The English and Scottish popular ballads, volume 5 (of 5)
General
The English and Scottish popular ballads, volume 5 (of 5)
Ballads, English -- England -- Texts; Ballads, Scots -- Scotland -- Texts
=A= is found, with the doubtless accidental variation of three words,
in a folio volume at Abbotsford labelled Miscellanies, article 43,
having been transcribed by C. K. Sharpe for Sir W. Scott “from a 4to
MS., in a female hand, written probably about one hundred years ago,
sold at one Inglis’s roup at the West Port, Edinburgh, now in the
possession of David Laing” (that is, Elizabeth Cochrane’s MS.). =D b=
was compounded from =D a= and =B=, “omitting,” says Chambers, “many of
the coarser stanzas of both, and improving a few by collation with a
third version which I took down from recitation, and another which has
been shown to me in manuscript by Mr Kinloch” (=C=). =D b= is, after
all, mainly =D a= with omissions; the improvements from the recited
copy (or the variations from Buchan and Kinloch) are not remarkable
in amount or quality. =E= is given on Kinloch’s authority. Alexander
Campbell, when on a tour on the borders of Scotland to collect Scottish
airs, is said to have received the first stanza from Mr Thomas Pringle,
who derived it from his mother’s singing. (Chappell, Popular Music,
p. 575.) Upon this traditional stanza was built Scott’s ‘Jock of
Hazeldean,’ first printed in Campbell’s Albyn’s Anthology, I, 18, 1816.
=A.= A gentleman overhears a damsel making a moan for Sir John of
Hazelgreen. After some compliment on his part, and some slight
information on hers, he tells her that Hazelgreen is married; then
there is nothing for her to do, she says, but to hold her peace and
die for him. The gentleman proposes that she shall let Hazelgreen go,
marry his eldest son, and be made a gay lady; she is too mean a maid
for that, and, anyway, had rather die for the object of her affection.
Still she allows the gentleman to take her up behind him on his horse,
and to buy clothes for her at Biggar, though all the time dropping
tears for Hazelgreen. After the shopping they mount again, and at last
they come to the gentleman’s place, when the son runs out to welcome
his father. The son is young Hazelgreen, who takes the maid in his arms
and kisses off the still-falling tears. The father declares that the
two shall be married the next day, and the young man have the family
lands.
The other versions have the same story, but the clothes are bought at
Edinburgh, and the Hazelgreen estate seems to be in the neighborhood.
In a preface to =C=, Kinloch, following either =D= 5 or some foolish
popular gloss, remarks that the lady is presumed to have seen young
Hazelgreen only in a dream, which left so deep an impression on her
mind as to cause her to fall in love with his image. To improve upon
this, =D= 15 makes the young man also to have seen the maid in a dream.
A
Elizabeth Cochrane’s MS., p. 126.
1
Into a sweet May morning,
As the sun clearly shone,
I heard a propper damsell
Making a heavy moan;
Making a heavy moan,
I marvelled what she did mean,
And it was for a gentleman,
Sir John of Hasillgreen.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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