Various Authors
The Oxford Book of Ballads
Thomas the Rhymer, The Riddling Knight, Babylon, The Marriage of Sir Gawain, Bonnie Annie, Tam Lin…
EAN 8596547732778
Table of Contents
PREFACE
PART I
BOOK I
1. Thomas the Rhymer
2. Tam Lin
3. Sir Cawline
4. Sir Aldingar
5. Cospatrick
6. Willy’s Lady
7. The Queen of Elfland’s Nourice
8. Lady Isabel and the Elf-Knight
9. The Riddling Knight
10. May Colvin
11. The Wee Wee Man
12. Alison Gross
13. Kemp Owyne
14. The Laily Worm and the Machrel of the Sea
15. King Orfeo
16. King Henry
17. The Boy and the Mantle
18. King Arthur and King Cornwall
19. The Marriage of Sir Gawain
20. Bonnie Annie
21. Brown Robyn’s Confession
22. The Cruel Mother
23. Binnorie
24. The Broomfield Hill
25. Earl Mar’s Daughter
26. Proud Lady Margaret
27. Clerk Saunders
28. The Daemon Lover
29. Clerk Colven
30. Young Hunting
31. The Great Silkie of Sule Skerrie
32. The Wife of Usher’s Well
33. A Lyke-Wake Dirge
34. The Unquiet Grave
BOOK II
35. Hynd Horn
36. Hynd Etin
37. Erlinton
38. Earl Brand
39. The Douglas Tragedy
40. Glasgerion
41. King Estmere
42. Fair Annie
43. The Lass of Lochroyan
44. Young Bekie
45. Young Beichan
46. Childe Waters
47. Childe Maurice
48. Brown Adam
49. Jellon Grame
50. Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard
51. Lord Ingram and Childe Vyet
52. Fair Janet
53. Old Robin of Portingale
54. Lord Thomas and Fair Annet
55. Rose the Red and White Lily
56. Leesome Brand
57. Babylon
58. Prince Robert
59. Young Andrew
60. The Gay Goshawk
61. Willie’s Lyke-Wake
62. Fair Margaret and Sweet William
63. The Twa Brothers
64. The Cruel Brother
65. Edward, Edward
66. Lord Randal
67. The Twa Corbies
68. The Three Ravens
BOOK III
69. The Nut-Brown Maid
70. Fause Foodrage
71. The Fair Flower of Northumberland
72. Young John
73. Lady Maisry
74. Bonny Bee Ho’m
75. Sir Patrick Spens
76. The Lord of Lorn
77. Edom o’ Gordon
78. Lamkin
79. Hugh of Lincoln and The Jew’s Daughter
80. The Heir of Linne
81. Fair Mary of Wallington
82. Young Waters
83. The Queen’s Marie
84. The Outlaw Murray
85. Glenlogie
86. Lady Elspat
87. Jamie Douglas
88. Katharine Johnstone
89. Johnie Armstrong
90. Clyde Water
91. Young Benjie
92. Annan Water
93. Rare Willy drowned in Yarrow
94. The Duke of Gordon’s Daughter
95. The Bonny Earl of Murray
96. Bonny George Campbell
BOOK IV
97. Judas
98. St. Stephen and King Herod
99. The Maid and the Palmer
100. The Falcon
101. The Cherry-Tree Carol
102. The Carnal614 and the Crane
103. Jolly Wat
104. I Saw Three Ships
105. The Twelve Good Joys
106. The Angel Gabriel
107. The Three Kings
108. The Innocents
109. Dives and Lazarus
110. The Holy Well
111. The Seven Virgins
PART II
BOOK V
112. Robyn and Gandelyn
113. The Birth of Robin Hood
114. Adam Bell, Clym of the Clough, and William of Cloudesley
115. A Little Geste of Robin Hood and his Meiny707
116. Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne
117. Robin Hood and the Monk
118. Robin Hood and the Curtal Friar
119. Robin Hood and the Butcher
120. Robin Hood and the Bishop of Hereford
121. Robin Hood and Alan a Dale
122. Robin Hood and the Widow’s Three Sons
123. Robin Hood’s Golden Prize
124. The Noble Fisherman
125. The Death of Robin Hood
BOOK VI
126. Durham Field
127. The Battle of Otterburn
128. Chevy Chase
129. Northumberland Betrayed by Douglas
130. Sir Andrew Barton
131. The ‘George-Aloe’
132. The ‘Golden Vanity’
133. John Dory
134. Willie Macintosh
135. The Bonnie House o’ Airlie
136. Johnnie of Cockerslee
137. Kinmont Willie
138. Jock o’ the Side
139. Hobbie Noble
140. Archie of Cawfield
141. Jamie Telfer in the Fair Dodhead
142. Dick o’ the Cow
143. Hughie the Graeme
144. The Lochmaben Harper
145. The Fire of Frendraught
146. The Death of Parcy Reed
147. Baby Livingston
148. The Gypsy Countess
149. The Baron of Brackley
150. The Dowie Houms of Yarrow
151. Lord Maxwell’s Last Goodnight
152. Helen of Kirconnell
153. The Lament of the Border Widow
BOOK VII
154. Lady Alice
155. Lord Lovel
156. The Trees So High
157. The Brown Girl
158. Barbara Allan’s Cruelty
159. The Gardener
160. The Lowlands o’ Holland
161. The Spanish Lady’s Love
162. The Bailiff’s Daughter of Islington
163. The Blind Beggar’s Daughter of Bednall-Green
164. The Loving Ballad of Lord Bateman
165. Mary Ambree
166. The Lady turned Serving-Man
167. The Simple Ploughboy
168. Cawsand Bay
169. The Greenland Fishery
170. The Old Cloak
171. Widdicombe Fair
172. Get up and Bar the Door
173. King John and the Abbot of Canterbury
174. The Children in the Wood
175. The Suffolk Miracle
176. Bessie Bell and Mary Gray
PREFACE
Table of Contents
I tried to range over the whole field of the English Lyric, and to choose the best, so I have sought to bring together the best Ballads out of the whole of our national stock. But the method, order, balance of the two books are different perforce, as the fates of the Lyric and the Ballad have been diverse. While the Lyric in general, still making for variety, is to-day more prolific than ever and (all cant apart) promises fruit to equal the best, that particular offshoot which we call the Ballad has been dead, or as good as dead, for two hundred years. It would seem to have discovered, almost at the start, a very precise Platonic pattern of what its best should be; and having exhausted itself in reproducing that, it declined (through a crab-apple stage of Broadsides) into sterility. Therefore this anthology cannot be brought down to the present day, and therefore the first half of it contains far finer poetry than the second.
