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Minstrelsy of the Scottish border, Volume 1 By: Walter Scott (1771-1832) |
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OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER: CONSISTING OF HISTORICAL AND ROMANTIC BALLADS, COLLECTED IN THE SOUTHERN COUNTIES OF SCOTLAND; WITH A FEW
OF MODERN DATE, FOUNDED UPON
LOCAL TRADITION.
IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I The songs, to savage virtue dear,
That won of yore the public ear,
Ere Polity, sedate and sage,
Had quench'd the fires of feudal rage. WARTON. 1806.
TO HIS GRACE, HENRY, DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH , &c.&c.&c. THESE TALES, WHICH IN ELDER TIMES HAVE CELEBRATED THE PROWESS, AND CHEERED THE HALLS, OF HIS GALLANT ANCESTORS , ARE RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED BY HIS GRACE'S MUCH OBLIGED AND MOST HUMBLE SERVANT, WALTER SCOTT. CONTENTS
TO
THE FIRST VOLUME.
INTRODUCTION PART FIRST. HISTORICAL BALLADS . Sir Patrick Spens, Auld Maitland, Battle of Otterbourne, The Sang of the Outlaw Murray, Johnie Armstrang, The Lochmaben Harper, Jamie Telfer of the Fair Dodhead, The Raid of the Reidswire, Kinmont Willie, Dick o'the Cow, Jock o'the Side, Hobbie Noble, Archie of Ca'field, Armstrong's Goodnight, The Fray of Suport, Lord Maxwell's Goodnight, The Lads of Wamphray,
INTRODUCTION.
From the remote period; when the Roman province was contracted by the
ramparts of Severus, until the union of the kingdoms, the borders
of Scotland formed the stage, upon which were presented the most
memorable conflicts of two gallant nations. The inhabitants, at the
commencement of this aera, formed the first wave of the torrent which
assaulted, and finally overwhelmed, the barriers of the Roman power
in Britain. The subsequent events, in which they were engaged, tended
little to diminish their military hardihood, or to reconcile them to
a more civilized state of society. We have no occasion to trace the
state of the borders during the long and obscure period of Scottish
history, which preceded the accession of the Stuart family. To
illustrate a few ballads, the earliest of which is hardly coeval with
James V. such an enquiry would be equally difficult and vain. If we
may trust the Welch bards, in their account of the wars betwixt the
Saxons and Danes of Deira and the Cumraig, imagination can hardly
form [Sidenote: 570] any idea of conflicts more desperate, than were
maintained, on the borders, between the ancient British and their
Teutonic invaders. Thus, the Gododin describes the waste and
devastation of mutual havoc, in colours so glowing, as strongly to
recall the words of Tacitus; " Et ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem
appellant [1]." [Footnote 1: In the spirited translation of this poem, by Jones, the
following verses are highly descriptive of the exhausted state of the
victor army. At Madoc's tent the clarion sounds,
With rapid clangour hurried far:
Each echoing dell the note resounds
But when return the sons of war!
Thou, born of stern necessity,
Dull peace! the desert yields to thee,
And owns thy melancholy sway. At a later period, the Saxon families, who fled from the exterminating
sword of the Conqueror, with many of the Normans themselves, whom
discontent and intestine feuds had driven into exile, began to rise
into eminence upon the Scottish borders. They brought with them
arts, both of peace and of war, unknown in Scotland; and, among their
descendants, we soon number the most powerful border chiefs. Such,
during the reign of the [Sidenote: 1249] last Alexander, were Patrick,
earl of March, and Lord Soulis, renowned in tradition; and such were,
also, the powerful Comyns, who early acquired the principal sway upon
the Scottish marches. [Sidenote: 1300] In the civil wars betwixt Bruce
and Baliol, all those powerful chieftains espoused the unsuccessful
party. They were forfeited and exiled; and upon their ruins was
founded the formidable house of Douglas. The borders, from sea to
sea, were now at the devotion of a succession of mighty chiefs, whose
exorbitant power threatened to place a new dynasty upon the Scottish
throne. It is not my intention to trace the dazzling career of this
race of heroes, whose exploits were alike formidable to the English,
and to their sovereign... Continue reading book >>
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