stay, daughter, your bour within,
While I gae parley wi' my son.'

51.
O she has taen her thro' the ha',
And on her son began to ca':

52.
'What did you wi' the bonny beads,
I bade ye keep against your needs?

53.
'What did you wi' the gay gold ring,
I bade you keep abune a' thing?'

54.
'I gae them to a ladye gay,
I met in grene-wood on a day.

55.
'But I wad gie a' my halls and tours,
I had that ladye within my bours;

56.
'But I wad gie my very life,
I had that ladye to my wife.'

57.
'Now keep, my son, your ha's and tours;
Ye have that bright burd in your bours;

58.
'And keep, my son, your very life;
Ye have that ladye to your wife.'

59.
Now, or a month was come and gane,
The ladye bore a bonny son;

60.
And 'twas weel written on his breast-bane,
'Cospatrick is my father's name.'

61.
'O rowe my ladye in satin and silk,
And wash my son in the morning milk.'

[Annotations:
18.1: A mark was two-thirds of a pound.
31.1: 'stark and sture,' sturdy and strong.
36.1: 'kavils' = kevels, lots.
37.2: 'wierd,' fate.
41.2: 'hende' (? = heynde, person).
42.1: 'high-coll'd ... laigh-coll'd,' high-cut ... low-cut.
46.1: 'carknet,' necklace.
57.2: 'burd,' maiden.
61.1: 'rowe,' roll, wrap.]

YOUNG AKIN

+The Text+ is taken from Buchan's _Ballads of the North of Scotland_,
and, like nearly all Buchan's versions, exhibits traces of vulgar
remoulding. This ballad in particular has lost much of the original
features. Kinloch called his version _Hynde Etin_, Allingham his
compilation _Etin the Forester_.

+The Story+ is given in a far finer style in romantic Scandinavian
ballads. Prior translated two of them, _The Maid and the Dwarf-King_,
and _Agnes and the Merman_, both Danish. The Norse ballads on this
subject, which may still be heard sung, are exceptionally beautiful.
Child says, 'They should make an Englishman's heart wring for his loss.'

In the present version we may with some confidence attribute to Buchan
the stanzas from 48 to the end, as well as 15 and 16. The preference is
given to Buchan's text merely because it retains features lost in
Kinloch's version.

YOUNG AKIN

1.
Lady Margaret sits in her bower door,
Sewing at her silken seam;
She heard a note in Elmond's wood,
And wish'd she there had been.

2.
She loot the seam fa' frae her s