The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border

This ballad was communicated to me by Mr Kirkpatrick Sharpe of Hoddom, who mentions having copied it from an old magazine.  Although it has probably received some modern corrections, the general turn seems to be ancient, and corresponds with that of a fragment, containing the following verses, which I have often heard sung in my childhood:—­

She set her back against a thorn,
And there she has her young son borne;
“O smile nae sae, my bonny babe! 
“An ye smile sae sweet, ye’ll smile me dead.”

* * * *

An’ when that lady went to the church,
She spied a naked boy in the porch,

“O bonnie boy, an’ ye were mine,
“I’d clead ye in the silks sae fine.” 
“O mither dear, when I was thine,
“To me ye were na half sae kind.”

* * * *

Stories of this nature are very common in the annals of popular superstition.  It is, for example, currently believed in Ettrick Forest, that a libertine, who had destroyed fifty-six inhabited houses, in order to throw the possessions of the cottagers into his estate, and who added to this injury, that of seducing their daughters, was wont to commit, to a carrier in the neighbourhood, the care of his illegitimate children, shortly after they were born.  His emissary regularly carried them away, but they were never again heard of.  The unjust and cruel gains of the profligate laird were dissipated by his extravagance, and the ruins of his house seem to bear witness to the truth of the rhythmical prophecies denounced against it, and still current among the peasantry.  He himself died an untimely death; but the agent of his amours and crimes survived to extreme old age.  When on his death-bed, he seemed much oppressed in mind, and sent for a clergyman to speak peace to his departing spirit:  but, before the messenger returned, the man was in his last agony; and the terrified assistants had fled from his cottage, unanimously averring, that the wailing of murdered infants had ascended from behind his couch, and mingled with the groans of the departing sinner.