Читать книгу Ballads of Scottish Tradition and Romance - Various - Страница 6

The long pathetic ballad of Bewick and Grahame is a link between the romantic ballads and the ballads of the Border, Sir Hugh in the Grime’s Downfall connecting the Border ballads with the ‘historical’ ballads. The four splendid ‘Armstrong ballads’ also are mainly ‘historical,’ though Dick o’ the Cow requires further elucidation. Kinmont Willie is under suspicion of being the work of Sir Walter Scott, who alone of all ballad-editors, perhaps, could have compiled a ballad good enough to deceive posterity. We cannot doubt the excellence of Kinmont Willie; but it would be tedious, as well as unprofitable, to collect the hundred details of manner, choice of words, and expression, which discredit the authenticity of the ballad.

John o’ the Side has not, I believe, been presented to readers in its present shape before. It is one of the few instances in which the English version of a ballad is better than the Scottish.