Burning of Auchindoon

Child #183, arr. by Maddy Prior and June Tabor


As I came in by Fiddich side on a May morning
I spied Willie Macintosh an hour before the dawning.
"Turn again, turn again, turn again I bid ye,
If ye burn Auchindoon, Huntly he will heed ye."
"Heed me or hang me, that will never fear me
I will burn Auchindoon ere the life leaves me."

As I came in by Fiddich side on a May morning
Auchindoon was in a blaze an hour before the dawning.
Crawing, crawing, for all your crows crawing
You've burnt your crops and tint your wings
An hour before the dawning.


The murder of the "Bonny Earl of Murray" was the occasion of
serious commotions in the North Highlands.  Towards the end of
the year 1592, the Macintoshes of the Clan Chattan, who of all
the faction of Murray "most eagerly endeavored to revenge his
death," invaded the estates of the Earl of Huntly, and killed
four gentlemen of the surname of Gordon.  Huntly retaliated, "and
rade into Pettie (which was then in the possession of the Clan
Chattan), where he wasted and spoiled all the Clan Chattan's
lands, and killed divers of them.  But as the Earl of Huntly had
returned home from Pettie, he was advertised that William
Macintosh with eight hundred of Clan Chattan were spoiling his
lands of Cabrach:  whereupon Huntly and his uncle Sir Patrick
Gordon of Auchindown, with some few horsemen, made speed towards
the enemy, desiring the rest of his company to follow him with
all possible diligence, knowing that if once he were within sight
of them they would desist from spoiling the country.  Huntly
overtook the Clan Chattan before they left the bounds of Cabrach,
upon the head of a hill called Stapliegate, where, without
staying for the rest of his men, he invaded them with these few
he then had.  After a sharp conflict he overthrew them, chased
them, killed sixty of their ablest men, and hurt William
Macintosh with divers others of his company."  (The History of
the Feuds and Conflicts among the Clans, etc., p. 41 f, in
Miscellanea Scotica.  Spotiswood, ed. 1666, p. 390.)

Two William Macintoshes are confounded in the ballad.  The
burning of Auchindown is attributed, rightly or wrongly, to an
earlier William, captain of the clan, who, in August, 1550, was
formally convicted of conspiracy against the life of the Earl of
Huntly, then lieutenant in the north, sentenced to lose his life
and lands, and, despite a pledge to the contrary, executed
shortly after by the Countess of Huntly.  (Lesley, History of
Scotland, p. 235; Gregory, History of the Western Highlands, ed.
1881, p. 184; Brown, History of the Highlands, IV, 476.)

Auchindown castle is on the banks of the Fiddich.

This version is from Child's B, from Finlay's Scottish Ballads,
II, 89, 1808, as recollected by a lady and communicated by Walter
Scott.

On "Silly Sisters" album, copyright (c) 1976, Chrysalis

http://www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/~zierke/steeleye.span/