"
Not a doubt of THAT!
"And, finally, Sir Walter Scott felt towards 'the Kinmont' and 'the
bold Buccleuch' precisely as the moss-trooping author of such a ballad
would have felt. For once, then, the miraculous happened. . . . "
{146a} Or did not happen, for the exception is "solitary though
doubtful," and "under vehement suspicion." But Mr. Kittredge must
remember that no known Scottish ballad "is made out of whole cloth."
All have, in various degrees, the successive modifications wrought by
centuries of oral tradition, itself, in some cases, modifying a much
modified printed "stall-copy" or "broadside."
Take Jock o' the Side. The oldest version is in the Percy MS. {147a}
As Mr. Henderson says, "it contains many evident corruptions,"
"Jock on his lively bay, Wat's on his white horse behind."
There is an example of what the original author could not have written!
We do not know how good Jock was when he left his poet's hands; and
Scott has not touched him up. We cannot estimate the original
excellence of any traditional poem by the state in which we find it,
Corrupt by every beggar-man,
And soiled by all ignoble use.
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