Page:Old English ballads by Francis Barton Gummere (1894).djvu/462

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358
NOTES.

358 NOTES, graphic description of Highland bride-stealing is given by Scott in his Introduction to Rob Roy: see the ballad of that name, Child, VII, 243 ff. 11 3. Evidently she is wrong. We must assume the bride to be faithful to her first love, and consenting to the abduction ; hence one version alters to * It's a* fair play.* Perhaps it is the deserted bridegroom who gars the trumpets sound * foul play.* 13 1. *To haik up and downy to haik about^ to drag from one place to another to little purpose, conveying the idea of fatigue caused to the person who is thus carried about.* — Jamieson, Dictionary. 13 3. Frogs, toads, snakes are served for fish, and act as a poison : see Lord Randal y and remarks. Child, I, 155, 157. THE GAY GOSHAWK. Printed by Scott in the Minstrelsy : here from Version A, Child, IV, 357 f. 7. See 4. — Although the Jamieson-Brown MS. has she in 7 3, it seems evident that we should read he, the goshawk being meant : see also 1 3. 8 2. Shot-windows : see Glossary. 10 4. See note to Young Huntingy 18 3, 4. Professor Child notes that rationalism, working its way into ballads, is fain to substitute parrots for all these birds that speak and understand. 19. A * drowsy syrup.' 26. For parallel cases, see Child, IV, 355 f. 28 2. Sound your horn is evidently a taunt ; cf. Chaucer*s phrase •blowe the bukkes horn* {Miller'* s Tale, v. 201), and the fate of a rejected lt)ver {Knighfs TaUy v. 980):

  • He mot go pypen in an ivy-leef.'

See Morris*s note to the latter. Clarendon Press Ed., p. 151. KING ESTMERE. Percy tore from his MS. the leaves on which this ballad was written, and' sent them to the press ; it is certain that he made both alterations and interpolations, only material, however, near the end. The edition of the Reliaues published in 1794 professed to restore Digitized by LjOOQIC