L
Macmath MS., p. 72, communicated January 13, 1883, by Dr Robert Trotter, as remembered from the recitation of his father, Dr Robert Trotter, of Dalry, Kirkcudbrightshire.
1
They askëd him and speirëd him,
And unto him did say,
‘O saw ye ocht o an armed band,
As ye cam on your way?’
2
He jested them and jeerëd them,
And thus to them did say,
‘O I saw nocht but a fairy troop,
As I rode on my way.’
A.
a.
The second copy has some different spellings, and drops the second the in 111. 3, 5 are 5, 3 in both. Sense requires the change: cf. also F 5, H 5, I 4.
b.
14. to many. 3==the MS. 3. 44. All mounted.
B.
The first copy is written in long lines (two to a stanza); neither is divided into stanzas. There are differences of spelling. 31, 53, fere seems to be meant for fair: cf. C 53. 44. At her, both: cf. E 7, G 4, H 8. 52. Both copies have doom. 52, 154. First, behold, garned, in my copy, probably by error. Second, beheld, gard.
The second copy has these variations. 23. got the. 31, 53. fere wanting. 151. thing wanting. 161. that are.
The first edition of the ballad in Scott’s Minstrelsy is made up as follows (it being remembered that the editor did not profess or practice a servile fidelity in the treatment of his materials): B 1–6; B 10, A 7; A 8, B 11; A 9; B 12; B 13 (but mostly Scott’s); A 11, B 14; B 15; B 16; A 13.
12 of these 15 stanzas are repeated in the later edition; the new stanzas in that copy are 1–5, 14–16, 20. These are substantially C 1–5, 12–14, 16.
Some variations will be noticed under C.
C.
O, the tag to the second and fourth lines, is not written in 2, 4, 162, 174.
12. into written over up.
24. Weel in the margin against A’.
32. rest struck out before lave.
41. Up struck out before Out. Faughan Wood, here and 71; in 121, Faughan Wood.
71. Up the then.
91. gude struck out before red, and red written over.
151. Originally down by; down struck out.
152. Originally in by; in struck out. These last two changes, and others, seem to be editorial.
1–5, 12–14, 16, with variations, are 1–5, 14–16, 20 of the later edition of the ballad in Scott’s Minstrelsy. Slight alterations, such as Scott was accustomed to make, do not require notice.
Scott, 31,2. He told na in the Minstrelsy: almost certainly an arbitrary change, and not a good one, since it makes the hardship to Lauderdale the less.
41. Lochinvar (also in 141) for Lord Faughanwood; introduced from D.
152. clad in the Johnstone grey: for which no authority is known.
163. Leader lads for ladies gay: probably a conjectural emendation.
204. For fear of sic disorder: presumably a change for rhyme, disorder suggested by 24.
D.
91. 24.
121. It’s is of later insertion, perhaps editorial.
141. I came not here: obscured in the process of binding.
20. This must be a mixture of two stanzas. The third line has no sense, and is not much improved by reading temper good, as in C 171.
E.
Written mostly in long lines, without separation of stanzas, sometimes without a proper separation of verses. The division here made is partly conjectural.
21. She courted him.
34. entreid or entried: indistinct.
6, 71,2.
His father an his mother came they came a
but he came no
It was a foul play Lochinvar
As his comrades sat drinkine at the wine
73. ... on.
132. Lodged for Loved.
163. Gae man glass me your.
172,3.
between them tva man
Man I see, etc.
F.
231. We have had a similar verse in the north-Scottish version of ‘Hugh Spencer,’ No 158, C 11: O bridles brak and great horse lap.
H.
114. It was awful foul foul play. Awful was probably a misunderstanding of a foul.
I.
83. Lank-a-Shires.
143. He is written over And.
151. bank, the original reading, is changed to heuch.
J.
121. Oh.
154. go is written over ride. Motherwell made two slight changes in his printed copy.
K.
14. my mony.
21. Loch-in-var; and always.
31. South sea bank.
71. the South sea bank.
103. For for Where: probably a misprint, perhaps a preservation of the northern f for wh.
133. the brigs broken, wrongly repeated.
162. When we, preserved from 122.
233. Englishman.
L.
“The story of the ballad was that Lochinvar went to Netherby with a band of men dressed in green, whom he concealed near the tower, and with whose assistance he forcibly abducted the young lady.”
