The English and Scottish Popular Ballads/Part 1/Chapter 28

by Francis James Child

28

Burd Ellen and Young Tamlane

Maidment's North Countrie Garland, 1824, p. 21. Communicated by R. Pitcairn, "from the recitation of a female relative, who had heard it frequently sung her childhood," about sixty years before the above date.

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Motherwell informs us, Minstrelsy, p. xciv of Introduction, note to 141, that 'Burd Helen and Young Tamlene' is very popular, and that various sets of it are to be found traditionally current (1827). Still I have not found it, out of Maidment's little book; not even in Motherwell's large folio.

I cannot connect this fragment with what is elsewhere handed down concerning Tamlane, or with the story of any other ballad.

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1 Burd Ellen sits in her bovrer windovre,
 With a double laddy double, and for the
double dow
Twisting the red silk and the blue.
 With the double rose and the May-hay

2 And whiles she twisted, and whiles she twan,
And whiles the tears fell down amang.

3 Till once there by cam Young Tamlane:
'Come light, oh light, and rock your young son.'

4 'If you winna rock him, you may let him rair,
For I hae rockit my share and mair.'

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5 Young Tamlane to the seas he's gane,
And a' women's curse in his company's gane.