"I have heard the 'Broom blooms bonnie' sung by our poor old nursery-maid as often as I have teeth in my head, but after cudgelling my memory I can make no more than the following stanzas." _Scott, Sharpe's Ballad Book, 1880, p. 159._ _Scott makes Effie Deans, in The Heart of Mid-Lothian, vol. I, ch. 10, sing this stanza, probably of his own making:_ The elfin knight sat on the brae, The broom grows bonny, the broom grows fair And by there came lilting a lady so gay. And we daurna gang down to the broom nae mair 17 HIND HORN #A.# 'Hindhorn,' Motherwell's MS., p. 106. #B.# 'Young Hyndhorn,' Motherwell's MS., p. 418. #C. a.# 'Young Hyn Horn,' Motherwell's Note-Book, p. 42. #b.# Motherwell's MS., p. 413. #D.# 'Young Hynhorn,' Cromek's Select Scotish Songs, II, 204. #E.# 'Hynd Horn,' Motherwell's MS., p. 91. #F.# Lowran Castle, or the Wild Boar of Curridoo: with other Tales. By R. Trotter, Dumfries, 1822. #G.# 'Hynde Horn,' Kinloch's Ancient Scottish Ballads, p. 135. #H.# 'Hynd Horn,' Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, II, 268. A defective copy of this ballad was printed in Cromek's Select Scottish Songs, Ancient and Modern, 1810 (#D#). A fragment, comprising the first half of the story, was inserted in "Lowran Castle, or the Wild Boar of Curridoo: with other Tales," etc., by Robert Trotter, Dumfries, 1822[159] (#F#). A complete copy was first given in Kinloch's Ancient Scottish Ballads, 1827 (#G#); another, described by the editor as made up from Cromek's fragment and two copies from recitation, in Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. 36,[160] later in the same year; and a third, closely resembling Kinloch's, in Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, in 1828 (#H#). Three versions complete, or nearly so, and a fragment of a fourth are now printed for the first time, all from Motherwell's manuscripts (#A#, #B#, #C#, #E#). The stanza about the auger bore [wimble bore], #B# 1, #F# 3, #H# 4, is manifestly out of place. It is found in 'The Whummil Bore' (see further on), and may have slipped into 'Hind Horn' by reason of its following, in its proper place, a stanza beginning, "Seven lang years I hae served the king:" cf. #F# 2, #H# 3. #G# 17, 18, 21, 22, which are not intelligible in their present connection, are perhaps, as well as #G# 16, #H# 18-20, borrowed from some Robin Hood ballad, in which a change is made with a beggar.