+Sword.+

'bright brown sword,' _Glasgerion_, 22.1; _Old Robin of Portingale_, 22.1; _Child Maurice_, 26.1, 27.1; 'good browne sword,' _Marriage of Sir Gawaine_, 24.3; etc.

'dried it on his sleeve,' _Glasgerion_, 22.2; _Child Maurice_, 27.2 ('on the grasse,' 26.2); 'straiked it o'er a strae,' _Bonny Birdy_, 15.2; 'struck it across the plain,' _Johney Scot_, 32.2; etc.

In Anglo-Saxon, the epithet 'brun' as applied to a sword has been held to signify either that the sword was of bronze, or that the sword gleamed. It has further been suggested that sword-blades may have been artificially bronzed, like modern gun-barrels.

'Striped it thro' the straw' and many similar expressions all refer to the whetting of a sword, generally just before using it. Straw (unless 'strae' and 'straw' mean something else) would appear to be very poor stuff on which to sharpen swords, but Glasgerion's sleeve would be even less effective; perhaps, however, 'dried' should be 'tried.' Johney Scot sharpened his sword on the ground.

+Miscellaneous.+

'gare' = gore, part of a woman's dress; _Brown Robin_, 10.4; cp.

_Glasgerion_, 19.4.

Generally of a knife, apparently on a chatelaine. But in _Lamkin_ 12.2, of a man's dress.

'Linne,' 'Lin,' _Young Bekie_, 5.4; _Old Robin of Portingale_, 2.1.

A stock ballad-locality, castle or town. Perhaps to be identified with the city of Lincoln, perhaps with Lynn, or King's Lynn, in Norfolk, where pilgrims of the fourteenth century visited the Rood Chapel of Our Lady of Lynn, on their way to Walsingham; with equal probability it is not to be identified at all with any known town.

'shot-window,' _Gay Goshawk_, 8.3; _Brown Robin_, 3.3; _Lamkin_, 7.3; etc.

This commonplace phrase seems to vary in meaning. It may be 'a shutter of timber with a few inches of glass above it' (Wodrow's _History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland_, Edinburgh, 1721-2, 2 vols., in vol. ii. p. 286); it may be simply 'a window to open and shut,' as Ritson explains it; or again, as is implied in Jamieson's _Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language_, an out-shot window, or bow-window. The last certainly seems to be intended in certain instances.

'thought lang' _Young Bekie_, 16.4; _Brown Adam_, 5.2; _Johney Scot_, 6.2; _Fause Footrage_, 25.2; etc.

This simply means 'thought it long,' or 'thought it slow,' as we should say in modern slang; in short, 'was bored,' or 'weary.'

'wild-wood swine,' a simile for drunkenness, _Brown Robin_, 7.4; _Fause Footrage_, 16.4.

_Cp._ Shakespeare, _All's Well that Ends Well_, Act IV. 3, 286: 'Drunkenness is his best virtue; for he will be swine-drunk.' It seems to be nothing more than a popular comparison.

LIST OF BOOKS FOR BALLAD STUDY FOR ENGLISH READERS

A.--The Literary History of Ballads

The Introductions, etc., to the Collections of Ballads in List B.

1861. _David Irving._ History of Scottish Poetry.

1871. _Thomas Warton._ History of English Poetry, ed. W. Carew Hazlitt.

4 vols.

1875. _Andrew Lang._ Article in Encyclopaedia Britannica (9th edition), vol. iii.

1876. _Stopford Brooke._ English Literature. New edition, enlarged, 1897.

1883. _W. W. Newell._ Games and Songs of American Children. New York.

1887. _Andrew Lang._ Myth, Ritual, and Religion. 2 vols.

1893. _John Veitch._ History and Poetry of the Scottish Border. 2 vols.

1893. _F. J. Child._ Article 'Ballads' in Johnson's Cyclopaedia, vol. i.

pp. 464-6.

1895-97. _W. J. Courthope._ A History of English Poetry. Vols. i.

and ii.

1897. _G. Gregory Smith._ The Transition Period: being vol. iv. of Periods of English Literature, ed. G. Saintsbury.

1898. _Andrew Lang_ in _Quarterly Review_ for July.

1901. _F. B. Gummere._ The Beginnings of Poetry.

1903. _E. K. Chambers._ The Mediaeval Stage. 2 vols.

1903. _Andrew Lang_ in _Folk-Lore_ for June.

1903. _J. H. Millar._ A Literary History of Scotland.

B.--Collections of Ballads

[_This list does not pretend to be exhaustive, but to give the more important collections, especially those containing trustworthy Introductions._]

1723-25. A Collection of Old Ballads, corrected from the best and most ancient copies extant. 3 vols. London.

1724. _Allan Ramsay._ The Ever-Green. 2 vols. Edinburgh.

1724-27. _Allan Ramsay._ The Tea-Table Miscellany. First eight editions in 3 vols., Edinburgh, Dublin, and London. Ninth and subsequent editions in four volumes, or four volumes in one, London.

1765. _Thomas Percy, Bishop of Dromore._ Reliques of Ancient English Poetry. 3 vols. London.

1769. _David Herd._ The Ancient and Modern Scots Songs, Heroic Ballads, etc. Edinburgh. The second edition, 1776, under a slightly different title. 2 vols. Edinburgh.

1781. _John Pinkerton._ Scottish Tragic Ballads. London.

1787-1803. _James Johnson._ The Scots Musical Museum. 6 vols. Edinburgh.

1790. _Joseph Ritson._ Ancient Songs, etc. London. (Printed 1787, dated 1790, and published 1792.)