Out cam his auld mither
Greeting fu' sair,10
And out cam his bonnie bride
Rivin' her hair.
Saddled and bridled
And booted rade he;
Toom hame cam the saddle,15
But never cam he!
"My meadow lies green,
And my corn is unshorn;
My barn is to big,
And my babie's unborn."20
Saddled and bridled
And booted rade he;
Toom hame cam the saddle,
But never cam he!
LAMKIN.
The following is believed to be a correct account of the various printed forms of this extremely popular ballad. In the second edition of Herd's Scottish Songs (1776) appeared a fragment of eighteen stanzas, called Lammikin, embellished in a puerile style by some modern hand. Jamieson published the story in a complete and authentic shape in his Popular Ballads, in 1806. Finlay's collection (1808) furnishes us with two more copies, the first of which (ii. 47) is made up in part of Herd's fragment, and the second (ii. 57) taken from a MS. "written by an old lady." Another was given, from recitation, in Motherwell's Minstrelsy, (1827,) with the more intelligible title of Lambert Linkin. An English fragment, called Long Lonkin, taken down from the recitation of an old woman, is said to have been inserted by Miss Landon, in the Drawing-Room Scrap-Book, for 1837. This was republished in Richardson's Borderer's Table-Book, 1846, vol. viii. 410, and the editor of that miscellany, who ought to have learned to be skeptical in such matters, urges the circumstantial character of local tradition as strong evidence that the real scene of the cruel history was in Northumberland.
Lastly, we have to note a version resembling Motherwell's, styled Bold Rankin, printed in A New Book of Old Ballads, (p. 73,) and in Whitelaw's Book of Scottish Ballads, (p. 246,) and an imperfect ballad (Long Lankyn) in Notes and Queries, New Series, ii. 324.
We have printed Jamieson's, [Motherwell's], [the longer of Finlay's versions], and [the English fragment]: the last two in the Appendix. The following is from Jamieson's Popular Ballads, i. 176. "This piece was transmitted to the Editor by Mrs. Brown."
"O pay me now, Lord Wearie;
Come, pay me out o' hand."
"I canna pay you, Lamkin,
Unless I sell my land."