Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy

Pardon, my dear Sir, the freedom I have taken in addressing you – it is my nature; and I could not resist the impulse of writing to you any longer. Let me hear from you as soon as this comes to your hand, and tell me when you will be in Ettrick Forest, and suffer me to subscribe myself, Sir, your most humble and affectionate servant,

James Hogg.

In Scott’s printed text of the ballad, two interpolations, of two lines each, are acknowledged in notes. They occur in stanzas vii., xlvi., and are attributed to Hogg. In fact, Hogg sent one of them (vii.) to Laidlaw in his manuscript. The other he sent to Scott on 30th June 1802.

Colonel Elliot, in the spirit of the Higher Criticism (chimæra bombinans in vacuo), writes, 21 “Few will doubt that the footnotes” (on these interpolations) “were inserted with the purpose of leading the public to think that Hogg made no other interpolations; but I am afraid I must go further than this and say that, since they were inserted on the editor’s responsibility, the intention must have been to make it appear as if no other interpolations by any other hand had been inserted.”

But no other interpolations by another hand were inserted! Some verbal emendations were made by Scott, but he never put in a stanza or two lines of his own.

Colonel Elliot provides us with six pages of the Higher Criticism. He knows how to distinguish between verses by Hogg, and verses by Scott! 22 But, save when Scott puts one line, a ballad formula, where Hogg has another line, Scott makes no interpolations, and the ballad formula he probably took, with other things of no more importance, from Mrs. Hogg’s recitation. Oh, Higher Criticism!

I now print the ballad as Hogg sent it to Laidlaw, between August 1801 and March 1802, in all probability.

[Back of Hogg’s MS.: Mr. William Laidlaw, Blackhouse.]

