Page:Old English ballads by Francis Barton Gummere (1894).djvu/461

Rh NOTES. 55i^ 14. In two other versions, as undoubtedly* in the original forms of the ballad, it is the Billy Blin (see preceding ballad) who warns the heroine of Beichan's impending marriage. 15 4. We must, in all civility, concede this line to the minstrel. 22 1 . In other versions, cups and cans fly, as Beichan very properly kicks over his table. HIND HORN. See Child, I, 201, for this version from MotherwelFs MS.; and I, 192 f., for the relations of the ballads to the famous gest of King Horn (13th century), the latter being in all probability founded on older ballads now lost beyond chance of recovery. As Professor Child remarks, this ballad gives only the catastrophe of the story. — Hind = young man, stripling. 4 2. lavrocks = larks. 6 2. Not literally * gone, of course, for she remains always true to Horn, but rather * in danger.* — For other warnings of trouble at home, see Child, p. 200 f. Somewhat similar sympathy with human emotions is felt by a stone in a certain Rathhaus (Kuhn-Schwarz, Norddeutsche SageUj p. 249), which turns from red to blue when a maiden whispers to it her story of misfortune. Grimm {Deutsche Sagen, No. 41) tells of a sword belonging to Countess Rantzau : if it turned black, it meant the death of one of her family. — Other instances are given by Child, II, 268 f., under the head of tests for loyalty, virtue, and the like. 11 2. Prolonged, of course, by the bride, who hopes for her lover to the last. KATHARINE JAFFRAY. This is the ballad which Scott imitated in his Young Lochinvar. As here printed it is Child*s A (VII, 219) from Herd's MSS.— For the make-up of Scott*s version in the Minstrelsy {The Laird of Lamington; in later editions Katharine Janfarie)^ see Child, p. 230 f. — Other ballads of bride-stealing, — peace, however, to primitive Germans, modern peasants, and above all, the Sabines, — are Bonny Baby Livingston^ The Lady of Arngosk, and Eppie Morrie ; the latter tells in vigorous fashion of an attempt of this sort which was frus- trated by the heroine's affinity to Brunhild in the Nibelungen. A Digitized by LjOOQIC