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"I'd Gie Them A": The Formula in "Geordie" and Other Ballads

"I'd Gie Them A": The Formula in "Geordie" and Other Ballads
by Kaye McAlpine
Folklore, Vol. 107 (1996), pp. 71-76

"I'd Gie Them A": The Formula in "Geordie" and Other Ballads
Kaye McAlpine

Abstract
The discussion of the formula identified in this paper as "I'd gie them a" is intended to add to the evidence that ballad formulas can be much more than a way for a singer to impart narrative information relating to the story-line. Formulas can provide a receptive singer or listener with information about the emotional focus and the way the plot is likely to advance. The specific focus of the argument i s to complement the work on the supranarrative function of ballad formulas in Flemming Anderson's Commonplacaen d Creativity. In the years which have passed since Milman Parry first presented his conclusions regarding Homer and oral-formulaic structures, oral-formulaic models have been applied to various forms and Parry's frequently quoted definition of a formula as "a group of words which is regularly employed under the same metrical conditions to express a given essential idea" (Parry 1930 quoted in Lord 1964, 25) has been considered, expanded and redefined. Parry's "group of words" has been taken out of the literary-verbal arena by work such as that of Walter J. Ong on the Lokele "talking
drums," where the formulas are groups of sounds regularly employed (Ong 1977, 101).

Irrespective of whether the "words" are verbal recordings of a performance, whether the text rather than any one performance has survived, or whether they are beaten out on a drum, another of Parry's points stands firm, "it is the nature of an expression which makes it a formula ... it helps the poet in his versemaking" (Parry 1930, 75). The work done by Albert Lord on the epic poetry of the former Yugoslavia, following Parry's earlier work, has shown how metrical formulas help the singers tell the tales. In this tradition, with its metrical constraints, the particular versions of the formulas used depend on the syllablic
breakdown of the rest of the line. As an example Lord notes the variants of the phrase "In Prilip": "In Prilip," for instance, can be expressed in the first half of the line U Prilipu, in the second half of the line by U Prilipu gradu, and in the whole line by U Prilipu gradub ijelome", In Prilip, that white city" (Lord 1964, 65).

As David Buchan has pointed out (Buchan 1972, 147), in Anna Brown's version of "Sir Hugh" [155A]' the singer similarly varies the phraseology which proposes the two-part narrative idea: (a) he went (b) to a place. The variation depends on the length of the (b) phrase. When it is four syllables-"the Jew's castell" [155A3, 12,13]-then the (a) phrase is "He's/ She's doen him/her to." When it is five syllables-"her father's garden" [155A6]-then the four syllable phrase is replaced by the three syllable "She's gane til." And when the (b) phrase requires six syllables-"Our Lady's deep draw-well" [155A14]-then the (a) phrase is contracted to two syllables-"She neard."

Of course, in the case of the Scottish ballad tradition, rhyme also has to be taken into consideration and what happens then is that, within the quatrain stanza form, the essential information is presented in the first and third lines-the non-rhyming lines-while the second line often repeats the idea of the first line, and the fourth line may expand the scope of the idea or advance
the narrative a little. So, for example, in the case of the formula verse:

O saddle me the black, the black
O saddle me the broon;
O saddle me the swiftest steed
That ever rade frae toon

the essential information the singer would provide is that the character who speaks wants a horse (line 1), and a fast one at that (line 3). The colour is irrelevant, as are the merits of the horse (line 4), although this may indicate a steed with a proven track record. Of course, there is no one "correct" version of a formula, just as there can never be one "correct" version
of an orally-disseminated ballad, poem or song: the telling of the tale is what is of concern, not the stability of the mode of telling. So, while actions and objects which are common in any tradition will have associated formulas, such as "that white city" of the Yugoslavian tradition or the "s/he went to ..." of the Scottish ballad tradition, the decision to include or exclude a relevant formula depends on the skill, awareness and inclination of an individual singer at the moment of singing. When singers have become aware of such formulaic patterns and, perhaps more significantly, know how to make the formula patterns work for them, then they can use them to illustrate an idea which is important to the tale they are telling.

