=A.= The heir of Linne, a Scots lord, took to cards, dice, and wine, sold his lands to John o the Scales, and went on in dissolute ways for three fourths of a year longer; then he was forced to go to Edinburgh and beg his bread. Some gave him, some refused him, some bade him go to the devil. Brooding over his destitution, he remembered that his father had left him a paper which he was not to look into till he should be in extreme need. This paper told him of a castle wall in which stood three chests of money. Filling three bags with gold, he went to John o Scales’s house. John’s wife wished herself a curse if she trusted him a penny. One good fellow in the company offered to lend him forty pence, and forty more, if wanted. John o Scales tendered him his lands back for twenty pounds less than they had been sold for. The heir of Linne called the lords present to witness, threw John a penny to bind the bargain, and counted out the money from his bags. Then he gave the good fellow forty pounds, and made him keeper of his forest, and beshrewed himself if ever he put his lands in jeopardy again. =B.= The heir of Linne stands at his father’s gates, and nobody asks him in. He is hungry, wet, and cold. As he goes down the town, gentlemen are drinking. Some say, Give him a glass; some say, Give him none. As he goes up the town, fishermen are sitting. Some say, Give him a fish; some say, Give him a fin. He takes the road to Linne,[17] and on the way begs of his nurse a slice of bread and a bottle of wine, promising to pay them back when he is laird of Linne; which he will never be, she says. A score of nobles are dining at Linne. Some say, Give him beef, some say, Give him the bone; some say, Give him nothing at all. The new laird will let him have a sip, and then he may go his gate. At his wits’ end, he now recalls a little key given him by his mother before she died, which he was to keep till he was in his greatest need. This key fits a little door somewhere in the castle. He gets gold enough to free his lands. He returns to the company of nobles. The new laird offers him Linne back for a third of what had been paid for it. He takes the guests to witness, and tells the money down on a table. He pays the nurse for her bread and wine. His hose had been down at his ankles; now he has fifteen lords to escort him.[18] Percy, Reliques, 1765, II, 309, 1794, II, 128 (with some readings of his manuscript restored in the later edition), as he puts it, revised and completed =A= by “the insertion of supplemental stanzas,” “suggested by a modern ballad on a similar subject.” In fact, Percy made a new ballad,[19] and a very good one, which, since his day, has passed for ‘The Heir of Linne.’ (Herd, 1769, p. 227, but afterwards dropped; Ritson, Scotish Songs, II, 129; Ritson, Ancient Songs and Ballads, 1829, II, 81, with a protest; even Chambers, p. 310, Aytoun, II, 342; for the Scottish version had not been printed when these collections appeared.)