OLD MAITLAND

A VERY ANTIENT SONG

There lived a king in southern land   King Edward hecht his nameUnwordily he wore the crown   Till fifty years was gane.He had a sister’s son o’s ain   Was large o’ blood and baneAnd afterwards when he came up,   Young Edward hecht his name.One day he came before the king,   And kneeld low on his kneeA boon a boon my good uncle,   I crave to ask of thee“At our lang wars i’ fair Scotland   I lang hae lang’d to beIf fifteen hunder wale wight men   You’ll grant to ride wi’ me.”“Thou sal hae thae thou sal hae mae   I say it sickerly;And I mysel an auld grey man   Arrayd your host sal see.” —King Edward rade King Edward ran —   I wish him dool and pain!Till he had fifteen hundred men   Assembled on the Tyne.And twice as many at North Berwick   Was a’ for battle boundThey lighted on the banks of Tweed   And blew their coals sae hetAnd fired the Merce and Tevidale   All in an evening lateAs they far’d up o’er Lammermor   They burn’d baith tower and townUntil they came to a derksome house,   Some call it Leaders TownWhae hauds this house young Edward crys,   Or whae gae’st ower to meA grey haired knight set up his head   And cracked right crouselyOf Scotlands King I haud my house   He pays me meat and feeAnd I will keep my goud auld house   While my house will keep meThey laid their sowies to the wall   Wi’ mony heavy pealBut he threw ower to them again   Baith piech and tar barilleWith springs: wall stanes, and good of ern,   Among them fast he threwTill mony of the Englishmen   About the wall he slew.Full fifteen days that braid host lay   Sieging old Maitlen keenThen they hae left him safe and hale   Within his strength o’ staneThen fifteen barks, all gaily good,   Met themen on a day,Which they did lade with as much spoil   As they could bear away.“England’s our ain by heritage;   And whae can us gainstand,When we hae conquerd fair Scotland   Wi’ bow, buckler, and brande” —Then they are on to th’ land o’ france,   Where auld King Edward lay,Burning each town and castle strong   That ance cam in his way.Untill he cam unto that town   Which some call Billop-GraceThere were old Maitlen’s sons a’ three   Learning at School alasThe eldest to the others said,   O see ye what I seeIf a’ be true yon standard says,   We’re fatherless a’ threeFor Scotland’s conquerd up and down   Landsmen we’ll never be:Now will you go my brethren two,   And try some jeopardyThen they hae saddled two black horse,   Two black horse and a greyAnd they are on to Edwardes host   Before the dawn of dayWhen they arriv’d before the host   They hover’d on the leyWill you lend me our King’s standard   To carry a little wayWhere was thou bred where was thou born   Wherein in what country —In the north of England I was born   What needed him to lie.A knight me got a lady bare   I’m a squire of high renownI well may bear’t to any king,   That ever yet wore crown.He ne’er came of an Englishman   Had sic an ee or breeBut thou art likest auld Maitlen   That ever I did seeBut sic a gloom inon ae browhead   Grant’s ne’er see againFor many of our men he slew   And many put to painWhen Maitlan heard his father’s name,   An angry man was heThen lifting up a gilt dager   Hung low down by his keeHe stab’d the knight the standard bore,   He stabb’d him cruelly;Then caught the standard by the neuk,   And fast away rade he.Now is’t na time brothers he cry’d   Now, is’t na time to fleeAy by my soothe they baith reply’d,   We’ll bear you companyThe youngest turn’d him in a path   And drew a burnish’d brandAnd fifteen o’ the foremost slew   Till back the lave did standHe spurr’d the grey unto the path   Till baith her sides they bledGrey! thou maun carry me away   Or my life lies in wedThe captain lookit owr the wa’   Before the break o dayThere he beheld the three Scots lads   Pursued alongst the wayPull up portculzies down draw briggs   My nephews are at hameAnd they shall lodge wi’ me to-night,   In spite of all EnglandWhene’er they came within the gate   They thrust their horse them fraeAnd took three lang spears in their hands,   Saying, here sal come nae maeAnd they shott out and they shott in,   Till it was fairly dayWhen many of the Englishmen   About the draw brigg lay.Then they hae yoked carts and wains   To ca’ their dead awayAnd shot auld dykes aboon the lave   In gutters where they layThe king in his pavilion door   Was heard aloud to sayLast night three o’ the lads o’ France   My standard stole awayWi’ a fause tale disguis’d they came   And wi’ a fauser trainAnd to regain my gaye standard   These men were a’ down slaineIt ill befits the youngest said   A crowned king to lieBut or that I taste meat and drink,   Reproved shall he be.He went before King Edward straight   And kneel’d low on his kneeI wad hae leave my liege he said,   To speak a word wi’ theeThe king he turn’d him round about   And wistna what to sayQuo’ he, Man, thou’s hae leave to speak   Though thou should speak a day.You said that three young lads o’ France,   Your standard stole awayWi’ a fause tale and fauser train,   And mony men did slayBut we are nane the lads o’ France   Nor e’er pretend to beWe are three lads o’ fair Scotland,   Auld Maitlen’s sons a’ threeNor is there men in a your host,   Dare fight us three to threeNow by my sooth young Edward cry’d,   Weel fitted sall ye be!Piercy sall with the eldest fight   And Ethert Lunn wi’ theeWilliam of Lancastar the third   And bring your fourth to meHe clanked Piercy owr the head   A deep wound and a sairTill the best blood o’ his body   Came rinnen owr his hair.Now I’ve slain one slay ye the two;   And that’s good companyAnd if the two should slay ye baith,   Ye’se get na help frae meBut Ethert Lunn a baited bear   Had many battles seenHe set the youngest wonder sair,   Till the eldest he grew keenI am nae king nor nae sic thing   My word it sanna standFor Ethert shall a buffet bide,   Come he aneath my brand.He clanked Ethert owr the head,   A deep wound and a sairTill a’ the blood of his body   Came rinnen owr his hairNow I’ve slayne two slay ye the one;   Isna that gude companyAnd tho’ the one should slay ye both   Ye’se get nae help o’ me.The twasome they hae slayn the one   They maul’d them cruellyThen hang them owr the drawbridge,   That a’ the host might seeThey rade their horse they ran their horse,   Then hover’d on the leyWe be three lads o’ fair Scotland,   We fain wad fighting seeThis boasting when young Edward heard,   To’s uncle thus said he,I’ll take yon lad I’ll bind yon lad,   And bring him bound to theeBut God forbid King Edward said   That ever thou should tryThree worthy leaders we hae lost,   And you the fourth shall be.If thou wert hung owr yon drawbrigg   Blythe wad I never beBut wi’ the pole-axe in his hand,   Outower the bridge sprang heThe first stroke that young Edward gae   He struck wi might and mainHe clove the Maitlen’s helmet stout,   And near had pierced his brain.When Matlen saw his ain blood fa,   An angry man was heHe let his weapon frae him fa’   And at his neck did fleeAnd thrice about he did him swing,   Till on the ground he lightWhere he has halden young Edward   Tho’ he was great in mightNow let him up, King Edward cry’d,   And let him come to meAnd for the deed that ye hae done   Ye shal hae earldoms threeIt’s ne’er be said in France nor Ire   In Scotland when I’m hameThat Edward once was under me,   And yet wan up againHe stabb’d him thro and thro the hear   He maul’d him cruellyThen hung him ower the drawbridge   Beside the other threeNow take from me that feather bed   Make me a bed o’ straeI wish I neer had seen this day   To mak my heart fu’ waeIf I were once at London Tower,   Where I was wont to beI 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 substitute two better —

