_Source_.--From the ballad of the “Twa Sisters o' Binnorie.” I have used
the longer version in Roberts's _Legendary Ballads_, with one or two
touches from Mr. Allingham's shorter and more powerful variant in
_The Ballad Book_. A tale is the better for length, a ballad for its
curtness.
_Parallels_.--The story is clearly that of Grimm's “Singing Bone” (No.
28), where one brother slays the other and buries him under a bush.
Years after a shepherd passing by finds a bone under the bush, and,
blowing through this, hears the bone denounce the murderer. For numerous
variants in Ballads and Folk Tales, see Prof. Child's _English and
Scotch Ballads_ (ed. 1886), i. 125, 493; iii. 499.