+The Text+ is from Sharpe's _Ballad Book_ (1823). Scott included no
version of this ballad in his _Minstrelsy_; but Motherwell and Jamieson
both had traditional versions. Motherwell considered it essential that
the deadly wound should be accidental; but it is far more typical of a
ballad-hero that he should lose his temper and kill his brother; and,
as Child points out, it adds to the pathetic generosity of the slain
brother in providing excuses for his absence to be made to his father,
mother, and sister.
+The Story.+--Motherwell and Sharpe were more or less convinced that the
ballad was founded on an accident that happened in 1589 to a Somerville,
who was killed by his brother's pistol going off.
This ballad is still in circulation in the form of a game amongst
American children--the last state of more than one old ballad otherwise
extinct.