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The English and Scottish Popular Ballads

Edited by Francis James Child.

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Fine Flowers in the Valley

THE CRUEL MOTHER—B

[_]

a. Johnson's Museum, p. 331. b. Scott's Minstrelsy, 1803, iii, 259, preface.

1

She sat down below a thorn,
Fine flowers in the valley
And there she has her sweet babe born.
And the green leaves they grow rarely

2

‘Smile na sae sweet, my bonie babe,
And ye smile sae sweet, ye'll smile me dead.’

3

She's taen out her little pen-knife,
And twinnd the sweet babe o its life.

4

She's howket a grave by the light o the moon,
And there she's buried her sweet babe in.

5

As she was going to the church,
She saw a sweet babe in the porch.

6

‘O sweet babe, and thou were mine,
I wad cleed thee in the silk so fine.’

7

‘O mother dear, when I was thine,
You did na prove to me sae kind.’
[OMITTED]