VOL. III.

114. Johnie Cock.

P. 1. There is a ballad of ‘Bertram, the Bauld Archer’ in Pitcairn’s MSS, III, 51; printed in Maidment’s Scotish Ballads and Songs, 1859, p. 46. Pitcairn derived it from Mrs McCorquodale, Stirling, a farmer’s wife, who remembered it “to have been sung by her grandmother, a woman above eighty years old, who stated that she had it from an old woman, her aunt.” The reciter herself was above sixty-five, and had “first heard it when a little girl.” Nevertheless, Bertram is fustian, of a sort all too familiar in the last century. The story, excepting perhaps the first stanza, is put into the mouth of Bertram’s mistress, à la Gilderoy. The bauld archer has gone to the forest for to mak a robberie. The king has made proclamation that he will give five hunder merk for Bertram’s life. John o Shoumacnair (Stronmaknair, Maidment) proposes to his billies to kill Bertram and get the money. They busk themselves in hodden gray, ‘like to friers o low degree,’ present themselves to Bertram and ask a boon of him, which Bertram grants without inquiry. While they are parleying, Shoumacnair drives his dirk into Bertram’s back. But, though he swirls wi the straik, Bertram draws his awsome bran, kills ane, wounds twa, and then his stalwart, gallant soul takes its flight to heaven.

2b. Braid. “This version [‘Johnie of Braidisbank,’ I] was taken down by Motherwell and me from the recitation of Mr James Knox, land-surveyor at Tipperlinne, near Edinburgh, in the month of May, 1824, when we met him in the good town of Paisley. At 17 a tradition is mentioned which assigns Braid to have been the scene of this woeful hunting. Mr Knox is the authority for this tradition. Braid is in the neighborhood of Tipperlinne.” Note by Mr P. A. Ramsay in a copy of the Minstrelsy which had belonged to Motherwell. (W. Macmath.)

Wolves in Scotland. “It is usually said that the species was extirpated about 1680 by Sir Ewen Cameron of Lochiel, but the tradition to that effect appears to be true only of Sir Ewen’s own district of western Invernessshire.” The very last wolf may have been killed in 1743. R. Chambers, Domestic Annals of Scotland, III, 690.

7. F was made up from several copies, one of which was the following, ‘John o Cockielaw,’ in Scott’s youthful handwriting, inserted, as No 3, at the beginning of a MS. volume, in small folio, containing a number of prose pieces, and beginning with excerpts from Law’s Memorials. Abbotsford Library, L. 2.

Johnny got up in a May morning,

Calld for water to wash his hands:

‘Gar louse to me my good gray dogs

That are tied with iron bands.’

When Johnny’s mother got word o that,

For grief she has lain down:

‘O Johnny, for my benison,

I red you bide at hame!’

He’s putten on his black velvet,

Likewise his London brown,

And he’s awa to Durrisdeer,

To hunt the dun deer down.

Johnny shot, and the dun deer lap,

And he wounded her on the side;

Between the water and the brae,

There he laid her pride.

He’s taken out the liver o her,

And likewise sae the lungs,

And he has made a’ his dogs to feast

As they had been earl’s sons.

They eat sae much o the venison,

And drank sae much of the blood,

That they a’ then lay down and slept,

And slept as they had been dead.

And bye there cam a silly ald man,

And an ill death might he die!

And he’s awa to the seven forresters,

As fast as he can drie.

‘As I cam down by Merriemas,

And down aboon the scroggs,

The bonniest boy that ever I saw

Lay sleeping amang his doggs.

‘The shirt that was upon his back

Was of the holland fine,

The cravat that was about his neck

Was of the cambrick lawn.

‘The coat that was upon his back

Was of the London brown,

The doublet . . . .

Was of the Lincome twine.’

Out and spak the first forrester,

That was a forrester our them a’;

If this be John o Cockielaw,

Nae nearer him we’ll draw.

Then out and spak the sixth,

That was . forrester amang them a’;

If this is John o Cockielaw,

Nearer to him we’ll draw.

Johnny shot six of the forresters,

And wounded the seventh, we say,

And set him on a milk-white steed

To carry tidings away.

4⁴. Wi He there he (he written in place of another word). Wi He struck out.

6³. Originally, That they lay a’ them down.

7². Originally, And a silly ald man was he.

11². was hed. hed struck out.

116. Adam Bell, etc.

P. 18. The Tell story in The Braemar Highlands, by Elizabeth Taylor, Edinburgh, 1869, pp. 99–103, is a transparent plagiarism, as indeed the author of the book seems to be aware.

117. A Gest of Robyn Hode.

P. 40 ff. Thomas Robinhood is one of six witnesses to a grant in the 4th of Richard II. (June 22, 1380–June 21, 1381). See Historical MSS Commission, Fifth Report, Appendix, p. 511, col. 2. The pronunciation, Robinhood (p. 41 a, note †), is clearly seen in the jingle quoted by Nash, Strange Newes, 1593, Works, ed. Grosart, II, 230: “Ah, neighbourhood, neighbourhood, Dead and buried art thou with Robinhood.”

Among the disbursements of John Lord Howard, afterwards Duke of Norfolk, occurs the following: “And the same day, my Lord paide to Robard Hoode for viij. shafftys xvj. d.” (This is Friday, Sept. 26, 1483.) Household Books of John Duke of Norfolk and Thomas Earl of Surrey, temp. 1481–1490, ed. by J. P. Collier, 1844, Roxburghe Club, p. 464. Collier, p. 525, remarks that “the coincidence that the duke bought them of a person of the name of Robin Hood is singular.”

