Old Reilly stole a stallion,
But they caught him and they brought him back
And they laid him down in the jail-house ground
With an iron chain around his neck.
When Reilly's daughter got a message
That her father was going to hang,
She rode by night and came by morning
With gold and silver in her hand.
When the judge saw Reilly's daughter,
His old eyes deepened in his head,
Saying, "Gold will never free your father,
The price, my dear, is you instead."
"Oh, I'm as good as dead!" cried Reilly.
"It's only you that he does crave
And my skin will surely crawl if he touches you at all,
Get on your horse and ride away."
"Oh, father, you will surely die
If I don't take the chance to try
And pay the price and not take your advice,
For that reason I will have to stay."
The gallows' shadows shook the evening,
In the night a hound dog bayed,
In the night the grounds was groaning,
In the night the price was paid.
The next morning she had awoken
To find that the judge had never spoken.
She saw that hanging branch a-bending,
She saw her father's body broken.
These be seven curses on a judge so cruel,
That one doctor cannot save him,
That two healers cannot heal him,
And that three eyes cannot see him,
That four ears cannot hear him,
That five walls cannot hide him,
That six diggers cannot bury him,
And that seven deaths shall never kill him.