“O wha is this has don this deid, This ill deid don to me, To send me out this time o’ the yeir, To sail upon the se! “Mak haste, mak haste, my mirry men all, Our guid schip sails the morne.” “O say na sae[12], my master deir, For I feir a deadlie storme. “Late, late yestreen[13] saw the new moone, Wi the auld moone in hir arme, And I feir, I feir, my deir master, That we will cum to harme.” O our Scots nobles wer richt laith[14] To weet[15] their cork-heild schoone[16]; Bot lang owre[17] a’ the play wer playd, Thair hats they swam aboone.[18] O lang, lang may their ladies sit, Wi thair fans into their hand, Or eir[19] they se Sir Patrick Spens, Cum sailing to the land. O lang, lang may the ladies stand, Wi thair gold kems[20] in their hair, Waiting for thair ain deir lords, For they’ll se thame na mair. Haf owre[21], haf owre to Aberdour, It’s fiftie fadom[22] deip, And thair lies guid Sir Patrick Spens, Wi the Scots lords at his feit.[23] [10] _knicht_, knight [11] _braid_, long [12] _na sae_, not so [13] _yestreen_, yesterday evening [14] _laith_, loath [15] _weet_, wet [16] _schoone_, shoes [17] _owre_, before [18] _aboone_, above [19] _or eir_, before [20] _kems_, combs [21] _owre_, over [22] _fadom_, fathoms [23] _feit_, feet NOTES AND QUESTIONS =Historical Note.= The old folk ballads, of which this one is an excellent example, have all come down to us from the far-off past. Such ballads are not the work of any one author, but like the stories of King Arthur, were preserved mainly in the memories of men. Some of them were sung or recited to the music of the harp or lute by minstrels who wandered from village to village, and from castle to castle, entertaining their hearers in return for food and lodging; or by the bards and minstrels who were maintained by kings and nobles to entertain them and to celebrate their deeds and honors. Often they were made by the people, not by professional singers, and were expressions of the folk love of adventure. Indeed, the best definition of a popular, or folk, ballad is that it is “a tale telling itself in song.” This means that a ballad always tells a story; that it has no known author, being composed by several people or by a community and then handed down orally, not in writing, from generation to generation; and finally, that it is sung, not recited. In this way such folk ballads as “Sir Patrick Spens” were transmitted for generations, in different versions, before they were written down and became a part of what we call _literature_, that is, something written. When the invention of the printing press made it possible to put these old ballads in a permanent form, they were collected from the recitations of old men and women who knew them, and printed. Thus they have become a precious literary possession, telling us