A. Gypsies sing so sweetly at our lord’s gate as to entice his lady to come down; as soon as she shows herself, they cast the glamour on her (so B-F, G b). She gives herself over to the chief gypsy, Johny Faa by name, without reserve of any description. Her lord, upon returning and finding her gone, sets out to recover her, and captures and hangs fifteen gypsies. (It is extremely likely that this version has lost several stanzas.)
Our lord, unnamed in A, is Lord Cassilis in B, C, F (so Burns, and Johnson’s Museum). Cassilis has become Cassle, Castle in E, G, Corsefield[[39]] in D, Cashan in Irish I, Garrick[[40]] in American K. The Gypsy Laddie is again Johnie, Jockie, Faa in B, D, E; but Gipsy Davy in C (where Lady Cassilis is twice called Jeanie Faw), and in American I a b; and seems to be called both Johnnie Faw and Gypsie Geordie in F. The lady gives the gypsies the good wheat bread B, E (beer and wine, Finlay); they give her (sweetmeats, C) ginger, nutmeg, or both, and she gives them the ring (rings) off her finger (fingers), B, C, E, G, I, (and Finlay).
B a has a full story from this point on. The gypsy asks the lady to go with him, and swears that her lord shall never come near her. The lady changes her silk mantle for a plaid, and is ready to travel the world over with the gypsy, B a 5, A 3, C 4, D 3, E 4, F 4, (B a 6 is spurious). They wander high and low till they come to an old barn, and by this time she is weary. The lady begins to find out what she has undertaken: last night she lay with her lord in a well-made bed, now she must lie in an old barn, B a 7, 8, A 4, C 6, D 7, F 5 (reeky kill E 8, on a straw bed H 7, in the ash-corner I 6). The gypsy bids her hold her peace, her lord shall never come near her. They wander high and low till they come to a wan water, and by this time she is weary. Oft has she ridden that wan water with her lord; now she must set in her white feet and wade, B a 11, C 5, D 5, 6, E 7, (and carry the gipsie laddie, B a 11, badly; follow, B b). The lord comes home, is told that his lady is gone off with the gypsy, and immediately sets out to bring her back (so all). He finds her at the wan water, B a 14; in Abbey Dale, drinking wi Gipsey Davy, C 10; near Strabogie, drinking wi Gypsie Geordie, F 10;[[41]] by the riverside, J a 4; at the Misty Mount, K 5, 6. He asks her tenderly if she will go home, B a 15, E 15, F 12, he will shut her up so securely that no man shall come near, B a 15, E 15; he expostulates with her, more or less reproachfully, C 11, F 11, G 9, H 5, J 5. She will not go home; as she has brewed, so will she drink, B a 16, G 10; she cares not for houses or lands or babes (baby) G 10, H 6, J 6. But she swears to him that she is as free of the gypsies as when her mother bare her, B a 17, E 16.
Fifteen gypsies are hanged, or lose their lives, A 10, B 18, D 14; sixteen, all sons of one mother, C 12, 13; seven, F 13, G 11, (cf. I 1).[[42]]
D 8–11 is ridiculously perverted in the interest of morals: compare B a 17, E 16. ‘I swear that my hand shall never go near thee,’ D 8, is transferred to the husband in I 5: ‘A hand I’ll neer lay on you’ (in the way of correction).
In G 4 the lady, in place of exchanging her silk mantle for a plaidie, pulls off her high-heeled shoes, of Spanish leather, and puts on Highland brogues. In I 7 gypsies take off her high-heeled shoes, and she puts on Lowland brogues. The high-heeled shoes, to be sure, are not adapted to following the Gypsy Laddie, but light may perhaps be derived from C 12, where the gypsies ‘drink her stockings and her shoon.’ In K these high-heeled shoes of Spanish leather are wrongly transferred to Lord Garrick in the copy as delivered, but have been restored to the lady.
