The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #99631   Message #1989063
Posted By: Malcolm Douglas
06-Mar-07 - 11:30 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Add: Young Edward - I can't understand
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Young Edward - I can't understand
Becky makes a good point. Where did you get this text? It looks, on the face of it, as if someone has merely stretched Dalrymple's text, as quoted in Percy's Reliques (1765) by dint of endless, redundant repetition of the lines, and the introduction of some extra, unnecessary words; and that it ought, properly, to be a lot shorter.

Although there are some archaic words there (some of which persist in some dialects of Scots), most of the apparent difficulties are merely orthographic. 'Your steed was auld, and ye hae gat mair', for instance, means exactly what it says; in Standard English it would read 'Your steed was old, and you have got more'. The difference in spelling reflects a difference in pronounciation, that's all.