From a phrase used by John Major, it has been suggested that James I. of Scots was the writer of this poem; and a note on the Bannatyne MS. of _Christ's Kirk_ attributes that companion poem to the same royal authorship. In spite of the adverse judgment pronounced by Professors Guest and Skeat, it does not seem an inconceivable thing that the monarch who wrote the _King's Quair_, and whose daughter kissed the lips of Alain Chartier as the reward of France for his sweet singing, should have written these strains descriptive of rural jollity in localities where the court and sovereign are known to have often resorted for hunting and other diversion. The cast and language of the poems appear, however, to belong to a later date; and the quaint stanza, afterwards employed in a modified form with such effect by Fergusson and Burns, is that used by Alexander Scot in _The Justing at the Drum_, and in other burlesque pieces of the early or middle period of the sixteenth century. A much more taking tradition is that which assigns them to the adventure-loving 'Commons King,' James V. They are thoroughly after the 'humour'--using the word in the Elizabethan as well as in the ordinary sense--of the wandering 'Red Tod'; who has also been held to be the inspirer, if not the author, of those excellent humorous ballads--among the best of their kind to be found in any language--_The Gaberlunzie Man_ and _The Jolly Beggar_. From the moral point of view, these pieces may, perhaps, come under Spenser's condemnation of the rhymers who sing of amatory adventures in which love is no sooner asked than it is granted. But the balladist carries everything before him by the verve and good humour and pawky wit of his song. There are touches worthy of the comedy spirit of Moliere in the description, in _The Gaberlunzie Man_, of the good-wife's alternate blessing and banning as she makes her morning discoveries about the 'silly poor man' whom she has lodged over night: 'She gaed to the bed whair the beggar lay; The strae was cauld, he was away; She clapt her hands, cry'd, "Dulefu' day! For some of our gear will be gane." Some ran to coffer and some to kist, But nought was stown that could be mist, She danced her lane, cry'd, "Praise be blest, I 've lodg'd a leal poor man. Since naething awa, as we can learn, The kirn 's to kirn, and milk to yearn, Gae but the house, lass, and waken my bairn, And bid her come quickly ben." The servant gaed where the dochter lay-- The sheets were cauld, she was away; And fast to the goodwife did say "She 's aff wi' the gaberlunzie man." "O fy gar ride, and fy gar rin, And haste ye, find these traitors again; For she 's be burnt, and he 's be slain, The wearifu' gaberlunzie man."'