41 These six souls went up to heaven,
I wish sae may we a'!
The mighty mayor went down to hell,
For wrong justice and law.
D
Motherwell's MS., p. 433, from James Nicol, Strichen.
1 Oh I will tell a tale of woe,
Which makes my heart richt sair;
The Clerk's two sons of Oxenfoord
Are too soon gone to lair.
2 They thought their father's service mean,
Their mother's no great affair;
But they would go to fair Berwick,
To learn [some] unco lair.
3 They had not been in fair Berwick
A twelve month and a day,
Till the clerk's two sons of Oxenfoord
With the mayor's two daughters lay.
4 This word came to the mighty mayor,
As he hunted the rae,
That the clerks two sons of Oxenfoord
With his two daughters lay.
5 'If they have lain with my daughters,
The heirs of all my land,
I make a vow, and will keep it true,
To hang them with my hand.'
6 When he was certain of the fact,
An angry man was he,
And he has taken these two brothers,
And hanged them on the tree.
7 Word it has come to Oxenfoord's clerk,
Ere it was many day,
That his two sons sometime ago
With the mayor's two daughters lay.