Fine Flowers in the Valley- Burns 1792 Child B a.
[Fine Flowers in a Valley was sent by Burns to Johnson's Scots Musical Museum, No. 320 (vol. iv.) in 1792. There was no refrain in Burns' original version. Child's text below is nearly identical to Burns (at bottom of the page). Malcolm Douglas dates the version at "Johnson's The Scots Musical Museum as 1787- where a traditional source was not named."
See and early version of music below, with the archaic letters for the text.
R. Matteson 2012]
Version B 'Fine Flowers in the Valley'
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.'
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From: The Scotish Musical Museum: consisting of upwards of six hundred: Volume 4 - Page 308
FINE FLOWERS IN THE VALLEY [Notes] This ancient and beautiful air, with the fragment of the old ballad, beginning "She sat down below a thorn," were both transmitted by Burns to Johnson, for the Museum. The reader will find a very different ballad, under the same title, in Herd's Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs, beginning "There were three ladies in a ha'." Both ballads, however, appear to have been sung to the same plaintive simple melody. Herd has another fragment of a ballad, beginning "And there she lean'd her back to a thorn," in his second volume; but the verses are very imperfect.
FINE FLOWERS IN THE VALLEY
In Herd's collection, a ballad is given having the name title; but, otherwise, quite a different subject from that recovered by Burns, which is exquisitely pathetic and powerful in its mystery. Omitting the refrain, it is short, and therefore we shall thus print It , Herd gives a fragment in another part of his work, which is evidently a portion of this ballad.
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"Sho sat her down, below a thorn,
And there she has her sweet babe born.
'Smile na sae sweet, my bonie babe,
'An ye smile sae sweet, ye'll smile me dead.'
She's taen out her little penknife.
And twined the sweet babe o' its life.
She's howket a grave by the light o' the moon.
And there she's buried her sweet babe in.
As she was going to the church.
She saw a sweet babe in the porch.
'O sweet babe, 'an thou wert mine.
I'd cleed thee in the silk sae fine.
'O mother dear, when I was thine,
Yon didna prove to me nao kind.'
(Addition by Motherwell.)
"O mother, Heaven is very high!
And that's where thou wilt never win nigh.
And oh, mother, Hell is deep!
And there thon'tl enter, step by step.'"