wildest wolf in a' this wood
Wad not ha' done so by me;
She'd ha' wet her foot i' th' wan water,
And sprinkled it o'er my bree,
And if that wad not ha' waken'd me,
She wad ha' gone and let me be.

18.
'O bows of yew, if ye be true,
In London, where ye were bought,
Fingers five, get up belive,
Manhuid shall fail me nought.'

19.
He has kill'd the Seven Forsters,
He has kill'd them all but ane,
And that wan scarce to Pickeram Side,
To carry the bode-words hame.

20.
'Is there never a bird in a' this wood
That will tell what I can say;
That will go to Cockley's Well,
Tell my mither to fetch me away?'

21.
There was a bird into that wood,
That carried the tidings away,
And many ae was the well-wight man
At the fetching o' Johnny away.

[Annotations:
1.2-5: From Kinloch's version. The final repetition, here printed
in italics, forms the burden in singing, and is to be repeated,
_mutatis mutandis_, in each verse.
2.2: 'care-bed,' the bed of sickness due to anxiety.
3.1: 'forsters,' foresters, woodmen.
6.1: The MS. reads 'Braidhouplee' for the first 'Bradyslee.'
6.2: 'buss,' bush.
7.1: 'lap,' leapt.
7.4: 'stem'd,' stopped, stayed.
8.4: 'but and,' and.
10.4: 'drie,' hold out, be able.
12.2: 'scroggs,' underwood.
12.3: 'well-wight,' stalwart.
13.3: 'American leather.' A patent for making morocco from American
horsehides was granted c. 1799, but the date of this text is
twenty years earlier than that date.
15.1: 'ae' (y in the MS.), one. Cf. 21.3.
18.3: 'belive,' quickly.
19.3: 'wan,' won, reached.
19.4: The MS. gives 'bord (or bood) words.'
20.1, 21.1: The MS. gives 'boy' for 'bird.']

THE OUTLAW MURRAY

+The Text+ is derived, with trivial alterations, from Herd's MSS. In the
first edition of the _Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_, Scott says the
principal copy he employed was one 'apparently of considerable
antiquity' among the papers of Mrs. Cockburn; he also made use of Herd's
MS. and the Glenriddell MS. In the second edition of the _Minstrelsy_ he
made further additions, including one of three stanzas between 52 and 58
of the present version, which makes reference to an earlier Sir Walter
Scott.

+The Story+ of this Scots outlaw makes tame reading after those which
precede it in this volume. The ballad was inserted at