Yarrow

“ And looked me in the face, to think
I thus could speak of Yarrow!
"Oh! green," said I, "are Yarrow's Holms,
"And sweet is Yarrow flowing!
"Fair hangs the apple frae the rock [1] ,
"But we will leave it growing. ”

“ Those deep green grassy knowes of the valley are peculiarly susceptible of change. In the morning with a blue sky, or with breaks of sunlight through the fleeting clouds, the green hillsides and the stream smile and gleam in sympathy with the cheerfulness of heaven. But under a grey sky, or at the gloaming, the Yarrow wears a peculiarly wan aspect—a look of sadness. And no valley I know is more susceptible of sudden change. ”

“ The day was out broadly now,—a thorough winter's day, cold and clear, the frosty air sending a glow through your blood. It sent none into Yarrow's thinned veins: he was too far gone with all these many years. The place, as I said, was a lonely one, niched between hills, yet near enough main roads for him to hear sounds from them: people calling to each other, about Christmas often; carriages rolling by; great Conestoga wagons, with their dozens of tinkling bells, and the driver singing; dogs and children chasing each other through the snow. ”

“ THE BANKS OF YARROW. After Allingham's collated version. There are many renderings of this ballad, which Scott declares to be a great favorite among the peasantry of the Ettrick forest, who firmly believe it founded on fact. The river Yarrow, so favored of the poets, flows through a valley in Selkirkshire and joins the Tweed above the town of Selkirk. The Tennies is a farm below the Yarrow kirk. ”

“ Is there anything in the scenery to account for it—anything in the physical conditions of the glen itself that solves the secret? There is, and there isn't. To a mere outsider—a mere summer tripper hurrying through—Yarrow is little different from others of the southland valleys. Its main features are identical with those of the Ettrick, and the Tweed uplands, or with the Ewes and the Teviot. All of them exhibit the same pastoral stillness. The same play of light and shade are on their hills. The same soothing spirit broods over them. ”

“ As he gaed up the Tennies bank, I wot he gaed wi' sorrow, Till, down in a den, he spied nine arm'd men, On the dowie houms of Yarrow. "Oh, come ye here to part your land, The bonnie Forest thorough? Or come ye here to wield your brand, On the dowie houms of Yarrow?" "I come not here to part my land, And neither to beg nor borrow; I come to wield my noble brand, On the bonnie banks of Yarrow. "If I see all, ye're nine to ane; An that's an unequal marrow: Yet will I fight, while lasts my brand, On the bonnie banks of Yarrow." Four has he hurt, and five has slain, On the bloody braes of Yarrow ”

“ Western Yarrow is very widespread and can be found in much of Western America. It is more common at elevations above 5,000 feet in these areas. It grows to be 12 to 20 inches high, and the fernlike leaves, which have a pungent odor when crushed, and the umbrella-shaped clusters of flowers are characteristics of this plant that help to identify it. ”

“ What is called Altrive Lake, the farm on the Yarrow, given for life by the Duke of Buccleugh to Hogg, and where he principally lived after leaving Ettrick, and where he died, stands in a considerable opening between the hills, at the confluence of several valleys, where the Douglas burn falls into the Yarrow. Thus, from some of the windows, you look up and down the vale of Yarrow, but where the vale has no very striking features. The hills are lower than on Ettrick, and at a greater distance, but of the same character, green and round. Shepherds are collecting their flocks ”

“ Alas! e'en your unhallow'd breath May spare the victim fallen low; But Man will ask no truce to death, No bounds to human woe. T. CAMPBELL.
257. YARROW UNVISITED. 1803. From Stirling castle we had seen The mazy Forth unravell'd, Had trod the banks of Clyde and Tay, And with the Tweed had travell'd; And when we came to Clovenford, Then said my "winsome Marrow." "Whate'er betide, we'll turn aside, And see the Braes of Yarrow." "Let Yarrow folk, frae Selkirk town, Who have been buying, selling, Go back to Yarrow, 'tis their own, Each maiden to her dwelling! ”

