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13 - The Dowie Dens of Yarrow

Songs

Citations/Sources

1] The Roud Folk Music Index hosted by the Vaughan Williams Memorial Libary at https://www.vwml.org/

2] Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/ (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10)

3] “Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border” by Sir Walter Scott, Cadell and Daviess,1802, via Project Gutenbergs http://www.gutenberg.org/files/12882/12882-h/12882-h.htm

4] Britian Express https://www.britainexpress.com/ (1) (2)

5] Ancient Stones http://www.ancient-stones.co.uk/ (1)

6] Geni.com https://geni.com/ (1) (2)

7] Electric Scotland https://www.electricscotland.com/ (1)

8] Walter Scott Minstrelsy Project http://walterscott.eu/education/ballads-of-love-and-loss/the-dowie-dens-of-yarrow/

9] Various sources for the story of Malvina (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9)

10] “The Poems of Ossian,” by Thomas MacPherson, 1773, via the Internet Sacred Texts Archive http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/ossian/

12]  “The Tea-Table Miscellany” 10th Edition by Allan Ramsay, Buchanan's Head, 1740 at https://archive.org/details/teatablemiscella03rams/page/456

13] "Why Parlsey, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme?" by Joshua Tabin on Wild Zora https://wildzora.com/blogs/news/parsley-sage-rosemary-thyme

14]  "Shakespearean Herbs" on Stems UK https://www.stemsuk.com/news-10/shakespearean-herbs.htm

15]  "What is the Significance of Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme?" by Melody Rose on Dave's Garden https://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/4394 

16]  "Floor Singers Welcome! Memories of Les Cousins and the Soho Folk Music Scene" by Stuart Penney on https://www.emptymirrorbooks.com/music/les-cousins-london-folk-music

17] "American Versions of the Ballad of the Elfin Knight" in The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 7, No. 26 by the American Folklore Society

18] Internet Sacred Texts Archive http://www.sacred-texts.com/ (1)

19]  http://www.justanothertune.com/html/cambricshirt.html

20] "History of the Folk Song 'Scarborough Fair'" by Kim Ruehl on liveaboutdotcom https://www.liveabout.com/scarborough-fair-traditional-simon-and-garfunkel-1322515

21] Mudcat Forums https://mudcat.org (1) (2) (3)

22] “Reliques of Ancient English Poetry: Consisting of Old Heroic Ballads, Songs ...” edited by Thomas Percy

23] “The Wails of Yarrow” in The Battle History of Scotland: Tales of Chivalry and Adventure by By Charles Alfred Maxwell

24] "The Dowie Dens of Yarrow” in The Book of British Ballads, Volume 1 by Samuel Carter Hall, J. How, 1842 via https://books.google.com/

And here's the YouTube video for that amazing Samantha Muir song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lom3zWLKMew

Artist
Title
Links
The Corries
Dowie Dens Of Yarrow
http://www.corries.com/index.php?cPath=33&osCsid=7d9ca935df15249ab4d2b673a5401650
Skye Consort (feat Matthew White)
Dewy Dens of Yarrow
https://www.discogs.com/Skye-Consort-Matthew-White-Traditional-Celtic-Melodies/release/6687844
Sharron Kraus, Meg Baird, Helena Espvall
The Derry Dems of Arrow
https://sharronkraus.bandcamp.com/track/the-derry-dems-of-arrow
Scatter
Dowie Dens of Yarrow
https://www.discogs.com/Scatter-The-Mountain-Announces/release/1764517
Bothy Band
The Heathery Hills Of Yarrow
https://www.amazon.com/After-Hours-Bothy-Band/dp/B001AH3BB2/ref=tmm_msc_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=#
Samantha Muir
Themes & Variations on The Dowie Dens of Yarrow
https://samanthamuir.com/
Gallery
Dowie Dens of Yarrow
https://www.amazon.com/Dowie-Dens-Of-Yarrow/dp/B005OXQ15Q#
Karine Polwart
Dowie Dens Of Yarrow
https://karinepolwart.bandcamp.com/album/fairest-flooer
Carolyn Hester
Yarrow
https://www.amazon.com/Yarrow/dp/B073T2BGDN/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?keywords=carolyn+hester+yarrow+remastered&qid=1560108284&s=dmusic&sr=1-1-fkmr0
Ewan McColl
Dowie Dens O' Yarrow
https://folkways.si.edu/ewan-maccoll/the-english-and-scottish-popular-ballads-vol-1-child-ballads/celtic-world/music/album/smithsonian
Mrs. Lola Stanley
Derry Dems of Arrow
https://maxhunter.missouristate.edu/songinformation.aspx?ID=307
Joseph Haydn (performed byLorna Anderson, Jamie MacDougall & Haydn Eisenstadt Trio)
The Braes of Yarrow
https://www.amazon.com/Braes-Yarrow-Hob-Xxxia-207/dp/B00NQ4I4FU
Jimmy MacBeath
Dowie Dens O Yarrow
http://research.culturalequity.org/get-audio-detailed-recording.do?recordingId=12403
JSD Band
Dowie Dens of Yarrow
https://www.discogs.com/JSD-Band-Travelling-Days/release/2514339

