" The
example published by Mr. Motherwell gives us the very form _of Aucassin
and Nicolete_, surviving in Scotch folk lore:-
"Well ye must know that in the Moor's Castle, there was a mafsymore,
which is a dark deep dungeon for keeping prisoners. It was twenty feet
below the ground, and into this hole they closed poor Beichan. There he
stood, night and day, up to his waist in puddle-water; but night or day
it was all one to him, for no ae styme of light ever got in. So he lay
there a lang and weary while, and thinking on his heavy weird, he made a
murnfu' sang to pass the time--and this was the sang that he made, and
grat when he sang it, for he never thought of escaping from the
mafsymore, or of seeing his ain countrie again:
"My hounds they all run masterless,
My hawks they flee from tree to tree;
My youngest brother will heir my lands,
And fair England again I'll never see.
"O were I free as I hae been,
And my ship swimming once more on sea,
I'd turn my face to fair England,
And sail no more to a strange countrie."
"Now the cruel Moor had a beautiful daughter called Susy Pye, who was
accustomed to take a walk every morning in her garden, and as she was
walking ae day she heard the sough o' Beichan's sang, coming as it were
from below the ground.
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