 
 through many generations ; but since Mr. Lang 
 appears to think differently I must point out that 
 
 L
 
 162 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 Simmy had no brother named Martin. Simmy was 
 the eldest son of the ipso facto Chief, Martin Elhot, 
 and nothing is more hkely than that the writer of the 
 State Paper — for I presume this to be the source of 
 Mr. Lang's information ^ — should have, inadvert- 
 ently or through ignorance, referred to the eldest son 
 by the father's name. However this may be, the 
 broad fact remains that in this particular the ballad 
 is right, ' the historical record ' wrong. 
 
 But, though this matter in itself is, as I have 
 already said, of little importance, we nevertheless 
 derive from it knowledge of a fact which is extremely 
 so. We learn that the author of the ballad was not 
 dependent for his knowledge of details upon ' the 
 carefully recorded historical facts ' contained in the 
 English State Papers. Whence did he derive it ? 
 I answer from tradition. What is Mr. Lang's 
 answer ? 
 
 If we believe with Mr. Lang that the ballad has 
 reference to the three historical facts which he cites, 
 
 ^ Since writing the above, I find I am wrong in ascribing Bain's 
 Border Papers as the source from which Mr. Lang derived the 
 information that it was Simmy's brother, Martin, who was killed. 
 According to them — see papers 675 and 676, vol. ii. — the individual 
 slain was ' an EUot of Martin's clan called Martin's Gibbe,' from 
 which we may surely infer he was not a son. This is also clear 
 from paper 197, vol. i., wherein the names of tiie members of 
 Martin's family are given. Gibbc was in fact not a son but a 
 ' brother son to Martin.' — See The Hon. George Elliot's The Border 
 Elliots and Family of Minto, p. 218 ; also pp. 146 and 239.
 
 JAMIE TELFER AND AULD MAITLAND 163 
 
 namely, to the defeat of a Captain of Bewcastle, to 
 the repulse of a party of Tynedale raiders, and to 
 the death of a son of the Chief of the Elliot clan, Avhy 
 should we refuse to credit the other incident 
 mentioned, namely, the raid to Dodhead ? This 
 might quite well have been conducted by a party 
 detached from the main body of raiders in 1596, 
 and since, as a matter of fact, nothing more resulted 
 than an unsuccessful attempt to capture ten head 
 of cattle, there is little cause for surprise at no 
 mention having been made of the affair in the 
 English official reports. How then, it may be 
 asked, are we to believe that the record of an affair 
 too trumpery to be noticed even among the 
 ' minutest ' details in the English official reports 
 should have been preserved in the form of a ballad 
 for so many generations ? To this I can best reply 
 by referring to the opening sentences of the chapter 
 on ' Verse relating to Flodden Field ' in my Trust- 
 worthiness of Border Ballads, M'here I have pointed 
 out that our Border ballad-makers appear to have 
 preferred to sing rather of trivial than of important 
 historical incidents. Can, indeed, any Border ballad 
 be quoted as being based on an important historical 
 incident ? There may have been — I think probably 
 there was — a Border ballad on the battle of 
 Otterburn, but what other can be named ? The
 
 164 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 Raid of the Reidswire was hardly an important his- 
 torical incident. The song ' Wha daur meddle wi' 
 me ? ' refers to an incident which, though doubt- 
 less of importance to 'Little Jock Elliot,' to Lord 
 Bothwell, and to Queen Mary, was hardly so to the 
 world at large. 
 
 The raid to Carlisle, which formed the subject of 
 the ballad ' Kinmont Willie,' again was hardly of 
 great importance, and there can, alas, be little 
 credence in the authenticity of that ballad. 
 
 It must be remembered that the suggestion as to 
 the ballad having had its origin in the events of 
 1596-97 is not mine, but Mr. Lang's ; I am merely 
 showing that, assuming its truth, there is neverthe- 
 less no sound reason for asserting that the raid to 
 Dodhead never took place. 
 
 I am ignorant of any other argument having been 
 put forward by Mr. Lang — or by any one else — in 
 support of his view ; doubtless in his introductory 
 note to 'Jamie Telfer' in Chambers's Encyclopcedia he 
 writes : ' No English reivers would ride on a hasty 
 foray from the Marches to Dodhead in Ettrick,' but 
 this is not an argument ; it is merely an expression 
 of opinion, of an opinion of which the unsoundness 
 has been completely exposed in my book. 
 \/. The whole of this introductory note is so remark- 
 able that I cannot refrain from giving it at length,
 
 JAMIE TELFER AND AULD MAITLAND 1G5 
 
 interpolating a few remarks as I go. I ought, how- 
 ever, in tlic first place, to mention that Mr. Lang 
 is referring entirely to the ballad given in the 
 Minstrelsy ; no mention is made of the older, i.e. 
 ' Elliot ' version. 
 
 He writes : ' Scott is responsible for this fine 
 riding ballad, but probably did no more than add 
 touches here and there. [Later he writes that the 
 jour or jive most stirring verses were composed by 
 Scott.^] This is probably because he represents 
 the Dodhead as being near Singlee in Ettrick. 
 [Scott was perjectly correct.] Now Telfer could not 
 have covered in time the great distance from Singlee 
 to Branxholm [shortness oj time was due to the jact 
 that, instead oj stopping at Branxholm, he passed the 
 door and ivent on to Stobs, and thence, instead oj 
 returning to Branxholm, he ivent to Coultart Cleugh, 
 a7id then at last he made jor Branxholm : see 
 map in my hook], and he would probably have 
 applied for aid to Scott of Tushielaw and Scott of 
 Thirlestane, his neighbours [had he done so he would 
 have abandoned all hope oj recovering his cattle, as 
 shown in my book], not to Elliot of Stobs, who was 
 very remote. In fact there is a Dodburn (and there- 
 fore a Dodhead) [! !J on the southern side of Teviot, 
 within touch of Stobs, but Scott was obviously 
 
 * Literai-y Forgeries, p. 2G6.
 
 166 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 unaware of the fact [ichy ? had he been aware of it, 
 as he probably icas, I cannot conceive his altering 
 his view as to the position of Dodhead] which makes 
 the events in the ballad possible. [It does no such 
 thing. Wherever the Dodhead may have been, the 
 events as related in the Minstrelsy are ludicrously 
 impossible.] It may therefore be inferred that he 
 really received the ballad from tradition [yet Mr. 
 Lang subsequently writes that the ballad is ' a mere 
 late mythical perversion of carefully recorded his- 
 torical facts '] ; had he invented it he would have 
 made the topography plausible. [He has 7iever, I 
 think, been accused of ' inventing ' it ; there is no 
 doubt that he or ' a Scott ' manufactured it by 
 perverting an older version.] No English reivers 
 would ride on a hasty foray from the Marches to 
 Dodhead in Ettrick. [This has been already re- 
 marked upon.] Telfer would still find the kin of 
 Jock Grieve on the old farms in Teviotdale.' 
 
 The note here ends. 
 
 I have still to remark on the argument that since 
 there is a Dodburn there must therefore be a Dod- 
 head ! It is absolutely unsound and untrue ; yet 
 doubtless it carries weight with those who do not 
 know the country, and I fear with many who do, 
 seeing that it is advanced by a distinguished autho- 
 rity on ballad literature, who is moreover a Borderer.
 
 JAMIE TELFER AND AULD MAITLAND 167 
 
 Had a peel or farm ever existed at the head of the 
 Dodburn — and there is excellent reason for thinking 
 this was not the case — it would not have been called 
 ' Dodhead ' ; it would have been ' Dodburnhead,' 
 The name of the stream is not the ' Dod,' but the 
 ' Dodburn ' ; it derives its name from the hill — the 
 Dod rig — from which it flows. On the Borders we 
 frequently find the suffixes ' head ' and ' foot ' 
 attached to the names of streams ; thus, we have 
 the rivers ' Teviot,' ' Rule,' ' Jed,' and we have 
 ' Teviothead,' ' Rulefoot,' ' Rulehead,' ' Jedfoot,' 
 ' Jedhead ' ; they are also attached to ' Burn,' 
 ' Hope,' ' Cleuch,' etc., thus ' Burnfoot,' ' Winter- 
 hopeliead,' ' Minto Cleughhead.' And generally 
 when a stream takes its name from the locality 
 through which it floAvs or from which it rises, the 
 suffixes, ' head ' and ' foot,' are attached not to the 
 name of the locality but to the name of the stream. 
 To suggest that farms at the head of Winterhope, 
 or of Minto burn could possibly have been named 
 ' Winterhead ' or ' Mintohead ' is as preposterous, 
 though not one whit more so, as to suggest that a 
 peel at the head of the Dodburn would have been 
 called ' Dodliead.' 
 
 In my opinion all the arguments used in favour of 
 the assertion that the raid to Dodhead in Ettrick 
 never took place are thoroughly unsound.
 
 168 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 We shall continue to believe or to disbelieve the 
 story according to our several natures ; direct proof 
 either way is hardly Avithin the bounds of possibility. 
 It is possible, no doubt, and perhaps not improbable, 
 that the ballad, like so many others which came to 
 light at this period, may still be shown to be a forgery, 
 yet, even then, there would remain ground for the 
 belief that the main incidents related were based 
 on tradition. 
 
 We may now pass on to a matter which, though in 
 no way bearing upon the question of the historical 
 trustworthiness of the original ballad, suggests in- 
 teresting conjectures regarding the genesis of the 
 Scott version and also of that of the ballad of ' Auld 
 Maitland.' 
 
 In the Scottish Historical Review Mr. Lang asserts 
 that I am wrong in supposing that Scott knew Mrs. 
 Hogg's version of ' Jamie Telfer ' before he published 
 the Minstrelsy ; and, again, in the Times article he 
 writes : ' How could Scott know that the Hoggs 
 had any version ? Not till after he published his 
 own did he get Mrs. Hogg's great treasure, " Auld 
 Maitland," and in the autumn of 1802 returned from 
 the Forest " loaded with the treasures of oral 
 tradition," so he writes to Elhs.' 
 
 Now, Mr. Henderson, in the centenary edition of 
 the Minstrelsy, says that ' Scott's acquaintance with
 
 JAMIE TELFER AND AULD MAITLAND 109 
 
 Laidlaw was made after the two first volumes of the 
 Minstrelsy appeared ' — early in 1802 — and in Lock- 
 hart's Life of Scott we are told that it was Laidlaw 
 who introduced Scott to Hogg ; but, even assuming 
 these statements are correct, it does not necessarily 
 follow that my surmise as to Scott having known 
 of Mrs. Hogg's version before publishing his own is 
 wrong, for he and Hogg had been corresponding 
 before the time when, it is alleged, they first became 
 personally acquainted (see further on at page 172), 
 or, again, the ballad might have been procured 
 for Scott by one of his fellow ballad-hunters, such 
 as Ley den or Laidlaw. 
 
 But is Mr. Henderson's statement correct ? Is 
 Mr. Lang correct in asserting that it was not till 
 after Scott had published his version that he got 
 ' Mrs. Hogg's great treasure, " Auld Maitland," and 
 in the autumn of 1802, returned from the Forest 
 " loaded with the treasures of oral tradition." ' ^ 
 
 These last words are not verv clear, but most 
 
 ^ Sir Walter Scott's words as to his returu from the Forest ' loaded 
 with the treasures of oral tradition ' are constantly quoted in works 
 on Border ballads, and are invariably taken as applying to songs and 
 ballads. It may be of interest to point out that in the third 
 volume of the Minstrelsy (the first two volumes had been published 
 before the date of his letter to Ellis, in which the words occur), 
 there arc not more than two ballads — if indeed so many — which he 
 had neither known of before, or which had not been published 
 before.
 
 170 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 readers, at all events those not fairly well up in the 
 subject, would probably understand from them that 
 Scott did not know of ' Auld Maitland ' until the 
 autumn of 1802. I can hardly believe Mr. Lang 
 can mean this, yet a doubt as to Scott not having 
 known of the ballad till then appears to have been 
 in his mind when writing the chapter on ballad 
 forgers in Literary Forgeries. Referring to 'Auld 
 Maitland ' he says — see page 255 — that ' rather 
 curiously Scott gives two different accounts of how 
 he obtained the ballad,' that is to say that Scott's 
 statement in the Minstrelsy, namely that ' the ballad 
 is published from the recitation of the mother of 
 Mr. James Hogg,' is inconsistent with his letter in the 
 autumn of 1802 to Elhs, which is as follows : ' We 
 (Scott and Ley den) have just concluded an excursion 
 of two or three weeks through my jurisdiction of 
 Selkirkshire . . . and 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." . . . 
 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. . . .' 
 
 Scott does not here say that he had not heard the 
 ballad before ; in the Minstrelsy he does not say that
 
 JAMIE TELFER AND AULD MAITLAND 171 
 
 he was ignorant of its existence until he obtained it 
 through Mrs. Hogg, nor is there any reason why such 
 an inference should be drawn, which, moreover, 
 would be contradictory to Hogg's explanation of 
 Scott's motive for visiting him on the famous 
 occasion when his mother chanted the ballad (see 
 page 178). 
 
 The observation in Literary Forgeries would have 
 had stronger support if reference had been made to 
 a later letter from Scott to Ellis, given in Lockhart's 
 Life of Scott, page 364, vol. i. The date of the 
 letter is not mentioned, but it must, I think, have 
 been after October, probably in November or 
 December 1802. Referring to the ballad, Scott tells 
 Ellis ' to inquire all about it of Leyden, who was 
 with me when I received my first copy.' Had we 
 nothing but these words to go by, there would, 
 indeed, be strong justification for assuming that the 
 first occasion on which he heard of the ballad was 
 that on which the country farmer presented him and 
 Leyden with a copy, and that the ' surprise ' caused 
 was due to his hearing what was absolutely new to 
 him. 
 
