Child Ballads - Narrative

Bonny Bee Hom

'Bonny Bee Ho'm,' Alexander Fraser Tytler's Brown Manuscript, No 6; Jamieson's Popular Ballads, 1, 185. Version A
'The Enchanted Ring,' Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, I, 169. Version B

A was given from the manuscript by Jamieson "verbatim," that is, with a few slight variations; the first stanza earlier, in the Scots Magazine, October, 1803, p. 700.

For the ring (chain, A 7) that makes a man invulnerable, and that which indicates by the discoloration of the stone that his love is dead or untrue, see 'Hind Horn,' I, 200 f; for the vows in A 3, 4, B 3, 'Clerk Saunders,' at p. 156 f of this volume.^[foot-note] The like vows are adopted into a song called 'The Lowlands of Holland,' found in Herd's Manuscripts, I, 97, and inserted in his Scottish Songs, 1776, II, 2; a fragment, but all that concerns us.^[foot-note]

1	'My love has built a bony ship, and set her on the sea, With seven score good mariners to bear her company; There 's three score is sunk, and three score dead at sea, And the Lowlands of Holland has twin'd my love and me.
2	'My love he built another ship, and set her on the main, And nane but twenty mariners for to bring her hame; But the weary wind began to rise, and the sea began to rout, My love then and his bonny ship turnd withershins about.
3	'There shall neither coif come on my head nor comb come in my hair; There shall neither coal nor candle-light shine in my bower mair; Nor will I love another one until the day I die, For I never lovd a love but one, and he 's drowned in the sea.'
4	'O had your tongue, my daughter dear, be still and be content; There are mair lads in Galloway, ye neen nae sair lament:' ' O there is none in Gallow, there 's none at a' for me, For I never lovd a love but one, and he 's drowned in the sea.'

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