#A.# Kinloch MSS, V, 47. ‘The Gardener,’ Kinloch MSS, VII, 19;
Kinloch’s Ancient Scottish Ballads, p. 74.
#B.# ‘The Gardener Lad,’ Buchan’s Ballads of the North of Scotland,
II, 187.
#C.# Fragment communicated by Dr Thomas Davidson.
A gardener will apparel a maid from head to foot with flowers, if she
will be his bride. He gets a wintry answer: the snow shall be his shirt,
the wind his hat, the rain his coat.
#B# 1–6 is mere jargon, foisted into this pretty ballad as a preface.
#A# 7, #B# 15, #C# 3, is found, substantially, in the preceding ballad,
and perhaps belonged originally to neither.
Freely translated from #A# and #B# by Rosa Warrens, Schottische
Volkslieder, p. 134, No 30.
* * * * *
A
Kinloch MSS, V, 47, in the handwriting of James Beattie; from the
recitation of his aunt, Miss Elizabeth Beattie.
1
The gardener stands in his bower-door,
With a primrose in his hand,
And by there came a leal maiden,
As jimp ‘s a willow wand.
And by, etc.
2
‘O lady, can you fancy me,
For to be my bride,
You’ll get a’ the flowers in my garden,
To be to you a weed.
3
‘The lily white shall be your smock;
Becomes your body neat;
And your head shall be deckd with jelly-flower,
And the primrose in your breast.
4
‘Your gown shall be o the sweet-william,
Your coat o camovine,
And your apron o the salads neat,
That taste baith sweet and fine.
5
‘Your stockings shall be o the broad kail-blade,
That is baith broad and long;
And narrow, narrow at the coot,
And broad, broad at the brawn.
6
‘Your gloves shall be the marygold,
All glittering to your hand,
Well spread oer wi the blue blaewort,
That grows in corn-land.’
7
‘O fare you well, young man,’ she says,
‘Farewell, and I bid adieu;
Since you’ve provided a weed for me,
Among the summer flowers,
Then I’ll provide another for you,
Among the winter showers.
8
‘The new-fallen snow to be your smock;
Becomes your body neat;
And your head shall be deckd with the eastern wind,
And the cold rain on your breast.’
* * * * *
B