be taken that the greater
the variations in tune and in words the greater the age. The late Dean
Christie, of Fochabers, an enthusiastic hunter after 'Traditional Ballad
Airs,' of which he found great treasure-trove in out-of-the-way nooks of
Buchan, Enzie, and other districts of the north-eastern counties, tells
us, from his experience, that 'the differences in the versions of the
Romantic Ballads, as sung in the different counties, may be taken as a
proof of their antiquity.' He had 'seldom heard two ballad-singers sing
a ballad in the same way, either in words or music'; and he holds it
'almost impossible to find the true set of any traditional air, unless
the set can be traced genuinely to its composer,' a task, it need hardly
be said, still more difficult than that of tracing the ballad words to
the original balladist. It is also the opinion of this authority, that
it is well-nigh impossible 'to arrange the traditional melodies without
hearing them sung to the words of the ballad, the words and the air
being so interwoven.' May it not be said, with equal truth, that those
who know only the words of _Binnorie_, or _Chil' Ether_, or _The Twa
Corbies_, and have never heard the strains, sweet and sad and weird,
like the wind crooning at night round a ruined tower, to which it has
been sung for untold generations, have not yet penetrated to the inmost
soul of the ballad, or got a grasp of its formative principle?

The refrain is a venerable and characteristic feature of the ballad and
ballad melody. In its refrains, as in everything else, Scottish ballad
poetry has been peculiarly happy. Some will have it that they are of
much older date than the ballads themselves. It has been suggested that
many of them--and these the refrains that have lost, if they ever
possessed, any definite or intelligible meaning to the ear--may be
relics not merely of ancient song, but of ancient rites and
incantations, and of a forgotten speech. Attempts have been made to
interpret, for instance, the familiar 'Down, down, derry down,' as a
Celtic invocation to assemble at the hill of sacrifice--a survival of
pagan times when the altars smoked with human victims. It need only be
said that these ingenious theorists have not yet proved their case; and
that the origin of the refrain is a subject involved in still greater
obscurity than that of the ballad itself.

Like the ballad verses and the ballad airs, also, these 'owerwords' are
exceedingly