+The Text+ is taken from the Percy Folio, but I have modernised the
spelling. For the _Reliques_ Percy made a ballad out of the Folio
version combined with 'a modern ballad on a similar subject,'
a broadside entitled _The Drunkard's Legacy_, thus producing a very good
result which is about thrice the length of the Folio version.
The Scottish variant was noted by Motherwell and Buchan, but previous
editors--Herd, Ritson, Chambers, Aytoun--had used Percy's composition.
+The Story.+--There are several Oriental stories which resemble the
ballad as compounded by Percy from _The Drunkard's Legacy_. In most of
these--Tartar, Turkish, Arabic, Persian, etc.--the climax of the story
lies in the fact that the hero in attempting to hang himself by a rope
fastened to the ceiling pulls down a hidden treasure. There is, of
course, no such episode in _The Heir of Linne_, but all the stories have
similar circumstances, and the majority present the moral aspect of
unthriftiness, and of friends deserting a man who loses his wealth.
'Linne,' of course, is the place which is so often mentioned in ballads.
See note, First Series, p. 1.