They sing, inspired with love and joy,
    Like sky-larks in the air;
  Of solid sense, or thought that’s grave,
    You’ll find no traces there.

  Fair Janet stood, with mind unmoved,
    The dreary heath upon;
  And louder, louder, wax’d the sound,
    As they came riding on.

  Will o’ Wisp before them went,
    Sent forth a twinkling light;
  And soon she saw the Fairy bands
    All riding in her sight.

  And first gaed by the black black steed,
    And then gaed by the brown;
  But fast she gript the milk-white steed,
    And pu’d the rider down.

  She pu’d him frae the milk-white steed,
    And loot the bridle fa’;
  And up there raise an erlish[E] cry—­
    “He’s won amang us a’!”

  They shaped him in fair Janet’s arms,
    An esk[F], but and an adder;
  She held him fast in every shape—­
    To be her bairn’s father.

  They shaped him in her arms at last,
    A mother-naked man;
  She wrapt him in her green mantle,
    And sae her true love wan.

  Up then spake the Queen o’ Fairies,
    Out o’ a bush o’ broom—­
  “She that has borrowed young Tamlane,
    Has gotten a stately groom.”

  Up then spake the Queen of Fairies,
    Out o’ a bush of rye—­
  “She’s ta’en awa the bonniest knight
    In a’ my cumpanie.

  “But had I kenn’d, Tamlane,” she says,
    “A lady wad borrowed thee—­
  “I wad ta’en out thy twa gray een,
    “Put in twa een o’ tree.

  “Had I but kenn’d, Tamlane,” she says,
    “Before ye came frae hame—­
  “I wad tane out your heart o’ flesh,
    “Put in a heart o’ stane.

  “Had I but had the wit yestreen,
    “That I hae coft[G] the day—­
  “I’d paid my kane seven times to hell,
    “Ere you’d been won away!”

[Footnote A:  The ladies are always represented, in Dunbar’s Poems, with green mantles and yellow hair. Maitland Poems, Vol.  I. p. 45.]

[Footnote B:  Sained—­Hallowed.]

[Footnote C:  Bale—­A faggot.]

[Footnote D:  Eiry—­Producing superstitious dread.]

[Footnote E:  Erlish—­Elritch, ghastly.]

[Footnote F:  Esk—­Newt.]

[Footnote G:  Coft—­Bought.]

NOTES ON THE YOUNG TAMLANE.

  Randolph, Earl Murray, was my sire,
  Dunbar, Earl March, is thine, &c.—­P. 185, v. 5.

Both these mighty chiefs were connected with Ettrick Forest, and its vicinity.  Their memory, therefore, lived in the traditions of the country.  Randolph, earl of Murray, the renowned nephew of Robert Bruce, had a castle at Ha’ Guards, in Annandale, and another in Peebles-shire, on the borders of the forest, the site of which is still called Randall’s Walls.  Patrick of Dunbar, earl of March, is said by Henry the Minstrel, to have retreated to Ettrick Forest, after being defeated by Wallace.