At the fetching o’ Johnny away.
THE OUTLAW MURRAY
The Text is derived, with trivial alterations, from Herd’s MSS. In the first edition of the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Scott says the principal copy he employed was one ‘apparently of considerable antiquity’ among the papers of Mrs. Cockburn; he also made use of Herd’s MS. and the Glenriddell MS. In the second edition of the Minstrelsy he made further additions, including one of three stanzas between 52 and 58 of the present version, which makes reference to an earlier Sir Walter Scott.
The Story of this Scots outlaw makes tame reading after those which precede it in this volume. The ballad was inserted at the end of Child’s collection only because he preferred ‘to err by including rather than excluding.’ He adds, ‘I am convinced that it did not begin its existence as a popular ballad, and I am not convinced that (as Scott asserts) it has been for ages a popular song in Selkirkshire.’ Nevertheless, it undoubtedly gained a place in popular tradition; and this, while entitling it to a place here, renders the elaborate historical investigation, to which it has been submitted since Child’s edition, a waste of erudition and ingenuity.
THE OUTLAW MURRAY
1.
Ettrick Forest is a fair forest,
In it grows many a seemly tree;
The hart, the hynd, the doe, the roe,
And of a’ wild beastis great plentie.