Historical Greece
knew but dimly the places which were familiar to Nestor, the towns that
time had ruined, the hill where Athene "turned the people again." We,
too, have to seek in documents of the end of the sixteenth century, or
in an old map of 1654 (drawn about 1600), to find Dodhead, Catslack, or
Catloch, or Catlock hill, and Preakinhaugh, places essential to our
inquiry.
I see the student who has ventured so far into my tract wax wan! He
does not,--she does not,--wish to hear about dusty documents and
ancient maps. For him or for her the ballad is enough, and a very good
ballad it is. I would shake the faith of no man in the accuracy of the
ballad tale, if it were not necessary for me to defend the character of
Sir Walter Scott, which, on occasion of this and other ballads, is
impugned by Colonel the Hon. FitzWilliam Elliot. He "hopes, though he
cannot expect," that I will give my reasons for not sharing his belief
that Sir Walter did a certain thing which I could not easily palliate.'
II--THE BALLAD IMPOSSIBLE
My attempts to relieve Colonel Elliot from his painful convictions
about Sir Walter's unsportsmanlike behaviour must begin with proof that
the ballad, as it stands, cannot conceivably be other than "a pack o'
lees.
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