But it may be objected that among Ballads no such thing as chronological order is possible; and that, if it were, I have not attempted it. ‘Why then did I not boldly mix up all my flowers in a heap and afterwards sit down to re-arrange them, disregarding history, studious only that one flower should set off another and the whole wreath be a well-balanced circle?’ I will try to answer this, premising only that tact is nine-tenths of the anthologist’s business. It is very true that the Ballads have no chronology: that no one can say when Hynd Horn was composed, or assert with proof that Clerk Saunders is younger than Childe Maurice or Tam Lin older than Sir Patrick Spens, though that all five are older than The Children in the Wood no one with an ounce of literary sense would deny. Even of our few certainties we have to remember that, where almost everything depends on oral tradition, it may easily happen—in fact happens not seldom—that a really old ballad ‘of the best period’ has reached us late and in a corrupted form, its original gold overlaid with silver and bronze. It is true, moreover, that these pages, declining an impossible order, decline also the pretence to it. I have arranged the ballads in seven books: of which the first deals with Magic, the ‘Seely Court’, and the supernatural; the second (and on the whole the most beautiful) with stories of absolute romance such as Childe Waters, Lord Ingram, Young Andrew; the third with romance shading off into real history, as in Sir Patrick Spens, Hugh of Lincoln, The Queen’s Marie; the fourth with Early Carols and ballads of Holy Writ. This closes Part I. The fifth book is all of the Greenwood and Robin Hood; the sixth follows history down from Chevy Chase and the Homeric deeds of Douglas and Percy to less renowned if not less spirited Border feuds; while the seventh and last book presents the Ballad in various aspects of false beginning and decline—The Old Cloak, which deserved a long line of children but in fact has had few; Barbara Allen, late but exquisite; Lord Lovel, which is silly sooth; and The Suffolk Tragedy, wherein a magnificent ballad-theme is ambled to market like so much butter. My hope is that this arrangement, while it avoids mixing up things that differ and keeps consorted those (the Robin Hood Ballads for example) which naturally go together, does ‘in round numbers’ give a view of the Ballad in its perfection and decline, and that so my book may be useful to the student as well as to the disinterested lover of poetry for whom it is chiefly intended.
This brings me to the matter of text. To make a ‘scientific’ anthology of the Ballads was out of the question. In so far as scientific treatment could be brought to them the work had been done, for many generations to come, if not finally, by the late Professor Child1 in his monumental edition, to which at every turn I have been indebted for guidance back to the originals. Child’s method was to get hold of every ballad in every extant version, good, bad, or indifferent, and to print these versions side by side, with a foreword on the ballad’s history, packed with every illustration that could be contributed out of his immense knowledge of the folk-poetry of every race and country. His work, as I say, left no room for follower or imitator; but fortunately it lies almost as wide of my purpose as of my learning. My reader did not require Sir Patrick Spens or May Colvin in a dozen or twenty versions: he wanted one ballad, one Sir Patrick Spens, one May Colvin, and that the best. How could I give him the best in my power?
There is only one way. It was Scott’s way, and the way of William Allingham, who has been at pains to define it in the preface to his Ballad Book (Macmillan):—
The various oral versions of a popular ballad obtainable throughout England, Scotland, and Ireland, are perhaps, even at this late day,2 practically innumerable—one as ‘authentic’ as another. What then to do?... The right course has appeared to be this, to make oneself acquainted with all attainable versions of a ballad. Then (granting a ‘turn’ for such things, to begin; without which all were labour in vain) the editor may be supposed to get as much insight as may be into the origin and character of the ballad in question; he sees or surmises more or less as to the earliest version or versions, as to blunders, corruptions, alterations of every sort (national, local, personal) on the part of the reciters; he then comes to investigate the doings of former editors, adopting thankfully what he finds good, correcting at points whereupon he has attained better information, rejecting (when for the worse) acknowledged or obvious interpolations or changes. He has to give it in one form—the best according to his judgement and feeling—in firm black and white, for critics, and for readers cultivated and simple.
This fairly describes Scott’s method as well as Allingham’s own. But while I must claim along with them ‘a “turn” for such things’ (the claim is implicit in my attempt), these two men were poets, and could dare more boldly than I to rewrite a faulty stanza or to supply a missing one. Of this ticklish license I have been extremely chary, and have used it with the double precaution (1) of employing, so far as might be, words and phrases found elsewhere in the text of the ballad, and (2) of printing these experiments in square brackets,3 that the reader may not be misled. Maybe I should have resisted the temptation altogether but for the necessity—in a work intended for all sorts of readers, young and old—of removing or reducing here and there in these eight hundred and sixty-five pages a coarse or a brutal phrase. To those who deny the necessity I will only answer that while no literature in the world exercises a stronger or on the whole a saner fascination upon imaginative youth than do these ballads, it seems to me wiser to omit a stanza from Glasgerion, for example, or to modify a line in Young Hunting, than to withhold these beautiful things altogether from boy or maid.
Before leaving this subject of texts and their handling, I must express my thanks for the permission given me to make free use of the text of the Percy Folio MS., edited by Professors Hales and Furnivall some forty years ago. This was of course indispensable. In the history of our ballad-literature the Reliques themselves are, if something more of a landmark, much less of a trophy than the three famous volumes so romantically achieved by Professor Child and their two editors, whose labour has been scarcely more honourable than their liberality which has ever laid its results open to men’s benefit. Mr. Child died in 1896; Mr. Furnivall a few months ago. To Mr. Hales, survivor of the famous three, I owe the permission given with a courtesy which set a fresh value on what was already beyond value. I must also thank the Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould for leave to include The Brown Girl and other ballads from his Songs of the West and A Garland of Country Song (Methuen). It were idle to quote all the scholars—Ritson, Herd, Scott, Jamieson and the rest—to whose labours every ballad-editor must be indebted: but among younger men I wish to thank Mr. F. Sidgwick, whose method in his two volumes of Ballads (Bullen) I can admire the more unreservedly because it differs from mine.
