[1] He owed the distinctive irregular accentual four-beat metre to Coleridge's Christabel, which he had heard recited by John Stoddart (it was not to be published until 1816).

[2] Scott tells how he showed the opening stanzas to his friends William Erskine and George Cranstoun, and believing that they had not approved, destroyed the manuscript.

Some time later one of the friends indicated that they had been puzzled rather than disapproving and Scott proceeded, introducing the figure of the minstrel as intermediary between the period of the action and the present.

...For these reasons, the Poem was put into the mouth of an ancient Minstrel, the last of the race, who, as he is supposed to have survived the Revolution, might have caught somewhat of the refinement of modern poetry, without losing the simplicity of his original model.

An aging minstrel seeks hospitality at Newark Castle and in recompense tells his hostess, Duchess of Buccleuch, and her ladies a tale of a sixteenth-century Border feud.

Introduction: At the end of the 17th century a destitute minstrel is offered hospitality by the Duchess of Buccleuch at Newark Tower and sings the following lay: Canto 1: Lady Scott of Branksome, widow of Sir Walter Scott, dispatches the moss-trooper William of Deloraine to fetch a scroll or book from a tomb in Melrose Abbey.

Back at Branksome the Lady's daughter Margaret slips out at dawn to meet her beloved Henry of Cranstoun, with whose clan the Scotts are at feud.

Canto 3: Attacked by the returning Deloraine, Henry wounds him and asks Horner (who has taken possession of the magic book) to escort him to the castle for attention.