Bluegrass Messengers

The Original Ballad of Dowie Dens- Veitch 1890

The Original Ballad of Dowie Dens- Veitch 1890

[Footnotes moved to the end of the article. this was reprinted and extented in John Veitch's The History and Poetry of the Scottish Border: Volume 2 in Chapter V: The Yarrow.

Child included Veitch's version, taken from "the late William Welsh, Peeblesshire cottar and poet," as his version L. ]

Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 147, 1890

THE ORIGINAL BALLAD OF THE DOWIE DENS
by John Veitch

The two well-known ballads of the Yarrow—viz., " Rare Willy's drowned in Yarrow" and "The Dowie Dens " — have presented several difficulties to editors, both in respect of internal consistency and historical reference. The inconsistency in the stanzas has been sufficient to mar the complete unity of each, and suggests the need of revision and removal. To effect this is our present aim, and also to show that there is a still older ballad of the Yarrow than either of those now known, from which they have been mainly taken.

The former ballad —" Rare Willy's drowned in Yarrow"— was printed for the first time in Allan Ramsay's ' Tea-Table Miscellany' (1724), where it consists of four stanzas. The first of these points distinctly to a maiden lover as the personage of the ballad, while the second stanza as clearly refers to a matron. They are as follows:—

1. "Willy's rare and Willy's fair,
And Willy's wondrous bonny,
And Willy hecht [1] to marry me,
Qin e'er he married ony.

2. Yestreen I made my bed fu' braid,
This night I'll make it narrow;
For a' the live-lang winter night
I'll lie twin'd [2] o' my marrow."

The other stanzas—three and four—carry out the idea of the ballad as referring to a betrothed maiden. The ballad is repeated, as Ramsay gave it, by David Herd in his 'Scots Songs' (1759 and 1776), L 82.

The first indication in print of the ballad afterwards named by Sir Walter Scott "The Dowie Dens of Yarrow," is found in Herd's 'Scots Songs' (I. 145). This consists of four stanzas under the heading, "To the tune of Leaderhaughs and Yarrow." The lady who speaks throughout in those stanzas is obviously not a matron, but simply a betrothed maiden. Yet certain of the stanzas occur in Scott's ballad, first given in the 'Minstrelsy' in 1802-3, and this ballad has clearly as its main import a reference to persons already married. In the tenth stanza, after the treacherous stroke, the dying man says:—

''Gae hame, gae hame, guid-brother John,
And tell your sister Sarah
To come and lift her leafu' lord,—
He's sleepin' sound on Yarrow."

But the immediately following stanza suggests only a love relation between the two as betrothed persons:—

"Yestreen I dream'd a dolefu' dream,
I fear there will be sorrow;
I dream'd I pu'd the heather green,
Wi' my true love on Yarrow."

"But in the glen strive armed men,
They've wrought me dule and sorrow;
They've slain, they've slain the comeliest swain,—
He bleeding lies on Yarrow."

Scott, we may note, has changed one line here, and greatly for the worse. He writes—

"They've slain,—the comeliest knight they've slain."

Possibly it may turn out that the slain man was not a knight at all, and that the word "swain" was the only appropriate one. Clearly, at least, we have here three stanzas which do not naturally refer to the relation of husband and wife, but to that of betrothed lovers. The ballad of "The Dowie Dens" is thus, like that of "Willy's drowned in Yarrow," rendered inconsistent and incongruous.

Several attempts have been made to remove these incongruities, but not with complete success. Professor Aytoun has the merit of having seen the incongruity in "Willy's drowned in Yarrow," and attempted to remedy it. He evidently holds that this ballad refers to a betrothed maiden, the death of whose lover was caused by drowning, not by violence; but he still retains in his reconstructed version the stanza beginning—

"Yestreen I made my bed fu' braid,"

which obviously points to a matron as the speaker. And in his version of "The Dowie Dens" he as obviously retains two of Herd's stanzas, already quoted, which can refer only to one in the position of a maiden lover.

