The Battle of Otterburn was fought on August 19th, 1388. The most circumstantial account may be found in Froissart's Chronicles. His narrative is, as usual, highly felicitous, and is based on the authority of knights and squires actually present, both English and Scots, and also French. That a Scots ballad of Otterburn was popular in the sixteenth century appears from The Complaynte of Scotlande, 154!), where a line is cited, "The Perssee and the Mongumrye met" (p. 65, ed. Murray). Motherwell maintains that the ballad which passes as English (A) is the Scots song altered to please the other party; but his argument is far from conclusive. There is no reason to doubt that a Scots ballad once existed, much better than the two inferior, and partly suspicious, things which were printed by Herd and Scott; but there is no evidence, positive or probable, that A was adapted from the Scots song made of Otterburn. Rather are we to infer that the few verses of B and C which repeat or resemble the text of A were borrowed from A.
A, in the shape in which it has come down to us, must have a date long subsequent to the battle, but is likely to bave been modernized from a ballad current as early as 1400. Scott's version (C) of the Scottish ballad in the second edition of the Minstrelsy is put together, for the most part, from two copies sent him by James Hogg. These copies are here printed as C*, and Scott's text is given in the Notes.
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