So to the German court he came, 165 Declaring, such a one by name Had drowned his fair daughter dear, And ought to die a death severe. They brought him from the prison then, Guarded by many armed men, 170 Unto the place where he must die, And the young knight was standing by. Then from her side her sword she drew, And run her gelding through and through. Her father said, "Why do you so?" 175 "I may; it is my own, you know. "You sold your gelding, 'tis well known; I bought it, making it my own, And may do what I please with it;" And then to her he did submit. 180 "Here is a man arraign'd and cast, And brought to suffer death at last, Because your daughter dear he slew; Which if he did, what's that to you? "You had your money, when you sold 185 Your daughter for her weight in gold; Wherefore he might, it is well known, Do what he pleased with his own." So having chang'd her garments green, And dress'd herself like a fair queen, 190 Her father and her husband straight Both knew her, and their joys were great. Soon they did carry the report Unto the famous German court, How the renowned English knight 195 Had found his charming lady bright. So the Emperor and the lords of fame, With cheerful hearts they did proclaim An universal joy, to see His lady's life at liberty. GIGHT'S LADY. Appendix to p. 93. From Buchan's _Ballads of the North of Scotland_, i. 133. Buchan complains that all other editions of this ballad "have been deprived of their original beauty and catastrophe" by officious and sacrilegious hands, and adds that his copy "is quite at variance with all its printed predecessors." In this last remark he is certainly correct, but as for his affirmation that the ballad "recounts an affair which actually took place in the reign, or rather minority, of King James VI.," we ask for some authority beyond his note to the ballad. In another copy mentioned by Motherwell, Geordie, from jealousy, ungratefully drowns his deliverer in the sea. "First I was lady o' Black Riggs, And then into Kincraigie; Now I am the Lady o' Gight, And my love he's ca'd Geordie. "I was the mistress o' Pitfan, 5 And madam o' Kincraigie; But now my name is Lady Anne, And I am Gight's own lady. "We courted in the woods o' Gight, Where birks and flow'rs spring bonny; 10 But pleasures I had never one, But sorrows thick and mony.