Uploaded November 2021 | Updated September 2026, 3 days ago

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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) - Sung by Alexina Stewart Allanson of Huntly, Aberdeenshire. Recorded by Hamish Henderson in 1961.

Song transcription:

For my father built me a dandy bower
Such a dandy bower I hae never seen
It was furnished all in such robes of green
Such a dandy bower I hae never seen

For my stepmother used a cruel spite
She sent the robbers all by the night
But very much more harm she did to me

She slew the babe that lay in my arm
I had nothing else for to wrap it in
But the bloody sheet that my love lay in

I'll put my head all on a block
And I'll cut off all my yellow locks
I'll dress myself in men's repair
And off to serve as a man to go

For I'll be waiter at yer hall door
I'll bet your servants at the call
Oh I'll be waiter at yer hall door