Transcript

On the banks of the Yarrow Waters, in the southeast of Scotland, something happened. I mean, a lot of somethings, I'm sure. The area has a rich history, much of it unrecorded. Yet in an area which used to be called Selkirkshire, near modern day Selkirk, something tragic happened. Many of the details are lost to history, but people used to talk about it. People still sing about it. Sir Walter Scott, famous Scottish novelist and poet –I bet you've heard of him, he wrote Ivanhoe which you probably had to read in some English class or other-- was a judge of the sheriff's court and a collector of stories and song there once upon a time. He'd walk the banks of the Yarrow Water, around the now-decimated Ettrick Forest, we can presume, and he'd talk to the locals. He'd hear stories that were never recorded, only sung or spoken. Stories about why there were two unhewn stones about 80 yards apart carved with writing that time and weather have rendered illegible. The Yarrow Stone, first erected in the 6th century, which says in Latin “Here, an everlasting memorial. In this place, here lie the most famous princes” amidst some names long forgotten and debated and text too worn and archaic to be deciphered. And the Glebe stone, which sits an a field a short walk away, saying nothing. Scott would hear stories about why the moor in which they were erected was given the name Annan's Treat, and would write in 1802 that “the least child that can herd a cow would tell passersby a simple tale: “there lie two lords who were slain in single combat.””

Sir Walter Scott would ponder these stones as he spoke to the inhabitants of the Ettrick Forest and heard a song never before recorded in writing. A song about a man betrayed and slain, and a women who loved him. He had heard them say the man's name was “Scott”, a knight of great bravery who had resided at Oakwood Castle. An old reaver named Auld Watt, husband of Mary Scott, the “Flower of Yarrow” became the 2nd Laird of Harden Castle in the mid 16th century. He had 8 sons, 6 with Mary. One of whom would not survive him. Sir Walter Scott recalls the story of that youngest son, who was on a hunting trip in Ettrick Forest with some relatives, the Scotts of Gilmanscleugh. They got into an argument, swords were drawn, the man was killed. His five brothers at Harden castle flew into a rage, vowing to go to war. Auld Watt locked them in a tower and went to Edinburgh to speak to his vassal lord. “They've killed my son!” he must have cried. “Their own kinsman! Let me make them answer for this crime!” and he hurried back to Harden with a charter in his hands and announced “To horse, lads! Let us take posession! The lands of Gilmanscleugh are well worth a dead son.” and he and his remaining sons took to arms and seized the land. It was said that due to being slain in betrayal, his body was uncorrupted for many years, so much so that “even the roses on his shoes seemed as fresh as when he was first laid in the family vault.” Perhaps this was the noble lord from the song who suffered a great betrayal? Who's love mourned him so sullenly?

Post-humously, another theory by Sir Walter Scott was published, that the ballad was actually about the murder of Walter Scott of Thirlestane in 1609, by his kinsman John Scott of Tushielaw. An incident which caused a feud between the two Scott branches for many many years. Could these also be the two lords for whom the cairns were attributed? Could theirs be the bones who were discovered beneath these stones? Could John Scott be the betrayer from the ballad who is referred to in the song as “John” and by locals as “Annan”, and for whom Annan's Treat was named?

