I never flee
Now frae the braes of Yarrow.'

9.
Then four he kill'd and five did wound,
That was an unmeet marrow!
And he had weel nigh wan the day
Upon the braes of Yarrow.

10.
But a cowardly loon came him behind,
Our Lady lend him sorrow!
And wi' a rappier pierced his heart,
And laid him low on Yarrow.

11.
Now Douglas to his sister's gane,
Wi' meikle dule and sorrow:
'Gae to your luve, sister,' he says,
'He's sleeping sound on Yarrow.'

12.
As she went down yon dowy den,
Sorrow went her before, O;
She saw her true-love lying slain
Upon the braes of Yarrow.

13.
She swoon'd thrice upon his breist
That was her dearest marrow;
Said, 'Ever alace, and wae the day
Thou went'st frae me to Yarrow!'

14.
She kist his mouth, she kaimed his hair,
As she had done before, O;
She wiped the blood that trickled doun
Upon the braes of Yarrow.

15.
Her hair it was three quarters lang,
It hang baith side and yellow;
She tied it round her white hause-bane,
And tint her life on Yarrow.

[Annotations:
7.1: 'dowy,' dreary.
7.3: 'well-wight,' brave, sturdy.
13.: Apparently Percy's invention.
14.3: 'wiped': Child suggests the original word was 'drank.'
15.2: 'side,' long.
15.3: 'hause-bane,' neck.]

THE TWA BROTHERS

+The Text+ is from Sharpe's _Ballad Book_ (1823). Scott included no
version of this ballad in his _Minstrelsy_; but Motherwell and Jamieson
both had traditional versions. Motherwell considered it essential that
the deadly wound should be accidental; but it is far more typical of a
ballad-hero that he should lose his temper and kill his brother; and,
as Child points out, it adds to the pathetic generosity of the slain
brother in providing excuses for his absence to be made to his father,
mother, and sister.

+The Story.+--Motherwell and Sharpe were more or less convinced that the
ballad was founded on an accident that happened in 1589 to a Somerville,
who was killed by his brother's pistol going off.

This ballad is still in circulation in the form of a game amongst
American children--the last state of more than one old ballad otherwise
extinct.

THE TWA BROTHERS

1.
There were twa brethren in the north,
They went to the school thegither;
The one unto the other said,
'Will you try a warsle afore?'

2.
They warsled up, they warsled down,