Susannes
Folksong-Notizen
[1880:] First published in Lyle's Ancient Ballads and
Songs, where it is said the compiler collated it from the
singing of two aged persons, one of them a native of
Perthshire. The story of the unfortunate young ladies is
given by Chambers. [...]
"Bessie Bell and Mary Gray were the daughters of two
country gentlemen in the neighbourhood of Perth, and an
intimate friendship subsisted between them. Bessie Bell,
daughter of the Laird of Kinnaird, happening to be on a
visit to Mary Gray at her father's house at Lyndoch, when
the plague of 1666 broke out. To avoid the infection, the
two young ladies built themselves a bower in a very
retired and romantic spot, called the Burnbraes, about
three quarters of a mile westward from Lyndoch House,
where they resided for some time, supplied with food, it
is said, by a young gentleman of Perth who was in love
with them both. The disease was unfortunately
communicated to them by their lover and proved fatal;
when, according to custom in cases of plague, they were
not buried in the ordinary parochial place of sepulture,
but in a sequestered spot called the Dronach Haugh, at
the foot of a brae of the same name, upon the banks of
the River Almond."
It is little wonder that the popular imagination seized
upon the incident, and that some unknown singer gave
expression [...] to the pathetic feeling of the district.
(Ord, Glasgow Weekly Herald, February 21)
[1880:] Mr. W. Anderson Smith, writing from
Benderloch, says: "In the ballad of Bessie Bell and
Mary Gray, the version I recollect for upwards of 20
years has the following words - They wadna lie in
Brecknock Kirk
Beside their gentle kin
But they must sleep on Brecknock bank
Beside the roaring linn
The delicate distinction between lying in the kirk and
sleeping on the bank to the lullaby of the waters seems
more in keeping with the other verses. [...] I am neither
acquainted with the above kirk nor with the names in your
version [Meffin, Dornoch], so cannot vouch for the local
colouring." (Ord, Glasgow Weekly Herald, February
28)
[1900:] The story on which this popular fragment of a
ballad is founded has been often told, and is so charged
with tender pathos that it never fails to command
attentive hearing. It belongs to the time of the great
plague or pestilence which, for some time previous to
1665, was the terror of Scotland, and at one time [...]
reduced the city of Perth of about one-sixth of its
population.
The common tradition is that Bessie Bell and Mary Gray
were the daughters of two country gentlemen in the
neighbourhood of Perth, between whose families an
intimate friendship subsisted. Bessie Bell, daughter of
the Laird of Kinvaid, was on a visit to Mary Gray, at her
father's house at Lednock, now called Lynedoch, when the
plague of 1666 broke out in the country. Taking alarm at
the report, the two young ladies, in order to avoid the
deadly infection, set to work and built themselves a
bower, which they "theekit wi' rashes", in a
very retired and romantic spot known as the Burn Braes,
on the side of the Brachie Burn, situated about three
quarters of a mile west from Lynedoch House.
Here they lived in safety for some time, whilst the
plague raged with great fury. But, ultimately, they
caught the infection from a young gentleman of Perth,
who, it is said, was in love with the one or the other -
it is not known which - but who, having discovered their
rural habitation, and the scanty fare it afforded, made
it his daily duty to supply them with provisions from the
"borough toun". According to a traditionary
story which I have received at various times from the
lips of old persons in Perthshire, the provisions were
not, however, the vehicle by which the pestilence was
conveyed. But the young gentleman, on one of his visits,
having brought with him, among other presents for their
gratification, a
rare necklace which he had purchased of a wandering Jew,
and which, unhappily, had been the property of one who
had died of the plague, the infection was in this way
communicated, to the young ladies, and proved fatal to
them both. According to custom in cases of plague, the
bodies did not receive the ordinary form of sepulture. We
may believe, indeed, that they were allowed to lie in the
open and "beik fornenst the sun", as the ballad
avers, until the flesh had disappeared and only the bone
skeletons remained, when these were taken with safety and
put beneath the green sod of the Dronach-haugh, at the
foot of the brae of the same name, and near to the bank
of the river Almond. The young man, having also died of
the plague, was laid at their feet. Of course, I know
that a local tradition relates how the bodies were,
immediately after death, carried to be interred in
Methven kirkyard, when the people met the mournful
procession at Dronach-ford and opposed their passage, in
apprehension of the spread of the fell disease. But I
prefer to take the statement of the ballad, even though
the other may have happened; although it is not likely
that the bodies, if once lifted for burial, would be left
to waste in the open, whether entrance to the kirkyard
was denied or granted. In Dronach-haugh they were at
length laid, in any case. Dranoch, or Dronach, in the
Gaelic, means sorrowful. Therefore, the likelihood is
that this piece of ground, previously undistinguished,
takes its name from the fact of these hapless young
persons being buried within its borders.
