An answer is usually returned in the identical words of the question; and as in Homer, a formula of narration or a commonplace of description does duty again and again. Iteration in the ballads is not merely for economy, but stands in lieu of the metaphor and other figures of literary poetry: "'O Marie, put on your robes o' black, Or else your robes o' brown, For ye maun gang wi' me the night, To see fair Edinbro town.' "'I winna put on my robes o' black, Nor yet my robes o' brown; But I'll put on my robes o' white, To shine through Edinbro town.'" Another mark of the genuine ballad manner, as of Homer and _Volkspoesie_ in general, is the conventional epithet. Macaulay noted that the gold is always red in the ballads, the ladies always gay, and Robin Hood's men are always his merry men. Doughty Douglas, bold Robin Hood, merry Carlisle, the good greenwood, the gray goose wing, and the wan water are other inseparables of the kind. Still another mark is the frequent retention of the Middle English accent on the final syllable in words like contrie, baron, dinere, felawe, abbay, rivere, money, and its assumption by words which never properly had it, such as lady, harper, wedding, water, etc.[7] Indeed, as Percy pointed out in his introduction, there were "many phrases and idioms which the minstrels seem to have appropriated to themselves, . . . a cast of style and measure very different from that of contemporary poets of a higher class."