 The author of the Life of the Ettrick Shepherd ^ 
 also takes the view that it was on the occasion of 
 
 1 The Works of the Ettrick Shej^herd {lS6o, by the Rev. Thomas 
 Thomson). See p. xvii.
 
 172 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 Scott's ' raid ' into the wilds of Yarrow in the 
 autumn of 1802 that he and Hogg first met and 
 when the former heard Mrs. Hogg chant the ballad 
 of ' Old Maitland.' 
 
 But as against this, we have the fact that previous 
 to the autumn of 1802, on June 30, Hogg had written 
 to Scott as follows : ' I am surprised to hear that 
 this song " Auld Maitland " is suspected by some to 
 be a modern forgery ; the contrary will be best 
 proved, by most of the old people, hereabouts, 
 having a great part of it by heart.' ^ This clearly 
 proves that the ' copy ' Scott subsequently received 
 was not the first version he had come across : the 
 ' surprise,' then, expressed to Mr. Ellis was not due 
 to hearing the ballad for the first time, but more 
 probably to receiving ' a complete and perfect copy 
 of it ' from a source hitherto unknown to him. 
 
 My view is that Scott had no wish to make Ellis 
 think that he first became acquainted with the 
 ballad in the autumn of 1802. No definite words 
 carrying this meaning can be pointed out ; those 
 which approximate nearest to it are those telling 
 us when he received his first copy, but receiving a 
 
 1 Minalrdsy, introductory note to 'Auld Maitland.' The letter 
 is given, though not in quite a complete form, in Familiar Letters, 
 by Sir Walter Scott (David Douglas, Kdinhurgii, 1X94). Curiously 
 enough, the words which I have quoted above are amongst those 
 omitted.
 
 JAMIE TELFER AND AULD MAITLAND 173 
 
 co'py for the first time does not necessarily mean 
 becoming acquainted with the ballad for the first time} 
 
 ^ Since in tlie text I have endeavoured to show that the two 
 accounts given by Sir Walter Scott, and referred to by Mr. Lang 
 in Literary Forgeries, are not necessarily inconsistent, it is only 
 right that I should draw attention to what would appear to be yet 
 another account of how ' Auld Maitland ' was discovered. I refer 
 to a curious anecdote of Leyden, mentioned by Scott in his Bio- 
 graphical Memoirs. After telling us that in 1802, Leyden had 
 been employing himself earnestly in procuring materials for the 
 Minstrehy, he writes: — 'An interesting fragment had been 
 obtained of an ancient historical ballad, but the remainder, to the 
 great disturbance of the editor and his coadjutor, was not to be 
 recovered. Two days afterwards, while tlie editor was sitting 
 with some company after dinner, a sound was heard at a distance 
 like that of the whistling of a tempest througli the torn rigging of 
 the vessel which scuds before it. The sounds increased as they 
 approached more near, and Leyden (to the great astonishment of 
 such of the guests as did not know him) burst into the room, 
 chanting the desiderated ballad, with tlie most enthusiastic gesture, 
 and all the energy of the saw-tones of his voice already commemo- 
 rated. It turned out, that he had walked between forty and fifty 
 miles, and back again, for the sole purpose of visiting an old person 
 who possessed this precious remnant of antiquity.' To what ballad 
 or song was Scott referring ? 
 
 The only historical ballads published in the third volume of the 
 Minstrelsy, and which had not been published before are the 
 following: — 'Auld Maitland,' 'The Dowie Dens o' Yarrow,' 'The 
 Lament of the Border Widow,' 'Sir Hugh le Blond,' ' Gr^me and 
 Bewick,' 'The Douglas Tragedy,' 'The Battle of Pliiliphaugh,' 
 ' The Battle of Loudon Hill,' 'The Battle of Bothnell Bridge,' and 
 ' The Gallant Grahams.' 
 
 From this list we must strike out sueli as Scott clearly did not 
 refer to, namely, ' Sir Hugh le Blond,' which Scott obtained not in 
 Selkirkshire, but from Mr. Burnet of Monboddo in Forfarshire ; 
 * Gneme and Bewick,' got from an ostler in Carlisle ; ' The Douglas 
 Tragedy,' got from Mr. Sharpe ; the Battles of Philiphaugh, of 
 Loudon Hill, and of Bothwell Bridge, must be struck out since
 
 174 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 Moreover, if we believe that when he wrote to Ellis 
 in November or December he wished him to think 
 one thing, how can we explain that early next year 
 he published to the world, in his third volume of the 
 Minstrelsy, something entirely different ? And what 
 possible motive could he have had ? 
 
 But whether my views as to Scott's innocence in 
 respect of the charge of having given two different 
 accounts be accepted as probable or not, the fact 
 
 Scott would most certainly not liave referred to them as ancient. 
 I think we may also strike out 'The Gallant Grahams.' 8cott 
 tells us he got it from tradition, but the tradition is more likely to 
 have belonged to Dumbartonshire than to Selkirkshire. 
 
 We have remaining the following three ballads, all of which 
 Scott obtained in Selkirkshire, namely, ' Auld Maitlaud,' 'The 
 Dowie Dens,' and 'The Lament of the Border Widow.' I do not 
 imagine any one will contend that Scott referred to the last 
 named, and with reference to the 'Dowie Dens,' he wrote in the 
 introductory note that it was a very great favourite among the 
 inhabitants of Ettrick Forest, and he ' found it easy to collect a 
 variety- of copies.' This does not fit in with his anecdote of Ley den, 
 where he implies that the ballad was extremely difficult to get. 
 We are consequently reduced to believing either that ho was 
 referring to 'Auld Mailland,' tliat lie was giving yet another 
 account of its genesis, or tliat, for some reason unmentioned, lie did 
 not consider it desirable to publish tliis 'interesting' and 'ancient 
 historical song,' a 'precious remnant of anticjuity. ' 
 
 But, assuming that Scott was alluding to Llie discovery of ' Aukl 
 Maitland,' though the account is very difTerent to that he gave to 
 Ellis, tiie difference is rather in amplification tlian in inconsis- 
 tencies, for are we justified in saying that the statement to Ellis 
 that the ballad 'was presented to us' is inconsistent with the 
 statement in the Memoirs that it was presented to, or obtained by 
 Leyden — wlio was one of 'us'?
 
 JAMIE TELFER AND AULD IVIAITLAND 175 
 
 that he was acquainted with the existence of the 
 ballad previous to the occasion he referred to in his 
 letters to Ellis is, from Hogg's letter of June 30, 1802, 
 absolutely unquestionable, and, as I have already- 
 said, I cannot think Mr. Lang can wish to throw a 
 doubt upon it. He must mean, surely, that Scott 
 did not get Mrs. Hogg's ' Auld Maitland ' till the 
 spring of 1802, and here he will be on common ground 
 with Mr. Henderson. Let us now consider this, let 
 us consider Mr. Henderson's statement that Scott 
 did not make the acquaintance of Laidlaw, and 
 consequently of Hogg, until after the publication of 
 the first two volumes of the Minstrelsy. 
 
 Hogg's letter of June 30, to which I have just 
 referred, shows that he and Scott had been personally 
 acquainted with each other before that date,^ and 
 the question to solve is, How long before ? 
 
 Mr. Henderson's view that this acquaintanceship 
 was not made until after the appearance of the first 
 two volumes of the Minstrelsy, that is to say early in 
 1802, appears to me to be inconsistent with Lock- 
 hart's Life of Scott, where we read ^ that after Scott's 
 return from Liddesdale in the late summer of 1800 
 
 1 The letter runs thus : * 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. ' 
 
 2 Vol. i. (1st edition), pp. 327, 328, and 329.
 
 176 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 he resided frequently at Clovenfords, whence he 
 oftentimes visited Yarrow and Ettrick with the 
 express object of ballad-hunting, and that it was 
 at this time he made Laidlaw's acquaintance. We 
 are also told that Laidlaw took care that Scott 
 should ' see without delay one ' — Hogg — ' whose 
 enthusiasm about the minstrelsy of the Forest was 
 equal to his own.' There is nothing to lead a reader 
 to think that the time to which Lockhart referred 
 was other than very shortly after the summer of 
 1800. And yet we are asked to believe that he was 
 referring to 1802 ! It is really hard to think that 
 Scott should for so long a time have failed to come 
 across one who was far from being unknown in the 
 district ; who in 1800 pubHshed a song, ' Donald 
 M'Donald,' which was sung far and wide throughout 
 Scotland ; who in 1801 published a collection of 
 poems, etc., and whose enthusiasm in such matters 
 equalled Sir Walter's. One would have thought 
 Hogg would have been the very first person Scott 
 would have entered into communication with. 
 
 Again, in the introductory note to the ballad — 
 ' Auld Maitland ' — Scott himself tells us that it was 
 known to a few old people on the Ettrick, and he 
 seems to confirm Hogg's statement as to most of the 
 old people in his neighbourhood having it by heart ; 
 and, further, in a note to stanza G2, reference is made
 
 JAMIE TELFER AND AULD MAITLAND 177 
 
 to ' some reciters,' We are clearly intended to 
 understand that the knowledge of the ballad was 
 not at aU confined to merely one or two individuals — 
 and now we are told that this keen, sharp-scenting 
 ballad-hunter, the Sheriff-Depute of the county 
 since 1799, never hit off the line till 1802 ! (I quite 
 believe, however, that he did not hear of the baUad 
 till then, but my view is that it was not in existence 
 before !) 
 
 Again, it may be worth remarking that in the 
 introductory note and immediately following the 
 extract from Hogg's letter, Scott writes as follows : 
 ' To the observations of my ingenious correspondent 
 I have nothing to add, but that, in this, and a 
 thousand other instances they accurately coincide 
 with my personal knowledge.' One would hardly 
 have expected Scott to write in this strain had his 
 acquaintance with Hogg been of only a few months' 
 standing. 
 
 Then again, Hogg in his ' Reminiscences of some 
 of his Contemporaries,' ^ says that Scott visited him 
 — he does not say for the first time — in the summer of 
 1801. The correctness, however, of this date may be 
 very fairly questioned, since in his account of the visit 
 he refers to having already seen the first volumes of 
 
 ^ Life of the Ettrick Shepherd, by the Rev. Thomas Thomson 
 1S65. See page 461. 
 
 M
 
 178 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 the Minstrelsy ; either he was wrong in regard to the 
 date of the visit, or wrong in ascribing to that visit 
 the circumstances he relates. It is not improbable 
 that, writing as Hogg was doing many years after 
 the event, he should have confused the circumstances 
 of one visit with those of another. 
 
 Of course, if Hogg was correct as to 1801 having 
 been the year in which the visit took place,i the 
 question at issue — namely whether Scott knew Hogg 
 before the publication of ' Jamie Telfer ' in 1802, and 
 might consequently have been acquainted with his 
 version of that ballad — is settled ; but, for the sake 
 of argument, let us suppose him to have been wrong 
 as to the date, right as to his incidents. 
 
 It is clear that previous to this visit Hogg and 
 Scott had been corresponding, and I know of nothing 
 to lead one to infer that they had not met before. 
 What was the motive for the visit ? Hogg tells 
 us : ' Mr. Scott had some dread of a part of a copy of 
 " Auld Maitland " ' — which Hogg had sent to him — 
 ' being forged ; that had been the cause of his journey 
 into the wilds of Ettrick.' There is no suggestion 
 
 ' A letter from Scott to Laidlaw, dated 12th May 1802, is given 
 in Scott's Familiar Letters, p. 71. In this he asks Laidlaw to 
 accept his two volumes of the Minatrchy, in acknowledgment, 
 apparently, of Laidlaw's assistance in their preparation. On p. 12 
 the editor mentiona tliat ' Hogg had been asked by Laidlaw to 
 help him in obtaining materials for the Minstrehy ; and they had 
 met Scott in the pn vious summer,' i.e. iu the summer of 1801.
 
 JAMIE TELFER AND AULD IMAITLAND 179 
 
 that the visit was with a view to make Hogg's 
 acquaintance ; it was simply to clear up some 
 doubtful matter concerning which they had already 
 been in correspondence. 
 
 Hogg writes that when he was told that Scott was 
 waiting to see him, he 'was rejoiced to hear it, for I 
 had seen the first volumes of the Minstrelsy and had 
 copied a number of old ballads from my mother's 
 recital, and sent them to the Editor preparatory for 
 a third volume.' Though these words certainly 
 imply that it was not until after the appearance of 
 the first volumes of the Minstrelsy that he sent old 
 ballads to Scott, yet they are not absolutely definite, 
 and, moreover, are inconsistent with a particularly 
 specific assertion, which I shall now draw attention to. 
 Hogg tells us that when his mother had ceased chant- 
 ing ' Auld Maitland,' Scott was quite satisfied it was 
 not a forgery, ' and I remember he asked her if she 
 thought it had ever been printed ; and her answer 
 was, " Oo, na, na, sir, it was never printed i' the 
 world, for my brothers and me learned it frae auld 
 Andrew Moor, an' he learned it, an' mony mae, 
 frae auld Baby Mettlin (Maitland) that was house- 
 keeper to the first laird o' Tushielaw." " Then, that 
 must be a very old story indeed, Margaret," said he. 
 " Ay, it is that ! it is an auld story ! But mair nor 
 that, except George Warton and James Steward,
 
 180 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 there was never ane o' 7ny sangs prentit till ye prentit 
 them yoursell, an' ye hae spoilt them a' tliegither. 
 They war made for singing, an' no for reading ; and 
 they 're nouther right spelled nor right settin 
 down." ' So even if Hogg was wrong in the date 
 he assigned to this visit, we still have it that Scott 
 had printed some of Mrs. Hogg's songs before its 
 occurrence. Can we doubt but that it was in the 
 Minstrelsy he printed them ? I suggest that ' Jamie 
 Telfer ' might have been one of these songs, and this 
 would account for Hogg's surprise at the Minstrelsy 
 version differing so much from his mother's. 
 
