It has been noted, for instance, that our ballads preserve fewer reminiscences of the time when alliteration shared importance with rhyme or took its place in the metrical system. The bulk of them are supposed to come hither from the early sixteenth century, from the reigns of James IV. and James V.; and in that period of Scottish literature alliteration not only blossomed but often overran and smothered the court poetry of the day. Alliterative lines and verses appear frequently in the ballads, but always with good taste, often with exquisite effect. What phrases are more familiar, more infused with the magic of the ballad-spirit, than the 'wan water,' the 'bent sae brown,' the 'lee licht o' the mune'? When the knight rides forth to see his true love, he mounts on his 'berry brown steed,' and 'fares o'er dale and down,' until he comes to the castle wa', where the lady sits 'sewing her silken seam.' He kisses her 'cheek and chin,' and she 'kilts her green kirtle,' and follows him; but not so fast as to outrun fate. In the oldest set of _The Battle of Otterburn_, alliteration asserts itself: 'The rae full reckless there sche runnes To make the game and glee.' It is but seldom that the balladist avails himself so freely of the 'artful aid' of this device as in _Johnie o' Braidislee_, the vigorous hunting lay that was a favourite with Carlyle's mother: 'Won up, won up, my good grey dogs, Won up and be unboun'; For we maun awa' to Bride's braid wood, To ding the dun deer doun, doun, To ding the dun deer doun.'