Page:Old English ballads by Francis Barton Gummere (1894).djvu/460

356 NOTES. WILLIE'S LADY. From Mrs. Brown of Falkland, and printed, with some altera- tions, in Scott*s Minstrelsy; see Child, I, 8i ff., for interesting illustrations and parallels. 3 2. lighter = delivered of her child. 7 2. * Let her be . . . and this goodlie gift . . .* 11 2. Seems to be spoken by the husband ; but it may be the suffering wife, as in Professor Child's earlier collection, I, 164. 13 2. Leed. * Perhaps Lydia,* says Scott, — a bold suggestion. 15 2. chess is for jess, * the strap or cord attached to a hawk's leg and to the leash.' 29 1. Billy Blitt. See Child, I, 67, mtroduction to Gil Brenton. This * serviceable household demon ' is one of the friendly spirits of the home so common in folk-lore and familiar in another guise even to Milton {VAllegrOy ' the drudging goblin '). The word bil 'seems to point to a just and kindly-tempered being.' Scott, in a note, pointed out the Billy Blind * in the rustic game of Bogle,' a sort of blindman's-buff. 31, 32. Verses have apparently dropped out at this point ; and the rimes, as elsewhere, leave a great deal to be desired. Probably, too, a stanza is omitted between 33 and 34. 34. On the malignant effects of these knots, see Professor Child, p. 85. 37 1. master =ihg. YOUNG BEICHAN. Version A, Child, II, 454 ff., with 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 from H (Kinloch's Ballads: in H = 7, 8, 9, 10, 11), and the name Beichan instead of Bicham as in A. A favorite ballad, especially in such versions as The Loving 'Ballad of Lord Bateniany which Cruikshank illustrated (1839) ; as a story, it is related to the following ballad of Hind Horn, For the connection of Beichan (or Bekie) with Gilbert Beket, father of the Canterbury saint, see Child, p. 457 ff. 2. In some versions this treatment is caused by Beichan's refusal to bow a knee to * onie of their stocks ' in * Grand Turkic.' 2 2. tree == piece of wood : cf. our axletree. 11 2. white money = silver. Digitized by LjOOQIC