And marching south with curst DunbarA 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 noble 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 manuscripts. 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.). 23

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. 24 His

   Nobill 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 noble 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 noble 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. 25

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 —

VIIIThey lighted on the banks o’ Tweed,   And blew their coals sae het,And fired the Merse and Teviotdale,   All in an evening late.IXAs 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 —

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

Neither Hogg nor Scott, I think, was crafty enough to imitate the prosaic drawl of the printed broadside ballad, or the feeble interpolations with which the “gangrel scrape-gut,” or bänkelsänger, supplied gaps in his memory. The modern complete ballad-faker would introduce such abject verses, but Scott and Hogg desired to decorate, not to debase, ballads with which they intermeddled, and we track them by their modern romantic touch when they interpolate. I take it, for this reason, that Hogg did not write stanzas xv., xviii. It was hardly in nature for Hogg, if he knew Ville de Grace in Normandy (a thing not very probable), to invent “Billop-Grace” as a popular corruption of the name – and a popular corruption it is, I think. Probably the original maker of this stanza wrote, in line 4, “alace,” an old spelling – not “alas” – to rhyme with “grace.”

Colonel Elliot then assigns xv., xviii. as most likely of all to be by Hogg. On that I have given my opinion, with my reasons.

These verses, with xviii., lead us to France, and whereas Scott here suspects that some verses have been lost (see his note to stanza xviii.), Colonel Elliot suspects that the stanzas relating to France have been interpolated. But the French scenes occupy the whole poem from xvi. to lxv., the end.

What, if Hogg were the forger, were his sources? He may have known Douglas’s Palice of Honour, which, of course, existed in print, with its mention of Maitland’s grey beard. But how did he know Maitland’s “three noble sons,” in 1801–1802, lying unsunned in the Maitland MSS.?

This is a point which critics of Auld Maitland studiously ignore, yet it is the essential point. How did the Shepherd know about the three young Maitlands, whose existence, in legend, is only revealed to us through a manuscript unpublished in 1802? Colonel Elliot does not evade the point. “We may be sure,” he says, that Leyden, before 1802, knew Hogg, and Hogg might have obtained from him sufficient information to enable him to compose the ballad. 26 But it was from Laidlaw, not from Leyden, that Scott, after receiving his first copy at Blackhouse, in spring 1802, obtained Hogg’s address. 27 There is no hint that before spring 1802 Leyden ever saw Hogg. Had he known him, and his ballad-lore, he would have brought him and Scott together. In 1801–02, Leyden was very busy in Edinburgh helping Scott to edit Sir Tristram, copying Arthour, seeking for an East India appointment, and going into society. Scott’s letters prove all this. 28

That Hogg, in 1802, was very capable of writing a ballad, I admit; also that, through Blind Harry’s Wallace, he may have known all about “sowies,” and “portculize,” and springwalls, or springald’s, or springalls, mediæval balistas for throwing heavy stones and darts. But Hogg did not know or guess what a springwall was. In his stanza xiii. (in the MS. given to Laidlaw), Hogg wrote —

With springs; wall stanes, and good o’ernAmong them fast he threw.

Scott saw the real meaning of this nonsense, and read —

With springalds, stones, and gads o’ airn.