“ The leaves, alternating along and clasping the stem, are soft and feathery—deeply and finely bipinnatifid.
The flowers grow in very compact, flat-topped clusters at the top of the stem. Each flower-head has a centre of short, tubular, yellowish florets that turn brown or grayish as they grow old; they are surrounded by from four to six round, white rays.
Yarrow is a very hardy plant; we may find it thriving beside roads where the dust has killed nearly ever other living thing. Its leaves have a strong, not unpleasant, aromatic odor. ”

“ In the summer season now, and especially since the advent of the motor car, from morning till night so constant a stream of visitors and 295tourists passes through the vale, and along the lake side, that even Yarrow's deathless charm is broken, her peace disturbed; one's soul can take no rest there now, far from the clamour of the outer world. ”

“ STEPHEN YARROW. A CHRISTMAS STORY.
Sometime in the year 1856, a family named Yarrow moved into the neighborhood where I then lived, and rented a small house with a bit of ground attached to it, on one of the rich bottom-farms lying along the eastern shore of the Ohio. The mother, two or three children, and their dog Ready made up the quiet household: not one to attract notice from any cause. People soon knew Martha Yarrow,—all that was in her. She was Western- and farm-born; whatever Nature had given her of good or bad, therefore, thrust itself out at once with pungent directness. ”

“ But even in the midst of the rough warfare of these olden days, there was often a thread of tender affection and romance woven by the ballad-singers into their tales. The vale of the river Yarrow has been more specially consecrated by these tragic songs, and the 'dowie howms o' Yarrow' have come to be identified with all that is most pathetic in the minstrelsy of the Border. From the time of the early ballads a succession of minor poets had sung of this vale, until the pathos of its history was fully revealed to the whole world by Scott and Wordsworth. ”

“ Once, too, a year or two after that, when the jailer came into "quiet Stevy's" cell, (for so he nicknamed him,) Yarrow came up, and took him by the coat-buttons, looking up and gabbling something about Martha and the little chaps in a maudlin sort of way,—then, with a silly laugh, lay down on his pallet. ”

“ As you look out at the front door, the Yarrow runs down the valley at the distance of, perhaps, a quarter of a mile on the left hand, with a steep scaur, or precipitous earthy bank, on its farther side, in full view, over the top of which runs the highway from Edinburgh to Galashiels. Down the valley, and on the other side of the water, lies, in full view also, the farm of Mount Benger, which Hogg took of the Duke of Buccleugh after he came to Altrive. It is much more inclosed and cultivated in tillage than Altrive. ”

“ If my love love me, my nose will bleed now.” By a blunder of the mediæval herbalists, the name and remedial character of the Horse-tail, which was formerly called Herba sanguinaria and Nosebleed, were transferred without reason to the Yarrow, which has since retained them.——The Yarrow is also known as Old Man’s Pepper, and was formerly called the Souldier’s Woundwort. ”

“ A number of ladies wield the trout-rod, but very few on Tweedside try the salmon. “Where Ettrick twines with Yarrow,” the rich woodland scenery of Bowhill, belonging to the nobleman above-named, begins, and the finely grown trees of all the varieties commonly grown in Scotland—the dark Scotch pine being often placed so as to produce a fine effect among the hardwoods—are set off to great advantage by the steep banks and undulations along the Yarrow, and the background of heath or grass-covered hills. ”

“ The windows, as well as the bricks, are very dirty, and you see no sign of life, unless some smudged workman dodges in through a little door. The place might be a factory for the making of lamps or stair rods, or any ordinary commercial thing. As a matter of fact, the building fronts the shipyard of Yarrow, the builder of torpedo boats, the maker of knives for the nations, the man who provides everybody with a certain kind of efficient weapon. One then remembers that if Russia fights England, Yarrow meets Yarrow; if Germany fights France, Yarrow meets Yarrow ”

“ Newark Castle you will see—then you will turn to go down the Yarrow Vale—but not with any sad heart, Maisrie—I forbid ye that—it's a beautiful place, Yarrow, though it had its tragedies and sorrows in the olden time—and you—you are young—you have life before you—and I tell ye it is with a light and glad heart you must go down the Yarrow Vale. Why, lass, you'll come to Mount Benger—you'll come to Dryhope Tower—you'll come to Altrive—and St. ”