It may be supposed that these two ballads refer to two different incidents, — the one, "Willy's drowned in Yarrow," to a maiden deprived of her betrothed lover by the accident of drowning; the other to a wife whose husband was slain by her own kinsmen, and treacherously. But this difference of incident is far from conclusive. There is quite a possibility of uniting the two things,—death by violence and the body being found in the stream. And little or no stress should be laid on the rhythmical ending of "The Dowie Dens," in the repetition of the word Yarrow,—as making it specifically different from the other ballad, — for versions, especially the earliest, whether fragmentary or complete, are not at all uniform in this particular. But there is another explanation, and one which helps to remove the incongruities in the two ballads themselves. This is to be found in the fact that there was an earlier ballad of the Yarrow than either that known as "Willy's drowned in Yarrow" or "The Dowie Dens;" that the stanzas given by Ramsay under the former head, and those given by Herd "To the tune of Leaderhaughs and Yarrow," are simply portions — harmonious portions—of one, and this the earlier ballad; and further, that "The Dowie Dens" as given by Sir Walter Scott was a mixed, therefore incongruous, reference to the incident of the earlier ballad, and to a later incident in the relations of the families of Scott of Thirlestane and Scott of Tuschielaw.

1. "At Dryhope lived a lady fair,
The fairest flower in Yarrow;
And she refused nine noble men
For a servan' lad in Gala.

2. Her father said that he should fight
The nine lords all to-morrow;
And he that should the victor be,
Would get the Rose of Yarrow.

3. Quoth he, ' You're nine an' I'm but ane,
And in that there's no much marrow;
Yet I shall fecht ye man for man,
In the dowie dens o' Yarrow.'

4. She's kissed his lips and combed his hair,
As oft she'd done before, O,
An' set him on her milk-white steed,
Which bore him on to Yarrow.

5. When he got o'er yon high, high hill,
An1 down the dens o' Yarrow,
There did he see the nine lords all,
But there was not one his marrow.

6. 'Now here ye're nine, an' I'm but ane,
But yet I am not sorrow;
For here I'll fecht ye man for man,
For my true love in Yarrow.'

7. Then he wheel'd round and fought so fierce,
Till the seventh fell in Yarrow;
When her brother sprang from a bush behind,
And ran his body thorough.

8. He never spoke more words than these,
An' they were words o' sorrow:
'Ye may tell my true love, if ye please,
That I!m sleepin' sound in Yarrow.'

9. They've ta'en the young man by the heels,
And trailed him like a harrow,
And then they flung the comely youth
In a whirlpool o' Yarrow.

10. The lady said,' I dreamed yestreen,
I fear it bodes some sorrow,
That I was pu'in' the heather green
On the scroggy braes o' Yarrow.'

11. Her brother said,' I'll read your dream,
But it should cause nae sorrow;
Ye may go seek your lover hame,
For he's sleepin' sound in Yarrow.'

12. Then she rode o'er yon gloomy height,
An' her heart was fu' o' sorrow,
But only saw the clud o' night,
Or heard the roar o' Yarrow.

13. But she wandered east, so did she wast,
And searched the forest thorough,
Until she spied her ain true love
Lyin' deeply drowned in Yarrow.

14. His hair it was five quarters lang,
Its colour was the yellow;
She twined it round her lily hand,
And drew him out o' Yarrow.

15. She kissed his lips and combed his head,
As oft she'd done before, O;
She laid him o'er her milk-white steed,
An' bore him home from Yarrow.

16. She washed his wounds in yon well-strand,
And dried him wi' the hollan',
And aye she sighed and said, 'Alas!
For my love I had him chosen.'

17. 'Go hold your tongue,' her father said,
'There's little cause for sorrow;
I'll wed ye on a better lad
Than ye ha'e lost in Yarrow.'

18. 'Haud your ain tongue, my faither dear,
I canna help my sorrow;
A fairer flower ne'er sprang in May
Than I ha'e lost in Yarrow.

