Glen Collection of printed music > Printed text > Jacobite minstrelsy

MINSTRELSY. 339
She's red, and she's white, and she's green, and
she's gray ;
My bonny moorhen, come hither away :
Come up by Glenduich, and down by Glendee.
And round by Kinclaven, and hither to me ;
For Ronald and Donald are out on the fen,
To break the wing o' my bonny moorhen.
YOUNG AIRLY.*
It was upon a day, and a bonny simmer day,
When the flowers were blooming rarely,
That there fell out a great dispute
Between Argyle and Airly.
Argyle has rais'd an hundred men,
An hundred men and mairly ;
And he's away down by the back o' Dunkel',
To plunder the bonny house o' Airly.
are supposed to allude to those in the tartans of the Clan Stuart.
The original air bears the same name as the Song.
* This Ballad, as well as another in Page 13 of the present volume,
has, it would appear, been altered occasionally to suit the different
epochs in the history of the Jacobite cause. According to the Ettrick
Shepherd, both compositions are much older than the events of 1715
or 1745. In a note to the other ballad, we have explained the his-
torical fact in which it originated. Why either the one or the other
have been referred to the era of 1745, may be owing to the cir-
cumstance of the lady of young Ogilvie of Airly, a Johnstone of
Westerhall, having accompanied him through most of the vicissitudes
of Prince Charles's career ; marching with the Highland army into
England, and remaining with it during the whole period of the retreat
from Derby to Culloden. The love of this lady for her husband, and
her attachment to the house of Stuart, are yet the theme of story and
tradition in that part of the country where his property lay. The
alleged burning of Airly in 1746, is said to be only a piece of gra-
tuitous poetical mischief. The lady Ogilvie and her children of that
day, did not suffer by fire, however hardly they may have been
dealt with in other respects. Argyll's destruction of this Castle took
place a century before, as explained in the previous note above re-
ferred to.