Cruel Mother (from Dave & Toni Arthur)

There was a lady came from York
All alone and a-lonely
She fell in love with her father's clerk
All down by the greenwood sidey

She loved him well, she loved him long
At last she proved with child by him

She leaned her back against a thorn
And there she had two pretty babes born

She drew her scarf from off her head
And bound those pretty babes hands and legs

She laid those babes across her lap
And swore they'd never suck milk nor pap

She drew their little dresses apart
And stabbed those pretty babes to their heart

She wiped her knife all on the grass
The more she wiped, the blood ran fast

She washed her hands all in a spring
Thinking to return a maid again

As she came to her father's hall
She saw two pretty babes playing at ball

O babes, O babes, if you were mine
I'd dress you up all in silk so fine

They said – O mother, when we were yours
You neither dressed us in silk nor coarse

O you took out your little penknife
And parted us and our sweet life

O babes, O babes, what can I do
For the wicked crime I done to you?

Spend seven years like an owl in the wood
And seven more like a whale in the sea

For seven years you'll ring a bell
The rest of time, you'll spend in hell