Annan is the large stream that flows into the Solway
Frith. The Gate-slack, in Annandale, fixes the locality.
THE ELPHIN NOURRICE
This curious poem is taken from the reprint of Charles Kirkpatrick
Sharpe's tiny Ballad Book, itself now almost introuvable. It does
not, to the Editor's knowledge, occur elsewhere, but is probably
authentic. The view of the Faery Queen is more pleasing and
sympathetic than usual. Why mortal women were desired as nurses
(except to attend on stolen mortal children, kept to "pay the Kane
to hell") is not obvious. Irish beliefs are precisely similar; in
England they are of frequent occurrence.
JOHNNIE ARMSTRANG
Armstrang of Gilnockie was a brother of the laird of Mangertoun.
He had a kind of Robin Hood reputation on the Scottish Border, as
one who only robbed the English. Pitscottie's account of his
slaying by James V. (1529) reads as if the ballad were his
authority, and an air for the subject is mentioned in the Complaint
of Scotland. In Sir Herbert Maxwell's History of Dumfries and
Galloway is an excellent account of the historical facts of the
case.
EDOM O' GORDON
Founded on an event in the wars between Kingsmen and Queensmen, in
the minority of James VI., while Queen Mary was imprisoned in
England. "Edom" was Adam Gordon of Auchindown, brother of Huntley,
and a Queen's man. He, by his retainer, Car, or Ker, burned Towie
House, a seat of the Forbes's. Ker recurs in the long and more or
less literary ballad of The Battle of Balrinnes.
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