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 was a troop of merry gentlemen
Was riding atween twa knows,
And they heard the voice of a bonny lass,
In a bught milking her ews.

2.
There's ane o' them lighted frae off his steed,
And has ty'd him to a tree,
And he's gane away to yon ew-bught,
To hear what it might be.

3.
'O pity me, fair maid,' he said,
'Take pity upon me;
O pity me, and my milk-white steed
That's trembling at yon tree.'

4.
'As for your steed, he shall not want
The best of corn and hay;
But as to you yoursel', kind sir,
I've naething for to say.'

5.
He's taen her by the milk-white hand,
And by the green gown-sleeve,
And he has led her into the ew-bught,
Of her friends he speer'd nae leave.

6.
He has put his hand in his pocket,
And given her guineas three;
'If I dinna come back in half a year,
Then luke nae mair for me.

7.
'Now show to me the king's hie street,
Now show to me the way;
Now show to me the king's hie street,
And the fair water of Tay.'

8.
She show'd to him the king's hie street,
She show'd to him the way;
She show'd him the way that he was to go,
By the fair water of Tay.

9.
When she came hame, her father said,
'Come, tell to me right plain;
I doubt you've met some in the way,
You have not been your lain.'

10.
'The night it is baith mist and mirk,
You may gan out and see;
The night is mirk and misty too,
There's nae body been wi' me.

11.
'There was a tod came to your flock,
The like I ne'er did see;
When he spake, he lifted his hat,
He had a bonny twinkling ee.'

12.
When fifteen weeks were past and gane,
Full fifteen weeks and three,
Then she began to think it lang
For the man wi' the twinkling ee.

13.
It fell out on a certain day,
When she cawd out her father's ky,
There was a troop of gentlemen
Came merrily riding by.

14.
'Weel may ye sigh and sob,' says ane,
'Weel may you sigh and see;
Weel may you sigh and say, fair maid,
Wha's gotten this bairn wi' thee?'

15.
She turned hersel' then quickly about,
And thinking meikle shame;
'O no, kind sir, it is na sae,
For it has a dad at hame.'

16.
'O hawd your tongue, my bonny lass,
Sae loud as I hear you lee!
For dinna you mind that summer night
I was in the bught wi' thee?'

17.
He lighted off his milk-white steed,
And set this fair maid on;
'Now caw out your ky, good father,' he said,
'She'll ne'er caw them out again.

18.
'I am the laird of Knottington,
I've fifty plows and three;
I've gotten now the bonniest lass
That is in the hale country.'

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

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The Knight And The Shepherd's Daughter

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English

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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...

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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,
        ...

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Cospatrick
The Text is that of Scott's Minstrelsy (1802). It was 'taken down from the recitation of a lady' (his mother's sister, Miss Christian Rutherford), and collated with a copy in the Tytler-Brown MS. The ballad is also called Gil Brenton, Lord Dingwall, Bangwell, Bengwill, or Brangwill, Bothwell, etc.

The Story is a great favourite, not only in Scandinavian ballads, but also in all northern literature. The magical agency of bed, blankets, sheets, and sword, is elsewhere extended to a chair, a stepping-stone by the bedside (see the Boy and the Mantle, First Series, p. 119), or the Billie Blin (see Young Bekie, First Series, pp. 6, 7, and Willie's Lady, p. 19). The Norwegian tale of Aase and the Prince is known to English readers in Dasent's Annie the Goosegirl<...
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The Twa Sisters O' Binnorie
Texts.--The version here given is compounded from two different sources, almost of necessity. Stanzas 1-19 were given by Scott, compounded from W. Tytler's Brown MS. and the recitation of an old woman. But at stanza 20 Scott's version becomes eccentric, and he prints such verses as:--

'A famous harper passing by
The sweet pale face he chanced to spy ...

The strings he framed of her yellow hair,
Whose notes made sad the listening air.'

Stanzas 20-25, therefore, have been supplied from the Jamieson-Brown MS., which after this point does not descend from the high level of ballad-poetry.

The Story.--This is a very old and a very popular story. An early broadside exists, dated 1656, and the same version is printed in Wit Restor'd, 1658. Of Scandinavian ballads on the ...
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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...
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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...
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