Sche wyl me bere, I dar say, On a lang-somerys day.
144. MS. H. Wyth so forth, Gybbe. Wright. Joo forth.
Of an old rotten fell, The cheveron of a plow-mell.
159-161. MS. H. slatred--flatred--schatred.
Among those wery boyes he wrest and he wrang, He threw tham doun to the erth, and thrast them amang, When he saw Tyrry away wyth Tyb fang, And after hym ran.
201-207. Here evidently corrupted. In MS. Harl. as follows:
Wyth wyspes, and kexis, and ryschys there lyzt, To fetch hom ther husbandes that were tham trouth-plyzt. And sum brozt gret harwos Ther husbandes hom to fetch, Sum on dores, and sum on hech, Sum on hyrdyllys, and sum on crech, And sum on whele-barows.
215. MS. H. The prayse-folk that hur led.
And so was all the bachelary, When thay met togedyr.
And at the last thay went to bed with ful gret deray.
N. B. The letter z in our reprint of this poem often represents the old character [gh], which has generally the force of gh (aspirated g), sometimes of y.
This ballad has been handed down, through manuscript and oral tradition, in several forms. The oldest copy is furnished by the Bannatyne MS., and this has been often printed, with more or less correctness: as in Ramsay's _Evergreen_, ii. 137; Lord Hailes's _Ancient Scotish Poems, &c._ p. 215; Herd's _Scotish Songs_, ii. 237; Pinkerton's _Select Scottish Ballads_, ii. 97. Our text is that of Laing, _Select Remains, &c._, which professes to be carefully given from the manuscript. Mr. Laing has added in the margin the most important variations of other editions. Allan Ramsay altered several verses and added others.
In the Bannatyne MS. this piece is subscribed with the name of "Mofat," and on this ground the authorship has been attributed to Sir John Moffat, who is supposed to have lived in the earlier part of the 16th century.
Ritson, who intended to insert the _Wife of Auchtermuchty_ in a projected volume of _Select Scotish Poems_, says in a manuscript note, "The subject of this poem seems to be borrowed from the first part of a story in the _Silva Sermonum Jucundissimorum_, Basil. 1568, 8vo. p. 116, though certainly from a more ancient authority." (Laing.) This story is cited at the end of the volume from which we print. In Wright and Halliwell's _Reliquiæ Antiquæ_, ii. 195, is the first _fit_ of an English ballad on the same subject, "from a MS. on paper, of the reign of Henry VII," (_Ballad of a Tyrannical Husband_.) _John Grumlie_ in Cunningham's _Songs of Scotland_, ii. 123, is another variety. See also _Nursery Rhymes of England_, p. 32, Per. Soc. vol. iv. In 1803, there appeared at Edinburgh a translation of Ramsay's ballad into Latin rhyme.