Of the blending of the humorous with the romantic, an excellent example is found in the ballad of _Earl Richard and the Carl's Daughter_. The Princess, disguised in beggar's duds, keeps on the hook the deluded and disgusted knight, who has unwillingly taken her up behind him, and with wilful and lively wit draws for him pictures of the squalid home and fare with which she is familiar, until it is her good time and pleasure to undeceive him:
'She said, "Good-e'en, ye nettles tall, Where ye grow at the dyke; If the auld carline my mother was here Sae weel 's she wad ye pike.
How she wad stap ye in her poke, I wot she wadna fail; And boil ye in her auld brass pan, And o' ye mak' good kail."
"Awa', awa', ye ill woman, Your vile speech grieveth me; When ye hide sae little for yoursel' Ye 'll hide far less for me."
"Gude-e'en, gude-e'en, ye heather berries, As ye grow on yon hill; If the auld carline and her bags were here, I wot she would get her fill.
Late, late at night I knit our pokes, Wi' four-and-twenty knots; And in the morn, at breakfast-time I 'll carry the keys o' your locks."
"But if you are a carl's daughter, As I take you to be, Where did you get the gay clothing In greenwood was on thee?"
"My mother she 's a poor woman, But she nursed earl's children three, And I got it from a foster-sister, To beguile such sparks as thee."'
Of the ballads descriptive of old country sports and merry-making that have come down to us, the most famous are _Christ's Kirk on the Green_ and _Peblis to the Play_. They lead us back to times when life in Scotland was not such a 'serious' thing as it afterwards became--when, under the patronage of the Court or of the Church, Miracle-plays or Moralities were played on the open sward in such places of resort for gentle and simple as Falkland and Stirling and Peebles and Cupar; and the strain of the more solemn mumming was relieved for the benefit of the common folks, by rough jests, horse-play, and dancing, in which their betters freely joined. No doubt it was a piece of sage church and state policy to keep the minds of the people off the dangerous questions that began to be stirring in them, by aid of these scenes of 'dancing and derray,' and of almost Rabelaisian fits of mirth and laughter, the savour of which remained long after they had been placed under the ban of a sterner ecclesiastical rule.