The English and Scottish Popular Ballads :: :: University of Virginia Library

Motherwell's MS., p. 498; Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. 370. From the recitation of Mrs Notman, then far advanced in years, with whose grandmother it was a favorite: September 9, 1826.

1

Willie was a widow's son,
And he wore a milk-white weed, O
And weel could Willie read and write,
Far better ride on steed. O

168

2

Lady Margerie was the first lady
That drank to him the wine,
And aye as the healths gade round and round,
‘Laddy, your love is mine.’

3

Lady Margerie was the first ladye
That drank to him the beer,
And aye as the healths gade round and round,
‘Laddy, you're welcome here.’

4

‘You must come into my bower
When the evening bells do ring,
And you must come into my bower
When the evening mass doth sing.’

5

He's taen four and twenty braid arrows,
And laced them in a whang,
And he's awa to Lady Margerie's bower,
As fast as he can gang.

6

He set ae foot on the wall,
And the other on a stane,
And he's killed a' the king's life-guards,
And he's killed them every man.

7

‘Oh open, open, Lady Margerie,
Open and let me in;
The weet weets a' my yellow hair,
And the dew draps on my chin.’

8

With her feet as white as sleet
She strode her bower within,
And with her fingers long and small
She's looten Sweet Willie in.

9

She's louten down unto her foot
To loose Sweet Willie's shoon;
The buckles were sa stiff they wudna lowse,
The blood had frozen in.

10

‘O Willie, Willie, I fear that thou
Has bred me dule and sorrow;
The deed that thou has dune this nicht
Will kythe upon the morrow.’

11

In then came her father dear,
And a broad sword by his gare,
And he's gien Willie, the widow's son,
A deep wound and a sair.

12

‘Lye yont, lye yont, Willie,’ she says,
‘Your sweat weets a' my side;
Lye yont, lie yont, Willie,’ she says,
‘For your sweat I downa bide.’

13

She turned her back unto the wa,
Her face unto the room,
And there she saw her auld father,
Walking up and down.

14

‘Woe be to you, father,’ she said,
‘And an ill deed may you die!
For ye've killd Willie, the widow's son
And he would have married me.’

15

She turned her back unto the room,
Her face unto the wa,
And with a deep and heavy sich
Her heart it brak in twa.