I hope, at any rate, that in presenting each ballad as one, and reconstructing it sometimes from many versions, I have kept pretty constantly to the idea, of which Professor Ker4 says—‘The truth is that the Ballad is an Idea, a Poetical Form, which can take up any matter, and does not leave that matter as it was before.’ If the reader interrogate me concerning this Idea of the Ballad, as Mr. Pecksniff demanded of Mrs. Todgers her Notion of a Wooden Leg, Professor Ker has my answer prepared:—
In spite of Socrates and his logic we may venture to say, in answer to the question ‘What is a ballad?’—‘A Ballad is The Milldams of Binnorie and Sir Patrick Spens and The Douglas Tragedy and Lord Randal and Childe Maurice, and things of that sort.’
There the reader has it, without need of the definition or of the historical account which this Preface must not attempt. Its author, no doubt, is destined to consign, some day, and ‘come to dust’ with more learned editors: but meanwhile, if one ask ‘What is a Ballad?’—I answer, It is these things; and it is
About the dead hour o’ the nightShe heard the bridles ring.
(Tam Lin)
and
But this ladye is gone to her chamber,Her maydens following bright.
(Sir Cawline)
It is
‘O we were sisters, sisters seven;We were the fairest under heaven.’
(Cospatrick)
and
‘I see no harm by you, Margaret,Nor you see none by me.’
(Fair Margaret and Sweet William)
and
In somer, when the shawes be sheyne,And leves be large and long.
(Robin Hood and the Monk)
and
O there was horsing, horsing in haste,And cracking of whips out owre the lee.
(Archie of Cawfield)
It is even
And there did he see brave Captain OgilvieA-training of his men on the green.
(The Duke of Gordon’s Daughter)
Like the Clown in Twelfth Night, it can sing both high and low: but the note is unmistakable whether it sing high:
O cocks are crowing on merry middle-earth;I wot the wild fowls are boding day.
(Clerk Saunders)
Half-owre, half-owre to Aberdour,’Tis fifty fathoms deep;And there lies gude Sir Patrick Spens,Wi’ the Scots lords at his feet!
(Sir Patrick Spens)
‘O Earl Bran’, I see your heart’s bloud!’—Ay lally, o lilly lally‘It’s na but the glent o’ my scarlet hood’All i’ the night sae early.
(Earl Brand)
or low
Then up bespake the bride’s mother—She never was heard to speak so free:‘Ye’ll not forsake my only daughter,Though Susie Pye has cross’d the sea.’
(Young Beichan)
‘An’ thu sall marry a proud gunner,An’ a proud gunner I’m sure he’ll be.’
(The Great Silkie of Sule Skerrie)
Rise up, rise up, brother Dives,And go with us to seeA dismal place, prepared in hell,To sit on a serpent’s knee.
(Dives and Lazarus)
or, merely flat and pedestrian:
There was slayne upon the English partFor sooth as I you say,Of ninè thousand English menFive hundred came away.
(Otterburn)
But it is always unmistakable and like no other thing in poetry; in proof of which let me offer one simple, practical test. If any man ever steeped himself in balladry, that man was Scott, and once or twice, as in Proud Maisie and Brignall Banks, he came near to distil the essence. If any man, taking the Ballad for his model, has ever sublimated its feeling and language in a poem
seraphically freeFrom taint of personality,
that man was Coleridge and that poem his Ancient Mariner. If any poet now alive can be called a ballad-writer of genius, it is the author of Danny Deever and East and West. But let the reader suppose a fascicule of such poems bound up with the present collection, and he will perceive that I could have gone no straighter way to destroy the singularity of the book.
In claiming this singularity for the Ballad I do not seek to exalt it above any other lyrical form. Rather I am ready to admit, out of some experience in anthologizing, that when a ballad is set in a collection alongside the best of Herrick, Gray, Landor, Browning—to name four poets opposite as the poles and to say nothing of such masterwork as Spenser’s Epithalamion or Milton’s Lycidas—it is the ballad that not only suffers by the apposition but suffers to a surprising degree; so that I have sometimes been forced to reconsider my affection, and ask ‘Are these ballads really beautiful as they have always appeared to me?’ In truth (as I take it) the contrast is unfair to them, much as any contrast between children and grown folk would be unfair. They appealed to something young in the national mind, and the young still ramp through Percy’s Reliques—as I hope they will through this book—‘trailing clouds of glory,’ following the note in Elmond’s wood—
May Margaret sits in her bower doorSewing her silken seam;She heard a note in Elmond’s wood,And wish’d she there had been.
She loot the seam fa’ frae her side,The needle to her tae,And she is on to Elmond’s woodAs fast as she could gae.
A. Q. C.
FOOTNOTES:
1. A smaller edition of ‘Child’, excellently planned, by Helen Child Sargent and George Lyman Kittridge, is published in England by Mr. Nutt.
2. 1864.
3. This does not hold of small transpositions, elisions of superfluous words, or corrections of spelling. In these matters I have allowed myself a free hand.
4.On the History of the Ballads, 1100-1500, by W. P. Ker, Proceedings of the British Academy, vol. iv.
Certainly, I must confesse my own barbarousnes, I neuer heard the olde song of Percy and Duglas that I found not my heart mooued more then with a Trumpet.
Sir Philip Sidney.
PART I
Table of Contents
BOOK I
Table of Contents
1. Thomas the Rhymer
Table of Contents
I
True Thomas lay on Huntlie bank;A ferlie5 he spied wi’ his e’e;And there he saw a ladye brightCome riding down by the Eildon Tree.
II
Her skirt was o’ the grass-green silk,Her mantle o’ the velvet fyne;At ilka tett6 o’ her horse’s maneHung fifty siller bells and nine.
III
True Thomas he pu’d aff his cap,And louted low down on his knee:‘Hail to thee, Mary, Queen of Heaven!For thy peer on earth could never be.’
IV
‘O no, O no, Thomas,’ she said,‘That name does not belang to me;I’m but the Queen o’ fair Elfland,That am hither come to visit thee.
V
‘Harp and carp7, Thomas,’ she said;‘Harp and carp along wi’ me;And if ye dare to kiss my lips,Sure of your bodie I will be.’
VI
‘Betide me weal, betide me woe,That weird8 shall never daunten me.’Syne he has kiss’d her rosy lips,All underneath the Eildon Tree.
VII
‘Now ye maun go wi’ me,’ she said,‘True Thomas, ye maun go wi’ me;And ye maun serve me seven years,Thro’ weal or woe as may chance to be.’
VIII
She’s mounted on her milk-white steed,She’s ta’en true Thomas up behind;And aye, whene’er her bridle rang,The steed gaed swifter than the wind.
IX
O they rade on, and farther on,The steed gaed swifter than the wind;Until they reach’d a desert wide,And living land was left behind.
