A was printed from the Percy manuscript by Jamieson, in his Popular Ballads, I, 8. Of B Motherwell says, 1827: "By testimony of a most unexceptionable description, but which it would be tedious here to detail, the editor can distinctly trace this ballad as existing in its present shape at least a century ago."
In his preface to the copy of the ballad in the Reliques of Ancient Poetry (F), Percy remarks: "The following piece has lately run through two editions in Scotland, the second printed at Glasgow in 1755, 8vo. Prefixed to them both is an advertisement, setting forth that the preservation of this poem was owing 'to a lady, who favored the printers with a copy as it was carefully collected from the mouths of old women and nurses;' and 'any reader that can render it more correct or complete' is desired to oblige the public with such improvements. In consequence of this advertisement sixteen additional verses have been produced and handed about in manuscript, which are here inserted in their proper places." The copy printed in 1755[foot-note] and earlier had already "received very considerable modern improvements," as Percy goes on to say, the most noticeable of which is a conclusion of eight stanzas, in the taste of the middle of the last century. These, as also the four stanzas which had been handed about in man uscript, are omitted from this reprint.
Home's tragedy of Douglas, produced in Edinburgh in 1756, was founded upon the story of Gil Morice, and the popularity of the play seems to have given vogue to the ballad.[foot-note] The sophisticated copy passed into recitation, and may very likely have more or less infected those which were repeated from earlier tradition. An old woman (Mrs. Thomson, the reciter of B), who was born about the time when the ballad was printed, told Motherwell that she had learned 'Chield Morice' in her infancy from her grandmother, but at a later period of her life committed to memory 'Gil Morice,' "which began, with young lasses like her, to be a greater favorite and more fashionable than the set which her grand mother and old folks used to sing."[foot-note]
Gray writes to Mason, June, 1757 (?): "I have got the old Scotch ballad on which Douglas was founded; it is divine, and as long as from hence [Cambridge] to Aston."[foot-note] He cites the first fifteen lines.
The copy in Smith's Scottish Minstrel, III, 106, is Herd's (Percy's), with omissions and changes. 'Child Nourice,' a fragment, in Buchan's Manuscripts, I, 143, is of recent make.
The name of Barnard, a name, says Aytoun, quite foreign to Scotland, may have been adopted from 'Little Musgrave.' There is a marked similarity in the conclusion of the two ballads.
Aytoun, in his compilation, J, 147, 149, rejects the two stanzas, F 13, 14, beginning, "And when he came to broken brigue," as taken from 'Lady Maisry.' These stanzas are the most favorite of all commonplaces, and belong as much to one ballad as another. They occur in one version or another of 'Lord Ingram,' 'Little Musgrave,' 'The Clerk's Twa Sons,' etc., and wearisomely often in the ballads in Buchan's collection.
The popularity of 'Gil Morice' since the middle of the last century has caused the story to be localized. The green wood, says Motherwell, was believed to be "the ancient forest of Dundaff, in Stirlingshire, and Lord Barnard's castle to have occupied a precipitous cliff overhanging the Water of Carron, on the lands of Halbertshire." Gil Morice, "according to the unvarying traditions of the country, was remarkable for the extreme length and loveliness of his yellow hair." Motherwell considers that the embellishments of the ballad may have been suggested by these traditions. But why should not these traditions have been derived from the embellished ballad? There had already been nearly four score years for them to grow up at the date of the publication of his Minstrelsy.
B is translated by Wolff, Halle der Völker, I, 11, Hausscbatz, p. 222; P by Loève-Veimars, p. 316, with some retrenchment; Allingham's copy by Knortz, Lieder u. Romanzen Alt-Englands, No 31.
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