The earliest edition of the ballad styles the £yP sv Johny Faa, but gives no clew to the fair lady. Johnny Faa was a prominent and frequent name among' the gypsies. Johnne Faw's right, and title as lord and earl of Little Egypt were recognized by James V in 1540. But in the next year Egyptians were ordered to quit the realm within thirty days on pain of death. The gypsies were formally expelled from Scotland bv act of Parliament in 1609. Johnne, alias Willie, Faa, with three others of the name, remained notwithstanding, and were sentenced to be hanged, 1611. In 1616, July 24, Johnne Faa, Egyptian, his son, and two others were condemned to be hanged for contemptuous repairing to the country and abiding therein. Finally, in 1624, January 24, Captain Johnne Faa and seven others were sentenced to be hanged for the same offence. The execution of the notorious Egyptian and chieftain Johnny Faa must have made a considerable impression, and it is presumable that this ballad may have arisen not long after. Whether this were so or not, Johnny Faa acquired popular fame, and became a personage to whom any adventure might plausibly be imputed.
Toward the end of the eighteenth century we begin to hear that the people in Ayrshire make the wife of the Earl of Cassilis the heroine of the ballad; but there is positive evidence that this lady (who died in 1642) had never done anything to alienate her husband's affections.
The Scottish ballad appears to have been first printed in the fourth volume of the Tea-Table Miscellany, 1740, but no copy of that edition has been recovered. The English version (G), though derived from the Scottish ballad, may perhaps have been printed earlier; it is found in a broadside in the Roxburghe collection, m, 685.
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