[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 the end of Child’s collection only because he preferred ‘to err by including rather than excluding.’ He adds, ‘I am convinced that it did not begin its existence as a popular ballad, and I am not convinced that (as Scott asserts) it has been for ages a popular song in Selkirkshire.’ Nevertheless, it undoubtedly gained a place in popular tradition; and this, while entitling it to a place here, renders the elaborate historical investigation, to which it has been submitted since Child’s edition, a waste of erudition and ingenuity. THE OUTLAW MURRAY 1. Ettrick Forest is a fair forest, In it grows many a seemly tree; The hart, the hynd, the doe, the roe, And of a’ wild beastis great plentie. 2. There’s a castell biggit with lime and stane; O gin it stands not pleasantlie! In the forefront o’ that castell fair, Twa unicorns are bra’ to see. 3. There’s the picture of a knight, and a ladye bright, And the grene hollin abune their bree; There an Outlaw keeps five hundred men; He keeps a royal companie. 4. His merry men are in ae liverie clad, Of the Lincoln grene sae fair to see; He and his ladie in purple clad, O gin they live not royallie! 5. Word is gane to our noble king, In Edinburgh, where that he lay, That there was an Outlaw in Ettrick Forest Counted him nought and all his courtrie gay.