Popular legend links this song to a Scots nobleman, Urquart of Craigston, who died in 1634 having married a wife some years his senior.


The trees they grow high, the leaves they do grow green,
Many is the time my true love I've seen,
Many an hour I have watched him all alone,
He's young but he's daily growing.

Father, dear father, you've done me great wrong,
You have married me to a boy who is too young,
I'm twice twelve and he is but fourteen,
He's young but he's daily growing.

Daughter, dear daughter, I've done you no wrong,
I have married you to a great lord's son,
He'll make a lord for you to wait upon,
He's young but he's daily growing

Father, dear father, if you see fit,
We'll send him to college for one year yet,
I'll tie blue ribbons all around his head,
To let the maidens know that he's married.

One day I was looking o'er my father's castle wall,
I spied all the boys a'playing with the ball,
My own true love was the flower of them all,
He's young but he's daily growing.

At the age of fourteen he was a married man,
At the age of fifteen the father of my son,
At the age of sixteen his grave it was green,
And death had put an end to his growing.