He also gave the sword in place of the
pennon of Percy as the trophy of Douglas, "and the same with intent to
deceive," just as he pretended, in Auld Maitland, not to know what
"springwalls" were, and wrote "springs: wall-stanes." If this
probable theory be correct, then Scott was the dupe of Truthful James.
At all events, though for three years Scott was moving heaven and earth
and Ettrick Forest to find a copy of a Scottish ballad of Otterburn, he
did not sit down and make one, as, in Colonel Elliot's system, he
easily could and probably would have done.
Before studying his next ill deed, we must repeat that the Otterburn
ballads prove that in early times one nation certainly pirated a ballad
of a rival nation, and very ingeniously altered it and inverted the
parts of the heroes.
We have next to examine a case in a later generation, in which a maker
who was interested in one clan, pirated, perverted, and introverted the
roles of the heroes in a ballad by a maker interested in another clan.
Either an Elliotophile perverted a ballad by a Scottophile, or a
Scottophile perverted a ballad by an Elliotophile.
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