Uploaded November 2021 | Updated September 2026, 3 days ago
I'll Cut Off My Long Yellow Hair / My Brother Built Me a Bancy Bower / My Father Built Me a Shady Bower / Sweet William / The Small Birds Whistle / Dukes and Earls / The Border Widow's Lament / The Famous Flower of Serving Men (Child No. 106) (1954) - Sung by Regina "Jeannie" Robertson (Mrs. Jean Higgins), Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Jeannie got the song from her mother. Recorded by Hamish Henderson in August 1954.
Song transcription:
My father built me a dandy bower
With some fine roses and some fine flowers
But my stepmother showed me her spite
For she sent the robbers for to slain that knight
For to rob my bower and to slain that knight
And they could not do me a greater harm
Than to kill the baby that lay in my arms
And left me nothing for to roll it in
But the bloody sheets that my love lay in
She laid her head down upon a block
And she cut off her golden locks
And she changed her name from young Ellen fair
She changed it to young Willie dear
I'll Cut Off My Long Yellow Hair / My Brother Built Me a Bancy Bower / My Father Built Me a Shady Bower / Sweet William / The Small Birds Whistle / Dukes and Earls / The Border Widow's Lament / The Famous Flower of Serving Men (Child No. 106) (1954) - Sung by Regina "Jeannie" Robertson (Mrs. Jean Higgins), Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Jeannie got the song from her mother. Recorded by Hamish Henderson in August 1954.
Song transcription:
My father built me a dandy bower
With some fine roses and some fine flowers
But my stepmother showed me her spite
For she sent the robbers for to slain that knight
For to rob my bower and to slain that knight
And they could not do me a greater harm
Than to kill the baby that lay in my arms
And left me nothing for to roll it in
But the bloody sheets that my love lay in
She laid her head down upon a block
And she cut off her golden locks
And she changed her name from young Ellen fair
She changed it to young Willie dear
