Reginald Scot, The Discoverie of Witchcraft, 1584, as reprinted by Nicholson, p. 68, ed. 1665, p. 48; and Fletcher’s Monsieur Thomas, iv. 6, Dyce, VII, 388. In Nicholas Udall’s ‘Roister Doister,’ known to be as old as 1551, Matthew Merrygreek exclaims, “What then? sainct George to borow, Our Ladie’s knight!” Ed. W. D. Cooper, p. 77, Shakespeare Society, 1847. The Danish ballad of St George, ‘St Jørgen og Dragen,’ Grundtvig, No 103, II, 559 ff, the oldest version of which is from a 16th century MS., begins, “Knight St George, thou art my man” (svend); and in the second version, George, declining the princess whom he has rescued, says he has vowed to Mary to be her servant.[[166]] In the corresponding Swedish ballad, of the same age as the Danish, George is called Mary’s knight (Maria honom riddare gjorde, st. 2): Geijer and Afzelius, ed. Bergström, II, 402. This is also his relation in German ballads: Meinert, p. 254; Ditfurth, I, 55, No 68.[[167]]
B. 1, 9, 14 nearly resemble A 1, 50, 68, and must have the same origin. In B 9 Douglas is changed to Montgomery; in 14 Douglas is wrongly said to have been buried on the field, instead of at Melrose Abbey, where his tomb is still to be seen.
7 is founded upon a tradition reported by Hume of Godscroft: “There are that say that he was not slain by the enemy, but by one of his owne men, a groome of his chamber, whom he had struck the day before with a truncheon in the ordering of the battell, because hee saw him make somewhat slowly to; and they name this man John Bickerton of Luffenesse, who left a part of his armour behinde unfastned, and when hee was in the greatest conflict, this servant of his came behinde his back and slew him thereat.” Ed. 1644, p. 105.
11. The summons to surrender to a braken-bush is not in the style of fighting-men or fighting-days, and would justify Hotspur’s contempt of metre-ballad-mongers.
12, 13. B agrees with Froissart in making a Montgomery to be the captor of Henry Percy, whereas A represents that Montgomery was taken prisoner and exchanged for Percy. In The Hunting of the Cheviot Sir Hugh Montgomery kills Percy, and in return is shot by a Northumberland archer.
C. Scott does not give a distinct account of this version. He says that he had obtained two copies, since the publication of the earlier edition, “from the recitation of old persons residing at the head of Ettrick Forest, by which the story is brought out and completed in a manner much more correspondent to the true history.” C is, in fact, a combination of four copies; the two from Ettrick Forest, B a, and the MS. copy used in B b to “correct” Herd.
8, it scarcely requires to be said, is spurious, modern in diction and in conception.
19. Perhaps derived from Hume of Godscroft rather than from tradition. When Douglas was dying, according to this historian,[[168]] he made these last requests of certain of his kinsmen: “First, that yee keep my death close both from our owne folke and from the enemy; then, that ye suffer not my standard to be lost or cast downe; and last, that ye avenge my death, and bury me at Melrosse with my father. If I could hope for these things,” he added, “I should die with the greater contentment; for long since I heard a prophesie that a dead man should winne a field, and I hope in God it shall be I.” Ed. 1644, p. 100.
22 must be derived from the English version. As the excellent editor of The Ballad Minstrelsy of Scotland, Glasgow, 1871, remarks, “no Scottish minstrel would ever have dreamt of inventing such a termination to the combat between these two redoubted heroes ... as much at variance with history as it is repulsive to national feeling:” p. 431.
Genealogical matters, in this and the following ballad, are treated, not always to complete satisfaction, in Bishop Percy’s notes, Reliques, 1794, I, 34 ff; Scott’s Minstrelsy, 1833, I, 351, 363 ff: White’s History of the Battle of Otterburn, p. 67 ff; The Ballads and Songs of Ayrshire, I, 66 f.