Christie, who gives B, "epitomized and slightly changed," under the title 'Clerk Tamas and Fair Annie,' Traditional Ballad Airs, II, 12, says that he can trace the ballad, traditionally, far into the last century.
A. Lord Thomas goes a-hunting, and Lady Margaret rides after him; when he sees her following, he orders his servants to hunt her far from him, and they hunt her high and low. She comes upon a tall young man, and begs 'relief' from him for a lady wronged in love and chased from her 'country.' No relief is to be had from him unless she will renounce all other men and be his wife. After a time, Lady Margaret, sewing at her window, observes a vagrant body, who turns out to be Lord Thomas, reduced to beggary; he has been banished from his own country, and asks relief. No relief from her; she would hang him were he within her bower. Not so, says Lord Thomas; rather he would kill her lord with his broadsword and carry her off. Not so, says Lady Margaret, but you must come in and drink with me. She poisons three bottles of wine, and pretends to be his taster. Lord Thomas drinks away merrily, but soon feels the poison. I am wearied with this drinking, he says. And so was I when you set your hounds at me, she replies; but you shall be buried as if you were one of my own.
B has Clerk Tamas for Lord Thomas, and Fair Annie for Lady Margaret. Tamas has loved Annie devotedly, but now hates her and the lands she lives in. Annie goes to ask him to pity her; he sees her coming, as he lies 'over his shot-window,' and orders his men to hunt her to the sea. A captain, lying 'over his ship-window,' sees Annie driven from the town, and offers to take her in if she will forsake friends and lands for him. The story goes on much as in A.
A 8 is borrowed from 'The Douglas Tragedy,' see No 7, C 9. B 143,4 is a commonplace, which, in inferior traditional ballads, is often, as here, an out-of-place. B 15, 16 is another commonplace, of the silly sort: see No 87, B 3, 4, D 4, 5, and Buchan's 'Lady Isabel,' 20, 21.
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