C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Johnie Cock
By The Ballad
1.
UP Johnie raise in a May morning, | Calld for water to wash his hands, | And he has called for his gude gray hounds | That lay bound in iron bands, bands, | That lay bound in iron bands. 2. | “Ye’ll busk, ye’ll busk my noble dogs, | Ye’ll busk and make them boun, | For I’m going to the Braidscaur hill | To ding the dun deer doun.” 3. | Johnie’s mother has gotten word o’ that, | And care-bed she has ta’en: | “O Johnie, for my benison, | I beg you’ll stay at hame; | For the wine so red, and the well-baken bread, | My Johnie shall want nane. 4. | “There are seven forsters at Pickeram Side, | At Pickeram where they dwell, | And for a drop of thy heart’s bluid | They wad ride the fords of hell.” 5. | But Johnie has cast off the black velvet, | And put on the Lincoln twine, | And he is on the goode greenwood | As fast as he could gang. 6. | Johnie lookit east, and Johnie lookit west, | And he lookit aneath the sun, | And there he spied the dun deer sleeping | Aneath a buss o’ whun. 7. | Johnie shot, and the dun deer lap, | And she lap wondrous wide, | Until they came to the wan water, | And he stem’d her of her pride. 8. | He has ta’en out the little pen-knife, | ’Twas full three quarters long, | And he has ta’en out of that dun deer | The liver but and the tongue. 9. | They eat of the flesh, and they drank of the blood, | And the blood it was so sweet, | Which caused Johnie and his bloody hounds | To fall in a deep sleep. 10. | By then came an old palmer, | And an ill death may he die! | For he’s away to Pickeram Side | As fast as he can drie. 11. | “What news, what news?” says the Seven Forsters, | “What news have ye brought to me?” | “I have no news,” the palmer said, | “But what I saw with my eye. 12. | “As I came in by Braidisbanks, | And down among the whuns, | The bonniest youngster e’er I saw | Lay sleepin amang his hunds. 13. | “The shirt that was upon his back | Was o’ the holland fine; | The doublet which was over that | Was o’ the Lincoln twine.” 14. | Up bespake the Seven Forsters, | Up bespake they ane and a’: | “O that is Johnie o’ Cockleys Well, | And near him we will draw.” 15. | O the first stroke that they gae him, | They struck him off by the knee; | Then up bespake his sister’s son: | “O the next ’ll gar him die!” 16. | “O some they count ye well wight men, | But I do count ye nane; | For you might well ha’ waken’d me, | And ask’d gin I wad be ta’en.” 17. | “The wildest wolf as in a’ this wood | Wad not ha’ done so by me; | She’d ha’ wet her foot i’ the wan water, | And sprinkled it o’er my brae, | And if that wad not ha’ waken’d me, | She wad ha’ gone and let me be. 18. | “O bows of yew, if ye be true, | In London, where ye were bought, | Fingers five, get up belive, | Manhuid shall fail me nought.” 19. | He has kill’d the Seven Forsters, | He has kill’d them all but ane, | And that wan scarce to Pickeram Side, | To carry the bode-words hame. 20. | “Is there never a [bird] in a’ this wood | That will tell what I can say; | That will go to Cockleys Well, | Tell my mither to fetch me away?” 21. | There was a [bird] into that wood, | That carried the tidings away, | And many ae was the well-wight man | At the fetching o’ Johnie away.
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