[1] A broadsheet version first appeared in 1790 and it received formal publication as number 199 in Francis Child's collection The English and Scottish Popular Ballads of 1882.
When James Ogilvy raised a regiment of several hundred men and marched south to the king's aid, Archibald, claiming to act on behalf of the anti-royalist alliance, seized and destroyed the castle of Airlie and, according to some accounts, brutally raped James Ogilvy's wife, Margaret.
[3] These all describe how the castle was destroyed by fire after Lady Ogilvy refused to reveal the whereabouts of the family treasure.
However other versions continued in oral circulation and the one reproduced here, with its bleak penultimate verse, was collected on 27 June 1955 in Fetterangus by Hamish Henderson and Peter Kennedy from Lucy Stewart:[4]
It was sung by Belle Stewart, who learned the song from her 91-year-old uncle Henry MacDonald, and recorded by Peter Kennedy.