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THE DOWIE DENS OF YARROW. 65
banks of the Yarrow, lying to the west of Yarrow Kirk. Two tall unhewn masses of stone are erected, about eighty yards distant from each other; and the least child, that can herd a cow, will tell the passenger, that there lie ' the two lords, who were slain in single combat.'
" It will be, with many readers, the greatest recommendation of these verses, that they are supposed to have suggested to Mr. Hamilton of Bangour, the modern ballad, beginning,
' Busk ye, busk ye, my bonny bonny bride.'
" A fragment, apparently regarding the story of the following ballad, but in a different measure, occurs in Mr. Herd's MS., and runs thus:—
' When I look east, my heart ia sair, But when I look west, it's mair and mair; For then I see the braes o' Yarrow, And there, for aye, I lost my marrow.' "
We have added an uracollated copy from Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland. Another is furnished by Motherwell, Minstrelsy, p. 252. Some of Scott's verses are also found in Herd's fragment, (Scottish Songs, i. 202,) and Buchan's Havghs o' Yarrow, ii. 211. The Dowy Den, in Evans's collection, iii. 342, is the caput mortuum of this spirited ballad.
Late at e'en, drinking the wine, And ere they paid the lawing,
They set a combat them between, To fight it in the dawing. VOL. III. 5 |
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