Glen Collection of printed music > Printed text > Scottish ballads

306
THE LOCHMABEN HARPER.*
O HEARD ye na o' the silly blind Harper,
That lived lang in Lochmaben toun ;
How he did gang to fair England,
To steal King Henry's Wanton Broun ? -j-
But first he gaed to his gude wife,
Wi' a' the haste that he could thole ::j:
" This wark," quo' he, " will ne'er gae weel,
Without a meare that has a foal."
Quoth she, " Thou has a gude grey meare,
That can rin ower baith laigh and hie ;
Gae, tak the grey meare in thy hand.
And leave the foal at harae wi' me.
And tak the halter in thy hose,§
And o' thy purpose dinna fail ;
But tie it ower the Wanton's nose.
And tie her to the grey meare's tail.
Syne ca' her out at yon back yett,
Ower moss, and muir, and ilka dale ;
For she'll ne'er let the Wanton bite.
Till she come hame to her ain foal.
* It is not improbable that this ballad is as old as the time of the earlier
of the English Henries. The editor of the Border Minstrelsy remarks that
it seems to be the most modern in which the harp, as a Border instrument
of music, is found to occur. But the wliole incident surely implies a very
early and primitive system of manners, not to speak of the circumstance of
the court being held at Carlisle, which never was the case in any late period
of English history. The language and versification of the ballad, more-
over, appear to the present editor more nearly akin to the older composi-
tions of the minstrels, than those of almost any other piece of the kind now
popular.
t A horse so called. t Suffer.
§ The hose were the wide breeches worn by our ancestors down to the
reign of James I. and VI., and of which so extravagant an account is given
in Hudibras. From the allusion in the text, they appear to have been used
as receptacles or pockets for the stowage of miscellaneous articles.