A was No 12 in William Tytler's Brown manuscript, and stanzas 1, 21, 22, of that copy are cited by Anderson in his letter to Percy, Nichols's Illustrations, VII, 177. Jamieson, who made a few changes in printing from his manuscript, attributes, by an oversight, the ballad to Mrs. Arrot: compare Popular Ballads, I, pp 66 and 59. His copy is repeated by Motherwell, p. 71. C, of which no account is given by Motherwell, is hardly more than a variety of B. T =here is a copy in the Abbotsford manuscript, "Scottish Songs," which is more considerably tampered with, in the way of change, omission, and insertion.[foot-note]
All the versions are in accord as to the material points of the story. Lady Maisry rejects the suit of all the lords in the north country, A; she has given her love to an English lord. Her lover's seat is Strawberry Castle, D, E, F; Adam's Tower, H; he lives at London, G. Maisry has been at Strawberry Castle for a time, and has there learned some unco lair, D, E.[foot-note] It is discovered that Maisry goes with bairn. Her brother, A, H, father, I, informed to this effect, requires her to renounce her English lord, but she refuses; her father offers her the choice of marrying an auld man or burning, D. In the other versions the family set about preparations for burning her without attempting any arrangement. Maisry, warned of her approaching fate, calls for a boy to carry word to England, and a light-footed and heartily devoted young messenger takes her errand. The English lord asks if his biggins are broken, his towers won, or is his lady lighter, and is told that his lady is to be burnt for him that very day. Horses are instantly saddled: a black, a brown, are foundered, a milk-white [a dapple-gray], fair fall the mare that foaled that foal! holds out, B, C, E, F. In D fifteen stout steeds are burst, yet the little foot-page runs aye before, crying, Mend your pace an you may! Maisry, in the flames, hears her lover's horn, hears his bridle ring, A, E, F, H. "Beet on!" she cries; "I value you not one straw. Mend up the fire, brother; I see him coming that will soon mend it up to thee."[foot-note] In A, H she cries out, when her lover appears, that if her hands had been free she would have cast out his young son. He leaps into the fire for a last kiss; her body falls apart, B-G. He threatens an awful retaliation: he will burn father and mother, and the chief of all her kin (who, no doubt, had been concerned in this auto da fé). Vengeance glutted, he will throw himself into the flames, A, F; he will take the pilgrim's cloak and staff, C. The foot-page shall be heir of his land, C; he will remember the bonny boy that ran the errand, E.[foot-note]
Maisry, Margery, is the heroine's name in A, D-H, J; Janet in B, C; Susie Cleland in I. The hero has a name only in A, Lord William, and in H, Prince James.
'Lady Maisry' has a limited, and perhaps quite accidental, resemblance to the Scandinavian-German ballad spoken of in the preface to 'Fair Janet.' The lapse of the heroine is visited with a fearful death at the hand of brother or father, and the lover who was partner to her trespass appears on the scene immediately after, and takes his revenge. A kitchey-boy is informant in A, as in some versions of the German story.
The regular penalty for incontinence in an unmarried woman, if we are to trust the authority of romances, is burning. This, according to the well-known passage in Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, IV, 58, 59, was l'aspra legge di Scozia, empia e severa, though it might be as difficult to point out a law to that effect in any European code as a corresponding patria potestas.[foot-note] Some ballad cases are: Scandinavian (Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic), 'Ildpröven' and 'Møen paa Baalet,' Grundtvig, Nos 108, 109, II, 577-590, III, 904 f, Eva Wigström, Folkdiktning, I, 30, No 13; Spanish and Portuguese, 'De la infanta y don Galvan,' Wolf and Hofmann, Primavera, No 159, II, 92; 'Conde Claros de Montalvan,' Primavera, No 191, II, 374; 'La infanta seducida,' Milá, Romancerillo Catalan, No 258, A-M, pp 249-54; 'L'infanta,' Briz, IV, 39; 'Dom Carlos de Montealbar,' etc., Braga, Romanceiro, p. 79 ff, Nos 31, 32, 33, Cantos pop. do Archipelago Açoriano, p. 246, No 25, Almeida-Ganett, II, 203; 'Dona Ausenda,' Almeida-Garrett, II, 177, 'Dona Aldonça,' Estacio da Veiga, p. 75; Hardung, Romanceiro Portuguez, I, 180-204. To these add the prose Merlin, ed. Wheatley, I, 16; L'Histoire plaisante du noble Siperis de Vinevaulx, etc., cited by Liebrecht, Dunlop, p. 467, note 117.[foot-note]
A is translated, after Jamieson, I, 73, by Grundtvig, Engelske og skotske Folkeviser, p. 38; I, a, the same, p. 322.
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