+The Text+ is from the Skene MS., but I have omitted the three final
lines, which do not make a complete stanza, and, when compared with
Scott's 'Old Lady's' version, are obviously corrupt. The last verse
should signify that the mothers of Willie and Meggie went up and down
the bank saying, 'Clyde's water has done us wrong!'
The ballad is better known as _Willie and May Margaret_.
+The Story.+--Willie refuses his mother's request to stay at home, as he
wishes to visit his true-love. The mother puts her malison, or curse,
upon him, but he rides off. Clyde is roaring, but Willie says, 'Drown me
as I come back, but spare me as I go,' which is Martial's
'Parcite dum propero, mergite cum redeo,'
and occurs in other English broadsides. Meggie will not admit Willie,
and he rides away. Meggie awakes, and learns that she has dismissed her
true-love in her sleep. Our ballad is deficient here, but it is obvious
from st. 19 that both lovers are drowned. We must understand, therefore,
that Meggie follows Willie across Clyde. A variant of the ballad
explains that she found him 'in the deepest pot' in all Clyde's water,
and drowned herself.
Child notes that there is a very popular Italian ballad of much the same
story, except that the mother's curse is on the girl and not the man.
There is a curious change in the style of spelling from stanza 15 to the
end.