Page:Old English ballads by Francis Barton Gummere (1894).djvu/455

Rh NOTES. 351 14 2, 15 2. She swears by corn and by moon ; in another version by 'grass sae greene and by the corn ' ; again (K, 26) by the thorn. Glasgerion's oath (see above, p. 342) was * by oak and ash and thorn,* — a * full-great * oath, with distinctly heathen elements. 16 3. duckers = divers. 17 1. the tae = the one. 18 3, 4. From K. — For a bird revealing secrets, cf. the parrot in Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight (Child, I, 22 ff.), C, 13 ff. (p. 57); D, 22 ; E, 14 ff., where a cage is promised ; and especially The Bonnie Birdy (Child, III, 260 f.), a Scottish pendant to the English Little Musgrave. Here the bird tells the knight of his wife's sin because the latter has treated the bird ill. Birds carry messages ; cf. Johnie Cocky 20, and Gay Goshawk^ with Professor Child's note, IV, 356 f. 20 3, 4. Scott thinks these are * unquestionably * the corpse-lights is concealed ' ; but Professor Child urges that the meaning * is as likely to be that a candle, floated on the water, would bum brighter when it came to the spot where the body lay.' 23 6. Note the dative with substantive force. 25 6. hokey-gren. In Scott's version, hollin green = green holly. FAIR JANET. Printed in Sharpe's Ballad Book ; Child, Ballads, III, 100 ff. 4 4. AV'.f= he shall. 5 4. y^= sweetheart. 18 4. the morn = the morrow. 19. Cf. Mary Hamilton, 6. 20 3. White steeds have sacred associations (Tacitus, Germania, c. 10), are reserved for royalty, and are the best of three colors in times of need: see Lady Maisry, B (Child, III, 116), and Fair Mary of Livingston, 20-22. Tam Lin, too, rides not the black, nor the brown, but — he is a favorite of the queen — a milk-white steed : 27, 28. * Saddle white Surrey for the field to-morrow,' commands the king, Richard III, v, 3. * Dem Pabst ist gesetzt,' ran an old regulation, * dass er reyte auf einem blancken Pferde.^ For a deeper glimpse, see Hehn. Kulturpflanzen u. Haustiere, pp. 44 f., 478. 24. In came, etc. Digitized by LjOOQIC
 * which are sometimes seen to illuminate the spot where a dead body