But all old traditional ballads are masses of "retouches," made
through centuries, by reciters, copyists, editors, and so forth.
Unluckily, Child never gave in detail his reasons for rejecting that
treasure of Sir Walter's, Auld Maitland. Child excluded the poem
sans phrase. If he did this, like Falstaff "on instinct," one can
only say that antiquarian instincts are never infallible. We must
apply our reason to the problem, "What is Auld Maitland?"

Colonel Elliot has taken this course. By far the most blighting of
the many charges made by Colonel Elliot against Sir Walter Scott are
concerned with the ballad of Auld Maitland. {19a} After stating
that, in his opinion, "several stanzas" of the ballad are by Sir
Walter himself, Colonel Elliot sums up his own ideas thus:

"My view is that Hogg, in the first instance, tried to palm off the
ballad on Scott, and failed; and then Scott palmed it off on the
public, and succeeded . . . let us, as gentlemen and honest judges,
admit that the responsibility of the deception rests rather on the
laird (Scott) than on the herd" (Hogg.) {19b}

If Colonel Elliot's "views" were correct (and it is absolutely
erroneous), the guilt of "the laird" would be great. Scott conspires
with a shepherd, a stranger, to palm off a forgery on the public.
Scott issues the forgery, and, what is worse, in a private letter to
a learned friend, he utters what I must borrow words for: he utters
"cold and calculated falsehoods" about the manner in which, and the
person from whom, he obtained what he calls "my first copy" of the
song. If Hogg and Scott forged the poem, then when Scott told his
tale of its acquisition by himself from Laidlaw, Scott lied.