 Mr. Lang says {Times article), and quite truly, 
 that there is no proof that Scott had seen or heard 
 Mrs. Hogg's version, i.e. of ' Jamie Telfer.' On the 
 other hand there is no proof that he had not, and 
 the probability, as I have shown, is so great that 
 he had, as necessarily to influence our judgment. 
 
 Mr. Lang also says {Scottish Historical Review) : 
 I am ' wrong in supposing that Scott knew of Mrs. 
 Hogg's version of " Jamie Telfer " before he pub- 
 lished the Minstrelsy ; this is certain from Hogg's 
 letter to Scott of June 3 {sic), 1802.' I suppose he 
 means the letter of June 30 ; if so, there is nothing 
 in it to warrant this assertion. From that letter we 
 learn (1) that Scott and Hogg were previously 
 acquainted ; (2) that for some time the latter had
 
 JAMIE TELFER AND AULD MAITLAND 181 
 
 been copying his mother's songs for the former mIio 
 should see them shortly [there is not a word in- 
 dicative of his not having already supplied some] ; 
 (3) that Scott was already aware of ' Auld Maitland.' 
 [This appears from Hogg's remark as to the song 
 being thought by some to be a forgery. It is given 
 in the extract from the letter published in the 
 introductory note in the Minstrelsy, but it is not given 
 in the letter as printed in Familiar Letters.'] (4) That 
 Hogg was surprised at Scott's songs differing so 
 widely from his mother's. (5) That Hogg remarked 
 on his mother's version of ' Jamie Telfer ' differing 
 much from Scott's. [This is also not contained in 
 the letter in Familiar Letters ; I get it from Mr. 
 Lang's article in the Times.] This remark is quite 
 in keeping with Mrs. Hogg's words to Scott as to 
 her songs having been ' nouther right spelled nor 
 right settin down.' (6) Perhaps we may also infer 
 that Scott had not up to the time when the letter 
 was written visited Hogg at his cottage ; but this is 
 not very clear. 
 
 No other information at all bearing on the matter 
 is to be got out of this letter. I ask how does it prove 
 that Scott did not know of Mrs. Hogg's ' Jamie 
 Telfer ' before he published the Minstrelsy ? 
 
 In so far as my essay on 'Jamie Telfer,' in The 
 Trustworthiness of Border Ballads, is concerned, the
 
 182 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 question whether Scott had, or had not, seen the 
 Hogg version before pubhshing his own is absolutely 
 immaterial, unless, indeed, it can be shown that that 
 was the only version known to be in existence at the 
 time. My argument was that the author of the 
 Minstrelsy version must have been acquainted with 
 the version, the MS. of which is now in the possession 
 of Mr. Macmath and which formerly belonged to 
 Mr. Kirkpatrick Sharpe No one looking at these 
 two versions, which are printed side by side in my 
 book, will for one moment doubt that the author of 
 the later version must have been acquainted with 
 the earlier ; I think, also, that no one who takes the 
 trouble to read my essay will dissent from Mr. Lang 
 and myself as to the Minstrelsy version being the 
 later of the two. 
 
 But perhaps there were more than two versions in 
 existence, perhaps the Hogg version constituted a 
 third ? 
 
 Scott, in his introductory note to the ballad, 
 referred to a version which attributed the defeat of 
 the English raiders to the Elliots under their Chief 
 Martin, whose son Simmy was killed ; Sharpe's 
 version, a version which Mr. Lang calls ' the Elliot 
 version,' does this, and I think we may be fairly 
 confident that they are one and the same. It differs 
 greatly from the version published by Scott; although
 
 JAMIE TELFER AND AULD MAITLAND 183 
 
 stanza after stanza of the one is almost verbally 
 identical with stanza after stanza of the other, yet 
 they are essentially different ; the parts played by 
 two rival clans are reversed ; the one is consistent, 
 the other inconsistent, with topography and with 
 other facts ; the one, Scott's version, contains lines 
 of most striking beauty, the other has not one. 
 
 But Hogg's version also differed greatly from 
 Scott's. 
 
 Of course it would be absurd to argue that because 
 two versions differ from a third therefore the two 
 are similar ; but if not similar they must have been 
 dissimilar, in which case there would have been 
 three versions. Can we really beUeve this ? I can 
 not ; Mr. Lang appears to do so, for we find him writ- 
 ing as follows : ' That he (Sir Walter Scott) actually 
 perverted the Elliot into the Scott version of " Jamie 
 Telfer," I do not believe, but he imparted poetic 
 merit to his text.' ' To what text ? Certainly not 
 to the Elliot text. To the text, then, which he 
 says {Times article) was altered by a Scott from the 
 Elhot text. Hence, it is clear that he thinks three 
 versions - existed when the Minstrelsy was published 
 — firstly, the Elliot version to which Scott referred ; 
 
 ^ Introduction to Mr. Farrer's Literary Foryeries. 
 
 - Or four versions, if he does not agree with me as to the identity 
 of the Elliot version referred to by Scott with the version which 
 he himself has termed the Elliot version.
 
 184 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 secondly, the version which he beUeves was altered 
 by a Scott — and in this I certainly agree with him — 
 from the EUiot version ; and, thirdly, the Hogg 
 version, which Mr. Lang says Scott did not know of 
 until after the Minstrelsy had appeared. 
 
 In my opinion there was but one version, the 
 version of which Scott made mention and of which 
 the MS. is still extant. I believe — but I quite admit 
 my behef to be founded not on actual proof but only 
 on strong probability — the Hogg version to have been 
 the same. If it was not, what has happened to it ? 
 where is it ? Surely one at least of such keen 
 enthusiasts as Scott, Hogg, Leyden, Laidlaw, would 
 have taken the trouble to preserve it. 
 
 In The Trustworthiness of Border Ballads I ex- 
 pressed the view that all the most beautiful stanzas 
 in the Minstrelsy version of ' Jamie Telfer ' had been 
 written by Sir Walter Scott — and I believe all the 
 critics of my book agree with me in this ; but in the 
 foregoing pages I have gone further and have given 
 reasons for beUeving that his was the hand which — 
 to use Mr. Lang's words — ' perverted the Elliot into 
 the Scott version.' Mr. Lang does not believe this, 
 but he gives no reasons for his disbelief. I hope he 
 will do so, and further, I hope, though I cannot 
 expect, that they will completely dispose of mine. 
 
 Was Scott's offence a great one ? I am not going
 
 JAMIE TELFER AND AULD IVIAITLAND 185 
 
 to defend it, but no one ought to pass judgment upon 
 him without first considering another matter. Mr. 
 Lang has expressed the opinion that the original 
 version of the ballad is itself only of modern date ; 
 now, if Scott knew, or believed this to be so, he might 
 have held that there was no serious offence in per- 
 verting a ' faked-up ' thing of yesterday. 
 
 This terrible suggestion of Mr. Lang's must be 
 examined in another chapter.
 
 NUMBER V 
 
 'JAMIE TELFER I' THE FAIR DODHEAD' 
 IS IT A GENUINE OLD BALLAD ?
 
 MAMIE TELFER V THE FAIR DODHEAD' 
 IS IT A GENUINE BALLAD? 
 
 Suspicion as to the genuineness of this baUad was 
 first aroused in ray mind by certain words of Mr. 
 Andrew Lang's. He has said that it is a ' mere late 
 mythical perversion of carefully recorded historical 
 facts,' ^ and also that ' the original balladist must 
 have lived, to use a Hibernianism, long after the 
 events recorded in " Jamie Telfer " — for these events 
 never occurred. What did occur and lent a basis to 
 the ballad, we learn from the despatches of the 
 English officials on the Border in 1596.' - 
 
 It would seem, then, that Mr. Lang believes the 
 ballad was composed by some one who had been able 
 to consult the English official documents, and con- 
 sequently that it is of quite modern fabrication. 
 I am in doubt, however, whether this is in truth his 
 opinion, since it is inconsistent Avith the view he 
 expressed elsewhere as to Sir Walter Scott having 
 obtained the later version from tradition.^ 
 
 1 See ante, p. 161. 
 
 ^ Introduction to Literary Forgeries, p. xxv. 
 '^ 'The Ballads,' by A. Lang, Chambers's Cyclopcedia of Englkli 
 Literature, 1901. 
 
 189
 
 190 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 Again, I am inclined to infer from his assertion as 
 to the events recorded never having occurred that 
 he beheves the ballad to be purely fictitious, but 
 such an interpretation of his words appears to be 
 contradicted by the sentence immediately following 
 them, in which Ave are told that it is based on facts 
 which did occur. 
 
 Perhaps I am wrong in thinking Mr. Lang has 
 suspicions regarding the genuineness of the ballad, 
 but however this may be, he has thoroughly 
 awakened mine, and, seeing that I have already 
 elsewhere made an irresistible attack on the genuine- 
 ness of the Scott version, I feel myself more or less 
 morally compelled not to shirk examining into that 
 of what he calls the Elliot version. 
 
 In The Trustworthiness of Border Ballads I re- 
 marked that the old version, that is to say the 
 version into the genuineness of which I am about to 
 inquire, appeared to be written wholly by one hand, 
 and, further, that it and some other of the so-called 
 ' riding ballads ' bore so strong a resemblance to 
 each other as to give rise to the thought of their all 
 having been composed by the same individual. 
 Though, broadly speaking, this is true, yet the asser- 
 tion requires some slight modification, for a few lines 
 in ' Jamie Telfer ' might be pointed to as having 
 probably been borrowed from older ballads.
 
 IS ' JAMIE TELFER ' GENUINE ? 191 
 
 I am aware 1 shall lay myself open to criticism in 
 drawing attention to these. It will be said that 
 they are mere ' commonplaces ' or ' recurrent 
 passages ' which ' are to the ballad very much what 
 idiomatic phrases are to language ' — so we read in 
 the introduction to the Cambridge edition of Pro- 
 fessor Child's English and Scottish Popular Ballads. 
 We are also told that a balladist, who utilises what 
 are called ' stock stanzas,' ' is not even quoting 
 from an individual predecessor, any more than you 
 and I are when, in the course of conversation, Ave 
 say " That depends upon circumstances," or " with- 
 out let or hindrance." ' 
 
 I shall, nevertheless, remark upon them for two 
 reasons ; the first is that I wish to guard against the 
 possibility of being accused of a desire to make a 
 weak case against the ' Elliot ' version ; and the 
 second reason is that I do not like to refrain from 
 bringing forward matter to which I do attach some 
 value, simply because others, however much more 
 capable judges they may be, do not. 
 
 Of course it would be absurd to attach much 
 importance to the recurrence in different ballads of 
 pure commonplaces such as ' As fast as he can drie,' 
 but even these may have some significance ; they 
 may, at least, indicate a period. Thus, the words 
 quoted occur in ' Edom o' Gordon,' three times in
 
 192 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 'Dick o' the Cow,' in 'Jock o' the Syde,' in 'The 
 Lochmaben Harper,' and four or five times in 
 ' Adam Bell, Clym of the Cleugh,' all of which ballads 
 refer to very much the same period ; it may, then, 
 with some reason be inferred that the phrase was a 
 very favourite one with the ballad-makers of that 
 time, and consequently there is no ground to suspect 
 one writer of borrowing it from another. But, if we 
 were to come across the same line in a ballad purport- 
 ing to have been written centuries earlier, we should 
 rightly regard it with suspicion. 
 
 Sometimes a recurrence of expressions may be 
 significant of ballads having been written by the 
 same hand ; sometimes, it clearly signifies plagiar- 
 ism ; sometimes, there is a doubt which. Thus, in 
 ' Jock o' the Syde ' and ' Archie o' Ca'field ' a river is 
 described as ' running Hke the sea ' — a curious simile 
 to find in Border ballads. I do not know of its 
 occurrence in other ballads, and therefore I have no 
 reason to consider it a ' stock ' expression ; to my 
 mind, its recurrence in these two ballads suggests 
 identity of authorship or plagiarism. 
 
 The occurrence in ' Jock o' the Syde ' of the line 
 ' A faint heart ne'er won a fair ladye ' shows that the 
 ballad has been, if not actually composed, at all 
 events ' edited ' since the publication of King's 
 Orpheus and Eurydice in 1704. It does not suggest
 
 IS * JAMIE TELFER ' GENUINE ? 193 
 
 plagiarism. But, should one come across a less 
 well-known quotation, suspicion would at once 
 arise. 
 
 Let us now examine the ballad of ' Jamie 
 Tclfer.' 
 
 The very first line, ' It fell about the Martinmas,' 
 reminds one of the opening line of the ' Battle of 
 Otterburn,' ' It fell about the Lamas tyde.' I shall 
 be at once told that this is a mere commonplace 
 — which is true in a sense ; I shall also be told that 
 the line is a ' stock ' line — from which it is to be 
 inferred that the maker of the ballad relating to a 
 battle in 1388 used the same ' stock ' as the maker 
 of a ballad relating to an insignificant raid three 
 centuries later ! 
 
