relation which it may not be much easier to parallel than to justify in certain of its ramifications. Harry's borrowings and adaptations from Barbour were many and of many kinds. On the count of diction the indebtednesses are infinite; lines by the score were 'lifted' and with an extra dissyllable thrown in to fill up the metre were transferred from the earlier poem, most notably perhaps in descriptions of battle. But this is a venial and comparatively mechanical debt which, extensive though it was, would hardly put a poet's credit through the bankruptcy court. Things otherwise in themselves void of offence stand on the perilous verge the moment the poem claims to be a record of truth. They prepare the way for adaptations emphatically unscrupulous. Some artfully dovetail into the true story of Bruce, as told by Barbour, incidents feigned or imagined regarding the career of Wallace. This is a delicate process for a poet to adopt if at the end of the day he is going to ask his readers ' Which, think you, is the greater hero of these twain? '
Comparatively innocent examples of the operation are found, as when Harry directly or indirectly refers to Barbour's account of an episode concerning a French knight at the attack on Perth in 1313:
That tym was in his company
A knycht of France wicht and hardy.
This unnamed knight of France serving in the army of Bruce is boldly taken over by Harry, who finds him a name. He becomes the knight Longaville, previously the Red Reivar, and afterwards ancestor of the Charteris family:
With Bruce in wer this gud knycht furth can ryng.
Remembrance syn was in the Brucys buk;
Secound he was quhen thai Saynct Jhonstoun tuk;
Folowed the king at wynnyng off the toun.
