My dear son, now tell me, O?',
'The curse of hell frae me sall ye bear,,
Mother, mother;,
The curse of hell frae me sall ye bear,,
Sic counsels ye gave me, O.'
It seems unaccountable how any editor of Percy's discernment could ever have accepted this as old poetry. There is certainly none prior to 1700 which exhibits this kind of diction. Neither did any such poetry at any time proceed from a rustic uneducated mind.
When we continue our search beyond the bounds of Percy's Reliques, we readily find ballads passing as old, which are not unlike the above, either in regard to their general beauty, or special strains of thought and expression. There are five which seem peculiarly liable to suspicion on both grounds—namely, Johnie of Bradislee, Mary Hamilton, the Gay Gos-hawk, Fause Foodrage, and the Lass o' Lochryan.
In Johnie o' Bradislee, the hero is a young unlicensed huntsman, who goes out to the deer-forest against his mother's advice, and has a fatal encounter with seven foresters. Observe the description of the youth:
His cheeks were like the roses red,
His neck was like the snaw;