Percy ascribed its preservation to Sir David
Dalrymple, who gave it from the memory of a lady. The incident was
transferred to the border from the North of Scotland. Edom o' Gordon
was Sir Adam Gordon of Auchindown, Lieutenant-Depute for Queen Mary in
the North in 1571. He sent Captain Ker with soldiers against the
Castle of Towie, which was set on fire, and the Lady of Towie, with
twenty-six other persons, "was cruelly brint to the death." Other
forms of the ballad ascribe the deed, with incidents of greater
cruelty, to Captain Carr, the Lord of Estertowne.
"The Children in the Wood" was entered in the books of the Stationers'
Company on the 15th of October 1595 to Thomas Millington as,
"for his Copie vnder th[e h]andes of bothe the wardens a ballad
intituled, The Norfolk gent his will and Testament and how he
Commytted the keepinge of his Children to his owne brother whoe delte
moste wickedly with them and howe God plagued him for it."
It was printed as a black-letter ballad in 167O. Addison wrote a
paper on it in "The Spectator" (No. 85), praising it as "one of the
darling songs of the common people.
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