Note 226 — 169 JOHNIE ARMSTRONG

This copy I have in MS. and have not noted, neither can I remember, how I came by it, but it is probably a transcript from recent print. It diverges from the ordinary text more than any that I have seen. After 17 comes this stanza (cf. ‘Robin Hood rescuing Three Squires,’ No 140, B 29):

They took the gallows frae the slack,

An there they set it on a plain,

An there they hanged Johnnie Armstrong,

Wi fifty of his warlike men.

18–20, 23 are wanting. A “pretty little boy,” in what corresponds to 21, 22, says, ‘Johnnie Armstrong you’ll never see,’ and the lady ends the ballad with:

If that be true, my pretty little boy,

Aye the news you tell to me,

You’ll be the heir to a’my lands,

You an your young son after thee.