The History And Poetry Of The Scottish Border

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1893 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER III. THE BALLADS AND SONGS OF THE BORDER. The Border land of Scotland--that district of hill and valley through which flow the streams of the Liddel, the Teviot, the Ettrick, the Yarrow, and the Tweed--thus nursed in far back times of Scottish history, down to the Union of the Crowns, a people remarkable for personal courage and warlike spirit, for a proud feeling of independence, a stern strong individualism of character. Withal, they had hearts capable of being finely stirred by song-- warmed to enthusiasm by the simple tale of local prowess; again touched to softness by the love strain, or by the story of widowed grief; again awed by glimpses of that weird and supersensible world which their fancies and their fears created for them, and which they believed lay bordering so near this world of common life and everyday experience, that at any moment it might flash on them in the form of fairy pageant in the green glen, or weird wraith on the moor, or water-spirit mingling its wail with the sough of the flood. This Border land has been for long one of the great founts of Scottish poetry, --and of a form of poetry which possesses features so characteristic that no one who has. an ear for the melody of the human soul can mistake its genuine, its native tones. Those features are simplicity of diction, picturesqueness of narrative, a truthful and simple realism, with deep feeling, and the complete subordination of the poet to his subject or theme. The Ballad and Song of the Border land have taken their rise, character, and colouring almost entirely from local circumstances. Nothing can be less indebted to inspiration outside of the district itself than these ballads. They have been a pure growth of the soil. Border men did the deeds..

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