‘But I’ll cause you stand at good church-door,
For all your noble train;
For selling of your precious soul,
You shall not get further ben.’
258
BROUGHTY WA’S
a. ‘Helen,’ Buchan’s MSS, I, 233.
b. ‘Burd Hellen,’ or, ‘Browghty Wa’s,’ Harris MS., fol. 17 b; from Mrs Harris.
A young woman is carried off from Broughty Castle, near Dundee, by a body of armed Highlanders. Her lover, who is making her a visit at the time, is either taken along with her—an unnecessary incumbrance, one would think—or follows her. The pair go out to take the air; she throws herself into a river; her lover leaps in after her and is drowned. She kilts up her clothes and makes her way to Dundee, congratulating herself that she had learned to swim for liberty.
Stanza 9, as it runs in b, is a reminiscence of ‘Bonny Baby Livingston,’ and 13 recalls ‘Child Waters,’ or ‘The Knight and the Shepherd’s Daughter.’