Child Ballads - Additions and Corrections

114. Johnie Cock

P. 1. There is a ballad of 'Bertram, the Bauld Archer' in Pitcairn's Manuscripts, III, 51; printed in Maidment's Scotish Ballads and Songs, 1859, p. 46. Pitcairn derived it from Mrs. McCorquodale, Stirling, a farmer's wife, who remembered it "to have been sung by her grandmother, a woman above eighty years old, who stated that she had it from an old woman, her aunt." The reciter herself was above sixty-five, and had "first heard it when a little girl." Nevertheless, Bertram is fustian, of a sort all too familiar in the last century. The story, excepting perhaps the first stanza, is put into the mouth of Bertram's mistress, à la Gilderoy. The bauld archer has gone to the forest for to mak a robberie. The king has made proclamation that he will give five hunder merk for Bertram's life. John o Shoumacnair (Stronmaknair, Maidment) proposes to his billies to kill Bertram and get the money. They busk themselves in hodden gray, 'like to friers o low degree,' present themselves to Bertram and ask a boon of him, which Bertram grants without inquiry. While they are parleying, Shoumacnair drives his dirk into Bertram's back. But, though he swirls wi the straik, Bertram draws his awsome bran, kills ane, wounds twa, and then his stalwart, gallant soul takes its flight to heaven.

2 b. Braid. "This version ['Johnie of Braidisbank,' I] was taken down by Motherwell and me from the recitation of Mr. James Knox, land-surveyor at Tipperlinne, near Edinburgh, in the month of May, 1824, when we met him in the good town of Paisley. At 17 a tradition is mentioned which assigns Braid to have been the scene of this woeful hunting. Mr. Knox is the authority for this tradition. Braid is in the neighborhood of Tipperlinne." Note by Mr. P.A. Ramsay in a copy of the Minstrelsy which had belonged to Motherwell. (W. Macmath.)

Wolves in Scotland. "It is usually said that the species was extirpated about 1680 by Sir Ewen Cameron of Lochiel, but the tradition to that effect appears to be true only of Sir Ewen's own district of western Invernessshire." The very last wolf may have been killed in 1743. R. Chambers, Domestic Annals of Scotland, III, 690.

7. F was made up from several copies, one of which was the following, 'John o Cockielaw,' in Scott's youthful handwriting, inserted, as No 3, at the beginning of a Manuscript volume, in small folio, containing a number of prose pieces, and beginning with excerpts from Law's Memorials. Abbotsford Library, L. 2.

1	Johnny got up in a May morning, Calld for water to wash his hands: 'Gar louse to me my good gray dogs That are tied with iron bands.'
2	When Johnny's mother got word o that, For grief she has lain down: 'O Johnny, for my benison, I red you bide at hame!'
3	He's putten on his black velvet, Likewise his London brown, And he's awa to Durrisdeer, To hunt the dun deer down.
4	Johnny shot, and the dun deer lap, And he wounded her on the side; Between the water and the brae, There he laid her pride.
5	He's taken out the liver o her, And likewise sae the lungs, And he has made a' his dogs to feast As they had been earl's sons.
6	They eat sae much o the venison, And drank sae much of the blood, That they a' then lay down and slept, And slept as they had been dead.
7	And bye there cam a silly aid man, And an ill death might he die! And he's awa to the seven forresters, As fast as he can drie.
8	'As I cam down by Merriemas, And down aboon the scroggs, The bonniest boy that ever I saw Lay sleeping amang his doggs.
9	'The shirt that was upon his back Was of the holland fine, The cravat that was about his neck Was of the cambrick lawn.
10	'The coat that was upon his back Was of the London brown, The doublet ... Was of the Lincome twine.'
11	Out and spak the first forrester, That was a forrester our them a'; If this be John o Cockielaw, Nae nearer him we'll draw.
12	Then out and spak the sixth, That was forrester amang them a'; If this is John o Cockielaw, Nearer to him we'll draw.
13	Johnny shot six of the forresters, And wounded the seventh, we say, And set him on a milk-white steed To carry tidings away.

4⁴. Wi He there he (he written in place of another word). Wi He struck out.
6³. Originally, That they lay a' them down.
7². Originally, And a silly aid man was he.
11². was hed. hed struck out.

This page most recently updated on 11-May-2011, 05:36:52.
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