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"Proud Lady Margaret" is Child ballad 47, existing in several variants. [1]
| | This article relies largely or entirely on a single source .(May 2015) |
| Wikisource has original text related to this article: |
"Proud Lady Margaret" is Child ballad 47, existing in several variants. [1]
A man arrives at the heroine's castle to woo her. She is frequently critical of him, on the grounds that his clothing shows him to be no gentleman. In most variants, he taxes her with riddles such as "What's the first thing in flower?" (primrose), and in the end, she accepts his suit. He reveals that he is her brother and a ghost, sometimes after she has said she will go with him and he must forbid, as it will kill her. He tells her he has come to curb her haughtiness.
This appears to be the compound of two ballads: one of a proud princess being humbled by a clever wooer, and the other of a dead soul rebuking the living. [2]
Many of the elements of this are found in other ballads: the riddles from "Riddles Wisely Expounded", the suitor who proves to be a brother in "The Bonnie Banks o Fordie", the lover who returns as a ghost and must forbid the beloved from following him, as in "The Unquiet Grave".
"The Elfin Knight" is a traditional Scottish folk ballad of which there are many versions, all dealing with supernatural occurrences, and the commission to perform impossible tasks.
"Captain Wedderburn's Courtship" is an old Scottish ballad dating from 1785 or earlier. It is Child Ballad #46, Roud 36. It is known by a number of titles, including "Lord Roslin's Daughter" and "The Laird of Rosslyn's Daughter".
"Hind Etin" is a folk ballad existing in several variants.
Lord Thomas and Fair Annet is an English folk ballad.
Child Waters is Child ballad number 63, existing in several variants.
King Estmere is an English and Scottish Child ballad and number 60 of 305 ballads collected by Francis James Child.
"Fair Margaret and Sweet William" is a traditional English ballad which tells of two lovers, of whom either one or both die from heartbreak. Thomas Percy included it in his folio and said that it was quoted as early as 1611 in the Knight of the Burning Pestle. In the United States, variations of Fair Margaret have been regarded as folk song as early as 1823.
"Gil Brenton" is Child ballad 5, Roud 22, existing in several variants.
"The Marriage of Sir Gawain" is an English Arthurian ballad, collected as Child Ballad 31. Found in the Percy Folio, it is a fragmented account of the story of Sir Gawain and the loathly lady, which has been preserved in fuller form in the medieval poem The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle. The loathly lady episode itself dates at least back to Geoffrey Chaucer's "Wife of Bath's Tale" from The Canterbury Tales. Unlike most of the Child Ballads, but like the Arthurian "King Arthur and King Cornwall" and "The Boy and the Mantle", "The Marriage of Sir Gawain" is not a folk ballad but a song for professional minstrels.
"The Knight and the Shepherd’s Daughter" is an English ballad, collected by Francis James Child as Child Ballad 110.
"Riddles Wisely Expounded" is a traditional English song, dating at least to 1450. It is Child Ballad 1 and Roud 161, and exists in several variants. The first known tune was attached to it in 1719.
Erlinton is #8 of the Child Ballads, the collection of 305 ballads from England and Scotland, and their American variants, collected by Francis James Child in the late nineteenth century. The collection was published as The English and Scottish Popular Ballads between 1882 and 1898 by Houghton Mifflin in ten volumes and later reissued in a five volume edition.
"Earl Brand" is a pseudo-historical English ballad.
Sweet William's Ghost is an English Ballad and folk song which exists in many lyrical variations and musical arrangements. Early known printings of the song include Allan Ramsay's The Tea-Table Miscellany in 1740 and Thomas Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry in 1765. Percy believed that the last two stanzas of the version he published were later additions, but that the details of the story they recounted were original.
"Lizie Wan" is Child ballad 51 and a murder ballad. It also known as "Fair Lizzie".
Clerk Saunders is Child ballad 69. It exists in several variants.
"The Twa Brothers" is Child ballad 49, Roud 38. existing in many variants.
Sir Cawline is Child ballad 61. A fragmentary form exists in The Percy Folio.
"Brown Robyn's Confession" is Child ballad 57.
"Young Johnstone" is Child ballad 88, a border ballad that exists in several variants. The ballad tells the story of a woman killed either by her brother or lover, depending on the variant.
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