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 laird bears that name.

KATHARINE JAFFRAY

1.
There liv'd a lass in yonder dale,
And doun in yonder glen, O,
And Kath'rine Jaffray was her name,
Well known by many men, O.

2.
Out came the Laird of Lauderdale,
Out frae the South Countrie,
All for to court this pretty maid,
Her bridegroom for to be.

3.
He has teld her father and mither baith,
And a' the rest o' her kin,
And has teld the lass hersell,
And her consent has win.

4.
Then came the Laird of Lochinton,
Out frae the English border,
All for to court this pretty maid,
Well mounted in good order.

5.
He's teld her father and mither baith,
As I hear sindry say,
But he has nae teld the lass hersell,
Till on her wedding day.

6.
When day was set, and friends were met,
And married to be,
Lord Lauderdale came to the place,
The bridal for to see.

7.
'O are you come for sport, young man?
Or are you come for play?
Or are you come for a sight o' our bride,
Just on her wedding day?'

8.
'I'm nouther come for sport,' he says,
'Nor am I come for play;
But if I had one sight o' your bride,
I'll mount and ride away.'

9.
There was a glass of the red wine
Fill'd up them atween,
And ay she drank to Lauderdale,
Wha her true-love had been.

10.
Then he took her by the milk-white hand,
And by the grass-green sleeve,
And he mounted her high behind him there,
At the bridegroom he askt nae leive.

11.
Then the blude run down by Cowden Banks,
And down by Cowden Braes,
And ay she gard the trumpet sound,
'O this is foul, foul play!'

12.
Now a' ye that in England are,
Or are in England born,
Come nere to Scotland to court a lass,
Or else ye'l get the scorn.

13.
They haik ye up and settle ye by,
Till on your wedding day,
And gie ye frogs instead o' fish,
And play ye foul, foul play.

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.

Frank Sidgwick

The Friar In The Well

Frank Sidgwick, Simple Poetry

Captain Ward And The Rainbow

Frank Sidgwick, Simple Poetry

Lord Ingram And Chiel Wyet

Frank Sidgwick, Simple Poetry

The Jolly Juggler

Frank Sidgwick, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

The Laird Of Knottington

The Text was sent to Percy in 1768 by R. Lambe of Norham. The ballad is widely known in Scotland under several titles, but the most usual is The Broom of Cowdenknows, which was the title used by Scott in the Minstrelsy.


The Story is not consistently told in this version, as in 11.3,4 the daughter gives away her secret to her father in an absurd fashion.

An English song, printed as a broadside about 1640, The Lovely Northerne Lasse, is directed to be sung 'to a pleasant Scotch tune, called The broom of Cowden Knowes.' It is a poor variant of our ballad, in the usual broadside style, and cannot have been written by any one fully acquainted with the Scottish ballad. It is in the Roxburghe, Douce, and other collections.


THE LAIRD OF KNOTTINGTON

    1.
    There ...

Frank Sidgwick

The Knight And The Shepherd's Daughter

The Text is given here from Kinloch's MSS. He gives also three other versions and various fragments. The tale is also found amongst the Roxburghe Ballads, as The Beautifull Shepherdesse of Arcadia, in two broadsides printed about 1655 and 1680. This is the only English version extant. But earlier than any text of the ballad is a quotation from it in John Fletcher's The Pilgrim, iv. 2 (1621). The Scots versions, about a dozen in number, are far more lively than the broadside. Buchan printed two, of sixty and sixty-three stanzas respectively. Another text is delightfully inconsequent:--

    '"Some ca' me Jack, some ca' me John,
        Some ca' me Jing-ga-lee,
    But when I am in the queen's court
        Earl Hitchcock they ca' me."

    "Hitchcock, Hitchcock," Jo Janet she said,
        ...

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 Gay Goshawk
The Text is from the Jamieson-Brown MS., on which version Scott drew partly for his ballad in the Minstrelsy. Mrs. Brown recited the ballad again to William Tytler in 1783, but the result is now lost, with most of the other Tytler-Brown versions.

The Story.--One point, the maid's feint of death to escape from her father to her lover, is the subject of a ballad very popular in France; a version entitled Belle Isambourg is printed in a collection called Airs de Cour, 1607. Feigning death to escape various threats is a common feature in many European ballads.

It is perhaps needless to remark that no goshawk sings sweetly, much less talks. In Buchan's version (of forty-nine stanzas) the goshawk is exchanged for a parrot.

THE GAY GOSHAWK

1.
'O well's me o' my g...
Frank Sidgwick

The Braes Of Yarrow
The Text was communicated to Percy by Dr. Robertson of Edinburgh, but it did not appear in the Reliques.

In 9.1, 'Then' is doubtless an interpolation, as are the words 'Now Douglas' in 11.1 But on the whole it is the best text of the fifteen or twenty variants.

The Story.--James Hogg and Sir Walter Scott referred the ballad to two different sources, the former legendary, and the latter historical. It has always been very popular in Scotland, and besides the variants there are in existence several imitations, such as the well-known poem of William Hamilton, 'Busk ye, busk ye, my bonny bonny bride.' This was printed in vol. ii. of Percy's Reliques.

About half the known variants make the hero and heroine man and wife, the other half presenting them as unmarried lovers.

THE...
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