Ed de Moel

Child Ballads - Narrative

The Gardener

  1. Kinloch Manuscripts, V, 47. 'The Gardener,' Kinloch Manuscripts, VII, 19; Kinloch's Ancient Scottish Ballads, p. 74. Version A
  2. The Gardener Lad,' Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, II, 187. Version B
  3. Fragment communicated by Dr. Thomas Davidson. Version C

A gardener will apparel a maid from head to foot with flowers, if she will be his bride. He gets a wintry answer: the snow shall be his shirt, the wind his hat, the rain his coat.

B 1-6 is mere jargon, foisted into this pretty ballad as a preface.

A 7, B 15, C 3, is found, substantially, in the preceding ballad, and perhaps belonged originally to neither.

Freely translated from A and B by Rosa Warrens, Schottische Volkslieder, p. 134, No 30.

This page most recently updated on 06-Mar-2011, 09:20:12.
Return to main index