The song derives [somehow] from a ballad collected around 1800 or so, called "Ritchie Story" (NOT "Ritchie's Story" as the DT has it). The version in DT is from Kinloch's book of 1827, but it's not a very good one, and I don't think it's been sung since!! "Huntingtower (one word, by the way, like "gudeman", which = "husband") is in several books, in fairly constant form, though there are variations, as generally happens. I collected a version in 1958 from a grand old gent from Aberdeenshire, who sang it with his daughter, harmonising nicely on the repeat of the last stanza. [Variants:3.3 in a' the toon [this rhymes, notice] 3.4 I'd wear 10.1 Dry up that 10.2 My story's a' a lee, lassie 10.3 For I hae neither wife for weans 11.3 neither hoose nor ha' 12.2 Little Dunkeld is mine, lassie.] The tune has been collected as a vehicle for the "R.S." ballad, and the ancestor turns out to be that of another 17th century ballad, "The Scotch Wedding between Jockey and Jenny" (in Pills to Purge Melancholy, ed. of 1719-20, V.42); it seems also related to the tune of "Braw braw lads of Gala Water".[Note typo: "hear" should be "heart".] As for the factual background of the song, the Duke of Athol, supposedly the hero (a Murray by name, head of my clan) has nothing to do with it, of course. It's just a romantic tale--the idea of pretending (poverty, marriage) and turning out to be single landed gentry crops up in several songs. Lady Nairne, who made quite an industry of improving old Scots songs to make them more genteel, did for this one too, and the result is quite sad. You don't need to edit st. 7, as recommended above (you'd have to fix #6 as well). When sung freely, it works, you just have to make sure to get the accent (first beat of the measure) on the words "ken" and "telt".