K
Laing’s Thistle of Scotland, p. 93; compounded, with some alterations, from two copies, one from Miss Harper, Kildrummy, the other from the Rev. R. Scott, Glenbucket.
1
Rob Roy frae the Highlands came
Doun to our Lowland border;
It was to steal a lady away,
To haud his house in order.
2
With four-and-twenty Highland men,
His arms for to carry,
He came to steal Blackhill’s daughter,
That lady for to marry.
3
Nae are kend o his comming,
Nae tiddings came before him,
Else the lady woud hae been away,
For still she did abhore him.
4
They guarded doors and windows round,
Nane coud their plot discover;
Rob Roy enterd then alane,
Expressing how he lovd her.
5
‘Come go with me, my dear,’ he said,
‘Come go with me, my honey,
And ye shall be my wedded wife,
For I love you best of any.’
6
‘I will not go with you,’ she said,
‘I’ll never be your honey;
I will not be your wedded wife,
Your love is for my money.’
7
They woud noc stay till she was drest
As ladies when thei’r brides, O,
But hurried her awa in haste,
And rowd her in their plaids, O.
8
He drew her out among his crew,
She holding by her mother;
With mournful cries and watry eyes
They parted from each other.
9
He placed her upon a steed,
Then jumped on behind her,
And they are to the Highlands gone,
Her friends they cannot find her.
10
With many a heavy sob and wail,
They saw, as they stood by her,
She was so guarded round about
Her friends could not come nigh her.
11
Her mournful cries were often heard,
But no aid came unto her;
They guarded her on every side
That they could not rescue her.
12
Over rugged hills and dales
They rode; the lady fainted;
Cried, Woe be to my cursed gold
That has such roads invented!
13
As they came in by Drimmen town
And in by Edingarry,
He bought to her both cloak and gown,
Still thinking she would marry.
14
As they went down yon bonny burn-side,
They at Buchanan tarried;
He clothed her there as a bride,
Yet she would not be married.
15
Without consent they joind their hands,
Which law ought not to carry;
His passion waxed now so hot
He could no longer tarry.
16
Two held her up before the priest,
Four laid her in the bed then,
With sighs and cries and watery eyes
When she was laid beside him.
17
‘Ye are come to our Highland hills,
Far frae thy native clan, lady;
Never think of going back,
But take it for thy home, lady.
18
‘I’ll be kind, I’ll be kind,
I’ll be kind to thee, lady;
All the country, for thy sake,
Shall surely favourd be, lady.
19
‘Rob Roy was my father calld,
MacGregor was his name, lady,
And all the country where he dwelt
He did exceed for fame, lady.
20
‘Now or then, now or then,
Now or then deny, lady;
Don’t you think yourself well of
With a pretty man like I, lady?
21
‘He was a hedge about his friends,
A heckle to his foes, lady,
And all that did him any wrong,
He took them by the nose, lady.
22
‘Don’t think, don’t think,
Don’t think I lie, lady,
Ye may know the truth by what
Was done in your country, lady.
23
‘My father delights in cows and horse,
Likewise in goats and sheep, lady,
And you with thirty thousand marks
Makes me a man complete, lady.
24
‘Be content, be content,
Be content and stay, lady;
Now ye are my wedded wife
Untill your dying day, lady.
25
‘Your friends will all seek after me,
But I’ll give them the scorn, lady;
Before dragoons come oer the Forth,
We shall be doun by Lorn, lady.
26
‘I am bold, I am bold,
But bolder than before, lady;
Any one dare come this way
Shall feel my good claymore, lady.
27
‘We shall cross the raging seas,
We shall go to France, lady;
There we’ll gar the piper play,
And then we’ll have a dance, lady.
28
‘Shake a foot, shake a foot,
Shake a foot wi me, lady,
And ye shall be my wedded wife
Until the day ye die, lady.’
A.
61,2. In one line: By the way this lady aftimes fainted. Cf. B 7, C 9, etc.
122. prickle: a bad reading for heckle.
15, 16. Each written in two lines in the MS.
B.
153. wi me and thirty merks. Corrupted from wi, or and, thirty thousand merks: cf. K, 238.
C.
“Tune, Gipsy Laddy,” 1–12.
13. “Tune changes to Haud awa fra me, Donald.”
14, 16, 18 are written as a burden to the stanzas preceding them.
78. weepin originally written for watery, and erased.
182. as bold I’ll roar: more written over roar.
D.
After 7: Answer to Rob Roy. 8–15 are written in four stanzas of long lines.
94. Rob struck out before Roy’s.
E.
“The first part [1–7] is sung to the air of Bonny House of Airly, and the last, Haud awa frae me, Donald.”
74. was laid behind, O: behind wrongly for by him. Cf. A 94, etc.
94. succeed the fame. So I 10 nearly: F 8 did exceed the fame. This line evidently troubled reciters. Another set, says Pitcairn, gives. It did exceed the same. B 11, C 15, K 19 have a reading which we may take to be near the original.
F.
14. To keep (haud).
G.
In stanzas of eight lines. “Tune, a rude set of Mill, Mill O.” After 4: “The song went on to narrate the forcing her to bed; when the tune changes to something like Jenny dang the weaver.”
I.
124. As a variation, but wrongly (see 134), Did feel his good claymore, lady.
J.
