The following old Northumbrian ballad was taken down from the recitation of a woman eighty years of age, mother to one of the miners in Alston-moor, by an agent for the lead mines there, and communicated to the Editor by Robert Surtees, Esquire, of Mainsforth. She had not, she said, heard it for many years; but when she was a girl, it used to be sung at merry makings, “till the roof rung again.”
N.B. This ballad was first printed in Scott’s celebrated Poem of MARMION, with several valuable notes; for which see the notes to canto first of that Poem.
Hoot awa’, lads, hoot awa’,
Ha’ ye heard how the Ridleys, and Thirwalls, and a’,
Ha’ set upon Awbony[56] Featherstonhaugh,
And taken his life at the Deadmanshaugh;
There was Willimoteswick,
And Hardriding Dick,
And Hughie of Hawden, and Will of the Wa’,
I canno’ tell a’, I canno’ tell a’,