America the Jew becomes "The Duke" in a version picked up by Mr.

Newells, from the recitation of a street boy in New York. The
daughter of a Jew is not more likely than the daughter of a duke to

have been concerned in the cruel and blasphemous imitation of the
horrors attributed by Horace to the witch Canidia. But some such

survivals of pagan sorcery did exist in the Middle Ages, under the
influence of "Satanism."

SON DAVIE
Motherwell's version. One of many ballads on fratricide,

instigated by the mother: or inquired into by her, as the case may
be. "Edward" is another example of this gloomy situation.

THE WIFE OF USHER'S WELL
Here

"The cock doth craw, the day doth daw,"
having a middle rhyme, can scarcely be of extremeantiquity.

Probably, in the original poem, the dead return to rebuke the
extreme grief of the Mother, but the poem is perhaps really more

affecting in the absence of a didactic motive. Scott obtained it
from an old woman in West Lothian. Probably the reading "fashes,"

(troubles), "in the flood" is correct, not "fishes," or "freshes."
The mother desires that the sea may never cease to be troubled till

her sons return (verse 4, line 2). The peculiar doom of women dead
in child-bearing occurs even in Aztec mythology.

THE TWA CORBIES
From the third volume of BORDER MINSTRELSY, derived by Charles

Kirkpatrick Sharpe from a traditionalversion. The English
version, "Three Ravens," was published in MELISMATA, by T.

Ravensworth (1611). In Scots, the lady "has ta'en another mate"
his hawk and hound have deserted the dead knight. In the English

song, the hounds watch by him, the hawks keep off carrion birds, as
for the lady -

"She buried him before the prime,
She was dead herselfe ere evensong time."

Probably the English is the earlier version.
THE BONNIE EARL OF MURRAY

Huntly had a commission to apprehend the Earl, who was in the
disgrace of James VI. Huntly, as an ally of Bothwell, asked him to

surrender at Donibristle, in Fife; he would not yield to his
private enemy, the house was burned, and Murray was slain, Huntly

gashing his face. "You have spoiled a better face than your own,"
said the dying Earl (1592). James Melville mentions contemporary

ballads on the murder. Ramsay published the ballad in his TEA
TABLE MISCELLANY, and it is often sung to this day.

CLERK SAUNDERS
First known as published in BORDER MINSTRELSY (1802). The

apparition of the lover is borrowed from "Sweet Willie's Ghost."
The evasions practised by the lady, and the austerities vowed by

her have many Norse, French, and Spanish parallels in folk-poetry.
Scott's version is "made up" from several sources, but is, in any

case, verse most satisfactory as poetry.
WALY, WALY

From Ramsay's TEA TABLE MISCELLANY, a curiously composite gathering
of verses. There is a verse, obviously a variant, in a sixteenth

century song, cited by Leyden. St. Anthon's Well is on a hill
slope of Arthur's Seat, near Holyrood. Here Jeanie Deans trysted

with her sister's seducer, in THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN. The Cairn
of Nichol Mushat, the wife-murderer, is not far off. The ruins of

Anthony's Chapel are still extant.
LOVE GREGOR

There are French and Romaic variants of this ballad. "Lochroyal,"
where the ballad is localized, is in Wigtownshire, but the

localization varies. The "tokens" are as old as the Return of
Odysseus, in the ODYSSEY, his token is the singularconstruction of

his bridal bed, attached by him to a living tree-trunk. A similar
legend occurs in Chinese. See Gerland's ALT-GIECHISCHE MARCHEN.

THE QUEEN'S MARIE - MARY HAMILTON
A made-up copy from Scott's edition of 1833. This ballad has

caused a great deal of controversy. Queen Mary had no Mary
Hamilton among her Four Maries. No Marie was executed for child-

murder. But we know, from Knox, that ballads were recited against
the Maries, and that one of the Mary's chamberwomen was hanged,

with her lover, a pottinger, or apothecary, for getting rid of her
infant. These last facts were certainly quite basis enough for a

ballad, the ballad echoing, not history, but rumour, and rumour
adapted to the popular taste. Thus the ballad might have passed

unchallenged, as a survival, more or less modified in time, of
Queen Mary's period. But in 1719 a Mary Hamilton, a Maid of

Honour, of Scottish descent, was executed in Russia, for
infanticide. Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe conceived that this affair

was the origin of the ballad, and is followed by Mr. Child.
We reply (1) The ballad has almost the largest number of variants

on record. This is a proof of antiquity. Variants so many,
differing in all sorts of points, could not have arisen between

1719, and the age of Burns, who quotes the poem.
(2) This is especially improbable, because, in 1719, the old vein

of balladpoetry had run dry, popular song had chosen other forms,
and no literary imitator could have written Mary Hamilton in 1719.

(3) There is no example of a popular ballad in which a
contemporary event, interesting just because it is contemporary, is

thrown back into a remote age.
(4) The name, Mary Hamilton, is often NOT given to the heroine in

variants of the ballad. She is of several names and ranks in the
variants.

(5) As Mr. Child himself remarked, the "pottinger" of the real
story of Queen Mary's time occurs in one variant. There was no

"pottinger" in the Russian affair.
All these arguments, to which others might be added, seem fatal to

the late date and modern origin of the ballad, and Mr. Child's own
faith in the hypothesis was shaken, if not overthrown.

KINMONT WILLIE
From THE BORDER MINSTRELSY. The account in Satchells has either

been based on the ballad, or the ballad is based on Satchells.
After a meeting, on the Border of Salkeld of Corby, and Scott of

Haining, Kinmont Willie was seized by the English as he rode home
from the tryst. Being "wanted," he was lodged in Carlisle Castle,

and this was a breach of the day's truce. Buccleugh, as warder,
tried to obtain Willie's release by peaceful means. These failing,

Buccleugh did what the ballad reports, April 13, 1596. Harden and
Goudilands were with Buccleugh, being his neighbours near

Branxholme. Dicky of Dryhope, with others, Armstrongs, was also
true to the call of duty. A few verses in the ballad are clearly

by AUT GUALTERUS AUT DIABOLUS, and none the worse for that.
Salkeld, of course, was not really slain; and, if the men were

"left for dead," probably they were not long in that debatable
condition. In the rising of 1745 Prince Charlie's men forded Eden

as boldly as Buccleuch, the Prince saving a drowning Highlander
with his own hand.

JAMIE TELFER
Scott, for once, was wrong in his localities. The Dodhead of the

poem is NOT that near Singlee, in Ettrick, but a place of the same
name, near Skelfhill, on the southern side of Teviot, within three

miles of Stobs, where Telfer vainly seeks help from Elliot. The
other Dodhead is at a great distance from Stobs, up Borthwick

Water, over the tableland, past Clearburn Loch and Buccleugh, and
so down Ettrick, past Tushielaw. The Catslockhill is not that on

Yarrow, near Ladhope, but another near Branxholme, whence it is no