/ 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."