The Cruel Mother- Motherwell 1827 Child C
[Below is Child's Version C and at the bottom of the page is the complete text from Motherwell in 1827.]
Version C- 'The Cruel Mother'
Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. 161.
1 SHE leaned her back unto a thorn,
Three, three, and three by three
And there she has her two babes born.
Three, three, and thirty-three
2 She took frae 'bout her ribbon-belt,
And there she bound them hand and foot.
3 She has taen out her wee pen-knife,
And there she ended baith their life.
4 She has howked a hole baith deep and wide,
She has put them in baith side by side.
5 She has covered them oer wi a marble stane,
Thinking she would gang maiden hame.
6 As she was walking by her father's castle wa,
She saw twa pretty babes playing at the ba.
7 'O bonnie babes, gin ye were mine,
I would dress you up in satin fine.
8 'O I would dress you in the silk,
And wash you ay in morning milk.'
9 'O cruel mother, we were thine,
And thou made us to wear the twine.
10 'O cursed mother, heaven 's high,
And that's where thou will neer win nigh.
11 'O cursed mother, hell is deep,
And there thou'll enter step by step.'
_________________
From Motherwell; Minstrelsy: Ancient and Modern, p. 161; 1827
THE CRUEL MOTHER
A Small fragment of this ballad appeared in the introductory note to the ballad of Lady Anne, printed in the Border Minstrelsy, volume 2. Through the kindness of a friend we are now enabled to give the ballad in a complete state. Like many other ancient pieces of a similar description, it has a burden of no meaning and much childishness: the repetition of which, at the end of the first and third lines of every stanza, has been omitted. The reader, however, has a right to have the ballad as we received it; and, therefore, he may, in the first of the places pointed out, insert
"Three, three, and three by three;" and, in the secoud,
"Three, three, and thirty-three;" which will give him it entire and unmutilated.
She leaned her back unto a thorn,
And there she has her two babes born.
She took frae 'bout her ribbon-belt,
And there she bound them hand and foot.
She has ta'en out her wee penknife,
And there she ended baith their life.
She has howked a hole baith deep and wide,
She has put them in baith side by side.
She has covered them o'er wi' a marble stane,
Thinking she would gang maiden hame.
A s she was walking by her father's castle wa',
She saw twa pretty babes playing at the ba'.
"O bonnie babes gin ye were mine,
I would dress you up in satin fine!
"O I would dress you in the silk,
And wash you ay in morning milk!"
"O cruel mother! we were thine,
And thou made us to wear the twine.
"O cursed mother! heaven's high,
And that's where thou will ne'er win nigh.
"O cursed mother! hell is deep,
And there thou'll enter step by step."