X
‘Light down, light down now, true Thomas,And lean your head upon my knee;Abide ye there a little space,And I will show you ferlies three.
XI
‘O see ye not yon narrow road,So thick beset wi’ thorns and briers?That is the Path of Righteousness,Though after it but few inquires.
XII
‘And see ye not yon braid, braid road,That lies across the lily leven9?That is the Path of Wickedness,Though some call it the Road to Heaven.
XIII
‘And see ye not yon bonny roadThat winds about the fernie brae?That is the Road to fair Elfland,Where thou and I this night maun gae.
XIV
‘But, Thomas, ye sall haud your tongue,Whatever ye may hear or see;For speak ye word in Elflyn-land,Ye’ll ne’er win back to your ain countrie.’
XV
O they rade on, and farther on,And they waded rivers abune the knee;And they saw neither sun nor moon,But they heard the roaring of the sea.
XVI
It was mirk, mirk night, there was nae starlight,They waded thro’ red blude to the knee;For a’ the blude that’s shed on the earthRins through the springs o’ that countrie.
XVII
Syne they came to a garden green,And she pu’d an apple frae a tree:‘Take this for thy wages, true Thomas;It will give thee the tongue that can never lee.’
XVIII
‘My tongue is my ain,’ true Thomas he said;‘A gudely gift ye wad gie to me!I neither dought10 to buy or sellAt fair or tryst where I might be.
XIX
‘I dought neither speak to prince or peer,Nor ask of grace from fair ladye!’—‘Now haud thy peace, Thomas,’ she said,‘For as I say, so must it be.’
XX
He has gotten a coat of the even cloth11,And a pair o’ shoon of the velvet green;And till seven years were gane and past,True Thomas on earth was never seen.
FOOTNOTES:
9. leven =? lawn.
2. Tam Lin
Table of Contents
I
‘O I forbid you, maidens a’,That wear gowd on your hair,To come or gae by Carterhaugh,For young Tam Lin is there.
II
‘For even about that knight’s middleO’ siller bells are nine;And nae maid comes to CarterhaughAnd a maid returns again.’
III
Fair Janet sat in her bonny bower,Sewing her silken seam,And wish’d to be in CarterhaughAmang the leaves sae green.
IV
She’s lat her seam fa’ to her feet,The needle to her tae12,And she’s awa’ to CarterhaughAs fast as she could gae.
V
And she has kilted her green kirtleA little abune her knee;And she has braided her yellow hairA little abune her bree13;And she has gaen for CarterhaughAs fast as she can hie.
VI
She hadna pu’d a rose, a rose,A rose but barely ane,When up and started young Tam Lin;Says, ‘Ladye, let alane.
VII
‘What gars ye pu’ the rose, Janet?What gars ye break the tree?What gars ye come to CarterhaughWithout the leave o’ me?’
VIII
‘Weel may I pu’ the rose,’ she says,‘And ask no leave at thee;For Carterhaugh it is my ain,My daddy gave it me.’
IX
He’s ta’en her by the milk-white hand,And by the grass-green sleeve,He’s led her to the fairy groundAt her he ask’d nae leave.
X
Janet has kilted her green kirtleA little abune her knee,And she has snooded her yellow hairA little abune her bree,And she is to her father’s ha’As fast as she can hie.
XI
But when she came to her father’s ha’,She look’d sae wan and pale,They thought the lady had gotten a fright,Or with sickness she did ail.
XII
Four and twenty ladies fairWere playing at the ba’,And out then came fair JanetAnce the flower amang them a’.
XIII
Four and twenty ladies fairWere playing at the chess,And out then came fair JanetAs green as onie glass.
XIV
Out then spak’ an auld grey knight’Lay owre the Castle wa’,And says, ‘Alas, fair Janet!For thee we’ll be blamèd a’.’
XV
‘Hauld your tongue, ye auld-faced knight,Some ill death may ye die!Father my bairn on whom I will,I’ll father nane on thee.
XVI
‘O if my love were an earthly knight,As he is an elfin gay,I wadna gie my ain true-loveFor nae laird that ye hae.
XVII
‘The steed that my true-love rides onIs fleeter nor the wind;Wi’ siller he is shod before,Wi’ burning gold behind.’
XVIII
Out then spak’ her brither dear—He meant to do her harm:‘There grows an herb in CarterhaughWill twine14 you an’ the bairn.’
XIX
Janet has kilted her green kirtleA little abune her knee,And she has snooded her yellow hairA little abune her bree,And she’s awa’ to CarterhaughAs fast as she can hie.
XX
She hadna pu’d a leaf, a leaf,A leaf but only twae,When up and started young Tam Lin,Says, ‘Ladye, thou’s pu’ nae mae.
XXI
‘How dar’ ye pu’ a leaf?’ he says,‘How dar’ ye break the tree?How dar’ ye scathe15 my babe,’ he says,‘That’s between you and me?’
XXII
‘O tell me, tell me, Tam,’ she says,‘For His sake that died on tree,If ye were ever in holy chapelOr sain’d16 in Christentie?’
XXIII
‘The truth I’ll tell to thee, Janet,Ae word I winna lee;A knight me got, and a lady me bore,As well as they did thee.
XXIV
‘Roxburgh he was my grandfather,Took me with him to bide;And ance it fell upon a day,As hunting I did ride,
XXV
‘There came a wind out o’ the north,A sharp wind an’ a snell17,A dead sleep it came over meAnd frae my horse I fell;And the Queen o’ Fairies she took meIn yon green hill to dwell.
XXVI
‘And pleasant is the fairy landFor those that in it dwell,But ay at end of seven yearsThey pay a teind18 to hell;I am sae fair and fu’ o’ fleshI’m fear’d ’twill be mysell.
XXVII
‘But the night is Hallowe’en, Janet,The morn is Hallowday;Then win me, win me, an ye will,For weel I wat ye may.
XXVIII
‘The night it is gude Hallowe’en,The fairy folk do ride,And they that wad their true-love win,At Miles Cross they maun bide.’—
XXIX
‘But how should I you ken, Tam Lin,How should I borrow19 you,Amang a pack of uncouth20 knightsThe like I never saw?’—
XXX
‘You’ll do you down to Miles CrossBetween twel’ hours and ane,And fill your hands o’ the holy waterAnd cast your compass roun’.
XXXI
‘The first company that passes by,Say na, and let them gae;The neist company that passes by,Say na, and do right sae;The third company that passes by,Then I’ll be ane o’ thae.
