A, never as yet published, is from a manuscript of the first half of the last century. B, the earliest printed copy, was given by Herd, from his manuscript, in 1776, with his usual fidelity. Scott followed, in 1802, with a copy obtained from Mrs. Brown by Alexander Fraser Tytler in 1800, introducing six stanzas from B and five from F, and a few readings from two recited copies. This compounded copy is the one that is most generally known. Jamieson printed, in 1806, D, a version written down from Mrs. Brown's recitation in 1783, giving it not quite verbatim, as he says (he changes, for instance, Rochroyal to Lochroyan), but in general adhering to his text. E a, the copy principally used by Scott, is, to a considerable extent, a repetition of D, but is by no means an imperfectly remembered version of its predecessor (which was written down seventeen years earlier), filled out by Mrs. Brown's improvised inventions. E a has stanzas not found in D, two of which occur in B, and is to be regarded as a blending of two independent versions known to Mrs. Brown, which no doubt had much in common, though not so much as D and E a. The whole of the fragment F has not been published hitherto, but five of the eight stanzas are interpolated into Scott's copy, including the two last, which are shown by the very style to be spurious. Fairy charms have been exercised on Lord Gregory, according to the final stanza of F, and Lord Gregory calls his dame "witch mother" in C 10. But there appears to be no call for magic or witchcraft in the case. A man who is asleep is simply not informed by an ill disposed mother that a woman whom he would like to see is at the door; that is all.[foot-note]
A, the oldest copy, has a preliminary history wanting in the others. Isabel of Rochroyal has a dream about her lover. She orders her horse, to ride till she comes to some hold. She meets a company, who ask her questions about a first and a second young may, which she seems to understand, but which are not made intelligible to us. They then ask whether she be Isabel of Rochroyal, and she answers that she is that same lady, banished from kith and kin; why, we are not informed, but we might conjecture that it would be on account of her relations with Love Gregory. She is directed to Gregory's castle, tirls at the pin, and begs admission. Gregory's mother answers as and for her son, and demands proofs of her being the lass of Rochroyal. These are given, and the mother says that Gregory is gone to sea. Hereupon Isabel breaks out into exclamations as to her helpless condition; who will take care of her? who will be the bairn's father till Gregory come home? The mother replies that she will do all that is necessary for her, but there is none to be her bairn's father till Gregory return. This is in itself unnatural, since the mother is hostile to her son's love, and it is counter to what we read in the other versions. In B as in A, to be sure, the lass is said to be banished from her kin, but her kin nevertheless show a disposition to do all that is in their power in the way of kind attentions. The other copies say nothing of her family being alienated. The father in D even furnishes his daughter with a bonny ship, to go to her true-love. If we seek to reconcile these accounts, we must take the banishment as a separation for which only the fates are responsible, and suppose that verses are lost in A after 17 which narrated Annie's return to her own family. The lass says, st. 22, that she will set her foot on ship-board, having been told by the mother, st. 17, that Gregory is on the sea. Gregory, in turn, has his dream, that his love has been knocking at the door, and his mother tells him that she has not been gone half an hour, and gets his curses for not informing him. Gregory orders his swiftest horse, to ride till he comes to some hold, and presently meets a funeral train who are carrying his love to burial. This conclusion, found also in B, C, is that of 'Lord Lovel' and 'Fair Margaret and Sweet William,' and must perhaps be set aside as not the original one. In B Gregory kills himself, as Lord Lovel does in one copy, E.
The whole story as A actually stands, notwithstanding that the lass says she will take ship, seems to pass on land. Two different relations may have been confounded. In the other versions Love Gregory is somewhere over sea, and in B, F his lass is indebted for his direction, not to a company who are raking over the lea, but to a sea-rover, who shows a consideration not to be looked for from his class.[foot-note] The maid, repulsed by Gregory's mother, and supposing herself to be cast off by Gregory himself, sails away from his castle, and in D, E encounters a storm, and is wrecked. In D Gregory rushes to the strand near which his castle lies, sees Annie sailing away, witnesses the wreck of her vessel, plunges into the sea and brings her body to land, and dies of heartbreak. So in E, with the difference that Annie's body is thrown ashore by the waves, and that the tale does not finish with the death of Gregory, which we know must have followed.
Why the lovers are parted, why Gregory winna come to the lass, and she must go to him, is not accounted for in C-G. We may deduce from A and B, though the story in these versions as we have it is not altogether consistent, that the lass was banished from kith and kin on account of her connection with Gregory (which in B 16 and H 9 is said to have been irregular) and flying to her lover, found no acceptance with his mother.
Cunningham has rewritten this ballad, Scottish Songs, I, 298, and several songs have been composed on the story: by Burns and Dr. Wolcott (Peter Pindar), Thomson's Select Melodies of Scotland, I, 37, ed. 1822; Jamieson, Popular Ballads, I, 46; and by an anonymous writer in a London periodical, cited by Dixon, Scottish Traditional Versions of Ancient Ballads, p. 99.
Roch- or Rough-royal, A, D, E, F, Ruchlawhill, C, I have not found, but there is a Rough castle in Stirlingshire. Loch Ryan runs up into the north-west corner of Wigtown, a shire at the south-west extremity of Scotland. Aughrim is in the county of Roscommon, Ireland.
As the mother in this ballad, feigning to be her son, requires the lady at the gate to legitimate herself by mentioning some of the tokens which have been exchanged between her and her lover, so in other ballads a wife demands conclusive proofs that a man claiming to be her long absent husband is what he pretends to be. E.g., some forms of the French ballad of 'Germaine:'
Champfleury, Chansons populaires des Provinces, p. 196.
Cf. Poésies pop. de la France, Manuscript, IV, fol. 189; Puymaigre, p. 11, 2d ed., I, 50 f; Beaurepaire, p. 76; Fleury, p. 267; Rathery, in Le Moniteur, Aug. 26, 1853, p. 945 f, 'Le Sire de Créqui;' Wolf, Volkslieder aus Venetien, No 81, p. 59; Ferraro, Canti p. monferrini, No 26, p. 33. And again in Romaic: 'Η Ἀναγνώρισις, etc.; Fauriel, II, 422-25; Tommaseo, III, 141-44, 148-50; Marcellus, Chants du Peuple en Grèce, I, 328; Schmidt, Griechische Märchen, u.s.w., p. 192, No 57; Chasiotis, p. 29, No 28; Zambelios, p. 718, No 5; Jeannaraki, p. 237, No 300; Arabantinos, pp 209, 211, Nos 347, 348; Passow, pp 321-28, Nos 441-446; Manousos, p. 103 = Fauriel, II, 423. Several of the ballads in Passow are of course repetitions.[foot-note]
D is translated, after Jamieson, by Grundtvig, Engelske og skotske Folkeviser, No 16; E b, Scott's compounded version, by Schubart, p. 93, Doenniges, p. 33, Gerhard, p. 21, Wolff, Halle der Völker, I, 52, and by Rosa Warrens, Schottische Volkslieder der Vorzeit, No 39, with a change or two from Aytoun; Allingham's compounded version by Knortz, Lieder u. Romanzen Alt-Englands, No 63.
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