"In behint yon auld fail dyke, 5 I wot there lies a new-slain knight; And naebody kens that he lies there, But his hawk, his hound, and lady fair. "His hound is to the hunting gane, His hawk, to fetch the wild-fowl hame, 10 His lady's ta'en another mate, So we may mak our dinner sweet. "Ye'll sit on his white hause-bane, And I'll pick out his bonny blue een: Wi' ae lock o' his gowden hair 15 We'll theek our nest when it grows bare. "Mony a one for him makes mane, But nane sall ken where he is gane: O'er his white banes, when they are bare, The wind sall blaw for evermair."-- 20 THE DOWIE DENS OF YARROW. _Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_, iii. 143. "This ballad, which is a very great favourite among the inhabitants of Ettrick Forest, is universally believed to be founded in fact. I found it easy to collect a variety of copies; but very difficult indeed to select from them such a collated edition as might, in any degree, suit the taste of 'these more light and giddy-paced times.' "Tradition places the event, recorded in the song, very early; and it is probable that the ballad was composed soon afterwards, although the language has been gradually modernized, in the course of its transmission to us, through the inaccurate channel of oral tradition. The bard does not relate particulars, but barely the striking outlines of a fact, apparently so well known when he wrote, as to render minute detail as unnecessary as it is always tedious and unpoetical. "The hero of the ballad was a knight of great bravery, called Scott, who is said to have resided at Kirkhope, or Oakwood Castle, and is, in tradition, termed the Baron of Oakwood. The estate of Kirkhope belonged anciently to the Scotts of Harden: Oakwood is still their property, and has been so from time immemorial. The Editor was, therefore, led to suppose that the hero of the ballad might have been identified with John Scott, sixth son of the Laird of Harden, murdered in Ettrick Forest by his kinsmen, the Scotts of Gilmanscleugh. (See notes to _Jamie Telfer_.) This appeared the more probable, as the common people always affirm that this young man was treacherously slain, and that, in evidence thereof, his body remained uncorrupted for many years; so that even the roses on his shoes seemed as fresh as when he was first laid in the family vault at Hassendean. But from a passage in Nisbet's Heraldry, he now believes the ballad refers to a duel fought at Deucharswyre, of which Annan's Treat is a part, betwixt John Scott of Tushielaw and his brother-in-law, Walter Scott, third son of Robert of Thirlestane, in which the latter was slain.