"O gin I be King Honour's son, 125 By our Ladye I swear, This night I will that traitor slay, And relieve my mother dear!"--
He has set his bent bow to his breast, And leaped the castell wa'; 130 And soon he has seized on Fause Foodrage, Wha loud for help 'gan ca'.
"O haud your tongue, now, Fause Foodrage, Frae me ye shanna flee;"-- Syne pierced him through the fause, fause heart, 135 And set his mother free.
And he has rewarded Wise William Wi' the best half o' his land; And sae has he the turtle dow Wi' the truth o' his right hand. 140
From Kinloch's _Ancient Scottish Ballads_, p. 123.
"There is a prevalent belief among seafaring people, that if a person who has committed any heinous crime be on ship-board, the vessel, as if conscious of its guilty burden, becomes unmanageable, and will not sail till the offender be removed: to discover whom, they usually resort to the trial of those on board, by casting lots; and the individual upon whom the lot falls, is declared the criminal, it being believed that Divine Providence interposes in this manner to point out the guilty person."--KINLOCH.
Motherwell is inclined to think this an Irish ballad, though popular in Scotland.
With Bonnie Annie may be compared _Jon Rimaardsöns Skriftemaal_, _Danske Viser_, ii. 220; or, _Herr Peders Sjöresa, Svenska Folk-Visor_, ii. 31, Arwiddson, ii. 5 (translated in _Literature and Romance of Northern Europe_, 276).
There was a rich lord, and he lived in Forfar, He had a fair lady, and one only dochter. O she was fair, O dear! she was bonnie, A ship's captain courted her to be his honey.
There cam a ship's captain out owre the sea sailing, 5 He courted this young thing till he got her wi' bairn:-- "Ye'll steal your father's gowd, and your mother's money, And I'll mak ye a lady in Ireland bonnie."
She's stown her father's gowd and her mother's money, But she was never a lady in Ireland bonnie. 10 * * *
*"There's fey fowk in our ship, she winna sail for me, There's fey fowk in our ship, she winna sail for me." They've casten black bullets twice six and forty, And ae the black bullet fell on bonnie Annie.
"Ye'll tak me in your arms twa, lo, lift me cannie, 15 Throw me out owre board, your ain dear Annie." He has tane her in his arms twa, lo, lifted her cannie, He has laid her on a bed of down, his ain dear Annie.