The English and Scottish Popular Ballads Edited by Francis James Child. |
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 | The English and Scottish Popular Ballads |  |
Child Noryce
CHILD MAURICE—B
[_]
Motherwell's MS., p. 255; Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. 282. From the singing of Widow McCormick, Paisley, January 19, 1825. Learned by her of an old woman in Dumbarton: Motherwell's Note Book, fol. 4.
1
Child Noryce is a clever young man,He wavers wi the wind;
His horse was silver-shod before,
With the beaten gold behind.
2
He called to his little man John,Saying, You don't see what I see;
For O yonder I see the very first woman
That ever loved me.
3
‘Here is a glove, a glove,’ he said,‘Lined with the silver grey;
You may tell her to come to the merry greenwood,
To speak to Child Nory.
4
‘Here is a ring, a ring,’ he says,‘It's all gold but the stane;
You may tell her to come to the merry greenwood,
And ask the leave o nane.’
5
‘So well do I love your errand, my master,But far better do I love my life;
O would ye have me go to Lord Barnard's castle,
To betray away his wife?’
6
‘O don't I give you meat,’ he says,‘And don't I pay you fee?
How dare you stop my errand?’ he says;
‘My orders you must obey.’
7
O when he came to Lord Bernard's castle,He tinkled at the ring;
Who was as ready as Lord Barnard himself
To let this little boy in?
8
‘Here is a glove, a glove,’ he says,‘Lined with the silver grey;
You are bidden to come to the merry greenwood,
To speak to Child Nory.
9
‘Here is a ring, a ring,’ he says,‘It's all gold but the stane;
You are bidden to come to the merry greenwood,
And ask the leave o nane.’
267
10
Lord Barnard he was standing by,And an angry man was he:
‘O little did I think there was a lord in the world
My lady loved but me!’
11
O he dressed himself in the holland smock,And garments that was gay,
And he is away to the merry green-wood,
To speak to Child Nory.
12
Child Noryce sits on yonder tree,He whistles and he sings:
‘O wae be to me,’ says Child Noryce,
‘Yonder my mother comes!’
13
Child Noryce he came off the tree,His mother to take off the horse:
‘Och alace, alace,’ says Child Noryce,
‘My mother was neer so gross!’
14
Lord Barnard he had a little small sword,That hung low down by his knee;
He cut the head off Child Noryce,
And put the body on a tree.
15
And when he came home to his castell,And to his ladie's hall,
He threw the head into her lap,
Saying, Lady, there's a ball!
16
She turned up the bloody head,She kissed it frae cheek to chin:
‘Far better do I love this bloody head
Than all my royal kin.
17
‘When I was in my father's castel,In my virginity,
There came a lord into the North,
Gat Child Noryce with me.’
18
‘O wae be to thee, Lady Margaret,’ he sayd,‘And an ill death may you die;
For if you had told me he was your son,
He had neer been slain by me.’
| The English and Scottish Popular Ballads | |