Like the early Christians, the old balladists seem to have believed in community of goods. They had a kind of joint-stock of ideas, epithets, images; and freely borrowed and exchanged among themselves not merely refrains and single lines, but whole verses, passages, and situations. Always frugal in the employment of ornament in his text, the balladist never troubled to invent when he found a descriptive phrase or figure made and lying ready to his hand. Plagiarism from his brother bards was a thing that troubled him no more than repeating himself. He lived and sang in times before the literary conscience had been awakened or the literary canon had been laid down—or at least in places and among company where the fear of these, and of the critic, had never penetrated; and he borrowed, copied, adapted, without any sense of shame or remorse, because without any sense of sin. He has his conventional manner of opening, and his established formula for closing his tale. In portraiture, in scenery, in costume, he is simplicity itself. The heroine of the ballad, and, for that matter, the hero also, as a rule, must have 'yellow hair.' If she is not a Lady Maisry, it is a wonder if she be not a May Margaret or a Fair Annie, although there is also a goodly sprinkling of Janets, and Helens, and Marjories, and Barbaras in the enchanted land of ballad poetry. Sweet William has always been the favourite choice of the balladist, among the Christian names of the knightly wooers. Destiny presides over their first meeting. The king's daughters
'Cast kevils them amang,
To see who will to greenwood gang';
and the lot falls upon the youngest and fairest—the youngest is always the fairest and most beloved in the ballad. The note of a bugle horn, and the pair see each other, and are made blessed and undone. Like Celia and Oliver in the Forest of Arden they no sooner look than they sigh; they no sooner sigh than they ask the reason; and as soon as they know the reason they apply the remedy. Or, mounted on 'high horseback,' the lover comes suddenly upon the lady among her sisters or her bower-maidens 'playin' at the ba'.'
'There were three ladies played at the ba',
Hey wi' the rose and the lindie O!
There cam' a knight and played o'er them a',
Where the primrose blooms so sweetly.
The knight he looted to a' the three,
Hey wi' the rose and the lindie O!
But to the youngest he bowed the knee
Where the primrose blooms so sweetly.'
He sends messages that reach his true love's ear, through the guard of 'bauld barons' and 'proud porters,' by his little footpage, who,
'When he came to broken brig,
He bent his bow and swam,
And when he came to grass growin',
Set down his feet and ran.
And when he came to the porter's yett,
Stayed neither to chap or ca',
But set his bent bow to his breast,
And lightly lap the wa'.'
Or the knight comes himself to the bower door at witching and untimely hours—at 'the to-fa' o' the nicht,' or at the crowing of the 'red red cock'—and 'tirles at the pin.' But always treachery, in the shape of envious step-dame, angry brother, or false squire, is watching and listening. Six perils may go past, but the seventh is sure to strike its mark. Even should the course of true love run smoothly almost to the church door, something is sure to happen. Love is hot and swift as flame in the ballads, although it does not waste itself in honeyed phrases. It is quick to take offence; and at a hasty word the lovers start apart,
'Lord Thomas spoke a word in jest,
Fair Annet took it ill.'