All of these thoughts were published in a collection called “Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border,” where Sir Walter Scott first collected the ballad. It was written in the 1802, shortly after the recovery of the Yarrow stone. He couldn't have known just how long ago the stones had been placed there, but now we know that if the stones and the ballad are connected, it couldn't be by these particular stories, as the stones were erected a thousand years prior.

Whether or not there is a connection, we'll never know. But we do know, in the region, in a time before songs were written down, in a time before Sir Walter Scott, something tragic happened in the Ettrick Forest, and this ballad called The Dowie Dens of Yarrow was born.

This is Every Folk Song, a podcast about old folk songs, I'm Matt Aukamp. Stick with us.
 

The song The Dowie Dens of Yarrow was first collected in 1802. It's Roud 13, Child 214. It's been called The Braes of Yarrow (not to be confused with another song of the same name which is Roud 2578. I'll get to that episode when I'm two hundred and forty) It's been called The Derry Dems of Yarrow, The Heathery Hills of Yarrow, The Dewy Downs of Yarrow, or just Yarrow. There's an American variant called “The Derry Dems of Arrow”, which I will get to in due time. Here is the first ever recording of the song by Jimmy McBeath in 1953, collected by Alan Lomax:

The way I see it, the song has two main branches, neither of which differ very much from each other. Which suggests to me– a dumb, uneducated podcaster – as it did to Sir Walter Scott – a historian, author, folklorist, judge, and like, a hundred other things-- that this story was based around an actual occurrence. OR it was so simple and affecting that no one ever bothered to change or embellish it. OR that it was unpopular – There's this thing I read about once about memory and how the memories you look back on the most change the most over time. These are the memories that get the most corrupted. Like a big whisper-down-the lane game. If you play it with 3 people, the whisper is going to stay pretty much unchanged. If you play it with half of Europe, it's very unlikely to get to the end intact. Maybe that's the case with this song. Or maybe all 3 were the case for this song.

Anyway, here's the story:

A woman, usually named Sarah, in the north, presumably the Scottish Borders where this song was discovered, was highly sought after, being either courted by or maybe just desired by 9 different noble men, though her heart lay with a ploughboy – a local farmer. We can surmise by the details of the song thusfar that she was probably high-born. The 9 lords are sitting around, drinking wine, when they start to float an idea “Why don't we kill this man who she loves? The one who's going to ask her to marry him. The one who forgets his station in life and who would stand to inherit her lands and titles and fortune.” Sometimes this isn't a plowboy, it's a lord of presumably lower birth, but the farmer version seems to be the most popular. So the plan is that one of the men will challenge the plowboy to a duel, and when he arrives the others will spring out and ambush him. They challenge him, he accepts. Sarah tries desperately to convince her love not to go, but he's insistent. And it all goes as they planned. He rides out to face his challenger but the men ambush him in a narrow little valley along the River Yarrow. And probably driven by love or stupidity, as most brave persons are, he decides to fight, rather than flee. And he fights well. Killing 3, wounding 3, and 3, seeing his ferocity, run off, but his victory doesn't last long, as Sarah's brother appears behind him and stabs him in the back. Here, he gets out a parting word. He tells the brother “You've achieved nothing here today but to kill your own sister's true love,” and he dies.

Back at home, Sarah awakes from a terrible nightmare. She dreams that she was “pulling heathery bells,” which I'll try and explain later, but basically she dreams that she's grieving. Upon waking and going down to meet her family, she learns of the death of her true love. Grief stricken, she runs to the bank of the Yarrow Water to find his body. In some versions, her brother lies dead next to him. She weeps, wipes the dirt and blood from his face, and she wraps his body up in her own long hair and uses it to pull him all the way home.

Her father is waiting for her and he says “Listen, don't be sad. I'll find you a great man to be your husband.” and she says “Listen, you have sons, wed them all you'd like, but the only person I've ever loved is dead.” and she asks her mom to make her bed, and she lays down in it and waits to die of grief.

The other version is that two men, while drinking wine, make a pact to fight in the morning over a woman. She tells him “Don't go. My 9 brothers are going to ambush you.” The dude goes anyway and there he sees 9 men all ready to fight him. He's asks “Did you come here to help sort things out when the duel is over? Or did you come to fight me?” They're like “Oh, fight. Most definitely.” And he draws his sword and says “Alright. Lets go.” They fight. He kills 4, wounds 5, and then the dude he was drinking with comes up and stabs him. When she comes to see what became of her true love, she finds 10 dead bodies laying by the river.

