Than they had hanged James Hatelie.'
Then up bespoke the king's eldest son:
'Come in, James Hatelie, and dine with me;
For I'll make a vow, and I'll keep it true—
You'se be my captain by land and sea.'
Then up bespoke the king's eldest daughter:
'Come in, James Hatelie, and dine with me;
For I'll make a vow, and I'll keep it true—
I'll never marrie a man but thee.'
Here is love, and here is innocence in difficulties—two things of high moral interest; yet how homely is the whole narration; how unlike the strains of the ballads which have been passed before the reader's view! And be it observed, the theory as to our ballads is, that they have been transmitted from old time, undergoing modifications from the minds of nurses, and other humble reciters, as they came along. If so, they ought to have presented the same plebeian strain of ideas and phraseology as James Hatelie; but we see they do not: they are, on the contrary, remarkably poetical, pure, and dignified.