"O weel is me!" King Henrie said, "How lang will this last wi' me?" And out and spak that ladye fair, "E'en till the day ye die. "For I was witched to a ghastly shape, "All by my stepdame's skill, "Till I should meet wi' a courteous knight, "Wad gie me a' my will." FOOTNOTES: [16] _Tee_, for _to_, is the Buchanshire and Gallovidian pronunciation. ANNAN WATER. NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED. * * * * * The following verses are the original words of the tune of "_Allan Water_," by which name the song is mentioned in Ramsay's _Tea Table Miscellany_. The ballad is given from tradition; and it is said, that a bridge, over the Annan, was built in consequence of the melancholy catastrophe which it narrates. Two verses are added in this edition, from another copy of the ballad, in which the conclusion proves fortunate. By the _Gatehope Slack_, is perhaps meant the _Gate Slack_, a pass in Annandale. The Annan, and the Frith of Solway, into which it falls, are the frequent scenes of tragical accidents. The editor trusts he will be pardoned for inserting the following awfully impressive account of such an event, contained in a letter from Dr Currie, of Liverpool, by whose correspondence, while in the course of preparing these volumes for the press, he has been alike honoured and instructed. After stating, that he had some recollection of the ballad which follows, the biographer of Burns proceeds thus: "I once in my early days heard (for it was night, and I could not see) a traveller drowning; not in the Annan itself, but in the Frith of Solway, close by the mouth of that river. The influx of the tide had unhorsed him, in the night, as he was passing the sands from Cumberland. The west wind blew a tempest, and, according to the common expression, brought in the water, _three foot a-breast_. The traveller got upon a standing net, a little way from the shore. There he lashed himself to the post, shouting for half an hour for assistance--till the tide rose over his head! In the darkness of night, and amid the pauses of the hurricane, his voice, heard at intervals, was exquisitely mournful. No one could go to his assistance--no one knew where he was--the sound seemed to proceed from the spirit of the waters. But morning rose--the tide had ebbed--and the poor traveller was found lashed to the pole of the net, and bleaching in the wind." ANNAN WATER. * * * * * "Annan water's wading deep, "And my love Annie's wondrous bonny; "And I am laith she suld weet her feet, "Because I love her best of ony. "Gar saddle me the bonny black; "Gar saddle sune, and make him ready: "For I will down the Gatehope-slack, "And all to see my bonny ladye." He has loupen on the bonny black, He stirr'd him wi' the spur right sairly; But, or he wan the Gatehope-slack, I think the steed was wae and weary.