It's an incredibly sad song, often sung in a dour tone. As I listen I try to imagine Sarah's panic and shock as she awakes from her dream, knowing that something has gone wrong, only to breathe a sigh of relief when she finds it was just a nightmare. She probably laughs at herself as she gets ready to go down and start the day, thinking “So weird, wait til I tell my mom and dad about this.” Only to descend the staircase and see the grave looks on her parent's faces. I can remember that particular guttural impact of learning, suddenly, unexpectedly, that someone you love has died. It feels so much like being struck with a force you've never felt before. No matter how many times it happens. Your head goes dizzy. The world stops making sense. Your wonder if anything happening around you could even be real. And then the slow, plodding march through time as you learn to accept the reality. This is real life. This is the real world. This is the world without that person in it. No moment in the future of time will be underscored with their laughter, will be painted with their image, will be fueled by the excitement of seeing them again. Perhaps that's what the line about pulling her love back home with her hair was meant to evoke. That slow, trudging progress to understanding, full of pain and seeming impossible. “I'll find you another husband, Sarah!” her father says, just wanting to make everything right. And Sarah, knowing that a world without the plowboy is not a world she belongs in, just keeps trudging forward to bed, and then going forward no more.

As straight-forward as the basic story is, there's a lot that's confusing about this song. In many versions, you don't find out who the woman begging the man not to go fight is until the end. Since there's a dream sequence and a perspective shift, that can be hard to track in many versions that are missing a line or a stanza. Most versions are written in a Scottish dialect so you need to know things like... "Fecht" means Fight. "Dowie" means sad and melancholy. "Doot" sounds much like doubt, but instead it means fear or to anticipate something negative. "Morrow" means match or equal. In some versions both the plowboy and the woman's brother's names are John. It's hard to untangle all of that. But the most confusing thing by far for me was the woman having a nightmare of picking “Heather Bells” in Yarrow. Because I lied. By implication. These are not a flower usually associated with mourning or funerals or anything. They're associated with weddings. And why heather would be a portent of doom or a bad omen in the Yarrow area of Scotland, where heather is everywhere, completely eluded me and sent me down a deep rabbit hole. Let's listen to a song for a minute, and I'll explain
 

There is a story in Scottish folklore, of a poet named Ossian in the 3rd century. He had a daughter named Malvina who was engaged to wed a renown warrior named Oscar. When Oscar fell in battle before they were wed, a messenger returned to Malvina with a sprig of purple heather that Oscar plucked as a parting message to his dear love. As he told her the story of his death, her tears fell on the sprigs of heather, turning it white. She then trod the hills of Scotland, letting her tears fall, a trail of white heather in her wake. Malvina said “although it is the symbol of my sorrow, may the white heather bring good fortune to all who find it.” And to this day brides in Scotland still place heather in their bouquets, for luck.

Excepts almost ALL of that is BULLSHIT. Ok, first of all, there was probably never a poet or a bard named Ossian. All of the references in literature to Ossian came from one man in 1760 named James MacPherson, who claimed to have found an epic poem written by Ossian which he himself translated. He collected these poems into one volume called The Works of Ossian, in 1765. Scholars have debated the sources and veracity of these works for centuries now. Some believe they were inventions of MacPherson himself, some believe they were collected from oral tradition with MacPherson adding to it from his own imagination, and I suppose some believe they were real. My take? It was a promotional gimmick. The dude wrote a bunch of poems loosely based on some Scottish mythology and claimed it was an ancient epic he discovered. Anyway, that's the first thing. The second thing is, I don't have the time to read the complete poems of Ossian, but I have read a lot of it and scanned all of it looking for this story about Malvina crying on the Heather, and it is NOWHERE in the texts. If I do an internet search, I can find hundreds of tellings of it on various websites and books, and the famous line “May the White Heather, symbol of my sorrow, bring good fortune to all who find it.” everywhere, but no one ever cites their source and it doesn't appear to actually be in the book. In fact, the only reference to Malvina (WHO IS DESCRIBED AS THE DAUGHTER OF A GUY NAMED TOSCAR, NOT OSSIAN. OSSIAN IS OSCAR'S DAD!) grieving over her slain lover Oscar is in the poem Croma:

