So having chang'd her garments green,
And dress'd herself like a fair queen, 190
Her father and her husband straight
Both knew her, and their joys were great.
Soon they did carry the report
Unto the famous German court,
How the renowned English knight 195
Had found his charming lady bright.
So the Emperor and the lords of fame,
With cheerful hearts they did proclaim
An universal joy, to see
His lady's life at liberty.
[GIGHT'S LADY.]
Appendix to p. [93].
From Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, i. 133.
Buchan complains that all other editions of this ballad "have been deprived of their original beauty and catastrophe" by officious and sacrilegious hands, and adds that his copy "is quite at variance with all its printed predecessors." In this last remark he is certainly correct, but as for his affirmation that the ballad "recounts an affair which actually took place in the reign, or rather minority, of King James VI.," we ask for some authority beyond his note to the ballad.
In another copy mentioned by Motherwell, Geordie, from jealousy, ungratefully drowns his deliverer in the sea.
"First I was lady o' Black Riggs,
And then into Kincraigie;
Now I am the Lady o' Gight,
And my love he's ca'd Geordie.