P. 119 a. #Danish.# ‘De talende Strenge,’ Kristensen, Jyske
Folkeminder, X, 68, 375, No 19, #A-E#.
119 b. #Swedish.# ‘De två systrarna,’ Lagus, Nyländska Folkvisor, I,
27, No 7, _a_, _b_; the latter imperfect.
124 b. Bohemian, Waldau, Böhmische Granaten, II, 97, No 137 (with
the usual variations).
125 b, 493 b; II, 498 b; III, 499 a. Add: ‘Les roseaux qui
chantent,’ Revue des Traditions Populaires, IV, 463, V, 178; ‘La
rose de Pimperlé,’ Meyrac, Traditions, etc., des Ardennes, p. 486
ff.; ‘L’os qui chante,’ seven Walloon versions, E. Monseur, Bulletin
de Folklore Wallon, I, 39 ff.
128. #C.# ‘The Cruel Sister,’ “Scotch Ballads, Materials for Border
Minstrelsy,” No 16; communicated to Scott by Major Henry Hutton,
Royal Artillery, December 24, 1802 (Letters, I, No 77), as
recollected by his father “and the family.”
1
There were twa sisters in a bowr,
Binnorie, O Binnorie
The eldest was black and the youngest fair.
By the bonny milldams o Binnorie
After 13 (or as 14):
Your rosie cheeks and white hause-bane
Garrd me bide lang maiden at hame.
After 15:
The miller’s daughter went out wi speed
To fetch some water to make her bread.
After 17:
He coud not see her fingers sma,
For the goud rings they glistend a’.
He coud na see her yellow hair
For pearlin and jewels that were so rare.
And when he saw her white hause-bane
Round it hung a gouden chain.
He stretched her owt-our the bra
And moanëd her wi mekle wa.
“Then, at the end, introduce the following” (which, however, are not
traditional).
The last tune the harp did sing,
‘And yonder stands my false sister Alison.
‘O listen, listen, all my kin,
’Twas she wha drownd me in the lin.’
And when the harp this song had done
It brast a’ o pieces oer the stane.
“Alison. The writer of these additional stanzas understands the name was
Alison, and not Helen.” Alison occurs in #D#, #K#.
Pp. 133, 139. #L.# Anna Seward to Walter Scott, April 25–29, 1802:
Letters addressed to Sir Walter Scott, I, No 54, Abbotsford. “The
Binnorie of endless repetition has nothing truly pathetic, and the
ludicrous use made of the drowned sister’s body is well burlesqued in a
ridiculous ballad, which I first heard sung, with farcial grimace, in my
infancy [born 1747], thus:”
1
And O was it a pheasant cock,
Or eke a pheasant hen?
Or was it and a gay lady,
Came swimming down the stream?
2
O it was not a pheasant cock,
Or eke a pheasant hen,
But it was and a gay lady,
Came swimming down the stream.
3
And when she came to the mill-dam
The miller he took her body,
And with it he made him a fiddling thing,
To make him sweet melody.
4
And what did he do with her fingers small?
He made of them pegs to his vial.
5
And what did he do with her nose-ridge?
Why to his fiddle he made it a bridge.
Sing, O the damnd mill-dam, O
6
And what did he do with her veins so blue?
Why he made him strings his fiddle unto.
7
And what did he do with her two shins?
Why to his vial they dancd Moll Sims.
8
And what did he do with her two sides?
Why he made of them sides to his fiddle besides.
9
And what did he do with her great toes?
Why what he did with them that nobody knows.
Sing, O the damnd mill-dam, O
For 4, 5, 6, 7, see #A# 8, 9, 10, 13.
P. 137. MS. of Thomas Wilkie, p. 1, in “Scotch Ballads, Materials for
Border Minstrelsy,” No 32; taken down “from a Miss Nancy Brockie,
Bemerside.” 1813.
1
There were twa sisters sat in a bower,
By Nera and by Nora
The youngest was the fairest flower.
Of all the mill-dams of Bennora
2
It happened upon a bonnie summer’s day
The eldest to the youngest did say:
In the bonnie mill-dams of Bennora
3
‘We must go and we shall go
To see our brother’s ships come to land.’
In, etc. (_and throughout_).
4
‘I winna go and I downa go,
For weeting the corks o my coal-black shoes.’
5
She set her foot into a rash-bush,
To see how tightly she was dressd.
6
But the youngest sat upon a stone,
But the eldest threw the youngest in.
7
‘O sister, oh sister, come lend me your hand,
And draw my life into dry land!’
8
‘You shall not have one bit o my hand;
Nor will I draw you to dry land.’
9
‘O sister, O sister, come lend me your hand,
And you shall have Sir John and all his land.’
10
‘You shall not have one bit o my hand,
And I’ll have Sir John and all his land.
11
The miller’s daughter, clad in red,
Came for some water to bake her bread.
12
‘O father, O father, go fish your mill-dams,
For there either a swan or a drownd woman.’
13
You wad not have seen one bit o her waist,
The body was swelld, and the stays strait laced.
14
You wad not have seen one bit o her neck,
The chains of gold they hang so thick.
15
He has taen a tait of her bonnie yellow hair,
He’s tied it to his fiddle-strings there.
16
The verry first spring that that fiddle playd
Was, Blest be [the] queen, my mother! [it] has said.
17
The verry next spring that that fiddle playd
Was, Blest be Sir John, my own true-love!
18
The very next spring that that fiddle playd
Was, Burn my sister for her sins!
4^2. _Written at first_ my black heeld shoes.
12^2. swain.
17^2. thy own.