The Cruel Mother- Herd (Scotland) 1776 Child A
[No title is supplied by Herd in his Ancient and Modem Scottish Songs, 1776, Volume II, pp. 237 & 238. The first refrain appears in the original (see below) as: "Oh, and alas-a-day! Oh, and alas-a-day! " At the bottom of the page is some commentary about the ballad by William Chappel.]
Version A- Child 20; The Cruel Mother
Herd's Manuscripts, I, 132, u, 191: Ancient and Modem Scottish Songs, 1776, II, 237.
1. And there she's leand her back to a thorn,
Oh and alelladay, oh and alelladay
And there she has her baby born.
Ten thousand times good night and be wi thee
2. She has houked a grave ayont the sun,
Oh and alelladay, oh and alelladay
And there she has buried the sweet babe in.
Ten thousand times good night and be wi thee
3. And she's gane back to her father's ha,
Oh and alelladay, oh and alelladay
She's counted the leelest maid o them a'.
Ten thousand times good night and be wi thee
* * * * *
4. 'O look not sae sweet, my bonie babe,
Oh and alelladay, oh and alelladay
Gin ye smyle sae, ye'll smyle me dead.'
Ten thousand times good night and be wi thee
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Herd in his Ancient and Modem Scottish Songs, 1776, Volume II, pp. 237 & 238- First three verses only
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.
She has houked a grave ayont the sun,
Oh, and alas-a-day! Oh, and alas-a-day!
And there she has buried the fweet babe in,
Ten thousand times good night, and be wi thee.
And she's gane back to her father's ha',
Oh, and alas-a-day! Oh, and alas-a-day!
She's counted the leelest maid o' them a',
Ten thousand times good night and be wi' thee.
And she's gane back to her father's ha',
Oh, and alas-a-day! Oh, and alas-a-day!
She's counted the leelest maid o' them a',
Ten thousand times good night and be wi' thee.
__________________
William Chappel, Roxburghe Ballads:
Of the many Scottish variants, widely differing from one another, the Minstrelsy's is modern: 'Lady Anne'= "Fair Lady Anne sate in her bower, down by the greenwood side" (iii, 261, 1803). Of the " three bonnie boys" one is her own, the others are Peter and Paul. A better version is given by G. R. Kinloch, from the recitation of Miss C. Beattie: it is ' The Cruel Mother' = " There lives a lady in London—All alone and alonie—She's gane wi' bairn to the Clerk's son—Doun by the greenwood sac bonnie" (And Scot. Bdt., p. 46, 1827), endiug thus: "' Hut now we're in the heavens high—All alone and alonie; and ye have the pains o' hell to dree'—Doun by the greenwood sae bonnie."
The earliest Scottish variation of this is in Herd's fragments (vol. ii, 237, 1776).
"ANd there she's lean'd her back to a thorn,
Oh, and alax.a-day! Oh, and ulas-a-day!
And there she has her baby born:
Ten thousand times good-night, and be wi' thee.
She has houked a grave ayont the sun:
Oh, and ala* ! etc.
And there she has buried the sweet babe in:
Ten, etc.
And she's gone back to her father's ha',
She's counted the lealest maid o' them a'.
"'O look not sae sweet, my bonny babe,
Gin ye smyle sae, ye'll smyle me dead:'
Ten," etc.
It was sung to the old tune of 'Fine flowers in the valley.' This is a distinct ballad, given by Herd in his Scottish Songs, I, 88, 1776, beginning, "There was three ladies in a ha', fine flowers i' the valley; There cum three lords amang them a': The red, grten, and the yellow. The first of them was clad in red," etc. Burns gave seven stanzas of 'The Cruel Mother' to the Scots' Musical Museum, iv, p. 331, 1792, and entitled them 'Fine Flowers in the valley': "She sat down below a thorn, Fine flowers in the valley; And there she has her sweet babe born: and the grten leaves they grow rarely." Next: "Smile na," etc.; "She's ta'en out her little penknife, and twinn'd the sweet babe o' its life. She's howket a grave by the light o' the moon," etc. Finally, these three stanzas: "As she was going to the church, she saw a sweet babe in the porch; '0 sweet babe! an' thou wert mine, I wad deed thee in the silk so tine.'—' 0 mother near, when I was thine, you did na prove to me aae lt nd,' and the green leavis they grow rarely.'' (This version appears to be the best.) The words were partly remembered by Scott, who forgot that they were given by Herd and by Burns. Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. 161, affects to complete Scott's fragment, beginning, "She leaned her hack against a thorn: Three, thtee, and three by three,'" eleven stanzas, ending absurdly—"O -cursed mother! hell is deep, And there thou'll enter step by step.' " Allan Cunningham fabricated the piece of sentimentalism entitled 'The Bonny Bairns'—
"The Lady she walk'd in yon wild wood, aneath the hollie tree,
And she was aware of twa Bonnie Bairns, were running at her knee.
The tane it pull'd a red, red rose, with a hand as soft as silk;
The other it pull'd the lily pale, with a hand mair white than milk."
Six stanzas follow, telling how the children pleaded for their guilty mother, but pleaded in vain, to "wash her twa hands free frae sin." It is commendably pious (A. C.'s Sonys of Scotland, ii, 70, 1825), but lamentably weak. Peter Buchan has two versions, one 'The Minister's Dochter of New York' or 'of Newark.' Buchan's 'Cruel Mother' ("It fell ance upon a day, Edinbro', Edinbro' ") ends thus: "She threw herself ower the castle-wall: there, I wot, she got a fall." Honest John Finlay left the 'Cruel Mother' alone. Aytoun's is mosaic work. We want no 'New Lamps for Old Ones.' Documentary proof of authenticity, whether printed or manuscript, can alone be trusted.