P. 355. M.G. Lewis, in a letter of May 29, 1800 (Letters at Abbotsford, I, No 30), refers to a copy of this ballad (and one of 'Brown Adam') which he had furnished Scott. This might perhaps be the "Manuscript of some antiquity" (printed, IV, 482).
As to the bird's part in this ballad, compare the following passage. A son, in prison, sending a letter to his mother by a bird, gives this charge:
De Rada, Rapsodie d'un poema Albanese, I, canto xvi, p. 29.
P. 356 a, Til, 517 a, IV, 482 a. French. Add: 'La belle qui fait la morte,' 'La fille du duc de Montbrison,' Pineau, Le Folk-Lore du Poitou, p. 311, p. 389 (each, six stanzas); 'La belle dans la tour,' six copies (besides Belle Idoine repeated), M. Wilmotte in Bulletin de Folklore, Société du Folklore Wallon, 1893, p. 35.
356 b, 3d paragraph, III, 51 7 a. Add: A copy of 'Les trois capitaines,' in Mélusine, VI, 52, 183; Wallonia, I, 38; "Fréd. Thomas, La Mosäique du Midi, V, 1841; C. Beauquier, Mem. de la Soc. d'Émulation du Doubs, 1890," Mélusine, VI, 220, where also a Catalan version, which had escaped my notice, Milà y Fontanals, Romancerillo, p. 259, No 264, is registered by M. Doncieux. A Breton version, Me'lusine, VI, 182.
P. 356, III, 517 a, IV, 482 a, V, 234 a. Chanson du Roi Loys, ou de la Belle dans la Tour. Add 'Le Prince qui torture sa Fille,' Beauquier, Chansons p. recueillies en Franche-Comté, p. 147; copy from Normandy, copy from Savoy, Revue des Traditions populaires, X, 641 f.
356 b, III, 51 7 a, IV, 482, V, 234 a. 'Les trois capitaines.' Add: 'Au château de Belfort,' Beauquier, pp. 59 f., 369 f.
III, 517 b. Girl feigns death to avoid a disagreeable suitor; test of water, fire, and hand in bosom, which last is the hardest to bear: 'Vojvoda Janko i mlada Andjelija,' Hrvatske Pjesme iz "Naše Sloge," II, 65, No 68.
367 a, C 346. The Manuscript reading is dead syne.
517 b, last paragraph of 96, last line but one. Read des.
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