+The Text+ is taken from the Percy Folio, but I have modernised the
spelling. For the _Reliques_ Percy made a ballad out of the Folio
version combined with 'a modern ballad on a similar subject,'
a broadside entitled _The Drunkard's Legacy_, thus producing a very good
result which is about thrice the length of the Folio version.

The Scottish variant was noted by Motherwell and Buchan, but previous
editors--Herd, Ritson, Chambers, Aytoun--had used Percy's composition.

+The Story.+--There are several Oriental stories which resemble the
ballad as compounded by Percy from _The Drunkard's Legacy_. In most of
these--Tartar, Turkish, Arabic, Persian, etc.--the climax of the story
lies in the fact that the hero in attempting to hang himself by a rope
fastened to the ceiling pulls down a hidden treasure. There is, of
course, no such episode in _The Heir of Linne_, but all the stories have
similar circumstances, and the majority present the moral aspect of
unthriftiness, and of friends deserting a man who loses his wealth.

'Linne,' of course, is the place which is so often mentioned in ballads.
See note, First Series, p. 1.

THE HEIR OF LINNE

1.
Of all the lords in fair Scotland
A song I will begin;
Amongst them all there dwelled a lord,
Which was the unthrifty lord of Linne.

2.
His father and mother were dead him fro,
And so was the head of all his kin;
To the cards and dice that he did run
He did neither cease nor blin.

3.
To drink the wine that was so clear,
With every man he would make merry;
And then bespake him John of the Scales,
Unto the heir of Linne said he;

4.
Says 'How dost thou, lord of Linne?
Dost either want gold or fee?
Wilt thou not sell thy lands so broad
To such a good fellow as me?

5.
'For ... I ... ,' he said,
'My land, take it unto thee.'
'I draw you to record, my lordes all.'
With that he cast him a God's penny.

6.
He told him the gold upon the board,
It wanted never a bare penny.
'That gold is thine, the land is mine;
The heir of Linne I will be.'

7.
'Here's gold enough,' saith the heir of Linne,
'Both for me and my company.'
He drunk the wine that was so clear,
And with every man he made merry.

8.
Within three-quarters of a year
His gold and fee it waxed thin,
His merry men were from him gone,
And left him himself all alone.

9.
He had nev