Glenlogie

The Text is from Sharpe's Ballad Book (1823). It is an extremely popular ballad in Scotland.

The Story.--Lady Jean Melville (in other versions Jean of Bethelnie, in Aberdeenshire), scarce sixteen years old, falls in love at first sight with Glenlogie, and tells him her mind. But he is already engaged, and Lady Jean takes to her care-bed. Her father offers the consolation, usual in such cases, of another and a richer husband. Jean, however, prefers the love of Glenlogie to the euphony of Drumfendrich, and gets her father's chaplain to write a letter to Glenlogie, which is so well indited that it moves him to tears, and all ends happily.

GLENLOGIE

1.
Four and twenty nobles sits in the king's ha',
Bonnie Glenlogie is the flower among them a'.

2.
In came Lady Jean, skipping on the floor,
And she has chosen Glenlogie 'mong a' that was there.

3.
She turned to his footman, and thus she did say:
'Oh, what is his name? and where does he stay?'

4.
'His name is Glenlogie, when he is from home;
He is of the gay Gordons, his name it is John.'

5.
'Glenlogie, Glenlogie, an you will prove kind,
My love is laid on you; I am telling my mind.'

6.
He turned about lightly, as the Gordons does a':
'I thank you, Lady Jean, my loves is promised awa'.'

7.
She called on her maidens her bed for to make,
Her rings and her jewels all from her to take.

8.
In came Jeanie's father, a wae man was he;
Says, 'I'll wed you to Drumfendrich, he has mair gold than he.'

9.
Her father's own chaplain, being a man of great skill,
He wrote him a letter, and indited it well.

10.
The first lines he looked at, a light laugh laughed he;
But ere he read through it the tears blinded his e'e.

11.
Oh, pale and wan looked she when Glenlogie cam in.
But even rosy grew she when Glenlogie sat down.

12.
'Turn round, Jeanie Melville, turn round to this side,
And I'll be the bridegroom, and you'll be the bride.'

13.
Oh, 'twas a merry wedding, and the portion down told,
Of bonnie Jeanie Melville, who was scarce sixteen years old.

Frank Sidgwick

Frank Sidgwick was an English writer, publisher, and scholarly editor. He was instrumental in popularizing ballad and folklore studies in the early 20th century. Sidgwick co-founded the publishing company Sidgwick & Jackson, which became known for its contributions to literature and scholarship. Though not primarily known as a poet, his editorial and publishing efforts significantly impacted the literary culture of his time, emphasizing the academic study of traditional songs and verses.

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English

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Geordie

The Text is from Johnson's Museum, communicated by Robert Burns.


The Story.--Some editors have identified the hero of the ballad with George Gordon, fourth earl of Huntly, but upon what grounds it is difficult to see.

There are two English broadside ballads, of the first and second halves respectively of the seventeenth century, which are either the originals of, or copies from, the Scottish ballad, which exists in many variants. The earlier is concerned with 'the death of a worthy gentleman named George Stoole,' 'to a delicate Scottish tune,' and the second is called 'The Life and Death of George of Oxford. To a pleasant tune, called Poor Georgy.' One of the Scottish versions has a burden resembling that of 'George Stoole.'

The 'battle in the north' and Sir Charles Hay are not identified.

Frank Sidgwick

Katharine Jaffray

The Text is from Herd's MSS., two copies showing a difference of one word and a few spellings. Stt. 3 and 5 are interchanged for the sake of the sense.

Many copies of this ballad exist (Child prints a dozen), but this one is both the shortest and simplest.


The Story.--In The Cruel Brother (First Series, p. 76) it was shown that a lover must 'speak to the brother' of his lady. Here the lesson, it seems, is that he must 'tell the lass herself' before her wedding-day. Katharine, however, not only proves her faith to her first lover (her 'grass-green' dress, 10.2, shows an ill-omened marriage), but prefers the Scot to the Southron. This lesson the ballad drives home in the last two verses.

Presumably Scott founded Young Lochinvar on the story of this ballad, as in six versions the Scots lai...

Frank Sidgwick

The Laird O' Logie

The Text is that of Scott's Minstrelsy, which was repeated in Motherwell's collection, with the insertion of one stanza, obtained from tradition, between Scott's 2 and 3.


The Story as told in this variant of the ballad is remarkably true to the historical facts.

The Laird was John Wemyss, younger of Logie, a gentleman-in-waiting to King James VI. of Scotland, and an adherent of the notorious Francis Stuart, Earl of Bothwell. After the failure of the two rash attempts of Bothwell upon the King's person--the former at Holyrood House in 1591 and the second at Falkland in 1592--the Earl persuaded the Laird of Logie and the Laird of Burleigh to join him in a third attempt, which was fixed for the 7th or 9th of August 1592; but the King got wind of the affair, and the two Lairds were seized by the Duke of Lenn...

Frank Sidgwick

Fair Janet

The Text.--Of seven or eight variants of this ballad, only three preserve the full form of the story. On the whole, the one here given--from Sharp's Ballad Book, as sung by an old woman in Perthshire--is the best, as the other two--from Herd's Scots Songs, and the Kinloch MSS.--are slightly contaminated by extraneous matter.

The Story is a simple ballad-tale of 'true-love twinned'; but the episode of the dancing forms a link with a number of German and Scandinavian ballads, in which compulsory dancing and horse-riding is made a test of the guilt of an accused maiden. In the Scotch ballad the horse-riding has shrunk almost to nothing, and the dancing is not compulsory. The resemblance is faint, and the barbarities of the Continental versions are happily wanting in our ballad.


FAIR JANET

...

Frank Sidgwick

The Cruel Brother

The Text is that obtained in 1800 by Alexander Fraser Tytler from Mrs. Brown of Falkland, and by him committed to writing. The first ten and the last two stanzas show corruption, but the rest of the ballad is in the best style.

The Story emphasises the necessity of asking the consent of a brother to the marriage of his sister, and therefore the title The Cruel Brother is a misnomer. In ballad-times, the brother would have been well within his rights; it was rather a fatal oversight of the bridegroom that caused the tragedy.

Danish and German ballads echo the story, though in the commonest German ballad, Graf Friedrich, the bride receives an accidental wound, and that from the bridegroom's own hand.

The testament of the bride, by which she benefits her friends and leaves curses on her e...

Frank Sidgwick

The Gipsy Laddie

The Text is from Motherwell's MS., a copy from tradition in Renfrewshire in 1825. The ballad exists both in English and Scottish, and though the English ballad is probably derived from the Scottish, it was the first in print. It is also called Johnnie Faa. Motherwell, in printing an elaborated version of the following text (Minstrelsy, 1827, p. 360), called it Gypsie Davy.


The Story.--Singers--presumably gipsies--entice Lady Cassillis down to hear them, and cast glamour on her. She follows their chief, Gipsy Davy, but finds (stt. 5 and 6) that the conditions are changed. Her lord misses her, seeks her 'thro' nations many,' and finds her drinking with the gipsy chief. He asks her to return home with him. At this point the present version becomes difficult, and the bearing of st. 12 is not apparent. We ...

Frank Sidgwick