1 My mother showd me a deadly spight;
She sent three thieves at darksome night;
They put my servants all to flight,
They robd my bower, and they slew my knight.
2 They could not do me much more harm,
But they slew my baby on my arm;
They left me nothing to wrap it in
But the bloody, bloody sheet that it lay in.
3 They left me nothing to make a grave
But the bloody sword that slew my babe;
All alone the grave I made,
And all alone salt tears I shed.
4 All alone the bell I rung,
And all alone sweet psalms I sung;
I leant my head against a block,
And there I cut my lovely locks.
5 I cut my locks, and chang'd my name
From Fair Eleanore to Sweet William.
Scott inserted in his Border Minstrelsy, III, 83, 1803, seven stanzas under the title of 'The Lament of the Border Widow,' which show broader traces of the sheet-ballad (1-3), and also, as Aytoun has remarked, agreements with 'The Three Ravens' and with 'Fair Helen of Kirconnell' (5-7). 'The Lament of the Border Widow,' "obtained from recitation in the Forest of Ettrick," has been thought to relate to the execution of Cokburne, a border-freebooter, by James V. Those who are interested in such random inventions (as, under pardon, they must be called) will find particulars in Scott's introduction, and a repetition of the same in Maidment's Scotish Ballads and Songs, Historical and Traditionary, II, 170.[171]
1 My love he built me a bonny bower,
And clad it a' wi lilye-flour;
A brawer bower ye neer did see
Than my true-love he built for me.
2 There came a man, by middle day,
He spied his sport and went away,
And brought the king that very night,
Who brake my bower, and slew my knight.
3 He slew my knight, to me sae dear;
He slew my knight, and poind his gear;
My servants all for life did flee,
And left me in extremitie.
4 I sewd his sheet, making my mane;
I watched the corpse, myself alane;
I watched his body, night and day;
No living creature came that way.