The
Border Widow's Lament
If you travel up the Yarrow Valley heading towards Moffat, before you cross the Megget Water at St Mary's Loch, there is a turn-off for Megget reservoir. A few hundred yards along this road, near Henderland farm is a mound where there was once a chapel. Further up the Henderland burn is a collection of lumps and bumps in the earth where once the tower of Henderland stood. Cockburn of Henderland was a notorious Reiver and was targeted by James V when he made one of his Justice Ayres into the Borders. Legend records that Cockburn was hanged from the gates of his tower but judicial records show that he was actually taken to Edinburgh and beheaded. The ballad below is an account of events through the eyes of Cockburn's wife.
My love built me a bonnie bower,
And clad it ower wi lily flower;
A brawer bower ye ne'er did see
Than my true lover built for me.
There cam a man at mid-day oor,
He heard my sang and saw my bower,
And he brocht armed men that nicht
And brak my bower and slew my knicht.
He slew my knicht, to me sae dear,
He brak my bower and drave my gear.
My servants a for life did flee
And left me in extremity.
I sewed his sheet and made my main,
I watched his corpse masel alane;
I watched by nicht and I watched by day,
Nae livin creature cam my way.
I bore his body on my back,
And whiles I gaed, and whiles I sat.
I digged a grave and laid him in
And happed him wi the sod sae green.
The man lives not I'll loo again
Since that my comely knicht is slain.
Wi ae lock o his gowden hair
I'll bind my hert for ever mair.