O'er heathy edge, through rustling sedge, 85 Now rose with Branxholm's ae brother 125 He sped till day was set;

With clenched fist, he knocked on the chest, They carried him to the good greenwood

Says "What would you do, young Branx- "Now, by my sooth," quo' bold Walter,

245

Then up bespake him true Thomas,

He was the lord of Ersyltoun; "The wizard's spell no steel can quell,

Till once your lances bear him down."—

And he bade each lad of Teviot add
The barley chaff to the sifted sand.

The barley chaff to the sifted sand
They added still by handfuls nine:

They bore him down with lances bright, 215 But Redcap sly unseen was by,

But never a wound or scar had he;
With hempen bands they bound him tight,
Both hands and feet, on the Nine-stane
lee.

And the ropes would neither twist nor twine.

And still beside the Nine-stane burn,
Ribbed like the sand at mark of sea,
The ropes that would not twist nor turn
Shaped of the sifted sand you see.

250

They buried it deep, where his bones they They roll'd him up in a sheet of lead, sleep,

That mortal man might never it see; But Thomas did save it from the grave When he returned from Faërie.

234

The black spae-book from his breast he took,
And turned the leaves with curious hand;
No ropes, did he find, the wizard could bind,
But threefold ropes of sifted sand.

They sifted the sand from the Nine-stane burn,

And shaped the ropes sae curiouslie; 240 But the ropes would neither twist nor twine For Thomas true and his gramarye.

The black spae-book from his breast he took,
And again he turn'd it with his hand

A sheet of lead for a funeral pall;
They plunged him in the cauldron red, 265
And melted him, lead, bones, and all.

At the Skelf-hill, the cauldron still

The men of Liddesdale can show;

And on the spot, where they boiled the pot, The spreat and the deer-hair ne'er shall grow. 270

"The tradition concerning the death of Lord Soulis," writes Sir Walter Scott," is not without a parallel in the real

history of Scotland." Mellville, of Glenbure, Sheriff of the Mearns, was detested by the barons of his country. Reiterated complaints of his conduct having been made to James I., the monarch answered, in a moment of un guarded impatience, "Sorrow gin the sheriff were sodden,

and supped in broo!" The words were construed literally.

The barons prepared a fire and a boiling cauldron, iutę which they plunged the unlucky sheriff.

The Frere and the Boye: A Mery Geste.

THIS well-known tale is furnished, in its present dress, by a copy in the public library of the University of Cambridge, "Enprynted at London in Flete strete at the sygne of the sonne by Wynkyn de Worde;" compared with a later edition in the Bodleian library, "Imprinted at London at the long shop adionyning vnto Saint Mildreds Church in the Pultrie by Edward Alde;" both in quarto and black-letter, and of singular rarity, no duplicate of either being known to exist.* There is, indeed, a very old, though at the same time a most vulgar and corrupted copy extant in the first of those libraries (MSS. More, Ee. 4, 35), under the title of "The Cheylde and his step-dame," of which, besides that almost every line exhibits a various reading, the concluding stanzas are entirely different, and have, on that account, been thought worth preserving. But the most ancient copy of all would probably have been one in the Cotton library, if the volume which contained it had not unfortunately perished, with many things of greater importance, in the dreadful fire which happened in that noble repository, anno 1731. Vide Smith's Catalogue, Vitellius D. XII.

From the mention made in verse 429 of the city of "Orlyaunce," and the character of the "Offycyal," it may be conjectured that this poem is of French extraction; and, indeed, it is not at all improbable that the original is extant in some collection of old Fabliaux. A punishment similar to that of the good wife in this story, appears to have been inflicted on the widow of a St. Gengulph, for presuming to question the reality of her husband's miracles. See Heywood's History of Women, p. 196.

GOD that dyed for vs all,

And dranke both eysell and gall

There dwelled an husbonde in my countre
That had wyues thre,
By processe of tyme,

By the fyrst wyfe a sone he had,
That was a good sturdy ladde,
And an happy hyne.

His fader loued hym weel,
So dyde his moder neuer a dele,
I tell you as I thinke;

All she thought was lost, by the rode,
That dyde the lytell boye ony good,
Other mete or drynke.

And yet y wys it was but badde,
And therof not halfe ynough he had,
But euermore of the worste:
Therfore euyll mote she fare,
For euer she dyde the lytell boye care,
As ferforth as she dorste.

10

15

20

The good wyfe to her husbonde gan saye,
I wolde ye wolde put this boye awaye, 26
And that ryght soone in haste;
Truly he is a cursed ladde,

I wolde some other man hym had,
That wolde hym better chaste.
Then sayd the good man agayne,
Dame, I shall to the sayne,
He is but tender of age;
He shall abyde with me this yere,
Tyll he be more strongere,
For to wynne better wage.
We haue a man, a stoute freke,
That in the felde kepeth our nete,
Slepynge all the daye,

30

35

He shall come home, so god me shelde, 40
And the boye shall into the felde,
To kepe our beestes yf he may.
Then sayd the wyfe, verament,
Therto soone I assent,

For that me thynketh moost nedy.
On the morowe whan it was daye,
The lytell boye wente on his waye,

To the felde full redy;

Of no man he had no care,

45

But sung, hey howe, awaye the mare,* 50
And made ioye ynough;

Forth he wente, truly to sayne,

This seems to have been the beginning or title of some old ballad. Maystress Tyll of Brentford takes notice of it in her "Testament," 4to. b. 1.

"Ah syrra, mary a way the mare."