We have added an uncollated copy from Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland. Another is furnished by Motherwell, Minstrelsy, p. 252. Some of Scott's verses are also found in Herd's fragment, (Scottish Songs, i. 202,) and Buchan's Haughs o' Yarrow, ii. 211. The Dowy Den, in Evans's collection, iii. 342, is the caput mortuum of this spirited ballad.
Late at e'en, drinking the wine,
And ere they paid the lawing,
They set a combat them between,
To fight it in the dawing.
"O stay at hame, my noble lord,5
O stay at hame, my marrow!
My cruel brother will you betray
On the dowie houms of Yarrow."—
"O fare ye weel, my ladye gaye!
O fare ye weel, my Sarah!10
For I maun gae, though I ne'er return
Frae the dowie banks o' Yarrow."
She kiss'd his cheek, she kaim'd his hair,
As oft she had done before, O;
She belted him with his noble brand,15
And he's away to Yarrow.
As he gaed up [the Tennies] bank,
I wot he gaed wi' sorrow,
Till, down in a den, he spied nine arm'd men,
On the dowie houms of Yarrow.20
"O come ye here to part your land,
The bonnie Forest thorough?
Or come ye here to wield your brand,
On the dowie houms of Yarrow?"—
"I come not here to part my land,25
And neither to beg nor borrow;
I come to wield my noble brand,
On the bonnie banks of Yarrow.