Читать книгу English and Scottish Ballads (Vol. 1-8) - Various Authors - Страница 130

SWEET WILLIE AND FAIR ANNIE

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Is another version of the foregoing piece, furnished by Jamieson, Popular Ballads, i. 22.

"The text of Lord Thomas and Fair Annet," remarks Jamieson, "seems to have been adjusted, previous to its leaving Scotland, by some one who was more of a scholar than the reciters of ballads generally are; and, in attempting to give it an antique cast, it has been deprived of somewhat of that easy facility which is the distinguished characteristic of the traditionary ballad narrative. With the text of the following ditty, no such experiment has been made. It is here given pure and entire, as it was taken down by the editor, from the recitation of a lady in Aberbrothick, (Mrs. W. Arrot.) As she had, when a child, learnt the ballad from an elderly maid-servant, and probably had not repeated it for a dozen years before I had the good fortune to be introduced to her, it may be depended upon, that every line was recited to me as nearly as possible in the exact form in which she learnt it."

Mr. Chambers, in conformity with the plan of his work, presents us with an edition composed out of Percy's and Jamieson's, with some amended readings and additional verses from a manuscript copy, (Scottish Ballads, p. 269.)

English and Scottish Ballads (Vol. 1-8)

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