13 'And how are we to bring her down?'
says the Lamkin:
'Pinch the babe in the cradle here,'
says the fause nourice to him.
18 The first step the lady stepped,
she stepped on a stane;
The last step the lady stepped,
there she met Lamkin.
19 'O mercy, mercy, Lamkin,
have mercy upon me!
O harm ye not my little son,
I pray you let him be.'
23 Lord Weare he sat in England,
a drinking o the wine;
He felt his heart fu heavy
at this very same time.
25 He sailed in his bonny ship
upon the saut sea-faem;
He leapd up on his horse
and swiftly he rade hame.
27 'O whas blude is this,' he says,
'that lies in the bower?'
'It is your lady's heart's blude,
where Lamkin he slew her.'
FOOTNOTES:
[150] Of boiling to death see Ducange, Caldariis decoquere, and other places cited by Robertson, Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, I, xxxii, note, and 128. This was especially a punishment for coiners, and was sanctioned as the penalty for poisoners by a statute of 22 Henry VIII, c. 29, repealed 1 Edward VI.
[151] More about the locality in Notes and Queries, First Series, II, 270.
[152] "Balcanquel is an ancient Scottish surname, and is sometimes corrupted, for the more agreeable sound, into Beluncan. All reciters agree that Lammikin, or Lambkin, is not the name of the hero, but merely an epithet." Finlay, Scottish Ballads, II. 56.