This might be done at the time when the ballad was made (say 1620-60).
But Colonel Elliot believes that the perversion was inflicted on an
Elliotophile ballad by a Scottophile impostor about 1800-1802. The
name of this desperate and unscrupulous character was Walter Scott,
Sheriff of Ettrick Forest, commonly called Selkirkshire.
In this instance I have no manuscript evidence. The name of "Jamie of
the Fair Dodhead," the ballad, appears in a list of twenty-two ballads
in Sir Walter's hand, written in a commonplace book about 1800-1801.
Eleven are marked X. "Jamie" is one of that eleven. Kinmont Willie is
among the eleven not marked X. We may conjecture that he had obtained
the first eleven, and was hunting for the second eleven,--some of which
he never got, or never published.
THE MYSTERY OF THE BALLAD OF JAMIE TELFER
I--A RIDING SONG
The Ballad of Jamie Telfer of the Fair Dodhead has many charms for
lovers of the Border. The swift and simple stanzas carry us through a
great tract of country, which remains not unlike what it was in the
days when Scotts, Armstrongs, and Elliots rode the hills in jack and
knapscap, with sword and lance.
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