b.
Some stanzas of this four-line version, with a ludicrous modern supplement, are given in 'The Scouring of the White Horse,' p. 161, as from the Welsh marshes. Five out of the first six verses are there said to be very old indeed, "the rest all patchwork by different hands." Mr Hughes has kindly informed me that he derived the ballad from his father, who had originally learned it at Ruthyn when a boy. What is material here follows:
1
O it was not a pheasant cock,
Nor yet a pheasant hen,
But O it was a lady fair
Came swimming down the stream.
2
An ancient harper passing by
Found this poor lady's body,
To which his pains he did apply
To make a sweet melódy.
3
To cat-gut dried he her inside,
He drew out her back-bone,
And made thereof a fiddle sweet
All for to play upon.
4
And all her hair, so long and fair,
That down her back did flow,
O he did lay it up with care,
To string his fiddle bow.
5
And what did he with her fingers,
Which were so straight and small?
O he did cut them into pegs,
To screw up his fiddoll.
6
Then forth went he, as it might be,
Upon a summer's day,
And met a goodly company,
Who asked him in to play.
7
Then from her bones he drew such tones
As made their bones to ache,
They sounded so like human groans
Their hearts began to quake.
8
They ordered him in ale to swim,—
For sorrow's mighty dry,—
And he to share their wassail fare
Essayd right willingly.