The Project Gutenberg eBook of The King's Wake, Edited by Thomas J. Wise,
Translated by George Borrow

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Title: The King's Wake
and Other Ballads

Editor: Thomas J. Wise

Release Date: December 4, 2008 [eBook #27409]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE KING'S WAKE***

Transcribed from the 1913 Thomas J. Wise pamphlet by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org. Many thanks to Norfolk and Norwich Millennium Library,
UK, for kindly supplying the images from which this transcription was
made.

THE KING'S WAKE
AND OTHER BALLADS

BY
GEORGE BORROW

LONDON:
PRINTED FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION
1913

THE KING'S WAKE

To-night is the night that the wake they hold,
To the wake repair both young and old.

Proud Signelil she her mother address'd:
"May I go watch along with the rest?"

"O what at the wake wouldst do my dear?
Thou'st neither sister nor brother there.

"Nor brother-in-law to protect thy youth,
To the wake thou must not go forsooth.

"There be the King and his warriors gay,
If me thou list thou at home wilt stay."

"But the Queen will be there and her maiden crew,
Pray let me go, mother, the dance to view."

So long, so long begged the maiden young,
That at length from her mother consent she wrung.

"Then go, my child, if thou needs must go,
But thy mother ne'er went to the wake I trow."

Then through the thick forest the maiden went,
To reach the wake her mind was bent.

When o'er the green meadows she had won,
The Queen and her maidens to bed were gone.

And when she came to the castle gate
They were plying the dance at a furious rate.

There danced full many a mail-clad man,
And the youthful King he led the van.

He stretched forth his hand with an air so free,
"Wilt dance, thou pretty maid, with me?"

"O, sir, I've come across the wold
That I with the Queen discourse might hold."

"Come dance," said the King with a