In this latter verse the first line may be Scott's own, but the rest is certainly traditional. In 1802 (no date of month), I find Scott writing to Laidlaw, "I am so anxious to have a compleat Scottish Otterburn that I will omit the ballad entirely in the first volume, hoping to recover it in time for insertion in the third." His sources were Herd's version (1774), and "two copies obtained from the recitation of old persons residing at the head of Ettrick Forest," possibly Hogg's mother and uncle.
Hogg, in his letter of July 20th, 1801, professed his readiness to supply the story of "the unnatural murder of the son and heir of Sir Robert Scott, of Thirlestane, the downfall of the house of Tushielaw, and of the horrid spirit that still haunts the Alders." Probably the tale alluded to is that of the death of Thirlestane's third son in a duel with his brother-in-law, Scott of Tushielaw; the ballad on the subject is The Dowie Dens of Yarrow. The inscribed stone near the spot, however, is probably a thousand years older than the event which Scott thought that it commemorated. Scott's version of the ballad is certainly "contaminated." In writing to Laidlaw he admires, in Tamlane, "the highly poetical verses descriptive of fairy land," but attributes them to "some poetical schoolmaster or clergyman." However, he retained the stanzas, which, he justly remarks, "seem quite modern." Among these notes, that on Auld Maitland is the most significant. As we have MS. evidence, which Hogg could not have known, that the ballad was current in Queen Mary's time, I must disbelieve that Hogg was the forger, and must regret that Professor Child decided to omit this enigmatic poem.
Unlucky Children.
(Supra, pp. 32 and 63.)
Referring to the superstition noted as existing in the Hebrides (supra, p. 32) that a child born with a tooth, or which cuts its first tooth in the upper jaw, will be a bard, the following notes may be of interest. (I take it that a bard among the Celts was a sacer vates, and had a quasi-sacred character.)
