The Journal of the [English] Folk-Song Society, Vol. 7, No. 27 (1923) explains that this song took several forms throughout Scotland and England, sharing kinship with The Bold Pirate. The source is Ford's Vagabond Songs and Ballads of Scotland, 1898, which gives a clear English transcription and description:
According to a popular tradition, this plaintive ballad, which has been an established favorite with the country people of Scotland for several generations, though seldom printed in the collections, was composed about the beginning of last century [early 1700s] by a young lady in Galloway, whose husband was drowned in the course of a voyage to Holland. It may, however, as Mr. George Eyre-Todd shrewdly suggests, belong to an earlier period, when Scottish knights, in times of peace at home, were accustomed, as soldiers of fortune, to carry their swords and followers to the wars in the Low Countries. Its original air, from which Miss Admiral Gordon's Strathspey was made, is preserved in the "Caledonian Pocket Companion."
Notes from Frank Shay:
Most recorded versions of this song begin with "On the night that I was married"... The origins of this version remain to be determined. Martin Carthy and Dave Swarbrick perform the song on Second Album (1966). The Iron Horse have a very musical recording on Five Hands High (1994).
The love that I hae chosen,
I'll therewith be content;
The saut sea sall be frozen
Before that I repent.
Repent it sall I never
Until the day I dee;
But the Lawlands o' Holland
Hae twinn'd my love and me.
My love he built a bonny ship,
And set her to the main,
Wi' twenty-four brave mariners
To sail her out and hame.
But the weary wind began to rise,
The sea began to rout,
And my love and his bonny ship
Turned withershins about.
There sall nae mantle cross my back,
Nor kaim gae in my hair,
Neither sall coal nor candle light
Shine in my bower mair;
Now sall I choose anither love
Until the day I dee,
Sin' the Lawlands o' Holland
Hae twinn'd my love and me.
Noo haud your tongue, my daughter dear,
Be still, and bide content;
There's ither lads in Galloway;
Ye needna sair lament.
O, there is nane in Galloway,
There's nane at a' for me.
I never lo'ed a lad but ane,
And he's drown'd in the sea.