Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy Part 4

If thou wert hung owr yon drawbrigg Blythe wad I never be But wi' the pole-axe in his hand, Outower the bridge sprang he

The first stroke that young Edward gae He struck wi might and main He clove the Maitlen's helmet stout, And near had pierced his brain.

When Matlen saw his ain blood fa, An angry man was he He let his weapon frae him fa'

And at his neck did flee

And thrice about he did him swing, Till on the ground he light Where he has halden young Edward Tho' he was great in might

Now let him up, King Edward cry'd, And let him come to me And for the deed that ye hae done Ye shal hae earldoms three

It's ne'er be said in France nor Ire In Scotland when I'm hame That Edward once was under me, And yet wan up again

He stabb'd him thro and thro the hear He maul'd him cruelly Then hung him ower the drawbridge Beside the other three

Now take from me that feather bed Make me a bed o' strae I wish I neer had seen this day To mak my heart fu' wae

If I were once at London Tower, Where I was wont to be I never mair should gang frae hame, Till borne on a bier-tree

At the end of his copy Hogg writes (probably of stanza vii.)--"You may insert the two following lines anywhere you think it needs them, or subst.i.tute two better -

And marching south with curst Dunbar A ready welcome found."

II--WHAT IS AULD MAITLAND?

Is Auld Maitland a sheer forgery by Hogg, or is it in any sense, and if so, in what sense, antique and traditional? That Hogg made the whole of it is to me incredible. He had told Laidlaw on 20th July 1801, that he would make no ballads on traditions without Scott's permission, written in Scott's hand. Moreover, how could he have any traditions about "Auld Maitland, his n.o.ble Sonnis three," personages of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries? Scott had read about them in poems of about 1580, but these poems then lay in crabbed ma.n.u.scripts.

Again, Hogg wrote in words ("springs, wall-stanes") of whose meaning he had no idea; he took it as he heard it in recitation. Finally, the style is not that of Hogg when he attempts the ballad. Scott observed that "this ballad, notwithstanding its present appearance, has a claim to very high antiquity." The language, except for a few technical terms, is modern, but what else could it be if handed down orally? The language of undoubted ballads is often more modern than that which was spoken in my boyhood in Ettrick Forest. As Sir Walter Scott remarked, a poem of 1570-1580, which he quotes from the Maitland MSS., "would run as smoothly, and appear as modern, as any verse in the ballad (with a few exceptions) if divested of its antique spelling."

We now turn to the historical characters in the ballad.

Sir Richard Maitland of Lauder, or Thirlestane, says Scott, was already in his lands, and making donations to the Church in 1249. If, in 1296, forty-seven years later, he held his castle against Edward I., as in the ballad, he must have been a man of, say, seventy-five. By about 1574 his descendant, Sir Richard Maitland, was consoled for his family misfortunes (his famous son, Lethington, having died after the long siege of Edinburgh Castle, which he and Kirkcaldy of Grange held for Queen Mary), by a poet who reminded him that his ancestor, in the thirteenth century, lost all his sons--"peerless pearls"--save one, "Burdallane." The Sir Richard of 1575 has also one son left (John, the minister of James VI.). {41a}

From this evidence, in 1802 in MS. unpublished, and from other Maitland MSS., we learn that, in the sixteenth century, the Auld Maitland of the ballad was an eminent character in the legends of that period, and in the ballads of the people. {42b} His

n.o.bill sonnis three, Ar sung in monie far countrie, ALBEIT IN RURAL RHYME.

Pinkerton published, in 1786, none of the pieces to which Scott refers in his extracts from the Maitland MSS. How, then, did Hogg, if Hogg forged the ballad, know of Maitland and his "three n.o.ble sons"? Except Colonel Elliot, to whose explanation we return, I am not aware that any critic has tried to answer this question.

It seems to me that if the Ballad of Otterburne, extant in 1550 in England, survived in Scottish memory till Herd's fragment appeared in 1776, a tradition of Maitland, who was popular in the ballads of 1575, and known to Gawain Douglas seventy years earlier, may also have persisted. There is no impossibility.

Looking next at Scott's Auld Maitland the story is that King Edward I.

reigned for fifty years. He had a nephew Edward (an apocryphal person: such figures are common in ballads), who wished to take part in the invasion of Scotland. The English are repulsed by old Maitland from his "darksome house" on the Leader. The English, however, (stanza xv.) conquer Scotland, and join Edward I. in France. They besiege that town,

Which some call Billop-Grace (xviii.).

Here Maitland's three sons are learning at school, as Scots often were educated in France. They see that Edward's standard quarters the arms of France, and infer that he has conquered their country. They "will try some jeopardy." Persuading the English that they are themselves Englishmen, they ask leave to carry the royal flag. The eldest is told that he is singularly like Auld Maitland. In anger he stabs the standard-bearer, seizes the flag, and, with his brothers, spurs to Billop-Grace, where the French captain receives them. There is fighting at the gate. The King says that three disguised lads of France have stolen his flag. The Maitlands apparently heard of this; the youngest goes to Edward, and explains that they are Maitland's sons, and Scots; they challenge any three Englishmen; a thing in the manner of the period. The three Scots are victorious. Young Edward then challenges one of the dauntless three, who slays him. Edward wishes himself home at London Tower.

Such is the story. It is out of the regular line of ballad narrative, but it does not follow that, in the sixteenth century, some such tale was not told "in rural rhyme" about Maitland's "three n.o.ble sons."

That it is not historically true is nothing, of course, and that it is not in the Scots of the thirteenth century is nothing.

Colonel Elliot asks, What in the ballad raised suspicion of forgery (in 1802-03)? The historical inaccuracies are common to all historical ballads. (In an English ballad known to me of 1578, Henry Darnley is "hanged on a tree"!)

Next, "there are occasional lines, and even stanzas, which jar in style to such a degree that they must have been written by two separate hands."

But this, also, is a common feature. In "Professor Child and the Ballad," Mr. W. M. Hart gives a list of Professor Child's notes on the multiplicity of hands, which he, and every critic, detect in some ballads with a genuinely antique substratum. {44a}

Colonel Elliot quotes, as in his opinion the best, stanzas viii., ix., x., xi., while he thinks xv., xviii. the worst. I give these stanzas -

VIII.

They lighted on the banks o' Tweed, And blew their coals sae het, And fired the Merse and Teviotdale, All in an evening late.

IX.

As they fared up o'er Lammermoor, They burned baith up and doun, Until they came to a darksome house, Some call it Leader Town.

X.

"Wha hauds this house?" young Edward cried, "Or wha gi'est ower to me?"

A grey-hair'd knight set up his head, And crackit right crousely:

XI.

"Of Scotland's king I haud my house, He pays me meat and fee; And I will keep my guid auld house, While my house will keep me."

I cannot, I admit, find any fault with these stanzas: cannot see any reason why they should not be traditional.

Then Colonel Elliot cites, as the worst -

XV.

Then fifteen barks, all gaily good, Met them upon a day, Which they did lade with as much spoil As they could take away.

XVIII.

Until we came unto that town Which some call Billop-Grace; There were Auld Maitland's sons, a' three, Learning at school, alas!

Now, if I venture to differ from Colonel Elliot here, I may plead that I am practised in the art of ballad-faking, and can produce high testimonials of skill! To me stanzas xv., xviii. seem to differ much from viii.-xi., but not in such a way as Hogg would have differed, had he made them. Hogg's error would have lain, as Scott's did, in being, as Scott said of Mrs. Hemans, TOO POETICAL.