Herd got this tragic ballad from a milkmaid, in 1771. Mr. Child quotes a verse parallel, preserved in Faroe, and in the Icelandic. There is a similar incident in the cycle of Kullervo, in the Finnish _Kalevala_. Scott says that similar tragedies are common in Scotch popular poetry; such cases are “Lizzie Wan,” and “The King’s Dochter, Lady Jean.” A sorrow nearly as bitter occurs in the French “Milk White Dove”: a brother kills his sister, metamorphosed into a white deer. “The Bridge of Death” (French) seems to hint at something of the same kind; or rather the Editor finds that he has arbitrarily read “The Bonny Hind” into “Le Pont des Morts,” in Puymaigre’s _Chants Populaires du Pays Messin_, p. 60. (_Ballads and Lyrics of Old France_, p. 63) YOUNG BEICHAN, OR YOUNG BICHAM.—p. 65 This is the original of the Cockney _Loving Ballad of Lord Bateman_, illustrated by Cruikshank, and by Thackeray. There is a vast number of variants, evidence to the antiquity of the story. The earliest known trace is in the familiar legend of the Saracen lady, who sought and found her lover, Gilbert Becket, father of Thomas à Becket, in London (see preface to _Life of Becket_, or Beket), Percy Society, 1845. The date may be _circ._ 1300. The kind of story, the loving daughter of the cruel captor, is as old as Medea and Jason, and her search for her lover comes in such _Märchen_ as “The Black Bull o’ Norraway.” No story is more widely diffused (see _A Far Travelled Tale_, in the Editor’s _Custom and Myth_). The appearance of the “True Love,” just at her lover’s wedding, is common in the _Märchen_ of the world, and occurs in a Romaic ballad, as well as in many from Northern Europe. The “local colour”—the Moor or Saracen—is derived from Crusading times, perhaps. Motherwell found the ballad recited with intervals of prose narrative, as in _Aucassin and Nicolette_. The notes to Cruikshank’s _Loving Ballad_ are, obviously, by Thackeray. THE BONNY HOUSE O’ AIRLY.—p. 73 Lord Airly’s houses were destroyed by Argyll, representing the Covenanters, and also in pursuance of a private feud, in 1639, or 1640. There are erroneous versions of this ballad, in which Lochiel appears, and the date is, apparently, transferred to 1745. Montrose, in his early Covenanting days, was not actually concerned in the burning of the Bonnie House, which he, when a Royalist, revenged on the possessions of “gleyed Argyll.” The reference to “Charlie” is out of keeping; no one, perhaps, ever called Charles I. by that affectionate name. Lady Ogilvie had not the large family attributed to her: her son, Lord Ogilvie, escaped from prison in the Castle of St. Andrews, after Philiphaugh. A Lord Ogilvie was out in 1745; and, later, had a regiment in the French Service. Few families have a record so consistently loyal. ROB ROY.—p. 75