19. 'I meant to make my bed fu' wide,
But you may make it narrow,
For now I've nane to be my guide,
But a deid man drowned in Yarrow.'

20. An' aye she screighed and cried, ' Alas!'
Till her heart did break wi' sorrow,
An' sank into her faither's arms,
'Mang the dowie dens o' Yarrow."

In thus producing for the first time an additional version of the ballad of the Yarrow, I may be properly asked to give my ground and authority. This I readily do. The version is due to the memory and the care of an old man in Peeblesshire, now deceased, who was a worthy type of what is best in our fast-decaying old-world character—its simplicity, homeliness, and steady uprightness. The late William Welsh, Peeblesshire cottar and poet, as he was wont to designate himself—being the author of a volume of poems and tales relating to local topics— gave me the poem, of which the above is an exact copy. I knew the old man well. He was, whe I first became personally acquainted with him, above seventy years of age, but hale, healthy, and in perfect possession of his faculties, shrewd, acute, and much above the common. For several years he paid me an annual visit. I had great pleasure in his conversation— genial, humorous, pawky. He moralised as only a Scotsman can; but his epigrammatic flashes kept his sententiousness from being prosy. He wrote out for me the version of the ballad as I have given it, stating very explicitly that it was from the recitation of his mother and grandmother. I questioned him closely on the point, but to this statement he steadily adhered. I asked him to give me answers to certain questions in writing, which he did.

The ballad, he said, was recited by his mother,—his grandmother had a copy of the same in her father's handwriting, and thus the poem came down to him. As dates are of importance in a case of this sort, I got from him a statement in writing in answer to questions on those points, and also other corroborative particulars. These are to the following effect:—

Robert Welsh — great - great grandfather of W. Welsh — was born about 1686, died 1766. He farmed Faldonside, near Abbotsford, well known as once the property of the Ker who held the pistol to Mary's bosom on the night of Rizzio's slaughter. His son married Janet Lees, from Galashiels, who was born 1726, died 1789. Their son married Margaret Yule, who was born at Falahill, in Heriot, in 1761, and died in 1819. William Welsh himself was born at Heriot Tower, 6th May 1799, and left it in 1819. "The grandmother," William Welsh writes, "had a fine ear for music, and had a copy of the song in her father's writing (queer crooked letters), which Mr Haig, the schoolmaster of Heriot, could read fluently, and called it the Queen Anne's hand. He transcribed it into the modern style, and gave a copy to my mother (who was also very musical) for the sake of [I suppose he means in place of] the old manuscript. I kept Haig's copy till it got into pieces, and was lately burnt when cleaning the house."—(Letter, 14th February 1878.) This would take the MS. of the ballad back at least to the early part of last century. William Welsh adds the following: "An old woman, a mantua - maker, whose name was Marion Tod, and whose house I frequented often when a boy of seven years, sung it exactly the same way; and which obviously points to a matron as the speaker. And in his version of "The Dowie Dens" he as obviously retains two of Herd's stanzas, already quoted, which can refer only to one in the position of a maiden lover.

It may be supposed that these two ballads refer to two different incidents, — the one, "Willy's drowned in Yarrow," to a maiden deprived of her betrothed lover by the accident of drowning; the other to a wife whose husband was slain by her own kinsmen, and treacherously. But this difference of incident is far from conclusive. There is quite a possibility of uniting the two things,—death by violence and the'body being found in the stream. And little or no stress should be laid on the rhythmical ending of "The Dowie Dens," in the repetition of the word Yarrow,—as making it specifically different from the other ballad, — for veisions, especially the earliest, whether fragmentary or complete, are not at all uniform in this particular. But there is another explanation, and one which helps to remove the incongruities in the two ballads themselves. This is to be found in the fact that there was an earlier ballad of the Yarrow than either that known as "Willy's drowned in Yarrow" or "The Dowie Dens;" that the stanzas given by Ramsay under the former head, and those given by Herd "To the tune of Leaderhaughs and Yarrow," are simply portions — harmonious portions—of one, and this the earlier ballad; and further, that " The Dowie Dens" as given by Sir Walter Scott was a mixed, therefore incongruous, reference to the incident of the earlier ballad, and to a later incident in the relations of the families of Scott of Thirlestane and Scott of Tuschielaw.

