+The Text.+--Of seven or eight variants of this ballad, only three
preserve the full form of the story. On the whole, the one here
given--from Sharp's _Ballad Book_, as sung by an old woman in
Perthshire--is the best, as the other two--from Herd's _Scots Songs_,
and the Kinloch MSS.--are slightly contaminated by extraneous matter.
+The Story+ is a simple ballad-tale of 'true-love twinned'; but the
episode of the dancing forms a link with a number of German and
Scandinavian ballads, in which compulsory dancing and horse-riding is
made a test of the guilt of an accused maiden. In the Scotch ballad the
horse-riding has shrunk almost to nothing, and the dancing is not
compulsory. The resemblance is faint, and the barbarities of the
Continental versions are happily wanting in our ballad.