Maurice head,
She neuer spake words but three:
'I neuer beare no child but one,
And you haue slaine him trulye.'

31.
Sayes, 'Wicked be my merrymen all,
I gaue meate, drinke, and clothe!
But cold they not haue holden me
When I was in all that wrath!

32.
'Ffor I haue slaine one of the curteousest knights
That euer bestrode a steed,
Soe haue I done one [of] the fairest ladyes
That euer ware womans weede!'

[Annotations:
1.1: 'siluer': the Folio gives _siluen_.
4.3,4: These lines in the Folio precede st. 6.
5.2: _i.e._ as many times as there are knots knit in a net for the
hair; cf. French _cale_.
5.3: 'leeue,' lovely.
8.4: 'Let,' fail: it is the infinitive, governed by 'bidd.'
9.1: 'yode,' went.
9.4: 'blan,' lingered.
13.3: 'are': omitted in the Folio.
18.3: 'I,' aye.
19.1: 'lease,' leash, thong, string: perhaps for bringing back any
game he might kill.
After 20 at least one verse is lost.
22.1,2: In the Folio these lines precede 21.1,2.
24.1: 'hast' omitted in the Folio.
25.2: 'tone,' the one (or other).]

FAUSE FOOTRAGE

+The Text+ is from Alexander Fraser Tytler's Brown MS., which was also
the source of Scott's version in the _Minstrelsy_. One line (31.1),
closely resembling a line in Lady Wardlaw's forged ballad _Hardyknute_,
caused Sir Walter to investigate strictly the authenticity of the
ballad, but the evidence of Lady Douglas, that she had learned the
ballad in her childhood, and could still repeat much of it, removed his
doubts. It is, however, quite possible, as Professor Child points out,
'that Mrs. Brown may unconsciously have adopted this verse from the
tiresome and affected _Hardyknute_, so much esteemed in her day.'

+The Story.+--In _The Complaynt of Scotlande_ (1549) there is mentioned
a tale 'how the King of Estmure Land married the King's daughter of
Westmure Land,' and it has been suggested that there is a connection
with the ballad.

This is another of the ballads of which the English form has become so
far corrupted that we have to seek its Scandinavian counterpart to
obtain the full form of the story. The ballad is especially popular in
Denmark, where it is found in twenty-three manuscripts, as follows:--

The rich Svend wooes Lisbet, who favours William for his good qualities.
Svend, ill with grief, is well-advised by his mother, not to care for a
plighted maid, and ill-advised by his siste