_In_ Old English Ditties, _etc._ (_perhaps Oxenford’s changes_): 1^1. when we set. 1^3. a fair pretty maid. 2^4. this night. 3^4. they will. 4^1. Then three times round went. 4^3. they both went down. 4^4. As she sunk to. _Burden_: 4. And the land-lubbers lying down below, below, below. 5. And the landsmen were all down below. _6. Wanting._ =D. b.= 1 On Friday morning as we set sail, It was not far from land, O there I espy’d a fair pretty girl, With the comb and the glass in her hand. O the stormy winds they did blow, And the raging seas did roar, While we poor sailors go up to the top, And the land-lubbers lie down below. 2 Then up spoke a boy of our gallant ship, And a well-spoken boy was he; ‘I’ve a father and mother in fair Portsmouth town, And this night they will weep for me.’ 3 Then up spoke a man of our gallant ship, And a well-spoken man was he; ‘I have married a wife in fair London town, And this night a widow she shall be.’ 4 Then up spoke the captain of our gallant ship, And a valiant man was he; ‘For want of a long-boat we shall all be drowned,’ So she sunk to the bottom of the sea. 5 The moon shone bright, and the stars gave light, And my mother is looking for me; She might look, she might weep, with watery eyes, She might look to the bottom of the sea. _A broadside by Birt, otherwise like Such’s, adds_: Three times round went our gallant ship, And three times round went she; Three times round went our gallant ship, Then she sunk to the bottom of the sea. British Museum, 11621. k. 5 (167). =E. b.= 1 O up and spak the bonnie mermaid, Wi the glass and the kaim in her hand; ‘Reek about, reek about, ye mariners all, For ye’re not very far from the land.’ =F.= 3^2. was she. 290 THE WYLIE WIFE OF THE HIE TOUN HIE =A.= ‘My lady ye shall be,’ “Scotch Ballads, Materials for Border Minstrelsy,” Thomas Wilkie’s MS., p. 74, Abbotsford. =B.= John Struthers, The British Minstrel, 1821, I, XXV. =C.= ‘The Bonnie Lass o the Hie Toun End.’ Communicated by Mr David Louden, of Morham, Haddington, 1873. =D.= ‘The Flowers of Edinburgh,’ Gibb MS., No 14, p. 57. This ballad, which Motherwell pronounces to be “of some antiquity and of considerable popularity,” is of the same pernicious tenor as ‘The Broom o Cowdenknows,’ with the aggravation of treachery. The dénoûment is similar in ‘The Dainty Downby,’ Herd’s MSS, I, 45, printed in his Scottish Songs, 1776, II, 232, ‘The Laird o the Dainty Downby,’ Kinloch MSS, V, 145, and in ‘The Laird o Keltie,’ Kinloch MSS, I, 363, ‘The Young Laird o Keltie,’ III, 107, Motherwell MS., p. 21, both of one pattern, and that quite trashy. A