‘Oh tell her I lie in Kirk-land fair,
And home again will never come.’
THE OUTLYER BOLD
The Text is taken from Motherwell’s MS., which contains two versions; Motherwell printed a third in his Minstrelsy,—Babylon; or, The Bonnie Banks o’ Fordie. Kinloch called the ballad the Duke of Perth’s Three Daughters. As the following text has no title, I have ventured to give it one. ‘Outlyer’ is, of course, simply ‘a banished man.’
The Story is much more familiar in all the branches of the Scandinavian race than in England or Scotland. In Denmark it appears as Herr Truels’ Daughters or Herr Thor’s Children; in Sweden as Herr Torës’ Daughters. Iceland and Faroe give the name as Torkild or Thorkell.
The incidents related in this ballad took place (i) in Scotland on the bonnie banks o’ Fordie, near Dunkeld; (ii) in Sweden in five or six different places; and (iii) in eight different localities in Denmark.
THE OUTLYER BOLD
1.
There were three sisters, they lived in a bower,