In giving the title “Hugh of Lincoln” to the Derbyshire version of the ballad which follows, regard has been had to the precedent set by others, for the ballad is usually so entitled. The Derbyshire version, here first printed, is valuable not only for the literary beauty which two or three of its lines display, but for the association of the story of the Golden Ball with that of the Maid saved from the Gallows. I have added the words “Or the Rain Charm” to the title, because I believe that such is the subject of the ballad. But the reader will be able to distinguish tradition from inference, and to form his own opinion. I would add that a better version of the ballad may yet exist at Wirksworth or in some other part of the county. We may regret that in its present form it is corrupt; indeed, no two versions are alike. But it is the duty of the collector to write down such things as he finds them, without altering a syllable. He may conjecture, if he likes, that such a phrase as “playing at ice and ball” requires emendation, but he is not at liberty to alter the spoken words. Hugh of Lincoln; or the Rain Charm In the summer of 1901 the following fragment of a ballad was dictated to me by Mrs. Johnston, then aged 55, the wife of the landlord of the “Peak” Hotel at Castleton, in Derbyshire. Mrs. Johnston says that she learnt it from her mother, Mrs. Fletcher, who resided at Wirksworth, in the same county, when she was young, and died in 1904. Mrs. Johnston does not remember that the ballad had any title, or was sung to any tune:— It rains, it rains in merry Scotland, It rains both thick and small: There were three little playfellows Playing at ice and ball. They threw it high, they threw it low, They threw it rather too high, They threw it into the Jew’s garden, And there the ball must lie. “Come in, come in, thou little palarp,[101] And thou shalt have thy ball.” “I won’t come in, I daren’t come in, Without my playmates all.” They showed him apples as green as grass, They gave him sugar so sweet, [101] My informant did not know the meaning of this word. It is accented on the final syllable. * * * * * They put him on a dresser ta’ To stab him like a sheep. * * * * * “O hangman, hangman, stay thy hand, A little before I die, I think I see my father coming, Hastening through yonder sty [path]. O father hast thou brought my ball, Or hast thou bought me free, Or art thou come to see me hung Upon the gallows-tree?” “I have not brought thy ball, my dear, I have not bought thee free, But I have come to see thee hung Upon the gallows-tree.”