My bow is bent an arrows ready;
My name is Donald, in the Isle of Sky,
Although I be but a Highland laddie.
Scott probably trusted to his memory when making the following note to a, printed in Sharpe’s Ballad Book, ed. 1880:
‘I have a dirk and a gude claymore,
My bow is bent and my arrow ready;
My castle stands in the Isle of Skye,
Although I am but a Highland laddie.’
“The above stanza, which I got from the late Mr Hamilton, music-seller in Edinburgh, seems to belong to ‘Glasgow Peggie.’”