12^{3,4}. Quoth the fryer, I never was servd so before: ‘Away,’ quoth the wench, ‘come here no more.’ 16^{1,2}. The fryer he walkd along the street As if he had been a new-washd sheep. Sing, hey down a derry, and let’s be merry, And from such sin ever keep. _The_ fa la _burden is not given_. =B. b.= _Apparently_ =a= _revised by Kinloch_. 4^2. sing _for_ whistle. 7^2. then _wanting_. 10^1. a _wanting_. 15^2. sheet _for_ sheep. =c.= 1. Listen and I will you tell Wi a falaldirry, falaldirry How a friar in love wi a lassie fell. Wi a falee and latee and a lee-tiddle-tiddle-tee 7. The lassie cries, My master comes! The friar cries, Where shall I run? 8. ‘O you’ll do you in below this cloth; That you be seen I wad be loth.’ 10. The friar cries, I’m in the well! ‘I care na tho you were in hell. 11. ‘You said you w[a]d sing me out of hell; Sing yoursell out o the well.’ 12. ‘If you’ll help me out, I will be gone, Back to you I’ll neuer come.’ She helped him out, and he was begone; Back to her he never came. 15. The frier he gaed up the street, Hanging his lugs like a washen sheet. 2-6, 9, 13, 14, _wanting_. FOOTNOTES: [88] But when the freare fell in the well He coud not syng himselfe therout But by the helpe of Christyan Clout. (vv. 879-91.) [89] For the class of tales referred to, see von der Hagen, Gesammtabenteuer, III, XXXV f., LXXXIII f.; Reinhold Köhler, in Jahrbuch für romanische und englische Literatur, VIII, 44-65; Clouston, Popular Tales and Fictions, II, 289-310. 277 THE WIFE WRAPT IN WETHER’S SKIN =A. a.= ‘Sweet Robin,’ Jamieson’s Popular Ballads, I, 319. =b.= Macmath MS., p. 100, three stanzas. =B.= ‘Robin he’s gane to the wude,’ Harris MS., fol. 26 =b.= =C.= ‘The Cooper of Fife,’ Whitelaw, The Book of Scottish Song, p. 333. =D.= Jamieson-Brown MS., Appendix, p. iii. =E.= Jamieson’s Popular Ballads, I, 324. Jamieson cites the first two stanzas of =A a= in a letter of inquiry to The Scots Magazine, October, 1803, p. 700, and the first half of =D= (with alterations) in his preface, Popular Ballads, I, 320. The ballad, he says, is very popular all over Scotland. Robin has married a wife of too high kin to bake or brew, wash or wring. He strips off a wether’s skin and lays it on her back, or prins her in it. He dares not beat her, for her proud kin, but he may beat the wether’s skin, and does. This makes an ill wife good. A fragment in Herd’s MSS, I, 105, II, 161, belongs, if not to this ballad, at least to one in which an attempt is made to tame a shrew by castigation. ‘Now tak a cud in ilka hand And bace[90] her up and doun, man, And she’ll be an o the best wives That ever took the town, man.’ * * * * *