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Lang, Andrew, 1844-1912

"Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy"

, with slight verbal
changes taken from the Hogg MS. text of 1805. (?) Hogg's MS. and
Scott, in stanza ii., give Herd's lines on the Lindsays and Gordons,
adding the Grahams, and, in place of Herd's

The Earl of Fife,
And Sir Hugh Montgomery upon a grey,

they end thus -

But the Jardines wald not wi' him ride,
And they rue it to this day.

This is from Hogg's copy; it is a natural Border variant. No Earl of
Fife is named, but a reproach to a Border clan is conveyed.
For Herd's iii. (they take Northumberland, and burn "the North shire,"
and the Otter dale), Hogg's reciters gave -

And he has burned the dales o' Tyne,
And part o' ALMONSHIRE,
And three good towers in Roxburgh fells,
He left them all on fire.

Hogg, in his letter accompanying his copy, says that "Almonshire" may
stand for the "Bamborowshire" of the English vi., but that he leaves in
"Almonshire," as both reciters insist on it. Scott printed
"Bambroughshire," as in the English version (vi.).
Now here is proof that Hogg had a copy, from reciters--a copy which he
could not understand.


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