This original ballad, now that it has been discovered, explains nearly everything. The heroine was really a maiden lover; her betrothed was slain directly by her brother in the course of an unequal combat; his body was thrown into the Yarrow, and there found by her; and any incongruity in representing her both as maiden and matron is explained by the mixing up of the later or Thirlestane incident with the earlier many youngsters came to hear auld Gifford, as they called her, because she came from thereabouts, sing the 'Dowie Dens o' Yarrow.' Once, when I was a young man, I was singing it to a young lass and an old maid; and when I had done, I turned up the young one's head, which was hanging very low, and saw the tears on her cheeks; and the old one, looking serious, said, 'Poor man! I could ha'e liket him mysel'.'"—(Letter, 14th February 1878.) If these statements are even generally correct—and I see no ground to doubt them, even as to details— this version of " The Dowie Dens" is older than the earliest printed fragment by Herd, and probably as early as " Rare Willy's drowned in Yarrow," first printed by Ramsay in 1724. Sir Walter Scott's version is confessedly a compilation; Motherwell's, taken from the recitation of an old woman in Kilbarchan, is still later. All this points to the conclusion that we have in the version now offered the oldest, probably the original, ballad of "The Dowie Dens of Yarrow."

This conclusion is strengthened if we look to internal evidence. The whole tone and frame of this ballad are from beginning to end simple, uniform, consistent— a unity of narrative feeling. The stanzas which in the other two ballads are incongruous find here their natural place. There is ample, intelligible motive for the slaughter of the lover. He is no knight or noble lord, as in Scott's ballad, but an ignoble person—" a servan' lad in Gala." This base personage has dared to fall in love with a daughter of Scott of Dryhope,— one of the most ready freebooters on the Border,—the laird of those glens of Dryhope and Kirkstead that run up through varied heather and bracken sheen to the Black law and the heights of Glenrath— Hopes which now we love and prize for matchless charm, for gleam and murmur of burn, for solitary birk that drapes the seldom visited linn pool — Hopes which the reiver cared for, because they could conveniently conceal, say, four hundred kine taken from Bewcastle Waste on the English side. More than all, this love is reciprocated: the daughter of Dryhope finds some manliness, some nobility in the "servan' lad in Gala," who may possibly never have ridden in a reiver's band. This surely was an out-of-the-way lass in those times, with some strange modern notions worthy of the evolution of the two hundred years that followed. But her brothers do not at all like this sort of arrangement— "a servan' lad in Gala" forsooth! Here is a motive for his being put out of the way at once ere he marries their sister,—tenfold more powerful in those times than any question about dower, or even hatred from blood-feud. For this latter motive did not prevent marriages between families, even while bloodfeuds were unstanched. Witness Kers and Scotts, and Peeblesshire alliances many.

Then here comes the romance part of the affair—the fitting explanation of how the incompatibility of circumstances was to be dealt with. And this is how the minstrel pictures it. The father of the lady, hopeless of breaking down her love, proposes that the "servan' lad" should fight the nine lords—that is, lairds, for lord means no more than this,— simply, at the utmost, lord of a barony—who are suitors for his daughter's hand. She is called "The Rose of Yarrow;" and while this phrase does not occur in Scott's version, it is to be found in the West Country one — from Kilbarchan — given by Motherwell.

