E
Kinloch MSS, V, 395; in the handwriting of John Hill Burton, when a youth
1
The king he sits in Dumfermline,
Birlin at the wine,
And callin for the best skipper
That ever sailed the faem.
2
Then out it spak a bonny boy,
Sat at the king’s right knee;
‘Earl Patrick is the best skipper
That ever sailed the sea.’
3
The king he wrote a braed letter,
And sealed it wi his ring,
And sent it to Earl Patrick,
. . . . . .
4
‘Oh wha is this, or wha is that,
Has tald the king o me?
For I was niver a gude mariner,
And niver sailed the sea.
* * * * * *
5
‘Ye’ll eat and drink, my merry young men,
The red wine you amang,
For blaw it wind, or blaw it sleet,
Our ship maun sail the morn.
6
‘Late yestreen I saw the new meen
Wi the auld meen in hir arm,’
And sichand said him Earl Patrick,
‘I fear a deadly storm.’
7
They sailed up, sae did they down,
Thro mony a stormy stream,
Till they saw the Dam o Micklengaem,
When she sank amang the faem.
8
They sailed up, sae did they down,
Thro many a stormy stream,
Till they saw the Duke o Normandy,
And she sank among the faem.
9
They sailed up, sae did they down,
Thro many a stormy stream,
Till they saw the Black Shater o Leve London,
And her topmast gaed in nine.
10
‘Where will I get a bonny boy
That will tack my helm in hand
Till I gang up to my topmast,
And spy for some dry land?’
11
‘Now here am I, a bonny boy
Will tack yer helm in hand
Till ye go up to your topmast
But I fear ye’ll never see land.’
12
‘Cum down, cum down, my gude master,
Ye see not what I see,
For through and through yer bonny ship
I see the raging sea.’
13
‘Ye’ll tak four-and-twenty fether-beds
And lay my bonny ship roun,
And as muckle o the fine canvas
As make her haill and soun.
14
‘And where she wants an iron nail
O silver she’s hae three,
And where she wants a timmer-pin
We’ll rap the red goud in.’
* * * * * *
15
The firsten shore that they cam till,
They cad it shore the Linn;
Wi heart and hand and good command,
They towed their bonny ship in.
16
The nexten shore that they came till,
They caad it shore the Lee;
With heart and hand and good command,
They towed the bonny ship tee.
17
There was twenty ships gaed to the sea,
Twenty ships and ane,
And there was na ane came back again
But Earl Patrick alane.
A.
182. ill buckled corruptly for the auld baucheld of C 26 (baucheld==down at the heels).
B.
22. hind.
35. snakes o Leveland den; and snakes o Levelanden, C 45. I have not found snake, for ship, in late English, but the A. S. snacc==Icelandic snekkja, a fast ship, may well have come down. For Leve London see E 93.
114. We should perhaps read As make; cf. A 144, D. 84.
C.
45. black snakes o Levelanden.
D.
After 2. “A long, long gap, that I have got nobody to fill up. I learned it from my mother, but she has quite forgotten it.”
91. whar he.
133. Remark: “Not let land here either.”
173. to yon, or you.
O is added at the end of every second line.
E.
63. sich and.
93. shater. Cf. B 35, C 45, where the texts have snakes (corrected here to snake). The writer of E had begun the word with something different from sh, but with what I cannot make out.
114. feear.
141. when or wher.
246
REDESDALE AND WISE WILLIAM
A. ‘Reedisdale and Wise William,’ Buchan’s Ballads of the North of Scotland, II, 70; Motherwell’s MS., p. 452; Motherwell’s Minstrelsy, p. 298.
B. ‘Roudesdales,’ Harris MS., fol. 14 b.
C. Kinloch MSS, V, 423, two stanzas.
Redesdale boasts to William that he can win any woman with a blink of his eye. William has a sister who, he maintains, is not to be had so easily. A wager is laid, William’s head against Redesdale’s lands. William is shut up to prevent his warning his sister, but sends her a letter by a carrier-bird. Redesdale rides to the maiden’s bower, and, seeing her at the window, tries to induce her to come down by a series of offers of silk-gowns, jewels, etc. His offers proving bootless, he threatens to fire the house, and does so. The maid and her women don wet mantles and pass the reek and flame unhurt. She sends word to her brother, who claims Redesdale’s lands.
A 1, 2, 5 are substantially a repetition of No 245, A 1, 21,4, 6, etc. The sharp shower in B 16–18, which puts out, and does not put out, the fire, is an inept interpolation.
This ballad may be an offshoot from a widely spread story which is tediously told further on in ‘Twa Knights.’