[ ] [ [6] ] Variation in Scott:
They wet their hats aboon.
[ ] [ [7] ] Variation in Scott:
O forty miles off Aberdeen.
[ ] [ [8] ] There is one insuperable objection to Sir Walter's theory, which I am surprised should not have occurred to himself, or to some of those who have followed him. In his version of the ballad, the design to bring home the daughter of the king of Norway is expressed by the king of Scotland himself. Now, there was no occasion for Alexander III. sending for his infant granddaughter; nor is it conceivable that, in his lifetime, such a notion should have occurred or been entertained on either his side or that of the child's father. It was not till after the death of Alexander had made the infant Norwegian princess queen of Scotland—four years after that event, indeed—that the guardians of the kingdom, in concert with Edward I. of England, sent for her by Sir David Wemyss of Wemyss and Sir Michael Scott of Balwearie, who actually brought her home, but in a dying state. For these reasons, on the theory of the ballad referring to a real occurrence, it must have been to the bringing home of some Norwegian princess to be wedded to a king of Scotland that it referred. But there is no such event in Scottish history.
Professor Aytoun alters a verse of the ballad as follows:
To Noroway, to Noroway,
To Noroway o'er the faem;
The king's daughter to Noroway,
It's thou maun tak her hame.