THE LAMENT OF THE BORDER WIDOW

The Text is given from Scott’s Minstrelsy (1803), vol. iii. pp. 83-4. His introduction states that it was obtained from recitation in the Forest of Ettrick, and that it relates to the execution of a Border freebooter, named Cokburne, by James V., in 1529.

The Story referred to above may have once existed in the ballad, but the lyrical dirge as it now stands is obviously corrupted with a broadside-ballad, The Lady turned Serving-man, given with ‘improvements’ by Percy (Reliques, 1765, vol. iii. p. 87, etc.). Compare the first three stanzas of the Lament with stanzas 3, 4, and 5 of the broadside:—

And then my love built me a bower,

Bedeckt with many a fragrant flower;

A braver bower you never did see

Than my true-love did build for me.

But there came thieves late in the night,

They rob’d my bower, and slew my knight,

And after that my knight was slain,

I could no longer there remain.

My servants all from me did flye,

In the midst of my extremity,

And left me by my self alone,

With a heart more cold then any stone.

It is of course impossible to compare the bald style of the broadside with the beautiful Scottish dirge; and the difficulty of clothing a bower with lilies, which offends Professor Child, may be disregarded.