Child's, The English And Scottish Ballads

Volume 3 of 8 from 1860 edition -online book

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284                THE GAT (JOSS-HAWK.
" Ah! woe to you, you light woman!
An ill death may ye die ! For we left father and sisters at hame             155
> Breaking their hearts for thee."
v. 26. This simile resembles a passage in a MS. translation of an Irish Fairy tale, called The Adventures of Faravla, Princess of Scotland, and Oarral O'Daly, Son of Donogho More O'Daly, Chief Bard of Ireland. " Faravla, as she entered her bower, oast her looks upon the earth, which was tinged with the blood of a bird which a raven had newly killed: 'Like that snow,' said Faravla,' was the complexion of my beloved, his cheeks like the sanguine traces thereon; whilst the raven recalls to my memory the colour of his beautiful locks.'" There is also some resemblance in the conduct of the story, betwixt the ballad and the tale just quoted. The Princess Faravla, being desperately in love with Carral O'Daly, de­spatches in search of him a faithful confidante, who, by her magical art, transforms herself into a hawk, and, perching upon the windows of the bard, conveys to him information of the distress of the Princess of Scotland. Scott.