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Highland Harry
Burns said he picked up the chorus of this song — 'My Harry was a gallant gay' — 'from an old woman in Dumblane; the rest of the song is mine'. Peter Buchan states that: 'the original song related to a love attachment between Harry Lunsdale, the second son of a Highland gentleman, and Mrs Jeanie Gordon, daughter to the Laird of Knockespock, in Aberdeenshire. The lady was married to her cousin, Habichie Gordon, a son of the Laird of Rhynie; and some time after her former lover having met her and shaken her hand, her husband drew his sword in anger, and lopped off several of Lumsdale's fingers, which Highland Harry took so much to heart that he soon after died'. Burns gave the song a Jacobite slant in accordance with his personal views. To the tune 'Highland Watch's Farewell to Ireland', from Stewart's Reels 1762, the song appeared in the Scots Musical Museum in 1790.
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