with critical observations and biographical notices, by Robert Burns

14
JOHNY FAA, OR THE GYPSIE LADDIE.
The people in Ayrshire begin this song—
The gypsies cam to my Lord Cassilis* yett.
They have a great many more stanzas in this
song than I ever yet saw in any printed copyJ^—
* The Editor gives this verse as a specimen :
My ladie's skin, like the driven snaw,
Looked through her satin cleedin',
Her white hause, as the wine ran down,
It like a rose did redden.
As it had been observed, that neighbouring tradition strongly
vouched for the truth of the story upon which this ballad is
founded, Mr. Finlay, with a laudable curiosity, resolve4 to make
the necessary inquiries, the result of which, without much varia-
tion, he pubUshed in his " Scottish Ballads," and is as follows
" That the Earl of Cassilis had married a nobleman's daughter
contrary to her wishes, she having been previously engaged to
another; but that the persuasion and importunity of her friends
at last brought her to consent : That Sir John Faw, of Dunbar,
her former lover, seizing the opportunity of the Earl's absence
on a foreign embassy, disguised himself and a number of his re-
tainers as gypsies, and carried off the lady, 'nothing loth:'
That the Earl having returned opportunely at the time of the
commission of the act, and nowise inclined to participate in his
consort's