FOOTNOTES:

[103] That the four copies of a are transcripts from writing, and not from oral recitation, will be obvious when we observe their correspondence. The first thirty stanzas of a, b, have the same lines in the same order, and with an approach to verbal agreement. There is not so close a concurrence after 30, but still a virtual concurrence, excepting that b inserts sixteen lines between 52 and 53 which the other copies lack. c has throughout the same lines as a, in the same order (with verbal differences), excepting that c introduces two lines after 50⁴ (which are a repetition, with corruption, of 8^1,2), and that a repeats 43 at 60, which c does not. d has only a few verbal variations from c.

[104] Plummer’s letter follows the ballad in the second volume, but is not given in the first.

[105] Rather 1708. Sir James Murray was appointed an ordinary Lord of Session October 28, 1689, and took his seat as Lord Philiphaugh November 1. In 1702 he was appointed Lord Clerk Register, and this place he held, except a short interval, till his death, July 1, 1708. (T. Craig-Brown, History of Selkirkshire, II, 345 f.)

[106] I mean Soldan Turk, c 22³, for Soudron, a, b, d, and Soldanie, c 33², for Soudronie, Southronie, a, b. (Soudan Turk, also B 26³, Souden Turk, C 3³, 5³.) Nothing is easier than the corruption of Soudron into Soudan, upon which change the addition of Turk would be all but inevitable. The corruption would be likely to be made by one who had heard of an irruption of Saracens (or, if you please, Moors) into Galloway. (See note, p. 190.) The winning of Ettrick Forest by and from the Southron is historical, and this pretends to be an historical poem.

[107] “The feud betwixt the Outlaw and the Scots may serve to explain the asperity with which the chieftain of that clan is handled in the ballad.” Were it not for these words in Scott’s preface, I should have been inclined to think that this humorous episode came from the hand of the editor of ‘Kinmont Willie.’ It is quite in Scott’s way, and also in contrast with the tone of the rest of the narrative. If the author of the ballad was capable of this smartness, he ought to have been aware that the Outlaw (not to say the king), after all his bluster, cuts a ridiculously tame figure in the conclusion. I now observe that the line ‘Wi fire and sword we’ll follow thee’ is in A a, 52², and nearly the same in c; which suggests that something may have been lost in the MS.

[108] A 22^3,4 might be a reminiscence of ‘Johnie Armstrong,’ C 27^3,4, III, 371. C 3^3,4 (from recitation) agrees strikingly with the stanza cited III, 363, note *; but this fact is of not the least importance. Mr Macmath notes that A a 1³, ‘The hart, the hynd, the dae, the rac,’ occurs in Alexander Montgomerie’s Cherrie and the Slae, Edinburgh, 1597.

[109] Mr David MacRitchie, in his very interesting Ancient and Modern Britons, a book full of novel matter and views, accepts the ballad as “partly true,” apparently to the extent “that this ‘outlaw’ was as yet an actual, independent king, and that modern Selkirkshire was not a part of Scotland:” and this whether the king of Scotland was James IV or an earlier monarch, II, 136-139. This is pitting the ballad against history.

[110] Craig-Brown, II, 336-338.

[111] History of Selkirkshire, II, 355-357; see also p. 338.

[112] An account varying as to the place where the Outlaw was slain specifies Scott of Haining as the author of his death. John Murray, the Sheriff, was killed in 1510, and Andrew Ker and Thomas Scot were charged with the act, traditionally put to the account of Buccleuch and his clan, and, in particular, of Scott of Haining. (Craig-Brown, II, 338.)

[113] See Mr MacRitchie’s Ancient and Modern Britons, I, 156 ff., 136 ff., for these monsters, often described as black, in which sense, it is maintained, Murray (Morrow, Moor) is frequently to be understood.

[114] More of this Murray in Historical and Traditional Tales, Kirkcudbright, 1843, p. 112.

[115] “Sometimes it [the crest] represents some valiant act done by the bearer; thus McClelland of Bombie did, and now Lord Kirkcudbright does, bear a naked arm supporting on the point of a sword a More’s head, because, Bombie being forfeited, his son killed a More who came in with some Sarazens to infest Galloway, to the killer of whom the king had promised the forfeiture of Bombie, and thereupon he was restored to his father’s land.” Sir George Mackenzie, The Science of Herauldry, 1680, p. 90. (This reference and those to Mactaggart and the Kirkcudbright Tales were given me by Mr W. Macmath in 1883.)

[116] That it was not originally intended to insert ‘The Outlaw Murray’ in this collection will be apparent from the position which it occupies. I am convinced that it did not begin its existence as a popular ballad, and I am not convinced that (as Scott asserts) “it has been for ages a popular song in Selkirkshire.” But the “song” gained a place in oral tradition, as we see from B, C, and I prefer to err by including rather than by excluding.