“ Ball-playing in the river affords great amusement to a large number of on-lookers, who crowd the bridges and the banks of the river in order to see the sport. The on-lookers are of both sexes, the females being all of the poorest class. Men and boys, however, of all grades and ages, eagerly watch the game.
From the mouth of the Yarrow upwards, for somewhere about five miles, the visitor passes through as beautiful and romantic a valley as Scotland can reveal ”

“ Three months' further attendance at school, on the expiry of his engagement, completed the future bard's scholastic instructions. It was the poet's lot, with the exception of these six months' schooling, to receive his education among the romantic retreats and solitudes of Nature. First as a cow-herd, and subsequently through the various gradations of shepherd-life, his days, till advanced manhood, were all the year round passed upon the hills. And such hills! The mountains of Ettrick and Yarrow are impressed with every feature of Highland scenery, in its wildest and most striking aspects. ”

“ "I meant to mention Yarrow Visited, with that stanza, 'But thou, that didst appear so fair'; ”

“ Variant 214A Variant 214B Variant 214C Variant 214D Variant 214E Variant 214F Variant 214G Variant 214H Variant 214I Variant 214J Variant 214K Variant 214L Variant 214M Variant 214N Variant 214O Variant 214P Variant 214Q Variant 214R Variant 214S "The Dowie Dens of Yarrow" as sung by Ewan MacColl in the album The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, Volume III (1956) . ”

“ This cave is about 27 feet deep at the mouth and 40 to 50 feet at the end, and perhaps 30 feet in diameter. It is the general opinion of those who have noticed this cave and saw it years ago that it was a burying-place of the present Indians. Dr. Jones said he found remains of bows and arrows and charcoal with the skulls he obtained, and which were destroyed at the time the village of Murphy's was burned. All the people spoke of the skulls as lying on the surface and not as buried in the stalagmite. ”

“ As it is supposed that the evil spirit seeks to obtain possession of the body, musicians are called in to lull it to sleep while preparations are made for its removal. All at once four naked men, who have disguised themselves with paint so as not to be recognized and punished by Wulasha, rush out from a neighboring hut, and, seizing a rope 113 attached to the canoe, drag it into the woods, followed by the music and the crowd. ”

“ It is clear from Vancouver's narrative that some great epidemic had recently passed through the country, as manifested by the quantity of human remains uncared for and exposed at the time of his visit, and very probably the Indians, being afraid, had burned a house, in which the inhabitants had perished with the dead in it. ”

“ They do not like stragglers even to inspect the burial place.... They believe that the soul of a good Karok goes to the 'happy western land' beyond the great ocean. That they have a well grounded assurance of an immortality beyond the grave is proven, if not otherwise, by their beautiful and poetical custom of whispering a message in the ear of the dead.... ”

“ I have seen few things in life so touching as the spectacle of an old father going daily to the grave of his child, while the shadows are lengthening, and pouring out his grief in wails that would move a demon, until his figure melts with the gray twilight, when, silent and solemn, he returns to his desolate family. The weird effect of this observance is sometimes heightened, when the deceased was a grown-up son, by the old man kindling a little fire near the head of the scaffold, and varying his lamentations with smoking in silence. ”

“ Frequently during this stage of the ceremony the most aged Indian present will sit in the central circle, and in a continuous and doleful tone narrate the acts of valor in the life of the departed, enjoining fortitude and bravery upon all sitting around as an essential qualification for admittance to the land where the Great Spirit reigns. ”

“ What wonder if the Indian shrinks with unspeakable horror from the thought of burying his friend's soul!—of pressing and ramming down with pitiless clods that inner something which once took such delight in the sweet light of the sun! What wonder if it takes years to persuade him to do otherwise and follow our custom! ”

“ Among the common people a person feeling his end approaching either went himself or was led to the woods by his wife, family, or friends, who, supplying him with some cake or ears of corn and a gourd of water, then left him to die alone or to be assisted by wild beasts. Others, with more respect for their dead, buried them in sepulchers made with niches, where they placed maize and wine and renewed the same annually. ”