Free By Loch and by Lin by Sorche Nic Leodhas

men, not one of Glenlion’s men dared to be the first one to go out. So there they stood with their swords in hand, all the livelong day, while Bonnie Baby Livingston rode safely home to Dundee with Johnnie Hay.
    The Highland laddie was a wise chiel. He rode behind them on the gray, and when he got to Dundee he took service with Johnnie Hay. Then Baby gave him the golden chain, and the three bright guineas of gold, and Johnnie gave him twenty pounds for running his errand so well that night. But he never went back to Glenlion again, for he thought it wiser to stay away.
    Glenlion and his brother Jock and all their twenty armed men were shut up in their castle till night fell again. Then Johnnie’s hundred kinsmen went marching home to Dundee, singing all the way:
    â€œAway, Glenlion! Away for shame!
    Go hide yourself in your glen!
    You’ve let your bride be stolen away,
    For all your armed men.”

The Tale of
    Lang Johnnie Mor

DID you hear the tale of young Lang Johnnie Mor, the braw big laddie from Rhynie at the foot of Benachie? Johnnie was a good-sized lad for his age, which had just turned twenty years. It took three yards of leather belt to gird his waist around, and his shoulders were two yards wide. Lang Johnnie Mor was sturdy and strong, and the sword at his side was ten feet long, and Johnnie himself was fourteen feet in height.
    Johnnie was not a man to waste words, so when he went away from Rhynie at the foot of Benachie he did not trouble himself to tell his kin and his friends where he was going or why. But news has a way of traveling till it gets to the place where it belongs, and folks in Rhynie found out what had become of their Lang Johnnie Mor.
    Said one to another, “If all be true they tell, and I suppose it be, it’s off to Lunnon town young Lang Johnnie Mor has gone.”
    â€œOch, aye,” said t’other. “And if all be true I hear, and I suppose it be, he’s gone to carry the banner there, for the Sassenach king.”
    Then everybody said that, being a Rhynie lad, young Johnnie Mor would do well, no doubt, and now that they knew where Johnnie was, they went about on their own affairs.
    When Johnnie had dwelt in Lunnon town for a twelvemonth and two, or maybe three, the fairest lady in the town fell in love with the bonnie big lad. She smiled so sweetly on Lang Johnnie Mor whenever he passed by, that what could young Johnnie do but fall in love with the fairest lady in Lunnon town?
    Had his lady been a serving lass, or Johnnie a noble of high degree, the lovers would never have found a cloud to cast a shade on their joy. But the lass young Johnnie took for his love was the king’s own daughter, and Johnnie was naught but the lad who carried the banner for the king.
    The news ran all around Lunnon town till it reached the ear of the king that his banner bearer, Lang Johnnie Mor, and his noble daughter had fallen in love. The king, he reared and shouted with rage, and swore it should never be. He took his daughter and carried her up to a room in a high stone tower, and he locked the door and pocketed the key.
    â€œStay there and starve, fair lady,” he said, “for you’ll get no meat or drink from me.”
    Then down he went, and angrily vowed that before the week went by, the weighty young Scot should stretch a rope, for he would be hanged on the gibbet tree. Lang Johnnie Mor paid little heed when they told him what the king had said. “They must catch me first,” said he. “While I have my good sword in my hand, no man will dare lay a finger on me.”
    But the English king was cunning and sly. He found three rogues and paid them well to steal into the house where Johnnie dwelt and put poppy-seed oil in Johnnie’s ale. Johnnie came home and drank his ale and sleep overpowered him soon. He fell to the floor and there he lay, like a man in a swoon. Then the king sent his soldiers in, and they fettered young Johnnie where he