e's gotten a bonny young son,
And mickle grace be him upon.

[Annotations:
19: 'I'll' is 'I' in both lines in the MS.
24.1: 'sall' is Scott's emendation for _has_ in the MS.]

THE WEE WEE MAN

+The Text+ is that of Herd's MS. and his _Scots Songs_. Other versions
vary very slightly, and this is the oldest of them.

There is a fourteenth-century MS. (in the Cotton collection) containing
a poem not unlike _The Wee Wee Man_; but there is no justification in
deriving the ballad from the poem, which may be found in Ritson's
_Ancient Songs_ (1829), i. p. 40.

Scott incorporates the story with _The Young Tamlane_.

THE WEE WEE MAN

1.
As I was wa'king all alone,
Between a water and a wa',
And there I spy'd a wee wee man,
And he was the least that ere I saw.

2.
His legs were scarce a shathmont's length,
And thick and thimber was his thigh;
Between his brows there was a span,
And between his shoulders there was three.

3.
He took up a meikle stane,
And he flang 't as far as I could see;
Though I had been a Wallace wight,
I couldna liften't to my knee.

4.
'O wee wee man, but thou be strang!
O tell me where thy dwelling be?'
'My dwelling's down at yon bonny bower;
O will you go with me and see?'

5.
On we lap, and awa' we rade,
Till we came to yon bonny green;
We lighted down for to bait our horse,
And out there came a lady fine.

6.
Four and twenty at her back,
And they were a' clad out in green;
Though the King of Scotland had been there,
The warst o' them might hae been his queen.

7.
On we lap, and awa' we rade,
Till we came to yon bonny ha',
Whare the roof was o' the beaten gould,
And the floor was o' the cristal a'.

8.
When we came to the stair-foot,
Ladies were dancing, jimp and sma',
But in the twinkling of an eye,
My wee wee man was clean awa'.

[Annotations:
1.4: 'ere,' _i.e._ e'er.
2.1: 'shathmont,' a span.
2.2: 'thimber,' gross.]

COSPATRICK

+The Text+ is that of Scott's _Minstrelsy_ (1802). It was 'taken down
from the recitation of a lady' (his mother's sister, Miss Christian
Rutherford), and collated with a copy in the Tytler-Brown MS. The ballad
is also called _Gil Brenton_, _Lord Dingwall_, _Bangwell_, _Bengwill_,
or _Brangwill_, _Bothwell_, etc.

+The Story+ is a great favourite, not only in Scandinavia