‘Bessy Bell’ was made into this nursery-song in England (Halliwell’s Nursery Rhymes of England, 1874, p. 246, No 484):
Bessy Bell and Mary Gray,
They were two bonny lasses;
They built their house upon the lea,
And covered it with rashes.
Bessy kept the garden-gate,
And Mary kept the pantry;
Bessy always had to wait,
While Mary lived in plenty.
The most important document relating to Bessy Bell and Mary Gray is a letter written June 21, 1781, by Major Barry, then proprietor of Lednock, and printed in the Transactions of the Society of the Antiquaries of Scotland, II, 108, 1822.[[53]]