In the Hogg MS. (xviii., xix.), in Scott xvii., xviii., Douglas, at Otterburn, is roused from sleep by his page with news of Percy’s approach. Douglas says that the page lies (compare Herd, where Douglas doubts the page)—
For Percy hadna’ men yestreen
To dight my men and me.
There is nothing in this to surprise any one who knows the innumerable variants in traditional ballads. But now comes in a very curious variation (Hogg MS. xx., Scott, xix.). Douglas says (Hogg MS. xx.)—
But I have seen a dreary dream
Beyond the Isle o’ Skye,
I saw a dead man won the fight,
And I think that man was I.
Here is something not in Herd, and as remote from the manner of the English poet, with his
The Chronicle will not lie,
as Heine is remote from, say,—Milman. The verse is magical, it has haunted my memory since I was ten years old. Godscroft, who does not approve of the story of Douglas’s murder by one of his men, writes that the dying leader said:—
“First do yee keep my death both from our own folke and from the enemy” (Froissart, “Let neither friend nor foe know of my estate”); “then that ye suffer not my standard to be lost or cast downe” (Froissart, “Up with my standard and call Douglas!”;) “and last, that ye avenge my death” (also in Froissart). “Bury me at Melrose Abbey with my father. If I could hope for these things I should die with the greater contentment; for long since I heard a prophesie that a dead man should winne a field, and I hope in God it shall be I.” [75a]
I saw a dead man won the fight,
And I think that man was I!
Godscroft, up to the mention of Melrose and the prophecy, took his tale direct from Froissart, or, if he took it from George Buchanan’s Latin History, Buchanan’s source was Froissart, but Froissart’s was evidence from Scots who were in the battle.