LADY MAISRY
The Text.—From the Jamieson-Brown MS. All the other variants agree as to the main outline of the ballad.
The Story.—Lady Maisry, refusing the young lords of the north country, and saying that her love is given to an English lord, is suspected by her father’s kitchy-boy, who goes to tell her brother. He charges her with her fault, reviles her for ‘drawing up with an English lord,’ and commands her to renounce him. She refuses, and is condemned to be burned. A bonny boy bears news of her plight to Lord William, who leaps to boot and saddle; but he arrives too late to save her, though he vows vengeance on all her kin, and promises to burn himself last of all.
Burning was the penalty usually allotted in the romances to a girl convicted of unchastity.
LADY MAISRY
1.
The young lords o’ the north country
Have all a wooing gone,
To win the love of Lady Maisry,
But o’ them she woud hae none.