[6]. Nicolson and Burn, I, x, xiii, xcii.
[7]. Ballads and Songs of Ayrshire, 1st Series, p. 50.
[8]. See also a paper by Dr Arthur Mitchell in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, XII, 260, June 11, 1877. Dr Mitchell was with Mr Murray when he visited Sarah Rae, and he supplies the date 1866. The last stanza of the ballad and the burden are cited in this paper.
[9]. The innocent comments of certain editors must not be lost. “The whole incident surely implies a very early and primitive system of manners, not to speak of the circumstance of the court being held at Carlisle, which never was the case in any late period of English history.” (Chambers’s Scottish Ballads, p. 306.) “In our version [E] the scene of the theft is laid at London, but Carlisle, we are inclined to think, is the true reading. The great distance between Scotland and London, and the nature of the roads in times of old, would render the event an improbable, if not altogether an impossible, one to have occurred; and we can easily imagine, when the court was at Carlisle, that such a good practical joke was planned and carried into execution by some waggish courtiers.” (Dixon, p. 93 f.)
[10]. So the Memorial referred to in the next note, p. VI. Sharpe, in his preface, p. iv, says nineteen. B 9 is of course quite wrong as to the duration of her married life.
[11]. A Memorial of the Conversion of Jean Livingston, Lady Waristoun, etc., printed from the manuscript by C. K. Sharpe, Edinburgh, 1827. An Epitaphium Janetæ Livingstoune is subjoined. The record of Weir’s trial is given in the preface: see also Pitcairn’s Criminal Trials, II, 445 ff. The Memorial is powerfully interesting, but, in Sharpe’s words, would have been a mischievous present to the world, whatever one may think of the change of heart in this “dear saint of God,” as she is therein repeatedly called. It may be noted that Jean Livingston, when it was supposed her last hour had come, called for a drink and drank to all her friends. Memorial, p. XIII: cf. “Mary Hamilton.”
[12]. Rolling in a spiked barrel is well known as a popular form of punishment. For some examples later than Regulus, see Grundtvig, II, 174, No 58; Grundtvig, II, 547, No 101, A-D, Prior, I, 349, Afzelius, No 3 (two copies), Wolff, Halle der Völker, II, 161; Grundtvig, III, 700, No 178, A-D, Prior, II, 160, Arwidsson, II, 62, No 80, and Grundtvig, ib. p. 698; Hoffmann, Niederländische Volkslieder, 1856, p. 19, No 3, Le Jeune, p. 87, No 3, Prior, II, 238; Pidal, Asturian Romances, p. 163, No 36; Grimms, K.-u. H. märchen, Nos 13, 89, 135; Asbjørnsen og Moe, p. 464. Sharpe, in his preface to the Memorial, p. v, gives B 8 in this form, “partly from tradition:”
Up spak the laird o Dunypace,
Sat at the king’s right knee;
‘Gar nail her in a tar-barrel