This song was described by my father as the oldest lesbian song in English. The two women, shunned in the town, are obliged to build a cottage in the woods so they can live together. The boy who brings them their groceries bring them the plague. Forbidden the cemetery of their ancestors, their bones are tossed over the wall onto the heath, where they will "biek forenent the sin" (bake under the sun).

The song was revised during the 1500's so as to represent Queen Mary and Elizabeth Tudor:

Bessy kept the gairden gate,
An Mary kept the pantry;
Bessy Bell had aye tae wait,
While Mary leeved in plenty.

(A sly reference to the years Elizabeth spent in seclusion or virtual imprisonment during the nervous Mary's reign).

and other verses were added at an unknown time (one states that the women refused to wear shoes of blue or yellow, but insisted on wearing the "shoes of green", a reference either to their older religion or to their alternate sexuality; does anyone know?) ____