But now, the ballad itself, which was first printed by
Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe,under the title of
- The Twa Lasses:
Variations have been made on these simple
stanzas, only to mar their tender and natural
beauty. But to come again to the scene of the
ballad. The earliest authentic information
concerning the grave of Bessie Bell and Mary Gray
is found contained in a letter dated 21st June,
1781, written by Major Barry of Lednock, and
published in the "Transactions of the
Society of Antiquaries of Scotland", vol.
II, 1822. This gentleman explains that when he
came first to Lednock he was shown in a part of
the grounds called the Dronach-haugh, a heap of
stones almost covered with briers, thorn, and
fern, and which he was assured was the
burial-place of the hapless ladies whose names
are immortalised in the fragment of ballad poetry
bearing their name as its title. Major Barry
caused all the rubbish to be removed from the
little spot of classic ground, and enclosed it
with a wall, planted it round with flowering
shrubs, made up the grave double, and fixed a
stone on the wall, on which were engraved the
names of Bessie Bell and Mary Gray.
In 1787 Lynedoch estate passed into the
possession of Mr. Thomas Graham of Balgowan,
"the gallant Graham", afterwards Lord
Lynedoch, and the wall erected round the graves
in the Dronach-haugh by Major Barry half a
century before, being discovered by this later
proprietor, on his return from a lengthened
pilgrimage abroad, to have fallen into a
dilapidated state, he had the remains of the wall
removed and a neat stone parapet and iron
railings, 5 feet high, placed round the spot. He
also covered the graves with a stone slab, on
which was inscribed the words, "They lived,
they loved, they died." This railing still
stands; but the stone slab within the railing is
not visible to the eye, being covered with stones
heaped up cairn-wise, brought hither by the many
visitors who have made pilgrimages to the famous
Scottish shrine.
[...] Starting with the first few lines of the
original, Allan Ramsay produced a song which is
frequently printed in the collections. It is a
performance not without merit, but as the author
has dared to transform the burden of the verses
from tender pathos to lively humour, we give him
credit for it with a grudge, for the good reason
that in so far as his version gains popularity, a
sweetly-pathetic historic romance loses ist hold
on the public mind. [Ramsay's version see above.]
Other bards have followed in the wake of the
author of The Gentle Shepherd. One of the only
two poems which Robert Nicoll allowed to drift
into print before the publication of his
"Poems and Lyrics" dealt with the fate
of Bessie Bell and Mary Gray. Dr. John Leyden
(who assigned a Border locality to it) and,
strange to say, Ebenezer Elliott, "the
Corn-Law Rhymer", each found in it a theme
for his muse. Also a long but somewhat flabby
ballad on the subject was written by James Duff,
"the Methven poet", which appears in
the volume of his poems published in Perth in
1816. Not Ramsay's song, however, nor any of
these, but the four simple original verses will
live in the Scottish breast to celebrate Bessie
Bell and Mary Gray, who, "beautiful in their
lives, in death are not divided". (Ford,
Histories 142ff) [1980:] Included in this
budget of 'curious tracts' [the James Mitchell
collection of songs and ballads in the British
Museum] is a version of Bessy Bell and Mary Gray,
which starts off with four lines of the old
ballad but is shortly purveying a completely
different idiom:
And Mary's locks are like the craw
Her een like diamonds glances
She's aye sae clean, redd up and braw
She kills whene'er she dances
Blyth as a kid, with wit at will
She blooming, tight and tall is
And guides her airs sae gracefu' still
O Jove, she's like thy Pallas
Dr [David] Buchan [author of 'The Ballad
and the Folk'] goes on to say: 'In this song,
which is actually reprinted from the works of
Allan Ramsay, there are three linguistic
varieties; there is poetical English, ordinary
vernacular Scots, and in the first quatrain [the
only surviving lines from the traditional song
Ramsay based his poem on] the formulaic language
of the old tradition. The language of the songs
the folk were singing was in a state of flux. It
is in the light of this fact that linguistic
vulgarities and incongruities of Peter Buchan's
ballads must be considered.'
Sung by the folk ... the fact that a song is
printed in a chapbook is in itself no evidence
that it was actually sung by the 'folk'.
Furthermore, this version of the song was in
print a quarter of a century before Mrs Brown of
Falkland was born [mid-eighteenth century]. There
is no evidence whatever that this ludicrous,
wishy-washy, pedantic ditty (reprinted almost
word for word from Ramsay's 'Poems', 1721) was
ever sung by the 'folk' in Aberdeenshire,
although it was no doubt hawked around at feeing
markets and elsewhere by enterprising
colporteurs. (Hamish Henderson in Cowan 73f)
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Susannes
Folksong-Notizen English Notes 
