Hi,

This is a translation of Burns:

A Wakeful Mother- Collected by Burns from Martha Crosbie, a carder and spinner of wool, circa 1788.

"Where are you going, my bonnie lass?
Where are you going, my honey?'
She answered me right saucily: -
"An errand for my mother!"

"O, where live you, my bonnie lass?
O, where live you, my honey?"
"By yon stream side, if you must know,
In a little house with my mother."

But I went up the glen at evening
To see my bonnie lassie,
And long before the grey morn came
She was not half so saucy.

O, woe befall the wakeful cock,
And the polecat stop his crowing!
He awakened the old woman from her sleep
A little bit before the dawning.

An angry wife I know she rose,
And out of the bed she brought her,
And with a big hazel switch
She made her a well-punished daughter.

'O, fare-thee-well, my bonnie lass!
O, fare-thee-well, my honey!
You are a gay and a bonnie lass,
But you have a wakeful mother!'

* * * *

Richie