Page:The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, Volume 01.djvu/205



 teeth in my head, but after cudgelling my memory I can make no more than the following stanzas." Scott, Sharpe's Ballad Book, 1880, p. 159.

 

copy of this ballad was printed in Cromek's Select Scottish Songs, Ancient and Modern, 1810 (D). A fragment, comprising the first half of the story, was inserted in "Lowran Castle, or the Wild Boar of Curridoo: with other Tales," etc., by Robert Trotter, Dumfries, 1822 (F). A complete copy was first given in Kinloch's Ancient Scottish Ballads, 1827 (G); another, described by the editor as made up from Cromek's fragment and two copies from recitation, in Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. 36, later in the same year; and a third, closely resembling Kinloch's, in Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, in 1828 (H). Three versions complete, or nearly so, and a fragment of a fourth are now printed for the first time, all from Motherwell's manuscripts (A, B, C, E).

The stanza about the auger bore [wimble bore], B 1, F 8, H 4, is manifestly out of place. It is found in 'The Whummil Bore' (see further on), and may have slipped into 'Hind Horn' by reason of its following, in its proper place, a stanza beginning, "Seven lang years I hae served the king:" cf. F 2, H 3.

G 17, 18, 21, 22, which are not intelligible in their present connection, are perhaps, as well as G 16, H 18–20, borrowed from some Robin Hood ballad, in which a change is made with a beggar.

The noteworthy points in the story of Hind Horn are these. Hind Horn has served the king seven years (D, F), and has fallen in love with his daughter. She gives Hind Horn a jewelled ring: as long as the stone keeps its color, he may know that she is faithful; but if it changes hue, he may ken she loves another man. The king is angry (D), and Hind Horn