cannot wonder if we find them undergoing considerable {506} change in
the passage from one country to another. At least the "Douglas Tragedy"
betrays one very singular mark of having lost something of the original.

In "Ribolt and Guldborg," when the lady's brothers have all but
overtaken the fugitives, the knight addresses her thus:

"Light down, Guldborg, my lady dear,
And hald our steeds lay the renyes here.
And e'en sae be that ye see me fa'
Be sure that ye never upon me ca';
And e'en sae be that ye see me bleed,
Be sure that ye name na' me till dead."

Ribolt kills her father and her two eldest brothers, and then Guldborg
can no longer restrain herself:

"Hald, hald, my Ribolt, dearest mine,
Now belt thy brand, for its 'mair nor time.
My youngest brother ye spare, O spare,
To my mither the dowie news to bear."

But she has broken her lover's mysterious caution, and he is mortally
wounded in consequence:

"When Ribolt's name she named that stound,
'Twas then that he gat his deadly wound."

In the Scottish ballad, no such caution is given; nor is the lady's
calling on her lover's name at all alluded to as being the cause of his