Ballad Book | Page 7

\ Christian Element. /
Catholic.
\
Protestant.
Figures of Speech / Enumeration
in the Ballads | General Character.
\ Proportion.
/ Epithets.
/ Numbers.

Stock Material | Refrains.
of the Ballads | Similes.
| Metaphors.
\ Stanzas.
\ Situations.
Humor of the Ballads. / In what consisting.
\ At what directed.
Pathos of the Ballads. / By what elicited.
\ How expressed.
/ In Form.
Beauty of the Ballads. | In Matter.
\ In Spirit.
A more delicate, difficult, and valuable variety of study may be put
upon the ballads, taken one by one, with the aim of impression upon a
class the very simplicity of strength and sweetness in this wild
minstrelsy. The mere recitation or reading of the ballad, with such
unacademic and living comment as shall help the imagination of the
hearer to leap into a vivid realization of the swiftly shifted scenes, the
sympathy to follow with eager comprehension the crowded, changing
passions, the whole nature to thrill with the warm pulse of the rough
old poem, is perhaps the surest way to drive the ballad home, trusting it
to work within the student toward that spirit--development which is
more truly the end of education than mental storage. For these primitive
folk-songs which have done so much to educate the poetic sense in the
fine peasantry of Scotland,--that peasantry which has produced an
Ettrick Shepherd and an Ayrshire Ploughman,--are assuredly,
"Thanks to the human heart by which we live,"
among the best educators that can be brought into our schoolrooms.
BALLADS OF SUPERSTITION.
THE WEE WEE MAN.

As I was wa'king all alane,
Between a water and a wa',
There I
spy'd a wee wee man,
And he was the least that e'er I saw.
His legs were scant a shathmont's length,
And sma' and limber was
his thie,
Between his e'en there was a span,
And between his
shoulders there was three.
'He took up a meikle stane,
And he flang't as far as I could see;

Though I had been a Wallace wight,
I couldna liften't to my knee.
"O wee wee man, but thou be strang!
O tell me where thy dwelling
be?"
"My dwelling's down at yon bonny bower;
O will you go with
me and see?"
On we lap, and awa' we rade,
Till we cam' to yon bonny green;
We
lighted down for to bait our horse,
And out there cam' a lady sheen.
Four and twenty at her back,
And they were a' clad out in green,

Though the King o' Scotland had been there,
The warst o' them might
hae been his Queen.
On we lap, and awa' we rade,
Till we cam' to yon bonny ha',
Where
the roof was o' the beaten gowd,
And the floor was o' the crystal a'.
When we cam' to the stair foot,
Ladies were dancing, jimp and sma';

But in the twinkling of an e'e,
My wee wee man was clean awa'.

TAMLANE.
"O I forbid ye, maidens a',
That bind in snood your hair,
To come
or gae by Carterhaugh,
For young Tamlane is there."
Fair Janet sat within her bower,
Sewing her silken seam,
And fain
would be at Carterhaugh,
Amang the leaves sae green.

She let the seam fa' to her foot,
The needle to her tae,
And she's
awa' to Carterhaugh,
As quickly as she may.
She's prink'd hersell, and preen'd hersell,
By the ae light o' the moon,

And she's awa to Carterhaugh,
As fast as she could gang.
She hadna pu'd a red red rose,
A rose but barely three,
When up and
starts the young Tamlane,
Says, "Lady, let a-be!
"What gars ye pu' the rose, Janet?
What gars ye break the tree?
Or
why come ye to Carterhaugh,
Without the leave o' me?"
"O I will pu' the flowers," she said,
"And I will break the tree;
And
I will come to Carterhaugh,
And ask na leave of thee."
But when she cam' to her father's ha',
She looked sae wan and pale,

They thought the lady had gotten a fright,
Or