The Crosscombe Church-Wardens’ Accounts (in Church-Wardens’ Accounts of Croscombe, Pilton, Yatton, etc., ranging from 1349 to 1560, ed. by Right Rev. Bishop Hobhouse, Somerset Record Soc. Publications, IV, 1890):

“Comes Thomas Blower and John Hille, and presents in xl s. of Roben Hod’s recones.” 1476
7 (accounts for 147⅚), p. 4.

“Comys Robin Hode and presents in xxxiij s. iv d.” 148⅔ (for 148½), p. 10.

“Ric. Willes was Roben Hode, and presents in for yere past xxiij s.” 148¾ (for 148⅔), p. 11.

“Comys Robyn Hode, Wyllyam Wyndylsor, and presents in for the yere paste iij l. vj s. viij d. ob.” 1486
7 (for 148⅚), p. 14.

“Robyn Hode presents in xlvj s. viij. d.” 149⅘ (for 149¾), p. 20.

And so of later years.

A pasture called Robynhode Closse is mentioned in the Chamberlains’ Accounts of the town of Nottingham in 1485, 1486, and 1500: Records of the Borough of Nottingham, III, 64, 230, 254. A Robynhode Well near the same town is mentioned in a presentment at the sessions of July 20, 1500 (III, 74), and again in 1548 as Robyn’s Wood Well (IV, 441). Robin Hood’s Acre is mentioned in 162⅘ (IV, 441). Robbin-hoodes Wele is mentioned in Jack of Dover, his Quest of Inquirie, 1604, Hazlitt, Jest-Books, II, 315. (The above by G. L. K.)

49 b. Italian robber-songs. “Sulle piazze romane e napoletane ognuno ha potuto sentire ripetere i canti epici che celebrano le imprese di famosi banditi o prepotenti, Meo Pataca, Mastrilli, Frà Diavolo:” Cantù, Documenti alla Storia universale (1858), V, 891.

53 a. Note on 243–47. The same incident in The Jests of Scogin, Hazlitt’s Jest-Books, II, 151. (G. L. K.)

53 f., 519 a. See also the traditional story how Bishop Forbes, of Corse, lent his brother a thousand marks on the security of God Almighty, in The Scotsman’s Library, by James Mitchell, 1825, p. 576. (W. Macmath.)

121. Robin Hood and the Potter.

P. 108 a. Compare the Great-Russian bylinas about Il’ja of Murom and his son (daughter). Il’ja is captain of the march-keepers, Dobrynja second in command. No man, on foot or on horse, no bird or beast, undertakes to pass. But one day a young hero crosses, neither greeting nor paying toll. One of the guards, commonly Dobrynja, is sent after him, but comes back in a fright. Il’ja takes the matter in hand, has a fight with the young man, is worsted at first, but afterwards gets the better of him. Wollner, Volksepik der Grossrussen, p. 115. (W. W.)

141. Robin Hood rescuing Will Stutly.

P. 186. Stanzas 19, 20. The boon of being allowed to fight at odds, rather than be judicially executed, is of very common occurrence in South-Slavic songs, generally with the nuance that the hero asks to have the worst horse and the worst weapon. A well-known instance is the Servian song of Jurišić Janko, Karadžić, II, 319, No 52, and the older Croat song of Svilojević (treating the same matter), Bogišić, p. 120 No 46. (W. W.)

155. Sir Hugh, or, The Jew’s Daughter.

P. 241. For the subject in general, and particularly ‘el santo niño de la Guardia,’ see further H. C. Lea, in The English Historical Review, IV, 229, 1889.

242 b, fourth paragraph. See J. Loeb, Un mémoire de Laurent Ganganelli sur la calomnie du meurtre rituel, in Revue des Etudes juives, XVIII, 179 ff., 1889. (G. L. K.) For the other side: Il sangue cristiano nei riti ebraici della moderna sinagoga. Versione dal greco del Professore N. F. S. Prato, 1883. Henri Desportes, Le mystère du sang chez les Juifs de tous les temps. Paris, 1889.

246 b. E 5. The following stanza was inserted by Motherwell as a variation in a copy of his Minstrelsy afterwards acquired by Mr P. A. Ramsay:

She went down to the Jew’s garden,

Where the grass grows lang and green,

She pulled an apple aff the tree,

Wi a red cheek and a green,

She hung it on a gouden chain,

To wile that bonnie babe in.

249 ff. A version resembling H-M, O has been kindly communicated by Mr P. Z. Round.

S

Written down April, 1891, by Mrs W. H. Gill, of Sidcup, Kent, as recited to her in childhood by a maid-servant in London.

It rained so high, it rained so low,

. . . . . . .

In the Jew’s garden all below.

Out came a Jew,

All clothëd in green,

Saying, Come hither, come hither, my sweet little boy,

And fetch your ball again.

‘I won’t come hither, I shan’t come hither,

Without my school-fellows all;

My mother would beat me, my father would kill me,

And cause my blood to pour.

‘He showed me an apple as green as grass,

He showed me a gay gold ring,

He showed me a cherry as red as blood,

And that enticed me in.

‘He enticed me into the parlour,

He enticed me into the kitchen,

And there I saw my own dear sister,

A picking of a chicken.

‘He set me in a golden chair

And gave me sugar sweet;

He laid me on a dresser-board,

And stabbed me like a sheep.

‘With a Bible at my head,

A Testament at my feet,

A prayer-book at the side of me,

And a penknife in so deep.

‘If my mother should enquire for me,

Tell her I’m asleep;

Tell her I’m at heaven’s gate,

Where her and I shall meet.’

156. Queen Eleanor’s Confession.

Pp. 258 ff.