#a.# ‘Bonny Lizie Balie, A New Song very much in Request,’ Laing
broadsides, No 46; no date or place. #b.# ‘Bonny Lizzie Bailie,’
Maidment’s Scotish Ballads and Songs, 1859, p. 13. #c.# ‘My bonny
Lizzie Baillie,’ Johnson’s Museum, ed. 1853, IV, *451. #d.# ‘Lizae
Baillie,’ Herd’s MSS, I, 101, and, in part, II, 121. #e.# ‘Lizie
Baillie,’ Campbell MSS, I, 98. #f.# ‘Lizzie Bailie,’ Smith’s Scotish
Minstrel, IV, 90. #g.# ‘Lizie Baillie,’ Buchan’s Ballads of the
North of Scotland, II, 173.
#a#, from the collection of broadsides made by David Laing, now in the
possession of Lord Rosebery, may probably have been printed at the
beginning of the last century, at Edinburgh. #b# was taken “from a
tolerably old copy printed at Glasgow.” Excepting the lack of two
stanzas, the variations from a are mostly of slight consequence; two or
three are for the better, #c# (only the beginning, stanzas 1–4^1) was
communicated by C. K. Sharpe, from a “MS. copy of some antiquity.” #d-g#
are of no authority. #d#, #e# are fragmentary stanzas, misremembered if
not corrupted. #f# has ten stanzas, eight of which (some with a word or
two changed) are from #d.# #g# is a washy _rifacimento_.
#d# is printed in Herd’s Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs, 1776, II, 3.
The copy in Johnson’s Museum, No 456, p. 469, is #d# without the first
stanza.
Stanzas 19–21 of #a#, #b#, and their representatives in #d#, #e#, recall
‘The Gypsy Laddie.’
Lizzie Baillie, of Castle Gary, Stirlingshire, while paying a visit to a
sister at Gartartan, Perthshire, makes an excursion to Inchmahome, an
island in Loch Menteith. Here she meets Duncan Graham, who, against the
opposition of her parents, persuades her to prefer a Highland husband to
any Lowland or English match.
“The heroine of this song,” says Sharpe, “was a daughter of Baillie of
Castle Carey, and sister, as it is said, to the wife of Macfarlane of
Gartartan.” The Baillies, as Maidment has shown, acquired Castle Gary
“at a comparatively recent date,” and that editor must be nearly, or
quite, right in declaring the ballad to be not older than the
commencement of the last century. Buchan has a bit of pseudo-history
anent Lizie Baillie in his notes, at II, 326.
The story is told in a somewhat disorderly way even in a, and we may
believe that we have not attained the original yet, though this copy is
much older than any that has appeared in previous collections.
* * * * *
1
It fell about the Lambmass tide,
When the leaves were fresh and green,
Lizie Bailie is to Gartartain [gane],
To see her sister Jean.
2
She had not been in Gartartain
Even but a little while
Till luck and fortune happend her,
And she went to the Isle.
3
And when she went into the Isle
She met with Duncan Grahame;
So bravely as he courted her!
And he convoyd her hame.
4
‘My bonny Lizie Bailie,
I’ll row thee in my pladie,
If thou will go along with me
And be my Highland lady.’
5
‘If I would go along with thee,
I think I were not wise;
For I cannot milk cow nor ewe,
Nor yet can I speak Erse.’
6
‘Hold thy tongue, bonny Lizie Bailie,
And hold thy tongue,’ said he;
‘For any thing that thou does lack,
My dear, I’ll learn thee.’
7
She would not have a Lowland laird,
He wears the high-heeld shoes;
She will marry Duncan Grahame,
For Duncan wears his trews.
8
She would not have a gentleman,
A farmer in Kilsyth,
But she would have the Highland man,
He lives into Monteith.
9
She would not have the Lowland man,
Nor yet the English laddie,
But she would have the Highland man,
To row her in his pladie.
