Macmath, which had
previously been the property of a friend of Scott, Charles Kirkpatrick
Sharpe. This version is entitled "Jamie Telfer IN the Fair Dodhead,"
not "OF": Jamie was a tenant (there was no Jamie Telfer tenant of
Dodhead in 1570-1609, but concerning that I have more to say). Jamie
was no laird.
Before Professor Child's publication of the Elliot version, we had only
that given by Scott in The Border Minstrelsy of 1802. Now Scott's
version is at least as absurdly incredible as the Elliot version. In
Scott's version the unhappy Jamie runs, not to Branksome and Buccleuch,
to meet a refusal; but to "the Stobs's Ha'"(on Slitterick above Hawick)
and to "auld Gibby Elliot," the laird. Elliot bids him go to Branksome
and the laird of Buccleuch,
For, man, ye never paid money to me!
Naturally Telfer did not pay to Elliot: he paid to Buccleuch, if to
any one. More, till after the Union of 1603, and the end of Border
raids, Gilbert Elliot, a cousin and friend of Buccleuch, WAS NOT THE
OWNER OF STOBS.
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