What also helps the poet or singer is a receptive listener.
A formula can bring an array of connotations to
a piece, alerting the audience to much more than the
facts contained in the narrative, but this can only be a
successful method of semantic information-exchange
if the audience (a) understands the tradition, and (b)
understands that the significance of a presented act
may depend on the context of that particular tradition.
The importance of formula, or indeed of narrative
reception, can be seen in examples discussed by
Alain Renoir (Renoir 1990). He quotes the line from
The Wasps by Aristophanes, "I so long to go about small
boards with a little mussel" and points out that only
an individual with the appropriate knowledge would
understand the reference to voting which is being
made. In terms of context, he uses the example of the
use of a thunderclap in two of Chaucer's works. In
one, The Miller's Tale, the thunderclap is used to describe
the power and sound of a fart, while in Troilus
and Criseyde, the thunderclap coincides with the death
of a knight before Thebes. Context, Renoir proves, is
all!

The importance of formulaic language and its use in the traditional ballad form-the fact that it can provide
a singer with much more than infill verses which
offer the chance of a mental breathing space-has been
examined by various ballad scholars, James H. Jones,
David Buchan and Kenneth Thigpen and among them (Jones 1961, Buchan 1972; Thigpen 1973;). But it is to the work done by Flemming G. Andersen on the supranarrative function of the ballads of Scotland and England in Commonplace and Creativity (Andersen 1985) that I shall refer here.

Andersen's work on the supranarrative function of the ballad formula is based on the concept of formulas being "expressions of a single underlying idea" (ibid., 24) but this idea may be more than the narrative function. A formula may provide the receptive listener with extratextual information regarding the emotional focus of the ballad at the point where the formula is used.
So, the phrase, "O saddle me the black, the black ...
saddle me the swiftest horse ..." may be about more
than a request for a horse. The formulas can extend
the emotional content of a ballad tale, transcending
the particular into the universal. The formula indicates
the presence of a narrative idea which is not bound to
one particular ballad version, but which exists within
the tradition as the expression of a particular and significant
idea, whether that is an emotion or an act.

Through discussion of the supranarrative function,
well-known formulas such as "Go saddle to me the
black" and others such as "He lookit over his left shoulder"
and "She lookit over her father's castle wa" can
be understood as much more than a convenient way
of imparting story-line information. The formula can
also tell a listener what the character's emotional state
and intentions are, or how the plot is likely to advance-
information which would be otherwise impossible
to disclose, given the confines of ballad structures.
Andersen identified four formula groups-introductory,
situational, transitional and conclusion formulas.

Within these four main groups, he identified some thirty-one "formula families," each with a distinct
supranarrative function. Lines or stanzas which
may seem to provide the same narrative information
may have very different supranarrative potential. For
example, "Go saddle, then, and bridle my milk-white
horse, /That I might ride away" (Bronson 65.56) is part
of Andersen's "Go saddle to me the black" situational
formula family which indicates the utterer's anxiety,
urgency and desperate desire to be at another place.
However, "He mounted her on a milk-white steed,/
Himself upon anither" [112D8], is part of Andersen's
"He mounted her upon a steed" formula family, which
indicates either the consensual riding off of two lovers,
or the abduction of one character by anotherand
is placed by Andersen in the transitional formula
group. "He's mounted her upon a steed," therefore, is
not interchangeable with "Go saddle to me the black,"
since it does not indicate the anxious desperation of
the focus character.

"I'd gie them a" is a formula which Andersen did
not include in his list, but it plays an interesting role in
terms of identification of emotions and it may prove
illuminating to define and discuss its supranarrative
function. As Andersen himself noted, his study:
makes no claim to be a closed account of formulaic
diction in traditional balladry, for just as new ballads
may arise ... so new formulas may be generated as
recurrent expressions o f new significant n arrative ideas
(Andersen 1985, 353).

The formula "I'd gie them a" serves to show the extent
of the supranarrative functions of a formula in
the ballad situation.

It occurs within dialogue and is used as a response
to the reception of unwelcome information, often a
death threat, which may be directed at the character
who utters the response or at another character who is
emotionally linked with the utterer.

There is a sizeable "family" associated with "I'd gie them a." It includes: "I'd lose them a"; "I'd see them a
[killed]"; and "had I jist as mony owre again." What is
important is that the declaration of the objects to be
sacrificed, the statement of willing sacrifice, and the
stated reasons for sacrifice, all come from a single individual.
The form of the sacrifice, whether it be of
land, livestock or children, is secondary to the representation
of personal love and / or resolution.

