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The Twa Brothers
Elizabeth Stewart of Mintlaw, Aberdeenshire: On Autumn Harvest ah006: Old Songs & Bothy Ballads: Nick-knack on the Waa. Live from the Fife Traditional Singing Festival May 2007.
One of the classic big ballads - two boys are in a playful fight and one kills the other. The ballad still survives, as here, in the living tradition, although Francis J Child thought it was extinct in Scotland when he published his The English and Scottish Popular Ballads in 1882 (Child 49).
1 O two two pretty boys they were gaun tae the school,
An they were comin home;
Said the biggest boy to the littlest boy,
"O can you throw a stone,
O can you throw a stone."
2 "O I can neither throw a stone,
And it's little can I play at the ball;
But if you go down to the merry greenwood,
I will try you a wrestling fall,
I will try you a wrestling fall."
3 So they went down to this merry greenwood,
To try a wrestling fall;
There brother John took out his little penknife,
And stabbed William to the ground,
And stabbed William to the ground.
4 "O you'll tak off your white linen shirt,
And you'll tear it fae gore to gore;
An you'll a-wrap it roun the wound,
Till the blood will come no more,
An the blood will come no more."
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5 So he took off his white linen shirt,
And he tore it fae gore tae gore;
And he a-wrapped it roun the wound,
But the blood came ten times more,
But the blood came ten times more.
6 "It's what will your dear father think,
This night when you don't go home?"
"Tell him I'll go to a London school,
And like a good boy I'll come home,
And like a good boy I'll come home."
7 "It's what will your dear stepmither say
This night when you don't go home?"
"Tell her the last prayer she prayed for me,
That I would ne'er come home,
That I would ne'er come home."
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c p 2008 Autumn Harvest : www.springthyme.co.uk
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