XXXII
‘O first let pass the black, ladye,And syne let pass the brown;But quickly run to the milk-white steed,Pu’ ye his rider down.
XXXIII
‘For some ride on the black, ladye,And some ride on the brown;But I ride on a milk-white steed,A gowd star on my crown:Because I was an earthly knightThey gie me that renown.
XXXIV
‘My right hand will be gloved, ladye,My left hand will be bare,And thae’s the tokens I gie thee:Nae doubt I will be there.
XXXV
‘Ye’ll tak’ my horse then by the headAnd let the bridle fa’;The Queen o’ Elfin she’ll cry out“True Tam Lin he’s awa’!”
XXXVI
‘They’ll turn me in your arms, ladye,An aske21 but and a snake;But hauld me fast, let me na gae,To be your warldis make22.
XXXVII
‘They’ll turn me in your arms, ladye,But and a deer so wild;But hauld me fast, let me na gae,The father o’ your child.
XXXVIII
‘They’ll shape me in your arms, ladye,A hot iron at the fire;But hauld me fast, let me na go,To be your heart’s desire.
XXXIX
‘They’ll shape me last in your arms, Janet,A mother-naked man;Cast your green mantle over me,And sae will I be won.’
XL
Janet has kilted her green kirtleA little abune the knee;And she has snooded her yellow hairA little abune her bree,And she is on to Miles CrossAs fast as she can hie.
XLI
About the dead hour o’ the nightShe heard the bridles ring;And Janet was as glad at thatAs any earthly thing.
XLII
And first gaed by the black, black steed,And syne gaed by the brown;But fast she gript the milk-white steedAnd pu’d the rider down.
XLIII
She’s pu’d him frae the milk-white steed,An’ loot23 the bridle fa’,And up there rase an eldritch24 cry,‘True Tam Lin he’s awa’!’
XLIV
They shaped him in her arms twaAn aske but and a snake;But aye she grips and hau’ds him fastTo be her warldis make.
XLV
They shaped him in her arms twaBut and a deer sae wild;But aye she grips and hau’ds him fast,The father o’ her child.
XLVI
They shaped him in her arms twaA hot iron at the fire;But aye she grips and hau’ds him fastTo be her heart’s desire.
XLVII
They shaped him in her arms at lastA mother-naked man;She cast her mantle over him,And sae her love she wan.
XLVIII
Up then spak’ the Queen o’ Fairies,Out o’ a bush o’ broom,‘She that has borrow’d young Tam LinHas gotten a stately groom.’
XLIX
Out then spak’ the Queen o’ Fairies,And an angry woman was she,‘She’s ta’en awa’ the bonniest knightIn a’ my companie!
L
‘But what I ken this night, Tam Lin,Gin I had kent yestreen,I wad ta’en out thy heart o’ flesh,And put in a heart o’ stane.
LI
‘And adieu, Tam Lin! But gin I had kentA ladye wad borrow’d thee,I wad ta’en out thy twa grey e’enPut in twa e’en o’ tree25.
LII
‘And had I the wit yestreen, yestreen,That I have coft26 this day,I’d paid my teind seven times to hellEre you had been won away!’
FOOTNOTES:
3. Sir Cawline
Table of Contents
I
Jesus, Lord mickle of might,That dyed for us on roode,So maintaine us in all our rightThat loves true English blood!
II
Sir Cawline [was an English knight]Curteous and full hardye;And our King has lent him] forth to fight,Into Ireland over the sea.
III
And in that land there dwells a King,Over all the bell does beare;And he hath a ladye to his daughter,Of fashion27 she hath no peere;Knights and lordes they woo’d her both,Trusted to have been her feere28.
IV
Sir Cawline loves her best of onie,But nothing durst he sayTo discreeve29 his councell to no man,But dearlye loved this may30.
V
Till it befell upon a day,Great dill31 to him was dight32;The mayden’s love removed his mind,To care-bed33 went the knight.
VI
One while he spread his armes him fro,And cryed so pittyouslye:‘For the mayden’s love that I have most mindeThis day shall comfort mee,Or else ere noone I shall be dead!’Thus can Sir Cawline say.
VII
When the parish mass that itt was done,And the King was bowne34 to dine,Says, ‘Where is Sir Cawline, that was wontTo serve me with ale and wine?’
VIII
But then answer’d a curteous knightFast his hands wringìnge:‘Sir Cawline’s sicke and like to be deadWithout and a good leechìnge35.’
IX
‘Feitch ye downe my daughter deere,She is a leeche full fine;Ay, and take you doe and the baken bread,And [drinke he of] the wine soe red,And looke no daynty’s for him too deare,For full loth I wo’ld him tine36.’
X
This ladye is gone to his chamber,Her maydens following nye;‘O well,’ she saith, ‘how doth my lord?’‘O sicke!’ againe saith hee.
XI
‘But rise up wightlye37, man, for shame!Ne’er lie here soe cowardlye!Itt is told in my father’s hallFor my love you will dye.’—
XII
‘Itt is for your love, fayre ladye,That all this dill I drie;For if you wo’ld comfort me with a kisse,Then were I brought from bale to bliss,No longer here wo’ld I lye.’—
XIII
‘Alas! soe well you know, Sir Knight,I cannot be your feere.’—‘Yet some deeds of armes fain wo’ld I doeTo be your bacheleere.’—
XIV
‘On Eldritch Hill there grows a thorn,Upon the mores38 brodinge39;And wo’ld you, Sir Knight, wake there all nightTo day of the other morninge?
XV
‘For the Eldritch King, that is mickle of might,Will examine40 you beforne41:There was never a man bare his life awaySince the day that I was born.’—
XVI
‘But I will for your sake, ladye,Walk on the bents42 soe browne,And I’ll either bring you a readye token,Or I’ll ne’er come to you again.’
XVII
But this ladye is gone to her chamber,Her maydens following bright;And Sir Cawline’s gone to the mores soe broad,For to wake there all night.
XVIII
Unto midnight that the moone did riseHe walkèd up and downe,And a lightsome bugle then heard he blowOver the bents so browne;Sayes he, ‘And if cryance43 come to my heart,I am farr from any good towne.’
XIX
And he spyèd, e’en a little him by,A furyous king and a fell,And a ladye bright his brydle ledMore] seemlye [than onie can tell].
XX
Soe fast he call’d on Sir Cawline,‘O man, I rede thee flye!For if cryance come untill thy heartI’m afeard lest thou maun dye!’—
XXI
He sayes, ‘No cryance comes to my heart,Nor i’faith I fear not thee;For because thou ming’d44 not Christ before,The lesse me dreadeth thee.’