 I shall further be told that the line is common to 
 many other ballads — but, as a matter of fact, is this 
 the case ? I certainly cannot name more than a 
 very few in which it occurs. 
 
 Many, perhaps, commence by specifying the time 
 of year in which the occurrences they relate took 
 place, but the question at issue is not as to whether 
 there is a general resemblance in such common- 
 place statements, but as to whether the particular 
 idiom, ' It fell about,' was a common form used by 
 ballad-makers at the time ' Jamie Telfer ' was com- 
 posed. 
 
 N
 
 194 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 A song called ' Barbara Allan,' published in 
 Ramsay's Tea-Table Miscellany, 1740, opens thus — 
 
 It was in and about the Martinmas time, 
 When the green leaves were a falling. 
 
 That Sir John Graeme, in the West Country, 
 Fell in love with Barbara Allen. 
 
 Again, in ' Captain Car,' a ballad relating to the 
 year 1571, the first stanza runs — 
 
 It befell at Martynmas, 
 
 When weather waxed colde, 
 
 Captain Car said to his men. 
 We must go take a holde. 
 
 o^ 
 
 These are the only two cases I can name of lines 
 bearing any great resemblance to the first lines of 
 ' Jamie Telfer ' and of the ' Battle of Otterburn.' 
 But we should not confine our attention merely to 
 the one line ; we should look also at the context. 
 If we do so, we shall admit that there is no resem- 
 blance between the two stanzas above quoted, nor 
 between either of them and the first stanza of the 
 ' Battle of Otterburn.' A reader acquainted with 
 the last-named ballad and also with ' Barbara 
 Allan ' would not, on reading ' Captain Car ' for the 
 first time, be reminded of either. 
 
 On the other hand, we must surely admit that the 
 first stanza of ' Jamie Telfer ' does recall to mind
 
 IS ' JAMIE TELFER ' GENUINE ? 195 
 
 both the first stanza of the ' Battle of Otterburn ' 
 and of ' Captain Car,' particularly of an apparently 
 more modern version of the latter, entitled ' Edom o' 
 Gordon,' in which the first line is made to conform to 
 the phraseology of the ' Battle of Otterburn ' and of 
 ' Jamie Telfer.' The stanza is as follows — 
 
 It fell about the Martinmas time. 
 
 When the wind blew sncll and cauld, 
 
 That Adam o' Gordon said to his men, 
 Where will we get a hold ? 
 
 The first stanza of the ' Battle of Otterburn ' is as 
 follows — 
 
 It fell about the Lamas tyde. 
 
 When husbands win their hay, 
 The doughty Douglas bowned him to ride, 
 
 In England to take a prey. 
 
 Now, if we look at the first stanza of ' Jamie Telfer ' 
 we shall see that the first and third lines are practi- 
 cally identical with the first and third lines of ' Edom 
 o' Gordon,' and the first and fourth lines with the 
 first and fourth Unes of the ' Battle of Otterburn.' 
 The stanza is as follows — 
 
 It fell about the Martinmas, 
 
 When steeds were fed wi' corn and hay, 
 The Captain of Bewcastle said to his lads. 
 
 We '11 into Teviotdale and seek a prey.
 
 196 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 In my opinion, then, there is some ground for 
 thinking that the author of ' Jamie Telfer ' was 
 acquainted with these two ballads. 
 
 We may now pass on to stanza 1 2, where we find 
 the lines, 
 
 Now Jamie is up the water gate, 
 E'en as fast as he can drie. 
 
 I have already pointed out that the second line is 
 common to many ballads of this period ; conse- 
 quently its presence here would afford no ground for 
 suspicion were it not coupled with practically the 
 very same line with which it is found in the ballad of 
 ' Hobbie Noble,' which was published in the Hawick 
 Poetical Museum, 1784. 
 
 Then Hobbie is down the water gane. 
 As fast as he can drie. 
 
 Then, again, we have in ' Jamie Telfer ' the line 
 ' There was an auld wife ayont the fire,' and in 
 ' Adam Bell ' ' There lay an auld wife in that place 
 A little besyde the fyre.' 
 
 Many other similarities between ' Jamie Telfer ' 
 and older ballads might be pointed out, each, 
 perhaps, of trifling importance by itself ; but these 
 trifles, if taken together, constitute a somewhat 
 remarkable difference between ' Jamie Telfer ' and 
 other so-called ' riding ballads.* Speaking broadly,
 
 IS ' JAMIE TELFER ' GENUINE ? 197 
 
 whereas ' Jamie Telfer ' has much in common with 
 the others, they have httle or nothing in common 
 with each other. ^ 
 
 But granting all this, can it be fairly said that the 
 fact that many lines and expressions have been 
 borrowed from other ballads is of sufficient import- 
 ance to discredit the genuineness of the ballad as a 
 whole ? The borrowed lines are probably ' emenda- 
 tions ' or insertions to replace missing lines, and if so, 
 they imply genuineness in the stanzas into which 
 they are inserted. They do not affect the general 
 tenor of the ballad — as, for instance, in the case of 
 the ballad of the Battle of Otterburn, where the 
 adoption of stanzas said to have been obtained from 
 recitation gives to the Minstrelsy version a significa- 
 tion quite different to that of the version published 
 by Dr. Percy in the Reliques of Ancient Poetry. 
 
 There is one instance of a probable emendation 
 having, at one time or another, been made in this 
 ballad, to which I think it would be interesting to 
 draw attention, more especially since it somewhat 
 confirms the view as to the ballad being essentially 
 genuine. 
 
 * This is I think literally true, with the following exceptions : 
 ' Hobbie Noble ' and ' Jock o' the Syde' have one line in common, 
 namely, 'As fast as he can drie' ; and tlie words 'he had lived 
 this hundred years' are common to 'Johnnie Armstrong' and 
 'Dicko' the Cow.'
 
 198 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 In The Trustworthiness of Border Ballads I \^'rote 
 (at page 39) that one of the characteristics of old 
 ballads was the frequency of the repetition of words, 
 phrases and lines, and sometimes even of stanzas 
 with but slight verbal variation. As an instance I 
 referred to ' Johnnie Armstrong,' a ballad of thirty- 
 three stanzas, in which the lines, 
 
 ' Grant me my life, my liege, my king ! 
 And a bonnie gift I '11 gie to thee ' ; 
 
 and the stanza, 
 
 ' Away, away, thou traitor Strang ! 
 
 Out of my sight soon may'st thou be ! 
 I grantit never a traitor's life, 
 
 And now I '11 not begin with thee,' 
 
 are repeated some four or five times. 
 
 We find the same thing — with a difference ! — in 
 ' Jamie Telfer.' 
 
 With reference to Jamie's arrival at Branxholm we 
 read — 
 
 And when he came to Branxholm Ha', 
 
 He shouted loud and cry'd weel hie, 
 Till up bespake then auld Buccleugh — 
 
 ' Whae 's this tliat brings the fray to me ? ' 
 ' It 's I, Jamie Telfer i' tlie Fair Dodhead, 
 
 And a harried man I tliink I be ; 
 There 's naething left i' the Fair Dodhead 
 
 But only wife and children three.'
 
 IS ' JAME TELFER ' GENUINE ? 199 
 
 Almost identical words are used with reference to 
 his arrival at Coultart Cleugh, at Catlock Hill, and 
 at Prickenliaugh, but, in these instances, they are 
 followed by — 
 
 ' Alack, wae 's me ! . . . 
 
 Alack, alack, and wae is me ! ' 
 (or ' Alack, awae, my heart is sair '), 
 
 and assistance is given to the harried man. 
 
 One would naturally expect, then, that the stanzas 
 above quoted, relating to his arrival at Branxholm, 
 would have been followed by some such words as — 
 
 ' Alack, wae 's me ! ' co auld Buccleuch, 
 ' And ay my heart is sair for thee ! ' 
 
 and that Telfer would have been given assistance. 
 
 But, in reality, such is not the case at all ! The 
 ballad breaks away from the customary adherence 
 to repetition, and, instead of words of S3niipathy 
 and a promise of aid, we find a stanza containing 
 matter which is in the highest degree improbable. 
 
 I pointed out in my book that the allegation that 
 Buccleuch had refused to strike a blow at a party 
 of EngUsh 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 ; and when remarking on this stanza 
 (see pages 25-26), I suggested that the ballad-maker
 
 200 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 might either have misunderstood Buccleuch's action 
 or had wished to throw a stone at a rival clan ; but 
 I am inchned now to think that he never wrote the 
 stanza at all, and that it has been inserted at some 
 later period. In so far as the general story of the 
 ballad is concerned, the stanza is valueless — it is an 
 excrescence which is in no way required — it is a 
 blot, for which I cannot think the original author is 
 responsible. If this view is correct, it proves that the 
 ballad existed before the MS. of the oldest version we 
 possess was written. 
 
 Let us now consider the circumstances of the 
 ballad's birth, or rather of its resurrection, for though 
 it claims, presumably, to have been born not long 
 after the occurrences it relates, that is to say towards 
 the end of the sixteenth century, its existence 
 remained unknown until the appearance of the 
 Minstrelsy a couple of centuries later, and even then 
 it remained practically hidden until, after the 
 further lapse of eighty years, it was made known to 
 the world by Professor Child. 
 
 We cannot say with absolute certainty where it 
 was that the ballad first saw the light, but we do 
 know that the earliest mentioned copy was in the 
 possession of Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, and there- 
 fore there is sound reason for assigning Ettrick Forest 
 as its birthplace. I shall at once be told that Scott
 
 IS ' JAMIE TELFER ' GENUINE ? 201 
 
 might have come across the ballad in one of his 
 ' raids ' into Liddesdale, but had this been the case he 
 would undoubtedly have mentioned the fact. In 
 Chambers's Encyclopcedia, vol. i. page 681, we read 
 that ' Many of the poems were the fruit of raid after 
 raid into Liddesdale and were in part actually taken 
 down from the living lips of the old men and women 
 who still knew them by heart.' This is, no doubt, 
 the belief which has been instilled into the public 
 by writer after writer, but I challenge any one to 
 name a single original ballad which Sir Walter ever 
 stated he had heard repeated by either old men or 
 women, young men or maidens, either in Liddesdale 
 or anywhere else. I also challenge the writer of the 
 article in Chambers's Eiicydopcedia to name a single 
 ballad or poem obtained by Scott during any of his 
 ' raids ' and which were subsequently published.^ 
 
 He might, perhaps, name ' Archie o' Ca'field,' but 
 I know of no sufficient reason for believing Scott 
 acquired it in Liddesdale, and from the introductory 
 note to the ballad in the Minstrelsy, the stanzas 
 obtained from recitation were clearly not got till 
 years after the raids. 
 
 There is no ground whatever for thinking that 
 ' Jamie Telfer ' was discovered in Liddesdale, and 
 
 ^ The instance of tlie ballad of ' Uiek o' the Cow ' is referred to 
 iu the chapter on Otterburn : see aiUe, p. 23, footnote.
 
 202 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 yet since it refers to peculiarly stirring events in that 
 district, to the part played by the chief of one of its 
 most important clans and to the death of his son in 
 a successful combat with the Enghsli, it is the very 
 one above all others which — if it be truly ancient — ■ 
 we should expect to have been preserved there. I 
 think I am correct in saying that all the other ballads 
 relating to Liddesdale, pubhshed in the Minstrelsy, 
 were obtained from Liddesdale sources. Mr. EUiot 
 of Redlieugh communicated several to Caw's Poetical 
 Museum (Hawick, 1784), and, since ' Jamie Telfer ' 
 was not one of these, we can but infer either that it 
 did not then exist or that he was not acquainted with 
 a ballad which, relating as it does to the doings of his 
 own ancestors, would have been of peculiar interest 
 to him. 
 
 All this seems to me unpleasantly suspicious. 
 
 Against this argument, two considerations may be 
 urged. The first is that Dodhead — Jamie Telfer 's 
 residence, which was raided by the English — is in 
 Ettrick, and consequently the ballad is as likely to 
 have been preserved there as in Liddesdale. I am 
 afraid this has no weight with me at all ; had Dod- 
 head been in some district other than Ettrick, and 
 had the ballad come to light in that district, then 
 perhaps some importance might have been attached 
 to the point ; but it is impossible not to look with
 
 IS ' JAMIE TELFER ' GENUINE ? 203 
 
 suspicion upon every ballad which emanated at this 
 period from the Forest. And besides, as a matter 
 of fact, the ballad is not an Ettrick Forest ballad. 
 
 The second consideration is more weighty. The 
 ballad, though it did not make its first appearance 
 in Liddesdale, was clearly, I think, composed by a 
 Liddesdale man — or at all events by some one who 
 was intimately acquainted with that country and 
 whose sympathies were with it. But whoever it 
 was, he knew the country right well. With regard 
 to it, imagination was not called into play. Every 
 locahty named fits perfectly the requirements 
 of the narrative, whether in respect of the route 
 followed by the English raiders, or of that taken by 
 Telfer, or of those adopted by the leaders of the 
 Liddesdale men. Again, the movements of the 
 English, of Telfer, and of the Scots, as described in 
 the ballad, are just what might have been expected 
 under the circumstances, and this I am sure would 
 not have been the case had the ballad been purely 
 fictitious. Had it originated in the brain of some 
 ballad-forger, at the close of the eighteenth or at 
 the beginning of the nineteenth century, he would 
 have failed, as completely as did the author of the 
 Minstrelsy version, to produce a picture consistent 
 with local geography, or with probability in respect 
 of the movements of the hostile bands.
 
