Glen Collection of printed music > Printed text > Scottish ballads

232
MAY COLLEAN.*
Oh, heard ye of a bludie knicht,
Lived in the south countrie ?
He has betrayed eight ladies fail",
And drouned them in the sea.
Then next he went to May Collean,
A maid of beauty rare ;
May Collean was this lady's name,
Her father's only heir.
'' I am a knicht of wealth and micht,
Of tounlands twenty-three ;
And you'll be lady of them a*,
If you will go with me."
" Excuse me, now, Sir John," she said ;
" To wed I am too young ;
Without I have my parents' leave,
Wi' you I daurna gang."
" Your parents' leave you soon shall have ;
In that they will agree ;
* " May Collean" first appeared, under the title of May Colvin, in Herd's
Collection. A more extended version afterwards appeared in Mr Sharpe's
Ballad Book. And Mr Motherwell has latterly printed Herd's copy, with
some alterations, from a recited version. The present set is composed, ac-
cording to the principle of this work, of the best verses of all these copies.
The ballad finds locality in that wild portion of the coast of Carrick,
(Ayrshire,) which intervenes betwixt Girvanand Ballantrae. Carlton Cas-
tle, about two miles to the south of Girvan, (a taU old ruin situated on the
brink of a bank which overhangs the sea, and which gives title to Sir John
Cathcart, Bart, of Carlton,) is affirmed by the country people, who still re-
member the story with great freshness, to have been the residence of " the
fause Sir John ;" while a taU rocky eminence, called Gamesloup, overhang-
ing the sea about two miles still farther south, and over which the road
passes in a style terrible to all travellers, is pointed out as the place where
he was in the habit of drowning his wives, and where he was finally drown-
ed himself. The people, who look upon the ballad as a regular and proper
record of an unquestionable fact, farther affirm that May CoUean was a
daughter of the family of Kennedy of Colzean, now represented by the
Earl of Cassilis, and that she became heir to all the immense wealth which
her husband had acquired by his former mal-practices, and accordingly lived
happy all the rest of her days.