XXII
But Sir Cawline then he shooke a speare;The King was bold, and abode:And the timber those two children bareSoe soon in sunder slode45:Forth they tooke and two good swords,And they layden on good loade46.
XXIII
The Eldritch King was mickle of might,And stiffly to the ground did stand;But Sir Cawline with an aukeward47 strokeHe brought from him his hand—Ay, and flying over his head so hyeIt fell down of that lay land48.
XXIV
His ladye stood a little thereby,Fast her hands wringìnge:‘For the mayden’s love that you have most minde,Smyte you noe more [this King].
XXV
‘And he’s never49 come upon Eldritch HillHim to sport, gammon or play,And to meet no man of middle-earth50That lives on Christ his lay51.’
XXVI
But he then up, that Eldritch King,Set him in his sadle againe,And that Eldritch King and his ladyeTo their castle are they gone.
XXVII
Sir Cawline took up that eldritch swordAs hard as any flynt,Soe did he [the hand with] ringès fiveHarder than fyer, and brent52.
XXVIII
The watchmen cryed upon the wallsAnd sayd, ‘Sir Cawline’s slaine!’Then the King’s daughter she fell downe,‘For peerlesse is my payne!’—
XXIX
‘O peace, my ladye!’ sayes Sir Cawline,‘I have bought thy love full deare;O peace, my ladye!’ sayes Sir Cawline,‘Peace, ladye, for I am heere!’
XXX
He’s presented to the King’s daughterThe hand, and then the swordAnd he has claimed the King’s daughterAccording to her word].
XXXI
And the King has betaken53 him his broad landsAnd all his venison54;Sayes] ‘Thou shalt have my daughter deare,And be my onelye son’].
FOOTNOTES:
4. Sir Aldingar
Table of Contents
I
Our King he kept a false steward,Men call’d him Sir Aldingar;He would have woo’d our comely QueeneTo be his paramour].
II
He would have woo’d our comely Queene,Her deere worship to betray:Our Queene she was a good womanAnd evermore said him nay.
III
Sir Aldingar was offended in ’s mind,With her he was ne’er content,But he sought what meanès he could findIn a fyer to have her brent55.
IV
There came a lame lazar to the King’s gate,A lazar ’was blind and lame;He took the lazar upon his backe,Upon the Queene’s bed did him lay.
V
Said, ‘Lye still, lazar, whereas thou lyest,Looke thou goe not away;I’le make thee a whole man and a soundIn two howres of a day.’
VI
And then went forth Sir AldingarOur Queene for to betray,And then he met with our comely King,Says, ‘God you save and see!
VII
‘If I had space, as I have grace,A message I’d say to thee.’—‘Say on, say on, Sir Aldingar,Say thou on and unto me.’
VIII
‘I can shew you one of the grievous’t sightsEver Christian King did see;Our Queene hath chosen a new, new love,She will have none of thee.
IX
‘If she had chosen a right good knight,The lesse had beene her shame;But she hath chosen a lazar manWhich is both blind and lame.’—
X
‘If this be true, Sir Aldingar,That thou dost tell to me,Then will I make thee a rich knightBoth of gold and fee.
XI
‘But if it be false, Sir Aldingar,That thou dost tell to me,Then looke thou for no other deathBut to be hang’d on tree.’
XII
When the King came into the Queene’s chamber,Standing her bed before,‘There’s a lodly56 lome57,’ says Harry the KingFor our dame Queene Elinor!
XIII
‘If thou were a man, as thou art none,It is here thou shouldest dye;But a paire of new gallowes shall be built,Thou’st hang on them soe hye.
XIV
‘And a fayre fyer there shall be bett58,And brent our Queene shall been.’Forth then walk’d our comely King,And met with our comely Queene.
XV
Saies, ‘God you save our Queene, Madam,And Christ you save and see!Here you have chosen a new, new love,And you will have none of mee.
XVI
‘If you had chosen a right good knight,The lesse had beene your shame;But you have chosen a lazar manThat is both blind and lame.’
XVII
‘Ever alacke!’ said our comely Queene,‘Sir Aldingar he is false;But ever alacke!’ said our comely Queene,‘And woe is me, and alas!
XVIII
‘I had thought swevens59 had never been trueI have proved them true [today]:I dream’d in my swevens on Thursday at evenIn my bed wheras I lay,
XIX
‘I dreamèd a grype60 and a grimlie beastHad carried my crowne away,My gorget and my kirtle of golde,And all my heade-geare [gay].
XX
‘He wo’ld have worryed me with his tush61,And borne me into his nest,Saving there came a little hawkeFlying out of the east.
XXI
‘—Saving there came a little hawkeWhich men call a merlion62;He stroke him downe untill the ground,That deade he did fall downe.
XXII
‘Gif I were a man, as I am none,A battell I wo’ld prove;I wo’ld fight with that false traitor;At him I cast my glove!
XXIII
‘Seeing I am able noe battell to make,You must grant me, my liege, a knight,To fight with that traitor, Sir Aldingar,To maintaine me in my right.’
XXIV
‘I’le give thee forty dayes,’ said our King,‘To seeke thee a man therein;If thou find not a man in forty dayes,In a hott fyer thou shalt brenn.’
XXV
Our Queene sent forth a messenger;He rode fast into the south;He rode the countryes through and throughSoe far unto Portsmouth.
XXVI
But for all his riding ne’er sped heTo fetch help to our Queene;]He co’ld find noe man in the south countrỳ‘Wo’ld fight with the knight soe keene.
XXVII
The second messenger shee sent forth,Rode far into the east;But—blessèd be God ’made sunn and moone!—He sped then all of the best.
XXVIII
As he rode then by one river side,There he mett with a little Child;He seemèd noe more in a man’s likenesseThan a child of four yeeres old.
XXIX
He ask’d the messenger how far he rode;Loth he was him to tell;The little one was offended att him,Bade him adieu, farewell.
XXX
Said, ‘Turne thou againe, thou messenger,Greete our Queen well from me;When bale63 is at hyest, boote64 is at nyest—Helpe enough there may bee.
XXXI
‘Bid our Queene remember what she did dreameIn her bedd wheras shee lay;She dreamèd the grype and the grimlie beastHad carryed her crowne away;
XXXII
‘Her gorgett and her kirtle of gold,Her head-geare [all soe drest]He wo’ld have worryed her with his tush,And borne her into his nest.
