A “romantic ballad, of which, unfortunately, one stanza only has been preserved. The tradition bears that a young lady was carried away by the fairies, and that, although invisible to her friends who were in search of her, she was sometimes heard by them lamenting her destiny in a pathetic song, of which the stanza just mentioned runs nearly thus:”
O Alva hills is bonny,
Dalycoutry hills is fair,
But to think on the braes of Menstrie
It maks my heart fu sair.
KING EDELBRODE
Sent by Motherwell to C. K. Sharpe, with a letter dated October 8, 1825. Also entered in Motherwell’s Note-Book, p. 53 (excepting the second line of the first stanza).
King Edelbrode cam owre the sea,
Fa la lilly