Mally Bann- (London) 1843 Colburn's Magazine
[From: Colburn's New Monthly Magazine and Humorist, Volume 67, 1843 Thomas Hood, Ed. London.
This is very similar but not identical to the version with the same title published in a Scottish chapbook printed by J & M Robertson, Glasgow, in 1799; BL 11606 aa 23 (24).
The ballad is presented incomplete with only the last few stanzas left off and &c added at the end to show that it's incomplete.
I've include the short preface stanza,
R. Matteson 2016]
Here then we must, for the present, take our leave, with an admonition to those "gunners" or “ punt-shooters” who go after the wild fowl in England or America, by night, to take warning from Jemmy Randall's shot, immortalized in an ancient Irish ballad, not known, we will venture to say, to many of our readers, and intituled:
MALLY BANN.
1.Jemmy Randall went a shooting,
A shooting in the dark;
But to his great misfortune,
He did not miss his mark.
2. His love's apron being about her,
He took her for a swan;
But alas, and forever, alas!
It was sweet Mally Bann.
3.When he came up into her,
And found that she was dead,
Great abundance of salt tears
For his darling he shed.
4. He went home to his father
With his gun in his hand,
Crying, "Dear father, dear father,
I've shot Mally Bann."
5. His father looked upon him
(His hair being gray)
Crying, " Oh! my dearest son,
You must not run away:
6. "Stay at home in your own country—
Let your trial come on;
By the laws of sweet Ireland,
You shall never be undone."
7. Within two or three months after,
To her uncle appeared she,
Crying, "Dear uncle, dear uncle,
Let Jemmy Randall go free.
8. "For my apron being about me,
He took me for a swan."
But it is, oh! and for ever, alas!
It was sweet Mally Bann.
9. When the fair maids in the city
Were assembled in a row,
She appeared among them
Like a mountain of snow.
10. All the maidens in the country—
They held up their head,
When this beautiful, this lovely,
This fair one was dead, &c, &c