Another ballad, shortened. Raymond Crooke performs it.
O JELLON GRAME sat in Silver Wood,
He whistled and he sang,
And he has calld his little foot-page,
His errand for to gang.
‘Win up, my bonny boy,’ he says,
‘As quick as eer you may;
For ye maun gang for Lillie Flower,
Before the break of day.’
The boy he’s buckled his belt about,
And thro the green-wood ran,
And he came to the ladie’s bower-door,
Before the day did dawn.
‘Ye are bidden come to Silver Wood,
But I fear you’ll never win hame;
Ye are bidden come to Silver Wood,
And speak wi Jellon Grame.’
‘O I will gang to Silver Wood,
Though I shoud never win hame;
For the thing I most desire on earth
Is to speak wi Jellon Grame.
She had no ridden a mile, a mile,
A mile but barely three,
Ere she came to a new made grave,
Beneath a green oak tree.
O then up started Jellon Grame,
Out of a bush hard bye:
‘Light down, light down now, Lillie Flower,
For it’s here that ye maun ly.’
She lighted aff her milk-white steed,
And knelt upon her knee:
‘O mercy, mercy, Jellon Grame!
For I’m nae prepar’d to die.
‘Your bairn, that stirs between my sides,
Maun shortly see the light;
But to see it weltring in my blude
Woud be a piteous sight.’
‘O shoud I spare your life,’ he says,
‘Until that bairn be born,
I ken fu well your stern father
Woud hang me on the morn.’
‘O spare my life now, Jellon Grame!
My father ye neer need dread;
I’ll keep my bairn i the good green wood,
Or wi it I’ll beg my bread.’
He took nae pity on that ladie,
Tho she for life did pray;
But pierced her thro the fair body,
As at his feet she lay.
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