Page:The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, Volume 01.djvu/203

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Sheath and Knife

1. a. Motherwell's MS., p. 286. b. 'The broom blooms bonnie and says it is fair,' Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. 189.
2. Sharpe's Ballad Book, ed. by D. Laing, p. 159.
3. 'The broom blooms bonie,' Johnson’s Museum, No 461.
4. Notes and Queries, First Series, V, 345, one stanza.

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The three stanzas of this ballad which are found in the Musical Museum (C) were furnished, it is said, by Burns. It was first printed in full (A b) in Motherwell's Minstrelsy. Motherwell retouched a verse here and there slightly, to regulate the metre. A a is here given as it stands in his manuscript. B consists of some scattered verses as remembered by Sir W. Scott.

The directions in 3, 4 receive light from a passage in 'Robin Hood's Death and Burial:'

'But give me my bent bow in my hand,
 And a broad arrow I'll let flee,
And where this arrow is taken up
 There shall my grave diggd be.

'Lay me a green sod under my head,' etc.

Other ballads with a like theme are 'The Bonny Hind,' further on in this volume, and the two which follow it.

Translated in Grundtvig's E. og s. Folkeviser, No 49, p. 308; Wolff's Halle der Volker, I, 64.

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A

a. Motherwell's MS., p. 286. From the recitation of Mrs King, Kilbarchan Parish, February 9, 1825. b. 'The broom blooms bonnie and says it is fair,' Motherwell’s Minstrelsy, p. 189.

1 It is talked the warld all over,
 The brume blooms bonnie and says it is fair
That the king's dochter gaes wi child to her brither.
 And we ’ll never gang doun to the brume onie mair

2 He's taen his sister doun to her father’s deer park,
Wi his yew-tree bow and arrows fast slung to his back.

3 'Now when that ye hear me gie a loud cry,
Shoot frae thy bow an arrow and there let me lye.

4 'And when that ye see I am lying dead,
Then ye'll put me in a grave, wi a turf at my head.’

5 Now when he heard her gie a loud cry,
His silver arrow frae his bow he suddenly let fly.
 Now they'll never, etc.

6 He has made a grave that was lang and was deep,
And he has buried his sister, wi her babe at her feet.
 And they'll never, etc.

7 And when he came to his father's court hall,
There was music and minstrels and dancing and all.
 But they'll never, etc.

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