 204 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 Again, that it was composed by some one belonging 
 to the district, and, moreover, at a time long before 
 the period when, if spurious, it can have been in- 
 vented — if invented, no one surely can doubt that 
 it was so very shortly before the publication of the 
 Minstrelsy — is clear from several places being 
 referred to by names which were either extinct or 
 rapidly becoming so at that period, for instance, 
 ' Hardhaughswire,' ' Catlock Hill,' ' Pricken Haugh,' 
 and ' Ritter Ford.' 
 
 The reference to ' the plain,' across which the 
 raiders are described driving the cattle, is also 
 noteworthy. Generally speaking, the country is 
 peculiarly devoid of plains ; we find haugh-lands, no 
 doubt, and sometimes of considerable extent, but 
 to call them ' plains ' would hardly be appropriate 
 and would be quite unusual. Nevertheless a pecu- 
 liarly striking instance occurs immediately below 
 the junction of the routes over Mosspaul — by 
 which the English were retiring — and over the high 
 ground, between Hermitage Water and Euse Water, 
 by which, in accordance with the conjecture I 
 made in The TrustivortJiiness of Border Ballads, 
 Simmy Elliot was leading his force when he saw the 
 English driving their prey across ' the plain.' In my 
 book, I made some conjectures as to where this 
 plain could have been ; since writing it, I have been
 
 IS ' JAMIE TELFER ' GENUINE ? 205 
 
 over the ground and have been impressed with the 
 probability of its having been here. The word does 
 not occur in the ballad by mere accident, by mere 
 phantasy ; it is the most appropriate one that could 
 have been used, and its presence is indicative of the 
 author having been intimately acquainted with the 
 country in which the incidents related occurred. 
 
 It seems, then, highly probable that the ballad 
 originated in Liddesdale, and consequently the 
 suspicion of its being a forgery, naturally engendered 
 by its having been discovered in Ettrick Forest, is 
 considerably lessened. 
 
 I must now pass on to the consideration of another 
 matter which has caused suspicion to arise in my 
 mind, and perhaps in the minds of others, as to the 
 ballad's genuineness. 
 
 Why did not Sir Walter Scott pubhsh it ? Why 
 did he prefer to adorn and to publish what was 
 clearly a perversion of the original ? 
 
 Whether it was Sir Walter himself who perverted 
 the text, or whether this was done, as Mr. Lang 
 thinks, by some other ' Scott,' is not material to my 
 present argument, for even if we can induce ourselves 
 to believe that Sir Walter's hand was limited merely 
 to the creation of all the most beautiful and stirring 
 stanzas, he must have been perfectly well aware that 
 the version into which he inserted them was a
 
 206 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 ' perversion ' ; no one who will take the trouble of 
 comparing the two versions, which are placed side 
 by side in my book, and of reading my remarks upon 
 them, can doubt this assertion for one moment. I 
 ask, then. Why did Scott prefer to publish the new 
 rather than the old version ? 
 
 It strikes me as being an act of vandalism — and 
 Sir Walter was an antiquary ! That he should have 
 been guilty of such an act is as difficult to believe as 
 if, had he found a Roman helmet at Newstead, he 
 should have thrown it aside into a dust-heap, and 
 then had presented the public with an imitation 
 made at Birmingham, stamped with his clan's 
 crest. 
 
 Again, to suggest that Sir Walter may have been 
 influenced to act as he did by the fact that in the 
 older version there happened to be a silly, unpleasing, 
 and evidently untrue anecdote regarding the be- 
 haviour, two hundred years previously, of a chief of 
 the clan to which he himself belonged, is surely to 
 suggest that Sir Walter must have been a very poor 
 creature indeed. 
 
 But now, supposing, when the ballad first came to 
 his knowledge, he at once perceived it was a fraud, 
 that it was but a composition of the day before, 
 might he not quite well have thrown it aside without 
 committing any offence at all ? Most certainly.
 
 IS ' JAMIE TELFER ' GENUINE ? 207 
 
 But unfortunately, if we accept this conjecture as 
 probable, we have to face the difficulty that Sir 
 Walter, when publishing his ballad in the Minstrelsy, 
 ascribed, or allowed to be ascribed, the dishonourable 
 conduct charged against his own chief in the older 
 ballad to another individual. ' No, no ! ' it will be 
 said, ' the said individual was an imaginary person, 
 to whom was assigned the appellation of "Gibby 
 Elliot of Stobs." No such person existed in the 
 period to which the ballad relates. Sir Walter was 
 probably amused at the story, given in a trashy, 
 newly written poem, regarding an ancestor, and all 
 he did was to take the blame from off the shoulders 
 of a real personage and to place it on to those of an 
 altogether imaginary one.' ^ 
 
 In short, the argument here put forward is to the 
 effect that Sir Walter would not have acted as he 
 did, had he believed in the genuineness of the older 
 version, and it is, I think, a strong one. 
 
 On the other hand, two points have to be con- 
 sidered. I quite admit the great value of Sir Walter's 
 opinion, but he might have been wrong in thinking 
 it a ' newly written poem.' If it was so indeed, we 
 must surely beheve that it was composed with a view 
 
 ^ This is, doubtless, somewhat of a quibble, for, altliough 
 ' Gibby Elliot of Stobs ' was the person named, the Chief of the 
 Elliots was the person really alluded to.
 
 208 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 to its being accepted by him in his collection of 
 ballads, but then,why should the forger have inserted 
 matter highly uncompUmentary to the editor's clan 
 and calculated to make him reject it ? If a forgery 
 at all, then, it is not likely to have been a very 
 late one, at the time Sir Walter became acquainted 
 with it. 
 
 Again, we have a very solid fact to prove that Sir 
 Walter did not hold the view suggested. In his 
 introductory note to the ballad in the Minstrelsy, he 
 recorded the existence of the ElUot, i.e. the older, 
 version, and this we cannot conceive of his doing 
 had he believed it to be spurious. If he really had 
 believed in the genuineness of the version he pub- 
 lished in the Minstrelsy, he would never have 
 recorded therein the existence of another version 
 which he believed to be a forgery — and which, if 
 subsequently published, would discredit his own 
 version — without drawing attention to the fact. 
 Sir Walter must be claimed as a witness in favour of 
 the genuineness of the Elliot version. 
 
 We are indeed on the horns of a dilemma ! Sir 
 Walter's action is to me absolutely inexplicable, and 
 constitutes one of the many mysteries which have 
 surrounded the ballad from the day of its discovery 
 to even the present day. 
 
 The Elliot version mentioned by Sir Walter is
 
 IS ' JAMIE TELFER ' GENUINE ? 209 
 
 never heard of again ! In the Forest, proHfic of 
 reciters, not even an old woman has ever been 
 heard to sing a hne of it ! Hogg's copy has never 
 seen the Hght ! For eighty years the only version 
 known to the public is the spurious one pubhshed in 
 the Minstrelsy ! 
 
 After that lapse of years, Professor Child published 
 a version which, from the fact that it ascribes the 
 merit of the exploit to the Elliots, it is natural to 
 think may be identical with the version mentioned 
 by Sir Walter. The Professor tells us he printed it 
 from a MS. formerly in the possession of Charles 
 Kirkpatrick Sharpe, and still in existence. He also 
 tells us that it was written about the beginning of 
 the nineteenth century ; may we infer — since he told 
 us no more — that he did not recognise the hand- 
 writing ? That he was ignorant as to how the MS. 
 fell into Mr. Kirkpatrick Sharpe's hands ? Can no 
 information, even now, be given as to these matters, 
 and also as to why it was allowed to remain, for 
 more than three-quarters of a century, hidden from 
 the eager search of ballad-hunters ? 
 
 Surely much that is suspicious might be cleared 
 away ; until this is done, an unpleasant feehng of 
 doubt will of necessity remain. I confess the more 
 I study ballad literature, the greater grows my 
 difficulty in understanding the minds of the writers ; 
 

 
 210 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 they seem to me to be inclined rather to bolster up 
 myths than to uproot what is false and misleading. 
 One often hears it said that little interest is taken 
 nowadays in the old ballads, and this is perfectly 
 true. But why ? Is it because we are less interested 
 in our ancestors, or in antiquarian subjects, than our 
 fathers were ? I do not believe it in the least. 
 When the Minstrelsy was published great interest 
 was aroused, because the ballads in it claiming to 
 be ancient were generally looked upon by the public 
 as being so. Such is no longer the case ; so much 
 doubt has been thrown upon the genuineness of a 
 few, that the whole of those pubUshed in that work 
 for the first time have been somewhat discredited — 
 and the charm has gone. The charm of a ballad 
 chiefly hes in its being a genuine picture of events, 
 or of ideas, of bygone times, drawn by one who 
 had Uved in those times ; restore the charm, and the 
 interest may return. This is what writers upon 
 ballads should aim at, and they should bear in mind 
 that whereas there may be much to be said on behalf 
 of Sir Walter Scott and others of his time for such 
 deceptions as they may have been guilty of, there is 
 nothing to be said for writers of the present day who 
 try to perpetuate these deceptions. 
 
 The most beautiful and stirring stanzas of the 
 Minstrelsy version of ' Jamie Telfer ' have frequently
 
 IS ' JAMIE TELFER ' GENUINE ? 211 
 
 been adduced by many of our best-known authors of 
 works on ballads as evidence of poetic genius, of 
 power to impart to verse an extraordinary vividness, 
 a blood-stirring spirit, having flourished, centuries 
 ago, amongst the Scottish Borderers — and yet, 
 ' Nor harp, nor pipe, their ear could please like the 
 loud slogan yell ! ' Whether this view be correct or 
 not need not be discussed here, but, in so far as it is 
 founded on the stanzas in ' Jamie Telfer,' it is un- 
 sound, since these were written by Scott and 
 inserted into a ballad which had been obtained by 
 perverting an older one. 
 
 I fully believe that the writers of the works I have 
 alluded to wrote in perfectly good faith and in 
 complete confidence of the genuineness of the ballad 
 as a w^hole and of the stanzas in particular ; but I 
 cannot altogether excuse them for holding a belief 
 which only a little investigation would have shown 
 to be wrong. 
 
 Mr. Henderson, I think, in his edition of the 
 Minstrelsy, suggested that these stanzas, or some of 
 them, had been touched up by Sir Walter, but, so 
 far as I know, no one ever asserted that they had been 
 actually composed by him until, in 1906, I did so 
 myself ; nevertheless in 1907 Mr. Lang, the author of 
 the chapter on ballad forgeries in Literary Forgeries, 
 wrote that almost any reader could detect that fact
 
 212 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 himself. Does he really think, then, that the many 
 writers who have referred with admiration to the 
 poetic genius of the ancient ballad-maker, the un- 
 known creator of these stanzas, were humbugs, or 
 does he think that, in failing to ' detect the hand of 
 the master,' they proved themselves more dense 
 than ' almost any reader ' could have been ? He has 
 written much on ballads ; has he ever before drawn 
 attention to the error into which so many authors 
 have fallen ? 
 
 And now what answer is to be made to the 
 question forming the title to this paper ? 
 
 The three chief reasons I have given for doubting 
 the genuineness of the old version of this ballad are : 
 (1) the occurrence in it of lines common to other 
 ballads ; (2) the fact that the only known MS. copy 
 came to light in Ettrick Forest at a time when 
 ballads were being eagerly sought for — and supplied; 
 and (3) the fact of its not having been published by 
 Sir Walter Scott, and of its lying concealed from 
 public knowledge for three-quarters of a century. 
 
 With regard to (1), I have shown that the presence 
 of the lines tell rather in favour of the genuineness of 
 the ballad as a whole than otherwise. 
 
 With regard to (2), I have endeavoured to show 
 that the ballad probably originated in the district to 
 which it refers, and if this is true the fact more than
 
 IS ' JAMIE TELFER ' GENUINE ? 213 
 
 counterbalances the other fact, namely of the MS. 
 having come first to light in Ettrick Forest. 
 
 With regard to (3), I have said that the fact of Sir 
 Walter not publishing the ballad points to his having 
 believed it to be spurious, but this consideration is 
 outweighed by Sir Walter's own note recording its 
 existence, thereby testifying to his belief in its genuine- 
 ness. The ballad having remained hidden for so 
 many years and so little information regarding it 
 having been made known, hardly form grounds for 
 suspicion. The fact, however, is somewhat mysteri- 
 ous, and mystery breeds suspicion. 
 
 I have done my utmost to prove the ballad to be a 
 forgery, and, in my opinion, I have failed ; I do not 
 think I shall be accused of having kept back matter 
 calculated to tell against its genuineness, while it is 
 not improbable I may be thought to have pressed too 
 strongly those points which do so. This is a diffi- 
 culty a prejudiced writer — and I admit I may be 
 classed as one, since it would pain me much to think 
 the ballad in question is other than genuine — has 
 necessarily to contend with ; in order to guard 
 against an accusation of partiality, he is inclined to 
 exaggerate the value of the evidence which tells 
 against his own inclinations. Taking into considera- 
 tion all the arguments I have used in this paper, as 
 well as those in the chapter on the origin of the ballad,
 
 214 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 my answer to the question is, Yes, ' Jamie Telfer 
 i' the Fair Dodhead ' is a genuine old ballad. 
 
