Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE DEATH OF FEATHERSTONHAUGH: This old Northumbrian ballad was originally printed in the notes to Marmion, but is here inserted in its proper place. It was taken down from the recitation of a woman eighty years of age, mother of one of the miners in Alston-Moor, by the agent of the lead-mines there, who communicated to my friend and correspondent, R. Surtees, Esq. of Mainsforth. She had not, she said, heard it for many years; but, when she was a girl, it used to be sung at merrymakings, ' till the roof rung again.' To preserve this curious, though rude rhyme, it is here inserted. The ludicrous turn given to the slaughter, marks that wild and disorderly state of society, in which a murder was not merely a casual circumstance, but, in some cases, an exceedingly good jest. The structure of the ballad resembles the ' Fray of Suport, ' having the same irregular stanza and wild chorus. 1810.1 1 A forgery of Surtees, ' proved by more than one copy, among l1is papers, of this ballad, corrected and interlined in order to mould it to the language, the manners, and the feelings of the period and of the district to which it refers' (taylor's Life of Surtees, prefixed to the fourth volume of his History of Durham, p. 10).] a One of the house of Thirlwall, mentioned in this ballad, and in the notes to it, figures in Sir Walter Scott's last novel, Castle Dcmgermu.?J. G. L.] THE DEATH OF FEATHERSTONHAUGH Hoot awa', lads, hoot awa', Ha' ye heard how the Ridleys, and Thirlwalls, and a', Ha' set upon Albanyl Featherstonhaugh, And taken his life at the Deadmanshaugh ? There was Willimoteswick, And Hard riding Dick, And Hughie of Hawdon, and Will of the Wa'. I canno tell a', I canno tell a', And mony a mair that the deil may knaw. The auld man went down, but Ni..