#C# was first published by David Herd, in the second edition of his Scottish Songs, 1776, and afterwards by Motherwell, "collated" with a copy obtained from recitation. #D#,[27] #E#, #F# are all broadside or stall copies, and in broadside style. #C#, #D#, #E#, #F# have nearly the same story. False Sir John, a knight from the south country [west country, north lands], entices May Colven, #C#, #D# [a king's daughter, #C# 16, #E# 16; a knight's daughter, Polly, #F# 4, 9], to ride off with him, employing, in #D#, a charm which he has stuck in her sleeve. At the knight's suggestion, #E#, #F#, she takes a good sum of money with her, #D#, #E#, #F#. They come to a lonely rocky place by the sea [river-side, #F#], and the knight bids her alight: he has drowned seven ladies here [eight #D#, six #E#, #F#], and she shall be the next. But first she is to strip off her rich clothes, as being too good to rot in the sea. She begs him to avert his eyes, for decency's sake, and, getting behind him, throws him into the water. In #F# he is absurdly sent for a sickle, to crop the nettles on the river brim, and is pushed in while thus occupied. He cries for help, and makes fair promises, #C#, #E#, but the maid rides away, with a bitter jest [on his steed, #D#, leading his steed, #E#, #F#], and reaches her father's house before daybreak. The groom inquires in #D# about the strange horse, and is told that it is a found one. The parrot asks what she has been doing, and is silenced with a bribe; and when the father demands why he was chatting so early, says he was calling to his mistress to take away the cat. Here #C#, #E#, #F# stop, but #D# goes on to relate that the maid at once tells her parents what has happened, and that the father rides off at dawn, under her conduct, to find Sir John. They carry off the corpse, which lay on the sands below the rocks, and bury it, for fear of discovery.
There is in Hone's Table Book, III, 130, ed. 1841, a _rifacimento_ by Dixon of the common English broadside in what passes for old-ballad style. This has been repeated in Richardson's Borderer's Table Book, VI, 367; in Dixon's Scottish Traditional Versions of Ancient Ballads, p. 101; and, with alterations, additions, and omissions, in Sheldon's Minstrelsy of the English Border, p. 194.