Leeneia, I'm with you on verse 8 -- and it would possibly have happened without me even realising.
But it is a fine version, Jim, so thanks for posting.

As a wee aside, about five years ago I found the text of a Jeannie Robertson version of 'Son David' which my teacher had written out for me way back in 1958 or so.
When I read it through, I realised that my version had drifted slightly from the original. Jeannie had the mother asking about the blood on the sword four times, to receive the answers 'my grey mare', 'my grey hound', 'my hunting hawk' and -- finally -- 'my brother John'. I had dropped the hawk so that there were only three questions, and re-arranged the sequence as hound followed by mare followed by brother. With hindsight I put this down to a preference for the magic 3, and the tension of the relative importance/value of the animal victims.
And I also realised that Jeannie had the mother describe the blood as 'ower red' on each occasion, whereas I had been singing 'ower strang/red' for the hound, and 'ower clear' for the mare.....