The Allan Water is a river in central Scotland, United Kingdom. Rising in the Ochil Hills, it runs through Strathallan to Dunblane and Bridge of Allan before joining the River Forth. It shares its name with a tributary of the River Teviot. It is not to be confused with similarly named rivers ("Allen" not "Allan") in Cornwall, Dorset and Northumberland.
The name Allan is of Pre-Celtic Indo-European origin. Its original form was Alauna, from the Indo-European root *el-/ol-, meaning "to flow, to stream".[1]
Two broadside ballads refer to the "Allan Water". According to one, a Scottish ballad, the "Allan Water's wide and deep, and my dear Anny's very bonny; Wides the Straith that lyes above't, if't were mine I'de give it all for Anny." The other, more familiar, English ballad begins "On the banks of Allan Water" and relates the death of a miller's daughter whose soldier lover proves untrue. This version, popularised by C. E. Horn in his comic opera, Rich and Poor (1812), is sung by Bathsheba Everdene at the sheepshearing supper in Thomas Hardy's novel Far From The Madding Crowd (1874). A similar rendition was recorded with church organ accompaniment by Italian singer Ariella Uliano in 2008.