CHILD NORYCE Of the many ancient ballads which have been preserved by tradition among the peasantry of Scotland, none has excited more interest in the world of letters than the beautiful and pathetic tale of "Gil Morice;" and this no less on account of its own intrinsic merits as a piece of exquisite poetry, than of its having furnished the plot of the justly-celebrated tragedy of Douglas.* It has likewise supplied Mr Langhorne with the principal materials from which he has woven the fabric of his sweet though prolix poem of "Owen of Carron;" and Mr Jamieson mentions that it has also been "made the subject of a dramatic entertainment with songs, by Mr Rennie of Aberdeen." Perhaps the list could be easily increased of those who have drawn their inspiration from this affecting strain of olden minstrelsy. If any reliance is to be placed on the traditions of that part of the country where the scene of the ballad is laid, we shall be enforced to believe that it is founded on facts which occurred at some remote period of Scottish history. The "green wood" of the ballad was the ancient forest of Dundaff in Stirlingshire, and Lord Barnard's castle is said to have occupied a precipitous cliff overhanging the water of Carron, on the lands of Halbertshire. A small burn which joins the Carron, about five miles above these lands, is named the Earlsburn, and the hill near the source of that stream is called the Earlshill, both deriving their appellations, according to the unvarying traditions of the country, from the unfortunate Earl's son who is the hero of the ballad. He, also, according to the same respectable authority, was "beautiful exceedingly," and especially remarkable for the extreme length and loveliness of his yellow hair, which shrouded him as it were with a golden mist. To these floating traditions we are probably indebted for the attempts which have been made to improve and em "When this tragedy was originally produced at Edinburgh, in 1756, the title of the heroine was Lady Barnard: the alteration to Lady Randolph was made on its being transplanted to London." It was acted in Covent Garden in 1757.-Biographia Dramatica, vol. ii. p. 175. + Popular Ballads and Songs. Edinburgh, 1806, vol. i. p. 5. bellish the ballad by the introduction of various new stanzas since its first appearance in a printed form. 66 Of the early printed editions of this ballad the Editor has been unable to procure any copy.* In Percy's Reliques it is mentioned that it had run through two editions in Scotland, the second of which appeared at Glasgow in 1755, 8vo, and that to both there was prefixed an advertisement setting forth that the preservation of the poem was owing "to a lady who favoured the printers with a copy, as it was carefully collected from the mouths of old women and nurses," and requesting 'that any reader who could render it more perfect and complete would oblige the public with such improvements." This was holding out too tempting a bait not to be greedily snapped at by some of those "ingenious hands" who have corrupted the purity of legendary song in Scotland by manifest forgeries and gross impositions. Accordingly, sixteen additional verses soon appeared in manuscript, which the editor of the Reliques has inserted in their proper places, though he rightly views them in no better light than that of an ingenious interpolation. Indeed, the whole ballad of Gil Morice, as the writer of the present notice has been politely informed by the learned and elegant editor of "The Border Minstrelsy,' underwent a total revisal about the period when the tragedy of Douglas was in the zenith of its popularity; and this improved copy, it seems, embraced the "ingenious interpolation" above referred to. Independent altogether of this positive information, any one familiar with the state in which traditionary poetry has been transmitted to the present times, can be at no loss to detect many more 'ingenious interpolations" as well as paraphrastic additions in the ballad as now printed. But though it has been grievously corrupted in this way, the most scrupulous inquirer into the authenticity of ancient 66 *Since writing this he has been kindly favoured by Mr David Laing of Edinburgh with an edition which, though it has neither place, date, nor printer's name, may, from its title, be considered as the first Edinburgh edition, and printed probably in 1756. The title is given at length, "Gil Morice, an ancient Scots poem. The foundation of the tragedy called Douglas, as it is now acted in the Concert-hall, Canongate." Except some slight variations in orthography, and in its omitting the sixteen additional verses which are mentioned by Bishop Percy as having been subsequently added to the ballad, there is no other material difference between this edition and that which is reprinted in the Reliques. D song can have no hesitation in admitting that many of its verses, even as they now stand, are purely traditionary, and fair and genuine parcels of antiquity, unalloyed with any base admixture of modern invention, and in nowise altered, save in those changes of language to which all oral poetry is unavoidably subjected in its progress from one age to another. With much deference to the opinion of others skilled in these matters, the Editor has, in point of antiquity, to challenge for Child Noryce a precedence far above any of its fellows; indeed, in his judgment, it has every appearance of being the prime root from which the Gil Morice of Percy, and all the variations of the ballad heretofore known, have originated. That the reader may have no room to doubt its genuineness, the Editor thinks it right to mention, that it is given verbatim as it was taken down from the singing of Widow M'Cormick, of Paisley, in January 1825.-MOTHERWELL. CHILD NORYCE is a clever young man, His horse was silver shod before, He called to his little man John, "Here is a glove, a glove," he said, "Lined with the silver grey; You may wood, tell her to come to the merry green To speak to Child Nory. "Here is a ring, a ring," he says, "It's all gold but the stane; You may tell her to come to the merry green wood, And ask the leave o' nane." "So well do I love your errand, my master, But far better do I love my life; O would ye have me go to Lord Barnard's castel, To betray away his wife?" "O don't I give you meat," he says, "And don't I pay you fee? How dare you stop my errand," he says, Oh, when he came to Lord Barnard's castel, Who was as ready as Lord Barnard himself,* "Here is a glove, a glove," he says, "Lined with the silver grey; You are bidden to come to the merry green wood, To speak to Child Nory. "Here is a ring, a ring," he says, "It's all gold but the stane: You are bidden to come to the merry green wood, And ask the leave o' nane." Lord Barnard he was standing by, And an angry man was he: Oh, little did I think there was a lord in this world My lady loved but me!" * This unquestionably should be Lady Barnard, instead of her lord-see third stanza under; but as it was so recited, this obvious error the Editor did not conceive himself warranted to correct, more especially as he has found it out of his power to obtain another copy of the ballad from any different quarter.-MOTHERWELL. Oh, he dressed himself in the holland smocks, And he is away to the merry green wood, Child Noryce sits on yonder tree, "O wae be to me," says Child Noryce, Child Noryce he came off the tree, His mother to take off the horse; "Och alas, alas," says Child Noryce, "My mother was ne'er so gross." Lord Barnard he had a little small sword And when he came to his castel, She turned up the bloody head, She kissed it frae cheek to chin; "Far better do I love this bloody head, Than all my royal kin. "When I was in my father's castel, In my virginitie; There came a lord into the north, " |