Note 225 — Chapter XI
Reading edition
A ballad is still sung in the district around Frendraught, which, says Motherwell, “has a high degree of poetic merit, and probably was written at the time by an eye-witness of the event which it records.” We give a few verses from the version in Motherwell’s Minstrelsy, as quoted in the Appendix to Spalding, vol. i. p. 409.
“The eighteenth of October, A dismal tale to hear, How good Lord John and Rothiemay Was both burnt in the fire. They had not long cast off their cloaths, And were but now asleep— When the weary smoke began to rise, Likewise the scorching heat. ‘O waken, waken, Rothiemay, O waken, brother dear, And turn you to our Saviour, There is strong treason here.’ He did him to the wire-window As fast as he could gang— Says—‘Wae to the hands put in the stancheons, For out we’ll never win.’ Cried—‘Mercy, mercy, Lady Frendraught, Will ye not sink with sin? For first your husband killed my father, And now you burn his son.’ O then out spoke her, Lady Frendraught, And loudly did she cry— ‘It were great pity for good Lord John, But none for Rothiemay. But the keys are casten in the deep draw well, Ye cannot get away.’ While he stood in this dreadful plight, Most piteous to be seen, There called out his servant Gordon, As he had frantic been. ‘O loup, O loup, my dear master, O loup and come to me; I’ll catch you in my arms two, One foot I will not flee.’ ‘But I cannot loup, I cannot come, I cannot win to thee; My head’s fast in the wire-window, My feet burning from me. ‘Take here the rings from my white fingers, That are so long and small, And give them to my Lady fair, Where she sits in her hall. ‘So I cannot loup, I cannot come, I cannot loup to thee— My earthly part is all consumed, My spirit but speaks to thee.’ Wringing her hands, tearing her hair, His Lady she was seen, And thus addressed his servant Gordon, Where he stood on the green. ‘O wae be to you, George Gordon, An ill death may you die, So safe and sound as you stand there, And my Lord bereaved from me.’ ‘I bade him loup, I bade him come, I bade him loup to me, I’d catch him in my arms two, A foot I should not flee.’ And aft she cried, ‘Ohon! alas, alas, A sair heart’s ill to win; I wan a sair heart when I married him, And the day it’s well return’d again.’”