Quhan bells wer rung, and mass was sung, And every lady went hame, 30 Then ilka lady had her zong sonne, Bot Lady Helen had nane. Scho rowd hir mantil hir about, And sair sair gan she weip, And she ran into the Jewis castèl, 35 Quhan they wer all asleip. "My bonny Sir Hew, my pretty Sir Hew, I pray thee to me speik:" "O lady, rinn to the deip draw-well, Gin ze zour sonne wad seik." 40 Lady Helen ran to the deip draw-well, And knelt upon her kne: "My bonny Sir Hew, and ze be here, I pray thee speik to me." "The lead is wondrous heavy, mither, 45 The well is wondrous deip; A keen pen-knife sticks in my hert, A word I dounae speik. "Gae hame, gae hame, my mither deir, Fetch me my windling sheet, 50 And at the back o' Mirry-land toun, Its thair we twa sall meet." SIR PATRICK SPENCE. From Percy's _Reliques_, i. 81. The event upon which this ballad is founded, if it has been rightly ascertained, belongs to a remote period in Scottish history. Margaret, the daughter of Alexander III., was, in the year 1281, betrothed to Eric, prince of Norway. The bride was conducted to her husband by a splendid convoy of knights and nobles, and in the month of August was crowned queen. In returning from the celebration of the nuptials, many of the Scottish escort were lost at sea, and among those who perished was Sir Patrick Spence, we are to suppose. It is in conformity with this view of the origin of the ballad, (the suggestion of Motherwell,) that in Buchan's version the object of the voyage is said to be to take the king's daughter, now "a chosen queen," _to_ Norway. In Scott's edition, on the other hand, Sir Patrick is deputed _to bring home_ the king of Norway's daughter. To explain this circumstance in the story, Sir Walter is forced to suppose that an unsuccessful and unrecorded embassy was sent, when the death of Alexander III. had left the Scottish throne vacant, to bring the only daughter of Eric and Margaret, styled by historians the Maid of Norway, to the kingdom of which, after her grandfather's demise, she became the heir. That such an embassy, attended with so disastrous consequences to the distinguished persons who would compose it, should be entirely unnoticed by the chroniclers is, to say the least, exceedingly improbable.