She lift vp his bloudy hed,
And kist his wounds that were so red.

8.
She got him vp vpon her backe,
And carried him to earthen lake.

9.
She buried him before the prime,
She was dead her selfe ere euen-song time.

10.
God send euery gentleman
Such haukes, such hounds, and such a leman.

[Annotations:
9.1: 'prime,' the first hour of the day.]

THE TWA CORBIES

1.
As I was walking all alane,
I heard twa corbies making a mane,
The tane unto the t'other say,
'Where sall we gang and dine to-day?'

2.
'In behint yon auld fail dyke,
I wot there lies a new slain knight;
And nae body kens that he lies there,
But his hawk, his hound, and lady fair.

3.
'His hound is to the hunting gane,
His hawk to fetch the wild-fowl hame,
His lady's ta'en another mate,
So we may mak' our dinner sweet.

4.
'Ye'll sit on his white hause bane,
And I'll pike out his bonny blue een:
Wi' ae lock o' his gowden hair,
We'll theek our nest when it grows bare.

5.
'Mony a one for him makes mane,
But nane sall ken whare he is gane:
O'er his white banes, when they are bare,
The wind sall blaw for evermair.'

[Annotations:
2.1: 'fail dyke,' turf wall.
4.1: 'hause-bane,' neck-bone.
4.4: 'theek,' thatch.]

YOUNG BENJIE

+The Text+ is given from Scott's _Minstrelsy_ (1803). He remarks, 'The
ballad is given from tradition.' No. 29 in the Abbotsford MS., 'Scotch
Ballads, Materials for Border Minstrelsy,' is _Young Benjie_ (or Boonjie
as there written) in thirteen stanzas, headed 'From Jean Scott,' and
written in William Laidlaw's hand. All of this except the first stanza
is transferred, with or without changes, to Scott's ballad, which is
nearly twice as long.

+The Story+ of this ballad, simple in itself, introduces to us the
elaborate question of the 'lyke-wake,' or the practice of watching
through the night by the side of a corpse. More about this will be found
under _The Lyke-Wake Dirge_, and in the Appendix at the end of this
volume. Here it will suffice to quote Sir Walter Scott's introduction:--

'In this ballad the reader will find traces of a singular superstition,
not yet altogether discredited in the wilder parts of Scotland. The
lykewake, or watching a dead body, in itself a melancholy office, is
rendered, in the idea of the assistants, more dismally awful, by the
mysterious horrors of superstition.