"The hero of this ballad appears to have been an outlaw and deer-stealer--probably one of the broken men residing upon the Border. There are several different copies, in one of which the principal personage is called _Johnie of Cockielaw_. The stanzas of greatest merit have been selected from each copy. It is sometimes said, that this outlaw possessed the old Castle of Morton, in Dumfries-shire, now ruinous: "Near to this castle there was a park, built by Sir Thomas Randolph, on the face of a very great and high hill; so artificially, that, by the advantage of the hill, all wild beasts, such as deers, harts, and roes, and hares, did easily leap in, but could not get out again; and if any other cattle, such as cows, sheep, or goats, did voluntarily leap in, or were forced to do it, _it is doubted_ if their owners were permitted to get them out again." _Account of Presbytery of Penpont, apud Macfarlane's MSS._ Such a park would form a convenient domain to an outlaw's castle, and the mention of Durisdeer, a neighboring parish, adds weight to this tradition." Johnie of Breadislee was first printed in the _Border Minstrelsy_. Fragments of two other versions, in which the hero's name is Johny Cock, were given in Fry's _Pieces of Ancient Poetry_, Bristol, 1814, p. 55, and the editor did not fail to notice that he had probably lighted on the ballad of _Johny Cox_, which Ritson says the Rev. Mr. Boyd faintly recollected, (_Scottish Song_, I. p. xxxvi.) Motherwell, not aware of what Fry had done, printed a few stanzas belonging to the first of these versions, under the title of _Johnie of Braidisbank_ (_Minstrelsy, Ancient and Modern_, p. 23), and Kinloch recovered a nearly complete story. Another copy of this last has been published from Buchan's manuscripts in _Scottish Traditional Versions of Ancient Ballads_ (Percy Society, vol. xvii. p. 77). Chambers, in his _Scottish Ballads_, p. 181, has compounded Scott's, Kinloch's, and Motherwell's copies, interspersing a few additional stanzas of no value. Scott's and Kinloch's versions are given in this place, and Fry's fragments (which contain several beautiful stanzas) in the Appendix. Johnie rose up in a May morning, Call'd for water to wash his hands-- "Gar loose to me the gude graie dogs, That are bound wi' iron bands." When Johnie's mother gat word o' that, 5 Her hands for dule she wrang-- "O Johnie! for my benison, To the greenwood dinna gang! "Eneugh ye hae o' gude wheat bread, And eneugh o' the blood-red wine; 10 And, therefore, for nae venison, Johnie, I pray ye, stir frae hame." But Johnie's busk't up his gude bend bow, His arrows, ane by ane, And he has gane to Durrisdeer, 15 To hunt the dun deer down.