from few of the baron's contemporaries, but the wife was young and
beautiful, the husband old and in his dotage; her family (the
Frazers, it is believed) were powerful and warlike, and the baron
had had fighting enough in the holy wars. The event was, that he
believed, or seemed to believe, the tale, and remained contented
with the child with whom his wife and the Tweed had generously
presented him. The only circumstance which preserved the memory of
the incident was, that the youth retained the name of Tweed, or
Tweedie. The baron, meanwhile, could not, as the old Scotch song
says, "Keep the cradle rowing," and the Tweed apparently thought
one natural son was family enough for a decent Presbyterian lover;
and so little gall had the baron in his composition, that having
bred up the young Tweed as his heir while he lived, he left him in
that capacity when he died, and the son of the river-god founded
the family of Drummelzier and others, from whom have flowed, in
the phrase of the Ettrick Shepherd, "many a brave fellow, and many
a bauld feat."

The tale of the Noble Moringer is somewhat of the same nature--it
exists in a collection of German popular songs, entitled, Sammlung
Deutschen Volkslieder, Berlin, 1807; published by Messrs. Busching
and Von der Hagen. The song is supposed to be extracted from a
manuscript chronicle of Nicholas Thomann, chaplain to St. Leonard
in Wissenhorn, and dated 1533. The ballad, which is popular in
Germany, is supposed from the language, to have been composed in
the fifteenth century. The Noble Moringer, a powerful baron of
Germany, about to set out on a pilgrimage to the land of St.
Thomas, with the geography of which we are not made acquainted,
resolves to commit his castle, dominions, and lady, to the vassal
who should pledge him to keep watch over them till the seven years