the ghost of a former lover while, as if to laugh. modern spiritualism out of countenance, even this superstition gives way, among the ballad-singers themselves; and at last in May Colvin, though there is a vanishing trace of the legendary features of its original, the supernatural character of the lover wholly disappears in the vulgar seducer and murderer of ordinary life. What, then, has been the result of the legendary ballads in Scottish life? Undoubtedly they have contributed, with other causes, to quicken the feeling awakened in the presence of objects which, from the mystery enshrouding them, appear to be preternatural. That this feeling is peculiarly prominent in the Scottish mind will be made evident, in the sequel, from the multiform legends which it has strewn around every hill and glen and stream in Scotland, as well as from the developments of Scottish character in the national history; but a significant indication of its prominence is afforded by the fact, that the Scottish dialect contains a term whose precise use is the expression. of this feeling. The import of this fact will be felt in attempting to translate the word eery by an English equivalent. The word, indeed, expresses a great variety of emotions. From the faint tremor in the presence of what is felt to be uncanny on account of its uncommonness and our consequent ignorance as to its possible operation, eeriness ranges the whole gamut of emotions excited by what is mysterious, up to the subduing dread with which the soul is smitten by the appearance of supernatural power. Let us trace some of the principal 1 Herd's "Scottish Songs," vol. i. p. 93 (Glasgow reprint, 1869). varieties of this feeling, as they are represented in different ballads of Scotland. As expressive of that vague eeriness without positive fear, which forms the faintest stage of the feeling, The Wee Wee Man1 may be cited,—a ballad in which we seem to hear an indistinct echo, dying in some far-off nook among the Aryan settlements, of the primeval fancy which is repeated in the ancient Greek legends of Philytas, who had to wear lead on his shoes lest the wind should blow him away, and of Archestratus, who weighed only an obolus,2 as well as in the numerous modern versions of the German Däumling (Thumbling), our own Tom Thumb. The hero of this ballad, though his legs were "scant a shathmont's length," resembled the dwarfs of most legendary stories in the superhuman power with which he was endowed. 3 "He has tane up a meikle stane, And flang 't as far as I could see; Like Tom Thumb, moreover, this mysterious little man was on terms of familiar intercourse with the fairy world. For the minstrel and he, riding on together, light at last upon a "bonny green," such as the fairies are known to choose for their revels; and there comes forth "a lady 1 First given to the world, I believe, in Herd's “Scottish Songs.” 2 See Grimm's "Kinder und Hausmärchen," vol. iii. p. 71. 3 It is a curious circumstance, that Sir Walter Scott found The Wee Wee Man introduced in one version of The Young Tamlane-a ballad the legend of which, as we shall afterwards find, is of the same origin with that of Thumbling (“ Border Minstrelsy," vol. ii. p. 334). sheen" with four-and-twenty others in her train, all clad in "glistening green," the orthodox hue of fairy costume. On passed, with a pleasing wonder, the cheery procession, till they reached "a bonny ha," the roof of which was of "the beaten gowd," and the floor of crystal. Here burst upon the view a scene of elfin revelry; but it is well known that the fairies shrink from exposing their festivities to mortal eye, and that, whenever they become aware of mortal presence, they vanish from sight in some mysterious way. This was the result upon the advent of the mortal minstrel with his unearthly little guide. "When we cam there, wi' wee wee knichts Were ladies dancing, jimp and sma’; Baith green and ha war clein awa.' " 1 As expressing eeriness of a similar mild form, The Elfin Knight2 may be adduced. Opening in a manner that recalls the ballad of Lady Isabel and the ElfKnight mentioned above, it introduces us to a knight of the fairy world, who, by some preternatural motion, is brought to a maiden's side by her mere wish. "The Elfin Knight sits on yon hill; He blaws his horn baith loud and shrill. 1 The dénouement in Motherwell's version is different, and connects The Wee Wee Man perhaps more definitely with the legend of Thumbling, and with that of Thomlin or Tamlane, which is to be afterwards described.. "There were pipers playing in every neuk, And ladies dancing, jimp and sma'; And aye the owreturn o' their tune Was, 'Our wee wee man has been lang awa !'" * Child's "English and Scottish Ballads," vol. i. pp. 129 and 277. "He blaws it east, he blaws it west, He blaws it where he liketh best. "I wish that horn were in my kist, Yea, and that Knight in my arms neist.' "She had no sooner these words said, Than the Knight came to her bed." The maiden, however, is considered by the knight "ower young" to be married at once; and there arises, accordingly, a lively bandying of impossible demands, the inability to perform which results in the retirement of the knight discomfited, the ballad concluding with a verse which sounds like the chorus of some old song:"My plaid awa, my plaid awa, And owre the hills and far awa, My plaid shall not be blown awa." In the ballad just cited there is much to remind one of the sportive, half-meaningless rhymes of the nursery. The Earl of Mar's Daughter,1 again, is a pleasing play of fancy, which readily recalls the myth of Eros and Psyche, as well as the burden of many a nursery tale. The heroine of this ballad, amusing herself one day "below a green aik tree," is attracted by "a sprightly doo," which she induces to come down to her under the promise of "a cage o' guid red gowd." On being taken home to her bower, the dove turns out to be a beautiful prince who has been transformed into this shape; and the prettiness of the story is enhanced by the fact that 1 Buchan's "Ancient Ballads and Songs of the North of Scotland," vol. i. P. 49. One cannot but join in Professor Child's regret, that this ballad has not been preserved in an older form. the transformation is ascribed, not to the malice of a stepdame or witch, but to the kindly magic of the prince's own mother, whose ambition has been to render him thus a more potent charm to maidens. "My mither lives in foreign isles, She has nae mair but me; She is a queen o' wealth and state, And she transformed me to yon shape, "I am a doo the live lang day, A sprightly youth at night; Of a more exciting nature are the ballads which relate deliverances from the enchantments of superhuman power, such as form the theme of popular fictions in all lands. In the ballad which has just been described, as well as in several others already noticed, there is a reference to such enchantments; but the ballads of which I now speak, are those in which, not the enchantment itself, but the deliverance from it, constitutes the plot of the story. Scottish literature possesses at least one fine specimen of these ballads in Kempion, or Kemp Owyne, as it is called in Buchan's 1 First published by Scott from Mrs. Brown's MS. in "Border Minstrelsy," vol. iii. p. 230. Kempion resembles a very popular Border ballad, The Laidley Worm of Spindleston-heugh, ascribed, either in whole or in part, to the Rev. Mr. Lamb, of Norham. The reader may find some interest in comparing Mr. Morris' tale, The Lady of the Land, in "The Earthly Paradise, in which the would-be deliverer, feebler in nerve than Kempion, quails at the sight of the lips he is required to kiss. |