"The Rose of Yarrow" was to fall to the victor, who in this case was not the least likely to be the "servan' lad." He, however, accepts the unequal conditions. Then he slays seven of his opponents; and as the seventh fell he is treacherously run through "from a bush behind" by the brother of his love, who apparently was an interested spectator of the unequal contest. The lover sends a dying message to his ladylove. Then comes a stanza, not in Scott's version, but happily congruous with the whole story. The man who is now down on the field is not a knight, only a servant— one of base degree; hence he gets no knightly treatment, not even decent human regard; his lot is only shameful indignity.

"They've ta'en the young man by the heels,
And trailed him like a harrow,
And then they flung the comely youth
In a whirlpool o' Yarrow."

Then the lady has the ominous dream about

"Pu'in' the heather green
On the scroggy braes o' Yarrow.''

"Scroggy braes "—quite true, not on the " dowie houms." There is no heather there,—only the waesome bent which, bowing to the autumn winds, makes them dowie; but on the "scroggy braes" there it is now, as any one may see. But "scroggy" is better than all. This expresses exactly the look of the stunted trees and bushes on the braes of Yarrow—two and a half or three centuries ago, when the forest was decaying—such as only a native minstrel could have seen or felt. "The scroggy braes,"

—this was never said before in Scottish ballad or minstrel song,— yet it is so true and so ancient! Her brother reads her dream for her,—tells her bluntly enough, not sympathising with her, or caring for her feelings, to

"Go seek your lover hame,
For he's slcepin' sound in Yarrow."

There is surely a touch of the direst irony here,—the dead man, — beloved, — "sleepin' sound." She sets out in search of him, and then there comes a stanza which, supposing this ballad to have been known in the early part of last century, as it probably was, obviously suggested to Logan the verse in his ballad of Yarrow which Scott prized so highly, and which sets Logan higher than any other thing he is known to have written. The stanzas in the original, as now for the first time printed, are—

"Then she rode o'er yon gloomy height,
An' her heart was fu' o' sorrow,
But only saw the clud o' night,
Or heard the roar o' Yarrow.

But she wandered east, so did she wast,
And searched the forest thorough,
Until she spied her ain true love
Lyin' deeply drowned in Yarrow."

In Logan's poem, which appeared in 1770, we have these lines, which are simply those of the old ballad, and which must be regarded as a mere copy, supposing the ballad to have been floating on the memories of people so early as I represent it—

"They sought him east, they sought him west,
They sought him all the forest thorough;
They only saw the cloud of night,
They only heard the roar of Yarrow."

That Logan was a plagiarist there is, I fear, other proof.

The maiden searching, finds her dead lover in the water. He had been violently slain, and then brutally thrown into the stream. This is the reconciliation of the denouement of the two ballads, "Willy's drowned in Yarrow" and the modern "Dowie Dens." The stricken man lay in the

"Cleavin o' the craig,
She fand him drowned in Yarrow.''

Then there comes a stanza, not found in Scott's version—picturesque, touching, complete in itself —such as painter might limn, and, doing it well, make himself immortal:

"His hair it was five quarters lang,
Its colour was the yellow:
She twined it round her lily hand,
And drew him out o' Yarrow."

What a picture! the lass wading, it may be, into the water, grasping the floating yellow hair, twining it round her lily hand,— how despairingly yet how fervently,—clasping it, the last tie amid the moving stream, and drawing him tenderly out of the water flow to the river bank, where at least he would unmoved lie,—be, though dead, her own.

Though there is nothing in Scott's version corresponding to this, there is a stanza in Motherwell's, but it is a bad version. It is not his but her own hair which is spoken of, and she manages to draw him out of the stream by this !—

"Her hair it was five quarters lang,
'Twas like the gold for yellow:
She twisted it round his milk-white hand,
And she's drawn him hame frae Yarrow

There can hardly be a question that the original version is much more natural and appropriate, as referring to the hair of the dead lover, lying in the water. "The milk-white hand" is certainly that of the lady, not the man. Then the simple drawing him out of the stream by the hair, the putting him on the milk-white steed, and bearing him home from Yarrow, is a representation infinitely superior to the coarse idea of "drawing him hame frae Yarrow" by his locks, as pictured in Motherwell's version.

