A. Kinloch MSS, V, 47. ‘The Gardener,’ Kinloch MSS, VII, 19; Kinloch’s Ancient Scottish Ballads, p. 74.
B. ‘The Gardener Lad,’ Buchan’s Ballads of the North of Scotland, II, 187.
C. Fragment communicated by Dr Thomas Davidson.
A gardener will apparel a maid from head to foot with flowers, if she will be his bride. He gets a wintry answer: the snow shall be his shirt, the wind his hat, the rain his coat.
B 1–6 is mere jargon, foisted into this pretty ballad as a preface.
A 7, B 15, C 3, is found, substantially, in the preceding ballad, and perhaps belonged originally to neither.
Freely translated from A and B by Rosa Warrens, Schottische Volkslieder, p. 134, No 30.
A
Kinloch MSS, V, 47, in the handwriting of James Beattie; from the recitation of his aunt, Miss Elizabeth Beattie.