It is not said (except in the spurious portions of E) that the lady was carried back by her husband, but this may perhaps be inferred from his hanging the gypsies. In D and K we are left uncertain as to her disposition, which is elsewhere, for the most part, to stick to the gypsy. J, a copy of very slight authority, makes the lord marry again within six months of his wife’s elopement.
The earliest edition of the ballad styles the gypsy Johny Faa, but gives no clew to the fair lady. Johnny Faa was a prominent and frequent name among the gypsies. Johnnë Faw’s right and title as lord and earl of Little Egypt were recognized by James V in a document under the Privy Seal, February 15, 1540, and we learn from this paper that, even before this date, letters had been issued to the king’s officers, enjoining them to assist Johnnë Faw “in execution of justice upon his company and folks, conform to the laws of Egypt, and in punishing of all them that rebels against him.” But in the next year, by an act of the Lords of Council, June 6, Egyptians are ordered to quit the realm within thirty days on pain of death, notwithstanding any other letters or privileges granted them by the king, his grace having discharged the same. The gypsies were expelled from Scotland by act of Parliament in 1609. Johnnë, alias Willie, Faa, with three others of the name, remaining notwithstanding, were sentenced to be hanged, 1611, July 31. In 1615, January 25, a man was delated for harboring of Egyptians, “specially of Johnnë Fall, a notorious Egyptian and chieftain of that unhappy sort of people.” In 1616, July 24, Johnnë Faa, Egyptian, his son, and two others were condemned to be hanged for contemptuous repairing to the country and abiding therein. Finally, in 1624, January 24, Captain Johnnë Faa and seven others were sentenced to be hanged for the same offence, and on the following 29th Helen Faa, relict of the late Captain Johnnë Faa, with ten other women, was sentenced to be drowned, but execution was stayed. Eight men were executed, but the rest, “being either children and of less-age and women with child or giving suck to children,” were, after imprisonment, banished the country under pain of death, to be inflicted without further process should they be found within the kingdom after a day fixed.[[43]] The execution of the notorious Egyptian and chieftain Johnny Faa must have made a considerable impression, and it is presumable that this ballad may have arisen not long after. Whether this were so or not, Johnny Faa acquired popular fame, and became a personage to whom any adventure might plausibly be imputed. It is said that he has even been foisted into ‘The Douglas Tragedy’ (‘Earl Brand’), and Scott had a copy of ‘Captain Car’ in which, as in F, G, of that ballad, the scene was transferred to Ayrshire, and the incendiary was called Johnny Faa.[[44]]
Toward the end of the last century we begin to hear that the people in Ayrshire make the wife of the Earl of Cassilis the heroine of the ballad. This name, under the instruction of Burns, was adopted into the copy in Johnson’s Museum (which, as to the rest, is Ramsay’s), and in the index to the second volume of the Museum, 1788, we read, “neighboring tradition strongly vouches for the truth of this story.” After this we get the tradition in full, of course with considerable variety in the details, and sometimes with criticism, sometimes without.[[45]]
The main points in the traditional story are that John, sixth earl of Cassilis, married, for his first wife, Lady Jean Hamilton, whose affections were preëngaged to one Sir John Faa, of Dunbar. Several years after, when Lady Cassilis had become the mother of two children,[[46]] Sir John Faa took the opportunity of the earl’s absence from home (while Lord Cassilis was attending the Westminster Assembly, say some) to present himself at the castle, accompanied by a band of gypsies and himself disguised as a gypsy, and induced his old love to elope with him. But the earl returned in the nick of time, went in pursuit, captured the whole party, or all but one,[[47]] who is supposed to tell the story, and hanged them, on the dule tree, “a most umbrageous plane, which yet flourishes upon a mound in front of the castle gate.” The fugitive wife was banished from board and bed, and confined for life in a tower at Maybole, built for the purpose. “Eight heads carved in stone below one of the turrets are said to be the effigies of so many of the gypsies.”[[48]] The ford by which the lady and her lover crossed the River Doon is still called The Gypsies’ Steps.