7, 3. She set: he (the bird) sat.

8, 1. Maries: maids, just as we use Bridget as a common noun meaning kitchen-maid.

8, 3. Shot-window: loophole for archers, then also a lookout.

9, 2. The streen: yestreen, yester even. Apparently due in part to the confusion of þ (=th) and y, being used for both in blackletter; ye editor for the editor shows the same confusion working the other way.

9, 4. Sen: sent.

II, 4. Die: compare note on 1, 2.

13, 2. Bridal in itself meant bride-ale, then the festival at which ale was served in the bride's name.

14, 3. Boon:*favor, properly prayer, request; in the sense of favor the word has been influenced by Latin bonum.

16, 3. Southin: southern, English.

17. A commonplace found in several ballads.

17, 1. Firstin. See note on The Twa Sisters, 27, 1.

17, 2. Gar the bells be rung: have the bells rung.

17, 4. Mess: mass.

19, 2. Coud: could; could gets its 1 from would and should. 19, 3. Sleepy draught: sleeping potion.

We will give you sleepy drinks.

Shakespeare, Winter's Tale, i, 1, 15.

Chaucer calls Mercury's caduceus "sleepy yard" (Knight's Tale, line 529).

22, 3-4. Like 23, 3-4, a commonplace; both occur in one version of Willie's Lyke-wake, the ballad referred to above.

...

22, 3-4. The tae the tother for that one 27, 1. Sheave: slice.

the tither: southern English the tone
that other, the one the other.

27, 4. "It is now fully nine days." A curious telescoping of phrase. That it may have been in actual use and not merely a scribal blunder is likely enough; compare Latin "before the tenth day Kalends of May" for "ten days before the Kalends of May."

28, 3-4. Scott's version has, more pointedly:

I trow you wad hae gien me the skaith,

But I've gien you the scorn.

STUDY

EPIC ADJECTIVE: gay, fair, true (true-love, compare "her false truelove" in Young Benjie, Child, No. 86), bowing, dear, tender, red (red gold), fine. Which are the best examples?

What ballad characteristics in stanzas 11-12, especially in the second line of each? 4 and 7? 24-25 compared with 17-18? Other examples.

COMMONPLACES: four-and-twenty (compare The Jew's Daughter), seven (compare The Douglas Tragedy, The Laily Worm, Thomas Rymer), the series in stanzas 10, 17-18, 24-25 (compare The Twa Sisters, stanzas 26-28, and find other examples).

DIALOGUE. What essential of the story would be lost if only the dialogue were retained?

GET UP AND BAR THE DOOR

The last stanza of The Gay Goshawk indicates the theme of the few humorous ballads we have: the discomfiture of somebody. These ballads thus belong to the larger class of wit-contest and riddle ballads.

Though rare in balladry, such anecdotal stories are very frequent in other forms of popular literature. They represent nowadays the only kind of story that still passes from mouth to mouth; other kinds are relegated to print.

1, 1. Martinmas: November 11 (see note on The Wife of Usher's Well, 5, 1). It was the time of slaughtering animals and salting the flesh for winter use, hence a "gay time" for the goodwife, who had her hands full boiling puddings (i. e., sausages) white and black.

2, 2. Floor: apparently room, like the German flur, entry; passage. 3, 1. Hussyfskap: "housewife-ship," housewifery, housework. What is the etymology of hussy?

3, 4. For me: for all of me, so far as I am concerned.

4, 1. Paction: agreement.

4, 3. Construe word.

6, 4. For barring: for fear of having to bar.

9, 1. Nae water: no hot water for shaving.

9, 3. "What's the matter with the pudding water?"

STUDY

Slight use of dialogue, almost pure narrative. Point out ballad characteristics. Are they many or few?

Are the first and third

lines of each stanza (see p. xiii) more important than the second and fourth? How many lines are mere stop-gaps or fillers? How about transitions (leaping and lingering)? Repetition? Compare in all these respects with one of the first three ballads in this book. Summarize the differences thus noted between older and more recent ballads. But note in the present ballad that the Scotch words occur chiefly in dialogue, indicating that there was an older leaping and lingering, dialogue ballad on the subject later touched up by the addition of narrative stanzas. In Macmath's version, "from the singing of Miss Jane Webster," this difference of dialect is not found, there is a refrain, and the following group of four stanzas is more in the old ballad manner (why?).

"O whether is this a rich man's house,

Or whether is it a puir?"

But never a word would the auld bodies speak,
For the barring o' the door.

