G
‘The Heiress of Northumberland,’ from C. K. Sharpe’s first collection, p. 7.
Sir W. Scott, commenting on this copy (to which he by mistake gives the title of The Stirrup of Northumberland), says: “An edition considerably varied both from Ritson’s and the present I have heard sung by the Miss Tytlers of Woodhouselee. The tune is a very pretty lilt.” Sharpe’s Ballad Book, ed. 1880, p. 142.
At the end of the ballad we are told: Tradition’s story is that the hero of this song was one of the Earls of Douglass, who was taken captive and put in prison by Percy, Earl of Northumberland.
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‘Why, fair maid, have pity on me,’
Waly ‘s my love wi the life that she wan
‘For I am bound in prison strong,
And under the heir o Northumberland.’
2