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A Collection of Ballads-Part33_ANDREW LANG(1844-1912)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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far cry to Branxholme Hall. Borthwick Water, Goudilands (below



Branxholme), Commonside (a little farther up Teviot), Allanhaugh,

and the other places of the Scotts, were all easily "warned."



There are traces of a modern hand in this excellent ballad. The

topography is here corrected from MS. notes in a first edition of



the MINSTRELSY, in the library of Mr. Charles Grieve at Branxholme'

Park, a scion of "auld Jock Grieve" of the Coultart Cleugh. Names



linger long in pleasant Teviotdale.

THE DOUGLAS TRAGEDY



The ballad has Norse analogues, but is here localized on the

Douglas Burn, a tributary of Yarrow on the left bank. The St.



Mary's Kirk would be that now ruinous, on St. Mary's Loch, the

chapel burned by the Lady of Branxholme when she



"gathered a band

Of the best that would ride at her command,"



in the LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL. The ancient keep of Blackhouse on

Douglas Burn may have been the home of the heroine, if we are to



localize.

THE BONNY HIND



Herd got this tragicballad from a milkmaid, in 1771. Mr. Child

quotes a verse parallel, preserved in Faroe, and in the Icelandic.



There is a similar incident in the cycle of Kullervo, in the

Finnish KALEVALA. Scott says that similar tragedies are common in



Scotch popular poetry; such cases are "Lizzie Wan," and "The King's

Dochter, Lady Jean." A sorrow nearly as bitter occurs in the



French "Milk White Dove": a brother kills his sister,

metamorphosed into a white deer. "The Bridge of Death" (French)



seems to hint at something of the same kind; or rather the Editor

finds that he has arbitrarily read "The Bonny Hind" into "Le Pont



des Morts," in Puymaigre's CHANTS POPULAIRES DU PAYS MESSIN, p. 60.

(BALLADS AND LYRICS OF OLD FRANCE, p. 63)



YOUNG BEICHAN, OR YOUNG BICHAM

This is the original of the Cockney LOVING BALLAD OF LORD BATEMAN,



illustrated by Cruikshank, and by Thackeray. There is a vast

number of variants, evidence to the antiquity of the story. The



earliest known trace is in the familiar legend of the Saracen lady,

who sought and found her lover, Gilbert Becket, father of Thomas e



Becket, in London (see preface to LIFE OF BECKET, or Beket), Percy

Society, 1845. The date may be CIRC. 1300. The kind of story, the



loving daughter of the cruel captor, is as old as Medea and Jason,

and her search for her lover comes in such MARCHEN as "The Black



Bull o' Norraway." No story is more widely diffused (see A FAR

TRAVELLED TALE, in the Editor's CUSTOM AND MYTH). The appearance



of the "True Love," just at her lover's wedding, is common in the

MARCHEN of the world, and occurs in a Romaic ballad, as well as in



many from Northern Europe. The "local colour" - the Moor or

Saracen - is derived from Crusading times, perhaps. Motherwell



found the ballad recited with intervals of prose narrative, as in

AUCASSIN AND NICOLETTE. The notes to Cruikshank's LOVING BALLAD



are, obviously, by Thackeray.

THE BONNY HOUSE O' AIRLY



Lord Airly's houses were destroyed by Argyll, representing the

Covenanters, and also in pursuance of a private feud, in 1639, or



1640. There are erroneousversions of this ballad, in which

Lochiel appears, and the date is, apparently, transferred to 1745.



Montrose, in his early Covenanting days, was not actuallyconcerned

in the burning of the Bonnie House, which he, when a Royalist,



revenged on the possessions of "gleyed Argyll." The reference to

"Charlie" is out of keeping; no one, perhaps, ever called Charles



I. by that affectionate name. Lady Ogilvie had not the large

family attributed to her: her son, Lord Ogilvie, escaped from



prison in the Castle of St. Andrews, after Philiphaugh. A Lord

Ogilvie was out in 1745; and, later, had a regiment in the French



Service. Few families have a record so consistently loyal.

ROB ROY



The abductors of the widowed young heiress of Edenhelly were Rob's

sons, Robin Oig, who went through a form of marriage with the girl,



and James Mohr, a good soldier, but a double-dyed spy and

scoundrel. Robin Oig was hanged in 1753. James Mohr, a detected



traitor to Prince Charles, died miserably in Paris, in 1754.

Readers of Mr. Stevenson's CATRIONA know James well; information as



to his villanies is extant in Additional MSS. (British Museum).

This is probably the latest ballad in the collection. It occurs in



several variants, some of which, copied out by Burns, derive thence

a certain accidental interest. In Mr. Stevenson's CATRIONA, the






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