'Lammikin: an Old Scotch Ballad,' Aberdeen, Lewis and James Smith, 1862, said to be edited by the Rev. Dr. John Burnett Pratt, Episcopal minister at Cruden, Aberdeen shire, is made up of A, B, P, Q, R, with such alterations as seemed good to the editor, and a few interpolated stanzas.
'Long Lonkin,' edited by A.O. Bell, C.E., York, 1846 (Notes and Queries, Fourth Series, III, 93), I have not seen, but presume it to be a compounded copy.
The story is told without material variation in all the numerous versions. A mason has built a castle for a nobleman, cannot get his pay, and therefore seeks revenge. The name given the builder is Lamkin, A, C, E, L, M, N, S, U; Lammikin, J, O, P, Q; Lankin, Lonkin, F b, G, I; Lantin, T; Long Lankyn, or Long Longkin, P a, G, K; Rankin, D, H; Balankin, or Lambert Linkin, B; Balcanqual, R. That of the nobleman is Lord Wearie, Weire, A, M, P, Q, U b; Lord Earie, N; Erley, Earley, J; Murray, I; Arran, C; Montgomery, B; Cassilis, S; he is lord of Prime Castle, B. The lord, having occasion to leave his family, fears mischief from the man whom he has wronged, and enjoins his wife to keep the castle well fastened. Precautions are taken, but never theless his enemy effects an entrance through some aperture that has not been secured, B, C, F, G, H, P, R, U b, or by connivance with a nurse, A, D, B, I. Most of the servants are away. To get at the lady, Lamkin, as we may call him, by advice of the nurse inflicts some hurt on the babe in the cradle, stabbing it, or "nipping" it, and its cries bring the mother down. The lady proffers large sums of gold to save her life, but Lamkin does not care for gold now. He gloats over his opportunity, and bids the nurse, or a maid-servant, or even one of the daughters of the house, to scour a silver bason to hold the lady's noble blood. The lord has a presentiment of calamity at home, and, returning, finds his house red with the blood of his wife and child. Lamkin is hanged, B, F, I, or burned, C, H, or boiled in a pot full of lead, D. The nurse is burned, A, B, D, F, H, or hanged, C, Q, or boiled in a caldron, I.[foot-note]
In K, the oldest version, except perhaps P, which is greatly inferior, Lady Betty is called down by Longkin to see her mother's blood running, then Lady Nelly to see her sister's blood running, Lady Jenny to see Lady Nelly's, etc. In F, T, the mother, very unnaturally, offers Lamkin her daughter as wife, in ransom of her own life. In C, D, a servant offers her life for her lady; in D, G, K, a daughter for her mother.
Motherwell remarks, p. lxx of his Minstrelsy, note 27: "There is a 'Lambirkyns wod' near Dupplin, in Perthshire. Can this have got its name from the cruel mason who the ballad assures us 'lived in the wode'? If so, it must be very ancient. It is localized, too, I believe, at Balwearie, in Fifeshire; but there are few places where the ballad is remembered but which have also some ancient edifice in the neighborhood reared by the hands of Lammikin.[foot-note] Indeed, it seems questionable how some Scottish lairds could well afford to get them selves seated in the large castles they once occupied unless they occasionally treated the mason after the fashion adopted in this ballad." And again, at p. 291: "There can be little doubt that the epithet Linkin Mr. Lambert acquired from the secrecy and address with which he insinuated him into that notable strength [Prime Castle]. Indeed, all the names of Lammerlinkin, Lammikin, Lamkin, Lankin, Linkin, Belinkin, can easily be traced out as abbreviations of Lambert Linkin." It might be inferred, however, from the mason's seemingly resentful inquiry in A 811, J 3-6, Where 's the men, women, bairns, lady, that call me Lamkin? that the view in these particular versions was that Lamkin was a sobriquet applied in derision of the meekness with which the builder had submitted to his injury. Linkin, it will be observed, occurs only in B, and it is far more likely that Lamkin, or Lammikin, which is found in a full dozen copies, is a simply ironical designation for the bloody mason, the terror of countless nurseries.[foot-note]
A is translated by Talvj, Versuch, etc., p. 571; Allingham's ballad by Knortz, Lieder und Romanzen Alt-Englands, p. 162.
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