The Leader valley at Cowdenknowes House, Berwickshire, 1843
"Broom of the Cowdenknowes", also known as "Bonny May", is a traditional Scottish love ballad, (Child 217, Roud 92). It has been traced to the seventeenth century, but its exact origin is unknown.[1]
The title of the song references the Scotch Broom (Cytisus scoparius) flower, a vibrant yellow flower found throughout Scotland, including Cowdenknowes, a Scottish barony east of the Leader Water (River Leader), 32 miles southeast of Edinburgh in Berwickshire.[2]
^Child, Francis James, ed. (1890). English and Scottish Popular Ballads. Vol. IV Part 1. Boston: Houghton Mifflin and Company. pp. 191–209. Retrieved 2017-11-10.
^"Barony of Cowdenknowes, Scotland". www.cowdenknowes.com.
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