Young Benjie

Child  #86  4:10  V, A cappella.

A grim revenge story, featuring the folk belief that the victim will reveal the murderer at midnight on the night before burial. The word ‘stout’ seems to have several meanings; Benjie is stubborn, (‘bone-headed’, one might say), while Marjorie fights death by drowning with a pluck born of despair.  A “linn” is a waterfall, or the pool below it.

Of all the maids of fair Scotland,
The fairest was Marjorie,
And young Benjie was her own true love,
And a dear true love was he.

And oh, but they were lovers dear
And loved full constantly,
But ay the more when they fell out
The sorer was their plea.

And they have quarreled on a day
Till Marjorie’s heart grew woe,
And she said she’d chose another love
And let young Benjie go.

And he was stout and proud-hearted
And thought on’t bitterly,
And he’s gone by the wan moonlight
To meet his Marjorie.

Then soft she smiled and said to him,
“O what ill have I done?”
He took her in his arms two
And threw her o’er the linn.

The stream was strong, the maid was stout
And loth, loth to be drowned,
But ere she won the Lowden banks
Her fair colour it was wan.

Then up bespake her eldest brother:
“O see na you what I see?”
And out spake her second brother:
“It’s our sister Marjorie.”

Then they’ve ta’en up the comely corpse
And laid it on the ground,
“O who has killed our own sister,
And how can he be found?”

“The night it is her low lykewake,
The morn her burial day,
And we maun watch at murk midnight
And hear what she will say.”

About the middle of the night
The cocks began to crow,
And at the dead hour of the night
The corpse began to throw.

“O who has done the wrong, sister,
Or dared the deadly sin?
Who was so stout and feared no dout
As throw you o’er the linn?”

  “Young Benjie was the only man
That did my body win,
He was so stout and proud-hearted
He threw me o’er the linn.”

“Shall we young Benjie head, sister,
Shall we young Benjie hang?
Or shall we pike out his two grey een
And punish him ere he gang?”

“You mauna Benjie head, brothers,
You mauna Benjie hang,
But you maun pike out his two grey een
And punish him ere he gang.

Tie a green gravat around his neck
And lead him out and in,
And the best ae servant about your house
To wait young Benjie on.

And aye at every seven years’ end
You’ll take him to the linn,
For that’s the penance he must endure
To ease his deadly sin.