_The first copy seems to be the earlier, and that which was transcribed into the MS. to have been slightly edited, but the variations are few, mostly spellings. The first copy has no title. The title of the second is altered from_ The Braes of Yarrow _to_ The Dowie Glens of Yarrow. _At the end of the second is this note_: This song I took down from Marion Miller in Threepwood, in the Parish of Melrose. The air was plaintive and extremely wild. I consider this song more valuable on account that Mern had never sung it to any but myself for fifteen years, and she had almost said, or rather promised, that she would never sing it to another. Thoro, 1^1, _etc._, _is spelt_ Thorough, Thorrough, _in the first copy_, Thorough, Thorrough, Thorro, Thoro, _in the second_; _but in the latter_ ugh _is struck out wherever it occurs_. 4^3. thrusty, _in both_; _i.e._, trusty. 11^3. the (birks) heather green, _in both_. _First._ 5^2, 17^1, 18^1. oh, Oh. _Second._ 5^2. What she had neer done before, O. 6^2, 19^2. was filled wi. 9^1. Five he. 9^2. nae. 9^3. steed. 12^2. to your. 18^2. wi _for_ in. #K.# 3^3. far far _should probably be_ forth, _as in_ #J#; _possibly_ forth for. #L.# 12^{3,4}, 13^{1,2}. _Compare Logan’s_ Braes of Yarrow. They sought him east, they sought him west, They sought him all the forest thorough; They only saw the cloud of night They only heard the roar of Yarrow. #O.# “A fragment, to the tune of Leaderhaughs and Yarrow.” 215 RARE WILLIE DROWNED IN YARROW, OR, THE WATER O GAMRIE #A.# ‘Willy’s rare and Willy’s fair,’ Thomson’s Orpheus Caledonius, II, 110, 1733. #B. a.# Cromek’s Select Scotish Songs, 1810, II, 196. #b.# Stenhouse, Musical Museum, 1853, IV, 464. #C.# ‘The Dowie Dens o Yarrow,’ Gibb MS., p. 37. #D.# Skene MS., p. 47. #E.# ‘Willie’s drowned in Gamery,’ Buchan’s Ballads of the North of Scotland, I, 245. #F.# ‘The Water o Gamery,’ Buchan’s MSS, II, 159. Dixon, Scottish Traditional Versions of Ancient Ballads, p. 66, Percy Society, vol. xvii. #G.# ‘The Water o Ganrie,’ Motherwell’s MS., p. 637. #H.# ‘The Water o Gemrie,’ Campbell MSS, II, 78. #A# was inserted in the fourth volume of The Tea-Table Miscellany, and stands in the edition of 1763 at p. 321, ‘Rare Willie drowned in Yarrow,’ It is given in Herd’s Ancient and Modern Scots Songs, 1769, p. 197 (with two or three trifling changes); in Johnson’s Museum, p. 542, No 525. #F# is epitomized in Christie’s Traditional Ballad Airs, I, 66, “with some changes from the way the editor has heard it sung.”