"Witton Gilbert, a village four miles west of Durham, is, throughout the bishopric, pronounced Witton Jilbert. We have also the common name of Giles, always in Scotland pronounced Jill. For Gille, or
Juliana, as a female name, we have Fair Gillian of Croyden, and a thousand authorities. Such being the case, the Editor must enter his protest against the conversion of Gil Morrice into Child Maurice, an epithet of chivalry. All the circumstances in that ballad argue, that the unfortunate hero was an obscure and very young man, who had never received the honour of knighthood. At any rate there can be no reason, even were internal evidence totally wanting, for altering a well-known proper name, which, till of late years, has been the uniform title of the ballad." Scott.
May-a-Row, in Buchan's larger collection, ii. 231, is another, but an inferior, version of this ballad.
O Jellon Grame sat in [Silverwood],
He sharp'd his broadsword lang;
And he has call'd his little foot-page
An errand for to gang.
"Win up, my bonny boy," he says,5
"As quickly as ye may;
For ye maun gang for Lillie Flower
Before the break of day."
The boy has buckled his belt about,
And through the green-wood ran;10
And he came to the ladye's bower
Before the day did dawn.
"O sleep ye, wake ye, Lillie Flower?
The red sun's on the rain:
Ye're bidden come to Silverwood,15
But I doubt ye'll never win hame."—
She hadna ridden a mile, a mile,
A mile but barely three,
Ere she came to a new-made grave,
Beneath a green aik tree.20
O then up started Jellon Grame,
Out of a bush thereby;
"Light down, light down, now, Lillie Flower,
For it's here that ye maun lye."—