Soe haue I done one [of] the fairest ladyes
That euer ware womans weede!’
FAUSE FOOTRAGE
The Text is from Alexander Fraser Tytler’s Brown MS., which was also the source of Scott’s version in the Minstrelsy. One line (31.1), closely resembling a line in Lady Wardlaw’s forged ballad Hardyknute, caused Sir Walter to investigate strictly the authenticity of the ballad, but the evidence of Lady Douglas, that she had learned the ballad in her childhood, and could still repeat much of it, removed his doubts. It is, however, quite possible, as Professor Child points out, ‘that Mrs. Brown may unconsciously have adopted this verse from the tiresome and affected Hardyknute, so much esteemed in her day.’
The Story.—In The Complaynt of Scotlande (1549) there is mentioned a tale ‘how the King of Estmure Land married the King’s daughter of Westmure Land,’ and it has been suggested that there is a connection with the ballad.
This is another of the ballads of which the English form has become so far corrupted that we have to seek its Scandinavian counterpart to obtain the full form of the story. The ballad is especially popular in Denmark, where it is found in twenty-three manuscripts, as follows:—
The rich Svend wooes Lisbet, who favours William for his good qualities. Svend, ill with grief, is well-advised by his mother, not to care for a plighted maid, and ill-advised by his sister, to kill William. Svend takes the latter advice, and kills William. Forty weeks later, Lisbet gives birth to a son, but Svend is told that the child is a girl. Eighteen years later, the young William, sporting with a peasant, quarrels with him; the peasant retorts, ‘You had better avenge your father’s death.’ Young William asks his mother who slew his father, and she, thinking him too young to fight, counsels him to bring Svend to a court. William charges him in the court with the murder of his father, and says that no compensation has been offered. Not a penny shall be paid, says Svend. William draws his sword, and slays him.
Icelandic, Swedish, and Färöe ballads tell a similar story.