_The stanzas are not regularly divided in the MS., nor were they so divided by Scott._
15. At every tuft of that horse main There's a golden chess and a bell to ring.
32^1. And bid her your boy's christening to.
41^2. Hung atween her bour and the witch carline.
_Divided in Jamieson's MS. into stanzas of four verses, two verses being written in one line: but Jamieson's_ 8==#a# 14-16.
5-11, _wanting. Instead of the cup, the girdle occurs here_:==#a# 21-28.
16^2. An lat her be lighter o her young bairn.
#a# 21^1==b 5^1. Now to his mither he has gane.
#a# 29==b 22. Then out it spake the belly blin; She spake ay in a good time.
An do you to your mither then, An bid her come to your boy's christnen; For dear's the boy he's been to you: Then notice well what she shall do.
_Between #a# 33 and #a# 34 occurs in #b# (28-31)_:
He did him to the market place, An there he bought a loaf o wax. He shap'd it bairn and bairnly like, An in't twa glazen een he pat. He did him till his mither then, An bade him (_sic_) to his boy's christnen. An he did stan a little forebye, An notic'd well what she did say.
#b# _22^2 makes the Billy Blind feminine. This is not so in #a#, or in any other ballad, and may be only an error of the transcriber, who has not always written carefully._
[102] The Jamieson-Brown copy contains seventy-eight verses; Scott's and the Tytler copy, eighty-eight. Dr Anderson's, Nichols's Illustrations, VII, 176, counts seventy-six instead of eighty-eight; but, judging by the description which Anderson has given of the Alexander-Fraser-Tytler-Brown MS., at p. 179, he is not exact. Still, so large a discrepancy is hard to explain.
[103] The sister does this in #F-I# and #S#: in #O#, #P#, the husband "has" it done.
[104] Grundtvig, 84 #D#, #E#; Kristensen, I, No 74 #A#, #B#, #C#; II, No 35 #A#, #B#, #C#.
[105] Eadem amatoris sui uxorem, quod in eam dicacule probrum dixerat, jam in sarcina prægnationis, obsæpto utero et repigrato fetu, perpetua prægnatione damuavit, et, ut cuncti numerant, jam octo annorum onere misella illa velut elephantum paritura distenditur. I, 9.
[106] We may suppose with closed fingers, or clasping the head, though this is not said. Antique vases depict one or two Ilithyias as standing by with hands elevated and _open_, during the birth of Athene from the head of Zeus. Welcker, Kleine Schriften, III, 191, note 12.