In his preface he says that many words in the ballad, “which the reciters have retained without understanding them, still preserve traces of their antiquity.” For instance, springalls, corruptedly pronounced springwalls. Hogg, hearing the pronunciation, and not understanding, wrote, “with springs: wall stanes.” A leader would not throw “wall stanes” till he had exhausted his ammunition. Hogg heard “with springwalls stones, he threw,” and wrote it, “with springs: wall stones he threw.”

Hogg could not know of Auld Maitland “and his three noble sons” except through an informant familiar with the Maitland MSS. in Edinburgh University Library. On the theory of a conspiracy to forge, Scott taught him, but that theory is crushed.

Hogg says, in Domestic Manners of Sir Walter Scott, that when his mother met Scott she told him that her brother and she learned the ballad from auld Andrew Muir, and he from “auld Babby Mettlin,” housekeeper of the first (“Anderson”) laird of Tushielaw. This first Anderson, laird of Tushielaw, reigned from 1688 to 1721 (?) or 1724. 29 Hogg’s mother was born in 1730, and was only one remove – filled up by Andrew Muir – from Babby, who was “ither than a gude yin,” and knew many songs. Does any one think Hogg crafty enough to have invented Babby Maitland as the source of a song about the Maitlands, and to have introduced her into his narrative in 1834? I conjecture that this Maitland woman knew a Maitland song, modernised in time, and perhaps copied out and emended by one of the Maitland family, possibly one of the descendants of Lethington. We know that, under James I., about 1620, Lethington’s impoverished son, James, had several children; and that Lauderdale was still supporting them (or their children) during the Restoration. Only a century before, ballads on the Maitlands had certainly been popular, and there is nothing impossible in the suggestion that one such ballad survived in the Lauderdale or Lethington family, and came through Babby Maitland to Andrew Muir, then to Hogg’s mother, to Hogg, and to Scott.

If a manuscript copy ever existed, and was Babby’s ultimate source, it would be of the late seventeenth century. That is the ascertained date of the oldest known MS. of The Outlaw Murray, as is proved from an allusion in a note appended to a copy, referring to a Judge of Session, Lord Philiphaugh, as then alive. The copy was of 1689–1702. 30

Granting a MS. of Auld Maitland existing in any branch of the Maitland family in 1680–1700, Babby Mettlin’s knowledge of the ballad, and its few modernisms, are explained.

As Lockhart truly says, Hogg “was the most extraordinary man that ever wore the maud of a shepherd.” He had none of Burns’ education. In 1802 he was young, and ignorant of cities, and always was innocent of research in the crabbed MSS. of the sixteenth century. Yet he gets at legendary persons known to us only through these MSS. He makes a ballad named Auld Maitland about them. Through him a farm-lass at Blackhouse acquires some stanzas which Laidlaw copies. In a fortnight Hogg sends Laidlaw the whole ballad, with the pedigree – his uncle, his mother, their father, and old Andrew Muir, servant to the famous Rev. Mr. Boston of Ettrick. The copy takes in Scott and Leyden. Later, Ritson makes no objection. Mrs. Hogg recites it to Scott, and, according to Hogg, gives a casual “auld Babby Maitland” as the original source.

Is the whole fraud conceivable? Hogg, we must believe, puts in two stanzas (xv., xviii.), of the lowliest order of printed stall-copy or “gangrel scrape-gut” style, and the same with intent to deceive. He introduces “Billop-Grace” as a deceptive popular corruption of Ville de Grace. This is far beyond any craft that I have found in the most artful modern “fakers.” One stanza (xlix.) —

But Ethert Lunn, a baited bear,Had many battles seen —

seems to me very recent, whoever made it. Scott, in lxii., gives a variant of “some reciters,” for “That Edward once lay under me,” they read “That Englishman lay under me.” This, if a false story, was an example of an art more delicate than Scott elsewhere exhibits.

One does not know what Professor Child would have said to my arguments. He never gave a criticism in detail of the ballad and of the circumstances in which Scott acquired it. A man most reasonable, most open to conviction, he would, I think, have confessed his perplexity.

Scott did not interpolate a single stanza, even where, as Hogg wrote, he suspected a lacuna in the text. He neither cut out nor improved the cryingly modern stanzas. He kept them, as he kept several stanzas in Tamlane, which, so he told Laidlaw, were obviously recent, but were in a copy which he procured through Lady Dalkeith. 31