"He turned his charger as he spake
Upon the river shore,
He gave the bride-reins a shake,
Said 'Adieu for evermore,
My love!
And adieu for evermore!'"

Here Scott catches the very air of popular poetry, and the dovetailing is
done with most happy skill. "Proud Maisie is in the Wood" is a fine
example of the ballad manner of story-telling by implication.[14]

As regards their subject-matter, the ballads admit of a rough
classification into the historical, or _quasi_-historical, and the purely
legendary or romantic. Of the former class were the "riding-ballad" of
the Scottish border, where the forays of moss-troopers, the lifting of
blackmail, the raids and private warfare of the Lords of the Marches,
supplied many traditions of heroism and adventure like those recorded in
"The Battle of Otterburn," "The Hunting of the Cheviot," "Johnnie
Armstrong," "Kinmont Willie," "The Rising in the North" and
"Northumberland Betrayed by Douglas." Of the fictitious class, some were
shortened, popularized, and generally degraded versions of the chivalry
romances, which were passing out of favor among educated readers in the
sixteenth century and fell into the hands of the ballad-makers. Such, to
name only a few included in the "Reliques," were "Sir Lancelot du Lake,"
"The Legend of Sir Guy," "King Arthur's Death" and "The Marriage of Sir
Gawaine." But the substance of these was not of the genuine popular
stuff, and their personages were simply the old heroes of court poetry in
reduced circumstances. Much more impressive are the original folk-songs,
which strike their roots deep into the ancient world of legend and even