“I had the first copy from Miss Harper, Kildrummy; but fearing imperfections, I made application, and by chance got another copy from the Rev. R. Scott, Glenbucket. These I blended together and formed a very good copy; but I have taken the liberty of altering the order of some of the stanzas, and in particular, taking out the ninth and making it the eleventh, and changing some of the words to make it more agreeable.” p. 97. Original readings in 22, specified by Laing, have been restored, and his 11 put back to 9. What follows 16 has the title, Variation.
226
LIZIE LINDSAY
A. ‘Lizie Lindsay.’ a. Jamieson-Brown MS., Appendix, p. ii. b. Jamieson’s Popular Ballads. II, 149.
B. ‘Donald of the Isles,’ Kinloch MSS, I, 237. Aytoun’s Ballads of Scotland, 1859, I, 277.
C. ‘Donald of the Isles,’ Kinloch MSS, I, 253.
D. ‘Lizzy Lindsay,’ from a Note-Book of Dr Joseph Robertson, January, 1830, No 6.
E. ‘Bonny Lizie Lindsay,’ Buchan’s Ballads of the North of Scotland, II, 102.
F. ‘Lizzie Lindsay,’ Whitelaw’s Book of Scottish Ballads, p. 51.
G. ‘Leezie Lindsay,’ Notes and Queries, Third Series, I, 463.
Of A a Professor Robert Scott says, in the letter in which it was enclosed: “You will find above, all I have been able to procure in order to replace the lost fragment of ‘Lizie Lindsay.’ I believe it is not so correct or so complete as what was formerly sent, but there are materials enough to operate upon, and by forcing the memory of the recorder more harm than good might have been done.” Jamieson says of b: “Transmitted to the editor by Professor Scott of Aberdeen, as it was taken down from the recitation of an old woman.[[128]] It is very popular in the northeast[north-east] of Scotland, and was familiar to the editor in his early youth; and from the imperfect recollection which he still retains of it he has corrected the text in two or three unimportant passages.”
There is nothing to show whether the lost copy was recovered, unless it be the fact that Jamieson prints about twice as many stanzas as there are in a. But Jamieson was not always precise in the account he gave of the changes he made in his texts.
In his preface to B, Kinloch remarks that the ballad is very popular in the North, “and few milk-maids in that quarter but can chaunt it, to a very pleasant tune. Lizie Lindsay,” he adds, “according to the tradition of Mearnsshire, is said to have been a daughter of Lindsay of Edzell; but I have searched in vain for genealogical confirmation of the tradition.” Kinloch gave Aytoun a copy of this version, changing a few phrases, and inserting st. 20 of C.
The following stanza, printed as No 434 of the Musical Museum, was sent with the air to Johnson by Burns, who intended to communicate something more. (Museum, 1853, IV, 382):
Will ye go to the Highlands, Leezie Lindsay?
Will ye go to the Highlands wi me?
Will ye go to the Highlands, Leezie Lindsay,
My pride and my darling to be?
Robert Allan added three stanzas to this, Smith’s Scotish Minstrel, II, 100, and again, p. 101 of the same, others (in which Lizie Lindsay is, without authority, made ‘a puir lassie’). The second stanza of the second “set” is traditional (cf. B 8, C 6, D 6, E 8):
To gang to the Hielands wi you, sir,
I dinna ken how that may be,
For I ken nae the road I am gaeing,
Nor yet wha I’m gaun wi.
Donald MacDonald, heir of Kingcausie, wishes to go to Edinburgh for a wife (or to get Lizie Lindsay for his wife). His mother consents, on condition that he shall use no flattery, and shall ‘court her in great poverty’ (policy, D). He sees many bonny young ladies at Edinburgh, but Lizie Lindsay is above compare with others. He presents himself to her in simple Highland garb; what he can offer is a diet of curds and whey and a bed of green rushes (bracken). Lizie would like to know where she would be going, and with whom. His father is an old shepherd (couper, souter), his mother an old dey, and his name is Donald MacDonald. Lizie’s father and mother threaten to have him hanged, which daunts him not in the least. Her maid warmly seconds the suit. Lizie packs up her clothes and sets forth with Donald to foot the steep and dirty ways; she wishes herself back in Edinburgh. They come at last to a shieling, where a woman welcomes Sir Donald; he bids her call him Donald her son, and orders a supper of curds and whey, and a bed of green rushes. Lizie, ‘weary with travel,’ lies late in the morning, and is roused as if to help at the milking; this makes her repine again. But Donald takes her out of the hut and shows her Kingcausie, where she is to be lady.
Kingcausie is some seven miles from Aberdeen, on the south side of the Dee.
Ballads of this description are peculiarly liable to interpolation and debasement, and there are two passages, each occurring in several versions, which we may, without straining, set down to some plebeian improver.
In B 10, D 10, E 19, Lizie Lindsay, not quite ready to go with Donald, makes him an offer of five or ten guineas if he will stay long enough for her to take his picture, ‘to keep her from thinking long.’ In F 11 Donald makes the same offer for her picture. In E 10, F 6, Lizie tells Donald, who has asked where she lives, that if he will call at the Canongate Port, she will drink a bottle of sherry with him, and in the next stanza she is as good as her word. This convivial way of the young ladies of Edinburgh is, owing to an injury to the text, not perceptible in D 14, where Donald seems to be inviting Lizie’s mother to bring a bottle of sherry with her in case she should call on him at the Canongate Port.
A b is translated by Grundtvig, Engelske og skotske Folkeviser, p. 122; by Rosa Warrens, Schottische Volkslieder der Vorzeit, p. 125, with deficient verses supplied from F. Knortz, Lieder u. Romanzen Alt-Englands, p. 158, translates Allingham’s ballad.