 I shall not, however, quarrel with those who take 
 a different view, not even should they hold that my 
 judgment is inconsistent with the evidence I have 
 myself adduced. They would be perfectly justified 
 in saying I am a prejudiced judge, and they may well 
 find great difficulty in mastering their suspicions 
 with regard to the ballad. It came, so far as we 
 know, from a tainted source ; it was itself the mother 
 of the ' perversion ' published in the Minstrelsy, and 
 this again was the stable companion, so to speak, of 
 ' Kinmont Willie,' of the Scottish version of the 
 ' Battle of Otterburn,' and of ' Auld Maitland,' not 
 to mention others to which no reference has been 
 made in this volume. We cannot but be influenced 
 unpleasantly by the ballad's surroundings, and I 
 shall find no fault with those who let their suspicions 
 outweigh my reasoning. 
 
 If the ballad is in truth genuine, the blame for 
 unjust suspicions having arisen rests upon those who, 
 at the time of its discovery, were too indifferent to 
 take proper steps to verify its authenticity, and who 
 knowingly, or without sufficient investigation, on 
 several occasions passed off modern productions as 
 ancient ballads. Herein lies the chief mischief of 
 such so-called ' forgeries ' ; it may be true, as Sir
 
 IS ' JAMIE TELFER ' GENUINE ? 215 
 
 Walter Scott says, that ' the public is more enriched 
 by the contribution than injured by the deception,' 
 but, if so, it is true only as regards each individual 
 ballad, for the injury caused by the deception does 
 not end with it ; when the truth is discovered, 
 suspicion is sure to arise with regard to other ballads 
 which may be perfectly genuine. 
 
 Had ' Jamie Telfer ' been published at the same 
 time as ' Dick o' the Cow ' and other Liddesdale 
 ballads, no suspicion would, I think, have arisen 
 with regard to it. 
 
 ' Company, villainous company, hath been the 
 spoil of me.'
 
 NUMBER VI 
 AULD MAITLAND
 
 'AULD MAITLAND' 
 
 Even at the time of its birth, even before it was 
 pubhshed to the world, suspicion as to the genuine- 
 ness of this ballad had been aroused. That after a 
 period of more than a hundred years this suspicion 
 should still exist, that it should neither have been 
 allayed nor confirmed, does not say much for the 
 powers of investigation inherent in our literary 
 critics, and yet Sir Walter Scott, not to mention 
 other great authorities on ballads, has told us that 
 there is never any difficulty in detecting an imitation. 
 Though this opinion may be a slight exaggeration, I 
 believe it to be generally true, and certainly there is 
 no very great difficulty, in the case before us, of 
 forming a true judgment. How, then, does it happen 
 that two great authorities on ballad literature, Pro- 
 fessor Child on the one hand, and Mr. Andrew Lang 
 on the other, hold diametrically opposite views 
 regarding it ? I think the reason must be that the 
 matter has never been thoroughly tlirashed out ; 
 Professor Child gives no reason, so far as I know,
 
 220 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 in support of his opinion, though presumably he 
 must have considered the question thoroughly 
 before excluding the ballad from his great collec- 
 tion, while Mr. Lang attempts little more than to 
 prove that the ballad could not have been com- 
 posed by Hogg — he does not really tackle the 
 question.^ 
 
 In the following pages I shall endeavour to place 
 before the reader all that occurs to my mind in favour 
 of either view, and then, without fear or partiality, 
 let us determine, according to the best of our 
 understanding, on which side lies the truth. 
 
 In the first place let us see what, if any, evidence 
 of a suspicious nature exists in the ballad itself, and 
 whether it points to any particular individual having 
 taken part in a deception. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott pointed out at the very commence- 
 ment of his introductory note to the ballad that 
 its appearance did not give it a claim to high 
 antiquity, but, I ask, in what respect does it not do 
 so ? Sir Walter, although he writes that the date 
 of the ballad cannot be ascertained with any degree 
 of certainty, suggests that it was composed with 
 
 ' See Literary Fori/friea, by J. A. Farrer (Longmans, (Jrccn and 
 Co., 1907). Tlie introduction, and also that portion of the chapter 
 on Ballad-forgers which relates to ' Auld Maitland,' were written 
 by Mr. Lang.
 
 'AULD MAITLAND' 221 
 
 reference to, and presumably shortly after, certain 
 events which occurred in Lauderdale about the year 
 129G. Xo^\', the MSS. in the Harleian Library supply 
 us with the following two scraps of song relating to 
 the same occurrences : ' The battle of Dunbar was 
 fought and won by the earl of Warenne, the 28th of 
 April 1296 ; " and tho seide the Englisshemen in 
 reprefe of the Scottis, 
 
 Thus scaterand Scottis, 
 Holde I for sootis, 
 
 Of wrenchis unware ; 
 Early in a mornyng, 
 In an evyl tyding. 
 
 Went ye froo Dunbarre." ' 
 
 The Scots, on the other hand, said that ' King 
 Edward went him toward Berwyke, and biseged the 
 toune and tho that were withyn manlich hem 
 defended, and sett on fire and brent ij of the king 
 Edwarde shippes, and seide in dispite and reprefe 
 of him — 
 
 Wend kyng Edwarde with his lange shankes. 
 To have gote Ber\\yke al our unthankcs ? 
 Gas pikes hym, and gas dikes hym.' ^ 
 
 The style of these scraps is certainly as different as 
 
 ^ Ritson's Ancient So7igs and Ballads, p. xxxviii. (Tliird edition, 
 by W. C. Hazlitt. London, 1877.)
 
 222 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 can well be conceived from that of ' Auld Maitland,' 
 and we are consequently inclined at first to agree 
 that the appearance of the latter does not give it a 
 claim to antiquity ; but we ought to remember that 
 the verses above quoted have been printed, or have 
 been in the form of MS. for centuries, whereas 
 ' Auld Maitland ' claims to have been handed down 
 for a like period orally. Considering the change of 
 language which must necessarily take place as cen- 
 turies roll by, considering that each generation of 
 reciters is certain to forget words and stanzas, re- 
 placing them by others, bearing a like sense, of 
 their own, we cannot, I think, contend that 
 the general appearance of this ballad materially 
 weakens its claim to antiquity ; this may, however, 
 be weakened by an examination into details. 
 
 Writing in June 1802, that is to say before the 
 date of certain occurrences which throw justifiable 
 suspicion on its genuineness, Hogg wrote to Scott 
 that he was surprised some people suspected the song 
 of being a modern forgery.^ 
 
 It would be interesting to know to whom Hogg 
 was referring, and also the grounds for their sus- 
 picion ; whatever these may have been, they did not 
 
 ^ See prefatory note to 'Auld Maitland.' In Cadell's edition 
 (183.3) the date of Hogg's letter is shown as 30th June 1801, but 
 this is apparently incorrect.
 
 'AULD IVIAITLAND' 223 
 
 suffice to shake Scott's faith, or, if they did so, he 
 must soon afterwards have obtained some evidence 
 to make him resume it. 
 
 What is there in the ballad itself likely to have 
 raised suspicion in the minds of these sceptics ? 
 
 First of all, some historical inaccuracies are 
 observable ; but surely these would not have done 
 so, for a narrative, especially one in the form of 
 verse, is almost certain, even at the time of its 
 conception, not to be in strict accordance with fact 
 in all points, and it is quite certain, after being 
 handed down orally for centuries, to be remote from 
 it in many. We ought not to look for more than a 
 hazy, inaccurate, ill-connected account, suggestive, 
 but no more than suggestive, to our minds of events 
 recorded in history — and this much we do find in 
 ' Auld Maitland ' ; had it been more true to history, 
 it would, in my opinion, have been more open to 
 suspicion. 
 
 The next point to be observed is that though the 
 poetic merit of the ballad is maintained at a fairly 
 uniform level all through, there are occasional lines, 
 and even stanzas, w^hich jar in style to such a degree 
 as to raise the thought that they must have been 
 written by two separate hands. 
 
 The best stanzas, to my taste, are 8, 9, 10 and 11, 
 and the worst are 15 and 18.
 
 224 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 The first four are as follows — 
 
 8 
 They lighted on the banks of Tweed, 
 
 And blew their coals sae het, 
 And fired the Merse and Teviotdale, 
 All in an evening late. 
 
 9 
 
 As they fared up o'er Lammermoor, 
 They burn'd baith up and down, 
 
 Until they came to a darksome house, 
 Some call it Leader-to^vn. 
 
 lO 
 
 ' Wha bauds this house ? ' young Edward cry'd, 
 
 ' Or what gies 't ower to me ? ' 
 A grey-hair'd knight set up his head, 
 
 And crackit richt crousely : 
 
 II 
 
 ' Of Scotland's king I baud my house ; 
 
 He pays me meat and fee ; 
 And I will keep my guid auld house, 
 
 While my house will keep me.' 
 
 The latter tAvo stanzas, 15 and 18, are — 
 
 Then fifteen barks, all gaily good, 
 
 Met them upon a day. 
 Which they did lade witli as much spoil 
 
 As they could bear away.
 
 'AULD MAITLAND' 225 
 
 i8 
 Until he came into that town, 
 
 Which some call Billop-Grace : 
 There were auld Maitland's sons, a' three, 
 
 Learning at school, alas ! 
 
 There cannot be much doubt that two versifiers 
 have been at work here ; let us see if we can recog- 
 nise either. 
 
 Footnotes to the ballad tell us that Hogg wrote two 
 separate couplets, from which information we are 
 justified in assuming that we are intended to under- 
 stand that they represent the total of his handiwork 
 in the construction of the ballad. Can we believe 
 this ? Can we believe he was too scrupulous to 
 remain silent with regard to filling up two small 
 gaps in a ballad of sixty-five stanzas ? Can we be- 
 lieve that his views in this respect were so Ritsonian, 
 that he stood on a far higher moral level than Sir 
 Walter Scott, who never hesitated to interpolate 
 lines and stanzas and series of stanzas when he saw 
 his way to improving the artistic merit of a song ? ^ 
 Few will doubt that the footnotes were inserted 
 with the object of leading the public to think that 
 
 * In Lockhart's Lift of Scott, vol. i. p. 3S0, we read : 'He had, I 
 firmly believe, interpolated hardly a line or even au epithet of hia 
 own' into any of the ballads published in the Minstrelsy. It is 
 curious, perliaps sad, that an intellect so acute as Lockhart's, 
 should have been blinded tluis by an excessive enthusiasm for one 
 well worthy of high admiration. 
 
 P
 
 226 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 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 responsibihty, 
 the intention must have been to make it appear as 
 if no other interpolations by any other hand had 
 been inserted. 
 
 Well, as we have reason to believe that Hogg 
 wrote other lines than the four he owned to, it may 
 be worth while to try to pick them out. Read 
 stanza 7, the last couplet of which is admittedly 
 Hogg's— 
 
 And thrice as many as Berwicke 
 
 Were all for battle bound, 
 Who marching forth with false Dunbar, 
 
 A ready welcome found. 
 
 Then let us read the whole ballad and ask ourselves 
 which stanzas resemble in style the above couplet of 
 Hogg's. We shall be suspicious of eight or nine, 
 but chiefly so of stanzas 15 and 18 — already 
 quoted ; in my opinion, there are none more likely 
 than these to have been composed by him. Now 
 these, together with stanza 17, are the very ones 
 which transfer the scene of the story from Scotland 
 to France. Strike them out, and in the rest of the 
 ballad there is nothing — save in stanza 62 — incon- 
 sistent with the whole scene having been enacted in 
 the south of Scotland, before one castle, and at the
 
 ' AULD MAITLAND ' 227 
 
 same period. Sir Walter remarks, in note C to the 
 ballad, that ' the rapid change of scene from Scotland 
 to France excites suspicion, that some verses may 
 have been lost in this place.' In my mind, however, 
 the suspicion arises that the stanzas relating to 
 France have been interpolated. 
 
 There are two references to France — or three, if 
 we believe that ' Billop-Grace,' in stanza 18, is a 
 corruption of the name of some French town — one 
 of \\ hicli definitely lays the scene in that country, 
 the other implies it ; there are also three references 
 to the ' lads of France.' Now, if I can prove one 
 of these references to have been written by Hogg, 
 it will go a long way towards inclining us to think 
 that the others were also — it will at least shake our 
 faith in their genuineness. 
 
 I must point out that the first couplet of stanza 43, 
 ' But we are nane the lads o' France, Nor e'er pretend 
 to be ' — (which bears a remarkable resemblance to 
 the lines in the ' Battle of Philiphaugh,' ' No, we 
 are nane o' Montrose's men, Nor e'er intend to 
 be ') — was the very one which convinced Scott 
 that the ballad was not a forgery — so Hogg 
 tells us in his 'Lines to Sir Walter Scott, Bart.' 
 He reminded Scott that as he heard his mother 
 sing these words his doubts, as to the genuine- 
 ness of the ballad, doubts to clear up which had
 
 228 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 been the object of his visit to Hogg, vanished. 
 
