A widely-printed broadside song of the first half of the 19th century. It was immensely popular in its day, as you can tell from the wide distribution of examples found in oral currency. Most texts seem to have stayed quite close to the broadside, with the usual mis-hearings like "Eagach" (above) for "Ida", and so on.

See thread Lyr Add: Great song from Cara at Cambridge (UK) for earlier comments on this song, and on the unprovenanced DT example (which I assume was taken down by ear from a commercial recording; the odd phrasing and strange barring of the accompanying midi file suggests that). It might have been Ray Fisher's arrangement, but something has gone badly wrong with the midi transcription if that is the case.

Somebody posted the text sung by Cara Dillon in that thread, but it has only a few differences from the usual versions, and nobody ever told us where she got it anyway. I wouldn't think it helpful to a study of the song without an identified traditional source.

Various broadside editions can be seen at  Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads:

[Young] Donald's return to Glencoe

Note that the rather ghastly 19th century broadside song Flora and MacDonald, or, the Massacre of Glencoe (quoted in a couple of old threads) has nothing to do with the song under discussion here, apart from having been, it seems, slightly modelled upon it. Neither is either song in any way connected with Flora MacDonald and Charles Edward Stewart, as has been suggested here in the past by at least one of our more romantically inclined contributors.