An Old Scottish Ballad

“O was it warwolf in the wood?
Or was it mermaid in the sea?
Or was it man, or vile woman,
My ain true love, that mishaped thee?”

(ain=own)

“It wasna warwolf in the wood,
Nor was it mermaid in the sea,
But it was my wicked step-mother,
And wae and weary may she be!”

(wae=woe)

From “Kempion,” in Walter Scott’s Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1803).