Haribee the gallows hill at Carlisle reiver a border thief, one of a class which lived sparely, fought stoutly, entertained the strictest sense of honour and justice, went ever on horseback, and carried the art of cattle-lifting to the highest possible point of perfection (National Observer, 30th May, 1891) yett gate lawing reckoning basnet helmet curch coif or cap lightly to scorn in a lowe on fire slocken to slake splent shoulder-piece spauld shoulder broken men outlaws marshal men officers of law rank reiver common thief herry harry corbie crow lear learning row-footed rough-shod spait flood garred made slogan battle-cry stear stir saft light fleyed frightened bairns children spier ask hente lifted, haled maill rent furs furrows trew trust Christentie Christendom
[XXX]
Communicated by Mr. Hunt,—who dates it about 1626—from Seyer's Memoirs, Historical and Topographical, of Bristol and its Neighbourhood (1821–23). The full title is The Honour of Bristol: shewing how the Angel Gabriel of Bristol fought with three ships, who boarded as many times, wherein we cleared our decks and killed five hundred of their men, and wounded many more, and made them fly into Cales, when we lost but three men, to the Honour of the Angel Gabriel of Bristol. To the tune Our Noble King in his Progress. Cales (13), pronounced as a dissyllable, is of course Cadiz. It is fair to add that this spirited and amusing piece of doggerel has been severely edited.
[XXXI]
From the Minstrelsy, where it is ‘given, without alteration or improvement, from the most accurate copy that could be recovered.’ The story runs that Helen Irving (or Helen Bell), of Kirkconnell in Dumfriesshire, was beloved by Adam Fleming, and (as some say) Bell of Blacket House; that she favoured the first but her people encouraged the second; that she was thus constrained to tryst with Fleming by night in the churchyard, ‘a romantic spot, almost surrounded by the river Kirtle’; that they were here surprised by the rejected suitor, who fired at his rival from the far bank of the stream; that Helen, seeking to shield her lover, was shot in his stead; and that Fleming, either there and then, or afterwards in Spain, avenged her death on the body of her slayer. Wordsworth has told the story in a copy of verses which shows, like so much more of his work, how dreary a poetaster he could be.
[XXXII]
This epic-in-little, as tremendous an invention as exists in verse, is from the Minstrelsy: ‘as written down from tradition by a lady’ (C. Kirkpatrick Sharpe).
corbies crows fail-dyke wall of turf hause-bane breast-bone theek thatch
[XXXIII]
Begun in 1755, and finished and printed (with The Progress of Poetry) in 1757. ‘Founded,’ says the poet, ‘on a tradition current in Wales, that Edward the First, when he concluded the conquest of that country, ordered all the bards that fell into his hands to be put to death.’ The ‘agonising king’ (line 56) is Edward II.; the ‘she-wolf of France’ (57), Isabel his queen; the ‘scourge of heaven’ (60), Edward III.; the ‘sable warrior’ (67), Edward the Black Prince. Lines 75–82 commemorate the rise and fall of Richard II.; lines 83–90, the Wars of the Roses, the murders in the Tower, the ‘faith’ of Margaret of Anjou, the ‘fame’ of Henry V., the ‘holy head’ of Henry VI. The ‘bristled boar’ (93) is symbolical of Richard III.; ‘half of thy heart’ (99) of Eleanor of Castile, ‘who died a few years after the conquest of Wales.’ Line 110 celebrates the accession of the House of Tudor in fulfilment of the prophecies of Merlin and Taliessin; lines 115–20, Queen Elizabeth; lines 128–30, Shakespeare; lines 131–32, Milton; and the ‘distant warblings’ of line 133, ‘the succession of poets after Milton's time’ (Gray).