There are a number of tunes for this song, but to my ear the oldest is the one with a funny partly chromatic run down in the middle, which makes the chord sequence a real bathmat. If you do it in, say, D minor it is possible to strike the D minor and let the chord fade while you sing the run down, but there are bits which are a bit dissonant.

We do it in G minor (D minor with the capo at the 5th fret) and in fact I use a short capo at the 5th over the A to top E strings and a full length one at the 3rd in effect giving me a drop-D tuning on unfretted chords. This means getting the thumb over the top in a couple of awkward places on some root chords, so I'll pretend for this posting that I use the capo right across. I'll also put the chords in D minor.

(Dm) There were three brothers in (F) mer- (C) ry (A) Scot- (Dm) land,

In (F) merry Scot- (Gm) land there were (A) three,

And (Dm) they did (A) cast (F) lots (G) which (Gm) of (Dm) them (Am) should (F) go, should (Gm) go, should (A) go,

(Dm) And turn (F) robber all (C) on the salt (Dm) sea.

And so to notes. The word in the first line with a C in the middle is "merry", and the next word is "Scotland". All root chords so far! In the second line, play the Gm as a barre at the third fret and not any of the silly inversions, then bring the A up as a barre at the fifth fret.

The third line is the hard one. Start with the A on "And" at the fifth fret, from the line before. The Dm is then an A minor shape still barred at the 5th. The F drops to a full barre (don't use thumb over, it makes the next change hard) at the first fret. Then slide that barre to the 3rd for the G, and lift one finger for the Gm. Then the Dm is down to root, and F Gm and A run up to the 5th position again. Then when the Dm at the beginning of the fourth line drops to the root (particularly with my trick capo-ing so the bottom D in it is sounding) it sounds like the crack of doom! Remaining three chords are root position.

It is a really eerie sequence done like this – and it took us hours and hours to find that run down. The notes in the run my trouble and strife got, and then I just tried every chord I knew with those notes in to get the run. If you had a cutaway electric guitar it should be possible to get the run to go down the top string but it involves a real swine of a change into and out of a barred C shape. I can't do it and keep the rhythm.