28
BURD ELLEN AND YOUNG TAMLANE
BURD ELLEN AND YOUNG TAMLANE
[_]
Maidment's North Countrie Garland, 1824, p. 21. Communicated
by R. Pitcairn, “from the recitation of a
female relative, who had heard it frequently sung in
her childhood,” about sixty years before the above
date.
1
Burd Ellen sits in her bower windowe,
With a double laddy double, and for the double dow
Twisting the red silk and the blue.
With the double rose and the May-hay
2
And whiles she twisted, and whiles she twan,
And whiles the tears fell down amang.
3
Till once there by cam Young Tamlane:
‘Come light, oh light, and rock your young son.’
4
‘If you winna rock him, you may let him rair,
For I hae rockit my share and mair.’
[OMITTED]
5
Young Tamlane to the seas he's gane,
And a' women's curse in his company's gane.
