May Collin- (Scot) c.1780 Scott MS, Child H
[From “Scotch Ballads, Materials for Border Minstrelsy,” No 146, MS at Abbotsford. Reprinted English and Scottish Popular Ballads - Volume 4 - Page 7 Francis James Child. See also 1904 edition by Helen Child Sargent and George Lyman Kittredge where it's labeled H. Child's notes follow,
R. Matteson 2018]
It is written on the same sheet of paper as the “copy of some antiquity” used by Scott in making up his ‘Gay Goss Hawk’ (ed. 1802, II, 7). The sheet is perhaps as old as any in the volume in which it occurs, but may possibly not be the original. ‘May Collin’ is not in the same hand as the other ballad. Both hands are of the 18th century. According to the preface to a stall-copy spoken of by Motherwell, Minstrelsy, p. lxx, 24, “the treacherous and murder-minting lover was an ecclesiastic of the monastery of Maybole,” and the preface to D d makes him a Dominican friar. So, if we were to accept these guides, the ‘Sir’ would be the old ecclesiastical title and equivalent to the ‘Mess’ of the copy now to be given.
1 May Collin . . .
. . was her father’s heir,
And she fell in love with a falsh priest,
And she rued it ever mair.
2 He followd her butt, he followd her benn,
He followd her through the hall,
Till she had neither tongue nor teeth
Nor lips to say him naw.
3 ‘We’ll take the steed out where he is,
The gold where eer it be,
And we’ll away to some unco land,
And married we shall be.’
4 They had not riden a mile, a mile,
A mile but barely three,
Till they came to a rank river,
Was raging like the sea.
5 ‘Light off, light off now, May Collin,
It’s here that you must die;
Here I have drownd seven king’s daughters,
The eight now you must be.
6 ‘Cast off, cast off now, May Collin,
Your gown that’s of the green;
For it’s oer good and oer costly
To rot in the sea-stream.
7 ‘Cast off, cast off now, May Collin,
Your coat that’s of the black;
For it’s oer good and oer costly
To rot in the sea-wreck.
8 ‘Cast off, cast off now, May Collin,
Your stays that are well laced;
For thei’r oer good and costly
In the sea’s ground to waste.
9 ‘Cast [off, cast off now, May Collin,]
Your sark that’s of the holland;
For [it’s oer good and oer costly]
To rot in the sea-bottom.’
10 ‘Turn you about now, falsh Mess John,
To the green leaf of the tree;
It does not fit a mansworn man
A naked woman to see.’
11 He turnd him quickly round about,
To the green leaf of the tree;
She took him hastly in her arms
And flung him in the sea.
12 ‘Now lye you there, you falsh Mess John,
My mallasin go with thee!
You thought to drown me naked and bare,
But take your cloaths with thee,
And if there be seven king’s daughters there
Bear you them company.’
13 She lap on her milk steed
And fast she bent the way,
And she was at her father’s yate
Three long hours or day.
14 Up and speaks the wylie parrot,
So wylily and slee:
‘Where is the man now, May Collin,
That gaed away wie thee?’
15 ‘Hold your tongue, my wylie parrot,
And tell no tales of me,
And where I gave a pickle befor
It’s now I’ll give you three.’