A copy of a was reprinted by Ritson, Scotish Songs, 1794, II, 169. (There are three slight variations in Ritson, two of which are misprints.) Fifteen stanzas are given from Ritson in Johnson's Musical Museum, 'The Duke of Gordon has three daughters,' No 419, p. 431, 1797 (with a single variation and the correction of a misprint). Smith's Scotish Minstrel, IV, 98, repeats the stanzas in the Museum, inserting a few words to fill out lines for singing. Christie, Traditional Ballad Airs, I, 2, has made up a ballad from three "traditional" copies. A fragment of four stanzas in Notes and Queries, Second Series, VII, 418, requires no notice.
Burns gave the first stanza as follows (Cromek's Reliques, p. 229, ed, 1817; Cromek's Select Scotish Songs, I, 86, 1810):
The first sister's name is given as Mary in e also.
It is very likely that the recited copies were originally learned from print, e and g have two stanzas which do not appear in a-d, but these may occur in some other stall-copy, or have been borrowed from some other ballad.
Ritson pointed out that George Gordon, the fourth Earl of Huntly, killed at Corrichie in 1562, had three daughters, named Elizabeth, Margaret, and Jean, and that Jean, the youngest, married Alexander Ogilvie, Laird of Boyne. These facts, however, can have no relevancy to this ballad. Ogilvie was Lady Jean Gordon's third husband, and at the death of the second, in 1594, she was in her fiftieth year, or near to that. Her marriage with the Laird of Boyne was "for the utility and profit of her children," of which she had a full quiver.[foot-note]
Jean, one of the three daughters of the Duke of Gordon (there was no Duke of Gordon before 1684, but that is early enough for our ballad), falls in love with Captain Ogilvie at Aberdeen. Her father threatens to have the captain hanged, and writes to the king to ask that favor. The king refuses to hang Ogilvie, but reduces him to the ranks, makes him a 'single' man. The pair lead a wandering life for three years, and are blessed with as many children. At the end of that time they journey afoot to the Highland hills, and present themselves at Castle Gordon in great destitution. Lady Jean is welcomed; the duke will have nothing to do with Ogilvie. Ogilvie goes over seas as a private soldier, but is soon after sent for as heir to the earldom of Northumberland. The duke is now eager to open Castle Gordon to the Captain. Ogilvie wants nothing there but Jean Gordon, whom, with her three children, he takes to Northumberland to enjoy his inheritance.
Nothing in the story of the ballad is known to have even a shadow of foundation in fact.
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