“ My good Lord Wharton's son and heir;
The other, James Stuart, a Scottish knight,
One that a valiant heart did bear.
When first to court these nobles came,
One night, a-gaming, fell to words,10
And in their fury grew so hot,
[Pg 261] That they did both try their keen swords.
No manner of treating, nor advice,
Could hold from striking in that place;
For, in the height and heat of blood, 15
James struck George Wharton on the face.
"What doth this mean," George Wharton said,
"To strike in such unmanly sort?
But, that I take it at thy hands,
The tongue of man shall ne'er report!" ”

“ The old knight said to her, "I pry'thee tell me,
From whence dost thou come, and of what family."
Then who was her parents she gave them to know, 175
And what was the cause of her wandering so.
The young 'squire said, "If you will save my life,
Pray grant this young creature may be my wife."
His father reply'd, "Your life for to save,
If you are agreed, my consent you shall have." 180
Next day, with great triumph and joy, as we hear,
There were many coaches came far and near;
She much like a goddess drest in great array,
Catskin to the 'squire was married that day. ”

“ The meeting of King Richard with Friar Tuck in Ivanhoe, was suggested by the tale of King Edward and the Hermit. "The general tone of the story," says Scott, "belongs to all ranks and to all countries, which emulate each other in describing the rambles of a disguised sovereign, who, going in search of information or amusement into the lower ranks of life, meets with adventures diverting to the reader or hearer, from the contrast betwixt the monarch's outward appearance and his real character. ”

“ The Gordon mentioned was probably Gordon of Craighlaw, whose castle was situated about five miles from Craignargat, in the parish of Kirkcowan, considered so remote before the formation of military roads, that the local proverb says,—'Out of the world, and into Kirkcowan.' The Hays of Park dwell on the coast, about six miles from Craignargat; but it is singular that the lady is not complimented with a Dunbar as her lover, the Place of Mochrum, as the old town is called, being only two miles from her reputed residence." Sharpe's Ballad Book, p. ”

“ When learned bishops princes eyes do blind.'
[1] Among those nations who originated and developed the character of Marcolf (the German and the French) his fame has declined, but in Italy, where the legend was first introduced towards the end of the sixteenth century, his shrewd sayings, like the kindred jests of the Eulenspiegel in Germany, have an undiminished popularity, and his story, both in the form of a chap-book and of a satirical epic, (the Bertoldo,) is circulated throughout the length and breadth of the country, whence it has also been transplanted into Greece. ”

“ When Catskin was married, her fame to raise,
To see her modest carriage all gave her the praise; 190
Thus her charming beauty the squire did win,
And who lives so great as he and Catskin?
[Pg 181]
PART V.
Now in the fifth part I'll endeavour to shew,
How things with her parents and sister did go;
Her mother and sister of life [are] bereft, 195
And all alone the old knight he was left.
And hearing his daughter being married so brave,
He said, "In my noddle a fancy I have;
Drest like a poor man a journey I'll make,
And see if on me some pity she'll take. ”

“ He is not distinctly remembered, but More-hall is still extant at the very bottom of Wantley [Warncliff] Wood, and lies so low, that it might be said to be in a well: as the Dragon's den [Warncliff Lodge] was at the top of the wood 'with Matthew's house hard by it.' The keepers belonging to the Wortley family were named, for many generations, Matthew Northall: the last of them left this lodge, within memory, to be keeper to the Duke of Norfolk. The present owner of More-hall still attends Mr. Bosville's Manor Court at Oxspring, and pays a rose a year. ”

“ However, if we may give credit to his own will, he was a knight's son; and more obliged to an English king and prince, than to any African monarch, for his riches. For when he founded Whittington College, and left a maintenance for so many people, as above related, they were, as Stow records it, for this maintenance bound to pray for the good estate of Richard Whittington, and Alice his wife, their founders; and for Sir William Whittington, and Dame Joan his wife; and for Hugh Fitzwarren, and Dame Molde his wife; the fathers and mothers of the said Richard Whittington and Alice his wife ”

