=A.= Our goodman, coming home, sees successively a saddle-horse, pair of jack-boots, sword, powdered wig, muckle coat, finally a man, where none such should be. He asks the goodwife how this came about without his leave. She responds contemptuously that the things he has supposed himself to see are, respectively, a sow (milch-cow), a pair of water-stoups, a porridge-spurtle, a clocken-hen, a pair of blankets, a milking-maid, which her mother has sent her. Far has he ridden, but a saddle on a sow’s (cow’s) back, siller spurs on water-stoups, etc., long-bearded maidens, has he never seen. =B.= In =B= Old Wichet comes upon _three_ horses, swords, cloaks, pairs of boots, pairs of breeches, hats, and in the end three men in bed. Blind cuckold, says the wife, they are three milking-cows, roasting-spits, mantuas, pudding-bags, petticoats, skimming-dishes, milking-maids, all presents from her mother. The like was never known, exclaims Old Wichet; cows with bridles and saddles, roasting-spits with scabbards, etc., milking-maids with beards! A song founded on this ballad was introduced into the play of “Auld Robin Gray,” produced, according to Guest’s History of the Stage, at the Haymarket, July 29, 1794. This song is a neat résumé of the ballad, with a satisfactory catastrophe.[84] See an appendix. A Gaelic copy, taken down by Rev. Alexander Stewart, of Ballachulish, from the recitation of an old man in his parish whose father had been in the way of singing it sixty years before, is plainly based upon =A=. The goodman, coming home unexpectedly, finds a boat on the beach, a horse at the door, etc. These and other things are explained by his wife as gifts from her mother. Far has he wandered, but never saw a saddle on a cow, etc. Alexander Stewart, ’Twixt Ben Nevis and Glencoe, 1885, p. 76 ff.