XXXIII
‘Saving there came a little hawke,Men call him a merlion;‘Did strike him downe untill the groundThat dead he did fall downe.
XXXIV
‘Bidd the Queene be merry att her heart,Evermore light and glad;When bale is at hyest, boote is at nyest,Helpe enough [shall be had’].
XXXV
Then the Queen’s messenger rode backe,A gladded man then was hee;When that he came before our Queene,A gladd woman then was shee.
XXXVI
She gave the messenger twenty pound,O Lord, in gold and fee;Saies, ‘Spend, nor spare while this doth last,Then fetch thou more of me.’
XXXVII
Our Queene was put in a tunne65 to burn;She thought noe thing but death:When they were ware of the Little One’Came ryding forth of the east.
XXXVIII
With a mu[le and a bridle all of bells]A lovelye child was hee;When that he came to that fyérHe lighted the Queene full nigh.
XXXIX
Sayd, ‘Draw away these brands of fyer’Lie burning before our Queene,And fetch me hither Sir AldingarThat is a knight soe keene.’
XL
When Aldingar saw that Little One,Full little of him hee thought;If there had been halfe a hundred suchOf them he would not have wrought66.
XLI
He sayd, ‘Come hither, Sir Aldingar,Thou seemest as big as a fooder67;I trust God ere I have done with theeGod will send us an auger.’
XLII
Sayes, ‘The first stroke that’s given, Sir Aldingar,I will give unto thee;And if the second give thou may,Looke then thou spare not mee.’
XLIII
This Little One pull’d forth a well good sword,I wis it well all of gilte.It cast a light there over that field,It shone soe all of gilte.
XLIV
He stroke the first stroke at Aldingar;Noe second needed hee;At the first stroke] he stroke awayHis leggs [all] by the knee.
XLV
Sayes, ‘Stand up, stand up, thou false traitor,And fight upon thy feete;For, an thou thrive as thou begins,Of a height we shall be meete68.’
XLVI
‘A priest, a priest,’ sayes Aldingar,‘Me for to housel and shrive!A priest, a priest,’ sayes Aldingar,‘While I am a man living alive!
XLVII
‘I would have courted our comely Queene;To it shee wo’ld never consent;I thought to betray her to our KingIn a fyer to have her brent.
XLVIII
‘There came a lame lazar to the King’s gate,A lazar both blind and lame;I took the lazar upon my back,Upon the Queene’s bedd had him layn.
XLIX
‘I bade him, Lye still, lazar, where he lay,Looke he went not away;I wo’ld make him a whole man and a soundIn two houres of a day.
L
‘A priest, a priest,’ sayes Aldingar,‘To shrive me cleane of hell!Ever alacke!’ sayes Sir Aldingar,‘Falsing never doth well.
LI
‘Forgive, forgive me, Queene, Madam!For Christ’s love forgive me!’—‘God forgave his death, Aldingar,And freely I forgive thee.’—
LII
‘Now take thy wife, thou King Harry,And love her as thou sho’ld;Thy wife shee is as true to theeAs stone lies in castle wall.’
LIII
The lazar under the gallow treeGrew] a pretty man and small:The lazar under the gallow treeWas made steward in King Harry’s hall.
FOOTNOTES:
5. Cospatrick
Table of Contents
I
Cospatrick has sent o’er the faem:Cospatrick brought his ladye hame.
II
Full seven score ships have come her wi’,The ladye by the grene-wood tree.
III
There was twal’ and twal’ wi’ baken bread,And twal’ and twal’ wi’ the goud sae red:
IV
And twal’ and twal’ wi’ beer and wine,And twal’ and twal’ wi’ muskadine:
V
And twal’ and twal’ wi’ bouted69 flour,And twal’ and twal’ wi’ paramour70.
VI
Sweet Willy was a Widow’s son,And at her stirrup he did run.
VII
And she was clad in the finest pall71,But aye she let the tears down fall.
VIII
‘O lady, sits your saddle awry?Or is your steed for you owre high?
IX
‘Or are you mourning in your tideThat you suld be Cospatrick’s bride?’
X
‘I am not mourning at this tideThat I suld be Cospatrick’s bride:
XI
‘But I am mourning in my moodThat ever I left my mother good.
XII
‘But, bonny boy, come tell to meWhat is the custom o’ your countrie?’
XIII
‘The custom thereof, my dame,’ he says,‘Will ill a gentle ladye please.
XIV
‘Seven King’s daughters has our lord wedded,And seven King’s daughters has our lord bedded:
XV
‘But he’s cutted their breasts frae their breast-bane,And sent them mourning hame again.
XVI
‘But when you come to the palace yett72,His mother a gowden chair will set:
XVII
‘And be you maid or be you nane,O sit you there till the day be dane.
XVIII
‘And gin you’re sure that you’re a maid,Ye may gae safely him to wed:
XIX
‘But gif o’ that ye be na sure,Then hire some damsel o’ your bour.’—
XX
O when she came to the palace yett,His mother a gowden chair did set:
XXI
The bonnie may was tired wi’ ridin’,Gae’d sit her down ere she was bidden.
XXII
And was she maid or was she nane,She sat in it till the day was dune.
XXIII
And she’s call’d on her bour-woman,That waiting was into73 her train:
XXIV
‘Five thousand marks I’ll gie to thee,To sleep this night with my lord for me.’—
XXV
‘But will it for my ladye plead,I’se be the bride in my ladye’s stead.’]—
XXVI
When bells were rung and mass was sayne,And a’ men unto bed were gane,
XXVII
Cospatrick and the bonny maidInto ae chamber they were laid.
XXVIII
‘Now speak to me, blankets, and speak to me, bed,And speak, thou sheet, inchanted web,
XXIX
‘And speak, my brown sword, that winna lee74,Is this a leal maiden that lies by me?’
XXX
‘It is not a maid that you hae wedded,But it is a maid that you hae bedded:
XXXI
‘It is a leal maiden that lies by thee,But not the maiden that it should be.’
XXXII
Then out he sprang o’ his bridal bed,And wrathfully his claiths on did:
XXXIII
And he has ta’en him through the ha’,And on his mother he did ca’.
XXXIV
‘I am the most unhappy manThat ever was in Christen land:
XXXV
‘I courted a maiden meik and mild,And I’ve gat but a woman great wi’ child.’—
XXXVI
‘O stay, my son, into this ha’,And sport ye wi’ your merry men a’.
