No copy of this ballad earlier than the last century is known to me. The Museum Catalogue gives a conjectural date of 1740 to a and of 1720 to b, and, conjecturally again, as signs both to Newcastle, c, d, e are also without date, c may be as old as b; d, e are at least not old, and f is of this century. The ballad was given under the title 'Graeme and Bewick,' in Scott's Minstrelsy, 1803, III, 93, "from the recitation of a gentleman " who remembered it but imperfectly. In a succeeding edition, III, 66, 1833, deficiencies were partly supplied and some different readings adopted "from a copy obtained by the recitation of an ostler in Carlisle." The first copy (entitled 'Chirstie Graeme') was sent Scott by William Laidlaw, January 3, 1803 (Letters, vol. i, No 78), as taken down by him from the singing of Mr. Walter Grieve, in Craik, on Borthwick Water. It is preserved in "Scotch Ballads, Materials for Border Minstrelsy," No 89, Abbotsford (h); and in the same volume, No 145, is what is shown by internal evidence to be the ostler's copy (g). Both copies were indisputably derived from print, though h may have passed through several mouths, g agrees with b-f closely as to minute points of phraseology which it is difficult to believe that a reciter would have retained. It looks more like an immediate, though faulty, transcript from print. Of many deviations, though most may be chargeable to a bad copyist, or, if one pleases, a bad memory, others indicate an original which differed in some particulars from b-f; and the same may perhaps be true of h, which is, how ever, of only very trifling value.[foot-note]
'The Brothers-in-Arms,' Maidment, Scotish Ballads and Songs, 1868, II, 150, is Scott's later copy.
Old Graham and old Bewick are drinking together at Carlisle. Graham proposes the health of their respective sons. Bewick demurs. Young Graham is no peer for young Bewick, who is good at both books and arms, whereas Graham is no scholar. Old Graham goes home mortified and angry, repeats to his son Christy what Bewick had said, and bids him, as he would have his blessing, prove that he can at least hold his own in a fight with young Bewick. Christy is 'faith and troth,' or sworn-brother, to young Bewick, and begs his father to forbear. The father insists; Christy may make his choice, to fight with young Bewick or with himself. Christy, upon reflection, concludes that it would be a less crime to kill his sworn-brother than to kill his father, but swears that, should it be his lot to kill his friend, he will never come home alive. He arms himself and goes to seek his comrade. Bewick, who has been teaching his five scholars their fence, and apparently also their psalms, is walking in his father's close, with his sword under his arm, and sees a man in armor riding towards him. Recognizing Graham, he welcomes him affectionately. Graham informs him that he has come to fight with him, rehearses the scene with old Graham, and puts by all his friend's remonstrances and the suggestion that the fathers may be reconciled through arbitrators. Forced to fight, Bewick vows, as Graham had done, that, if it be his fortune to kill his brother, he will never go home alive. Graham throws off his armor that he may have no advantage; they fight two hours with no result, and then Graham gives Bewick one of those 'ackward' strokes which have determined several duels in foregoing ballads. The wound is deadly; Bewick intreats Graham to fly the country; Graham swears that his vow shall be kept, leaps on his sword and is the first to die. Old Bewick comes up and is disposed to congratulate his son on his victory. Young Bewick begs him to make one grave for both, and to lay young Graham on the sunny side, for he had been the better man. The two fathers indulge in exclamations of grief.
I am persuaded that there was an older and better copy of this ballad than those which are extant. The story is so well composed, proportion is so well kept, on the whole, that it is reasonable to suppose that certain passages (as stanzas 3, 4, 50) may have suffered some injury. There are also phrases which are not up to the mark of the general style, as the hack-rhymester lines at 73, 192. But it is a fine-spirited ballad as it stands, and very infectious.
"The ballad is remarkable," observes Sir Walter Scott, "as containing probably the very latest allusion to the institution of brother hood in arms." And he goes on to say: "The quarrel of the two old chieftains over their wine is highly in character. Two generations have not elapsed [1803] since the custom of drinking deep and taking deadly revenge for slight offences produced very tragical events on the border; to which the custom of going armed to festive meetings contributed not a little."
Scott's later edition is translated by Loève-Veimars, p. 323; by Rosa Warrens, Schottische Volkslieder der Vorzeit, p. 99, No 22.
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