Ballads, English -- England -- Texts; Ballads, Scots -- Scotland -- Texts
"And sair and lang mat their teen last,
_Binnorie, O Binnorie_!
That wrought thee sic a dowie cast,"
_By the bonny mill-dams o' Binnorie_! 80
You coudna see her yellow hair
_Binnorie, O Binnorie_!
For goud and pearl that was sae rare,
_By the bonny mill-dams o' Binnorie_.
You coudna see her middle sma' 85
_Binnorie, O Binnorie_!
For gouden girdle that was sae braw,
_By the bonny mill-dams o' Binnorie_.
You coudna see her fingers white,
_Binnorie, O Binnorie_! 90
For gouden rings that were sae gryte,
_By the bonny mill-dams o' Binnorie_.
And by there came a harper fine,
_Binnorie, O Binnorie_!
That harped to the king at dine, 95
_By the bonny mill-dams o' Binnorie_.
Whan he did look that lady upon,
_Binnorie, O Binnorie_!
He sigh'd and made a heavy moan,
_By the bonny mill-dams o' Binnorie_. 100
He's ta'en three locks o' her yellow hair,
_Binnorie, O Binnorie_!
And wi' them strung his harp sae fair,
_By the bonny mill-dams o' Binnorie_.
The first tune it did play and sing, 105
_Binnorie, O Binnorie_!
Was, "Fareweel to my father the king,"
_By the bonny mill-dams o' Binnorie_.
The nexten tune that it play'd seen,
_Binnorie, O Binnorie_! 110
Was, "Fareweel to my mither the queen,"
_By the bonny mill-dams o' Binnorie_.
The thirden tune that it play'd then,
_Binnorie, O Binnorie_!
Was, "Wae to my sister, fair Ellen," 115
_By the bonny mill-dams o' Binnorie_!
LORD DONALD.
Kinloch's _Ancient Scottish Ballads_, p. 110.
Like the two which preceded it, this ballad is common to the Gothic
nations. It exists in a great variety of forms. Two stanzas,
recovered by Burns, were printed in Johnson's _Museum_, i. 337; two
others were inserted by Jamieson, in his _Illustrations_, p. 319.
The _Border Minstrelsy_ furnished five stanzas, giving the _story_,
without the bequests. Allan Cunningham's alteration of Scott's
version, (_Scottish Songs_, i. 285,) has one stanza more. Kinloch
procured from the North of Scotland the following complete copy.
In the Appendix, we have placed a nursery song on the same subject,
still familiar in Scotland, and translations of the corresponding
German and Swedish ballads--both most remarkable cases of
parallelism in popular romance.
Lord Donald, as Kinloch remarks, would seem to have been poisoned by
eating toads prepared as fishes. Scott, in his introduction to _Lord
Randal_, has quoted from an old chronicle, a fabulous account of the
poisoning of King John by means of a cup of ale, in which the venom
of this reptile had been infused.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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