2 'Tell her to make me a cambric shirt,
Without any seam or needlework.
3 'Tell her to wash it in yonder well,
Where never spring-water nor rain ever fell.
4 'Tell her to dry it on yonder thorn,
Which never bore blossom since Adam was born.'
5 'Now he has asked me questions three,
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
I hope he will answer as many for me;
For once he was a true-love of mine.
6 'Tell him to find me an acre of land
Betwixt the salt water and the sea-sand.
7 'Tell him to plough it with a ram's horn,
And sow it all over with one pepper-corn.
8 'Tell him to reap it with a sickle of leather,
And bind it up with a peacock's feather.
9 'When he has done, and finished his work,
O tell him to come, and he 'll have his shirt.'
Another variety of F, G, communicated by Mr Frank Kidson, Leeds, 1884; from tradition.