Henry's Songbook

Chorus:
Burn the witch o' Pittenweem
Burn the witch and her awful spell
Burn the devil in the witch's heart
Let her hurry on her way to hell

There lived a wife in Pittenweem
And a gruesome cummer wis she
Nae glimpse o' grace wis in her heart
No spark o' humanity
Her een they goggled like a fiend
Her chin wis clad wi' hair
And her crooked teeth pushed out beneath
Like tusks on a Lapland bear

And the screechin' o' the demons dark
Seemed music till her ears
And aye she called the Evil one
Her lord and her master dear
He's gien her a staff intae her hand
Cut frae the gallows tree
Wi' a varnish red frae the hangman's dead
And a skull for the eyes tae see

She's killed the heifer on the green
The lamb upon the lea
And mony a bonnie bairnie cried
That could never live or dee
The sheriff has sent his scouts abroad
And they sought baith east and west
Till they come to the cave as dark as the grave
Where they found her sleeping fast

They built a pyre around the hag
Twa Scots ells up and higher
And the hangman cam wi' a lourin torch
Tae light the horrid pyre
And when the flames had reached her heart
She gae'd an awful yell
And her spirit o' sin it fell within
And where I canna tell

(as sung by The McCalmans)