_Burden._ #b.# I the brave night sae early:
#d.# I (_or_ O) the life o the one, the randy.
2^1. #c.# years that tide; that tide _is written over_ of age _in_ #a#.
#c.# best of tho. of tho _is written over_ o them a _in_ #a#.
#c.# Now Earl Brand. Now _in the margin of_ #a#.
#c.# carl that wears, carl ... wears _written over_ man ... has _in_ #a#.
10. #b.# O lady fair, I'll no do that, I'll pay him penny, let him be jobbing at.
#c.# My own lady fair, I'll not do that, I'll pay him his fee
13. #b.# She is my sick sister, Which I newly brought from Winchester.
#c.# For she is, I trow, my sick sister, Whom I have been bringing fra Winchester.
15^2. #b, c.# What makes her wear the gold sae high.
16^1. #c.# When came the carl to the lady's yett.
#d.# She's out with the fair maids playing at the ball.
19. #c.# I met her far beyond the lea With the young Earl Brand, his leman to be:
_In ~a lea~ is written over ~moor~, and ~With the young~, etc., stands as a "correction."_
20. #b.# Her father, _etc._, And they have riden after them.
#c.# Her father of his best men armed fifteen, And they're ridden after them bidene.
21^1. #b, c.# The lady looket [looked] over [owre] her left shoulder then.
22^1. #b, c.# If they come on me one by one,
22^2. #b.# Ye may stand by and see them fall.
#c.# You may stand by till the fights be done.
23^2. #d.# Then you will see me the sooner fall.
24. #c.# They came upon him one by one, Till fourteen battles he has won. And fourteen men he has them slain, Each after each upon the plain.
25. #c.# But the fifteenth man behind stole round, And dealt him a deep and a deadly wound.
26. #c.# Though he was wounded to the deid, He set his lady on her steed.
#c.# And there they lighted to wash his wound.
#c.# It's nothing but the glent and my scarlet hood.
#c.# So faint and feebly he rapped thereat.
30^1. #b.# O my son's slain and cut down.
#c.# O my son's slain, he is falling to swoon.
32. #b.# ... death of only one, But it's been the death of fair seventeen.
To a maiden true he'll give his hand, To the king's daughter o fair England, To a prize that was won by a slain brother's brand.
3. _A stanza resembling this is found in Beaumont and Fletcher's 'Knight of the Burning Pestle' (1611), Dyce, II, 172, but may belong to some other ballad, as_ 'The Knight and Shepherd's Daughter:'