The Scottish songs - National Library of Scotland

623
KELLYBURNBRAES,
BURNS.
Tune—Kellyhurnlraes.
There lived a carle on Kellyburnbraes
(Hey, and the rue grows bonnie wi' thyme ;)
And he had a wife was the plague of his days
(And the thyme it is withered, and rue is in prime.)
Ae day, as the carle gaed up the lang glen,*
He met wi' the deevil, says, " How do ye fen' ?"
" I've got a bad wife, sir ; that's a' my complaint
; ;
For, saving your presence, to her ye're a saint."
" It's neither your stot nor your staig I shall crave
But gie me your wife, man, for her I maun have."
" O, welcome most kindly," the blythe carle said
;
; ; ;
" But if ye can match her, ye're waur than ye're ca'd !"
The deevil has got the auld wife on his back,
And like a poor pedlar he's carried his pack.
He carried her hame to his ain hallan door
Syne bade her gae in, for a bitch and a ' .
Then straight he makes fifty, the pick of his band,
Turn out on her guard, in the clap of a hand.
The carline gaed through them like ony wud bear
Whae'er she got hands on cam near her nae mair.
A reekit wee deevil looks over the wa'
" Oh help, master, help !
or she'll ruin us a'."
* The parenthetical lines of the first verse are repeated in all the succeeding
etanzas.
;