25th December 1665 saw the birthof songwriter a nd poet Lady Grizell Baillie.
Lady Grizel, also spelled Grisel at times, was born at Redbraes Castle in Berwickshire, the eldest daughter of Covenanter Sir Patrick Hume of Polwarth. At age 12, she smuggled letters from her father to the imprisoned patriot Robert Baillie of Jerviswood. Sir Hume publicly defended Baillie, and after Baillie’s execution, Sir Hume’s castle was confiscated, forcing Sir Hume into hiding in a vault beneath Polwarth Church in Edinburgh. The family later fled to Holland, finally returning to Scotland to participate in the “Glorious Revolution” of 1688. In 1692, Grizel Hume married Robert Baillie’s son George, and in 1696, Sir Hume was made Lord Chancellor of Scotland.
Lady Grizel’s verses bear mournful witness to suffering. Only two of Lady Grizel’s songs survive: “The ewe-butchin’s bonnie,” which may have been inspired by her father’s ordeal, and “Werena my Heart’s licht I wad dee,” which appeared in the Scottish folk song collection Orpheus Caledonius (1725) and in volume 4 of Tea Table Miscellany (1724-37).
The Household Book of Lady Grisell Baillie 1692-1733 (1911) offers a detailed portrait of domestic expenditures and daily life at a Scottish country house. Lady Grizel Baillie is buried on the grounds of Mellerstain House, her home in the final decades of her life. The handheld wooden lantern the young Lady Grizel took on nightly visits to her father is now in the collections of the National Museums of Scotland.
Werena My Heart Licht I Wad Dee
By Lady Grizel Baillie
There was ance a may, and she lo’ed na men;
She biggit her bonnie bow’r doun i’ yon glen;
But now she cries, Dool and a well-a-day!
Come doun the green gait and come here away!
When bonnie young Johnnie cam’ owre the sea
He said he saw naething sae lovely as me;
He hecht me baith rings and monie braw things;
And werena my heart licht, I wad dee.
He had a wee tittie that lo’ed na me,
Because I was twice as bonnie as she;
She raised sic a pother ‘twixt him and his mother,
That werena my heart licht, I wad dee.
The day it was set, and the bridal to be
The wife took a dwam and lay doun to dee;
She maned, and she graned, out o’ dolour and pain,
Till he vowed that he ne’er wad see me again.
His kin was for ane o’ a higher degree,
Said, what had he do wi’ the likes o’ me?
Albeit I was bonnie, I wasna for Johnnie:
And werena my heart licht, I wad dee.
They said I had neither cow nor calf,
Nor dribbles o’ drink rins through the draff,
Nor pickles o’meal rins through the mill-e’e;
An werena my heart licht, I wad dee.
His tittie she was baith wily and slee,
She spied me as I cam’ owre the lea,
And then she ran in and made a loud din;
Believe your ain een an ye trow na me.
His bannet stood aye fu’ round on his brow
His auld ane looked aye as weel as some’s new;
But now he lets ’t wear ony gate it will hing,
And casts himsel’ dowie upon the corn-bing.
And now he gaes daund’ring about the dykes
A a’ he dow do is to hund the tykes;
The love-lang nicht he ne’er steeks his e’e;
And werena my heart licht I wad dee.
Were I but young for thee, as I ha’e been
We should ha’e been gallopin’ doun in yon green,
And linkin’ it on the lily-white lea;
And wow, gin I were but young for thee.
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some oc development q's from this list, for my girl terri! thank you sm, ocelot :D
10: How open is your oc to trying new things? Are they the adventurous sort, or would they rather stay in their comfort zone? Why?
- She's more the adventurous sort! She loves the thrill of trying new things and doubly so when it works out well. That being said, she has a few things going against her the majority of the time, so she prefers to have a friend around who can help if things start to go sour.
12: Does your oc have any best friends? Who was/is their closest friend? What about their worst enemy?
- I haven't quite thought about her best friends, admittedly, but I think she has a few! There are a few at camp who she's in frequent contact with, and a few who are further abroad who she can only contact on occasion. Her closest friend used to be her older brother, but these days it's her partner, Nathan. He travelled with her for quite a while before settling at Lost Lake (and thus made it her home, as well) so she knows him better than anyone else. He's trustworthy, makes her laugh easily, and won't judge her for her failures.
I think that her worst enemy (of those she isn't running/hiding from) would be Carlos! She considers the past to be fundamental to the future, and holds those that she's loved and lost very dear to her heart, so for someone to be insistent that the erasure of these things is paradise? To then also torture people to the point of becoming a ripper for surviving's sake, and leave those who resist as bodies left to rot, is inexplicably horrific to her.
25: How does your oc handle being sick? Do they pretend not to be? Do they complain a lot? How susceptible to being sick are they?
- She gets sick fairly often! Who knew stress would take a physical toll on the body agdsgs. She tries to tough it out until it either goes away or until its so obvious that no one's buying it anymore. More often than she'd care to admit, it ends up warranting bed rest, or at least operating at limited capacity, such as staying at whichever camp she's found herself in and working locally instead of being out and about.
31: What is your oc's sense of humor like? What do they find funny? Do they try to be funny? Are they, actually?
- Uhh, it's an interesting one! It varies depending on what kind of work she's been taking on lately, but it's generally very dry. She can be very morbid at times, but I think she laughs just as easily at people joking around by her, making inappropriate jokes or being clowns for the sake of it. She does try to be funny, and she is! But not because she tries to be. I think she's at her most humorous when she feels like a kid :)
38: How energetic is your oc? Do they have trouble sitting still or do they feel low on juice all the time? Why?
- She is uh. low-spoon city. She has to work with a lot of folk who take a lot of energy from her, on top of braving the broken road and doing pretty heavy lifting very frequently, so any energy she has at the start of the day is p much always gone by the end of it. I think that she'd try to make note of when things get particularly tiring, though, and take some measures to like. Come back to herself? During these times, she tries to give herself a day free from obligations and do things that just. Make her happy, like sailing her bike down a downhill road and enjoying that distilled freedom, or retiring to one of her saferooms and spending the day whittling bone and wood.
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thank you again!!! :D!!! i keep a notebook for her and when i have the time next ill copy these into it :D
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