God send her well to speede!
JOHNEY SCOT
The Text of this popular and excellent ballad is given from the Jamieson-Brown MS. It was copied, with wilful alterations, into Scott’s Abbotsford MS. called Scottish Songs. Professor Child prints sixteen variants of the ballad, nearly all from manuscripts.
The Story of the duel with the Italian is given with more detail in other versions. In two ballads from Motherwell’s MS., where ‘the Italian’ becomes ‘the Tailliant’ or ‘the Talliant,’ the champion jumps over Johney’s head, and descends on the point of Johney’s sword. This exploit is paralleled in a Breton ballad, where the Seigneur Les Aubrays of St. Brieux is ordered by the French king to combat his wild Moor, who leaps in the air and is received on the sword of his antagonist. Again, in Scottish tradition, James Macgill, having killed Sir Robert Balfour about 1679, went to London to procure his pardon, which Charles II. offered him on the condition of fighting an Italian gladiator. The Italian leaped once over James Macgill, but in attempting to repeat this manœuvre was spitted by his opponent, who thereby procured not only his pardon, but also knighthood.
JOHNEY SCOT
1.
O Johney was as brave a knight
As ever sail’d the sea,