ir Patrick Spens
Come sailing to the strand!

And lang, lang, may the maidens sit,
Wi' their goud kaims in their hair,
A' waiting for their ain dear loves!
For them they'll see na mair.

O forty miles off Aberdeen,
'Tis fifty fathom deep,
And there lies gude Sir Patrick Spens,
Wi' the Scots lords at his feet.

[Footnote 77: In singing, the interjection, O, is added to the second
and fourth lines.]

[Footnote 78: _Skeely skipper_--Skilful mariner.]

[Footnote 79: _Gane_--Suffice.]

[Footnote 80: _Half-fou_--the eighth part of a peck.]

[Footnote 81: _Lap_--Sprang.]

[Footnote 82: _Flattered_--Fluttered, or rather floated, on the foam.]

NOTES ON SIR PATRICK SPENS.

* * * * *

_To send us out at this time of the year_,
_To sail upon the sea_?--P. 8, v. 3.

By a Scottish act of parliament, it was enacted, that no ship should
be fraughted out of the kingdom, with any staple goods, betwixt
the feast of St. Simon's day and Jude and Candelmas.--_James III.
Parliament 2d, chap._ 15. Such was the terror entertained for
navigating the north seas in winter.

_When a bout flew out of our goodly ship_.--P. 10. v. 5.

I believe a modern seaman would say, a plank had started, which must
have been a frequent incident during the infancy of ship-building. The
remedy applied seems to be that mentioned in _Cook's Voyages_, when,
upon some occasion, to stop a leak, which could not be got at in the
inside, a quilted sail was brought under the vessel, which, being
drawn into the leak by the suction, prevented the entry of more water.
Chaucer says,

"There n'is no new guise that it na'as old."

_O forty miles off Aberdeen_,--P. 11. v. 3.

This concluding verse differs in the three copies of the ballad, which
I have collated. The printed edition bears,

"Have owre, have owre to Aberdour;"

And one of the MSS. reads,

"At the back of auld St. Johnstowne Dykes."

But, in a voyage from Norway, a shipwreck on the north coast seems
as probable as either in the Firth of Forth, or Tay; and the ballad
states the disaster to have taken place out of sight of land.

AULD MAITLAND.

NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED.

* * * * *

This ballad, notwithstanding its present appearance, has a claim
to very high antiquity. It has been preserved by tradition; and is,
perhaps, the most authentic instance of a long and very old poem,