lover appeared to look upon the face of her who had died for him and would in death be carried to his, the land of the north. Then, suddenly, at the touch of his hand "She brightened like the lily flower, Till her pale colour was gone; She smiled her love upon." 129 CHAPTER IV. HISTORICAL BALLADS. OF the Historical Ballads, the two which refer to the oldest historical times and incidents are Auld Maitland and The Battle of Otterbourne. The Hunttis of Cheuet may be taken in connection with the latter. The former, which was taken down from the recitation of the mother of James Hogg, expresses thoroughly the Lowland feeling of opposition and hatred to Edward I. of England. Notwithstanding the opinion of Aytoun and Maidment, that this ballad is a modern one, there seems to me to be sufficient evidence of its being in the main an old composition. It consists of two parts, the one describing the siege of Auld Maitland's tower, the other detailing the chivalrous and romantic exploits of his three sons against Edward's army in France. There is no historical incident on record which corresponds to either of the parts. But Maitland himself "Maitland with his auld beard gray "— is a quite definite historical character, and his exploits are known to have been the subject of popular romance VOL. IL I long prior to the time of Gawain Douglas. He was laird of Thirlestane on the Leader in the thirteenth century, before and up to the period of the War of Independence. A Sir Richard Maitland disponed certain lands to the Abbey of Dryburgh in 1249. And the defence of his house against a band of Southerners at that period is quite a probable occurrence. The narrative of the ballad has all the directness, sense of reality, and pictorial power characteristic in general of the old and genuine historical ballads. What a picture is given in the single stanza, which describes the descent of the English upon the country: "They lighted on the banks of Tweed, And blew their coals sae het, And fired the Merse and Teviotdale, That word fired, not burned, speaks of the glow of the flame as present to the very eye of the minstrel. And what an account of literalness and truth and of quiet heroism have we here: "As they fared up o'er Lammermore, 'Wha hauds this house?' young Edward cried, 'Or wha gies't ower to me?'— A gray-hair'd knight set up his head, And crackit richt crousely: Then comes the siege, but the result of it all is :— "Full fifteen days that braid host lay, Sieging Auld Maitland keen, Syne they have left him, hail and feir, The exploits of the youths, though very bold, are of the usual sort in the days of romantic chivalry. But the Lowland hate of the Southerner comes out in this verse. One of the young Maitlands has thrown young Edward to the ground, and he is offered three earldoms to let him free : "It's ne'er be said in France, nor e'er In Scotland, when I'm hame, And e'er gat up again!" The Hunttis of Cheuet, mentioned in The Complaynt of Scotland 2 (1549), is the older version of what was subsequently known as Chevy Chace. It was originally published by Hearne in his Preface to the History of Gulielmus Neubrigiensis3 (1719). It is to be found in the Reliques of Percy, and in Child's Ballads. We have, of course, reprints in the popular ballads of Scotland. Richard Sheale-a ballad-singer and ballad-monger in Elizabeth's time-put his name to it in the older prints. This means nothing beyond that he copied it. Mr Furnival says, "The fight of which the ballad tells is not known to history, except in so far as it's mixt up with the battle of Otterbourne, fought in 1388." It possibly did refer also to 1 See the Ballad, in the Minstrelsy, i. 316. 4 vi. No. 162, 303. 3 xxxii. another skirmish. There is much similarity in tone and structure, and several of the expressions, even lines and stanzas, are the same in both ballads. They may have been written by the same person, or, more likely, they are varying subsequent versions of one original ballad; but the incident of the hunting of the Cheviot is different from the story of Otterbourne. It was the carrying out of a vow made by "the Percy out of Northumberland " that he would hunt in the mountains of Cheviot "In the maugre of doughty Douglas This began on a Monday at morn, The drivers thorowe the woodès went, Bowmen bickarte upon the bent With their broad arrows clear. Then the wild thorowe the woodès went On every side shear;1 Greyhounds thorowe the grovès glent They began in Cheviot the hills above, By that it drew to the hour of noon, A hundred fat harts dead there lay. They blew a mort 3 upon the bent, 1 Clearly, entirely. 3 Sound of the horn at death of the deer. 2 Monday. |