Ballads, English -- England -- Texts; Ballads, Scots -- Scotland -- Texts
Hogg inserted this ballad in the _Jacobite Relics_, ii. 13, using,
says Maidment, the editor of the publication cited above, a very
imperfect manuscript copy. The following version was taken from the
original broad-side, supposed to be unique. There are very
considerable variations in the language of the two copies, and the
order of the stanzas is quite different. This says Hogg, "is
exclusively a party song, made by some of the Grants, or their
adherents, in obloquy of their more potent neighbours, the Gordons. It
is in a great measure untrue; for, though the Marquis of Huntley was
on the left wing at the head of a body of horse, and among the
gentlemen that fled, yet two battalions of Gordons, or at least of
Gordon's vassals, perhaps mostly of the Clan Chattan, behaved
themselves as well as any on the field, and were particularly
instrumental in breaking the Whig cavalry, or the left wing of their
army, and driving them back among their foot. On this account, as well
as that of the bitter personalities that it contains, the "song is
only curious as an inveterate party song, and not as a genuine
humorous description of the fight that the Marquis and his friends
were in. The latter part of the [third] stanza seems to allude to an
engagement that took place at Dollar, on the 24th October, a fortnight
previous to the battle of Sheriffmuir. Mar had despatched a small body
of cavalry to force an assessment from the town of Dunfermline, of
which Argyle getting notice, sent out a stronger party, who surprised
them early in the morning before daylight, and arrested them, killing
some and taking seventeen prisoners, several of whom were Gordons. The
last stanza [but one] evidently alludes to the final submission of the
Marquis and the rest of the Gordons to King George's government, which
they did to the Grants and the Earl of Sutherland. The former had
previously taken possession of Castle Gordon; of course, the malicious
bard of the Grants, with his ill-scraped pen, was not to let that
instance of the humiliation of his illustrious neighbours pass
unnoticed.--JACOBITE RELICS, vol. ii. p. 255.
From Bogie side to Bogie Gight,
The Gordons all conveen'd, man,
With all their might, to battle wight,[L3]
Together close they join'd, man,[L4]
To set their king upon the throne, 5
And to protect the church, man;
But fy for shame! they soon ran hame,
And left him in the lurch, man.
_Vow as the Marquis ran,
Coming from Dumblane, man!
Strabogie did b--t itself,
And Enzie was not clean, man._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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