The formula may take the form of a direct verbal
rebuke to an antagonist. Alternatively, it may indicate
the intent to act upon received information: if so, it
may then be associated with others of Flemming
Andersen's situational formulas: "She's lookit over her
father's castle wa," in which disaster is foreboded
(Andersen 1985, 138); "He looked over his left shoulder";
or "Go saddle to me the black" (identified below
as the "saddling formula").
To exemplify the different forms of "I'd gie them
a," I discuss it below, first with reference to its use in
"Geordie," then in terms of the ballad in general.

"Geordie"
Frances James Child's collection contains fourteen versions of this ballad [209A-N]; there are eleven in The Greig-Duncan Folksong Collection (G-D 249A-K); and fifty-eight in Bertrand Harris Bronson's The Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads (Bronson 209.1-58), forty-four of which are not from either of the other collections. Through these eighty-three texts, gathered from different countries and in different decades, it is possible to note how the formula works on a supranarrative level.

There are two main story strands of "Geordie." In one-the one which forms the basis of all Child's versions of the ballad-the hero is condemned to death but is saved from execution (by hanging or beheading) by his lady; and in the other-the earliest examples of which are broadsheet versions-he is hanged, usually for theft, and his lover is left to lament his death. There are two alternative personae for Geordie as well as two alternative endings. On the one hand, the hero is condemned through political machinations or personal enmity (I call these "Geordie the Scapegoat"); on the other hand, Geordie may be a self-confessed or condemned criminal (I call these versions "Geordie the Felon").

The "Geordie the Scapegoat" type encompasses (G-D 249E) and Child versions [A-E], which Child called "the purer forms of the ballad" (Child 1957, 4:124). In these, Geordie, as the hero is called in all these versions, is portrayed as a man compromised by politics, for it would seem that, in all but Child's [D] version, unnamed others have conspired against him:[2]

There was a battle in the north
And nobles there was many,
And they hae killd Sir Charlie Hay,
And laid the wyte on Geordie [209A1].[3]
And monie ane got broken heads
And taken was my Geordie (G-D 249E).[4]

Geordie's lady, having been sent word of her husband's predicament, sets out immediately for Edinburgh, where he is being held, swearing that she will neither eat nor drink until she arrives [A5, C3].

When the lady arrives in Edinburgh, she distributes money to the common folk of the town, who are perhaps representative of an execution crowd,[5] then appears before the king to beg for Geordie's life. This is where the formula is used in all versions. The lady offers land, money or lives in exchange for Geordie's life. The king is advised to accept her plea and those present show their allegiance to her and Geordie, for the money comes from the assembled lords.

These versions verge on the tragic; it is only at the eleventh hour that the lady manages to rescue Geordie as she does in all of Child's substantial versions-- but there is satisfaction and happiness by the end, for the lady rescues her true-love and "Nae bird sang sweeter in the bush/Than she did wi her Geordie" [B28].

The "Geordie the Felon" type may be found in the remaining Child versions [209 F-J], most of the Bronson's versions, and the remaining substantial Greig-Duncan versions (G-D 249A-D and F-I). There are many different reasons given for Geordie's imminent execution: he is a horse thief in [F] and [G] and in several of Bronson's versions;[6] he is a poacher in [H] and in (G-D 249A, B, G, H and I, and in Bronson 209.9, 11, 17, 24, 28, 39 and 45); he is an adulterer in [I] and (G-D 249C and D); he is a thief in Bronson (209.23); and, finally, he is an adulterer, a horse thief and a murderer in [J].

The "Geordie the Felon" group has greater variation of plots. In some versions, Geordie is granted a reprieve, but in others-- although in none of those contained in Child--he is executed. The formula, however, is connected more often with those versions where Geordie is saved by his lady. [7]

This brief discussion of the plot of "Geordie" shows that, while the lady is the dynamic character within this ballad, her lover is passive. At the point in "Geordie" where the formula occurs-when the lady is before the king-the listener / reader has already encountered one formula sequence, the "where will I get a bonnie boy" formula, followed by "the first an line she looked upon," and the saddling formula, which all indicate either bad news or serious intent. "I'd gie them a" substantiates the impression of serious intent. It is the lady's resolution to save her lover which is expressed through the formula.

On the surface level, the formula does not have a fixed structure, but tends to take the form of a three- or four line unit, which includes: a declaration of the objects the character is prepared to sacrifice, such as "I hae four and twenty milk-white kye" or "I hae borne seven bonny sons"; a statement of willing sacrifice such as "I'd lose them a" or "I'd gie them a"; and an identification of the reason for sacrifice such as "before I'd lose my Geordie."