“ Wynken de Worde, printed in 1511, a little collection of riddles, translated from the French, like those propounded by King John to the Abbot, with the title Demaundes Joyous. By this link the present ballad is connected with a curious class of compositions, peculiar to the Middle Ages—the Disputations, or Wit-Combats, of which the dialogues of Salomon and Marcolf (existing in many languages) are the most familiar, and those of Salomon and Saturn (in Anglo-Saxon) the oldest preserved specimens. ”

“ The unhappy event upon which the following ballad is founded took place under the reign of James the VI.
"The sufferers in this melancholy affair were both men of high birth, the heirs-apparent of two noble families, and youths of the most promising expectation. Sir James Stuart was a knight of the Bath, and eldest son of Walter, first Lord Blantyre, by Nicholas, daughter of Sir James Somerville of Cambusnethan. Sir George Wharton was also a knight of the Bath, and eldest son of Philip, Lord Wharton, by Frances, daughter of Henry Clifford, Earl of Cumberland. ”

“ The earliest known edition of Shakespeare's play was in 1600. The differences between this play and the ballad are thus stated by Percy.
"In the ballad is no mention of the contest for the empire between the two brothers, the composing of which makes the ungrateful treatment of Titus afterwards the more flagrant: neither is there any notice taken of his sacrificing one of Tamora's sons, which the tragic poet has assigned as the original cause of all her cruelties. In the play, Titus loses twenty-one of his sons in war, and kills another for assisting Bassianus to carry off Lavinia ”

“ Of the origin of the tradition we know nothing. M. Lacroix has suggested that it took its rise in a grand and beautiful allegory in which the Hebrew race were personified under the figure of the Everlasting Wanderer. See Calmet's Bible Dictionary, Grässe, Die Sage vom Ewigen Juden, Dresden and Leipsic, 1844, Paul Lacroix's Bibliographical Preface to Doré's Designs, La Légende du Juif Errant, etc. Paris, 1856.
This ballad is taken from Percy's Reliques, ii. 317, and was from a black-letter copy in the Pepys collection. ”

“ A maiden and a wife.
An hundred men that hapless day
Did lose their lives in that same fray,
And 'twixt those names, as many say,
Is deadly strife still biding. 160
[Pg 249]
FAIR MARGARET OF CRAIGNARGAT.
"Craignargat is a promontory in the Bay of Luce. Though almost surrounded by the Barony of Mochrum, it was long possessed by a branch of the family of Macdowall, which was probably our heroine's surname.—On the head of Fair Margaret's lovers, it may be remarked, that the Agnews of Lochnaw are a very ancient family, and hereditary sheriffs of Wigton. ”

“ Copley, about the presentation to Penniston, they supposing Francis had not the power to give this part of the estate from the heirs at law; but it was decided against them. The Dragon (Sir Francis Wortley) succeeded better with his cousin Wordesworth, the freehold lord of the manor, (for it is the copyhold manor that belongs to Mr. Bosville,) having persuaded him not to join the refractory parishioners, under a promise that he would let him his tithes cheap: and now the estates of Wortley and Wordesworth are the only lands that pay tithes in the parish. ”

“ THE GENTLEMAN IN THRACIA. From Collier's Roxburghe Ballads, p. 17.
This ballad is founded on a tale in the Gesta Romanorum, (Old English Versions, &c. p. 140.) Nearly the same story occurs in Barbazan's Fabliaux, ii. 440, and also, says Madden, in the Contes Tartares of Gueulette, iii. 157, and many other places. The model for all these is of course the Judgment of Solomon, in 1 Kings, iii. 16-27. See Douce, ii. 385.
Mr. Collier remarks that this ballad is without date, but was undoubtedly written late in the sixteenth, or early in the seventeenth, century. ”

