The Balladists

bout the L

uirmen win

Douglas boun

nd, to dri

le of Ot

of the Cheviots and the islands of the West, or that have drifted thither with the tide of later inroads. Nor will he greatly protest when the literary historian assures him that the plots and incidents in the popular old rhymes of the frenzies and parlous adventures of love have been borrowed or adapted from the metrical

nated by the sense of locality-is more expressive of the manners of the time and mood of the race-than those rough Border lays of moonlight rides, on reiving or on rescue bound, and of death fronted boldly in the press of spears or 'behind the bracken bush.' These are not tales of the infancy of a people. Scotland had already attained to something of national unity of blood and of sentiment before they came to birth. For generations and

t always the events that are most noised in the history-book that are best remembered in the ballads. The old singers and their audiences delighted more in personal episode than in filling a big canvas; their genius was dramatic rather than epic. Hardyknut, with its commemoration of the battle of Largs and the Northmen, although accepted by the literati of the early Georgian era as a genuine 'antique,' has long been proved to be an imitative production of Lady Wardlaw's. The rhyme which the Scottish maidens sang about Bannockburn is lost. The Wallace group

reserved names and incidents which the duller pen of history has forgotten or overlooked. The breath of poetry passes over the Valley of Bones of the national annals, and each knight stands up in his place, a breathing man

ent note and fibre from the minstrels of the Border-may be said to have ended the struggle for the mastery between Highlands and Lowlands. From thence onward through the age of ballad-making, there were spreaghs and feuds enow upon and within the Highland Line. But, until the time when Jacobitism came to give change of theme and bent, along with change of scene, to the spirit of Scottish romance, none of these local bloodlettings sufficed to inspire a ballad of more than local fame; unless indeed the story dr

Ballads. We suspect that woman's guile and treachery are at w

my baul

n back

ads o' Dr

ving th

of it, when the m

grief in

th in t

Baron o'

d and

d work of the Gordons on which our thoughts are fixed; it is not e

ut on, my

as ye

's hindmos

r get goo

d not her lord or the 'gleyed Argyll,' is central figure of the tale

ng. They may have given the hint of a toom larder by serving a dish of spurs on the board. They will be the first to welcome home the warden's men or the moss-troopers if they return with full hands, or to rally them if they have brought nothing back but broken heads. But keeping or breaking the peace on the Borders is a man's part; and only men mingle in it. Both sides are too accustomed to surprises, and have too many strong fortalices and friends at hand, to give the foe the chance of 'lifting' whole families as well as their gear and cattle. The last thing one looks for, then, in the moss-trooping balla

r folk had

pallions t

down the o

breasting o

Forster as

n hundred m

t and mowes,' turned to the exchange of such 'reasons rude' between Tyndale and Jed Forest, as flights of

h proud men

must ye fig

o answer

beast and l

raised the question of

ade them spea

o cause for

nswering hi

eckon kin

raxed him wh

match him wi'

heard these

off a fligh

age, tempered with a dash of Scots caution, of the Bauld Buccleuch when he heard that his unruly countryman had been taken 'against the truce of border tide' by the 'fause Sakelde and the keen Lord Scroope'; his device for a rescue that while it would set the Kinmont free, would 'neither harm English lad nor lass,' or break the peace between the countries; the keen questionings and adroit replies that passed, like thrust and parry, between the divided bands of the warden's men and Sakelde himself, who met

knees and hel

the ladders a

dy was Bucc

he first b

he watchman b

im down upo

been peace be

er side thou

ellows' in the Debateable Land he was never to see again. But in an instant, at the hail and sight of his friends, the fearless humour of the Border rider comes back to him; mounted, irons and all, on the should

r high, with

down the l

tride Red

mont's airns

me," quo' Ki

a horse bait

er beast th

gs have ne'e

arlisle streaming behind in chase, and the bold plunge of the fugitives into the spa

r himsel' a d

mither a w

ve ridden t

gowd in Chr

town and Langholm, used to relate, half a century afterwards, how Buccleuch impatiently thrust his spear through the window to arouse her father and rid Armstrong's legs from their 'cumbrous spurs,' and remembered seeing the rough ride

