| B. |
The title, 'The Broom o the Cathery Knowes,'
is not prefixed to the ballad, but is given in
the Index.
54. Changed by Mothenvell to many 's the mile,
as in 1.
12. Hey the broom, &c. |
| C. |
This version, which the Rev, E. Venables has
also communicated to me in manuscript, was
tagged on to a fragment of 'Hugh of Lincoln.'
After 4: "Mother, brother, sister, uncle, aunt,
etc., succeed. At last comes the own true
love, who replies." |
| B. |
23,4. Restored from stanza 5. |
| F. |
"It was sung in Forfarshire forty years ago by girls during
the progress of some game, which I do not now distinctly
recollect. A lady, at the point of being executed, cries Stop,
stop! I think I see my father coming. Then, addressing her
father, she asks," as in stanza 2; "to which the father
replies," as in stanza 3. "Mother, brother, sister, are
each addressed in turn, and give the same answer. Last of all the
fair sinner sees her lover coming, and on putting the question to
him is answered thus," as in stanza, 4; "whereupon the
game ends." W.F. (2), Saline Manse, Fife. |
| G. a. |
Before stanza 1: "I think the title of this ballad is
'The Golden Key.' The substance of it is that a woman has lost a
gold key, and is about to be hung, when she exclaims, as in
stanza 1. Then follows " stanza 2. After 2:
"Father, mother, brother, sister, all in turn come up, and have
not found the lost key. At last the sweet-heart appears, who
exclaims triumphantly," as in stanza 3. "I write this from
memory. I never saw it in print." H. Fishwick. |
| b. |
"A lady writes to me, My mother used to
hear, in Lancashire and Cheshire, a ballad
of which she only recollects three lines:
And I 'm not come to set you free,
But I am come to see you hanged,
All under the gallows-tree.
The last line was repeated, I believe, in
every verse." William Andrews. |
| H. a. |
The verses form part of a Yorkshire story
called The Golden Ball. A man gives
a golden ball to each of two lasses, and if
either loses the ball she is to be hanged.
The younger, while playing with her ball,
tosses it over a park-paling; the ball runs
away over the grass into a house, and is
seen no more.
"Now t' lass was taken to York to be
hanged. She was brought out on t' scaffold, and t' hangman said, Now, lass, tha
must hang by t' neck till tha be'st dead.
But she cried out, Stop, stop," etc., stanzas
1-3.
"Then the hangman said. Now, lass, say
thy prayers, for tha must dee." Stanzas
4-6 follow. The maid thinks she sees her
brother coming, her sister, uncle, aunt,
cousin. The Hangman then says, "I
wee-nt stop no longer, tha 's making gam
of me. Tha must be hung at once. But
now she saw her sweetheart coming through
the crowd, and he had over head i t' air
her own golden ball. So she said," as in
stanzas 7-9. |
| b. |
Miss Kate Thompson, of Newcastle-on-Tyne, had when
a child frequently been
told the story of The Golden Ball by a
woman who was a native of the Borderland. A rich lady possessed a golden
ball, which she held in high esteem. A
poor girl, her servant, had to clean this
ball every day, and it was death to lose
it. One day when she was cleaning the
ball near a stream it disappeared. The
girl was condemned to die, and had
mounted the scaffold. The story was all
in prose up to the execution, when the
narrator broke into rhyme:
'Stop the rope! stop the rope!
For here I see my mother coming.
'Oh mother, have you brought the golden ball,
And come to set me free?
Or are you only here to see me die,
Upon the high, high gallows-tree?'
The mother answers that she has only come to see her die.
Other relatives follow, and last of all comes the lover, who
produces the ball, and the execution is stopped. Miss Thompson
adds that two Northumbrian servants in her house remember the
story so. |