“"But thou dwellest in the soul of Malvina, son of mighty Ossian! My sighs arise with the beam of the east; my tears descend with the drops of night. I was a lovely tree, in thy presence, Oscar, with all my branches round me; but thy death came like a blast from the desert, and laid my green head low. The spring returned with its showers; no leaf of mine arose! The virgins saw me silent in the hall; they touched the harp of joy. The tear was on the cheek of Malvina: the virgins beheld me in my grief. Why art thou sad, they said, thou first of the maids of Lutha! Was he lovely as the beam of the morning, and stately in thy sight?"

And Ossian thanks her for grieving for his son and starts telling her war stories. I think those lines are lovely, but they have nothing to do with magical bleach-tears.

So here's what I think may have happened. This fraud James MacPherson made up some series of epic poems that got crazy popular. In the mid 1700's, oral tradition was still the major way that stories and songs spread, even though the written word was incredibly popular. So perhaps some old story about a woman crying over her lover onto purple heather got mixed up with Malvina grieving for Oscar –which was a scene so famous that Napoleon Bonaparte commissioned a painting of it. And over time, people who didn't know anything about the Poems of Ossian goofed up a bunch of details as they told it to each other when they were tucking sprigs of heather into the hair or dress or bouquets of brides. Now, the Poems of Ossian was released in 1760 and Sir Walter Scott didn't write down the Dowie Dens of Yarrow until 1802. So could 1) the stories of Ossian, 2) a story of a woman crying tears of grief on purple heather, and 3) the dowie dens of yarrow, all have been being sung and told to each other all throughout the late 1700's, getting themselves all mixed up? Could three different stories all from Scotland about a woman grieving for her lost love, killed through violence, have been conflated? And so could the heather have been added to the song this way? This is a lot of speculation, but it's kind of cool to think about. Myths are stories that get twisted and added to and embellished and knotted up as they go. They're little spices that make history more interesting. There's this idea in modern nerd culture called “headcannon,” where you twist up a bit of the mythology of a story you like and decide that a detail that isn't implicit or sometimes even implied in the text is your definitive view of it. Like, all the Pixar movies take place in the same universe, or that Momo was a reincarnation of Monk Gyatso. So this is my headcannon. That the story of the white heather used to belong to Sarah of the Dowie Dens of Yarrow, and that when James MacPherson was wandering the Scottish countryside, talking to locals and gathering stories to crib for his epic, this was a story that came up often. An while he never used it, it created an enduring association in the minds of the denizens of Ettrick Forest. And there are no bits of text to back this up, but two hints – an age-old story in the scottish tradition of Malvina crying on the heather, and this errant line in the Dowie Dens of Yarrow: “I dreamed I was pulling heather bells.”

So there's another small piece of the puzzle that is the history of the Dowie Dens of Yarrow. I told you much earlier that this song has a variant called “The Braes of Yarrow.” And while the song is roughly the same age as the Dowie Dens of Yaarrow, composed in 1802 by Joseph Haydn. The lyrics to it are much older.

Joseph Haydn composed this piece off of a poem originally written by William Hamilton of Bangour for a book called “The Tea Table Miscellany” in 1723. It's a slightly different version of the story, told from an entirely new perspective. In it, we hear a man telling a woman to cheer up, for they're about to be married. She is mourning over the loss of her love on the banks of Yarrow. The song is told from many perspectives and leaps around in history. We learn that the woman's husband is the one who slew her love. She'd been wandering around the Yarrow picking branches before her father ordered her to marry the man. He's excited at the prospect of bedding her. Yet she imagines bringing the corpse of her former lover to her bed and using her love and bodily warmth to bring him back to life. It's all about the complicated aftermath of the Dowie Dens of Yarrow, and the poem is far longer than the lyrics that Haydn used.

It creates an alternate reality for the song where Sarah lives. She allows her father to marry her off, and he does... to the worst person on Earth that he could have. Sarah is left to not only dwell in the loss of her one true love, but be constantly reminded by sharing a name and a bed with the man who took him from her. In the song, she speaks up for herself and ends up coming off a lot better than he, but it's still a cruel fate to saddle her with.

