Of Almonshire [32] Hogg writes: “Almon shire may probably be a corruption of Banburgh shire, but as both my relaters called it so, I thought proper to preserve it.”
Andrew Livingston writes to Scott, Airds by Castle Douglas, 28th April, 1806, Letters, I, No 183: “My mother recollects seven or eight verses of the ballad of ‘The Battle of Otterburn’ different from any I have seen either in the first and second editions of the Minstrelsy or in Percy’s Reliques.... In several parts they bear a great resemblance to the copy in the first edition of the Minstrelsy.”
162. The Hunting of the Cheviot.
P. 306. Fighting on or with stumps, etc.
Ketilbjörn’s foot is cut off at the ankle-joint. He does not fall, but hobbles against his enemies and kills two of them before his strength gives out: Gull-þóris Saga, c. 18, ed. Maurer, p. 75. Gnúpr fought on his knees after his foot was off: Vemundar Saga ok Vígaskútu, c. 13, Rafn, Íslendinga Sögur, II, 266. Sörli kills eleven men with his club, hobbling round on one foot and one stump (apparently, though Sörli and Hárr are perhaps confused in the narrative): Göngu-Hrólfs Saga, c. 31, Rafn, Fornaldar Sögur, III, 329, Ásmundarson, III, 214 (wrongly, 114). Már fights when both his hands are off: Gull-þóris Saga, c. 10, Maurer, p. 59. Compare the exploits of Sölvi after both his hands have been cut off: Göngu-Hrólfs Saga, c. 31, Rafn, F. S., III, 331, Ásmundarson, III, 215 (wrongly 115); and Röndólfr’s performances after one of his hands has been cut off and all the toes of one foot, in the same saga, c. 30, Rafn, p. 324 f., Ásmundarson, p. 211 (111); and Göngu-Hrólfr’s, who has had both feet cut off while he slept, the same saga, c. 25, Rafn, pp. 307–9, Ásmundarson, 197 f. The Highlander at the battle of Gasklune had his predecessor in Ali, in the same saga, c. 30, Rafn, p. 324, Ásmundarson, p. 210 (110). (G. L. K.)
167. Sir Andrew Barton.
P. 338 b. Gold to bury body. So in the story of Buridan and the Queen of France, Haupt’s Zeitschrift II, 364. (G. L. K.)
In Apollonius of Tyre: puellam in loculo conposuit . . . et uiginti sestertios ad caput ipsius posuit, et scripturam sic continentem: Quicumque corpus istud inuenerit et humo tradiderit medios sibi teneat, medios pro funere expendat; et misit in mare. C. 25, ed. Riese, p. 29. Cf. Jourdains de Blaivies, 2222–33, K. Hofmann, Amis et Amiles und Jourdains de Blaivies, 1882, p. 168 f. (P. Z. Round.)
‘The Sonnge of Sir Andraye Barton, Knight,’ English Miscellanies, edited by James Raine, Surtees Society, vol. lxxxv, p. 64, 1890; from a MS. in a hand of the sixteenth century now in York Minster Library.
This very interesting version of Sir Andrew Barton, the editor informs us, was originally No 25 of a ballad-book in small quarto. It came recently “into the possession of the Dean and Chapter of York with a number of papers which belonged in the seventeenth century to the episcopal families of Lamplugh and Davenant.” If, as is altogether probable, there were copies of other ballads in the same book in quality as good as this, and if, as is equally probable, no more of the book can be recovered, our only comfort is the cold one of having had losses. In several details this copy differs from that of the Percy MS., but not more than would be expected. The English sail out of the Thames on the morrow after midsummer month, July 1, and come back the night before St Maudlen’s eve, or the night of July 20, stanzas 17, 74. In stanza 42 Barton boasts that he had once sent thirty Portingail heads home salted— ‘to eat with bread’! We read in Lesley’s History that the Hollanders had taken and spoiled divers Scots ships, and had cruelly murdered and cast overboard the merchants and passengers; in revenge for which Andrew Barton took many ships of that country, and filled certain pipes with the heads of the Hollanders and sent them to the Scottish king. (Ed. 1830, p. 74; ed. 1578, p. 329.) The eating is a ferocious addition of the ballad. Several passages of this copy are corrupted. A throws light upon some of these places, but others remain to me unamendable.