XXXVII
‘And I’ll gang to your painted bour,To see how it fares wi’ your paramour.’
XXXVIII
The carline75 queen was stark and strangShe gar’d the door flee aff the ban76.
XXXIX
‘O is your bairn to laird or loun77,Or is it to your father’s groom?’—
XL
‘O hear me, mother, on my knee,Till my sad story I tell to thee.
XLI
‘O we were sisters, sisters seven;We were the fairest under heaven.
XLII
‘We had nae mair for our seven years’ warkBut to shape and sew the King’s son a sark.
XLIII
‘It fell on a summer’s afternoon,When a’ our langsome task was done,
XLIV
‘We cast the kevils78 us amangTo see which suld to the grene-wood gang.
XLV
‘Ohone, alas! for I was the youngest,And aye my weird it was the hardest.
XLVI
‘The kevil it did on me fa’,Which was the cause of a’ my wae.
XLVII
‘For to the grene-wood I must gae,To pu’ the red rose and the slae;
XLVIII
‘To pu’ the red rose and the thymeTo deck my mother’s bour and mine.
XLIX
‘I hadna pu’d a flower but ane,When by there came a gallant hende79,
L
‘Wi’ high-coll’d80 hose and laigh-coll’d shoon,And he seem’d to be some Kingis son.
LI
‘And be I a maid, or be I nae,He kept me there till the close o’ day:
LII
‘And be I a maid or be I nane,He kept me there till the day was done.
LIII
‘He gae me a lock o’ his yellow hair,And bade me keep it for ever mair:
LIV
‘He gae me a carknet81 o’ bonny beads,And bade me keep it against my needs.
LV
‘He gae to me a gay gold ring,And bade me keep it abune a’ thing.
LVI
‘He gae to me a little pen-knife,And bade me keep it as my life.’—
LVII
‘What did you wi’ the tokens rareThat ye got frae that gallant there?’—
LVIII
‘O bring that coffer here to me,And a’ the tokens ye sall see.’
LIX
And aye she sought, and aye she flang82Until these four things cam’ to her hand.
LX
‘Now stay here, daughter, your bour within,Till I gae parley with my son.’
LXI
O she has ta’en her thro’ the ha’,And on her son began to ca’.
LXII
‘What did you wi’ that gay gold ringI bade you keep abune a’ thing?
LXIII
‘What did you wi’ that little pen-knifeI bade you keep while you had life?
LXIV
‘What did you wi’ the bonny beadsI bade you keep against your needs?’—
LXV
‘I gae them to a ladye gayI met i’ the grene-wood on a day.
LXVI
‘But I wad gie a’ my ha’s and tours,I had that bright burd in my bours:
LXVII
‘But I wad gie my very lifeI had that ladye to my wife!’
LXVIII
‘Now keep, my son, your ha’s and tours;Ye have that bright burd in your bours.
LXIX
‘And keep, my son, your very life,Ye have that ladye to your wife.’
LXX
Now, or a month was come and gane,The ladye bore him a bonny son.
LXXI
And it was well written on his breast-bane,‘Cospatrick is my father’s name.’
LXXII
O rowe83 my ladye in satin and silk,And wash my son in the morning milk!
FOOTNOTES:
6. Willy’s Lady
Table of Contents
I
Sweet Willy’s ta’en him o’er the faem,He’s woo’d a wife and brought her hame.
II
He’s woo’d her for her yellow hair,But his mither wrought her mickle care;
III
And mickle dolour gar’d her drie84,For lighter85 she can never be.
IV
But in her bower she sits wi’ pain,And Willy mourns o’er her in vain.
V
And to his mither he has gane;That vile rank witch of vilest kind.
VI
He says: ‘My ladie has a cupWi’ gowd and silver set about.
VII
‘This goodlie gift shall be your ain,And let her be lighter o’ her young bairn.’—
VIII
‘Of her young bairn she’ll ne’er be lighter,Nor in her bower to shine the brighter:
IX
‘But she shall die and turn to clay,And you shall wed another may.’—
X
‘Another may I’ll marry nane,Another may I’ll ne’er bring hame.’
XI
But sighing says his bonnie wife,‘I wish this was an end o’ my life!
XII
‘Yet gae ye unto your mither again,That vile rank witch of vilest kind.
XIII
‘And say: My ladie has a steed,The like o’ him ’s no in the lands of Leed.
XIV
‘For at ilka tett86 o’ that horse’s maneThere’s a golden chess87 and a bell ringíng.
XV
‘This goodlie gift shall be your ain,And let her be lighter o’ her young bairn.’—
XVI
‘O’ her young bairn she’ll ne’er be lighter,Nor in her bower to shine the brighter;
XVII
‘But she shall die and turn to clay,And ye shall wed another may.’—
XVIII
‘Another may I’ll marry nane,Another may I’ll ne’er bring hame.’
XIX
But sighing says his bonnie wife,‘I wish this was an end o’ my life!
XX
‘Yet gae ye unto your mither again,That vile rank witch of vilest kind:
XXI
‘And say: My ladie has a girdle,It’s a’ red gowd unto the middle.
XXII
‘And ay at every silver hemHangs fifty silver bells and ten.
XXIII
‘That goodlie gift shall be your ain,But let her be lighter o’ her young bairn.’—
XXIV
‘O’ her young bairn she’s ne’er be lighter,Nor in her bower to shine the brighter:
XXV
‘But she shall die and turn to clay,And you shall wed another may.’—
XXVI
‘Another may I’ll never wed nane,Another may I’ll never bring hame.’
XXVII
But sighing says his bonnie wife,‘I wish this was an end o’ my life!’
XXVIII
Then out and spake the Billy Blind88—He spake aye in a good time;
XXIX
‘Ye doe ye to the market-place,And there buy ye a loaf o’ wax;
XXX
‘Ye shape it bairn and bairnly like,And in twa glasses e’en ye’ll pit89.
XXXI
‘And do ye to your mither then,And bid her come to your boy’s christ’nen,
XXXII
‘For dear’s the boy he’s been to you:Then notice weel what she shall do:
XXXIII
‘And do you stand a little away,And listen weel what she shall say.’
XXXIV
He did him to the market-place,And there he bought a loaf o’ wax.
XXXV
He shaped it bairn and bairnly-like,And in ’t twa glasses e’en he pat90.
XXXVI
He did him till his mither then,And bade her to his boy’s christ’nen.
XXXVII
And he did stand a little forbye91,And noticed well what she did say.
XXXVIII
