Burns communicated to Johnson's Museum (p. 498) a defective ballad called Gude Wallace. A better copy of this, from tradition, is here given. It is taken from Buchan's Gleanings (p. 114), and was derived by the editor from a wandering gipsy tinker. Mr. Laing has inserted in the notes to the new edition of Johnson's Museum (iv. 458*) what may perhaps be the original of both these recited ballads, though inferior to either. This copy appeared in a chap-book with some Jacobite ballads, about the year 1750. There are two other versions of this same story, in which Wallace's mistress is induced to betray him to the English, but repents in time to save her lover. [The best of these is annexed to the present ballad]. The other, which is but a fragment, is printed in Buchan's larger collection, ii. 226, Wallace and his Leman.
The principal incidents of this story are to be found in the Fifth Book of Blind Harry's Metrical Life of Wallace.
Jamieson, in Popular Ballads, ii. 166, and Cunningham, in The Songs of Scotland, i. 262, have taken the stanzas in Johnson's Museum as the basis of ballads of their own.
Wallace in the high highlans,
Neither meat nor drink got he;
Said, "Fa' me life, or fa' me death,
Now to some town I maun be."
He's put on his short claiding,5
And on his short claiding put he;
Says, "Fa' me life, or fa' me death,
Now to Perth-town I maun be."
He stepped o'er the river Tay,
I wat he stepped on dry land;10
He wasna aware of a well-fared maid
Was washing there her lilie hands.
"What news, what news, ye well-fared maid?
What news hae ye this day to me?"
"No news, no news, ye gentle knight,15
No news hae I this day to thee,
But fifteen lords in the hostage house
Waiting Wallace for to see."
"If I had but in my pocket
The worth of one single pennie,20
I would go to the hostage house,
And there the gentlemen to see."
She put her hand in her pocket,
And she has pull'd out half-a-crown;
Says, "Take ye that, ye belted knight,25
'Twill pay your way till ye come down."