Lady Anne- Scott 1803 Child B b.
[Sir Walter Scott heard a similar version of Burns 'Fine Flowers in a Valley' sung in his childhood. Scott's version, sent by Mr. Kirkpatrick Sharpe of Hoddom, is given in the preface of "Lady Anne." See Scott's complete text below Child's Version B.
Motherwell says, "A small fragment of this ballad appeared in the introductory note to the ballad of Lady Anne, printed in the Border Minstrelsy, volume 2."]
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 sac kind.'
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From: Sir Walter Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border: Volume 3 - Page 20 [The text in brackets (green) with Burns' text was inserted by a later editor and did not appear in Scott's original 1803 edition.]
LADY ANNE
This ballad was communicated to me by Mr. Kirkpatrick Sharpe of Hoddom, who mentions having copied it from an old magazine. Although it has probably received some modern corrections, the general turn seems to be ancient, and corresponds with that of a fragment, containing the following verses, which I have often heard sung in my childhood:—
'She set her back against a thorn,
And there she has her young son born;
"O smile nae sae, my bonny babe!
An ye smile sae sweet, ye'll smile me dead."
* * * *
An' when that lady went to the church,
She spied a naked boy in the porch.
'"O bonny boy, an ye were mine,
I'd clead ye in the silks sae fine."
"O mither dear, when I was thine,
To me ye were na half sae kind.
**** Stories of this nature are very common in the annals of popular superstition. It is, for example, currently believed in Ettrick Forest, that a libertine, who had destroyed fifty-six inhabited houses, in order to throw the possessions of the cottagers into his estate, and who added to this injury, that of seducing their daughters, was wont to commit to a carrier in the neighbourhood the care of his illegitimate children, shortly after they were born. His emissary regularly carried them away, but they were never again heard of. The unjust and cruel gains of the profligate laird were dissipated by his extravagance, and the ruins of his house seem to bear witness to the truth of the rhythmical prophecies denounced against it, and still current among the peasantry. He himself died an untimely death; but the agent of his amours and crimes survived to extreme old age. When on his death-bed, he seemed much oppressed in mind, and sent for a clergyman to speak peace to his departing spirit: but, before the messenger returned, the man was in his last agony; and the terrified assistants had fled from his cottage, unanimously averring, that the wailing of murdered infants had ascended from behind his couch, and mingled with the groans of the departing sinner.
[What Scott often heard sung in his childhood, was 'Fine Flowers in a Valley,' sent by Burns to Johnson's Scots Musical Museum, No. 320 (vol. iv. 1792):—
'She sat down below a thorn;
Fine flowers in a valley,
And there she has her sweet babe born;
And the green leaves they grow rarely:
"Smile not sae sweet, my bonie babe,
And ye smile sae sweet, ye'll smile me dead."
'She's ta'en 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 were mine,
I wad cleed thee in the silk so fine."
"O mother dear, when I was thine,
You did na prove to me sae kind."'
A fragment of a similar ballad also appeared in Herd's Scottish Songs, ii. 237 :—
'And there she's lean'd her back to a thorn;
Oh and alas-a-day, Oh and alas-a-day!
And there she has her baby born,
Ten thousand times good-night and be wi' thee,' etc.
But the oldest printed version is a black-letter in the Pepys, Jersey and Crawford Collections (c. 1683), republished in Ebsworth's Roxburghe Ballads, viii. liv * * *. It is entitled 'The Duke's Daughter's Cruelty; or the Wonderful Apparition of Two Infants, who she murthered and buried in a forest, for to hide her shame. To an excellent new tune. Licensed according to order.' Here are a few of the lines echoed in the Sharpe-Scott version :—
'As she was going to her father's hall,
She see three children a playing at ball;
One was drest in scarlet fine,
And the others as e'er they was born.
Mother. "O if these children was mine,
I would dress them in scarlet fine."
"Mother, O mother! when [we] was thine,
You did not dress us in scarlet fine," ' etc.
The modern recitations (Motherwell, Buchan, etc.) evidently derive from the black-letter. The 'Peter and Paul' of the Minstrelsy version is a mere corruption. The black-letter closely resembles a Danish version (see translation in Child's Ballads, I. 219). The German child-murder ballads have less in common with it.]
LADY ANNE
I. Fair Lady Anne sate in her bower,
Down by the greenwood side,
And the flowers did spring, and the birds did sing,
'Twas the pleasant May-day tide.
II. But fair Lady Anne on Sir William call'd,
With the tear grit in her ee,
'O though thou be fause, may Heaven thee guard,
In the wars ayont the sea!
III. Out of the wood came three bonnie boys,
Upon the simmer's morn,
And they did sing, and play at the ba',
As naked as they were born.
IV. 'O seven lang years wad I sit here,
Amang the frost and snaw,
A' to hae but ane o' these bonnie boys,
A playing at the ba'
V. Then up and spake the eldest boy,
'Now listen, thou fair ladie,
And ponder well the rede that I tell,
Then make ye choice of the three.
VI. 'Tis I am Peter, and this is Paul,
And that ane, sae fair to see,
But a twelve-month sinsyne to paradise came,
To join with our companie.'
VII. 'O I will hae the snaw-white boy,
The bonniest of the three.'
'And if I were thine, and in thy *propine,
O what wad ye do to me?'
VIII. ''Tis I wad clead thee in silk and gowd,
And nourice thee on my knee.'
'0 mither! mither! when I was thine,
Sic kindness I couldna see.
IX. 'Beneath the turf, where now I stand,
The fause nurse buried me;
Thy cruel penknife sticks still in my heart,
And I come not back to thee.
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* Propine, usually gift, but here the power of giving or bestowing.