MS. [118], fleshe.
FAUSE FOODRAGE.
First published in Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, iii. 220.
"This ballad has been popular in many parts of Scotland. It is chiefly given from Mrs. Brown of Falkland's MSS. The expression,
"The boy stared wild like a gray goss-hawk," v. 31,
strongly resembles that in Hardyknute,
"Norse e'en like gray goss-hawk stared wild;"
a circumstance which led the Editor to make the strictest inquiry into the authenticity of the song. But every doubt was removed by the evidence of a lady of high rank, who not only recollected the ballad, as having amused her infancy, but could repeat many of the verses, particularly those beautiful stanzas from the 20th to the 25th. The Editor is, therefore, compelled to believe, that the author of Hardyknute copied the old ballad, if the coincidence be not altogether accidental." Scott.