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 deck'd 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 o'er 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 deck'd with the eastern wind, And the cold rain on your breast.'
[Annotations: 2.4: 'weed,' dress. 4.2: 'camovine,' camomile. 5.3: 'coot,' ankle. 5.4: 'brawn,' calf.]
'He is weil kend, Johne of the Syde, A greater theif did never ryde.'
+The Text+ is from the Percy Folio, but is given in modernised spelling. It lacks the beginning, probably, and one line in st. 3, which can be easily guessed; but as a whole it is an infinitely fresher and better ballad than that inserted in the _Minstrelsy_ of Sir Walter Scott.
+The Story+ is akin to that of _Kinmont Willie_ (p. 49). John of the Side (on the river Liddel, nearly opposite Mangerton) first appears about 1550 in a list of freebooters against whom complaints were laid before the Bishop of Carlisle. He was, it seems, another of the Armstrong family.
Hobby Noble has a ballad[1] to himself (as the hero of the present ballad deserves), in which mention is made of Peter of Whitfield. This is doubtless the person mentioned in the first line of _John o' the Side_ as having been killed presumably by John himself.
[Footnote 1: Child, No. 189, from Caw's _Poetical Museum_, but not of sufficient merit to be included here.]
'Culertun,' 10.1, is Chollerton on the Tyne. Percy suggests Challerton, and in the ballads upon which Scott founded his version the name is 'Choler-ford.' 'Howbrame wood' and 'Lord Clough' are not identified; and Flanders files, effective as they appear to be, are not otherwise known.