#A. a.# Sharpe’s Ballad Book, p. 59, No 20. #b.# ‘The Bonnie House o Airly,’ Finlay’s Ballads, II, 25. #c.# Skene MS., pp. 28, 54. #d.# ‘The Bonny House of Airly,’ Campbell MSS, II, 113. #e.# ‘The Bonny House of Airly,’ an Aberdeen stall-copy, without date. #f.# ‘The Bonny House o Airly,’ another Aberdeen stall-copy, without date. #g.# Hogg’s Jacobite Relics, II, 152. #h.# Kinloch MSS, VI, 5, one stanza. #B.# Kinloch MSS, V, 273. #C. a.# ‘The Bonny House of Airley,’ Kinloch MSS, V, 205. #b.# ‘Young Airly,’ Cromek’s Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song, p. 226. #c.# ‘The Bonny House o Airlie,’ Smith’s Scottish Minstrel, II, 2. #d.# ‘The Bonny House o Airlie,’ Christie’s Traditional Ballad Airs, II, 276, 296. #D.# Kinloch MSS, V, 106; Kinloch MSS, VII, 207; Kinloch’s Ancient Scottish Ballads, p. 104. The earliest copy of this ballad hitherto found is a broadside of about 1790 (a hundred and fifty years later than the event celebrated), which Finlay combined with two others, derived from recitation, for his edition (#A b#). #C b#, #c#, #d#, are not purely traditional texts, and #A g# has borrowed some stanzas from #C b#. #C b# is transcribed into the Campbell MSS, I, 184. Aytoun’s edition, 1859, II, 270, is compounded from #A a#, #A b#, with half a dozen words changed, and it is not quite clear how the editor means to be understood when he says, “the following, I have reason to believe, is the original.” One summer day, Argyle, who has a quarrel with Airlie, sets out to plunder the castle of that name. The lord of the place is at the time with the king. Argyle (something in the style of Captain Car) summons Lady Ogilvie to come down and kiss him; else he will not leave a standing stone in Airlie. This she will not do, for all his threat. Argyle demands of the lady where her dowry is (as if it were tied up in a handkerchief). She gives no precise information: it is east and west, up and down the water-side. Sharp search is made, and the dowry is found in a plum-tree (balm-tree, cherry-tree, palm-tree, #A a#, #b#, #d#, #e#, #g#). Argyle lays or leads the lady down somewhere while the plundering goes forward. She tells him that no Campbell durst have taken in hand such a thing if her lord had been at home. She has born seven (ten) sons, and is expecting another; but had she as many more (a hundred more), she would give them all to King Charles.