"The following song celebrates the skirmish, in 1593, betwixt the Johnstones and Crichtons, which led to the revival of the ancient quarrel betwixt Johnstone and Maxwell, and finally to the battle of Dryffe Sands, in which the latter lost his life. Wamphray is the name of a parish in Annandale. Lethenhall was the abode of Johnstone of Wamphray. and continued to be so till of late years. William Johnstone of Wamphray, called the Galliard, was a noted freebooter. A place near the head of Teviotdale retains the name of the Galliard's Faulds (folds), being a valley where he used to secrete and divide his spoil with his Liddesdale and Eskdale associates. His nom de guerre seems to have been derived from the dance called the galliard. The word is still used in Scotland to express an active, gay, dissipated character. Willie of Kirkhill, nephew to the Galliard, and his avenger, was also a noted Border robber." (Minstrelsy, I, 208, ed. 1802.)
It is hard to determine whether the first eight stanzas of the ballad are anything more than a prelude, and whether sts. 5, 7 note the customary practice of the Lads of Wamphray, or anticipate, as is done in st. 3, certain points in the story which follows.
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