The declaration may come before or after the identification of the object for sacrifice and the declaration and the statement may even be separated from the identification, as in the [A] version of "Geordie" (italics indicate the formula):

"I hae born seven sons to my Geordied ear
The seventh neer saw his daddie;
O pardon, pardon, noble king,
Pity a waefu lady!"

"Gar bid the headin-man mak haste,"
Our noble king reply'd fu lordly:
"O noble king, tak a' that's mine,
But gie me back my Geordie"[2 09A91 0].

In "Geordie," the lady would sacrifice her children [B17, C9] and (Bronson 209.25, 26 and 53), or her land [B16, C8, D14]; or would bear her children over again [C8] and [D'5]. There are vestigial recollections of the formula in [A9, K1 and N], where the object for sacrifice is stated, but the willing offer of the object-in all cases children-is not presented:

I have land into the north,
And I have white rigs many
And I could gie them a to you
To save the life o Geordie.

I have seven children in the north,
And they seem very bonnie,
And I could bear them a' over again
For to win the life o Geordie [209C7, s].

It's six pretty babes that I have got
The seventh lies in my body
I freely part with them every one
If you'll spare me the life of Georgie (Bronson 209.535).

I have eleven babes into the north
And the twelfth is in my body, O
And the youngest o them's in the nurse's arms
He neer yet saw his daddy, O [209K'].

I have nine children in the west,
The tenth ane's in my bodie;
The eldest o them she never knew a man,
And she knows not wha's her daddy [209N].

It may be that these vestigial verses imperfectly recall eight-line verse forms of the formula: for example, if stanzas 17 and 18 of Child's [B] version were reversed, the formula would still function, and would be augmented by the quantitative repetition in the two verses:

I hae ele'en bairns in the wast
I wait the're a to Geordie;
I'd see them streekit afore mine eyes
Afore I lose my Geordie.

I hae ele'en bairns in the wast
The twalt bears up my body;
The youngest's on his nurse's knee,
An he never saw his dadie [209B,'7 1].

The formula is extended, to no great effect, in [B19] to include uncles. Again, the assurance is a willingness to see them die, rather than lose the lover/husband:

I hae se'en uncles in the north
They gang baith proud and lordly;
I'd see them a tread down afore my eyes
Afore I lose my Geordie [209B19].

Other Examples
In "Geordie," then, the formula indicates the extent of the lady's determination. In "Jock o' the Side" [187], a ballad with a very different story from "Geordie," the formula is used to the same effect. A character gives a positive, active response to bad news-in this case the news brought is the capture of the character's nephew or son. In "Jock o' the Side," the formula is ascribed to a male character, Mangerton, and instead of any willingness to sacrifice the lives of children, only the willingness
to make a material sacrifice is presented. Mangerton's affection for the captive and resolution in effecting a rescue is expressed through the formula:

I hae yokes of oxen four and twentie,
My barns, my byres, and my faulds a' weel filld
And I'll part wi them ere Johnie shall die [187B4].
Up speaks Lord Mengerton and says, I have
Four and twenty yoke of oxen,
And four and twenty good milk-ky,
And three times as many sheep
And I'll gie them a' before my son Jonny die [187C4].

I would suggest that there are two other variants of this formula, both of which can be aligned with the "He looked over his left shoulder" formula family. These two
versions of "I'd gie them a" may indicate either defiance
or despair, dependent on the dominance of the character
it is attributed to and the context in which it is used.
The defiant form appears in ballads such as "The
Bonnie House o Airlie" [199]. In this ballad, the lady's
retort to the "fause" Argyll's sexual attack or his intended
destruction of her house takes the form of her stating her
willingness to bear more children. In this context, the formula
serves to stress the political sympathies of the lady:

Ten bonny sons I have born unto him
The eleventh neer saw his daddy;
But though I had a hundred mair
I'd gie them a to King Charlie [199A10].

