"His head is like a black bull's head

His feet are like a bear'

"What matter! what matter!" cried the King, "He's my son and my only heir!"

The King plucked off his fryar's gowne,
And stood in his scarlet soe red:
The Queen she turned herself in bed,
And cryed that she was betrayde.

The King lookt o'er his left shoulder,
And a grim look looked he:

"Earl Marshall," he said, "but for my oath, Thou hadst swung on the gallowes tree."

* In the Reliques, this stanza runs thus :

"The next vile thing that ever I did,

Το you I will discover:

I poysoned fair Rosamonde

All in fair Woodstocke bower."

THE TWA CORBIES.

A SCOTTISH BALLAD.

There were twa corbies sat on a tree
Large and black as black might be,
And one the other gan say,

Where shall we go and dine to-day?
Shall we go dine by the wild salt sea?
Shall we go dine 'neath the greenwood tree?

As I sat on the deep sea sand,
I saw a fair ship nigh at land,

I waved my wings, I bent

my beak,
The ship sunk, and I heard a shriek;
There they lie, one, two, and three,
I shall dine by the wild salt sea.

Come, I will show ye a sweeter sight,
A lonesome glen and a new slain knight;
His blood yet on the grass is hot,

His sword half drawn, his shafts unshot,
And no one kens that he lies there,

But his hawk, his hound, and his lady fair.

His hound is to the hunting gane,
His hawk to fetch the wild fowl hame,
His lady's away with another mate,
So we shall make our dinner sweet;
Our dinner's sure, our feasting free,
Come, and dine by the greenwood tree.

Ye shall sit on his white hause-bane,
I will pick out his bonny blue een;
Ye'll take a tress of his yellow hair,
To theak yere nest when it grows bare;
The gowden down on his young chin
Will do to sewe my young ones in.

O cauld and bare will his bed be,
When winter storms sing in the tree;
At his head a turf, at his feet a stone,
He will sleep, nor hear the maiden's moan ;
O'er his white bones the birds shall fly,
The wild deer bound and foxes cry.

SIR PATRICK SPENS

LAYS claim to a high and remote antiquity. It is supposed by Bishop Percy to be founded on some event of real history; but in what age the hero of it lived, or when the fatal expedition, which it records, happened, he confesses himself unable to determine. Sir Walter Scott and Mr. Finlay, in their respective collections, concur in assigning it a like foundation, though they disagree as to the historical incident whence it has originated; while, on the other hand, Mr. Ritson asserts that "no memorial of the subject of the ballad exists in history."*

Our limits forbid us from giving at length the historical sketches which Sir Walter Scott and Mr. Finlay have brought forward in support of their different theories; and we must refer the reader, who wishes to weigh the value of their arguments, to the works themselves. It is enough, at present, to state, that the Editor of the Border Minstrelsy inclines to think that the present ballad may record some unsuccessful attempt to bring home Margaret, commonly called the Maid of Norway, previous to that embassy despatched for her by the Regency of Scotland, after the death of her grandfather, Alexander III. And, though no account of such an expedition appears in history, it is nevertheless ingeniously contended, that its silence cannot invalidate tradition, or form any argument against the probability of such an event-more especially when the meagre materials whence Scottish history is derived, are taken into view. Mr. Finlay objects to giving the ballad, as it stands, so high a claim to antiquity, but suggests that if it be referred to the time of James III., who married Margaret, daughter of the King of Denmark, it would be brought a step nearer probability.

To both these opinions, however, Ritson's observation applies with overwhelming force. There is no historical evidence of this disastrous shipwreck, either in the embassy for the Maiden of Norway, or in that

Reliques of Ancient Poetry, vol. 1. and Romantic Ballads, vol. 1. p. 45.

Border Minstrelsy, vol. 1. Scottish Historical Ritson on Scottish Song, vol. 2, p. 4.

B

for the wife of James III.

And meagre as the sources of our history may be, it seems improbable that an expedition which terminated so fatally, and to which so many of the choicest gallants of the day, and highest nobles of the land, must necessarily have been attached, should fail to be chronicled. Had they fallen in the field of battle, would all memory of them have been lost? Certainly not. If they perished on the ocean, why is history oblivious of their names? The very circumstance of a national calamity like this happening by shipwreck, being of more rare occurrence than one of equal magnitude in time of war, would, we think, be a very mean of securing it a more prominent place in the histories of the times. The ballad must therefore be either wholly fabulous, or it must refer to some other event than any yet spoken of.

Our own opinion is, that the ballad is founded on authentic history; and that it records the melancholy and disastrous fate of the gallant band which followed in the suite of Margaret, daughter of Alexander III., when she was espoused to Eric of Norway. According to Fordun,* in this expedition many distinguished Nobles accompanied her to Norway to grace her nuptials; several of whom perished in a storm while on their return to Scotland. Whoever studies the ballad attentively, and makes due allowance for the transpositions, corruptions, and interpolations which must unavoidably have crept into its text, must ultimately become a convert to the opinion we have now advanced. The bitter taunt of the Norwegians to Sir Patrick:

"Ye Scottishmen spend a' our king's gowd

And a' our queenis fee,"

was without meaning and point formerly-its application is now felt.

* Paulo tamen ante hoc A sciz. D.MCC.LXXXI, desponsata est Margareta filia regis Alexandri tertii regi Norwegia Hanigow sive Hericio nuncupato; quæ pridie Idus Augusti Scotiam relinquens, nobili transfretavit apparatu, cum Waltero Bullok comite, et ejus de Menteth comitissa, una cum abbate de Balmurinach et Bernardo de Montealto ac aliis multis militibus et nobilibus; ac in vigilia assumptionis nostræ Domina Norweiam est ingressa et a rege honorifice suscepta, ac ab archiepiscopo illius regni, invita matre ejusdem regis, coronata est. Post vero nuptias solemniter celebratas dicti abbas et Bernardus et alii plures in redeundo sunt submersi.-Fordun, lib. x. cap. xxxvii.