 ' Thy fist made all the table ring, By G , 
 
 sir, but that is the thing ! ' From this we may 
 be certain that the stanza was very much to 
 Hogg's taste — probably because it was his own 
 child ! — but why should it have appealed to Scott, 
 the antiquarian ? In what way does it point to 
 antiquity ? I can understand the sentiment, which 
 is one of disgust at being taken for Frenchmen, 
 appealing to the vulgar in the early years of the 
 nineteenth century, when Scotland, then a portion 
 of Great Britain, had been for many years at war 
 with France, but surely it is somewhat out of 
 place in the mouth of a Scot at a period when the 
 two countries were closely allied. But the point 
 to which I wish to draw particular attention is 
 that the verse was clearly new to Sir Walter. 
 It must, then, have been introduced into the 
 ballad between the time when he first saw it, when 
 his suspicions were aroused, and the time when he 
 heard it sung, when his suspicions were, it is said, 
 dispelled. That it was introduced at Hogg's in- 
 stance, who can doubt ? That such an interpola- 
 tion should truly have deceived Sir Walter and 
 have caused his suspicions to vanish is inconceivable. 
 Let us now pass on to the second interpolation 
 admittedly made by Hogg in stanza 46. It com-
 
 ' AULD MAITLAND ' 229 
 
 mences with the words, ' Remember Percy ' — a 
 form of address seldom found in ballads and calling 
 to mind the words : ' But trust me, Percy ' — in 
 stanza 22 of ' Chevy-Chase ' (Herd's version). 
 Now, the very next stanza in ' Auld Maitland ' has 
 also a resemblance to another stanza in ' Chevy- 
 Chase ' : they are as follows : — 
 
 47 of Auld Maitland 
 
 He clanked Piercy ower the head, 
 
 A deep wound and a sair, 
 Till the best blood o' his bodie 
 
 Came rinning down his hair. 
 
 32 of Chevy-Chase 
 (which also refers to a struggle with a Percy) 
 
 They fought until they both did sweat 
 With swords of temper'd steel ; 
 
 Until the blood like drops of rain 
 They trickling down did feel. 
 
 Then, in stanza 4 of ' Auld Maitland ' occurs the 
 line ' If fifteen hundred waled wight men,' and in 
 stanza 6 of ' Chevy-Chase ' we have, ' With fifteen 
 hundred bow-men bold. All chosen men of might.' 
 
 Again, stanza 27 of ' Auld Maitland ' runs — 
 
 Then, lifting up a gilt dagger. 
 Hung low douTi by his knee. 
 
 He stabb'd the knight the standard bore, 
 He stabb'd him cruellie :
 
 230 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 and in the ' Battle of Otterbourne ' (Herd's version) 
 we have — 
 
 The boy 's taen out his httle penknife, 
 That hanget low down by his gare, 
 
 And he gae Earl Douglas a deadly wound, 
 Alack ! a deep wound and a sare. 
 
 The last line is identical with the second line of 
 stanza 47 of ' Auld Maitland,' already quoted. 
 
 A few other Unes in ' Auld Maitland ' reminding 
 one of lines in ' Chevy-Chase ' or the ' Battle of 
 Otterbourne ' might also be mentioned. 
 
 My object in calling attention to these similarities 
 is to suggest that as Hogg admittedly wrote a part of 
 stanza 46, calling to mind the ballad of ' Chevy- 
 Chase,' he is probably responsible for the stanza 
 immediately following, as well as all others which also 
 put one in mind of that ballad. 
 
 Now, although I have shown grounds for the sus- 
 picion that Hogg is responsible for the presence in 
 ' Auld Maitland ' of the stanzas having reference to 
 France, as well as of those which seem to be taken 
 from, or to be based upon, ' Chevy-Chase,' yet he 
 cannot be considered so with regard to some other 
 lines which greatly resemble lines in ballads other 
 than ' Chevy-Chase.' Thus the line (stanza 6) 
 ' King Edward rade, king Edward ran,' reminds one 
 of the hne in ' Jamie Telfer,' ' The Scotts they rode, 
 the Scotts they ran ' ; but it would not have been
 
 ' AULD MAITLAND ' 231 
 
 suggested to Hogg by the latter, which occurs only 
 in the Minstrelsy version of ' Jamie Telfer,' not in the 
 original version, which I have already shown ^ good 
 reason for believing was the version possessed by 
 Hogg. If Hogg is responsible for the insertion of this 
 line into ' Auld Maitland,' he must have borrowed it 
 from ' Edom o' Gordon,' where we have ' Sum they 
 rode and sum they ran,' but from this source also 
 must the author of the stanza in the Minstrelsy 
 version of ' Jamie Telfer ' have borrowed it ! and 
 he was certainly Scott himself.- Since it is highly 
 improbable that both Hogg and Scott should have 
 borrowed the same line, there is better reason for 
 thinking that its presence in ' Auld Maitland ' is due 
 to Scott rather than to Hogg. 
 
 Again, compare stanza 21, which is as follows — 
 
 Then they hae saddled twa black horse, 
 
 Twa black horse and a gray ; 
 And they are on to King Edward's host, 
 
 Before the da^vn of day — 
 
 with stanza 21 of Scott's version of ' Jamie Telfer,' 
 which runs — 
 
 He 's set his twa sons on coal-black steeds, 
 
 Himsell upon a freckled gray. 
 And they are on wi' Jamie Telfer, 
 
 To Branksome Ha' to tak the fraye. 
 
 ' See essay On the Genesis of the Ballads of ' Jamie Telfer ' and 
 *Auld Maitland.' 
 
 ' See The Trustworthiness of Border Ballads, p. 49.
 
 232 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 The corresponding stanza in the original version of 
 ' Jamie Telfer,' that is to say the version possessed 
 by Hogg, has no resemblance whatever. We must 
 surely admit, then, that the probability of Hogg 
 having composed the stanza in ' Auld Maitland ' is 
 less than of Scott having done so. 
 
 Again, in stanza 24 we have the line, ' A knight me 
 gat, a lady bore.' The same occurs in the Minstrelsy 
 version of ' Young Tamlane,' which was published 
 at the same time as ' Auld Maitland.' The line does 
 not occur in the fragment of the same ballad pub- 
 lished by Herd in 1774 under the title of ' Kerton 
 Ha' ' ; it occurs, however, in the ' Childe of Elle,' 
 which was published in Percy's Reliques, etc., in 
 1765, and very possibly in other and older ballads. 
 That it has, then, been interpolated into ' Auld 
 Maitland ' seems fairly clear, where, moreover, it 
 appears somewhat out of place in reply to the 
 question, ' Where wast thou bred ? where wast thou 
 born ? ' Indeed, a similar remark might be made 
 with regard to its occurrence in ' Young Tamlane,' 
 where it follows in reply to the question, ' Gin e'er 
 ye was in haly chapel. Or sained in Christentie ? ' 
 In the 'Childe of ]^]lle,' however, the line is quite 
 appropriate ; the father of the heroine calls the hero 
 a ' False churl's son,' and receives the reply, ' A 
 knight me got, and a ladye me bore, Soe never did
 
 'AULD ]\IAITLAND' 233 
 
 none by thee.' If my suspicion of the hne having 
 been interpolated is true, this is more hkely to have 
 been done by Scott, the editor, or perhaps I should 
 say the compiler, of ' Young Tamlane,' ^ who was well 
 acquainted with Percy's Reliques and others of a like 
 nature, than by the ' illiterate ' Hogg. 
 And, lastly, with regard to the lines, 
 
 ^TTj , rthe lads o' France, 
 
 We are nane o i ,^ , 
 
 V Montrose s men, 
 
 Nor e'er \\ , , Ho be, 
 I intend ) 
 
 which occur in ' Auld Maitland ' and in the ' Battle 
 of Philiphaugh ' — since both ballads were published 
 at the same time I am unable to say which borrowed 
 from the other, but, in my opinion, the lines jfit 
 more appropriately into the latter than the former 
 ballad, I ought not, however, to have introduced 
 this case into my present argument, which is 
 directed to the consideration of what cause for 
 suspicion of forgery could have existed in the minds 
 of those to whom the ballad had been submitted 
 early in 1802, i.e. before the publication of the ' Battle 
 of Philiphaugh ' — as we are told by Hogg's letter of 
 June 30 of that year. 
 
 The conclusion which would probably have been 
 
 ' Sir Walter mentions in the Minstrelsy that this ballad had been 
 prepared from a collation of printed copies, etc.
 
 234 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 arrived at with regard to these interpolations, 
 would, I think, have been to the effect that Hogg 
 had made some, and Scott some. 
 
 That there were a certain number of interpolations, 
 and by more hands than one, would surely have been 
 admitted, but would not this have been calculated 
 to reduce somewhat any suspicion that might have 
 arisen regarding the Avhole being a fabrication ? — for 
 the interpolation of a hne into a stanza inclines one 
 to tliink that in other respects the stanza is genuine, 
 and the interpolation of complete stanzas inclines 
 one to believe that the ballad as a whole is genuine. 
 
 Now that we have closely examined the con- 
 struction of the ballad, let us put to ourselves the 
 following question — assuming the ballad to have 
 been as we now know it at the time of its submission 
 to those who, as Hogg mentioned in his letter of 
 June 30, 1802, suspected it of being a forgery, can 
 we say there existed good grounds for such a sus- 
 picion ? In my opinion there were not. 
 
 We must now consider certain peculiar circum- 
 stances which attended the first appearance of the 
 ballad. 
 
 Those who agree with the conclusion just arrived 
 at, namely, that little or no reason existed prior 
 to June 30, 1802, to suspect forgery, must surely 
 feel surprise at this ugly word having been then
 
 'AULD MAITLAND' 235 
 
 mentioned. When and by whom was it first 
 used ? 
 
 Hogg used it in the letter of the above date, but 
 he was referring to a prior use of it, presumably by 
 his correspondent, Scott. 
 
 Hogg does not say who the persons were to whom 
 the ballad had been shown ; perhaps he did not 
 know ; possibly they were non-existent — for it 
 would not have been unnatural on Scott's part had 
 he, in the event of his suspecting the genuineness of 
 the ballad and not wishing to affront Hogg by 
 frankly saying so, informed him that ' some people ' 
 took it to be a forgery. That Sir Walter was, or 
 had been, suspicious regarding it we know from 
 Hogg's account of Scott's visit to him on the occasion 
 of his mother's chanting the ballad ; he says 
 distinctly that the visit was with the object of 
 clearing up suspicions of forgery which were in 
 Scott's mind. Who could ' the some persons ' of 
 Hogg's letter have been ? Ellis certainly could not 
 have been one ; perhaps Leyden might ; but I am 
 inclined to think they were mythical. However 
 this may be, so far as we know, the word ' forgery ' 
 was first whispered in connection with this ballad 
 between Scott and Hogg, between the two who, in 
 my opinion, unquestionably inserted the interpola- 
 tions already mentioned.
 
 236 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 Mr. Lang, in discussing the authenticity of the 
 ballad, draws attention to curious differences in the 
 accounts given by Sir Walter Scott of how he 
 obtained it ; but then, instead of pursuing this 
 point, he directs his batteries solely on Hogg, and 
 finally proves, to his own satisfaction, that the latter 
 was not the author of the ballad. 
 
 After attempting to identify the individuals from 
 whom Mrs. Hogg and others professed to have 
 learned the ballad, he writes that ' it is highly 
 improbable that James Hogg first forged it and then 
 made old people learn it by rote,' and again, further 
 on, he says, ' Such then was the unequalled astute- 
 ness of Hogg, if so early as 1802 and so unversed in 
 literature as he then was, he forged the baUad, and 
 induced old people to learn it by heart and recite it. 
 The whole trick seems impossible. . . .' The fact, 
 also, that Hogg never boasted of having hoaxed 
 Scott with this ballad, as he did Jeffrey with another, 
 appears to have weight with Mr. Lang. (See 
 Literary Forgeries, p. 255, etc.) 
 
 We may admit that, if Hogg was unversed in 
 literature, the probability is strong against his 
 having composed the whole ballad unaided. But 
 why should he not have received aid ? Could he 
 not have been aided by Scott ? No, it will be said, 
 because they were not acquainted with each other
 
 ' AULD MAITLAND ' 237 
 
 until after JScott had heard of the existence of the 
 ballad. As to this, I have already shown in a 
 previous chapter, there is no certainty ; but putting 
 Scott aside, why should he not have obtained his 
 knowledge from elsewhere ? As early as 1801 ^ 
 Leyden was helping Scott in collecting materials for 
 the Border Minstrelsy, and -we may be sure that he, 
 the son of a shepherd in Teviotdale, quickly became 
 acquainted with the shepherd of Ettrick. I do not 
 suggest that Leyden assisted in the forgery — if 
 forgery there was — and I am merely pointing out 
 that Hogg might have obtained from him sufficient 
 information to enable him to compose the ballad. 
 Those who argue that Hogg was too illiterate to 
 have done so must explain how he happens to have 
 been the author of the couplet in stanza 7,^ referring 
 to a matter of history not at all widely known. No 
 illiterate man wTote this couplet without assistance, 
 and the illiterate Hogg wrote it. Whence did he 
 get his knowledge ? And why should he not have 
 heard of ' sowies ' and ' springalds ' from the same 
 source ? ^ 
 
 Again, I admit the great improbability of Hogg 
 
 ^ Dictionary of National Biograjihy : see Leyden, 
 
 - Quoted on p. 226. 
 
 ^ Scott, in his introductory note to ' Auld Maitland,' refers par- 
 ticularly to these words, which occur in stanzas 12 and 13, as 
 evidence of the antiquity of the ballad.
 
