" {98a} (This is an
incomplete quotation. I give the MS. version later.)
Scott himself, before Hogg wrote thus, had said, in the prefatory note
to his Jamie Telfer: "There is another ballad, under the same title as
the following, in which nearly the same incidents are narrated, with
little difference, except that the honour of rescuing the cattle is
attributed to the Liddesdale Elliots, headed by a chief there called
Martin Elliot of the Preakin Tower, whose son, Simm, is said to have
fallen in the action. It is very possible that both the Teviotdale
Scotts and the Elliots were engaged in the affair, and that each
claimed the honour of the victory."
Old Mrs. Hogg's version, "differing in many particulars" from Scott's,
must have been the Elliot version, published by Professor Child, as
"A*," "Jamie Telfer IN" (not "OF") "the Fair Dodhead," "from a MS.
written about the beginning of the nineteenth century, and now in the
possession of Mr. William Macmath"; it had previously belonged to
Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe.
Pages:
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143