67. let.
FOOTNOTES:
[150] An eager "Englishman" might turn Motherwell's objection to the name into an argument for 'Edward' being an "English" ballad.
[151] That is to say, initial quh and z for modern wh and y, for nothing else would have excited attention. Perhaps a transcriber thought he ought to give the language a look at least as old as Gavin Douglas, who spells quhy, dois, ȝour. The quh would serve a purpose, if understood as indicating that the aspirate was not to be dropped, as it often is in English why. The z is the successor of ȝ, and was meant to be pronounced y, as z is, or was, pronounced in gaberlunzie and other Scottish words. See Dr J. A. H. Murray's Dialect of the Southern Counties of Scotland, pp. 118, 129. Since quh and z serve rather as rocks of offence than landmarks, I have thought it best to use wh and y.
[152] Motherwell also speaks of a ballad of the same nature as quoted in Werner's 'Twenty-Fourth of February.' The stanza cited (in Act I, Scene 1) seems to be Herder's translation of 'Edward' given from memory.
[153] We have a similar passage in most of the copies of the third class of the German ballads corresponding to No 4. A brother asks the man who has killed his sister why his shoes [sword, hands] are bloody. See p. 36, p. 38. So in 'Herr Axel,' Arwidsson, No 46, I, 308.
[154] These have perhaps been adapted to the stanza of 'The Twa Brothers,' with some versions of which, as already remarked, the present ballad is blended.
[155] With regard to translations, I may say now, what I might well have said earlier, that I do not aim at making a complete list, but give such as have fallen under my notice.