For I have borne him seven bonnie sons
But the eighth yin has never seen his daddy,
But had I jist as mony owre again
They wid aa be men for Chairlie. [8]

The despairing form is used in versions of "Captain Car/Edom o Gordon" [178] and "Johnie Armstrong"
[169]. In the former, which concerns the burning of a
castle and its inhabitants, the character of the lady, representative
of the historical Lady Forbes, would give
her belongings or her gold to keep the fire and its smoke
away from her children or herself. For example:

I've four and twenty kye
Going upo the muir;
I'd gie em for a blast of wind
The reek it blaws sae sour'
[...]
I've twenty four ships
A sailing on the sea;
I'll gie em for a blast of southern wind
To blaw the reek frae thee [178C6' s].

In the [G] version, the lady's statement follows related
lines, where she would give up the black and
brown steeds, if her son could ride safely away from
the burning tower. This is not strictly part of the formula
family, although it is obviously related. I would
suggest that it is a confusion of the "saddling" and the
"I'd gie them a" formulas.

In "Captain Car/Edom o Gordon," the "I'd gie them
a" formula is used after the "As she lookit over her
father's castle wa" formula and the aggressive component
of "He's looked over his left shoulder" formula,
which both forewarn a sympathetic listener of impending
disaster. So "I'd gie them a" is in concord with the
negative encodings of the other formulas. In "Johnie
Armstrong," the formula also has a negative connotation
for it follows the king's declaration, "I grantit never
a traytor's lyfe, / And now I'll not begin with thee"
[169C8,11~ 16,18]. In this ballad, the formula falls between
two stanzas as the ballad is printed in Child:

Grant me my lyfe, my liege, my king,
And a bonny gift I will give to thee;
Full four and twenty milk-whyte steids,
Were a foaled in a yeir to me.
I'll gie thee all these milk whyte steids [169C91,0 ].

However, it was positioned in the middle of a stanza in
Ramsay's Ever Green, for there it was printed in eightline
stanzas.

The linking factor within the various presentations
of the formula is the value the character places on the
life he or she wishes to save. The use of the formula
highlights the despair which is attached to losing that
life or the determination to sustain or save it.

Before concluding, I would highlight two cases
where, although the verses are related to the intent behind
the formula, they are not part of the formula family
because they involve no self-sacrifice. These verses,
then, are context-bound to the ballads they appear in.
The first is contained in version [B] of Geordie, which
is concerned with the giving away of Geordie's lands
and possessions, rather than the lady's.

O wad ye hae his lands or rents?
Or wad ye hae his monie?
Take a', a' frae him but his sark alane,
Leave me my true-love Geordie [209BW].

The depth of love is certainly present here, for the lady
will take her lover even if he is left with nothing, but
the direction of the statement does not conform to the
other examples given. Similarly, in the [A] version of
"Jock o the Side," the intention of rescuing Jock is there,
but it is not presented in a formulaic manner. Firstly,
the declaration comes from an unidentified group of
people, not from a single named character; secondly,
the belongings they identify will be sold, not lost or
given up; finally, the concluding statement, that all will
be lost, killed or borne again "before I lose my *," is
absent:

But wee'le goe sell our droues of kine,
And after them our oxen sell,
And after them our troopes of sheepe,
But we will loose him out of the Newcastle [187A5].

Summing-Up
Although "I'd gie them a" was not included by Andersen in his list of ballad formulas, it conforms to his situational formula type. It appears in most early versions of "Geordie" collected from singers rather than from broadsheets and, significantly, it also appears in
other ballads where its supranarrative function is consistent.
At the heart of "I'd gie them a" is some sort of selfsacrifice,
emotional or material. The stipulation of the
form of this self-sacrifice is partially gender-dependent,
with male characters usually offering to sacrifice
only material possessions,[9] while females may offer
material possessions or the lives of children, or state
that they would be willing to bear all their children over
again.

In "Geordie," the supranarrative structure of this
ballad formula is the establishment of an emotional
bond between two characters, through a stylised response
to danger, stated or implied, which may be indicative
of action or an admission of despair. Thus, it is
patently obvious that "I hae borne him seven/eight/
eleven bonnie sons," whether in "Geordie" or in other
ballads, should not be taken literally but interpreted as
indicating the depth of love a lady has for her lover.
I would also suggest that the presence of the "I'd gie
them a" formula, along with other formulas in "Geordie,"
may help to extricate to what extent the ballad is
sourced in the oral/ traditional ballad corpus. There are
broadside execution-sheets which predate those versions
taken from oral tradition, and the influence of the
broadside-specifically the execution-sheet form-on
"Geordie" is undeniable. A full discussion of related
issues is not directly relevant here, but what is important
to note is that the formula is usually absent in the
versions where Geordie dies. Instead, it is replaced by
a context-bound verse which indicates depth of love
but contains no self-sacrifice, such as:

