"If the Major is curious in ballad-lore, I can give him abundant information in it. For the musical item, the best collection I know is Motherwell's, both for good poetic taste in selection, and the tunes accompanying some of the contents....—Your affectionate
"J.H. Burton."
"Morton, Wednesday Evening,
8th May 1879.
"My dear Love,—Looking for the ballad you want, and not finding it by recollection, I came by accident to the very line—
'When she cam' to her father's land
The tenants a' cam' her to see;
Never a word she could speak to them,
But the buttons aff her claes would flee.'
The ballad is known by the title of The Marchioness of Douglas, but better known by the—
'O waly, waly, up yon bank,
And waly, waly, doon yon brae.'
It was printed first in Jamieson's collection—1806; again in Chambers's, p. 150. The 'waly' has been by Cockney critics called Scotch for 'wail ye.' The word may come from the same etymological source as 'wail,' but it is a Scots adverb, indicative of the intensity of sorrow.