ALISON GROSS. After Jamieson's version taken from the recitation of
Mrs. Brown. Child claims that this tale is a variety of _Beauty and
the Beast. Lemman_, lover. _Gar_, make. _Toddle_, twine. _Seely
Court_, Happy Court or Fairy Court. See English Dictionary for changes
of meaning in _silly_.


THE WIFE OF USHER'S WELL. After Scott, with a stanza or two from
Chambers, both versions being recovered by recitation. Although this
is scarcely more than a fragment, it is well-nigh unsurpassed for
genuine ballad beauty, the mere touches of narrative suggesting far
deeper things than they actually relate. _Martinmas_, the eleventh of
November. _Carline wife_, old peasant-woman. _Fashes_, troubles.
_Birk_, birch. _Syke_, marsh. _Sheugh_, trench. _Channerin'_,
fretting. _Gin_, if. _Byre_, cow-house.


A LYKE-WAKE DIRGE. After Scott. This dirge belongs to the north of
England and is said to have been chanted, in Yorkshire, over the dead,
down to about 1624. _Lyke-Wake_, dead-watch. _Sleete_, salt, it being
the old peasant custom to place a quantity of this on the breast of
the dead. _Whinny-muir_, Furze-moor. A manuscript found by Ritson in
the Cotton Library states: "When any dieth, certaine women sing a song
to the dead bodie, recyting the journey that the partye deceased must
goe; and they are of beliefe (such is their fondnesse) that once in
their lives, it is good to give a pair of new shoes to a poor man, for
as much as, after this life, they are to pass barefoote through a
great launde, full of thornes and furzen, except by the meryte of the