36 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



Scottish ballads embodying this theme are probably so derived,^ 

 but Child thinks this is a somewhat hasty assumption, and that the 

 question as to the priority of romances or ballads is an open one.^ 

 We can be reasonably certain, that these romances, in their turn, 

 were founded on earlier oral traditions. 



The idea underlying all these examples. seems to be that the trees 

 or plants are, as Hartland thinks, "merely the lovers transformed."^ 

 It may also be due to "the old superstition of the soul embodying 

 itself in a tree above the grave,"* just as, in a Ukrainian song, the rose 

 above a young man's grave is regarded as his soul.^ Classical mythol- 

 ogy is full of such transformations of human beings into plants; take, 

 for instance, the story of Narcissus. 



As to the ballad of "Lord Lovel" itself, independent of the theme, 

 we do not know when it originated, or whether the original one was 

 founded on any actual event or not. The earliest copy, "Lady 

 Ouncebell," known to exist, was "communicated by singing" in the 

 year 1770, and it may easily be several centuries older. Our version 

 may be derived more directly from an early broadside, now lost. 

 It is of interest to note in this connection that most of the "Lord 

 Lovel" ballads collected in the United States are of the same type 

 as Child's H and our version. Probably they were transmitted to 

 America through the medium of broadsides rather than through 

 oral transmission. 



1 Minstrelsy, Vol. II, p. 128. 



2 Part I, p. 98. 



' Hartland, op. cit., p. 198. 

 * Henderson, op. cit., p. 35. 

 ^ Puymaigre, op. cit., p. 189, citing Chodzko, p. 30. 



