direct from Froissart, or, if he took it from George Buchanan's Latin
History, Buchanan's source was Froissart, but Froissart's was evidence
from Scots who were in the battle.

But who changed the prophecy to a dream of Douglas, and who versified
Godscroft's "a dead man shall winne a field, and I hope in God it shall
be I"? Did Godscroft take that from the ballad current in his time and
quoted by him? Or did a remanieur of Godscroft turn HIS words into


I saw a dead man win the fight,
And I think that man was I?


Scott did not make these two noble lines out of Godscroft, he found
them in Hogg's copy from recitation, only altering "I saw" into "I
dreamed," and the ungrammatic "won" into "win"; and "THE fight" into "A
fight."

The whole dream stanza occurs in a part of the ballad where Hogg
confesses to no alteration or interpolation, and I doubt if the
Shepherd of Ettrick had read a rare old book like Godscroft. If he had
not, this stanza is purely traditional; if he had, he showed great
genius in his use of Godscroft.

In Hogg's Ettrick copy, Douglas, after telling his dream, rushes into
battle, is wounded by Percy, and "backward flees." Scott (xx.),
following a historical version (Wyntoun's Cronykil), makes