[388] In the beginning there is a clear trace of the Oriental tales of 'The Clever Lass' cycle.

[46]
CAPTAIN WEDDERBURN'S COURTSHIP

[A]. a. 'I'll no ly neist the wa,' Herd's MS., I, 161. b. 'She'll no ly neist [the] wa,' the same, II, 100.

[B]. a. 'The Earl of Rosslyn's Daughter,' Kinloch MSS, I, 83. b. 'Lord Roslin's Daughter,' Lord Roslin's Daughter's Garland, p. 4. c. 'Lord Roslin's Daughter,' Buchan's MSS, II, 34. d. 'Captain Wedderburn's Courtship,' Jamieson's Popular Ballads, II, 159. e. Harris MS., fol. 19 b, No 14. f. Notes and Queries, 2d S., IV, 170.

[C]. 'The Laird of Roslin's Daughter,' Sheldon's Minstrelsy of the English Border, p. 232.

A copy of this ballad was printed in The New British Songster, a Collection of Songs, Scots and English, with Toasts and Sentiments for the Bottle, Falkirk, 1785: see Motherwell, p. lxxiv.[389] Few were more popular, says Motherwell, and Jamieson remarks that 'Captain Wedderburn' was equally in vogue in the north and the south of Scotland.

Jamieson writes to the Scots Magazine, 1803, p. 701: "Of this ballad I have got one whole copy and part of another, and I remember a good deal of it as I have heard it sung in Morayshire when I was a child." In his Popular Ballads, II, 154, 1806, he says that the copy which he prints was furnished him from Mr Herd's MS. by the editor of the Border Minstrelsy, and that he had himself supplied a few readings of small importance from his own recollection. There is some inaccuracy here. The version given by Jamieson is rather B, with readings from A.

We have had of the questions six, A 11, 12, What is greener than the grass? in No 1, A 15, C 13, D 5; What's higher than the tree? in C 9, D 1; What's war than a woman's wiss? ("than a woman was") A 15, C 13, D 5; What's deeper than the sea? A 13, B 8, C 9, D 1. Of the three dishes, A 8, 9, we have the bird without a gall in Ein Spil von den Freiheit, Fastnachtspiele aus dem 15n Jhdt, II, 558, v. 23,[390] and the two others in the following song, from a manuscript assigned to the fifteenth century, and also preserved in several forms by oral tradition:[391] Sloane MS., No 2593, British Museum; Wright's Songs and Carols, 1836, No 8; as printed for the Warton Club, No xxix, p. 33.

I have a ȝong suster fer beȝondyn the se,
Many be the drowryis that che sente me.