Balefire, bonfire.


WILLIE AND MAY MARGARET. After Allingham's copy framed by collating
Jamieson's fragmentary version with Buchan's ballad of _The Drowned
Lovers_. Stour, wild. Pot, a pool in a river. Dowie den, doleful
hollow. Tirled, rattled. Sleeked, fastened. Brae, hillside. Sowm,
swim. Minnie, affectionate term for mother.

YOUNG BEICHAN. Mainly after Jamieson, his version being based upon a
copy taken down from the recitation of the indefatigable Mrs. Brown
and collated with a manuscript and stall copy, both from Scotland, a
recited copy from the North of England, and a short version "picked
off an old wall in Piccadilly." Of this ballad of _Young Beichan_
there are numerous renderings, the name of the hero undergoing many
variations,--Bicham, Brechin, Beachen, Bekie, Bateman, Bondwell--and
the heroine, although Susie Pye or Susan Pye in ten of the fourteen
versions, figuring also as Isbel, Essels, and Sophia. It was probably
an English ballad at the start, but bears the traces of the Scottish
minstrels who were doubtless prompt to borrow it. There is likelihood
enough that the ballad was originally suggested by the legend of
Gilbert Becket, father of the great archbishop; the story running that
Becket, while a captive in Holy Land, plighted his troth to the
daughter of a Saracenic prince. When the crusader had made good his
escape, the lady followed him, inquiring her way to "England" and to
"London," where she wandered up and down the streets, constantly
repeating her lover's name, "Gilbert," the third and last word of
English that she knew, until finally she found him, and all her woes
were put to flight by the peal of wedding bells. _Termagant_, the name
given in the old romances to the God of the Saracens. _Pine_, pain.