& woe is me,
Heere lyes my sweete hart roote!'

28.
& the 2d. thing that this ladie stumbled on,
Was of Sir Gyles his head;
Sayes, 'Euer alacke, & woe is me,
Heere lyes my true loue deade!'

29.
Hee cutt the papps beside her brest,
& bad her wish her will,
& he cutt the eares beside her heade,
& bade her wish on still.

30.
'Mickle is the man's blood I haue spent
To doe thee & me some good';
Sayes, 'Euer alacke, my fayre Lady,
I thinke that I was woode!'

31.
He call'd then vp his litle foote page,
& made him heyre of all his land,
... ... ...
... ... ...

32.
& he shope the crosse in his right sholder
Of the white flesh & the redd,
& he went him into the holy land,
Wheras Christ was quicke and dead.

[Annotations:
2.1: 'Lin,' a stock ballad-locality: cp. _Young Bekie_, 5.4.
5.3: 'vnbethought.' The same expression occurs in two other places
in the Percy Folio, each time apparently in the same sense of
'bethought [him] of.'
6.1,3: 'Four and twenty': the Folio gives '24' in each case.
8.1: 'sikt,' sighed. The Folio reads _sist_.
11.1, 12.1: The Folio reads _bookes man_; but see 15.1.
14.2: 'thye,' thrive: the Folio reads _dye_.
19.1: '&' = an, if.
20.3: 'next': the Folio reads _first_ again; probably the copyist's
error.
23.4: 'ginne,' door-latch.
24.4: 'quicke,' alive. The last word was added by Percy in the Folio.
25.4: Added by Hales and Furnivall.
26.1,2: _light_ and _bright_ are interchanged in the Folio.
32.3: 'went': the Folio gives _sent_.]

LITTLE MUSGRAVE AND LADY BARNARD

+The Text+ here given is the version printed, with very few variations,
in _Wit Restor'd_, 1658, _Wit and Drollery_, 1682, Dryden's
_Miscellany_, 1716, etc. The Percy Folio contains a fragmentary version,
consisting of some dozen stanzas. Child says that all the Scottish
versions are late, and probably derived, though taken down from oral
tradition, from printed copies. As recompense, we have the Scotch _Bonny
Birdy_.

+The Story+ would seem to be purely English. That it was popular long
before the earliest known text is proved by quotations from it in old
plays: as from _Fair Margaret and Sweet William_. Merrythought in _The
Knight of the Burning Pestle_ (1611) sings from this ballad a version of
stanza 14, and Beaumont and Fletcher also put quotations into the mouths
of characters in _