15
'O hold your tongue, my pretty parrot,
Lay not the blame upon me;
Your cup shall be of the flowered gold,
Your cage of the root of the tree.'
16
Up then spake the king himself,
In the bed-chamber where he lay:
'What ails the pretty parrot,
That prattles so long or day?'
17
'There came a cat to my cage door,
It almost a worried me,
And I was calling on May Colven
To take the cat from me.'
D.
a. Sharpe's Ballad Book (1823), No 17, p. 45. b. Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, II, 45. c. Motherwell's Minstrelsy, Appendix, p. 21, No. XXIV, one stanza.
1
O heard ye of a bloody knight,
Lived in the south country?
For he has betrayed eight ladies fair
And drowned them in the sea.
2
Then next he went to May Collin,
She was her father's heir,
The greatest beauty in the land,
I solemnly declare.
3
'I am a knight of wealth and might,
Of townlands twenty-three;
And you'll be lady of them all,
If you will go with me.'
4
'Excuse me, then, Sir John,' she says;
'To wed I am too young;
Without I have my parents' leave,
With you I darena gang.'
5
'Your parents' leave you soon shall have,
In that they will agree;
For I have made a solemn vow
This night you'll go with me.'