That he hadna either killd or taen
Ere his heart’s blood was cauld.
353. swords still.
Hogg writes:
“As for the scraps of Otterburn which I have got, they seem to have been some confused jumble, made by some person who had learned both the songs which you have, and in time had been straitened to make one out of them both. But you shall have it as I had it, saving that, as usual, I have sometimes helped the measure, without altering one original word.”
After 24: “This ballad, which I have collected from two different people, a crazy old man and a woman deranged in her mind, seems hitherto considerably entire; but now, when it becomes most interesting, they have both failed me, and I have been obliged to take much of it in plain prose. However, as none of them seemed to know anything of the history save what they had learned from the song, I took it the more kindly. Any few verses which follow are to me unintelligible.
“He told Sir Hugh that he was dying, and ordered him to conceal his body, and neither let his own men nor Piercy’s know; which he did, and the battle went on headed by Sir Hugh Montgomery, and at length” (35, etc.).
After 38: “Piercy seems to have been fighting devilishly in the dark; indeed, my relaters added no more, but told me that Sir Hugh died on the field, but that” (40).
In the postscript, Hogg writes:
“Not being able to get the letter away to the post, I have taken the opportunity of again pumping my old friends’ memory, and have recovered some more lines and half lines of Otterburn, of which I am become somewhat enamourd. These I have been obliged to arrange somewhat myself, as you will see below; but so mixed are they with original lines and sentences that I think, if you pleased, they might pass without any acknowledgment. Sure no man will like an old song the worse of being somewhat harmonious. After [24] you may read [25–34]. Then after [38] read [39].”