If I was a-standing on yonders hill
Where kisses I've had many
Bright swords and pistols by my side,
I would fight for the life of my Georgie (Bronson 209.543).[10]

On our present evidence, the broadsheets always contained
the tale of Geordie being hanged, while the earliest
versions recorded from a singing tradition are always
the tale of the reprieved man. The earliest date at
present for a version of this ballad where Geordie is
hanged and his lady asserts her depth of love but makes
no offer of self-sacrifice, is early- to mid-seventeenth
century. The tale of the reprieved man, the earliest of
which is Johnson's 1792 version [209A], may relate to
an historical event. It has been suggested, by "Kinloch
and others," that Geordie was:

George Gordon, fourth earl of Huntly, who incurred the
Queen Regent's displeasure for failing to execute a commission against a Highland robber in 1554. Huntly was
committed to Edinburgh Castle, and some of his many
enemies urged that he should be banished to France, others
that he should be put to death. The Earl of Cassilis,
though a foe to Huntly, resisted these measures on
grounds of patriotism, and proposed that he should be
deprived of certain honors and offices and fined. A fine
was exacted, and the places which had been taken from
him were restored (Child 1957, 4:124).

If this incident, recorded in the Haddington MSS in
the National Library of Scotland (Haddington Excerpts,
fol. 123b), is indeed the source, this gives a time period of
238 years for a ballad based on the incident to have been
created and disseminated before the earliest version from
the oral tradition was recorded, and fifty-three years for
a prototype of the traditional ballad to have been established
before the earliest possible known printing of
"Georgie Stoole" (c. 1607).

If we also consider Fleming Andersen's argument that
the presence of formulas within ballads suggests an oral,
and Scottish, origin, while a lack of formulas indicates a
broadsheet tradition, then the versions of "Geordie" show
an interesting pattern. Beside "I'd gie them a," the earlier
versions contain various formulas, such as the "Where
will I get a bonny boy," "Saddle me the black, the black"
and "He's turned him right and round about." Binary
balancing is also used-good lords oppose bad ones; the
lady is rosy and then she is pale; the lady laughs and
then she cries; and so on-which is also indicative of the
oral tradition.

The presence of formulas is not nearly as prevalent in
the later versions, neither is the balancing of opposites;
this suggests that singers were using material which may
have originated in print and which had not absorbed oral
patternings.

Bronson's English and American versions from the
mid-twentieth century show that the "Geordie the Felon"
type became more popular than "Geordie the Scapegoat"
as time went by. Perhaps this was because the significance
of lines such as "There was a battle in the North"
waned, while a tale of a poacher /horse-thief /adulterer
retained its relevance-which would, in turn, show how
the artistic conceptualisation of this ballad tale has been
affected by the passage of time and the existence of two
separate sources. The absence of "I'd gie them a" in the
American versions may therefore be as important as its
presence in the Scottish ones: time-and further discussion-
may tell.
University of Stirling

Notes

1. Numbers in square brackets refer to the number given to the ballad in the collection of Francis James Child. The capital
letter refers to the version and suprascript numbers to stanza numbers (also in Child). Numbers in round brackets
refer to versions in the Greig-Duncan or Bronson collections.

2 In[ D], Geordie has killed his brother-in-law. No reason is given for the killing.
3See [B1].
4See also [E'] and (Bronson 209.381).
5"When she cam to the West Port ... She dealt crowns and
ducatdowns/ And bade them pray for Geordie" [Bs]. See also
[C6 and D'O].
6 He is a horse-thief in (Bronson 209.13, 15, 18, 36, 39, 41,
42, 44, 47, 49, 52 and 54).
7 Bronson contains three versions where the formula is
invoked, but where the hero is executed. These are (Bronson
209.24,2 5 and 53), all of which are twentieth-centuryE nglish
versions of the ballad.
8. The Bonnie House o Airlie, from Belle Stewart (Lyle 1994,
60).
9 An exception to this can be found in the [C] version of "The Laird o Warriston,"w hen the father declares "Seven
daughters I hae left at hame ... But I wad gie them ane by
ane, /O bonny Jean, to borrow thee" [194C2].
10 See also Bronson2 09.17,4 0 and 42.

References Cited
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Odense University Press, 1985.
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