probable traces, as Jamieson suggests, of the Rhymer's own authorship,
tells this famous adventure in language whose antiquated form cannot
disguise its sweetness. The melancholy likelihood seems to be that
True Thomas was a fibbing Thomas, after all, and invented this story
of his sojourn in Elfland to gain credit for his poetical prophecies,
which claim to have first proceeded from the mouth of the Fairy Queen,
when

"Scho broghte hym agayne to Eldone tree,
Vndir nethe that grenewode spraye;
In Huntlee bannkes es mery to bee,
Whare fowles synges bothe nyght and daye."

_Ferlie_, wonder. _Ilka tett_, each lock (of hair). _Louted_, bowed.
_Harp and carp_, play and talk. _Leven_, lawn. _Stern-light_,
star-light. _Dought_, could.


THE ELFIN KNIGHT. After Aytoun's version framed by collation from
copies given by Motherwell, Kinloch, and Buchan. These were in the
main recovered by recitation, although there is a broadside copy of
the ballad in the Pepysian collection at Cambridge. Fragments of the
story have been handed down in tavern-songs and nursery-rhymes, and it
is to be found, more or less disguised, in the literatures of many
countries, European and Asiatic. It is only in our own versions,
however, that the outwitted knight is a supernatural being, usually an
elf, though sometimes degenerating into "the Deil." Nowhere out of
canny Scotland does his ungallantry debar him from the human ranks.
_Sark_, shirt. _Gin_, if. _Tyne_, prong. _Shear_, reap. _Bigg_,
build. _Loof_, hollow of the hand. _But_ (candle, etc.), without