#H# 10, 11 (cf. #D# 6), where the maid asks the man’s name, is a familiar commonplace: see No 39, I, 340 a; No 50, I, 444, 446; No 110, II, 458 ff. (especially p. 473, #H# 3, 4); No 111, II, 478 f. #M# has many spurious stanzas of its own; as 3–5, 25, 30–32, 35. #N# is quite perverted from 9 to 28. It is impossible that 9–14 should follow upon 8, and stanzas 15–27 have not a genuine word in them. Cunningham has rewritten the ballad, Songs of Scotland, II, 113. He says that through Dumfriesshire and Galloway the hero is always Lord Lochinvar, and cites this stanza, which he had heard sung: For I do guess, by your golden-rimmed hat, And by the silken string, That ye are the lord of the Lochinvar, Who beguiles all our young women. ‘Malfred og Sadelmand,’ Kristensen, I, 258, No 99, is an independent ballad, but has some of the traits of this: the maid, who is treated with great violence, asks the knight’s name, as in #H#, #D#; he comes back to marry her, after she has borne twins. Cowdenknowes is on the east bank of Leader, near Earlston, and some four or five miles from Melrose. Auchentrone, in #B# #b# 11, Stenhouse conjectures to be a corruption of Auchentroich, an estate in the county of Stirling, and Oakland Hills, in #G#, to be Ochil Hills, in the same county: Musical Museum, IV, 112. #B# is translated by Knortz, Schottische Balladen, p. 92, No 29. * * * * * A Percy papers; communicated to Percy by R. Lambe, of Norham, August 17, 1768, and dated May, 1768. 1 There was a troop of merry gentlemen Was riding atween twa knows, And they heard the voice of a bonny lass, In a bught milking her ews. 2 There’s ane o them lighted frae off his steed, And has ty’d him to a tree, And he’s gane away to yon ew-bught, To hear what it might be. 3 ‘O pity me, fair maid,’ he said, ‘Take pity upon me; O pity me, and my milk-white steed That’s trembling at yon tree.’ 4 ‘As for your steed, he shall not want The best of corn and hay; But as to you yoursel, kind sir, I’ve naething for to say.’ 5 He’s taen her by the milk-white hand, And by the green gown-sleeve, And he as led her into the ew-bught, Of her friends he speerd nae leave. 6 He as put his hand in his pocket, And given her guineas three: ‘If I dinna come back in half a year, Then luke nae mair for me. 7 ‘Now show to me the king’s hie street, Now show to me the way; Now show to me the king’s hie street, And the fair water of Tay.’ 8 She showd to him the king’s hie street, She showd to him the way; She showd him the way that he was to go, By the fair water of Tay. 9 When she came hame, her father said, ‘Come, tell to me right plain; I doubt you’ve met some in the way, You have not been your lain.’