In the great company of the forgiven
I shall be sure to find old Daniel Gray.”
Josiah Gilbert Holland, Old Daniel Gray (1879).
Gray (Duncan) wooed a young lass called Maggie, but as Duncan looked asklent, Maggie “coost her head” and bade Duncan behave himself. “Duncan fleeched, and Duncan prayed,” but Meg was deaf to his pleadings; so Duncan took himself off in dudgeon. This was more than Maggie meant, so she fell sick and like to die. As Duncan “could na be her death,” he came forward manfully again, and then “they were crouse [merry] and canty bath. Ha, ha! the wooing o’t.”—R. Burns, Duncan Gray (1792).
Gray (Mary), daughter of a country gentleman of Perth. When the plague broke out in 1668, Mary Gray and her friend Bessy Bell retired to an unfrequented spot called Burn Braes, where they lived in a secluded cottage and saw no one. A young gentleman brought them food, but he caught the plague, communicated it to the two ladies, and all three died.—Allan Ramsay, Bessy Bell and Mary Gray.
Gray (Auld Robin). Jennie, a Scotch lass, was loved by young Jamie; “but saving a crown, he had naething else besides.” To make that crown a pound, young Jamie went to sea, and both were to be for Jennie. He had not been gone many days when Jennie’s mother fell sick, her father broke his arm, and their cow was stolen; then auld Robin came forward and maintained them both. Auld Robin loved the lass, and “wi’ tears in his ’ee,” said, “Jennie, for their sakes, oh, marry me!” Jennie’s heart said “nay,” for she looked for Jamie back; but her father urged her, and the mother pleaded with her eye, and so she consented. They had not been married above a month when Jamie returned. They met; she gave him one kiss, and though she “gang like a ghaist,” she made up her mind, like a brave good lassie, to be a gude wife, for auld Robin was very kind to her (1772).
This ballad was composed by Lady Anne Lindsay, daughter of the earl of Balcarres (afterwards Lady Barnard). It was written to an old Scotch tune called The Bridegroom Grat when the Sun went down. Auld Robin Gray was her father’s herdsman. When Lady Anne was writing the ballad, and was piling distress on Jennie, she told her sister that she had sent Jamie to sea, made the mother sick, and broken the father’s arm, but wanted a fourth calamity. “Steal the cow, sister Anne,” said the little Elizabeth; and so “the cow was stolen awa’,” and the song completed.
Grayson (Mrs.). Brave wife who, weaponless and alone, when an Indian tries to enter the block-house by an upper window, clamps his wrist to the window sill in such a way that, as his foot slips, he is suspended by it. He hangs thus for a moment, and the wrist breaks. She lets him go, and he falls to ground without.—William Gilmore Simms, The Yemassee (1835).
Graysteel, the sword of Kol, fatal to its owner. It passed into several hands, and always brought ill-luck with it.—Icelandic Edda.
Gray Swan. Ship in which a sailor-boy sails away, not to return for twenty years, when he comes back to his mother and incites her to defence of the missing son by feigning to blame him for his twenty years’ silence. Her spirited vindication of her darling causes him to discover himself to her.—Alice Cary, Poems (1876).