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THE LAIDLEY WORM OF SFTNDLESTON-HEUGH. See p. 137.
"A song above 500 years old, made by the old mountain-bard, Duncan Frasier, living on Cheviot, A. D. 1270."
This ballad, first published in Hutchinson's History of Northumberland,y?as the composition of Mr. Robert Lambe, vicar of Norham. Several stanzas are, however, adopted from some ancient tale. It has been often printed, and is now taken from Ritson's Northumberland Garland'.
The similar story of The Worme of Lambton, versified by the Rev. J. Watson (compare Ormekampen and the cognate legends, Grundtvig, i. 343, also voK viii. p. 128, of this collection), may be seen in Richardson's Borderers- Table-Book, viii. 129, or in Moore's Pictorial Book of Ancient Ballad Poetry, page 784: With the tale of the Lambton Worm of Durham agrees in many particulars that of the Worm of Linton in Roxburghshire. (See Scott's introduction to Kempion, and Sir C. Sharpe's Bishopric Garland, p. 21.) It' is highly probable that the mere coincidence of sound with Linden-Worm caused this last place to be selected as the scene of such a story.
The king is gone from Bambrough Castle,
Long may the princess mourn; Long may she stand on the castle wall,
Looking fbr his return. |
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