"The Dowie Dens of Yarrow", also known as "The Braes of Yarrow" or simply "Yarrow", is a Scottish border ballad. It has many variants and it has been printed as a broadside, as well as published in song collections. It is considered to be a folk standard, and many different singers have performed and recorded it.
Synopsis
The song describes an unequal conflict between a group of men and one man, concerning a lady. This takes place in the vicinity of Yarrow. The one man succeeds on overcoming nearly all his opponents but is finally defeated by the last one of them. In some versions, the lady rejects a number wealthy suitors, in preference for a servant or ploughman. The nine make a pact to kill the other man and they ambush him in the "Dens of Yarrow". In some versions it is unclear who the nine are; in others, they are brothers or are men sent by the lady's father. In the ensuing fight, eight of the attackers are generally killed or wounded, but the ninth fatally wounds the victim of the plot, usually by running him through with a sword and often by a cowardly blow, delivered from behind. The lady may see the events in a dream, either before or after they take place and usually has some sort of dialogue with her father about the merits of the man who has been ambushed and killed. Some versions of the song end with the lady grieving: in others she dies of grief.
Commentary
Dowie is Scots and Northumbrian English for sad, dismal, dull or dispirited , den Scots and Northumbrian for a narrow wooded valley. The ballad has some similarities with the folk song "Bruton Town". This song contains a similar murderous plot, usually by a group of brothers, and directed against a servant who has fallen in love with their sister. It also includes the motif, present in some versions of "The Dowie Dens o Yarrow", of the woman dreaming of her murdered lover before discovering the truth of the plot. However, the rhythmical structure of the two songs is quite different and there is no obvious borrowing of phraseology between them.
Historical background
The song is closely associated with the geographical area of the valley of the Yarrow Water that extends through the Scottish borders towards Selkirk. Almost all versions refer to this location, perhaps because the rhyming scheme for multiple verses, in most versions, relies on words which more or less rhyme with "Yarrow": "marrow", "morrow", "sorrow", "thorough", "narrow", "arrow" and "yellow" for example. The song is believed to be based on an actual incident. The hero of the ballad was a knight of great bravery, popularly believed to be John Scott, sixth son of the Laird of Harden. According to history, he met a treacherous and untimely death in Ettrick Forest at the hands of his kin, the Scotts of Gilmanscleugh in the seventeenth century. However, recent scholars are sceptical about this story as the origin of the song.
There are numerous versions of the ballad. Child recorded at least 19, the earliest of which was taken from Walter Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. However, the song is much older: William Hamilton of Bangour wrote a poem called "The Braes of Yarrow" which has some basis in the ballad. It appears in a collection of his poems first published in Edinburgh in 1724. It is said to be "written in imitation of an old Scottish ballad on a similar subject". There are also American versions which go under the corrupted title of "Derry Dens of Arrow." The ballad has also been linked to the American folk song "The Wayfaring Stranger," but there is little solid evidence for any relationship between them.
Non-English variants
Child points out the similarity with "Herr Helmer", a Scandinavian ballad. In this, Helmer marries a woman whose family are in a state of feud with him because of the unavenged killing of her uncle. Helmer meets his seven brothers-in-law and a fight ensues. He kills six, but spares the seventh who treacherously kills him.
Recordings
Musical variants
The following is the tune as sung by Ewan MacColl: Scottish composer Hamish MacCunn composed an orchestral ballad of the same title.
