Of B, which purports to have been taken down from an old woman's singing by James Telfer, Mr. Robert White, from whom I received A, said in a letter to Mr. J.H. Dixon: "Parcy Reed, as you suspect, is not genuine, for it bears marks of our friend's improvements. I have a copy of the original somewhere, but may not be able to find it." And again, Telfer himself, "in a letter to the late Robert Storey, the Northumbrian poet," wrote, "I will send Mr. Dixon the real verses, but it is but a droll of a ballad." (J.H. Dixon, in Notes and Queries, Fourth Series, J, 108, V, 520.)
Comparison will show that almost the whole of A is preserved in B, and in fairly good form. B has also some stanzas not found in A which may be accepted as traditional. Telfer may have added a dozen of his own, and has retouched others.
Mr. White, after remarking that there is no historical evidence to show when the event on which the ballad was founded occurred, informs us that almost every circumstance in the narrative has been transmitted to the present century by local tradition.
"Percival, or Parcy, Reed," in the words of Mr. White, "was proprietor of Troughend, an elevated tract of land lying on the west side and nearly in the centre of Redesdale, Northumberland. The remains of the old tower may still be seen, a little to the west of the present mansion, commanding a beautiful and most extensive view of nearly the whole valley. Here he resided, and being a keen hunter and brave soldier, he possessed much influence, and was appointed warden or keeper of the district. His office was to suppress and order the apprehension of thieves and other breakers of the law; in the execution of which he incurred the displeasure of a family of brothers of the name of Hall, who were owners of Girsonsfield, a farm about two miles east from Troughend. He also drew upon himself the hostility of a band of moss troopers, Crosier by name, some of whom he had been successful in bringing to justice. The former were, however, artful enough to conceal their resentment, and under the ap pearance of friendship calmly awaited an opportunity to be avenged. Some time after wards, they solicited his attendance on a hunt ing expedition to the head of Redesdale, and unfortunately he agreed to accompany them. His wife had some strange dreams anent his safety on the night before his departure, and at breakfast, on the following morning, the loaf of bread from which he was supplied chanced to be turned with the bottom up wards, an omen which is still accounted most unfavorable all over the north of England. Considering these presages undeserving of notice, Reed set out in company with the Halls, and, after enjoying a good day's sport, the party withdrew to a solitary hut in Batinghope, a lonely glen stretching westward from the Whitelee, whose little stream forms one of the chief sources of Reedwater. The whole of this arrangement had been previously planned by the Halls and Crosiers, and when the latter came down, late in the evening, to execute their purpose of vengeance, they found Parcy Reed altogether a defenceless man. His companions not only deserted him, but had previously driven his sword so firmly in its scabbard that it could not be drawn, and had also moistened the powder with which the very long gun he carried with him was charged, so as to render both useless when he came to rely upon them for protection. Accordingly the Crosiers instantly put him to death; and so far did they carry out their sanguinary measures, even against his lifeless body, that tradition says the fragments thereof had to be collected together and conveyed in pillow-slips home to Troughend. Public indignation was speedily aroused against the murderers; the very name of Crosier was abhorred throughout Redesdale, and the abettors were both driven from their residence and designated as the fause-hearted Ha's, an appel lation which yet remains in force against them." (Richardson's Borderer's Table Book, VII, 361.)
The farm of Girsonsfield, according to the ballad, A 3, 18, belonged to the Halls. But that place has been the property of others, says Mr. White, "ever since the reign of Elizabeth;" whence he concludes that the story is not to be dated later than the sixteenth century.
Parcy Reed is famed to have had a favorite dog named Keeldar, and, though a "peerless archer," to have killed him by an unlucky shot while hunting. Sir Walter Scott has celebrated this mishap and its consequence in 'The Death of Keeldar' (Table Book, as above, p. 240); and he alludes to the treacherous murder of Reed (with which he became acquainted through Robert Roxby's 'Lay of the Reedwater Minstrel,' 1809) in Rokeby, written in 1812, Canto I, xx.
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