At the same time, if one found in a _chanson_ of the thirteenth century matter borrowed from the conclusion of _Roncevaux_ (the _remaniement_ of the _Chanson de Roland_), one could not say that it was borrowed from _Roland_, a substantive earlier poem, in a metre not that of _Roncevaux_. There is a sense in which all early Greek epics might be said to borrow passages from each other. The statement would, however, I think, be misleading. The fact would be more correctly expressed by saying that the epics probably (like our own traditional ballads certainly) employ a common set of formulae to express habitual and often repeated actions and events--dawn, night-fall, feasts, preparations of food, arming, arraying a host, greeting a guest, falling in battle, and other constantly recurring circumstances. "They hadna sailed a league, a league, A league but barely three." "They hadna walked in the bonny greenwood, Na an hour but barely are." The formula for the death of lovers-- "The one was buried in Mary kirk, The other in Mary quire," etc., is of constant recurrence. The murderer always "takes out a little penknife That hung low by his gare," or-- "Lifts up a gilt dagger Hung low down by his knee." The mother or lady, awaiting her son or lover, always "Looks over tower and town," or-- "Looks over Castle Doune." After a death it is always "Bells were rung and mass was sung." "'A grave, a grave,' Lord Bernard cryd, 'To put these lovers in.'" "'A bed, a bed,' Clark Saunders cried, 'A bed for you and me.'" Motherwell, who wrote without Homer in his mind, seems to state the case of the ballads very clearly. "There is not an action, not an occurrence of any sort, but what has its appropriate phraseology; and to enumerate all these would, in effect, be to give the principal portion of all our ancient ballads. For in all cases where there is an identity of interest, of circumstance, of action, each ballad varies not from the established mode of clothing these in language.... They were the general outlines of every class of human incidents...." Motherwell adds that "something of the same sort, though in a less marked degree, may be discovered in the construction of the longer metrical romances."[5] When we look at Book viii. of the _Iliad_, we see that, in Mr. Leaf's words, "it has undoubtedly great spirit and movement," though "nearly one-third" of the lines "are found again in the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_--sometimes with a slight difference."