LORD DONALD.
Kinloch's Ancient Scottish Ballads, p. 110.
Like the two which preceded it, this ballad is common to the Gothic nations. It exists in a great variety of forms. Two stanzas, recovered by Burns, were printed in Johnson's Museum, i. 337; two others were inserted by Jamieson, in his Illustrations, p. 319. The Border Minstrelsy furnished five stanzas, giving the story, without the bequests. Allan Cunningham's alteration of Scott's version, (Scottish Songs, i. 285,) has one stanza more. Kinloch procured from the North of Scotland the following complete copy.
In the Appendix, we have placed a nursery song on the same subject, still familiar in Scotland, and translations of the corresponding German and Swedish ballads—both most remarkable cases of parallelism in popular romance.
Lord Donald, as Kinloch remarks, would seem to have been poisoned by eating toads prepared as fishes. Scott, in his introduction to Lord Randal, has quoted from an old chronicle, a fabulous account of the poisoning of King John by means of a cup of ale, in which the venom of this reptile had been infused.
"O whare hae ye been a' day, Lord Donald, my son?
O whare hae ye been a' day, my jollie young man?"
"I've been awa courtin':—mither, mak my bed sune,
For I'm sick at the heart, and I fain wad lie doun."
"What wad ye hae for your supper, Lord Donald, my son?5
What wad ye hae for your supper, my jollie young man?"
"I've gotten my supper:—mither, mak my bed sune,
For I'm sick at the heart, and I fain wad lie doun."
"What did ye get for your supper, Lord Donald, my son?
What did ye get for your supper, my jollie young man?"10
"A dish of sma' fishes:—mither, mak my bed sune,
For I'm sick at the heart, and I fain wad lie doun."
"Whare gat ye the fishes, Lord Donald, my son?
Whare gat ye the fishes, my jollie young man?"