The first notice in print of this precious specimen of the unspoiled traditional ballad is in Ritson's Scotish Song, 1794, I, xxxvi, note 25: the Rev. Mr. Boyd, the translator of Dante, had a faint recollection of three ballads, one of which was called 'Johny Cox.' Before this, 1780, a lady of Carlisle had sent a copy to Doctor Percy, A. Scott, 1802, was the first to publish the ballad, selecting "the stanzas of greatest merit" from several copies which were in his hands. John Fry gave two valuable fragments, C, B (which he did not separate), in his Pieces of Ancient Poetry, 1814, from a manuscript "appearing to be the text-book of some illiterate drummer."[foot-note] I have been able to add only three versions to those which were already before the world, A, D, G; and of these D is in part the same as B, previously printed by Kinloch.
Pinkerton, Select Scotish Ballads, II, xxxix, 1783, has preserved a stanza, which he assigns to a supposititious ballad of 'Bertram the Archer:'[foot-note]
This stanza agrees with J 6, and with A 18, H 19 in part, and is very likely to belong here; but it might be a movable passage, or commonplace.
All the versions are in accord as to the primary points of the story. A gallant young fellow, who pays no regard to the game-laws, goes out, despite his mother's entreaties, to ding the dun deer down. He kills a deer, and feasts himself and his dogs so freely on it that they all fall asleep. An old palmer, a silly auld, stane-auld carl, observes him, and carries word to seven foresters [fifteen B, three (?) C]. They beset Johnie and wound him; he kills all but one, and leaves that one, badly hurt, to carry tidings of the rest. Johnie sends a bird to his mother to bid her fetch him away, F 19, 20, cf. B 13; a bird warns his mother that Johnie tarries long, H 21 (one of Buchan's parrots). The boy in A 20, 21 is evidently a corruption of bird. Information is given the mother in a different way in L. B-G must be adjudged to be incomplete; I-M are mere fragments. H has a false and silly conclusion, 22-24, in imitation of Robin Hood and of Adam Bell. Mrs. Harris had heard another version besides G (of which she gives only one stanza, L), in which "Johnie is slain and thrown owre a milk-white steed; news is sent to Johnie's mother, who flies to her son." It is the one forester who is not quite killed that is thrown over his steed to carry tidings home, F 18, G 11. D 19, E 17, and Mrs. Harris's second version are, as to this point, evidently corrupted.
The hero's name is Johnny Cock, B 2, C 1; Johny Cox, Rev. Mr. Boyd; John o Cockis (Johny Cockis?), H 17; Johny o Cockley's Well, A 14; o Cockerslee, D 14; of Cockielaw, in one of the versions used by Scott for F; o Cocklesmuir, E 13, H 15. Again, Johnie Brad, G 1, L; Johnie o Breadislee, F 14; Braidislee, J 2.
The hunting-ground, or the place where Johnie is discovered, is up in Braidhouplee, down in Bradyslee, A 6, high up in Bradyslee, low down in Bradyslee, A 12; Braidscaur Hill, D 6, Braidisbanks, D 12, I 1; Bride's Braidmuir, H 2, 5; Broadspear Hill, B 2, 5; Durrisdeer only in F 4. The seven foresters are of Pickeram Side, A 3, 19; of Hislinton, F 9. B 11 reads, Fifteen foresters in the braid alow; which seems to require emendation, perhaps simply to Braid alow, perhaps to Braidislee.
With regard to the localities in A, Percy notes that Pickeram Side is in Northumbria, and that there is a Cockley Tower in Erringside, near Brady's Cragg, and a Brady's Cragg near Chollerford Bridge. There is a Cockley, alias Cocklaw, in Erringside, near Chollerton, in the south division of Tynedale Ward, parish of St. John Lee. The Erring is a small stream which enters the Tyne between Chollerton and Chollerford. Again, Cocklaw Walls appears in the map of the Ordnance Survey, a little to the north and east of Cockley in Erringside, and Cocklaw Walls may represent the Cockley's Well of the ballad. (Percy notes that Cockley's Well is said to be near Bewcastle, Cumberland.) I have not found Brady's Cragg or Pickeram Side in the Ordnance Survey maps, nor indeed any of the compounds of Braidy or Braid anywhere.
There is a Braid a little to the south of Edinburgh, Braid Hills and Braid Burn; and Motherwell, Minstrelsy, p. 17, says that there is tradition for this region having been the hunting-ground.
Scott's copy, F, lays the scene in Dumfriesshire, and there is other tradition to the same effect.[foot-note]
Percy was struck with the occurrence of the wolf in A 17, found also in B 10, C 5. He considered, no doubt, that the mention of the wolf was a token of the high antiquity of the ballad. "Wolues that wyryeth men, wommen and children" are spoken of in Piers Plowman, C, Passus, X, v. 226, Skeat, 1886, I, 240, and the C text is assigned to about 1393. Holinshed (1577), I, 378, says that though the island is void of wolves south of the Tweed, yet the Scots cannot boast the like, since they have grievous wolves.
F is translated by Schubart, p. 187; Wolff, Halle der Völker, I, 41, Hausschatz, p. 224; Doenniges, p. 10; Gerhard, p. 51; R. von Bismarck, Deutsches Museum, 1858, I, 897; Cesare Cantù, Documenti alla Storia Universale, V, 806; in Le Magasin Pittoresque, 1838, p. 127 b; by Loève-Veimars, p. 296. Grundtvig, p. 269, No 41, translates a compound of F, I, E (Kinloch's Ancient Scottish Ballads, p. 36), and B; Knortz, Schottische Balladen, No 18, a mixture of F and others.
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