Gae seek your succour frae Martin Elliot,
For succour ye’s get nane frae me,
Gae seek your succour where ye paid blackmail,
For, man, ye ne’er paid money to me.
This is impossibly absurd! As Colonel Elliot writes, “I pointed out in my book” (The Trustworthiness of Border Ballads) “that the allegation that Buccleuch had refused to strike a blow at a party of English raiders, who had insolently ridden some twenty-five miles into Scottish ground and into the very middle of his own territory, was too absurd to be believed . . . ” [91a]
Certainly; and the story is the more ridiculous as Buccleuch (who has taken Telfer’s protection-money, or “blackmail”) pretends to believe that Telfer—living in Ettrick, about nine miles from Selkirk—pays protection-money to Martin Elliot, residing at Preakinhaugh, high up the water of Liddel. Martin was too small a potentate, and far too remote to be chosen as protector by a man living near the farm of Singlee on Ettrick, and near the bold Buccleuch.
All this is nonsense. Colonel Elliot sees that, and suggests that all this is not by the original poet, but has been “inserted at some later period.” [91b] But, if so, what was the original ballad before the insertion? As it stands, all hinges on this impossible refusal of Buccleuch to help his neighbour and retainer, James Telfer. If Colonel Elliot excises Buccleuch’s refusal of aid as a later interpolation, and if he allows Telfer to reach Branksome and receive the aid which Buccleuch would rejoice to give, then the Elliot version of the ballad cannot take a further step. It becomes a Scott ballad, Buccleuch sends out his Scotts to pursue the English raiders, and the Elliots, if they come in at all, must only be subordinates. But as the Elliot version stands, it is Buccleuch’s refusal to do his duty that compels poor Jamie to run to his brother-in-law, “auld Jock Grieve” in Coultartcleugh, four miles higher on Teviot than Branksome. Jock gives him a mount, and he rides to “Martin’s Hab” at “Catlockhill,” a place unknown to research thereabout. Thence they both ride to Martin Elliot at Preakinhaugh, high up in Liddesdale, and the Elliots under Martin rescue Jamie’s kye.
Now the original ballad, if it did not contain Buccleuch’s refusal of aid to Telfer (which refusal is a thing “too absurd to be believed”) must merely have told about the rescue of Jamie’s kye by the Scotts, Wat of Harden, and the rest. If Buccleuch did not refuse help he gave it, and there was no ride by Telfer to Martin Elliot. Therefore, without a passage “too absurd to be believed” (Buccleuch’s refusal), there could be no Elliots in the story. The alternative is, that Telfer in Ettrick did pay blackmail to a man so remote as Elliot of Preakinhaugh, though Buccleuch was his chief and his neighbour. This is absurd. Yet Colonel Elliot firmly maintains that the version, in which the Elliots have all the glory and Buccleuch all the shame, is the original version, and is true on essential points.
That is only possible if we cut out the verses about Buccleuch and make an Ettrick man not appeal to him, but go direct to a Liddesdale man for succour. He must run from Dodhead to Coultartcleugh, get a horse from Jock Grieve (Buccleuch’s man and tenant), and then ride into Liddesdale to Martin. But an Ettrick man, in a country of Scotts, would inevitably go to his chief and neighbour, Buccleuch: it is inconceivable that he should choose the remote Martin Elliot as his protector, and go to him.
Thus, as a corollary from Colonel Elliot’s own disbelief in the Buccleuch incident, the Elliot version of the ballad must be absolutely false and foolish.
If Colonel Elliot leaves in the verses on Buccleuch’s refusal, he leaves in what he calls “too absurd to be believed.” If he cuts out these verses as an interpolation, then Buccleuch lent aid to Telfer, and there was no occasion to approach Martin Elliot. Or, by a third course, the Elliot ballad originally made an Ettrick man, a neighbour of the great Buccleuch, never dream of appealing to him for help, but run to Coultartcleugh, four miles above Buccleuch’s house, and thence make his way over to distant Liddesdale to Martin Elliot! Yet Colonel Elliot says that in what I call “the Elliot version,” “the story defies criticism.” [93a] Now, however you take it,—I give you three choices,—the story is absolutely impossible.
This Elliot version was unknown to lovers of the ballads, till the late Professor Child of Harvard, the greatest master of British ballad-lore that ever lived, in his beautiful English and Scottish Popular Ballads, printed it from a manuscript belonging to Mr. Macmath, which had previously been the property of a friend of Scott, Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe. This version is entitled “Jamie Telfer in the Fair Dodhead,” not “of”: Jamie was a tenant (there was no Jamie Telfer tenant of Dodhead in 1570–1609, but concerning that I have more to say). Jamie was no laird.
Before Professor Child’s publication of the Elliot version, we had only that given by Scott in The Border Minstrelsy of 1802. Now Scott’s version is at least as absurdly incredible as the Elliot version. In Scott’s version the unhappy Jamie runs, not to Branksome and Buccleuch, to meet a refusal; but to “the Stobs’s Ha’”(on Slitterick above Hawick) and to “auld Gibby Elliot,” the laird. Elliot bids him go to Branksome and the laird of Buccleuch,