'Lang Johnny More,' Christie's Traditional Ballad Airs, I, 44, is epitomized from Buchan, "with a few alterations from the way the editor has heard it sung." The variations are absolutely of no account, as in other cases in which, Christie has used this phrase.
Johnny More, a youth fourteen feet tall and three yards round the waist, goes to London to bear the king's banner. He falls in love with the king's daughter, and she with him, and the king locks the lady up in her chamber and swears that he will hang the Scot. Johnny laughs at the hanging; but the English give him laudanum, and when he wakes he finds his jaws and hands in iron bands and his feet in fetters. He sends a boy with a letter asking his uncle to come to his aid, and to bring with him Jock o Noth. These champions, 'twa grizly ghosts to see,' have three feet between their brows and three yards between their shoulders. Coming to London they find the gates locked, because, as they learn from a keeper, a Scot is to be hanged that morn. The keeper declining to open the gates, Jock o Noth drives in three yards of the wall with his foot. Johnny More is standing with the rope round his neck, ready to be turned off. Though the portentous pair have a giant's strength, they are quite too superior to use it like a giant; they tell Johnny that there is no help for him if he has been guilty of a heinous crime. Learning that his only crime is loving a gay lady, they require that his sword shall be given back to him, then go before the king and demand the lady; they have come to her wedding. Take her, says the king. I never thought to see such men. Jock of Noth could have brought a man thrice three times bigger, if he had supposed that his own size would cause such astonishment. Any way, says the craven king, the boy that took the message shall be hanged. In that case, replies Jock, we shall attend the burial and see that you get your reward. The king yields everything. Johnny More calls for a priest to join him and his love; the king for a clerk to seal the tocher. Johnny is rich, and spurns tocher. Auld Johnny More, Young Johnny More, Jock o Noth and the boy go off with the lady.
This ballad has been referred to under No 99, II, 378, as perhaps an imitation, and in fact almost a parody, of 'Johnie Scot.' In No 99 John is the little Scot; here he is the muckle Scot, stanza 6 (Gaelic mor = big), and his helpmates, as well as he, are of gigantic size. Excepting in this and one other particular, the stories are materially the same. In both Johnie goes to England to bear the king's banner; a love-affair ensues between him and the king's daughter; the king puts his daughter into confinement, and threatens to hang Johnie, but in the end is constrained to give him his daughter; Johnie calls for a priest to marry him and the princess, the king calls for a clerk to arrange the tocher; Johnie refuses tocher, and goes off with his love or bride.
In No 99 Johnie, who has escaped, comes to the rescue of the princess with a redoubtable force; in this ballad Johnie is made prisoner, and sends for his uncle and another giant to come to his help. Their monstrous dimensions make them, for ballad-purposes, fairly equivalent to the five hundred men who accompany Johnie in No 99.
Some versions of No 99, as already remarked, have borrowed features from this ballad. Auld Johnie and Jock o Noth are presented here, stanza 21, as twa grizly ghosts to see, and their brows are three feet apart, their shoulders three yards; and so with the champion in A, H, L, of No 99.
Quite curiously, the hero of the Breton ballad which resembles 'Johnie Scot' is described as a giant (we must suppose on traditionary authority) in the title of two copies.
Auchindoir and Rhynie (parishes) are in the west of Aberdeenshire, north of the Don. Noth is a considerable hill in the latter.
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