Half a dozen lines preserved by Burns, Cromek’s Select Scotish Songs, II, 196 (see the preface to No 212), seem to belong to this ballad.
‘Sir James the Ross, A Historical Ballad’ (sometimes called ‘The Buchanshire Tragedy’), was composed by the youthful Michael Bruce ([+] 1767) upon the story of the popular ballad, and has perhaps enjoyed more favor with “the general” than the original.[[93]] ‘Elfrida and Sir James of Perth,’ Caw’s Poetical Museum, 1784, p. 290 (probably taken, as most of the pieces are by the collector said to be, from some periodical publication), looks more like an imitation of Bruce’s ballad than of its prototype. It is in fact a stark plagiarism.
Sir James the Rose has killed a squire, and men are out to take him. A nurse at the house of Marr is his leman, and he resorts to her in the hope that she may befriend him. She advises him to go to an ale-house for the night, promising to meet him there in the morning; he says he will do so, but, perhaps from distrust, which proves to be well grounded, prefers to wrap himself in his plaid and sleep under the sky. The party sent out to take him question the nurse, who at first makes a deceptive answer, then gives them a direction to his hiding-place. They find James the Rose asleep and take away his arms; he wakes and begs for mercy, and is told that he shall have such as he has given. He appeals to his servant to stay by him till death, and then to take his body to Loch Largan (Loughargan), for which service the man shall have his clothes and valuables. The avengers cut out his heart and take it to his leman at the house of Marr; she raves over her treachery, and is ‘born away’ bodily, to be seen no more.
e, f, it may be by accident, lack the vulgar passage 18, 19, which may be a later addition, for nothing is said of a man being in attendance when Sir James goes to his lair. The leader of the band that takes Sir James the Rose is Sir James the Graham, Sir James Graham, in c, e, f; a simple error, evidently. No motive is furnished in a-f for the woman’s betraying her leman. g makes her offer information on condition of getting a proper reward, and she is promised Sir James’s purse and brechan, but in the end is tendered his bleeding heart and his bleeding tartan, whatever that may be other than his brechan. This must be one of Pinkerton’s improvements. The moral tag, st. 24, is dropped, or wanting, in c, e, f, g.
The topography of traditional ballads frequently presents difficulties, both because it is liable to be changed, wholly, or, what is more embarrassing, partially, to suit a locality to which a ballad has been transported, and again because unfamiliar names, when not exchanged, are exposed to corruption. Some of the places, also, have not a dignity which entitles them to notice in gazetteers. The first point, in the case before us, would be to settle the whereabouts of the House of Marr, in the vicinity of which the scene is laid. This I am unable to do. There is a Ballechin in Logierait Parish, Perthshire. There is said to be a Baleichan in Forfarshire.[[94]] It is not easy to see why the heir of either of these places (Buleighan and the rest may stand for either) should wish to have his body taken to Loch Largon in Invernesshire, if Loch Largon means Loch Laggan, as seems likely.[[95]]
Translated by Knortz, Schottische Balladen, p. 79, after Aytoun.
1
O heard ye of Sir James the Rose,
The young heir of Buleighen?