A
similar legend occurs in Chinese. See Gerland's Alt-Giechische
Marchen.
THE QUEEN'S MARIE--MARY HAMILTON
A made-up copy from Scott's edition of 1833. This ballad has
caused a great deal of controversy. Queen Mary had no Mary
Hamilton among her Four Maries. No Marie was executed for child-
murder. But we know, from Knox, that ballads were recited against
the Maries, and that one of the Mary's chamberwomen was hanged,
with her lover, a pottinger, or apothecary, for getting rid of her
infant. These last facts were certainly quite basis enough for a
ballad, the ballad echoing, not history, but rumour, and rumour
adapted to the popular taste. Thus the ballad might have passed
unchallenged, as a survival, more or less modified in time, of
Queen Mary's period. But in 1719 a Mary Hamilton, a Maid of
Honour, of Scottish descent, was executed in Russia, for
infanticide. Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe conceived that this affair
was the origin of the ballad, and is followed by Mr. Child.
We reply (1) The ballad has almost the largest number of variants
on record. This is a proof of antiquity. Variants so many,
differing in all sorts of points, could not have arisen between
1719, and the age of Burns, who quotes the poem.
(2) This is especially improbable, because, in 1719, the old vein
of ballad poetry had run dry, popular song had chosen other forms,
and no literary imitator could have written Mary Hamilton in 1719.
(3) There is no example of a popular ballad in which a
contemporary event, interesting just because it is contemporary, is
thrown back into a remote age.
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