[A composite volume : containing The ballads and songs of Ayrshire ...

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HARDYKNUTE.
There on a lee where stands a cross
Set up for monument,
Thousands fow fierce that summer's day
Kill'd, keen war's black intent.
Let Scots, whilst Scots, praise Hardyknute,
Let Norse the name ay dread,
Ay how he faught, aft how he spar'd,
Shall latest ages read.
Loud and chill blew westlin wind,
Sair beat the heavy shower,
Mirk grew the night ere Hardyknute
Wan near his stately tower
His tow'r that us'd wi' torches light
To shine sae far at night,
Seem'd now as black as mourning weed,
Nae marvel sair he sigli'd.
" Habdyknute" was printed in The Tea- Table Miscellany vn 1724;
and in Dr Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, published in
1765, where it was prefaced with the following notice :—^" As this fine
morsel of heroic poetiy hath generally past for ancient, it is here
thrown to the end of our earliest pieces ; that such as doubt of its age
may the better compare it with other pieces of genuine antiquity.
For after all, there is more than reason to suspect, that most of its
beauties are of modern date ; and that these, at least (if not its whole
existence), have flowed from the pen of a lady within this present
century. The following particulars may be depended upon : One Mrs
Wardlaw, whose maiden name was Halket (aunt of the late Sir Peter
Halket of Pitferran, in Scotland, who was killed in America along
with General Bradock in 1755), pretended she had found this poem,
written on shreds of paper, employed for what is called the bottoms
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