C

Communicated from memory by Dr Thomas Davidson as learned in Old Deer, Aberdeenshire.

1

Burd Ellen stands in her bower-door,

As straucht ‘s a hollan wand,

And by it comes the gairdner-lad,

Wi a red rose in his hand.

2

Says, I have shapen a weed for thee

Amang my simmer flowers;

. . . . . . .

. . . . . .

*      *      *      *      *      *

3

‘Gin ye hae shapen a weed for me,

Amang your simmer flowers,

It’s I’ll repay ye back again,

Amang the winter showers.

4

‘The steed that ye sall ride upon

Sall be o the frost sae snell,

And I’ll saddle him wi the norlan winds,

And some sharp showers o hail.’

*      *      *      *      *      *

A.

Kinloch has made changes in MSS, VII, 19, which appear in his printed copy.

C.

2. “He goes on to describe his weed, promising to array her in flowers more gorgeously than Solomon in all his glory.”

4. “She continues, after the same style.”

220
THE BONNY LASS OF ANGLESEY

A. ‘The Bonny Lass of Anglesey,’ Herd’s MSS, I, 148; Herd’s Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs, 1776, II, 231.

B. ‘The Bonny Lass o Englessie’s Dance,’ Buchan’s Ballads of the North of Scotland, II, 63.

This little ballad might perhaps rightfully have come in earlier, if I had known what to make of it. There is a resemblance, remarkable as far as it goes, to ‘Little Kirstin’s Dance,’ Grundtvig, V, 118, No 263. Here the dance is for a match; the lass asks what she is to have if she wins, and is promised fifteen (five) ploughs and a mill, and her choice of the king’s knights for a husband. In the Danish ballad (A), a king’s son, to induce Little Kirstin to dance before him, promises a succession of gifts, none of which avail until he plights his honor and troth. The remainder of the story is like the conclusion of ‘Gil Brenton,’ No 5: see especially I, 66. (Danish A is translated by Prior, III, 89, No 112.)

Kirstin tires out fifteen knights in Danish A 12, B 10, D 14 (in C 7 eleven); and a Kirstin tires out fifteen partners again in Grundtvig, No 126, F 32, No 245, A 16. In Norwegian versions of No 263, given by Grundtvig in an appendix, numbers are not specified; Kirstin in Norwegian A 6, D 18, tires out all the king’s knights.

Buchan quite frightens one by what he says of his version, II, 314: “It is altogether a political piece, and I do not wish to interfere much with it.”