10
He took her by the milk-white hand,
And he convoyed her hame,
And still she thought, both night and day,
On bonny Duncan Grahame.
11
‘O bonny Duncan Grahame,
Why should ye me miscarry?
For, if you have a love for me,
We’ll meet a[t] Castle Carry.
12
‘As I came in by Dennie bridge,
And by the holland-bush,
My mother took from me my cloaths,
My rings, ay and my purse.
13
‘Hold your tongue, my mother dear,
For that I do not care;
For I will go with Duncan Grahame
Tho I should ner get mair.
14
‘For first when I met Duncan Grahame
I met with meikle joy,
And many pretty Highland men
Was there at my convoy.’
15
And now he is gone through the muir,
And she is through the glen:
‘O bonny Lizie Bailie,
When will we meet again!’
16
Shame light on these logerheads
That lives in Castle Carry,
That let away the bonny lass
The Highland man to marry!
17
‘O bonny Lizie, stay at home!
Thy mother cannot want thee;
For any thing that thou does lack,
My dear, I’ll cause get thee.’
18
‘I would not give my Duncan Grahame
For all my father’s land,
Although he had three lairdships more,
And all at my command.’
19
And she’s cast off her silken gowns,
That she weard in the Lowland,
And she’s up to the Highland hills,
To wear [the] gowns of tartain.
20
And she’s cast off her high-heeld shoes,
Was made of the gilded leather,
And she’s up to Gillecrankie,
To go among the heather.
21
And she’s cast off her high-heeld shoes,
And put on a pair of laigh ones,
And she’s away with Duncan Grahame,
To go among the brachans.
22
‘O my bonny Lizie Bailie,
Thy mother cannot want thee;
And if thou go with Duncan Grahame
Thou’ll be a Gilliecrankie.’
23
‘Hold your tongue, my mother dear,
And folly let thee be;
Should not I fancie Duncan Grahame
When Duncan fancies me?
24
‘Hold your tongue, my father dear,
And folly let thee be;
For I will go with Duncan Grahame
Fore all the men I see.’
25
‘Who is it that’s done this turn?
Who has done this deed?’
‘A minister it’s, father,’ she says,
‘Lives at the Rughburn bridge.’
26
‘A minister, daughter?’ he says,
‘A minister for mister!’
‘O hold your tongue, my father dear,
He married first my sister.’
27
‘O fare you well, my daughter dear,
So dearly as I lovd thee!
Since thou wilt go to Duncan Grahame,
My bonny Lizie Bailie.’
28
‘O fare you well, my father dear,
Also my sister Betty;
O fare you well, my mother dear,
I leave you all compleatly.’
* * * * *
#a.#
3^4. conveyd; _cf._ 10^2.
17^4. _Suspicious._ I’ll surely grant thee _in_ #b#, _which
preserves the rhyme, and is otherwise preferable_.
20^3. #b# _avoids_ Gillecrankie _here by reading_ to the Highland
hills, _and lacks_ 22.
23^2, 24^2. _Hardly possible._ _In 23^2_ #b# _has_, With your
folly let me be.
27^1. fair ye: _cf._ 28^{1,3}.
#b#.
1^1, upon the.
1^3. gane.
2^1. been long at.
2^3. to her.
3^4. convoyd.
4^3. wilt.
5^1. I should: with you.
5^2. They’d think.
5^3. can neither.
6^3. dost.
6^4. I will teach.
7^2. That wears.
7^3. But she would.
7^4. he wears trews.
8^3. have a.
8^4. That lives.
11^2. you.
11^4. at.
14^3. mony a: Highlandman.
15^1. now she.
15^2. And he.
15^3. O my.
17^3. dost want.
17^4. I’ll surely grant thee: _better_.
19^1. Now she’s: gown.
19^2. wore: Lowlands.
19^4. the gowns.
20^2. oiled _for_ the gilded.
20^3. to the Highland hills.
20^4, 21^4. gang.
21^2. And _wanting_.