This is one of half a dozen pieces sent Buchan by Mr. Nicol of Strichen, "who wrote them from, memory as he had learned them in his earlier years from old people." It is also one of not a few flimsy and un jointed ballads found in Buchan's volumes, the like of which is hardly to be found elsewhere, that require a respectable voucher, such as Mr. Nicol undoubtedly was, for the other five pieces communicated by him were all above suspicion, and have a considerable value. It will not, however, help the ballad much that it was not palmed off on Buchan in jest or otherwise, or even if it was learned from an old person by Mr. Nicol in his youth. The intrinsic character of the ballad remains, and old people have sometimes burdened their memory with worthless things.
Young Bearwell and a mayor's daughter are lovers. Seeing him coming along one day, the lady tells him that there are such reports in circulation about him that he will have to sail the sea beyond Yorkisfauld, which may be beyond Ultima Thule for aught we know. Bear well's life is in danger where he is, and the lady has had the forethought to build him a ship, in which she sends him off. By the process of sailing both east and west and then meeting wind from the north, he is blown to a land where the king and court, who pass their time mostly in playing ball, put a harp into the hand of every stranger and invite him to stay and play. Bearwell stays, and perhaps plays, twelve months. During this time the lady is so beset with suitors that she feels constrained to apply to a young skipper named Heyvalin to fetch her true-love back. To do this he must sail first east, then west, and then have a blast of north wind to blow him to the land. All this comes to pass; the king and court are playing ball, but immediately put a harp into Heyvalin's hand and urge him to stay and play. Skipper though he be, he falls to playing, and finds Bearwell the first man in all the company.
"From circumstances," which do not occur to me, Motherwell would almost be inclined to trace this piece to a Danish source, "or it may be an episode of some forgotten metrical romance." It may also, and more probably, be the effort of some amateur ballad-monger in northern Scotland whose imagination was unequal to the finishing of the inane story which he had undertaken.
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