"Now keep, now keep your castles and towers,
You have that lady within your bowers:
"Now keep, now keep your very life,
65 You have that lady to be your wife."
"O row my lady in sattin and silk,
And wash my son in the morning milk."
WILLIE'S LADYE.
Printed from Mrs. Brown's MS., in the Border Minstrelsy, vol. iii. p. 170. Another copy is given in Jamieson's Popular Ballads, (ii. 367,) and versions, enlarged and altered from the ancient, in the same work, (ii. 179,) and in Tales of Wonder, No. 56. This ballad bears a striking resemblance to Sir Stig and Lady Torelild, translated from the Danish by Jamieson, Illustrations of Northern Antiquities, p. 344. This is the eighth (marked H) of nine Danish ballads given by Grundtvig, under the title Hustru og Mands Moder, vol. ii. 404. Three Swedish versions have been printed: two in Arwidsson's Fornsånger, Liten Kerstins Förtrollning, ii. 252, and another (Grundtvig) in Cavallius and Stephens's Svenska Folksagor.
"Those who wish to know how an incantation, or charm, of the distressing nature here described, was performed in classic days, may consult the story of Galanthis's Metamorphosis, in Ovid, or the following passage in Apuleius: 'Eadem (saga, scilicet, quædam) amatoris uxorem, quod in eam dicacule probrum dixerat, jam in sarcinam prægnationis, obsepto utero, et repigrato fœtu, perpetua prægnatione damnavit. Et ut cuncti numerant, octo annorum onere, misella illa, velut elephantum paritura, distenditur.' APUL. Metam. lib. i.
"There is a curious tale about a Count of Westeravia, whom a deserted concubine bewitched upon his marriage, so as to preclude all hopes of his becoming a father. The spell continued to operate for three years, till one day, the Count happening to meet with
his former mistress, she maliciously asked him about the increase of his family. The Count, conceiving some suspicion from her manner, craftily answered, that God had blessed him with three fine children; on which she exclaimed, like Willie's mother in the ballad, "May heaven confound the old hag, by whose counsel I threw an enchanted pitcher into the draw-well of your palace!" The spell being found, and destroyed, the Count became the father of a numerous family. Hierarchie of the Blessed Angels, p. 474." SCOTT.