Till Kemp Owyne come ower the sea And borrow her with kisses three. The three kisses are of course given; when, instead of the beast "whose breath was strang, whose hair was lang," Her breath was sweet, her hair grew short, As fair a woman as fair could be. 66 The ballad of the "Laidly (loathsome) Worm" was no doubt greatly altered by Mr. Lambe, but there is evidence that the story was generally known in Northumberland" long before he printed the version attributed to Duncan Frazier; and it is to be regretted that he did not communicate it as he received it-stript of its "amendments and enlargements." In this ballad, the daughter of the King of Bamborough is metamorphosed by her step-mother, and restored to her natural shape by her brother "Childy Wynd," who avenges the wrong done to his sister by converting the foul witch into a toad. As in "Kempion," and "Kemp Owyne," the restoration to humanity is effected by "kisses three:" "O, quit thy sword and bend thy bow, And give me kisses three; For though I am a poisonous worm, “O, quit thy sword and bend thy bow, And give me kisses three; If I'm not won, ere the sun goes down, Won I shall never be." He quitted his sword and bent his bow, Percy prints the ballad of the "Witch of Wokey," written in 1748, by the ingenious Dr. Harrington of Bath. She " "blasted every plant around;" and was encountered, not by a knight, but by a "lerned wight," who having chauntede out a goodlie booke, and sprinkled, plentifully, holy water, Lo, where stood a hag before, Now stood a ghastly stone! THIS ballad first appeared in the "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border;" it was communicated to Sir Walter Scott by Mr. William Laidlaw, by whom it was "taken down from recitation." Mr. Motherwell, by whom it was reprinted in his valuable volume, "Minstrelsy, Ancient and Modern," surmises that, "although it would be unfair for a moment to imagine that Sir Walter Scott made any addition to it, Mr. Laidlaw may have improved upon its naked original." That he did so, is by no means unlikely; nor is it very improbable that, in passing through the alembic of the great Magician of the North, it received additional purity, without losing aught of its intrinsic worth. Mr. Motherwell, "with all his industry, was unable to find it in a more perfect state than this,”—which the reader will be interested in comparing with the appended copy from the "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border:" "I have seven ship upon the sea Laden with the finest gold, And mariners to wait us upon― All these you may behold. "And I have shoes for my love's feet, Beaten of the purest gold, And lined with the velvet soft, To keep my love's feet from the cold. "O how do you love the ship," he said, "Or how do you love the sea? Or how do you love the bold mariners, That wait upon thee and me?" "OI do love the ship," she said, "And I do love the sea: They had not sailed a mile awa', And to think on her little wee son. * Warwolf signifies a magician, possessing the power of transforming himself into a wolf, for the purpose of ravee and destruction. "O hold your tongue, my dear," he said, "And let all your weeping abee, For I'll soon show to you how the lilies grow On the banks of Italy." They had not sailed a mile awa', Never a mile but two, Until she espied his cloven foot, From his gay robes sticking thro'. They had not sailed a mile awa', They had not sailed a mile awa', Never a mile but four, When the little wee ship ran round about And never was seen more. If this be, in reality, the skeleton which Mr. Laidlaw clothed in sinews and flesh, he has given unquestionable proof of genius of a very rare order. There is, however, little doubt that he had actually "taken down, from recitation," a much more perfect copy, to which he gave some "finishing touches" of his own; for the composition bears unequivocal marks of old time; and a collateral proof of its antiquity, in a more extended form, is supplied by an authority, to which reference is made by the accomplished editor of the latest edition of the "Border Minstrelsy." Mr. Buchan, in his " Ancient Ballads and Songs of the North of Scotland, hitherto unpublished," prints another version of the story, under the title of " James Herries;" with this difference, however, that here, the lover, who wreaks his vengeance on the "fause woman," is not a demon with a "cloven foot," but the ghost of a "first true love;"--the other incidents are precisely similar, and many of the lines are exactly the same; although as a whole it is far less grand, touching, and dramatic, than the version as preserved by Sir Walter Scott. Mr. Buchan gives three additional stanzas, descriptive of the misery of the betrayed husband; they are fine and effective, and contribute strongly to impress the moral of the tale: "O wae be to the ship, the ship, "O bonny, bonny was my love, "O bonny was her cheek, her cheek, Similar The legend contained in the ballad is, according to Sir Walter Scott, "in various shapes current in Scotland;" but it is by no means peculiar to that country. stories are told in many of the English counties; and in Ireland it is very common; the moral conveying a warning against the crime of infidelity. Sir Walter says, "I remember to have heard a ballad, in which a fiend is introduced paying his addresses to a beautiful maiden; but, disconcerted by the holy herbs she wore in her bosom, makes the following lines the burthen of his courtship;— 'Gin ye wish to be leman mine, Lay aside the St. John's wort, and the ver vain."" The same power of keeping away evil spirits is attributed to the vervain in Ireland; where, when it is pulled by village mediciners, while the morning dew is on the ground, this verse is generally repeated :— "Vervain, thou growest upon holy ground, The unhappy lady whose fate is described in the accompanying ballad had no such "protection," and was without that surer safeguard, to which the great poet refers as a possession, o'er which No goblin or swart fairy of the mine Hath hurtful power. How a Merchande dyd hys Wyfe Betray. THE story of this ancient poem seems to have appeared in all possible shapes. It is contained in a tract entitled "Penny-wise, pound-foolish; or a Bristow diamond, set in two rings, and both crack'd. Profitable for married men, pleasant for young men, and a rare example for all good women," London, 1631, 4to. b. 1., and is well known, at least in the North, by the old ballad called "The Pennyworth of Wit." It likewise appears, from Langham's letter, 1575, to have been then in print, under the title of "The Chapman of a Pennyworth of Wit;" though no edition of that age is now known to exist. The following copy is from a transcript made by the late Mr. Baynes from one of Bp. More's manuscripts in the public library at Cambridge (Ff. 2. 38, or 690), written apparently about the reign of Edward the Fourth, or Richard the Third; carefully but unnecessarily examined with the original. The poem itself, however, is indisputably of a greater age, and seems from the language and orthography to be of Scottish, or at least of North country extraction. The fragment of a somewhat different copy, in the same dialect, is contained in a MS. of Henry the Sixth's time in the British Museum (Bib. Har. 5396). It has evidently been designed to be sung to the harp. LYSTENYTH, lordyngys, y you pray, Thys songe ys of a merchand of thys cuntre, He boght hur gownys of grete pryce, As any lady myght desyre That was foly be my fay, wepe. 35 Tyll hys wyfe ys he gon, 40 45 51 Of safurs and of rubyes redd; 6 That fayrenes schulde trew loue betray. 10 When he had boght all that he wolde, The marchand ouyr the see he schulde. The marchandys man to his mayster speke, Oure dameys peny let vs not forgete. To bye owre dame a penyworth of wytt, 60 |