Set in late medieval Scotland, it tells of the seduction of a young maiden by a charismatic minstrel and her journey to Stirling in search of him, leading to the revelation that he is the king and finally to their marriage and the christening of their son.
In the autumn of 1813 Hogg spent two or three weeks at Kinnaird House near Dunkeld in Perthshire, where his hostess Eliza Izett urged him to write something about the River Tay.
By James Hogg, Author of the Queen's Wake &c. was first published in Edinburgh by William Blackwood on 22 April 1816,[4] and in London by John Murray.
This edition omitted 'The Harper's Song' from Canto First, including it as a separate item in the second (Midsummer Night Dreams) volume with the title 'The Gyre Caryl'.
There was considerable appreciation of Hogg's powers of natural description, but a widespread view that he was less happy with the Spenserian stanza than he had been with the ballad form.