In both ballads a boy or "berne" speaks up. In the English he
recommends to the Scots an attack on Newcastle; in the Scots he
announces the approach of an English host. Douglas promises to reward
the boy if his tale be true, to hang him if it be false. THE SCENE IS
OTTERBURN. The boy stabs Douglas, in a stanza which is a common ballad
formula of frequent occurrence -


The boy's taen out his little pen knife,
That hanget low down by his gare,
And he gaed Earl Douglas a deadly wound,
Alack! a deep wound and a sare.


Douglas then says to Sir Hugh Montgomery -


Take THOU the vanguard of the three,
And bury me at yon bracken bush,
That stands upon yon lilly lea. (Herd, 4-8.)


Hume of Godscroft (about 1610), author of the History of the Douglases,
was fond of quoting ballads. He gives a form of the first verse in
Otterburn which is common to Herd and the English copy. He says that,
according to some, Douglas was treacherously slain by one of his own
men whom he had offended. "But this narration is not so probable," and
the fact is fairly meaningless in Herd's fragment (the boy has no
motive for stabbing Douglas, for if his report is true, he will be
rewarded). The deed is probably based on the tradition which Godscroft