When in and cam her ain twa sons,

And their hats made o' the birk.1

"It neither grew in syke nor ditch,
Nor yet in ony sheuch;

But at the gates o' Paradise

That birk grew fair eneuch.

"Blow up the fire now, maidens mine,
Bring water from the well;

For a' my house shall feast this night,
Since my twa sons are well.

"O eat and drink, my merry men a',
The better shall ye fare;

For my twa sons they are come hame
To me for evermair.'

"And she has gane and made their bed,
She's made it saft and fine;

And she's happit them wi' her gray mantil,
Because they were her ain.

"Up then crew the red, red cock,

And

up and crew the gray;3

"Ane young man stert into that steid,

Als cant as ony colt,

Ane birken hat upon his heid,

With ane bow and ane bolt."

Peblis to the Play, verse vi. 2 "Can the English reader catch the strange tenderness and pathos of the word happed? It is one of the dearest to a Scottish ear, recalling infancy and the thousand instances of a mother's heart, and the unwearied care of a mother's hand. . . . Happed is the nursery word in Scotland, expressing the care with which the bed-clothes are laid upon the little forms, and carefully tucked in about the round sleeping cheeks."-Alexander Smith, in the Edinburgh Essays, p. 218.

3 So in Clerk Saunders:—

"Then up and crew the milkwhite cock,

And up and crew the grey."

The eldest to the youngest said,

'Tis time we were away.

"The cock, he hadna crawed but once,
And clapped his wings at a',

When the youngest to the eldest said,
Brother, we must awa.

"The cock doth craw, the day doth daw,
The channerin' worm doth chide;

Gin we be mist out o' our place,
A sair pain we maun bide.1

"Fare ye weel, my mother dear!
Fareweel to barn and byre!

And fare ye weel, the bonny lass

That kindles my mother's fire.'"2

The eeriest ballads, however, are probably those which penetrate the interior of the elfin world, and reveal the stratagems by which its unearthly inhabitants gratify their well-known fondness for human beings. Reference has already been made to ballads in which an elfin knight or a spirit of the waters is described as wooing a woman to destruction; and the effect of progressive civilization was illustrated in eliminating the supernatural elements of the legend. There are also some ballads relating the endeavours of female elves to wile

2 The last four verses are taken from The Wife of Usher's Well, as being finer than the corresponding verses in The Clerk's twa Sons o' Owsenford.

men to their mysterious dwelling-place. Legends of both these kinds are numerous in the early literature of the Teutonic nations; and, indeed, tales of an essentially identical import are scattered throughout all Aryan mythology, possibly traceable to a primeval metaphor, which spoke, on the one hand, of the Day being charmed by the awful beauty of the Night away to her invisible home, and, on the other hand, of the Night or the Dawn disappearing in the embrace of the Day.1 Let us take an example of the legends in which the charmer is a mermaid. In all these the plot is essentially similar. The hero is fascinated by the glance or gesture or song of the mermaid, and dies or is lured into the water, while a shout of elfin revelry is heard, or some other sign of elfin merriment is observed, over the success of her charm. Herd has preserved an imperfect specimen in Clerk Colvill, or the Mermaid; and another, entitled The Mermaid, of more poetical merit, though of more modern appearance, was obtained by Finlay from the recitation of a lady, who informed him that it had once been popular on the Carrick coast.2 It is worth quoting:

"To yon fause stream, that near the sea

Hides mony an elf an' plum,

And rives wi' fearfu' din the stanes,
A witless knicht did come.

"The day shines clear,-far in he's gane
Whar shells are silver bright,

1 See Cox's "Mythology of the Aryan Nations," vol. i. pp. 394-415. 2 Finlay's "Scottish Ballads," vol. ii. p. 81.

Fishes war loupin' a' aroun',

And sparklin' to the light:

"Whan as he laved, sounds cam sae sweet
Frae ilka rock an' tree,

The brief was out, 'twas him it doomed
The mermaid's face to see.

"Frae 'neath a rock, sune, sune she rose,
And stately on she swam,

Stopped in the midst, an' becked an' sang To him to stretch his haun'.

"Gowden glist the yellow links,

That round her neck she'd twine ;

Her een war o' the skyie blue,
Her lips did mock the wine:

"The smile upon her bonnie cheek
Was sweeter than the bee;
Her voice excelled the birdies' sang
Upon the birchen tree.

"Sae couthie, couthie did she look,
And meikle had she fleeched;

Out shot his hand, alas, alas!

Fast in the swirl he screeched.

"The mermaid leuch, her brief was gane,
And kelpie's blast was blawin',
Fu' low she duked, ne'er raise again,
For deep, deep was she fawin'.

"Aboon the stream his wraith was seen,
Warlocks toiled lang at gloamin';

That e'en was coarse, the blast blew hoarse, E'er lang the waves war foamin'."

Another and more familiar ballad, which relates the disappearance of a man to the elfin world, is Thomas the Rhymer,1 in which the Queen of the Fairies herself plays the charmer's part. The hero of this ballad, as is well known, occupies a distinguished place in the legendary history and literature of Scotland. Gifted, in popular tradition, not only with the power of the poet, but with the insight of the prophet, he was believed to have attained his superhuman knowledge by a daring intrigue with the Fairy Queen, as the legend of the pious Numa Pompilius attributed to his intercourse with the nymph Egeria the suggestion of the religious institutions which were traced to his reign. As True Thomas lay on the fairy-haunted Huntly Bank,2-so runs the legend,—he saw a bright lady in raiment of "grass green silk," with " innumerable silver bells tinkling at her horse's mane. Warned that if he kiss her lips she will become mistress of his fate, he cries

'Betide me weal, betide me woe,

That weird shall never daunton me.'
Syne he has kissed her rosy lips,

All underneath the Eildon Tree.

1 Scott's "Border Minstrelsy," vol. iv. p. 117. The reader will find it interesting to compare the English ballad on the same subject given by Jamieson ("Popular Ballads and Songs," vol. ii. p. 11). This ballad is preserved, with variations, in three MSS., which are collated by Jamieson. A beautiful Danish ballad on a similar legend, Sir Olaf and the Elf King's Daughter, has been translated into Scotch by the same writer (Ibid. vol. i. p. 219).

2 This spot in the neighbourhood of Melrose was purchased by Sir Walter Scott, at probably fifty per cent. above its real value, that it might be included in the Abbotsford estate.