LADY ISOBEL AND THE ELF-KNIGHT. Mainly after Buchan's version entitled The Water o' Wearie's Well, although it is in another version given by Buchan, under title of The Gowans sae Gay, that the name of the lady is disclosed, and the elfin nature of the eccentric lover revealed. In that ballad Lady Isobel falls in love with the elf-knight on hearing him
"blawing his horn, The first morning in May,"
and this more tuneful version retains in the first two stanzas a fading trace of the fairy element and the magic music, the bird, whose song may be supposed to have caused the lady's heartache, being possibly the harper in elfin disguise. In most of the versions, however, the knight is merely a human knave, usually designated as Fause Sir John, and the lady is frequently introduced as May Colven or Colvin or Collin or Collean, though also as Pretty Polly. The story is widely circulated, appearing in the folk-songs of nearly all the nations of northern and southern Europe. It has been suggested that the popular legend may be "a wild shoot from the story of Judith and Holofernes." Dowie, doleful.
TOM THUMBE. After Ritson, with omissions. Ritson prints from a manuscript dated 1630, the oldest copy known to be extant, but the story itself can be traced much further back and was evidently a prime favorite with the English rustics. The plain, often doggerel verse, and the rough, often coarse humor of this ballad make it appear at striking disadvantage among the Scottish folk-songs, essentially poetic as even the rudest of them are. Tom Thumbe, it must be confessed, is but a clumsy sort of elf, and the ballad as a whole can hardly be said to have a fairy atmosphere. Yet it is of value as adding to the data for a comparison between the English and the Scottish peasantry, as throwing light on the fun-loving spirit, the sports and practical joking of Merrie England, as showing the tenacity of the Arthurian tradition, together with the confusion of chivalric memories, as displaying the ignorant credulity of the popular mind toward science no less than toward history, and as illustrating, by giving us in all this bald, sing-song run of verses, here and there a sweet or dainty fancy and at least one stanza of exquisite tenderness and grace, the significant fact that in the genuine old English ballads beauty is not the rule, but the surprise. Counters, coin-shaped pieces of metal, ivory, or wood, used in reckoning. Points, here probably the bits of tin plate used to tag the strands of cotton yarn with which, in lieu of buttons, the common folk fastened their garments. The points worn by the nobles were laces or silken strands ornamented with aiglets of gold or silver.
KEMPION. After Allingham's version collated from copies given by Scott, Buchan, and Motherwell, with a touch or two from the kindred ballad The Laidley Worm of Spindleston Heugh. Buchan and Motherwell make the name of the hero Kemp Owyne. Similar ballads are known in Iceland and Denmark, and the main features of the story appear in both the classic and romantic literatures. Weird, destiny. Dree, suffer. Borrowed, ransomed. Arblast bow, cross-bow. Stythe, place. Louted, bowed.
ALISON GROSS. After Jamieson's version taken from the recitation of Mrs. Brown. Child claims that this tale is a variety of Beauty and the Beast. Lemman, lover. Gar, make. Toddle, twine. Seely Court, Happy Court or Fairy Court. See English Dictionary for changes of meaning in silly.
THE WIFE OF USHER'S WELL. After Scott, with a stanza or two from Chambers, both versions being recovered by recitation. Although this is scarcely more than a fragment, it is well-nigh unsurpassed for genuine ballad beauty, the mere touches of narrative suggesting far deeper things than they actually relate. Martinmas, the eleventh of November. Carline wife, old peasant-woman. Fashes, troubles. Birk, birch. Syke, marsh. Sheugh, trench. Channerin', fretting. Gin, if. Byre, cow-house.
A LYKE-WAKE DIRGE. After Scott. This dirge belongs to the north of England and is said to have been chanted, in Yorkshire, over the dead, down to about 1624. Lyke-Wake, dead-watch. Sleete, salt, it being the old peasant custom to place a quantity of this on the breast of the dead. Whinny-muir, Furze-moor. A manuscript found by Ritson in the Cotton Library states: "When any dieth, certaine women sing a song to the dead bodie, recyting the journey that the partye deceased must goe; and they are of beliefe (such is their fondnesse) that once in their lives, it is good to give a pair of new shoes to a poor man, for as much as, after this life, they are to pass barefoote through a great launde, full of thornes and furzen, except by the meryte of the almes aforesaid they have redemed the forfeyte; for, at the edge of the launde, an oulde man shall meet them with the same shoes that were given by the partie when he was lyving; and, after he hath shodde them, dismisseth them to go through thick and thin, without scratch or scalle." Brigg o' Dread, Bridge of Dread. Descriptions of this Bridge of Dread are found in various Scottish poems, the most minute being given in the legend of Sir Owain. Compare the belief of the Mahometan that in his approach to the judgment-seat, he must traverse a bar of red-hot iron, stretched across a bottomless abyss, true believers being upheld by their good works, while the wicked fall headlong into the gulf.
PROUD LADY MARGARET. After Aytoun. The original versions of this ballad, as given by Scott, Buchan, Dixon, and Laing, differ widely. It is known under various titles, The Courteous Knight, The Jolly Hind Squire, The Knicht o Archerdale, Fair Margret, and Jolly Janet. Similar ballads are rife in France, although in these it is more frequently the ghost of a dead lady who admonishes her living lover. Wale, choose. Ill-washen feet, etc., in allusion to the custom of washing and dressing the dead for burial. Feckless, worthless. Pirie's chair remains an unsolved riddle of the ballad, editors and commentators not being as good at guessing as the ghost.
THE TWA SISTERS O' BINNORIE. Mainly after Aytoun. There are many versions of this ballad in Scotland, England, Wales and Ireland, varying widely in titles, refrains, and indeed in everything save the main events of the story. A broadside copy appeared as early as 1656. Ballads on the same subject are very popular among the Scandinavian peoples, and traces of the story are found as far away as China and South Africa. Twined, parted. Make, mate. Gar'd, made. Although Lockhart would have the burden pronounced Binnŏrie, a more musical effect is secured by following Jamieson and pronouncing Binnōrie.