Volume 5 / Part 3 — 291
Reading edition
CHILD OWLET
‘Childe Owlet,’ Buchan’s Ballads of the North of Scotland, I, 27; Motherwell’s MS., p. 572.
Lady Erskine invites Child Owlet to be her paramour. Child Owlet revolts at the suggestion; he is sister’s son to Lord Ronald. The lady cuts herself with a penknife sufficiently to draw blood; Lord Ronald hears her moaning, comes in, and asks what blood this is; his wife gives him to understand that Child Owlet has offered her violence. A council is held upon the case, and the youth is condemned to be torn by four horses. There was not a twig or a rush on the moor that was not dropping with his blood.
The chain of gold in the first stanza and the penknife below the bed in the fourth have a false ring, and the story is of the tritest. The ballad seems at best to be a late one, and is perhaps mere imitation, but, for an imitation, the last two stanzas are unusually successful.
1 Lady Erskine sits in her chamber, Sewing at her silken seam, A chain of gold for Childe Owlet, As he goes out and in. 2 But it fell ance upon a day She unto him did say, Ye must cuckold Lord Ronald, For a’ his lands and ley. 3 ‘O cease! forbid, madam,’ he says, ‘That this shoud eer be done! How would I cuckold Lord Ronald, And me his sister’s son?’ 4 Then she’s ta’en out a little penknife, That lay below her bed, Put it below her green stay’s cord, Which made her body bleed. 5 Then in it came him Lord Ronald, Hearing his lady’s moan; ‘What blood is this, my dear,’ he says, ‘That sparks on the fire-stone?’ 6 ‘Young Childe Owlet, your sister’s son, Is now gane frae my bower; If I hadna been a good woman, I’d been Childe Owlet’s whore.’ 7 Then he has taen him Childe Owlet, Laid him in prison strong, And all his men a council held How they woud work him wrong. 8 Some said they woud Childe Owlet hang, Some said they woud him burn; Some said they woud have Childe Owlet Between wild horses torn. 9 ‘There are horses in your stables stand Can run right speedilie, And ye will to your stable go, And wile out four for me.’ 10 They put a foal to ilka foot, And are to ilka hand, And sent them down to Darling muir, As fast as they coud gang. 11 There was not a kow in Darling muir, Nor ae piece o a rind, But drappit o Childe Owlet’s blude And pieces o his skin. 12 There was not a kow in Darling muir, Nor ae piece o a rash, But drappit o Childe Owlet’s blude And pieces o his flesh.