_Chronicle_ reads--
'A bowe, redy to drawe.'
13.6: 'rescous,' rescue. Another edition has 'socurs.'
15.7: 'abowe,' above; 'roue,' roof.
18.7: 'hele,' health.
19.3: 'here,' hair; 'ere,' ear.
19.9: 'And,' If.
20.7: 'ensue,' follow.
22.2: The type is broken in the 1502 edition, which reads 'to say
be....'
23.6: 'yede,' went.
25.3: 'purueid (= purveyed) me,' provided myself.
26.9: 'moo' = mo, _i.e._ more.
30.10: 'echeon,' each one.]

FAIR JANET

+The Text.+--Of seven or eight variants of this ballad, only three
preserve the full form of the story. On the whole, the one here
given--from Sharp's _Ballad Book_, as sung by an old woman in
Perthshire--is the best, as the other two--from Herd's _Scots Songs_,
and the Kinloch MSS.--are slightly contaminated by extraneous matter.

+The Story+ is a simple ballad-tale of 'true-love twinned'; but the
episode of the dancing forms a link with a number of German and
Scandinavian ballads, in which compulsory dancing and horse-riding is
made a test of the guilt of an accused maiden. In the Scotch ballad the
horse-riding has shrunk almost to nothing, and the dancing is not
compulsory. The resemblance is faint, and the barbarities of the
Continental versions are happily wanting in our ballad.

FAIR JANET

1.
'Ye maun gang to your father, Janet,
Ye maun gang to him soon;
Ye maun gang to your father, Janet,
In case that his days are dune.'

2.
Janet's awa' to her father,
As fast as she could hie:
'O what's your will wi' me, father?
O what's your will wi' me?'

3.
'My will wi' you, Fair Janet,' he said,
'It is both bed and board;
Some say that ye lo'e Sweet Willie,
But ye maun wed a French lord.'

4.
'A French lord maun I wed, father?
A French lord maun I wed?
Then, by my sooth,' quo' Fair Janet,
'He's ne'er enter my bed.'

5.
Janet's awa' to her chamber,
As fast as she could go;
Wha's the first ane that tapped there,
But Sweet Willie her jo?

6.
'O we maun part this love, Willie,
That has been lang between;
There's a French lord coming o'er the sea,
To wed me wi' a ring;
There's a French lord coming o'er the sea,
To wed and tak' me hame.'

7.
'If we maun part this love, Janet,
It causeth mickle woe;
If we maun part this love, Janet,
It makes me into mourning go.'

8.
'But ye maun gang to your three sisters,