Glen Collection of printed music > Printed music > Jacobite relics of Scotland > [First series]

NOTES. 157
SONG II.
%\)Z l^augl)0 of Cromtiak.
This is the worst specimen of the truth of Scottish song that is to
be met with ; two events being jumbled together in it, that hap-
pened at the distance of many years from each other. These seem
to be, the battle of Auldearn, won by Montrose and the clans ;
and that on the plains of Cromdale, in Strathspey, where the two
colonels, Buchan and Cannon, suffered themselves to be surprised
in their beds by Sir Thomas Livingston, and, though at the head
of 1500 brave Highlanders, utterly defeated and scattered. This
latter is the only battle on record that ever was really fought at
Cromdale. It appears, therefore, more than probable, that on
that action the original song has been founded ; for the first
twenty lines contain an exact and true description of that shame-
ful defeat, and these twenty lines may be considered as either the
whole or part of the original song ; and as they are middling
good, and the air most beautiful, they had, of course, become
popular. Some bard who had been partial to the clans, fired with
indignation at hearing the disgrace of his countrymen sung all
over the land, had added to the original verses an overcharged
account of the battle of Auldearn, won by Montrose, their fa-
vourite leader, against the Whigs : but, by a vile anachronism, he
has made it to happen on the day following the action at Crom-
dale, whereas it happened justforty-five yearsbefore it. Although,
therefore, I have placed the ballad among the songs of this early
period, I am persuaded it had its origin at a much later date ;
but it would have been ridiculous to have placed a song that
treated wholly of Montrose, subsequent to events that happened
long after his death. Yet the part of the ballad that describes the
victory won by that hero cannot be the original part of it, else the
writer would never have placed the action at Cromdale, which is
almost a day's journey distant from Auldearn, and no way con-
nected with the scene of that engagement. It would never do
now to separate this old and popular song into two parts ; but