Page:Ballads, Stevenson, 1890.djvu/87

 HEATHER ALE: A GALLOWAY LEGEND.

From the bonny bells of heather

They brewed a drink long-syne,

Was sweeter far than honey,

Was stronger far than wine.

They brewed it and they drank it,

And lay in a blessed swound

For days and days together

In their dwellings underground.

There rose a king in Scotland,

A fell man to his foes,

He smote the Picts in battle,

He hunted them like roes.

Over miles of the red mountain

He hunted as they fled,

And strewed the dwarfish bodies

Of the dying and the dead.

75