The Outlyer Bold

The Text is taken from Motherwell's MS., which contains two versions; Motherwell printed a third in his Minstrelsy,--Babylon; or, The Bonnie Banks o' Fordie. Kinloch called the ballad the Duke of Perth's Three Daughters. As the following text has no title, I have ventured to give it one. 'Outlyer' is, of course, simply 'a banished man.'

The Story is much more familiar in all the branches of the Scandinavian race than in England or Scotland. In Denmark it appears as Herr Truels' Daughters or Herr Thor's Children; in Sweden as Herr Torës' Daughters. Iceland and Faroe give the name as Torkild or Thorkell.

The incidents related in this ballad took place (i) in Scotland on the bonnie banks o' Fordie, near Dunkeld; (ii) in Sweden in five or six different places; and (iii) in eight different localities in Denmark.

THE OUTLYER BOLD

1.
There were three sisters, they lived in a bower,
Sing Anna, sing Margaret, sing Marjorie
The youngest o' them was the fairest flower.
And the dew goes thro' the wood, gay ladie

2.
The oldest of them she's to the wood gane,
To seek a braw leaf and to bring it hame.

3.
There she met with an outlyer bold,
Lies many long nights in the woods so cold.

4.
'Istow a maid, or istow a wife?
Wiltow twinn with thy maidenhead, or thy sweet life?'

5.
'O kind sir, if I hae't at my will,
I'll twinn with my life, keep my maidenhead still.'

6.
He's taen out his wee pen-knife,
He's twinned this young lady of her sweet life.

7.
He wiped his knife along the dew;
But the more he wiped, the redder it grew.

8.
The second of them she's to the wood gane,
To seek her old sister, and to bring her hame.

9.
There she met with an outlyer bold,
Lies many long nights in the woods so cold.

10.
'Istow a maid, or istow a wife?
Wiltow twinn with thy maidenhead, or thy sweet life?'

11.
'O kind sir, if I hae't at my will,
I'll twinn with my life, keep my maidenhead still.'

12.
He's taen out his wee pen-knife,
He's twinned this young lady of her sweet life.

13.
He wiped his knife along the dew;
But the more he wiped, the redder it grew.

14.
The youngest o' them she's to the wood gane,
To seek her two sisters, and to bring them hame.

15.
There she met with an outlyer bold,
Lies many long nights in the woods so cold.

16.
'Istow a maid, or istow a wife?
Wiltow twinn with thy maidenhead, or thy sweet life?'

17.
'If my three brethren they were here,
Such questions as these thou durst nae speer.'

18.
'Pray, what may thy three brethren be,
That I durst na mak' so bold with thee?'

19.
'The eldest o' them is a minister bred,
He teaches the people from evil to good.

20.
'The second o' them is a ploughman good,
He ploughs the land for his livelihood.

21.
'The youngest of them is an outlyer bold,
Lies many a long night in the woods so cold.'

22.
He stuck his knife then into the ground,
He took a long race, let himself fall on.

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 Cherry-Tree Carol

Frank Sidgwick, Simple Poetry

Bewick And Grahame

Frank Sidgwick, Simple Poetry

Johnie Armstrong

Frank Sidgwick, Simple Poetry

The Bonny Birdy

Frank Sidgwick, Simple Poetry

English

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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 Clerk's Twa Sons O' Owsenford, And The Wife Of Usher's Well

These two ballads must be considered together, as the last six verses (18-23) of The Clerk's Twa Sons, as here given, are a variant of The Wife of Usher's Well.


Texts.--The Clerk's Twa Sons is taken from Kinloch's MSS., in the handwriting of James Chambers, as it was sung to his grandmother by an old woman.

The Wife of Usher's Well is from Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, and however incomplete, may well stand alone.


The Story has a fairly close parallel in the well-known German ballad, 'Das Schloss in Oesterreich'; and a ballad found both in Spain and Italy has resemblances to each. But in these two ballads, especially in The Wife of Usher's Well, the interest lies rather in the impressiveness of the verses than in the story.

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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 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.


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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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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.

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