Puma:

Max Hunter's version of 'The Dewy Dens of Yarrow" was learned from Herbert Philbrick, an old man who lived in Crocker, Missouri, in the summer of 1957. The text actually combines elements of two of the Child ballads: #214 ("The Braes o' Yarrow) and #215 ("Rare Willie Drowned in Yarrow"). Mary Celestia Parler, who wrote the notes that accompany Max's record, notes its textual similarity to the version Herbert Halpert collected from George Edwards in the Catskills, although the tune is quite different. I would urge you to read the extensive introductory note to #214 in Child's The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, which you can probably find in your library. If not, urge your librarian to order it through inter-library loan. Better still, look at the numerous versions with tunes that were gathered by Bertrand Bronson (42 versions of #214 and 9 of #215) and published in Volume 3 of The Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads.

Child and Bronson demonstrate the historical and geographical range of the ballad(s) much more completely than we can offer here, but both seem to have originated in Scotland, with the earliest text of #215 showing up in Orpheus Caledonius (1733). Bronson also includes a fine version that Mary Parler overlooked (or had no access to) when she wrote the notes for my recording of Max Hunter, namely the fine version sung for Marjorie Porter in 1941 by Lily Delorme in Cadyville, New York. Helen Hartness Flanders included this one in her Vermont collections on the strength of its having been learned from Mrs. Delorme's father who had lived in Starksboro, Vermont. (br>
Max's version. by the way, is still available from Folk-Legacy on one of our "custom" cassettes, and comes with the accompanying booklet of notes and lyrics.