This ballad, if it ever were one, seems not to have been met with, or at least to have been thought worth notice, by anybody but Motherwell. As already observed in the preface to 'Hind Horn,' stanza 2 seems to have slipped into that ballad, in consequence of the resemblance of stanza 1 to F 2, H 3 of 'Hind Horn.' This first stanza is, however, a commonplace in English and elsewhere: e. g., 'The Squire of Low Degree:'
He served the kyng, her father dere, Fully the tyme of seven yere. w 5, 6.
He loved her more then seven yere, Yet was he of her love never the nere. w 17, 18.
Ritson, Met. Rom. III, 145 f.
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