For example, we shall ask, Does Satchells' version yield any
traces of ballad sources?
My own opinion has been anticipated by Mr. Frank Miller in his The
Poets of Dumfriesshire (p. 33, 1910), and in ballad-lore Mr. Miller is
well equipped. He says: "The balance of probability seems to be in
favour of the originality of Kinmont Willie," rather than of Satchells
(he means, not of our Kinmont Willie as Scott gives it, but of a ballad
concerning the Kinmont). "Captain Walter Scott's" (of Satchells) "True
History was certainly gathered out of the ballads current in his day,
as well as out of formal histories, and his account of the assault on
the Castle reads like a narrative largely due to suggestions from some
popular lay."
Does Satchells' version, then, show traces of a memory of such a lay?
Undoubtedly it does.
Satchells' prolix narrative occasionally drops or rises into ballad
lines, as in the opening about Kinmont Willie -
It fell about the Martinmas
When kine was in the prime
that Willie "brought a prey out of Northumberland.
Pages:
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181