"O Bondsey was the only man
That did my body win;
And likewise Bondsey was the man35
That threw me in the lin."
"O will we Bondsey head, sister?
Or will we Bondsey hang?
Or will we set him at our bow end,
Lat arrows at him gang?"40
"Ye winna Bondsey head, brothers,
Nor will ye Bondsey hang;
But ye'll take out his twa grey e'en,
Make Bondsey blind to gang.
"Ye'll put to the gate a chain o' gold,45
A rose garland gar make;
And ye'll put that in Bondsey's head,
A' for your sister's sake."
LADY DIAMOND.
From the Percy Society Publications, xvii. 71. The same in Buchan, ii. 206. The ballad is given in Sharpe's Ballad Book, under the title of Dysmal, and by Aytoun, Ballads of Scotland, 2d ed., ii. 173, under that of Lady Daisy. All these names are corruptions of Ghismonda, on whose well-known story (Decamerone, iv. 1, 9) the present is founded.—This piece and the next might better have been inserted at p. [347], as a part of the Appendix to Book III.
There was a king, an' a curious king,
An' a king o' royal fame;
He had ae dochter, he had never mair,
Ladye Diamond was her name.