First they bad good e'en to them,

And syne they bad good morrow;

But never a word would the auld bodies speak,
For the barring o' the door.

First they ate the white puddin'
And syne they ate the black,

And aye the auld wife said to hersel,

"May the deil slip down wi' that!"

And next they drank o' the liquor sae strong,
And syne they drank o' the yill:

"Now since we hae got a house o' our ain,
I'm sure we may tak our fill."

Compare with the riddle ballads.

KATHARINE JANFARIE

This ballad furnished Scott the story of his Young Lochinvar and the name of the hero as well. In two versions the hero is young Lochinvar, in four others plain Lochinvar. In two further versions however Lochinvar is the name not of the lover but of the bridegroom.

Our version seems to belong with these last: for we have in one version the corruption Lochinton, and Faughanwood (for * Lochinwood) is a further corruption.

The versions differ considerably also in the details of the story; as to whether the bride went willingly or not, as to the lover's intention in coming to the wedding, as to whether he came alone or well attended, etc. More marked than the differences is the vagueness of most of the versions concerning such capital points.

Of the Norse ballad of Magnus Algotson Child says: "The heroine of this ballad, an historical lady of high rank, was the third in a regular line to be forcibly carried off by a lover. The date is 1287. Her mother and her grandmother were taken by the strong hand out of a convent in 1245 and about 1210; these much against their will, the other not so reluctantly, according to ballads in which they are celebrated, for curiously enough each has her ballad."

I, I. Leeft: lived.

I, I. Weel-far'd may: well-favored (good-looking) lass.

I, 2. The refrain-like O goes of course through the remaining stanzas as well.

1, 4. Courtit: courted.

2, 2. Lawland border: Scotch lowlands near the English border; compare 4, 2 and The Gay Goshawk, stanza 3, 15, etc. During the middle ages there was constant fighting on this border. We shall presently have four ballads dealing with this border warfare and raiding. Look for them. See also note on the Batable land under Johnie Armstrong.

2, 4. "Handsomely mounted," "riding a fine horse well."

3, 1-3. "Relative climax" as in The Cruel Brother, stanzas 5-6, etc., and The Hangman's Tree (Introduction, page xiv).

3, 2. Same as 5, 2.

3, 4. Win: won.

5, 4. Waddin' e'en: the eve of her wedding, as in 7, 6 the wedding (it is said) is to be the morn, i. e., the next day.

6, 4 (and 10, 4). Relative clause, "Who was to have been the bridegroom."

7, 5. Note the plural possessive here and in 13, 3 and compare note on bridal, The Gay Goshawk, 13, 2. The bride was the center of the feast, the person in whose honor all assembled, whom all therefore claimed.

8, 4. Horse: mount. Is there a double meaning in the line?

9, 2. Ee: eye; but why the brim of a goblet should be called an eye is not clear; perhaps from "spilling tears."

II, 1-2. A commonplace found in four other ballads and altogether in over twenty-five versions.

12, 2. An ye may: if you can.

13, 1. Other instances of this conventional number? Explain its use in 14, 3.

13, 3. The' wad: they would.

15, 1. Cadan bank. Caddon Bank is a difficult pass (and therefore easy to defend) on the upper Tweed, opposite Innerliethen and between Peebles and Galashiels.

15, 2. Brae: slope. Quite generally associated with bank, as here (compare Thomas Rymer, stanza 1), or in the alliterative phrase, "o'er bank and brae," "Ye banks and braes o' bonny Doon," etc.

15, 4. Tells what they made the piper play-quite in line with the last two stanzas. These are an English "squeal;" a Scotch taunt would be better.

17, 1. Version A has a racier line:

They hark ye up and settle ye by.

STUDY

Make a list of ballad characteristics. Do you find these characteristics in Scott's Lochinvar (page 158)?

Compare the story with that of The Douglas Tragedy. Do you see traces of the old tragic ending? Point out certain likenesses to the humorous ballads; to the Bonnie Lass of Anglesey.

BEWICK AND GRAHAM

Our tradition, according to Child, does not go back of certain stall copies of the early part of the eighteenth century. "There was no doubt an older and better copy. But it is a fine-spirited ballad

as it stands, and very infectious."

As an example of a broadside or stall copy title, like Lowell's "oldfashioned title-page which presents a tabular view of the volume's contents," we reprint the following.

"The Song of Bewick and Grahame: containing an account how the Lord Grahame met with Sir Robert Bewick in the town of