The Clerk's Twa Sons o Owsenford
THE WIFE OF USHER'S WELL—B
[_]
Kinloch MSS, V, 403, stanzas 18-23. In the handwriting
of James Chambers, as sung to his maternal grandmother,
Janct Grieve, seventy years before, by an old woman, a Miss
Ann Gray, of the Neidpath Castle, Peeblesshire: January 1,
1829.
1
The hallow days o Yule are come,
The nights are lang an dark,
An in an cam her ain twa sons,
Wi their hats made o the bark.
2
‘O eat an drink, my merry men a',
The better shall ye fare,
For my twa sons the are come hame
To me for evermair.’
3
She has gaen an made their bed,
An she's made it saft an fine,
An she's happit them wi her gay mantel,
Because they were her ain.
4
O the young cock crew i the merry Linkem,
An the wild fowl chirpd for day;
The aulder to the younger did say,
Dear brother, we maun away.
5
‘Lie still, lie still a little wee while,
Lie still but if we may;
For gin my mother miss us away
She'll gae mad or it be day.’
6
O it's they've taen up their mother's mantel,
An they've hangd it on the pin:
‘O lang may ye hing, my mother's mantel,
Or ye hap us again!’