Then there is the solution of another incongruity. Stanza 18 is obviously the original of the second stanza in "Willy's drowned in Yarrow," where as it stands it has no relevancy whatever. Here it is in a form that is perfectly natural and appropriate. "I meant," says the maiden lover,—

"I meant to make my bed fu' wide,
But you may make it narrow.
For now I've nane to be my guide,
But a deid man drowned in Yarrow."

How thoroughly superior to the incongruous stanza of "Willy's drowned in Yarrow"! Not—

"Yestreen I made my bed fu' wide."

but—

"I meant to make my bed fu' wide,
And you may make it narrow."

You, if not the slayer of my lover, yet the sympathiser with the assassins!—do as you choose with me. The guide of my life is gone; the light is cast out with the "deid man drowned in Yarrow."

The stanza (16) which contains a reference to the "well-strand,"— the rivulet flowing from the spring —her washing his wounds therein and drying them "wi thehollan',"— is very true, natural, and touching. It is thoroughly Scottish in feeling, fact, and diction. Has not one heard of "the well-strand,"—" the meadow well-strand,"—from one's boyhood? And "the hollan'," we know well. All through those old times, down to the middle of the eighteenth century, the brown linen made out of the flax in Scotland, and made largely, was sent across to Holland — Haarlem especially—to be bleached. There it was dipped in lye and buttermilk; and after six months—from March to October—returned to this country, — pure, clean, and white. The damsel wished to honour her dead lover, as best she might, with the purest in her gift. It was what she wore in her joy:—

"Her kurchy was of Holland clear,
Tyed on her bonny brow."

With regard to the historical reference of the original ballad, I confess I can say very little. If it really concerns a daughter of the house of Dryhope, as it seems to do, this would bring the date not further back than the middle of the sixteenth century, when the foreststead of Dryhope was given to a Scott. It is quite probable, of course, that the same family might have been there long before, simply as keepers for the Crown of the forest-stead. In the alleged residence of the lady at Dryhope,—in the phrases, " The fairest flower in Yarrow," " The Rose of Yarrow," we have a distinct suggestion of "the Flower of Yarrow,"—that is, Mary, rather Marion Scott, daughter of John Scott of Dryhope, not Philip, as Sir Walter Scott puts it, who was married to Wat of Harden in 1576. It seems to me possible, even indeed probable, from those references—the first, the oldest yet ascertained— that the ballad may actually refer to Mary Scott, the " Flower of Yar row." This incident may have been an episode in her life that took place previously to her marriage with Scott of Harden. There must have been associations with this woman of quite a special kind, apart simply from the ordinary occurrence of her marriage with a neighbouring Border laird and reiver, which led to the intense, widespread, and persistent memory of her that has come down to our own day. This of course would imply that the falling into the father's arms, which fitly concludes the ballad, did not mean the conclusion of her career. The terminations of ballads of this class are usually in the same conventional style. And probably "the Flower of Yarrow" was no exception to the run of her sex in having more than one love experience.

The truth of the view now given seems to me to be confirmed by the unsatisfactory nature of the historical references adduced by Sir Walter Scott in illustration of the ballad and of other suggestions made since his time. The duel on Deuchar Swire must be set aside as having no direct bearing on the circumstances; and certain important particulars of the narrative cannot be explained by supposing the ballad to refer to the "Walter Scott of Tuschielaw " who eloped with Grisel Scott of Thirlestane in 1616, and who is assumed to be the Walter Scott slaughtered shortly afterwards by Scott of Bonnington and his accomplices. I think it probable, however, that these later incidents may have come to be mixed up with the earlier in popular tradition and song, and thus with the story and the fate of the "servan' lad in Gala." Hence the double reference in Scott's ballad, confessedly a compilation from different versions.

John Veitch

Footnotes:

1. Hecht is promised.

2. Twin'd is, of course, parted or separated from.