‘Wo be to my parents all, Y^t lives so farr beyond y^e sea! I might have lived a noble life, And wedded in my own countrë.’ * * * * * Finlay’s Scottish Ballads, I, xxxii. A “romantic ballad, of which, unfortunately, one stanza only has been preserved. The tradition bears that a young lady was carried away by the fairies, and that, although invisible to her friends who were in search of her, she was sometimes heard by them lamenting her destiny in a pathetic song, of which the stanza just mentioned runs nearly thus:” O Alva hills is bonny, Dalycoutry hills is fair, But to think on the braes of Menstrie It maks my heart fu sair. * * * * * KING EDELBRODE Sent by Motherwell to C. K. Sharpe, with a letter dated October 8, 1825. Also entered in Motherwell’s Note-Book, p. 53 (excepting the second line of the first stanza). King Edelbrode cam owre the sea, Fa la lilly All for to marry a gay ladye. Fa la lilly. (Then follows the description of a queen, jimp and sma, not remembered.) Her lilly hands, sae white and sma, Fa la lilly Wi gouden rings were buskit braw. Fa la lilly “I cannot get any precise account of its subject, but it related somehow to a most magnificent marriage. The old lady who sung it died some years ago.” (Letter to Sharpe.) “It may be the same ballad as the scrap I have, with something of a similar chorus.” (Note-Book, where the “chorus” is Fa fa lilly.) The reference seems to be to ‘The Whummil Bore,’ No 27, I, 255. * * * * * C. K. Sharpe’s Letters, ed. Allardyce, II, 106 (1813). ‘O come you from the earth?’ she said, ‘Or come you from the skye?’ ‘Oh, I am from yonder churchyard, Where my crumbling relicks lie.’ Sharpe somewhere asks, Where does this belong? Possibly in some version of ‘Proud Lady Margaret,’ No 47, II, 425. * * * * * MS. of Thomas Wilkie, p. 79, “Scotch Ballads, Materials for Border Minstrelsy,” No 73 a, Abbotsford. The great bull of Bendy-law Has broken his band and run awa, And the king and a’ his court Canna turn that bull about. * * * * * “Scotch Ballads, Materials for Border Minstrelsy,” No 86 a, Abbotsford, in the handwriting of Thomas Wilkie. Red-Cap he was there, And he was there indeed, And he was standing by, With a red cap on his head. * * * * * “Scotch Ballads, Materials for Border Minstrelsy,” No 73 a; MS. of Thomas Wilkie, Abbotsford, derived by Wilkie from his father, “who heard a Lady Brigs sing this when he was a boy.” He took a sword in every hand And on the house did venture, And swore if they wad not gee her up He would make all their doors play clatter.