+The Story.+--In 1781 a Major Barry, then owner of Lednock, recorded the following tradition. Mary Gray was the daughter of the Laird of Lednock, near Perth, and Bessy Bell was the daughter of the Laird of Kinvaid, a neighbouring place. Both were handsome, and the two were intimate friends. Bessy Bell being come on a visit to Mary Gray, they retired, in order to avoid an outbreak of the plague, to a bower built by themselves in a romantic spot called Burnbraes, on the side of Branchie-burn, three-quarters of a mile from Lednock House. The ballad does not say _how_ the 'pest cam,' but tradition finds a cause for their deaths by inventing a young man, in love with both, who visited them and brought the infection. They died in the bower, and were buried in the Dranoch-haugh ('Stronach haugh,' 3.3), near the bank of the river Almond. The grave is still visited by pious pilgrims.
Major Barry mentions 1666 as the year, but the plague did not reach Scotland in that year. Probably the year in question was 1645, when the district was ravaged with the pestilence.
1. O Bessie Bell and Mary Gray, They war twa bonnie lasses; They bigget a bower on yon burn-brae, And theekit it o'er wi' rashes.
2. They theekit it o'er wi' rashes green, They theekit it o'er wi' heather; But the pest cam frae the burrows-town, And slew them baith thegither.
3. They thought to lie in Methven kirk-yard, Amang their noble kin; But they maun lye in Stronach haugh, To biek forenent the sin.
4. And Bessy Bell and Mary Gray, They war twa bonnie lasses; They bigget a bower on yon burn-brae, And theekit it o'er wi' rashes.
[Annotations: 1.3: 'bigget,' built. 1.4: 'theekit,' thatched. 3.4: _i.e._ to bask beneath the sun.]
+The Text+ is from Motherwell's _Minstrelsy_ (1827). It is based on a stall-copy, presumably similar to one preserved by Sir Walter Scott at Abbotsford, combined with a version from recitation, which Child none the less calls 'well remembered from print.'
+The Story+ has no historical foundation, as far as can be discovered; and for once we have a traditional tale inculcating a moral, though we do not understand why the 'nourice' betrays Sir James to his enemies.
Michael Bruce wrote a version of the story of this ballad, which seems to have become more popular than the ballad itself. It may be seen in A. B. Grosart's edition of his works (1865), p. 197.