29 ‘Instead of dancers to dance, mither, Or minstrells for to play, Turn four-and-twenty wall-wight men Like storks in feathers gray; 30 ‘My seven sons in seven swans, Aboon their heads to flee; And I mysell a gay gos-hawk, A bird o high degree.’ 31 Then sichin said the queen hersell, ‘That thing’s too high for me;’ But she applied to an auld woman, Who had mair skill than she. 32 Instead o dancers to dance a dance, Or minstrells for to play, Four-and-twenty wall-wight men Turnd birds o feathers gray; 33 Her seven sons in seven swans, Aboon their heads to flee; And he himsell a gay gos-hawk, A bird o high degree. 34 This flock o birds took flight and flew Beyond the raging sea, And landed near the Earl Mar’s castle, Took shelter in every tree. 35 They were a flock o pretty birds, Right comely to be seen; The people viewd them wi surprise, As they dancd on the green. 36 These birds ascended frae the tree And lighted on the ha, And at the last wi force did flee Amang the nobles a’. 37 The storks there seized some o the men, They coud neither fight nor flee; The swans they bound the bride’s best man Below a green aik tree. 38 They lighted next on maidens fair, Then on the bride’s own head, And wi the twinkling o an ee The bride and them were fled. 39 There’s ancient men at weddings been For sixty years or more, But sic a curious wedding-day They never saw before. 40 For naething coud the companie do, Nor naething coud they say But they saw a flock o pretty birds That took their bride away. 41 When that Earl Mar he came to know Where his dochter did stay, He signd a bond o unity, And visits now they pay. FOOTNOTES: [41] The ‘Vogelritter’ mentioned by Prior, III, 207, is this same story. See Mone, Uebersicht der niederländischen Volksliteratur, p. 90, No 59. [42] Most of the above are cited by R. Köhler, notes in Warnke’s ed. of Marie’s Lais, p. LXXXVIII f. For the dipping in water, etc., see Tam Lin, I, 338. 271 THE LORD OF LORN AND THE FALSE STEWARD =A.= ‘Lord of Learne,’ Percy MS., p. 73; Hales and Furnivall, I, 180. =B.= ‘A pretty ballad of the Lord of Lorn and the Fals Steward.’ =a.= Wood, 401, fol. 95 b. =b.= Roxburghe, I, 222; Roxburghe Ballads, ed. Chappell, II, 55. =c.= Pepys, I, 494, No 254. Also in the Roxburghe collection, III, 534, without printer’s name; Ewing, Nos 264, 265; Crawford, No 716. All the broadsides are of the second half of the seventeenth century. ‘The Lord of Lorne and the false Steward’ was entered, with two other ballads, to Master Walley, 6 October, 1580; ‘Lord of Lorne’ to Master Pavier and others (among 128 pieces), 14 December, 1624. Arber, II, 379; IV, 131.[43]