From Jamieson's Popular Ballads and Songs, i. 83.
"The following copy was transmitted by Mrs. Arrott of Aberbrothick. The stanzas, where the seven brothers are introduced, have been enlarged from two fragments, which, although very defective in themselves, furnished lines which, when incorporated with the text, seemed to improve it. Stanzas 21 and 22, were written by the editor; the idea of the rose being suggested by the gentleman who recited, but who could not recollect the language in which it was expressed."
This copy of Clerk Saunders bears traces of having been made up from several sources. A portion of the
concluding stanzas (v. 107-130) have a strong resemblance to the beginning and end of Proud Lady Margaret (vol. viii. 83, 278), which ballad is itself in a corrupt condition. It may also be doubted whether the fragments Jamieson speaks of did not belong to a ballad resembling Lady Maisry, p. 78 of this volume.
Accepting the ballad as it stands here, there is certainly likeness enough in the first part to suggest a community of origin with the Swedish ballad Den Grymma Brodern, Svenska Folk-Visor, No. 86 (translated in Lit. and Rom. of Northern Europe, p. 261). W. Grimm mentions (Altdän. Heldenl., p. 519) a Spanish ballad, De la Blanca Niña, in the Romancero de Amberes, in which the similarity to Den Grymma Brodern is very striking. The series of questions (v. 30-62) sometimes appears apart from the story, and with a comic turn, as in Det Hurtige Svar, Danske V., No. 204, or Thore och hans Syster, Arwidsson, i. 358. In this shape they closely resemble the familiar old song, Our gudeman came hame at e'en, Herd, Scottish Songs, ii. 74.
Clerk Saunders was an earl's son,
He liv'd upon sea-sand;
May Margaret was a king's daughter,
She liv'd in upper land.
Clerk Saunders was an earl's son,5
Weel learned at the scheel;
May Margaret was a king's daughter;
They baith lo'ed ither weel.
He's throw the dark, and throw the mark,
And throw the leaves o' green;10
Till he came to May Margaret's door,
And tirled at the pin.
"O sleep ye, wake ye, May Margaret,
Or are ye the bower within?"
"O wha is that at my bower door,15
Sae weel my name does ken?"
"It's I, Clerk Saunders, your true love,
You'll open and lat me in.