THE BALLADS AND SONGS OF SCOTLAND, IN VIEW OF THEIR INFLUENCE ON THE CHARACTER OF THE PEOPLE. BY JP V CLARK MURRAY. PREFATORY NOTICE. THE following Essay was awarded a Prize offered by the St. Andrews Society of Glasgow. By the terms of competition the copyright of the essay remained with the author and as it was written with a view to publication, it is now given to the world with such alterations and additions as have been suggested on revision. The essay represents the fruit of studies in which the author has been accustomed to find relief from severer professional work and his object in its publication will be attained, if it afford to his readers any of the recreation which its studies have brought to himself, while it may not be without service even to the student of the literature which it reviews. All other necessary information with regard to the general object and plan Introduction. MONTREAL, March 1874. of the work will be found in the CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION ix CHAPTER I. PAGE LEGENDARY BALLADS AND SONGS . i CHAPTER II. SOCIAL BALLADS AND SONGS 50 i. Love Songs and Ballads 5 2. Domestic Songs and Ballads 82 3. Lyrics of general Social Relations 108 CHAPTER III. ROMANTIC BALLADS AND SONGS . 127 CHAPTER IV. HISTORICAL BALLADS AND SONGS 135 i. Tne War of Independence 2. The Border Feuds 141 3. The Reformation Period 157 4. The Jacobite Struggle . . . 163 136 CONTENTS. CHAPTER V. PAGE GENERAL INFLUENCE OF THE BALLADS AND SONGS . . 167 i. Their Poetical Character 2. Extent of their Popularity INDEX 199 GLOSSARY . 168 178 203 INTRODUCTION. I knew a very wise man that believed that if aman were permitted to make all the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws of a nation.FLETCHER OF SALTOUN, in a Letter to the Marquis of Montrose y etc. IT is desirable that the reader of the following essay should notice the precise subject to which it is limited. The essay is simply an investigation of the influence which the ballads and songs of Scotland may be shown to have exerted on the character of the Scottish people. It makes no pretension, therefore, to be a satisfactory treatment of these lyrical productions in any other aspect. It is impossible, indeed, to discuss the effect of these or of any other productions of the Scottish mind on the development of Scottish character, without in- dicating more or less definitely the character of the productions themselves and, consequently, this essay contains a large number of historical and critical obser- vations on the ballads and songs of Scotland. The extent to which such observations were required to INTRODUCTION. elucidate the main question of the essay, will be dif- ferently determined by different persons and possibly a rigid criticism would exclude as irrelevant a consider- able amount of what is contained in the following pages. But the reader must meet with disappoint- ment, who opens these pages with the expectation of finding in them an exhaustive treatment of the Scot- tish ballads and songs in general, or in any particular aspect other than that to which the essay is definitely limited by its title. Even the special inquiry, however, to which we are thus confined, raises certain preliminary questions which cannot be accurately answered with ease...