[A]. 'Clerk Sanders,' Herd's MSS, I, 177, II, 49.
[B]. 'Clerk Saunders,' Herd's MSS, I, 163, II, 46.
[C]. 'Clerk Saunders,' Kinloch's Scottish Ballads, p. 233.
[D]. 'Lord Saunders,' Motherwell's MS., p. 196.
[E]. 'The Seven Bluidy Brithers,' Motherwell's MS., p. 199.
[F]. 'Clerk Saunders,' Jamieson's Popular Ballads, I, 83.
[G]. 'Clerk Sandy,' Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, I, 160.
'Clerk Saunders' was first given to the world in the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, II, 33, 1802, and was there said to be "taken from Mr Herd's MS., with several corrections from a shorter and more imperfect copy in the same volume, and one or two conjectural emendations in the arrangement of the stanzas." Sir Walter arranged his ballad with much good taste, but this account of his dealing with Herd's copies is very far from precisely accurate. A, the longer of these, does not end, as here printed, with Margret's refusal to be comforted, a rather unsufficing conclusion it must be owned. The story is continued by annexing the ballad of '[Sweet William's Ghost],' the lack of which in B makes Scott call that version imperfect. This sequel, found also in F, is omitted here, and will be given in the proper place.[101] Jamieson's, F, as well as Scott's, is a made-up copy, "the stanzas where the seven brothers are introduced" having been "enlarged from two fragments, which, although very defective in themselves, furnished lines which, when incorporated with the text, seemed to improve it." About one half of G is taken from Herd's MSS, with trivial alterations. The ghostly visitation at the end blends 'Proud Lady Margaret' with '[Sweet William's Ghost],' and this conclusion, not being worth transferring, has been allowed to stand.[102] The dream in E 13 may be derived from 'Fair Margaret and Sweet William.'
The austerities vowed in D 13-15, E 17-20, found also in A 20-22, G 23-25, make a very satisfactory termination to the tragedy, and supply a want that may be felt in B, and in A as it stands here. The like are found in '[The Clerk's Twa Sons o Owsenford],' 'Bonny Bee Ho'm,' 'Lord Livingston,' 'The Weary Coble o Cargill,' and 'The Lowlands of Holland.' Also in the French ballad of 'La Biche Blanche,' where a brother, having unwittingly been the death of his sister, who was maid by day but hind by night, vows himself to a seven years' penance:
J'en suis au désespoir, j'en ferai pénitence;
Serai pendant sept ans sans mettr' chemise blanche,
Et coucherai sept ans sous une épine blanche.