The earliest printed copy of this ballad is the curious piece in _Wit Restor'd_, (1658,) called _The Miller and the King's Daughter_, improperly said to be a parody, by Jamieson and others. (See Appendix.) Pinkerton inserted in his _Tragic Ballads_, (p. 72,) a ballad on the subject, which preserves many genuine lines, but is half his own composition. Complete versions were published by Scott and Jamieson, and more recently a third has been furnished in Sharpe's _Ballad Book_, p. 30, and a fourth in Buchan's _Ballads of the North of Scotland_ (given at the end of this volume). The burden of Mr. Sharpe's copy is nearly the same as that of the _Cruel Mother_, _post_, p. 372. Jamieson's copy had also this burden, but he exchanged it for the more popular, and certainly more tasteful, _Binnorie_. No ballad furnishes a closer link than this between the popular poetry of England and that of the other nations of Northern Europe. The same story is found in Icelandic, Norse, Faroish, and Estnish ballads, as well as in the Swedish and Danish, and a nearly related one in many other ballads or tales, German, Polish, Lithuanian, etc., etc.--See _Svenska Folk-Visor_, iii. 16, i. 81, 86, Arwidsson, ii. 139, and especially _Den Talende Strengeleg_, Grundtvig, No. 95, and the notes to _Der Singende Knochen_, _K. u. H. Märchen_, iii. 55, ed. 1856. Of the edition in the _Border Minstrelsy_, Scott gives the following account, (iii. 287.) "It is compiled from a copy in Mrs. Brown's MSS., intermixed with a beautiful fragment, of fourteen verses, transmitted to the Editor by J. C. Walker, Esq. the ingenious historian of the Irish bards. Mr. Walker, at the same time, favored the Editor with the following note: 'I am indebted to my departed friend, Miss Brook, for the foregoing pathetic fragment. Her account of it was as follows: This song was trans-scribed, several years ago, from the memory of an old woman, who had no recollection of the concluding verses; probably the beginning may also be lost, as it seems to commence abruptly.' The first verse and burden of the fragment ran thus:-- 'O sister, sister, reach thy hand! _Hey ho, my Nanny, O_; And you shall be heir of all my land, _While the swan swims bonney, O_.'" There were two sisters sat in a bour; _Bínnorie, O Bínnorie_; There came a knight to be their wooer; _By the bonny milldams of Binnorie_. He courted the eldest with glove and ring, 5 _Binnorie, O Binnorie_; But he lo'ed the youngest abune a' thing; _By the bonny milldams of Binnorie_. He courted the eldest with broach and knife, _Binnorie, O Binnorie_; 10 But he lo'ed the youngest abune his life; _By the bonny milldams of Binnorie_.