HUGH OF LINCOLN. Mainly after Jamieson. Percy gives a version of this
famous ballad under title of _The Jew's Daughter_, and Herd and
Motherwell, as well as Jamieson, have secured copies from recitation.
The general view that this ballad rests upon an historical basis has
but slender authority behind it. Matthew Paris, never too reliable as
a chronicler, says that in 1255 the Jews of Lincoln, after their
yearly custom, stole a little Christian boy, tortured and crucified
him, and flung him into a pit, where his mother found the body. This
is in all probability one of the many cruel slanders circulated
against the Jews during the Middle Ages, to reconcile the Christian
conscience to the Christian maltreatment of that long-suffering
race. Such stories are related of various mediaeval innocents, in
various lands and centuries, and may be classed together, until better
evidence to the contrary presents itself, as malicious falsehood. This
ballad should be compared, of course, with Chaucer's _Prioresses
Tale_. _Keppit_, caught. _Gart_, made. _Twinn'd_, deprived. _Row'd_,
rolled. _Ilka_, each. _Gin_, it.


FAIR ANNIE. Mainly after Jamieson's version entitled _Lady Jane_.
Jamieson gives another copy, where the heroic lady is known as _Burd
Helen_, but Scott, Motherwell, Kinloch, Buchan, and others agree on
the name _Fair Annie_. The pathetic beauty of the ballad has secured
it a wide popularity. There are Danish, Swedish, Dutch, and German
versions. "But Fair Annie's fortunes have not only been charmingly
sung," says Professor Child. "They have also been exquisitely _told_
in a favorite lay of Marie de France, 'Le Lai del Freisne.' This tale
of Breton origin is three hundred years older than any manuscript of
the ballad. Comparison will, however, quickly show that it is not the