is farther probable, that the Murrays, like other border clans, were in a very lawless state, and held their lands merely by occupancy, without any feudal right.  Indeed, the lands of the various proprietors in Ettrick Forest (being a royal demesne) were held by the possessors, not in property, but as the kindly tenants, or rentallers, of the crown; and it is only about 150 years since they obtained charters, striking the feu-duty of each proprietor, at the rate of the quit-rent, which he formerly paid.  This state of possession naturally led to a confusion of rights and claims.  The kings of Scotland were often reduced to the humiliating necessity of compromising such matters with their rebellious subjects, and James himself even entered into a sort of league with Johnie Faa, the king of the gypsies.—­Perhaps, therefore, the tradition, handed down in this song, may have had more foundation than it would at present be proper positively to assert.

The merit of this beautiful old tale, it is thought, will be fully acknowledged.  It has been, for ages, a popular song in Selkirkshire.  The scene is, by the common people, supposed to have been the castle of Newark, upon Yarrow.  This is highly improbable, because Newark was always a royal fortress.  Indeed, the late excellent antiquarian Mr. Plummer, sheriff-depute of Selkirkshire, has assured the editor, that he remembered the insignia of the unicorns, &c. so often mentioned in the ballad, in existence upon the old tower at Hangingshaw, the seat of the Philiphaugh family; although, upon first perusing a copy of the ballad, he was inclined to subscribe to the popular opinion.  The tower of Hangingshaw has been demolished for many years.  It stood in a romantic and solitary situation, on the classical banks of the Yarrow.  When the mountains around Hangingshaw were covered with the wild copse which constituted a Scottish forest, a more secure strong-hold for an outlawed baron can hardly be imagined.

The tradition of Ettrick Forest bears, that the Outlaw was a man of prodigious strength, possessing a batton or club, with which he laid lee (i.e. waste) the country for many miles round; and that he was at length slain by Buccleuch, or some of his clan, at a little mount, covered with fir-trees, adjoining to Newark castle, and said to have been a part of the garden.  A varying tradition bears the place of his death to have been near to the house of the Duke of Buccleuch’s game-keeper, beneath the castle; and, that the fatal arrow was shot by Scot of Haining, from the ruins of a cottage on the opposite side of the Yarrow.  There was extant, within these twenty years, some verses of a song on his death.  The feud betwixt the Outlaw and the Scotts may serve to explain the asperity, with which the chieftain of that clan is handled in the ballad.