Before we move on to the American variant, I just wanna touch briefly on another song that's not the Dowie Dens of Yarrow at all, but almost serves as this like... alternate timeline version where everything turns out alright. It's called “Braw, Braw Lads on Yarrow Braes.” Like I said earlier, it's actually Roud 2578, a song called “Gala Water”. I'm going to play Euspeth Cowie's version here to cheer you up a second before I depress you again. You'll hear the tale of a woman talking about her undying love for a poor boy who has no wealth and no name, but still bringing her happiness. Ok, here you go.
 

There aren't too many instances of the American version of this song. The Roud Index records only 3, all sung by a Mrs. Lola Stanley in 1958 in Arkansas.
 

Because of that, I'm not sure how this song migrated or how popular it was, but I assume not very, and fairly late. The primary differences in this version are 1) she changes all the characters to “Cowboys”. Except for the woman and her father. She names the lover Jim, the brother John, and the woman Saro. 2) Instead of dragging her lover's corpse back with her hair, she just, very reasonably, buries him where she finds him. Otherwise, it's the same story.

Here's the only other recorded version I could find of this song, by Meg Baird, Helena Espvall, and Sharron Kraus

A lot of collections make reference to 2 Scandinavian versions called “Herr Helmer,” and “Jomfruen i Skoven”, but I couldn't really find much else about them. If you know anything about these ballads, email me and I'll put something up on the website!

That all being said, there's so much that is deeply Scottish about this song. Every inch of this balad is so deeply tied to Scottish history, geography, mythology, language, and imagery. It draws on Scottish folklore and tradition. While I think the migrations to Scandinavia and America are interesting, and the translation of noble lord to “cowboy” is pretty hilarious, any non-scottish version of this song just feels... hollow. Like it's missing the soul of the song.
 

William Wordsworth wrote 3 poems about Yarrow. Yarrow Unvisited, a poem about his hesitancy to visit the gloomy lands of Yarrow. He had read the poems, heard the songs, and he had an image in his head of what trodding the Yarrow lands would be like, and he feared that there was no way that some river and dry stream beds could possibly live up to it. Better to keep it safe and precious in his memory. He wrote:

"What's Yarrow but a river bare,

That glides the dark hills under?

There are a thousand such elsewhere

As worthy of your wonder."


 

and he wrote:

"Be Yarrow stream unseen, unknown!

It must, or we shall rue it:

We have a vision of our own;

Ah! why should we undo it?

The treasured dreams of times long past,

We'll keep them, winsome Marrow!

For when we'er there, although 'tis fair,

'Twill be another Yarrow!

 

This poem which is several stanzas longer than that, was written when Wordsworth was a young man in 1803, traveling the borders of Scotland with his sister.

Then over a decade later, in his middle age, he wrote the amusingly-named Yarrow Visited, as he traveled Scotland again with his friend, a poet named James Hogg. It's a poem about visiting Yarrow, a place he'd written about before. Seeing it's grandeur, it's sorrow, it's quiet and melancholy hills, and the actual views, the feel, exceeding the Yarrow he built in his imagination. He opens with this beautiful verse:


 

AND is this—Yarrow?—This the stream

Of which my fancy cherish’d

So faithfully, a waking dream,

An image that hath perish’d?

O that some minstrel’s harp were near

To utter notes of gladness

And chase this silence from the air,

That fills my heart with sadness.
 

Which morphs into

But thou that didst appear so fair
To fond imagination,
Dost rival in the light of day
Her delicate creation:

 

and ends on
 

But that I know, where'er I go,
Thy genuine image, Yarrow!
Will dwell with me -to heighten joy,
And cheer my mind in sorrow.


 

And lastly, in the autumn of 1831, Wordworth wrote one last poem on the subject titled Yarrow Revisited.


 

At this time, Sir Walter Scott was ailing. He was just 60 years old, in terrible debt, and widowed.. He'd lived a life dedicated to revitalizing, recording, and celebrating the history of Scotland, and here he was, suffering from Typhus, touring his home land one last time with his friend William Wordsworth. Now, also a man of his early 60's. The two returned to the Yarrow lands, both gazing upon it, knowing it would be Scott's last time.


