Malcolm Douglas:
"The text above certainly isn't the second one. It seems in its turn to have been altered from the form in which Scott printed it; where did you get it? "

From Scott's Mistrelsy, about mid- century edition.

I said I'd edited it rather heavily. I've stuck to the plot, cut out the dull bit Scott said he'd added, shortened the whole thing and translated it into English and added a tune. All to try to make it singable.

Why cowboy? Well, the whole thing reads like a saturday afternoon cowboy film.