277
THE WIFE WRAPT IN WETHER’S SKIN
A. a. ‘Sweet Robin,’ Jamieson’s Popular Ballads, I, 319. b. Macmath MS., p. 100, three stanzas.
B. ‘Robin he’s gane to the wude,’ Harris MS., fol. 26 b.
C. ‘The Cooper of Fife,’ Whitelaw, The Book of Scottish Song, p. 333.
D. Jamieson-Brown MS., Appendix, p. iii.
E. Jamieson’s Popular Ballads, I, 324.
Jamieson cites the first two stanzas of A a in a letter of inquiry to The Scots Magazine, October, 1803, p. 700, and the first half of D (with alterations) in his preface, Popular Ballads, I, 320. The ballad, he says, is very popular all over Scotland.
Robin has married a wife of too high kin to bake or brew, wash or wring. He strips off a wether’s skin and lays it on her back, or prins her in it. He dares not beat her, for her proud kin, but he may beat the wether’s skin, and does. This makes an ill wife good.