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THE YOUNG TAMLANE. |
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The Tayl of the Yong Tamlene is mentioned in the Complaynt of Scotland, (1548,) and the dance of Thorn of Lyn is noticed in the same work. A considerable fragment of this ballad was printed by Herd, (vol. i. 215,) under the title of Kertoriha', a corruption of Carterhaugh ; another is furnished in Maidment's New Booh of Old Ballads, (p. 54,) and a nearly complete version in Johnson's Museum, (p. 423,) which, with some alterations, was inserted in the Tales of Wonder, (No. 58.) The present edition, prepared by Sir Walter Scott from a collation of various copies, is longer than any other, but was originally disfigured by several supposititious stanzas here omitted. Another version, with Maidment's fragment, will be found in the Appendix to this volume.
" Carterhaugh is a plain, at the conflux of the Ettrick and Yarrow in Selkirkshire, about a mile above Selkirk, and two miles below Newark Castle; a romantic ruin which overhangs the Yarrow, and which is said to have been the habitation of our heroine's father, though others place his residence in the tower of Oak-wood. The peasants point out, upon the plain, those electrical rings, which vulgar credulity supposes to be traces of the Fairy revels. Here, they say, were placed |
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