And then the lovely little bird
Dropped down on the yellow sand,
And she became the fairest damsel,
Was ever seen in the land.
The Damsel stood under the linden bough,
Freed was she now from thrall;
Sir Orm he stood so near thereby,
They related their sorrows all.
“Many thanks to thee, Sir Orm the bold
Thou’st freed me from my woe;
Except beside my snow-white side
Thou sleep shalt nevermoe.”
Thanks be to him, Sir Orm the bold
He kept his faith so well;
The Monday morn thereafter
His bridal it befell.
* * * * *
London:
Printed for THOMAS J. WISE, Hampstead, N.W
Edition limited to Thirty Copies
Footnotes:
[5] This ballad is founded on a real character—a miser—who by various means acquired a considerable property, and was the first person who ever left “tocher,” that is fortune, to daughter in Man. His name was Mollie Charane, which words interpreted are “Praise the Lord.” He lived and possessed an estate on the curragh, a tract of boggy ground, formerly a forest, on the northern side of the island, between the mighty mountains of the Snefell range and the sea.
[13] Previously printed, with a slightly different text, and arranged in six lines instead of in three four-line stanzas, in Lavengro, 1851, Vol. i, p. 306.
[25] This Ballad should be compared with The Cruel Step-dame, printed in The Serpent Knight and Other Ballads, 1913, pp. 30–33. Also with The Transformed Damsel, printed in The Return of the Dead and Other Ballads, 1913, pp. 13–14.