CONCLUSIONS
We have now examined critically the four essentially Border ballads
which Sir Walter is suspected of having "edited" in an unrighteous
manner. Now he helps to forge, and issues Auld Maitland. Now he, or
somebody, makes up Otterburne, "partly of stanzas from Percy's
Reliques, which have undergone emendations calculated to disguise the
source from which they came, partly of stanzas of modern fabrication,
and partly of a few stanzas and lines from Herd's version." {148a}
Thirdly, Scott, it is suggested, knew only what I call "the Elliot
version" of Jamie Telfer, perverted that by transposing the roles of
Buccleuch and Stobs, and added picturesque stanzas in glorification of
his ancestor, Wat of Harden. Fourthly, he is suspected of "writing the
whole ballad" of Kinmont Willie, "from beginning to end."
Of these four charges the first, and most disastrous, we have
absolutely disproved. Scott did not write one verse of the Auld
Maitland; he edited it with unusual scrupulosity, for he had but one
copy, and an almost identical recitation.
Pages:
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199