Transcriber’s Note:

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

THE
ENGLISH AND SCOTTISH
POPULAR BALLADS

EDITED BY

FRANCIS JAMES CHILD

IN FIVE VOLUMES

VOLUME IV

NEW YORK

DOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC.

This Dover edition, first published in 1965, is an unabridged and unaltered republication of the work originally published by Houghton, Mifflin and Company, as follows:

This edition also contains as an appendix to Part X an essay by Walter Morris Hart entitled “Professor Child and the Ballad,” reprinted in toto from Vol. XXI, No. 4, 1906 [New Series Vol. XIV, No. 4] of the Publications of the Modern Language Association of America.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 65–24347

Manufactured in the United States of America

Dover Publications, Inc.

180 Varick Street

New York, N.Y. 10014

ADVERTISEMENT TO PART VII
NUMBERS 189–225

I would acknowledge with particular gratitude the liberality of the Hon. Mrs Maxwell-Scott in allowing the examination and use of the rich store of ballads accumulated at Abbotsford by her immortal ancestor; and also that of Lord Rosebery in sending to Edinburgh for inspection the collection of rare Scottish broadsides formed by the late David Laing, and permitting me to print several articles.

The Rev. S. Baring-Gould has done me the great favor of furnishing me with copies of traditional ballads and songs taken down by him in the West of England.

I am much indebted to the Rev. W. Forbes-Leith for his good offices, and to Mr Macmath, as I have been all along, for help of every description.

F. J. C.

October, 1890.

ADVERTISEMENT TO PART VIII
NUMBERS 226–265

A considerable portion of this eighth number is devoted to texts from Abbotsford. Many of these were used by Sir Walter Scott in the compilation of the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border; many, again, not less important than the others, did not find a place in that collection. They are now printed either absolutely for the first time, or for the first time without variation from the form in which they were written. All of them, and others which were obtained in season for the Seventh Part, were transcribed with the most conscientious and vigilant care by Mr Macmath, who has also identified the handwriting, has searched the numerous volumes of letters addressed to Sir Walter Scott for information relating to the contributors and for dates, and has examined the humbler editions of printed ballads in the Abbotsford library; this without remitting other help.

Very cordial thanks are offered, for texts or information, or for both, to the Rev. S. Baring-Gould, the Rev. W. Forbes-Leith, Mr Andrew Lang, Dr George Birkbeck Hill, Mr P. Z. Round, Dr F. J. Furnivall, Mr James Barclay Murdoch, Dr Giuseppe Pitrè, of Palermo, Mr William Walker, of Aberdeen, Mr David MacRitchie, of Edinburgh, Mr James Gibb, of Joppa, Mr James Raine, of York, Rev. William Leslie Christie, of London, Mrs Mary Thomson, of Fochabers, and Mr George M. Richardson, late of Harvard College; for notes on Slavic popular literature, to Mr John Karłowicz, of Warsaw, and Professor Wilhelm Wollner; and for miscellaneous notes, to my colleague, Professor G. L. Kittredge.

So far as can be foreseen, one part more will bring this book to a close; it is therefore timely to say again that I shall be glad of any kind of assistance that will make it less imperfect, whether in the way of supplying omissions or of correcting errors, great or small.

F. J. C.

February, 1892.