THE CRUEL MOTHER. From Motherwell's _Minstrelsy_, p. 161. 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_. She took frae 'bout her ribbon-belt, 5 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. 10 She has covered them o'er wi' a marble stane, Thinking she would gang maiden hame. As 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, 15 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. 20 "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." THE CRUEL MOTHER. From Kinloch's _Ancient Scottish Ballads_, p. 46. Three stanzas of a Warwickshire version closely resembling Kinloch's are given in _Notes and Queries_, vol. viii. p. 358. There lives a lady in London-- _All alone, and alonie_; She's gane wi' bairn to the clerk's son-- _Doun by the greenwud sae bonnie_. She has tane her mantel her about-- 5 _All alone, and alonie_; She's gane aff to the gude greenwud-- _Doun by the greenwud sae bonnie_. She has set her back until an aik-- _All alone, and alonie_; 10 First it bowed, and syne it brake-- _Doun by the greenwud sae bonnie_. She has set her back until a brier-- _All alone, and alonie_; Bonnie were the twa boys she did bear-- 15 _Doun by the greenwud sae bonnie_. But out she's tane a little penknife-- _All alone, and alonie_; And she's parted them and their sweet life-- _Doun by the greenwud sae bonnie_. 20 She's aff unto her father's ha'-- _All alone, and alonie_; She seem'd the lealest maiden amang them a'-- _Doun by the greenwud sae bonnie_. As she lookit our the castle wa'-- 25 _All alone, and alonie_; She spied twa bonnie boys playing at the ba'-- _Doun by the greenwud sae bonnie_. "O an thae twa babes were mine"-- _All alone, and alonie_; 30 "They should wear the silk and the sabelline"-- _Doun by the greenwud sae bonnie_.