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Minstrelsy of the Scottish border - National Library of Scotland

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FAUSE FOODRAGE.<br />

NEVER REFOUE PUBLISHED.<br />

This ballad has been popular in many parts <strong>of</strong> Scot-<br />

land. It is chiefly given from Mrs Brown <strong>of</strong> Falkland's<br />

MSS.—The expression^<br />

" The boy stared wild like a gray goss-hawk," Verte 3 ,<br />

strongly resembles that in Hardykmtte,<br />

" Norse e'en like gray goss-hawk stared wild ;"<br />

a circumstance which led <strong>the</strong> editor to make <strong>the</strong> strict-<br />

est enquiry into <strong>the</strong> au<strong>the</strong>nticity <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> song. But every<br />

doubt was removed by <strong>the</strong> evidence <strong>of</strong> a lady <strong>of</strong> high<br />

rank, who not only recollected <strong>the</strong> ballad, as having<br />

amused her infancy, but could repeat many <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> verses;<br />

particularly those beautiful stanzas from <strong>the</strong> 20th to <strong>the</strong><br />

25th. The editor is <strong>the</strong>refore compelled to believe, that<br />

<strong>the</strong> author <strong>of</strong> Hardijknutc copied <strong>the</strong> old ballad ; if-<strong>the</strong><br />

coincidence be not altoge<strong>the</strong>r accidental.

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