"Ah! woe to you, you light woman!
An ill death may ye die!
For we left father and sisters at hame155
Breaking their hearts for thee."
v. [26]. This simile resembles a passage in a MS. translation of an Irish Fairy tale, called The Adventures of Faravla, Princess of Scotland, and Carral O'Daly, Son of Donogho More O'Daly, Chief Bard of Ireland. "Faravla, as she entered her bower, cast her looks upon the earth, which was tinged with the blood of a bird which a raven had newly killed: 'Like that snow,' said Faravla, 'was the complexion of my beloved, his cheeks like the sanguine traces thereon; whilst the raven recalls to my memory the colour of his beautiful locks.'" There is also some resemblance in the conduct of the story, betwixt the ballad and the tale just quoted. The Princess Faravla, being desperately in love with Carral O'Daly, despatches in search of him a faithful confidante, who, by her magical art, transforms herself into a hawk, and, perching upon the windows of the bard, conveys to him information of the distress of the Princess of Scotland. Scott.
THE JOLLY GOSHAWK.
Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. 353.
"O well is me, my jolly goshawk,
That ye can speak and flee;
For ye can carry a love-letter
To my true love from me."
"O how can I carry a letter to her,5
When her I do not know?
I bear the lips to her never spak,
And the eyes that her never saw."
"The thing of my love's face that's white
Is that of dove or maw;10
The thing of my love's face that's red
Is like blood shed on snaw.
"And when you come to the castel,
Light on the bush of ash;