Many copies of this ballad exist (Child prints a dozen), but this one is both the shortest and simplest.
The Story.—In The Cruel Brother (First Series, p. 76) it was shown that a lover must ‘speak to the brother’ of his lady. Here the lesson, it seems, is that he must ‘tell the lass herself’ before her wedding-day. Katharine, however, not only proves her faith to her first lover (her ‘grass-green’ dress, 10.2, shows an ill-omened marriage), but prefers the Scot to the Southron. This lesson the ballad drives home in the last two verses.
Presumably Scott founded Young Lochinvar on the story of this ballad, as in six versions the Scots laird bears that name.
KATHARINE JAFFRAY
1.
There liv’d a lass in yonder dale,
And doun in yonder glen, O,
And Kath’rine Jaffray was her name,
Well known by many men, O.
2.