 238 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 having induced old people to learn the ballad by- 
 heart and to recite it. But what evidence exists of 
 their having done so ? In the introductory note to 
 the ballad, Scott writes that it ' has been preserved 
 by tradition ' — ' is only known to a few old people 
 on the banks of the Ettrick ' — ' is published, as 
 written down from the recitation of Mrs. Hogg.' 
 He does not say that he had heard people recite it, 
 nor that it was he himself who had taken it down 
 from recitation ; it would seem as if he intentionally 
 avoided saying so, nor do I know of his ever having 
 definitely so stated in subsequent writings. Hogg's 
 statement that Scott heard his mother recite it is 
 precise, but he nowhere, so far as I know, tells us of 
 Scott — or of any one else save himself — having heard 
 any one else recite it. Scott, no doubt, by not 
 correcting Hogg's account tacitly confirmed it, and 
 he also made himself responsible for the truth of the 
 details mentioned in the Minstrelsy. ^ 
 
 But putting Scott and his fellow ballad-hunters of 
 1801-3 aside altogether, has any one of the many 
 antiquarians and ballad-seekers, who have overrun 
 
 ' After giving, in tlic introductory note to the ballad, an extract 
 from Hogg's letter in which amongst other matters it is stated 
 that ' most of the old people hereabouts have a great part of the 
 ballad by heart,' Scott adds the following lines: 'To the observa- 
 tions of my ingenious correspondent I have nothing to add, but 
 that, in this, and a thousand other instances, they accurately coin- 
 cide with my personal knowledge.'
 
 'AULD MAITLAND' 239 
 
 the Borders of Scotland both before and after the 
 pubhcation of the Minstrelsy, ever recorded having 
 heard ' Auld Maitland ' — or indeed any other 
 original ballad ^ — recited by young or old, male or 
 female, residing in the district ? 
 
 Mr. Lang, on the assumption that the ballad was 
 in truth known to various persons, remarks naturally 
 enough that it is improbable Hogg should have 
 induced them to learn it ; but surely it is even more 
 improbable for this long, and not particularly 
 interesting, ballad to have been handed down for 
 centuries, and to come to light not in Lauderdale, 
 where the scene is chiefly laid and to which district 
 the heroes and their posterity belonged, but in 
 another part of the country, under the very noses of 
 the ballad-hunters engaged preparing the Minstrelsy, 
 and then again to sink into darkness. 
 
 ^ Professor Veitch mentions having obtained the copy of what 
 he considers to be the original version of ' The Dowie Dens ' from 
 an old man of over seventy, who had heard his mother and grand- 
 mother recite it. But the grandmother — who had a fine ear for 
 music— had a copy of the song, so it cannot be said to have been 
 handed down purely by recitation. See History and Poetnj of the 
 Scottish Border, vol. ii. p. 197. Sir Walter Scott also, in a letter 
 to Charles Carpenter, mentions that ' old people on the Borders had 
 preserved many ballads descriptive of the manners of the country 
 during the wars with England '— (Lockhart's Life, vol. i. p. S79), but 
 he gives us no information as to new ' old ballads' being obtained 
 by recitation. 'Dick o' the Cow,' which ho heard sung by 'Auld 
 Thomas Elliot o' Tuzzilehope ' (see Life, vol. i. p. 197), had already 
 been published in the Hawick Poetical Museum.
 
 240 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 Mr. Lang's last point is that Hogg never boasted 
 of having hoaxed Scott, as he assuredly Avould have 
 done had he been the forger. But this argument 
 has point only on the assumption that Scott was 
 deceived by Hogg, and this I cannot admit. Scott 
 had suspicions that the ballad was a forgery ; he 
 visited Hogg for the express purpose of investigating 
 the matter ; he heard an old woman repeat a some- 
 what trumpery stanza that had been interpolated 
 into the song since he last saw it — and his suspicions 
 vanished ! I cannot myseK conceive how any one 
 can contend that Scott was, in truth, deceived. If 
 sound reasons can be given to show that he really 
 was so, and if we agree as to Hogg's inevitably 
 yielding to his boastful nature, then, but not till 
 then, can we admit that the inference can be reason- 
 ably drawn that Hogg was not the forger. In the 
 meantime, it might fairly be argued that the fact 
 of Hogg not having boasted of hoaxing Scott points 
 to the latter having been a participant in the hoax. 
 
 On the whole I do not think Mr. Lang has been 
 successful in clearing Hogg of suspicion, still less d^" 
 do I think he has shown reason for believing Pro- 
 fessor Child was too sceptical when he rejected the 
 ballad, for the Professor's opinion might have been 
 formed quite irrespective of suspicions against Hogg. 
 
 Mr. Lang, who is disposed to believe that the
 
 'AULD IVIAITLAND' 241 
 
 ballad is a literary imitation, earlier than the 
 eighteenth century, by members of the Maitland 
 family — though he gives no reason for his holding 
 this view, other than that the Maitlands Avere an 
 accomplished set of men — is ' convinced the Ettrick 
 Shepherd was not the forger, and no other modern 
 artist can be, or has been, suggested as the sinner.' ^ 
 I must take exception to these words, for, in my 
 opinion, another artist can be and indeed has been 
 suggested as ' the sinner ' by Mr, Lang himself, 
 when he draws attention, as has already been 
 noticed, to the two different accounts given by Scott 
 of how he obtained the ballad. 
 
 To assert that the same individual gave different 
 accounts regarding the manner in which he had 
 obtained a document alleged to be forged is to direct 
 suspicion against that individual, more especially 
 when, as in this instance, he was the person who 
 passed the document on to the public. 
 
 Again, to say that a document is a forgery is 
 surely to suggest that the person who issued it may 
 have been a participant in the offence, and ' Auld 
 Maitland ' has been, rightly or wrongly, termed a 
 forgery, and Sir Walter was undoubtedlj^ the first 
 person who issued it. From the moment that doubt 
 as to its genuineness was expressed, suspicion 
 
 ' Introduction to Literary Forgeries, p. xxi. 
 Q
 
 242 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 must have been directed against those who were 
 chiefly instrumental in pubhshing it, and until 
 good reasons are produced to prove that it is not a 
 forgery , suspicion, possibly no doubt unjust suspicion, 
 will necessarily remain upon them. 
 
 If we really wish to form a just, a useful conclusion 
 on the subject, we must, quite irrespective of persons, 
 examine all suspicious circumstances attendant 
 upon it, and it would indeed be curious if, in so 
 doing, we were not occasionally to come across 
 something to suggest the thought that the individual 
 who had introduced the ballad to the public may 
 have possessed more complete knowledge of its 
 genesis than he has revealed to us. It will never do 
 to put these matters aside on the ground that Sir 
 Walter is above suspicion — if we do, we shall never 
 get at the truth. And, indeed, however high our 
 admiration for Sir Walter's character may be, there 
 can be no reason why we should pretend he was 
 endowed with a virtue which he barely admitted to 
 be a virtue at all ! Referring to those who have 
 written imitations of ancient poetry with the 
 purpose of passing them off for ancient, Scott wrote 
 thus : ' There is no small degree of cant in the 
 violent invectives with which impostors of this 
 nature have been assailed. ... If a young, perhaps 
 a female author chooses to circulate a beautiful poem,
 
 ' AULD MAITLAND ' 243 
 
 we will suppose that of " Hardy knute," under the 
 disguise of antiquity, the pubHc is surely more 
 enriched by the contribution than injured by the 
 deception. It is hardly possible, indeed, without a 
 power of poetical genius, and acquaintance with 
 ancient language and manners possessed by very 
 few, to succeed in deceiving those who have made 
 this branch of literature their study. ... A minute 
 acquaintance with ancient customs, and with ancient 
 history, is also demanded, to sustain a part v/hich, 
 as it must rest on deception, cannot be altogether an 
 honourable one. ' ^ 
 
 Scott's attack on Ritson for the latter's objection 
 to ' the liberties which Dr. Percy (the editor of 
 Reliques of Ancient Poetry) had taken with his 
 materials, in adding to, retrenching, and improving 
 them, so as to bring them nearer to the taste of 
 his own period,' ^ is well worth reading by those 
 who wish to understand Scott's feelings on the 
 subject. 
 
 To us it no doubt seems curious that he should, 
 especially in his later years, have written in palHation 
 of literary imposture, but probably it did not seem 
 so to his contemporaries. 
 
 ^ Essay on 'Imitations of the Ancient Ballad,' ScotVs Poetical 
 Works (1S33 edition), vol. iv. pp. 16-17. 
 
 - 'Remarks on Popular Poetry,' IScotCs Poetical Worls, vol. i. 
 p. 47, etc.
 
 244 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 It is also curious that he should have professed 
 such a strong belief in the difficulty of passing 
 off spurious ballads as authentic. He writes : 
 ' I have only met, in my researches into these 
 matters, wdth one poem, which, if it had been pro- 
 duced as ancient, could not have been detected 
 on internal evidence. ... It was the composi- 
 tion of an Eton schoolboy.'^ And yet how 
 many spurious ballads did he not publish in the 
 Minstrelsy ! It was long even before he would 
 admit that the ' Flowers of the Forest ' was not 
 ancient ! 
 
 Sir Walter apparently closed his eyes to the fact 
 that while only a few people were capable of produc- 
 ing a good imitation, still fewer were able to detect 
 one ; his bUndness in this respect may be some excuse 
 for him, since, when passing off verses of his own 
 composition as ancient, he might have argued to 
 himself that the act being patent was no offence. 
 
 Conclusion 
 
 Although I have said that the interpolations made 
 into this ballad, taken by themselves, tell neither for 
 nor against its claim to be essentially of ancient 
 
 1 Essay on the ' Imitcations of the Ancient Ballad,' Scott's 
 Poetical Works (1833 edition), vol. iv. ij. 19.
 
 ' AULD MAITLAND ' 245 
 
 composition, yet when we look at them in connection 
 with other circumstances they appear to weaken it 
 very materially. 
 
 Suspicion regarding them is greatly aggravated 
 by the fact that Sir Walter Scott, when publishing 
 the ballad, owned to only two, both by the same hand, 
 whereas there are clearly several, by more than one 
 hand — his own being almost certainly one. That 
 there has been an attempt to deceive is palpable, 
 and with what object other than to lead the public 
 to beUeve wrongly in the genuineness of the ballad it 
 is impossible to imagine. 
 
 Then we are told in Hogg's letter of the 30th June 
 1801 (or 1802) to Scott that some people believed the 
 ballad to be a forgery ; we are told that Scott him- 
 self was suspicious of it ; we are told of the steps 
 taken to dispel his suspicions — and we refuse to 
 believe a sensible man could possibly have been 
 influenced by such foolery ! 
 
 The circumstances connected with the actual 
 discovery of the ballad — into which I have not 
 entered in this chapter, having already done so in 
 that entitled ' On the genesis of the ballads of 
 " Jamie Telfer " and " Auld Maitland " '—are truly 
 extraordinary. The particulars mentioned by Scott 
 to Ellis certainly warranted great ' surprise ' ; so 
 also do those related by him in the Minstrelsy ; and
 
 246 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 so also do those related by Hogg. In the chapter 
 alluded to, I have endeavoured to clear Scott of the 
 charge of having given inconsistent accounts, but, 
 though they are not necessarily inconsistent, they 
 are so far from being precise that we cannot say 
 either when, or where, or how, or from whom, this 
 ballad, which, if genuine, is of most remarkable 
 interest, was first obtained. 
 
 Taking into consideration, also. Sir Walter's 
 handhng of other ballads, and remembering his 
 defence of those who have taken Uberties in adding 
 to, retrenching, and improving ancient songs, it is 
 impossible to assert that there is any improbability 
 in the suggestion that he himself assisted in the 
 composition of ' Auld Maitland.' 
 
 In the chapter on the ballad of the Battle of 
 Otterburn I made some remarks regarding the 
 reliability to be placed on ballads derived, as ' Auld 
 Maitland ' is alleged to have been, from oral recita- 
 tion, and I said that none such ought to be accepted 
 as genuine without close examination, for the 
 presumption lay the other way. 
 
 We have examined this ballad, and we have 
 found nothing in the least calculated to override this 
 presumption ; on the other hand, we have gone 
 closely into the circumstances surrounding its birth, 
 and have found much to confirm it.
 
 ' AULD MAITLAND ' 247 
 
 It follows, therefore, that, in my opinion, the 
 ballad ought to be adjudged a forgery. 
 
 To decide who was the actual forger does not 
 appear to me to be important, for the chief responsi- 
 bility need not necessarily be his. Neither is the 
 character either of Scott or of Hogg at stake, since 
 both have shown themselves morally capable of the 
 act, and neither would have seen in it more than a 
 joke. Mr. Lang is quite convinced it was not 
 Hogg, and it is only fair to point out that it was not 
 he but Scott who had a motive in its production, it 
 was not he but Scott who published it to the world, 
 it was not he but Scott who received the credit for its 
 discovery. 
 
 But personally I disagree with Mr. Lang ; I think 
 — and I have given my reasons for thinking — that a 
 considerable portion of the ballad was written by 
 Hogg. 
 
 That Scott was the author of various lines I have 
 endeavoured to show, and there can be little doubt, 
 I think, that some stanzas are entirely by him, but 
 surely it is undeniable that the ballad as a whole 
 had been composed before it came into his hands — 
 or to his knoAvledge. 
 
 My view is that Hogg in the first instance tried to 
 palm off the ballad on Scott, and failed ; and that 
 then Scott palmed it off on the pubhc and succeeded.
 
 248 BORDER BALLADS 
 
 For what the public has gained by the contribu- 
 tion, thanks are due partly to Hogg, partly to Scott ; 
 but let us, as gentlemen and honest judges, admit 
 that the responsibility for the deception rests rather 
 on the laird than on the herd. 
 
 Printed by T. and A. Conhtablb, Printers to His Majesty 
 at the Edinburgli Uuivernily Tross
 
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