le

ly, and very

rder freebooters, before the freebooter became merged in the vulgar thie

freebooter doth li

cavalier who ventu

James the Sixth

een no caus

ath transgres

alier, bu

field read almost like variants of Kinmont Willie. Their heroes, too, are 'notour lymours and thieves,' living on or near the margin of the Debateable Land;

thief did

ever

brek

uir an

de and

of Nith, instead of Eden, they send their jeers and challenges back at the discomfited English pursuers. The old balladists may have mixed up places, names, and incidents in their memories, as they were rather wont to do, and laid skaith or credit at the wrong doors. But while their poetic and dramatic merit may vary, the spirit of the very baldest of these ancient songs is irresistible. The Border reiver may play a foul trick in the game; the Armstrongs, for instance, requited scurvily the services of Hobbie N

hee well, swe

again I wi

betrayed n

gowd in Chr

,' played a spring and danced to it beneath the gallows-tree at Banff, crying out the while against 't

n England and in Scotland both.' But they robbed and slew, when it was possible, with patriotic discrimination. In Johnie Armstrong and The Sang o' the Outlaw Murray the heroes take credit for their 'honesty' and for their services to their country. The former boasts that 'never a Scots wife could have said that e'er I skaithed her ae puir flee'; and the other that he had

had, in jest or earnest, defied the authority of his patron, King James IV.; perhaps he was even the writer of the ballad. This is a pretty strong order on our faith; although it must be confessed that there is a singular mixture, in this fine old lay, of information on architec

phaugh is mi

ope still m

shiels, and

arrow pur

native st

y name I d

gshaw and

ir in the F

d the six-and-thirty Armstrongs and Elliots in his train, ran their horses through Langholm howm in their haste to welcome their 'lawful king.' This expedition of 1529 has left its mark on ballad poetry as well as history; through the hanging of Cockburn of Henderland it gave occasion for the Lament of the Border Widow. But no incident in it made deeper impression on the popular memory-none seems to have caused more sorrow and

eis hangit

ver to be

of the balladists, the

heart was

mony brav

its account of the interview between the king and his troublesome subject, follows pretty closely the narrative of Pitscottie. 'What wants that knave that a king should have?' was the of

t water bene

is a gre

grace at a gr

nane for my

ed him to make a summary end of the Armstrongs; and he had not the biting answer ready which his father is said to have given to the '

tongue, Sir

of reif

ry honest m

clan thy na

deed than the Scotts-witness, Kinmont Willie; witness also, Jamie Telfer o' the Fair Dodhead. When Jamie ran hot-foot to

ght left in th

g wife and ba

start up like an

he water, br

t soon and

nna ride for

r look on the

y; and we have the fine picture of Auld Wat of Harden, the husband of the 'Flower of Yarrow,' and a forebear of the a

'en aff his g

e 's waved i

snaw was ne

t locks of Ha

raiders to men in such mood to take

am' to the F

welcome si

of his ain t

as gotten thir

duced in after-times warriors, statesmen, and even poets of note. Gavin Douglas places Maitland, with the 'auld beird grey,' among the legendary inmates of his 'Palace of Honour'; and Scott identifies him as a Sir Richard de Mautlant who, in the latter half of the thirteenth century, and probabl

d on the ban

their fir

he Merse an

an even

red up o'er

d baith up

ame to a dar

l it Lau

yme known for many centuries in Scotland as The Battle of Otterburn, and the English Chevy Chase are versions, from opposite sides, of one event-a skirmish fought in the autumn of 1388 on Rede Water, between a band of Scots, under James, Earl of Douglas, returning home laden with spoil, and a body of English, led by Hotspur, the son of the Earl of Northumberland, in which Douglas was slain and young Harry Percy taken prisoner. It were as hard to decide between the merits of these famous old lays as to award the prize for prowess between the respective champions. But it may b

h and Scottish ballads have exchanged phrases and even verses, as the

y wi' the

ey were

eir swords till

od ran doon

tish eyes, can surpass the simple majesty and pathos of the last words of Douglas-words that sound all the sadd

good," the D

ks the de

dreamed a d

the day

deep, I fai

he vanward

e by the b

s upon th

by the br

he bloomi

living m

Scot li

st note in these words; they will stand, like Tantallon, proof against t