Page:Old English ballads by Francis Barton Gummere (1894).djvu/448

344 344 NOTES. to nature. There are some weak verses, due to broadside influence ; but delicate touches (as stanza 16) are not wanting. 1 3. Scott notes that this * custom of going armed to festive meetings * often made serious trouble. 5 2. bully y in the other versions billy, = comrade, brother in arms. 8 2. See 48 2.^ 19. By the old blood-brotherhood, and later forms of it, it was disgraceful for one of the pair to survive the other. 43. This is the awkward stroke by which Robin Hood killed Guy of Gisbome, stanza 40. THE CRUEL BROTHER. This is one of the ballads recited by Mrs. Brown of Falkland. She was bom in 1747, and learned her ballads before she was twelve years old. See Child, I, 142 ff., II, 455, note, who also quotes Prior in regard to the great importance *in ballad times' of asking a brother's assent to his sister's marriage. As printed here, the ballad is made up of A and B (Child, p. 145 f.) as follows: A = i, 9, 10, II, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25; B = 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 17, 18. I. For ball-playing, see Introduction, p. Ixxxi. II. See Suckling, Ballad upon a Wedding, of the bride and groom : Till every woman wish'd her place, And every man wish'd his. 19. For the testament, cf. Edward, p. 170. BABYLON, OR THE BONNIE BANKS O' FORDIE. Printed in Motherwell's Minstrelsy ; Child, I, 170 ff. 1 4. Fordie is a stream *■ about six miles to the east of Dunkeld ' in Scotland. 2 1. This peculiar form of trespass invariably summons the out- law, enchanted person, or whatever power of the place. See Tain Lin, 4. 17 2. o me = by me.* 18 2. twyned^= twinned = parted, divided. Digitized by LjOOQIC