Yarrow Streams

DESCRIPTION: The singer grieves; her lover is dead. He had promised to marry her. After their last parting, she saw his ghost. She counsels his mother and sister to stop searching for him because he is dead. She finds him in the stream and drowns herself there.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1781 (Logan, according to Lyle-Andrew-CrawfurdsCollectionVolume2)
LONG DESCRIPTION: The singer recalls first meeting her lover on Yarrow's braes but she'll not see him again by that "stream of sorrow" He had promised a white steed and page (and a wedding ring for tomorrow's wedding). (After they parted last she saw his "water wraith.") His mother and sister sought him in vain east, west and in the forest. ((The singer tells her own sister that she dreamt her lover drowned in Yarrow; her sister interprets the dream and says it is true. [From Child 214 we know that he is murdered, not drowned.])) The singer tells his mother and sister to stop their search (because he is dead). (She will have no other lover.) She finds his body in the stream "and now with him she sleeps in Yarrow" [Note: the parenthesized parts of the long description are from Logan and are not in Lyle-Andrew-CrawfurdsCollectionVolume2; the double parenthesized item is only in Lyle-Andrew-CrawfurdsCollectionVolume2 and Child 214.]
KEYWORDS: grief love wedding death drowning river dream borderballad derivative mother sister ghost
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Bord))
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Lyle-Andrew-CrawfurdsCollectionVolume2 118, "Yarrow Streams" (1 text)
ADDITIONAL: David Herd, editor, Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs, Heroic Ballads, etc. (facsimile of (Edinburgh,1776) with an "Appendix ... containing the pieces substituted in the 1791 reprint for those omitted of the 1776 edition, &c.") ("Digitized by Google")), Vol II, Appendix pp. 22-23 [1-116], "The Braes of Yarrow" (1 text)
Roud #5839
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Dowie Dens o Yarrow [Child 214]" (story and some lines)
NOTES [299 words]: Lyle-Andrew-CrawfurdsCollectionVolume2 p. xxxvii: "Most of 'Yarrow Streams' is related, sometimes loosely, to 'The Braes of Yarrow' by John Logan first printed in Poems by the Rev Mr Logan, one of the ministers of Leith (London 1781), pp. 4-7, but stanzas 5, 6 and 8 are unrelated to this and correspond to verses in Child 214 'The Braes o Yarrow.'" The ADDITIONAL Herd reference is Logan's poem.
Logan's poem complements Child 214, especially Child 214L, told as the story from the Rose of Yarrow's viewpoint rather than that of her lover, "the flower of Yarrow" [or husband in other versions].
Most of the lines of Lyle-Andrew-CrawfurdsCollectionVolume2 118 are from Logan -- allowing for dialect -- with a word changed here and there. Stanza 5 is the "I dreamed a dream" verse and stanza 6 the dream interpretation from Child 214D,I,J,K,L,O [A,B,E,F,M,N only have the dream]. Stanza 8 has four lines: the first two -- "She socht him east she socht him west She socht him aw the greenwood through" -- are from Logan, and are shared with Child 214L (the first two lines of stanza 13); the last two lines -- "An in the cleaving o a craig She fand his bodie drownit in Yarrow" -- are from Child 214L (the last two lines of stanza 13) and are not in Logan. Child points out that the last two lines of Child 214L stanza 12 -- "But only saw the clud o night, Or heard the roar o Yarrow" -- and the first two lines of stanza 13 are the last four lines of Logan stanza 4; in fact he says the lines from stanza 12 are "manifestly taken from Logan's Braes of Yarrow." Those are the only lines shared by Logan and Child 214. Summing up: the only lines shared only by Lyle-Andrew-CrawfurdsCollectionVolume2 118 and Child 214 are "An in the cleaving o a craig She fand his bodie drownit in Yarrow." - BS
Last updated in version 2.6
File: LcCr2118

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