17 Down came her step-dame, so rugged and doure, O why was your love so easily won! 'In Scotland go back to your false paramour, For you shall not stay here in Northumberland.' 18 Down came her father, he saw her and smiled, A young maid's love is easily won 'You are not the first that false Scots have beguiled, And ye're aye welcome back to Northumberland. 19 'You shall not want houses, you shall not want land, You shall not want gold for to gain a husband, And ye're aye welcome back to Northumberland.' * * * * * #A. a.# 2. _Halliwell's Deloney, in the first line of the burden, has ~leape over~, but not elsewhere._ 9^2. in the. 25^2. Where. #b.# 3^2. walks. 3^4. she is. 5^1. aloud. 13^3. _omits_ sad. 15^3. the knight. 16^2. forth did. 24^3. The fairest. 27^1 thou shalt. 32^2. knight. 35^2. never were. #B. b.# 2^2. this prison. 4^3. _omits_ that was. 6^3. ye brazen-fac'd. 11^3. He hired. 12^3. fell at his feet. 13^1. _omits_ so. 14^1. mother on her sae gentlie smild, _etc._ #C. a.# 8^2. Her bade. 8^3. return him. #b.# 5^1. into. 13^2. at fifteen. #D.# 2. _Thus in Motherwell's Minstrelsy, Appendix, p. xv_: When they came to Scotland brig, O my dear, my love that she wan! 'Light off, ye hure, from my black steed, And his ye awa to Northumberland.' #E.# "The Flower of Northumberland. Written down from memory by Robert Hutton, Shepperd, Peel, Liddesdale, and sent by James Telfor to his friend Robert White, Newcastle on Tyne. 20 copies printed." _Mr White's note._ [119] "Two of them singing the dittie," says Deloney, "and all the rest bearing the burden." [120] The earliest edition now known to exist is of 1619. [121] Some of these ballads begin with stanzas which are found also in Kvindemorderen and Ribold ballads (our No 4, No 7), where also a young woman is carried off furtively by a man. This is only what is to be expected. [122] By mistake, most probably. But in one of the Polish ballads, cited a little further on, #Q# (Kolberg, P. 1. Polskiego, 5 pp), the maid is told, "In my country the mountains are golden, the mountains are of gold." [123] So 'Lady Isabel and the Elf-Knight,' #D# 11: 'Is this your bowers and lofty towers?' [124] There is a similarity, which is perhaps not accidental, between these Scandinavian ballads and 'Child Waters.' Child Waters makes Ellen swim a piece of water, shows her his hall--"of red gold shines the tower"--where the fairest lady is his paramour, subjects her to menial services, and finally, her patience withstanding all trials, marries her.