 

The gallant Youth, who may have gained,

Or seeks, a "winsome Marrow,"

Was but an Infant in the lap

When first I looked on Yarrow;

Once more, by Newark's Castle-gate

Long left without a warder,

I stood, looked, listened, and with Thee,

Great Minstrel of the Border!


 

Grave thoughts ruled wide on that sweet day,

Their dignity installing

In gentle bosoms, while sere leaves

Were on the bough, or falling;

But breezes played, and sunshine gleamed-

The forest to embolden;

Reddened the fiery hues, and shot

Transparence through the golden.


 

For busy thoughts the Stream flowed on

In foamy agitation;

And slept in many a crystal pool

For quiet contemplation:

No public and no private care

The freeborn mind enthralling,

We made a day of happy hours,

Our happy days recalling.


 

Brisk Youth appeared, the Morn of youth,

With freaks of graceful folly,-

Life's temperate Noon, her sober Eve,

Her Night not melancholy;

Past, present, future, all appeared

In harmony united,

Like guests that meet, and some from far,

By cordial love invited.


 

And if, as Yarrow, through the woods

And down the meadow ranging,

Did meet us with unaltered face,

Though we were changed and changing;

If, then, some natural shadows spread

Our inward prospect over,

The soul's deep valley was not slow

Its brightness to recover.


 

He goes on to reference the many poems and pieces of history her recalls from the era and the poem ends like this:


 

Bear witness, Ye, whose thoughts that day

In Yarrow's groves were centred;

Who through the silent portal arch

Of mouldering Newark entered;

And clomb the winding stair that once

Too timidly was mounted

By the "last Minstrel,"(not the last!)

Ere he his Tale recounted.


 

Flow on for ever, Yarrow Stream!

Fulfil thy pensive duty,

Well pleased that future Bards should chant

For simple hearts thy beauty;

To dream-light dear while yet unseen,

Dear to the common sunshine,

And dearer still, as now I feel,

To memory's shadowy moonshine!


 

The great minstrel, Sir Walter Scott, would retire then to his home in the Scottish Borders, and pass away the following September, 61 years old, in 1832.

If you search the word “Yarrow” in any geographic website or encyclopedia, you'll find it at least a little challenging to get exactly what you're looking for. Did you mean the flower? Did you mean the town in Vancouver, Canada? Did you mean the River in Lancashire England? The stadium in New Zealand? You'll have to narrow your search 3 or 4 times to find the Yarrow Waters. Though if you search “Yarrow” in any archive of poetry or history or song or literature, you'll find hundreds and hundreds of hits, all about this one 76 square mile stretch of river and sparse hills and valleys and clumps of coniferous trees and dry rivers and grassland and heather. A ruined castle. An old church. A highway. A small village. A few standing stones. But somehow, the inspiration for so much culture and story and song.

Yarrow was once the center of a great forest, now gone. The battlegrounds of Noble Lords and hunters and reavers. The meeting place of lovers and friends. The final resting place of far too many to name. It holds mysteries and stories. Ruins and relics. Songs and culture and poems and myths that have influenced and entertained people the entire world over.

And we don't know where that started, nor where it will end, but we do have a moment here captured beautifully. Where something happened, we don't know what. We don't know if it was in the year 500 or 1500. But it was something tragic. And now we see in our minds-eye the hills of Yarrow, purple heather flowing back and forth in the wind. And a woman kneeling amongst it in the tall grass. Her tears, mundane and sad, drop on the ground and they just lie there. She wipes the blood and the dirt off the face of a man who lays before her. A man whom she loved. A man who was killed violently and cruelly, for no other crime than loving her. And we don't know what she does next. Does she drag the body home or bury it there? Does she erect an unhewn stone over his bones, which in time will lose all meaning? Does she find love again and marry? Or let her grief consume her and die in bed not long after? But it all hardly matters. For right now, she's there, her cries echoing over the quiet valley of the Dowie Dens of Yarrow.

Extras

Malvina_Mourning_The_Death_Of_Her_Fiance

"Malvina Mourning the death of her Fiancé Oscar" by Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson commissioned by Napoleon Bonaparte

YouTube video of the JSD Band rendition, accompanied by visuals of the Yarrow area of Scotland

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