'Clerk Saunders' was first given to the world in the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, and was there said to be "taken from Herd's Manuscript, with several corrections from a shorter and more imperfect copy in the same volume, and one or two conjectural emendations in the arrangement of the stanzas." Sir Walter arranged his ballad with much good taste, but this account of his dealing with Herd's copies is far from precisely accurate. A, the longer of these, does not end, in Herd's Manuscript, with Margaret's refusal to be comforted, a rather unsufficing conclusion it must be owned. The story is continued by annexing the ballad of 'Sweet William's Ghost,' the lack of which in B makes Scott call that version imperfect. This sequel, found also in F, is omitted here, and will be given under No. 77. F (Jamieson's Ballads) is, like Scott's, a made-up copy, "the stanzas where the seven brothers are introduced" having been "enlarged from two fragments, which, though very defective... furnished lines which, when incorporated in the text, seemed to improve it." But F is important, since it connects 'Clerk Saunders' with a Scandinavian ballad (Grundtvig-Olrik, No. 304) which seems to be preserved, in abbreviated and sometimes perverted forms, by other races as well. Nos. 70 and 71 have connections with 'Clerk Saunders.'
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