Then een in her head are like two rotten plumbs;
Turn her about and see how she glooms.
The teeth in her head were like harrow-pins;
Turn her about, and see how she girns.
The hair in her head was like heathercrows,
The l ...s were in't thick as linseed bows.
A comparatively inoffensive version, 'The Queen of Sluts,' in Chambers' Scottish Songs, p. 454.
[295] The Carl of Carlile has the space of a large span between his brows, three yards over his shoulders, fingers like tether-stakes, and fifty cubits of height. Percy MS., Hales & Furnivall, III, 283 f, vv 179-187.
[34]
KEMP OWYNE
[A]. 'Kemp Owyne.' Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, II, 78; Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. 373; 'Kemp Owayne,' Motherwell's MS., p. 448.
[B]. 'Kempion.' a. Jamieson-Brown MS., fol. 29. b. Scott's Minstrelsy, 1802, II, 93, from William Tytler's Brown MS., No 9, "with corrections from a recited fragment."
It is not, perhaps, material to explain how Owain, "the king's son Urien," happens to be awarded the adventure which here follows. It is enough that his right is as good as that of other knights to whom the same achievement has been assigned, though the romance, or, as the phrase used to be, "the book," says nothing upon the subject. Owain's slaying the fire-drake who was getting the better of the lion may have led to his name becoming associated with the still more gallant exploit of thrice kissing a fire-drake to effect a disenchantment. The ring in A 9 might more plausibly be regarded as being a repetition of that which Owain's lady gave him on leaving her for a twelvemonth's outing, a ring which would keep him from loss of blood, and also from prison, sickness, and defeat in battle—in short, preserve him against all the accidents which the knight suggested might prevent his holding his day—provided that he had it by him and thought on her. Ritson, Ywaine and Gawin, vv 1514-38.