“ The characters in both are giants: the smallest kemp that danced at Genselin's bridal was "fifteen ells to his knee." Secondly, the bridal in the one ballad and the wooing in the other are described in a style of extravagant parody; more gross in the English, however, than in the Danish, where it is confined to the bride's enormous appetite. This portion of Greve Genselin occurs also in Tord af Havsgaard (Grundtvig, No. 1) , which ballad is founded upon the story of Thor's Hammer in the Edda. ”

“ The ballad which follows is founded upon some narrative [Pg 78] of this event, many of which were published. It will be noticed that in the second form of the legend, the punishment of perpetual existence, which gives rise to the old names, Judæus non mortalis, Ewiger Jude, is aggravated by a condemnation to incessant change of place, which is indicated by a corresponding name, Wandering Jew, Juif Errant, etc. ”

“ Call son of a w...., do any kind of thing.
By the tail and the main, with his hands twain,
He swung a horse till he was dead;
And that which is stranger, he for very anger 55
Eat him all up but his head.
These children, as I told, being eat,
Men, women, girls, and boys,
Sighing and sobbing, came to his lodging,
And made a hideous noise; 60
"O save us all, More of More-Hall,
Thou peerless knight of these woods;
Do but slay this dragon, who won't leave us a rag on,
[Pg 131] We'll give thee all our goods." ”

“ THE GABERLUNZIE-MAN. Tea-Table Miscellany, i. 104; Old Ballads, iii. 259.
It is tradition that King James the Fifth of Scotland was in the habit of wandering about his dominions in disguise, and engaging in amours with country girls. One of these is thought to be described in the witty ballad of The Jolly Beggar, (Herd's Scotish Songs, ii. 164, Ritson's Scotish Songs, i. 168,) and another in The Gaberlunzie-Man, both of which are universally attributed (though without evidence) to James's pen. ”

“ No dated copy of the ballad of Gernutus is known. It is on the whole more likely that the ballad is older than Shakespeare's comedy, but it may have been called forth by the popularity of that very piece. To judge by the first stanza alone, the writer had derived his materials from an Italian novel. ”

“ Percy "for its genuine humor, diverting incidents, and faithful picture of rustic manners;" and The King and the Barker, the original of the present ballad. (See also the seventh and eighth fits of the Little Gest of Robin Hood.) More recent specimens are the two pieces here given, and others mentioned by Percy: King Henry and the Soldier, King Henry VIII. and the Cobbler, King James I. and the Tinker, King William and the Forester, &c. It is obvious that a legend of immemorial antiquity has been transferred by successive minstrels or story-tellers to the reigning monarch of their own times. ”

“ GIGHT'S LADY. Appendix to p. 93.
From Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, i. 133.
Buchan complains that all other editions of this ballad "have been deprived of their original beauty and catastrophe" by officious and sacrilegious hands, and adds that his copy "is quite at variance with all its printed predecessors." In this last remark he is certainly correct, but as for his affirmation that the ballad "recounts an affair which actually took place in the reign, or rather minority, of King James VI.," we ask for some authority beyond his note to the ballad. ”

“ The sum so large, the writings drew
That if he failed, or miss'd the day, 25
So many ounces he should pay
Of his own flesh, instead of gold;
[Pg 279] All was agreed, the sum was told.
So he returned immediately
Unto the lord, where he did buy 30
His daughter fine, I do declare,
And paid him down the money there.
He bought her there, it is well known
Unto mankind; she was his own;
By her a son he did enjoy, 35
A sweet and comely handsome boy.
At length the time of pay drew near,
When the knight did begin to fear ”

“ Ritson, who intended to insert the Wife of Auchtermuchty in a projected volume of Select Scotish Poems, says in a manuscript note, "The subject of this poem seems to be borrowed from the first part of a story in the Silva Sermonum Jucundissimorum, Basil. 1568, 8vo. p. 116, though certainly from a more ancient authority." (Laing.) This story is cited at the end of the volume from which we print. In Wright and Halliwell's Reliquiæ Antiquæ, ii. 195, is the first fit of an English ballad on the same subject, "from a MS. on paper, of the reign of Henry VII," (Ballad of a Tyrannical Husband.) ”