Page 312. TONE-POETRY OF ROBERT BURNS
No. 331. There lived a carl in Kelly burn braes.
Tune: The lass that made the bed to me, Scots Musical Mus. 1796, No. 448.
* * *
There lived a carl in Kellyburn braes,
(Hey and the rue grows bonie wi* thyme),
And he had a wife was the plague o' his days
(And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime).
Ae day as the carl gaed up the lang glen,
(Hey and the rue grows bonie wi' thyme),
He met wi' the devil, says :—' How do you fen ?'
(And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime).
' I've got a bad wife, sir : that's a' my complaint
(Hey and the rue grows bonie wi' thyme),
For, saving your presence, to her ye're a saint'
(And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime).
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Page 313. IX. MISCELLANEOUS
* * *
' It's neither your stot nor your staig I shall crave
(Hey and the rue grows bonie wi' thyme),
But gie me your wife, man, for her I must have'
(And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime).
'Oh! welcome, most kindly,' the blythe carl said
(Hey and the rue grows bonie wi' thyme),
' But if ye can match her,—ye're waur than ye're ca'd'
(And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime).
The devil has got the auld wife on his back
(Hey and the rue grows bonie wi' thyme),
And, like a poor pedlar, he 's carried his pack
(And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime).
He 's carried her hame to his ain hallan-door
(Hey and the rue grows bonie wi' thyme),
Syne bade her gae in for a bitch and a whore
(And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime).
Then straight he makes fifty, the pick o' his band
(Hey and the rue grows bonie wi' thyme),
Turn out on her guard in the clap o' a hand
(And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime).
The .carlin gaed thro' them like ony wud bear
(Hey and the rue grows bonie wi' thyme) :
Whae'er she gat hands on cam near her nae mair
(And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime).
A reekit wee deevil looks over the wa'
(Hey and the rue grows bonie wi' thyme) :
' O, help, master, help! or she'll ruin us a'!'
(And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime).
The devil he swore by the edge o' his knife
(Hey and the rue grows bonie wi' thyme),
He pitied the man that was tied to a wife
(And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime).
The devil be swore by the kirk and the bell
(Hey and the rue "grows bonie wi' thyme).
He was not in wedlock, thank Heaven, but in hell
(And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime).
Then Satan has travell'd again wi' his pack
(Hey and the rue grows bonie wi' thyme),
And to her auld husband he's carried her back
(And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime).
' I hae been a devil the feck o' my life
(Hey and the rue grows bonie wi' thyme),
But ne'er was in hell till I met wi' a wife
(And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime).
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Page 486. HISTORICAL NOTES
No. 331. There lived a earl in Kellyburn braes. Scots Musical Museum, 1792, No. _?7p, entitled Kellyburn braes. MS. in the British Museum. Another but indifferent version by Burns is in Aitken's edit. 1893. The Kelly burn is an upland stream separating the northern part of Ayrshire from Renfrew. Who the carl was is not recorded. The representation of a termagant is a very old story in English literature. The Schole-house of women, 1541, and the Curste Wyfe lapped in Morrelles Skin, c. 1575, are two metrical Gests of this kind. The earliest recorded English ballad entitled The devil and the scold, to the tune «f The Seminary Priest, in Collier's Book of Roxburgh Ballads, 1847, #, is probably of the time of Queen Elizabeth. The kind husband of this shrew permitted the devil to carry her away. She treated Satan so unmercifully that he regretted the choice and returned her to the husband. - This ballad was often reprinted in the seventeenth century; and the carl of Kellyburn braes is the same subject treated in a more gay and humorous manner. Cromek printed a version in Nithsdale and Calloway Songs, 1810, &), differing materially from
Page 487. IX. MISCELLANEOUS
Barns and represented to be the Burns original, which I do not .believe. A fragment on the subject is in the Herd MS. as follows:—
- 'Now take a Cud in ilka hand
- And bace her up and down, man
- And she'll be ane o' the best o' wives
- That ever took the town, man.'
The tune is a variant of the Queen of the Lothians, as it is probably also of Last May a braw wooer, Song No. 201.
