There is nothing in this to surprise any one who knows the innumerable
variants in traditional ballads. But now comes in a very curious
variation (Hogg MS. xx., Scott, xix.). Douglas says (Hogg MS. xx.) -
But I have seen a dreary dream
Beyond the Isle o' Skye,
I saw a dead man won the fight,
And I think that man was I.
Here is something not in Herd, and as remote from the manner of the
English poet, with his
The Chronicle will not lie,
as Heine is remote from, say,--Milman. The verse is magical, it has
haunted my memory since I was ten years old. Godscroft, who does not
approve of the story of Douglas's murder by one of his men, writes that
the dying leader said:-
"First do yee keep my death both from our own folke and from the enemy"
(Froissart, "Let neither friend nor foe know of my estate"); "then that
ye suffer not my standard to be lost or cast downe" (Froissart, "Up
with my standard and call DOUGLAS!";) "and last, that ye avenge my
death" (also in Froissart). "Bury me at Melrose Abbey with my father.
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