Now, first, as regards pilfering from the English version, that
version, and Herd's undisputed version, have undeniably a common
source. Neither, as it stands, is "original"; of an ORIGINAL
contemporary Otterburn ballad we have no trace. By 1550, when such
ballads were certainly current both in England and Scotland, they were
late, confused by tradition, and, of what we possess, say Herd's, and
the English MS. of 1550, all were interblended.
The Scots ballad version, known to Hume of Godscroft (1610), may have
been taken from the English, and altered, as Child thought, or the
English, as Motherwell maintained, may have been borrowed from the
Scots, and altered. One or the other process undeniably occurred; the
second poet, who made the changes, introduced the events most
favourable to his country, and left out the less favourable. By
Scott's time, or Herd's, the versions were much degraded through decay
of memory, bad penny broadsides (lost), and uneducated reciters.
Herd's version has forgotten the historic affair of the capture of
Percy's pennon (and of the whole movement on Newcastle, preserved in
Sharpe's and Scott's); Scott's remembers the encounter at Newcastle,
forgets the pennon, and substitutes the capture by Douglas of Percy's
sword.
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