II. Wit Restored. 1658.

LITTLE MUSGRAVE AND LADY BARNARD

[Wit Restored, reprint Facetiæ, I. 293.]

`Percy notices that this ballad was quoted in many old plays-viz., Beaumont and Fletcher's Knight of the

3

I. Melismata: Musicall Phansies, Fitting the Court,
Cittie, and Countrey Humours. London, 1611.

THE THREE RAVENS

[Melismata, No. 20.]

This ballad has retained its hold on the country people
for many centuries, and is still known in some
parts. I have received a version from a gentleman
in Lincolnshire, which his father (born Dec. 1793)
had heard as a boy from an old labouring man,
who could not read and had learnt it "from his
fore-elders." Here the "fallow doe" has become
a "lady full of woe."-See also The Twa Corbies.

II. Wit Restored. 1658.

LITTLE MUSGRAVE AND LADY BARNARD

[Wit Restored, reprint Facetia, I. 293.]

Percy notices that this ballad was quoted in many old
plays-viz., Beaumont and Fletcher's Knight of the

PAGE

xxvii

xxxi

3

Burning Pestle, v. 3; The Varietie, a Comedy, Act IV.
(1649); and Sir William Davenant's The Wits,
Act ш. Prof. Child also suggests that some stanzas
in Beaumont and Fletcher's Bonduca (v. 2) and
Fletcher's Monsieur Thomas (iv. 11) may be parodies
or reminiscences of the same.

THE TWA SISTERS

[Jamieson-Brown MS., fol. 39.]
This is one of the very few old ballads which is
still known and sung in country neighbourhoods
though it is not sold by Mr Such. It goes by a
variety of names-e.g., Binnorie, The Miller and the
King's Daughter, The Cruel Sister, The Miller's
Melody, &c. Judge Hughes has a version-The
Drowned Lady-in his Scouring of the White Horse,
with a ludicrous ending, which he tells me was
learnt in his nursery ; "one or two of the verses
were patched by his father."

The refrain varies much in the different versions. In
the earliest printed copy (Wit Restor❜d) it is—

With a hie down down a down-a.

In Scott's Minstrelsy—

Binnorie, O Binnorie,

By the bonnie mill-dams of binnorie.

In Motherwell's manuscript (printed by Prof.
Child)-

Hey with the gay and the grandeur O,

At the bonnie bows o' London town:

or in another part of the MS.—

Hech, hey my Nannie O,

And the swans swim bonnie O.

In Notes and Queries, from Lancashire—

Bow down, bow down, bow down,

I'll be true to my love and my love'll be true to me.

PAGE

1 Of 123 Union Street, Borough. He keeps a good stock of the old broadsides,
probably the largest in England.

8

III. Miscellany Poems, containing a variety of new
translations of the Ancient Poets, together with
several original poems. By the most eminent
hands. Edited by Dryden. 1684-1708 and
1716.

PAGE

THE HUNTING OF THE CHEVIOT

[MS. Ashmole, Bodleian Library; reprinted by Prof. Skeat in his
Specimens of English Literature, 3rd edition, 1880, p. 67.]

In his interesting paper on Chevy-Chase (Gentleman's
Magazine, April 1889) Prof. Hales pointed out
that this ballad and The Battle of Otterbourne, though
confounded from an early date, "are connected with
different localities, are based upon different in-
cidents, and represent different features in the old
Border life."

The Hunting of the Cheviot probably does not relate
to any particular historical event, though Percy's
suggestion that it was partially founded on the
battle of Piperden (1435 or 1436), "appears to be
well worth consideration." Such hunting expedi-
tions, in which a Percy defied the March law and
crossed the border to the Douglas territory, were
doubtless of common occurrence; and the geography
of this ballad is so vague, its chronology is so con-
fused, that we cannot expect to identify it. The
old men, quoted in the ballad, who knew the
ground well, and call it the Battle of Otterburn,
are no authorities.

The later version of this ballad, generally known as
Chevy-Chase, was probably produced in the seven-
teenth century.

12