124 THE BALLADS

4 And then bespake the strings all three,
O yonder is my sister that drowned mee.'

(10 A, 16.)

Like some of the talking birds, this implies a belief in
reincarnation; or, as Wimberly calls it, the "object-soul".
The clearest example of reincarnation, however, is that of
lovers' souls going into plants which grow from their graves,
as in Earl Brand:

Lord William was buried in St. Mary's kirk,

Lady Margaret in Mary's quire,
Out o the lady's grave grew a bonny red rose,

And out of the knight's a briar.

This motif is repeated in half a dozen other ballads, as a fitting
end to a tragic love story. It is still a favourite with modern
American ballad singers:

* Sweet William was buried in the old church tomb
Barbara Ellen was buried in the yard.
Out of sweet William's grave grew a green, red rose
Out of Barbara Ellen's a briar.

'They grew and they grew to the tall church door;
They could not grow any higher.
They linked and tied in a true lover's knot
And the rose grew round the briar.'8

A number of ballad motifs centre upon the magical virtues
of blood, perhaps because it, too, was once regarded as a
vehicle of the soul. Johnie Cock and his dogs drink the blood
of the deer, and that is probably a relic of contagious magic:
they do so that the swiftness of the deer may be transferred
to them. In "The Braes of Yarrow" (214), the blood of the
slain man is drunk, apparently for the same reason: