+The Text+ is a combination of three, but mainly from a text which seems
to have been sent to Percy in 1775. The other two are from Scottish
tradition of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. I have
made a few changes in spelling only. The ballad was certainly known
before the end of the sixteenth century, as Thomas Nashe refers to it in
1596:--'_Dick of the Cow_, that mad Demilance Northren Borderer, who
plaid his prizes with the Lord _Iockey_ so brauely' (Nashe 's _Works_,
ed. R. B. McKerrow, iii. p. 5). _Dick at the Caw_ occurs in a list of
'penny merriments' printed for, and sold by, Philip Brooksby, about
1685.
+The Story+ is yet another of the Border ballads of the Armstrongs and
Liddesdale, and tells itself in an admirable way.
The 'Cow,' of course, cannot refer to cattle, as the word would be
'Kye': possibly it means 'broom,' or the hut in which he lived. See
Murray's _Dictionary_, and cp. 9.3
'Billie' means 'brother'; hence the quaint 'billie Willie.' It is the
same word as 'bully,' used of Bottom the Weaver, which also occurs in
the ballad of _Bewick and Grahame_, 5.2 (see p. 102 of this volume).