Child's, The English And Scottish Ballads

Volume 7 of 8 from 1860 edition - online book

Home Main Menu Singing & Playing Order & Order Info Support Search Voucher Codes




Share page  Visit Us On FB



Previous Contents Next
THE HAWS OP CKOMDALE.               235
states, indeed, that after that imprudent division of the army of the Covenant which opened the way to the disaster at Auldern, Hurry surprised and routed at Cromdale a body of Highlanders under the lion-hearted Allaster Macdonald. But this check appears, by his own language, to have been too slight an affair to call forth such verses as those with which the ballad begins. See Hogg's Jacobite Relics, ii. 157, Johnson's Museum (1853), iv. 428.
As I came in by Achendown, A little wee bit frae the town, When to the highlands I was bown, To view the haws of Cromdale,
I met a man in tartan trews,                                «
I spier'd at him what was the news: Quoth he, " The highland army rues That e'er we came to Cromdale."
" We were in bed, sir, every man,
When the English host upon us came;             io
A bloody battle then began
Upon the haws of Cromdale.
" The English horse they were so rude, They bath'd their hoofs in highland blood, But our brave clans they boldly stood,             is
Upon the haws of Cromdale.
" But alas! we could no longer stay, For o'er the hills we came away,