and the rough, often coarse humor of this ballad make it appear at
striking disadvantage among the Scottish folk-songs, essentially
poetic as even the rudest of them are. Tom Thumbe, it must be
confessed, is but a clumsy sort of elf, and the ballad as a whole can
hardly be said to have a fairy atmosphere. Yet it is of value as
adding to the data for a comparison between the English and the
Scottish peasantry, as throwing light on the fun-loving spirit, the
sports and practical joking of Merrie England, as showing the tenacity
of the Arthurian tradition, together with the confusion of chivalric
memories, as displaying the ignorant credulity of the popular mind
toward science no less than toward history, and as illustrating, by
giving us in all this bald, sing-song run of verses, here and there a
sweet or dainty fancy and at least one stanza of exquisite tenderness
and grace, the significant fact that in the genuine old English
ballads beauty is not the rule, but the surprise. _Counters_,
coin-shaped pieces of metal, ivory, or wood, used in reckoning.
_Points_, here probably the bits of tin plate used to tag the strands
of cotton yarn with which, in lieu of buttons, the common folk
fastened their garments. The points worn by the nobles were laces or
silken strands ornamented with aiglets of gold or silver.


KEMPION. After Allingham's version collated from copies given by
Scott, Buchan, and Motherwell, with a touch or two from the kindred
ballad _The Laidley Worm of Spindleston Heugh._ Buchan and Motherwell
make the name of the hero Kemp Owyne. Similar ballads are known in
Iceland and Denmark, and the main features of the story appear in both
the classic and romantic literatures. _Weird_, destiny. _Dree_,
suffer. _Borrowed_, ransomed. _Arblast bow_, cross-bow. _Stythe_,
place. _Louted_, bowed.