[A]. 'The Unquiet Grave,' Folk-Lore Record, I, 60, 1868.
[B]. Notes and Queries, Fifth Series, VII, 486.
[C]. Notes and Queries, Fifth Series, VII, 387.
[D]. 'The Ghost and Sailor,' Buchan's MSS, I, 268.
The vow in the second stanza of all the copies is such as we find in 'Bonny Bee-Ho'm,' and elsewhere (see p. 156f of this volume), and A, B, D 4, 5, C 3, 4 are nearly a repetition of '[Sweet William's Ghost],' A 5, 6, B 3, 4, C 7, 8, D 7, 10. This may suggest a suspicion that this brief little piece is an aggregation of scraps. But these repetitions would not strike so much if the ballad were longer, and we must suppose that we have it only in an imperfect form. Even such as it is, however, this fragment has a character of its own. It exhibits the universal popular belief that excessive grieving for the dead interferes with their repose. We have all but had 'The Unquiet Grave' before, as the conclusion of two versions of 'The Twa Brothers:'
She ran distraught, she wept, she sicht,
She wept the sma brids frae the tree,
She wept the starns adown frae the lift,
She wept the fish out o the sea.
'O cease your weeping, my ain true-love,
Ye but disturb my rest;'
'Is that my ain true lover, John,
The man that I loe best?'
''Tis naething but my ghaist,' he said,
'That's sent to comfort thee;
O cease your weeping, my true-love,
And 'twill gie peace to me.'
(I, 440, C 18-20.)
She put the small pipes to her mouth,
And she harped both far and near,
Till she harped the small birds off the briers,
And her true-love out of the grave.