A stock ballad-locality, castle or town. Perhaps to be identified with the city of Lincoln, perhaps with Lynn, or King’s Lynn, in Norfolk, where pilgrims of the fourteenth century visited the Rood Chapel of Our Lady of Lynn, on their way to Walsingham; with equal probability it is not to be identified at all with any known town.
‘shot-window,’ Gay Goshawk, 8.3; Brown Robin, 3.3; Lamkin, 7.3; etc.
This commonplace phrase seems to vary in meaning. It may be ‘a shutter of timber with a few inches of glass above it’ (Wodrow’s History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1721-2, 2 vols., in vol. ii. p. 286); it may be simply ‘a window to open and shut,’ as Ritson explains it; or again, as is implied in Jamieson’s Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, an out-shot window, or bow-window. The last certainly seems to be intended in certain instances.
‘thought lang’ Young Bekie, 16.4; Brown Adam, 5.2; Johney Scot, 6.2; Fause Footrage, 25.2; etc.
This simply means ‘thought it long,’ or ‘thought it slow,’ as we should say in modern slang; in short, ‘was bored,’ or ‘weary.’
‘wild-wood swine,’ a simile for drunkenness, Brown Robin, 7.4; Fause Footrage, 16.4.
Cp. Shakespeare, All’s Well that Ends Well, Act IV. 3, 286: ‘Drunkenness is his best virtue; for he will be swine-drunk.’ It seems to be nothing more than a popular comparison.