He made na his moan to a stock,
He made na it to a stone,
But it was to the Queen of Heaven
That he made his moan.

The lines are from a version of the North of Scotland, and, on the
face of it, are older than the extirpation of the Catholic faith in
the loyal North. The reference to Holy Land preserves a touch of
the crusading age. In short, poor as they may be, the Scottish
versions are those of a people not yet wholly vulgarised, not yet
lost to romance. The singers have 'half remembered and half forgot'
the legend of Gilbert Becket (Bekie, Beichan), the father of St.
Thomas of Canterbury. Gilbert, in the legend, went to Holy Land,
was cast into a Saracen's prison, and won his daughter's heart. He
escaped, but the lady followed him, like Sophia, and, like Sophia,
found and wedded him; Gilbert's servant, Richard, playing the part
of the proud young porter. Yet, as Professor Child justly observes,
the ballad 'is not derived from the legend,' though the legend as to
Gilbert Becket exists in a manuscript of about 1300. The Bateman
motive is older than Gilbert Becket, and has been attached to later
versions of the adventures of that hero. Gilbert Becket about 1300
was credited with a floating, popular tale of the Bateman sort, and
out of his legend, thus altered, the existing ballads drew their
'Bekie' and 'Beichan,' from the name of Becket.

The process is: First, the popular tale of the return of the old
true love; that tale is found in Greece, Scandinavia, Denmark,
Iceland, Faroe, Spain, Germany, and so forth. Next, about 1300
Gilbert Becket is made the hero of the tale. Next, our surviving