"For I was witched to a ghastly shape,
"All by my stepdame's skill,
"Till I should meet wi' a courteous knight,
"Wad gie me a' my will."
FOOTNOTES:
[16] Tee, for to, is the Buchanshire and Gallovidian pronunciation.
[ANNAN WATER.]
NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED.
The following verses are the original words of the tune of "Allan Water," by which name the song is mentioned in Ramsay's Tea Table Miscellany. The ballad is given from tradition; and it is said, that a bridge, over the Annan, was built in consequence of the melancholy catastrophe which it narrates. Two verses are added in this edition, from another copy of the ballad, in which the conclusion proves fortunate. By the Gatehope Slack, is perhaps meant the Gate Slack, a pass in Annandale. The Annan, and the Frith of Solway, into which it falls, are the frequent scenes of tragical accidents. The editor trusts he will be pardoned for inserting the following awfully impressive account of such an event, contained in a letter from Dr Currie, of Liverpool, by whose correspondence, while in the course of preparing these volumes for the press, he has been alike honoured and instructed. After stating, that he had some recollection of the ballad which follows, the biographer of Burns proceeds thus: "I once in my early days heard (for it was night, and I could not see) a traveller drowning; not in the Annan itself, but in the Frith of Solway, close by the mouth of that river. The influx of the tide had unhorsed him, in the night, as he was passing the sands from Cumberland. The west wind blew a tempest, and, according to the common expression, brought in the water, three foot a-breast. The traveller got upon a standing net, a little way from the shore. There he lashed himself to the post, shouting for half an hour for assistance—till the tide rose over his head! In the darkness of night, and amid the pauses of the hurricane, his voice, heard at intervals, was exquisitely mournful. No one could go to his assistance—no one knew where he was—the sound seemed to proceed from the spirit of the waters. But morning rose—the tide had ebbed—and the poor traveller was found lashed to the pole of the net, and bleaching in the wind."