Act IV, Sc. 2, Dyce, VIII, 66.
In Beaumont and Fletcher's 'Knight of the Burning Pestle,' we have the following stanza, which resembles A 23, but may equally well belong to 'The Douglas Tragedy:' see No 7, B 10, C 9, D 9:
He set her on a milk-white steed,
And himself upon a grey;
He never turned his face again,
But he bore her quite away.
Act II, Sc. 8, Dyce, II, 172.
[175] Already remarked by Motherwell, Minstrelsy, p. 378.
[176] A queen is arbiter in Gower and Chaucer; so here in versions E, F, G, J.
[177] In K, a vulgar copy, the man is absurdly made a blacksmith's son, though a courtier. Similarly in an old stall copy of which the last stanza is cited by Buchan, II, 318:
O when she came to her father's yetts,
Where she did reckon kin,
She was the queen of fair Scotland,
And he but a goldsmith's son.
[178] This is a commonplace, as observed already, I, 446. It occurs also in 'Malfred og Sadelmand,' st. 8, Kristensen, I, 259, No. 99. Ebbe Galt is translated by Prior, II, 87.
[179] Danske Viser, No 186, Grundtvig's A, is translated by Dr Prior, who notes the resemblance and the contrast to our ballad, III, 144.