222
BONNY BABY LIVINGSTON
A. ‘Bonny Baby Livingston.’ a. Jamieson-Brown MS. b. Jamieson’s Popular Ballads, II, 135.
B. ‘Barbara Livingston,’ Buchan’s MSS, I, 77.
C. Motherwell’s MS., p. 375; ‘Barbara Livingston,’ Motherwell’s Minstrelsy, p. 304.
D. ‘Annie Livingston,’ Campbell MSS, II, 254.
E. ‘Baby Livingstone,’ Kinloch MSS, V, 355.
Mrs Brown was not satisfied with A b, which Jamieson had taken down from her mouth, and after a short time she sent him A a. The verbal differences are considerable. We need not suppose that Mrs Brown had heard two “sets” or “ways,” of which she blended the readings; the fact seems to be that, at the time when she recited to Jamieson, she was not in good condition to remember accurately.
A a. Glenlion carries off Barbara Livingston from Dundee and takes her to the Highlands. She is in a stupor of grief. Glenlion folds her in his arms, and says that he would give all his flocks and herds for a kind look. She tells him that he shall never get look or smile unless he takes her back to Dundee; and he her that she shall never see Dundee till he has married her. His brother John tries to dissuade him; he himself would scorn a hand without a heart; but Glenlion has long loved her, and is resolved to keep her, nevertheless. Glenlion’s three sisters receive Baby kindly, and the youngest begs her to disclose the cause of her grief. Baby tells the sympathetic Jean that she has been stolen from her friends and from her lover, and obtains not only the means of writing a letter to Johny Hay, the lover, but a swift-footed boy to carry it to Dundee. Johny Hay, with a band of armed men, makes all speed to Glenlion’s castle. He calls to Baby to jump, and he will catch her; she, more prudently, slips down on her sheets; her lover takes her on his horse and rides away. Glenlion hears the ring of a bridle and thinks it is the priest come to marry him. His brother corrects the mistake; there are armed men at the castle-gate, and it turns out that there are enough of them to deter Glenlion’s Highlanders from an attack. So Johny Hay conveys Baby Livingstone safely back to Dundee.
The other versions give the story a tragical catastrophe. In B, Barbara is forced into Glenlion’s bed. Afterwards she exclaims that if she had paper and pen she would write to her lover in Dundee. No difficulty seems to be made; she writes her letter, and sends it by the ever-ready boy. Geordie, lying in a window, sees the boy, asks for news, and is told that his love is stolen by Glenlion. He orders his horse, in fact three horses, and also a mourning hat and cloak; but though he tires out all three horses, his love is dead before he reaches Glenlion. This copy is pieced out with all sorts of commonplaces from other ballads: see 9 (which is nonsense), 10, 13, 14, 19, 21, 23, 25, 27, 29, 30.
C is a briefer, that is, an unfarced, form of B. Glenlion is corrupted to Linlyon.
D has its commonplaces again. For Barbara we have Annie, and Glendinning for Glenlion, and a brother Jemmy instead of a lover. In E the ravisher is Lochell.
Dr Joseph Robertson in his Adversaria, MS., p. 87, gives these two lines of ‘Baby Livingston:’
O bony Baby Livingston
Was playin at the ba.[[122]]
The kidnapping of women for a compulsory marriage was a practice which prevailed for hundreds of years, and down to a late date, and, of course, not only in Great Britain. The unprotected female, especially if she had any property, must have been in a state of miserable insecurity, and even a convent was far from furnishing her an asylum. See for England, in the first half of the fifteenth century, Beamont’s Annals of the Lords of Warrington, pp. 256–61 and 265 f.; for Scotland, in the same century and the two following, Sharpe’s Ballad Book, p. 99 ff., R. Chambers’s Domestic Annals of Scotland, 1858, I, 223–5, 415 f.; for Ireland, Froude, The English in Ireland in the Eighteenth Century, 1872, I, 417 ff. Other Scottish ballads celebrating similar abductions are ‘Eppie Morrie,’ ‘The Lady of Arngosk,’ and ‘Rob Roy,’ which immediately follow.[[123]]
A b is translated by Grundtvig, Engelske og skotske Folkeviser, p. 126, No 18.