Transcriber's Note:

Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as possible. Some minor corrections of spelling and puctuation have been made.

The cover image for the e-book version was created by the transcriber.

The Oxford Book of Ballads

The
Oxford Book of
Ballads

Chosen & Edited by
Arthur Quiller-Couch

Oxford
At the Clarendon Press

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN

TO
THE ONE SURVIVOR
OF THREE MEN
TO WHOM ALL LOVERS OF THE BALLAD
OWE MOST IN THESE TIMES
FRANCIS JAMES CHILD
FREDERICK JAMES FURNIVALL
AND
JOHN WESLEY HALES

[PREFACE]

As in The Oxford Book of English Verse I tried to range over the whole field of the English Lyric, and to choose the best, so in this volume 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 Child[1] 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 Ker[4] 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 night
She 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 Ogilvie
A-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 see
A 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 part
For sooth as I you say,
Of ninè thousand English men
Five 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 free
From 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 door
Sewing 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 wood
As 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.

[CONTENTS]

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]

[BOOK I]

[1. Thomas the Rhymer]

I

True Thomas lay on Huntlie bank;
A ferlie[5] he spied wi’ his e’e;
And there he saw a ladye bright
Come riding down by the Eildon Tree.

II

Her skirt was o’ the grass-green silk,
Her mantle o’ the velvet fyne;
At ilka tett[6] o’ her horse’s mane
Hung 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 carp[7], 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 weird[8] 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 leven[9]?
That is the Path of Wickedness,
Though some call it the Road to Heaven.

XIII

‘And see ye not yon bonny road
That 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 earth
Rins 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 dought[10] to buy or sell
At 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 cloth[11],
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:

[5] ferlie = marvel.

[6] tett = tuft.

[7] harp and carp = play and recite (as a minstrel).

[8] weird = doom.

[9] leven =? lawn.

[10] dought = could.

[11] even cloth = smooth cloth.

[2. Tam Lin]

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 middle
O’ siller bells are nine;
And nae maid comes to Carterhaugh
And a maid returns again.’

III

Fair Janet sat in her bonny bower,
Sewing her silken seam,
And wish’d to be in Carterhaugh
Amang the leaves sae green.

IV

She’s lat her seam fa’ to her feet,
The needle to her tae[12],
And she’s awa’ to Carterhaugh
As fast as she could gae.

V

And she has kilted her green kirtle
A little abune her knee;
And she has braided her yellow hair
A little abune her bree[13];
And she has gaen for Carterhaugh
As 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 Carterhaugh
Without 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 ground
At her he ask’d nae leave.

X

Janet has kilted her green kirtle
A little abune her knee,
And she has snooded her yellow hair
A 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 fair
Were playing at the ba’,
And out then came fair Janet
Ance the flower amang them a’.

XIII

Four and twenty ladies fair
Were playing at the chess,
And out then came fair Janet
As 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-love
For nae laird that ye hae.

XVII

‘The steed that my true-love rides on
Is 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 Carterhaugh
Will twine[14] you an’ the bairn.’

XIX

Janet has kilted her green kirtle
A little abune her knee,
And she has snooded her yellow hair
A little abune her bree,
And she’s awa’ to Carterhaugh
As 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 scathe[15] 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 chapel
Or sain’d[16] 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 snell[17],
A dead sleep it came over me
And frae my horse I fell;
And the Queen o’ Fairies she took me
In yon green hill to dwell.

XXVI

‘And pleasant is the fairy land
For those that in it dwell,
But ay at end of seven years
They pay a teind[18] to hell;
I am sae fair and fu’ o’ flesh
I’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 borrow[19] you,
Amang a pack of uncouth[20] knights
The like I never saw?’—

XXX

‘You’ll do you down to Miles Cross
Between twel’ hours and ane,
And fill your hands o’ the holy water
And 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 knight
They 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 head
And 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 aske[21] but and a snake;
But hauld me fast, let me na gae,
To be your warldis make[22].

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 kirtle
A little abune the knee;
And she has snooded her yellow hair
A little abune her bree,
And she is on to Miles Cross
As fast as she can hie.

XLI

About the dead hour o’ the night
She heard the bridles ring;
And Janet was as glad at that
As 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 steed
And pu’d the rider down.

XLIII

She’s pu’d him frae the milk-white steed,
An’ loot[23] the bridle fa’,
And up there rase an eldritch[24] cry,
‘True Tam Lin he’s awa’!’

XLIV

They shaped him in her arms twa
An aske but and a snake;
But aye she grips and hau’ds him fast
To be her warldis make.

XLV

They shaped him in her arms twa
But 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 twa
A hot iron at the fire;
But aye she grips and hau’ds him fast
To be her heart’s desire.

XLVII

They shaped him in her arms at last
A 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 Lin
Has 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 knight
In 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 kent
A ladye wad borrow’d thee,
I wad ta’en out thy twa grey e’en
Put in twa e’en o’ tree[25].

LII

‘And had I the wit yestreen, yestreen,
That I have coft[26] this day,
I’d paid my teind seven times to hell
Ere you had been won away!’

FOOTNOTES:

[12] tae = toe.

[13] bree = eye-brow.

[14] twine = part, sunder.

[15] scathe = harm.

[16] sain’d = blessed, baptised.

[17] snell = keen, cold.

[18] teind = tithe.

[19] borrow = ransom.

[20] uncouth = unknown.

[21] aske = newt, lizard.

[22] make = mate, husband.

[23] loot = let.

[24] eldritch = unearthly.

[25] tree = wood.

[26] coft = bought.

[3. Sir Cawline]

I

Jesus, Lord mickle of might,
That dyed for us on roode,
So maintaine us in all our right
That 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 fashion[27] she hath no peere;
Knights and lordes they woo’d her both,
Trusted to have been her feere[28].

IV

Sir Cawline loves her best of onie,
But nothing durst he say
To discreeve[29] his councell to no man,
But dearlye loved this may[30].

V

Till it befell upon a day,
Great dill[31] to him was dight[32];
The mayden’s love removed his mind,
To care-bed[33] 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 minde
This 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 bowne[34] to dine,
Says, ‘Where is Sir Cawline, that was wont
To serve me with ale and wine?’

VIII

But then answer’d a curteous knight
Fast his hands wringìnge:
‘Sir Cawline’s sicke and like to be dead
Without and a good leechìnge[35].’

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 tine[36].’

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 wightlye[37], man, for shame!
Ne’er lie here soe cowardlye!
Itt is told in my father’s hall
For 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 doe
To be your bacheleere.’—

XIV

‘On Eldritch Hill there grows a thorn,
Upon the mores[38] brodinge[39];
And wo’ld you, Sir Knight, wake there all night
To day of the other morninge?

XV

‘For the Eldritch King, that is mickle of might,
Will examine[40] you beforne[41]:
There was never a man bare his life away
Since the day that I was born.’—

XVI

‘But I will for your sake, ladye,
Walk on the bents[42] 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