Cruel Mother - Traditional Scots Ballad
There was a lady lived in York
It was all alone and aloney
She fell in love with her father's clerk
Down by the Greenwood sidie
He courted her for a year and a day
It was all alone and aloney
Til he the young girl did betray
Down by the Greenwood sidie
She leaned her back against a thorn
And there she had two little babes born
She took her penknife keen and sharp
And pierced those two babes to the heart
She washed the penknife in the brook
But the more she washed, the redder it looked
As she was walking her father's hall
She spied two babes a'playing ball
Oh babes, babes if you were mine
I'd dress you up in silk so fine
Oh mother dear, when we were thine
You did not treat us then so kind
Oh babes, babes it's you can tell
What kind of death I'll have to die
Seven years a fish in the flood
And seven years a bird in the wood
Seven years a tongue in the morning bell
And seven years in the flames of Hell
Welcome, welcome fish in the flood
And welcome, welcome bird in the wood
Welcome, tongue in the morning bell
But God spare me from the flames in Hell