Scott took this ballad from Mrs. Brown’s celebrated Manuscript. The kind
of spell indicated was practised by Hera upon Alcmena, before the birth
of Heracles. Analogous is the spell by binding witch-knots, practised by
Simaetha on her lover, in the second Idyll of Theocritus. Montaigne has
some curious remarks on these enchantments, explaining their power by
what is now called “suggestion.” There is a Danish parallel to “Willie’s
Ladye,” translated by Jamieson.