{
 "id": "robert-louis-stevenson/heather-ale",
 "title": "Heather Ale",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": "A Galloway Legend",
 "poet": "Robert Louis Stevenson",
 "poet_slug": "robert-louis-stevenson",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Ballads",
 "book_slug": "ballads",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 4,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1890,
  "venue": "Ballads (1890)",
  "note": "This 1890 volume is the first book printing of these five ballads, but it is not certainly the first printing of each of them: the volume's own notes record that 'Ticonderoga' had already appeared in Scribner's Magazine. Whether the others were printed in a periodical before 1890 has not been established here.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/ballad00stev"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/robert-louis-stevenson_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://archive.org/details/worksofrobertlvol28stev",
   "https://archive.org/details/worksofrobertlou14stev",
   "https://archive.org/details/newpoemsandvaria00stevuoft",
   "https://archive.org/details/poemshithertounp00stevrich",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/31291",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30659",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/441",
   "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Poems,_by_Robert_Louis_Stevenson,_hitherto_unpublished"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 88,
  "n_stanzas": 11,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 40,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "From the bonny bells of heather",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They brewed a drink long-syne,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Was sweeter far than honey,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was stronger far than wine.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "They brewed it and they drank it,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And lay in a blessed swound",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "For days and days together",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In their dwellings underground.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "There rose a king in Scotland,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A fell man to his foes,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "He smote the Picts in battle,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He hunted them like roes.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Over miles of the red mountain",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He hunted as they fled,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And strewed the dwarfish bodies",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the dying and the dead.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Summer came in the country,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Red was the heather bell;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But the manner of the brewing",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was none alive to tell.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "In the graves that were like children’s",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On many a mountain head,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The Brewsters of the Heather",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lay numbered with the dead.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The king in the red moorland",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rode on a summer’s day;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And the bees hummed, and the curlews",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Cried beside the way.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The king rode, and was angry,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Black was his brow and pale,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To rule in a land of heather",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And lack the Heather Ale.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "It fortuned that his vassals,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Riding free on the heath,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Came on a stone that was fallen",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And vermin hid beneath.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Rudely plucked from their hiding,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Never a word they spoke:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "A son and his aged father⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Last of the dwarfish folk.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The king sat high on his charger,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He looked on the little men;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And the dwarfish and swarthy couple",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Looked at the king again.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Down by the shore he had them;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And there on the giddy brink⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "“I will give you life, ye vermin,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For the secret of the drink.”",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "There stood the son and father;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And they looked high and low;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The heather was red around them,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sea rumbled below.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And up and spoke the father,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shrill was his voice to hear:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "“I have a word in private,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A word for the royal ear.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“Life is dear to the aged,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And honour a little thing;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I would gladly sell the secret,”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Quoth the Pict to the king.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "His voice was small as a sparrow’s,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And shrill and wonderful clear;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "“I would gladly sell my secret,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Only my son I fear.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“For life is a little matter,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And death is nought to the young;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And I dare not sell my honour",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Under the eye of my son.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Take him, O king, and bind him,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And cast him far in the deep:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And it’s I will tell the secret,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That I have sworn to keep.”",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "They took the son and bound him,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Neck and heels in a thong,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And a lad took him and swung him,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And flung him far and strong,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And the sea swallowed his body,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like that of a child of ten;⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And there on the cliff stood the father,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Last of the dwarfish men.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“True was the word I told you:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Only my son I feared;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "For I doubt the sapling courage",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That goes without the beard.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But now in vain is the torture,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fire shall never avail;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Here dies in my bosom",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The secret of Heather Ale.”",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}