Ballads of Scottish Tradition and Romance | Page 4

206
Appendix--
the Jolly Juggler
211
Index of Titles
217
Index of First Lines
219
PREFACE
Although a certain number of the ballads in this volume belong to
England as much as to Scotland, the greater number are so intimately

connected with Scottish history and tradition, that it would have been
rash (to say the least) for a Southron to have ventured across the border
unaided. It is therefore more than a pleasure to record my thanks to my
friend Mr. A. Francis Steuart of Edinburgh, to whom I have submitted
the proofs of these ballads. His extensive and peculiar knowledge of
Scottish history and genealogy has been of the greatest service
throughout.
I must also thank Mr. C. G. Tennant for assistance with the map given
as frontispiece; and my unknown friend, Messrs. Constable's reader,
has supplied valuable help in detail.
My self-imposed scheme of classification by subject-matter becomes
no easier as the end of my task approaches. The Fourth Series will
consist mainly of ballads of Robin Hood and other outlaws, including a
few pirates. The projected class of 'Sea Ballads' has thus been split;
_Sir Patrick Spence_, for example, appears in this volume. A few
ballads defy classification, and will have to appear, if at all, in a
miscellaneous section.
The labour of reducing to modern spelling several ballads from the
seventeenth-century orthography of the Percy Folio is compensated, I
hope, by the quaint and spirited result. These lively ballads are now
presented for the first time in this popular form.
In _The Jolly Juggler_, given in the Appendix, I claim to have
discovered a new ballad, which has not yet been treated as such, though
I make bold to think Professor Child would have included it in his
collection had he known of it. I trust that the publicity thus given to it
will attract the attention of experts more competent than myself to
annotate and illustrate it as it deserves.
F. S.
BALLADS IN THE THIRD SERIES
I have hesitated to use the term 'historical' in choosing a general title for
the ballads in this volume, although, if the word can be applied to any

popular ballads, it would be applied with most justification to a large
number of these ballads of Scottish and Border tradition. 'Some ballads
are historical, or at least are founded on actual occurrences. In such
cases, we have a manifest point of departure for our chronological
investigation. The ballad is likely to have sprung up shortly after the
event, and to represent the common rumo[u]r of the time. Accuracy is
not to be expected, and indeed too great historical fidelity in detail is
rather a ground of suspicion than a certificate of the genuinely popular
character of the piece.... Two cautionary observations are necessary.
Since history repeats itself, the possibility and even the probability
must be entertained that every now and then a ballad which had been in
circulation for some time was adapted to the circumstances of a recent
occurrence, and has come down to us only in such an adaptation. It is
also far from improbable that many ballads which appear to have no
definite localization or historical antecedents may be founded on fact,
since one of the marked tendencies of popular narrative poetry is to
alter or eliminate specific names of persons and places in the course of
oral tradition.'[1]
[Footnote 1: Introduction (p. xvi) to _English and Scottish Popular
Ballads, edited from the Collection of Francis James Child, by Helen
Child Sargent and George Lyman Kittredge_, 1905. This admirable
condensation of Child's five volumes, issued since my Second Series, is
enhanced by Professor Kittredge's _Introduction_, the best possible
substitute for the gap left in the larger book by the death of Child
before the completion of his task.]
Warned by these wise words, we may, perhaps, select the following
ballads from the present volume as 'historical, or at least founded on
actual occurrences.'
(i) This section, which we may call 'Historical,' includes _The Hunting
of the Cheviot_, _The Battle