"He set his bent bow to his breast,
And lightly lap the wa'," &c.
The application of the term bent, in the latter instance, does not seem correct, and is probably substituted for brent.
In the establishment of a feudal baron, every thing wore a military aspect; he was a warrior by profession; every man attached to him, particularly those employed about his person, was a soldier; and his little foot-page was very appropriately equipped in the light accoutrements of an archer. His bow, in the old ballad, seems as inseparable from his character as the bow of Cupid or of Apollo, or the caduceus of his celestial prototype Mercury. This bow, which he carried unbent, he seems to have bent when he had occasion to swim, in order that he might the more easily carry it in his teeth, to prevent the string from being injured by getting wet. At other times he availed himself of its length and elasticity in the brent, or straight state, and used it (as hunters do a leaping pole) in
vaulting over the wall of the outer court of a castle, when his business would not admit of the tedious formality of blowing a horn, or ringing a bell, and holding a long parley with the porter at the gate, before he could gain admission. This, at least, appears to the editor to be the meaning of these passages in the old ballads. Jamieson.
CHILDE MAURICE. See p. [30].
From Jamieson's Popular Ballads and Songs, i. 8.
Childe Maurice hunted i' the [silver] wood,
He hunted it round about,
And noebody yt he found theren,
Nor noebody without.
* * * * * * *
* * * * * * *
And tooke his silver combe in his hand5
To kembe his yellow lockes.