A collection of 23 songs and ballads on a wide variety of themes. Some are humorous, others are disturbingly tragic, such as The Mistletoe Bough, in which a young bride playfully hides from her young husband in an oak chest that then accidentally…

This song tells the humorous tale of a miller and his young wife, who has been having an affair with the local priest. When a scholar traveling from St. Andrews happens upon the mill in the evening, the miller invites him to stay the night with his…

This is a comical Scots tale about a simple sack-weaver who decides it is high time he married. Taking advice from his mother, he decides to woo one of the butcher’s three daughters, two of whom have bastards by other men, and one who has a…

A short folktale taken from Robert Chambers’s Popular Rhymes of Scotland, purportedly based on a recitation of Mrs. Begg, Robert Burns’ sister, and attributed to Burns himself (8). The story tells the tale of a robin who cheerfully bypasses several…

Nicolas Pedrosa, a barber-surgeon, male-midwife, and secret Jew from Madrid, is pulled into the intrigues of war, politics, and the Spanish Inquisition when he has an altercation with his mule and some friars on the way to deliver the baby of the…