The Bonny Birdy (Child 82, Roud 3972) is an English-language folk song.
A knight is riding when a bird asks him why he is about so late and tells him his wife is with her lover. It had been a wild bird until the lover caught it and gave it to his love. She did not feed it well, so it is telling her story. It flew with the knight to her bower, and sang of how the lover should be away. The lady asks what reason there is for him to leave, and the bird sings that a man in bed with another man's wife should always leave quickly. The knight enters the bower and kills the lover.
The ballad was written only once, in 1783 (or shortly before), from Anna Brown, by her nephew, Robert Eden Scott, [1] and in the same year was sent by her father, prof. Thomas Gordon, to William Tytler with other 14 recorded songs (so-called Tytler-Brown MS ). [2] [3] At least one author points out that the song "is not represented in England" and considers it as a "Scottish version" of the well-known English ballad "Little Musgrave". [4]
"The Bonnie Earl o' Moray" is a popular Scottish ballad, which may date from as early as the 17th century.
"The Three Ravens" is an English folk ballad, printed in the songbook Melismata compiled by Thomas Ravenscroft and published in 1611, but the song is possibly older than that. Newer versions were recorded up through the 19th century. Francis James Child recorded several versions in his Child Ballads.
"Matty Groves", also known as "Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard" or "Little Musgrave", is a ballad probably originating in Northern England that describes an adulterous tryst between a young man and a noblewoman that is ended when the woman's husband discovers and kills them. It is listed as Child ballad number 81 and number 52 in the Roud Folk Song Index. This song exists in many textual variants and has several variant names. The song dates to at least 1613, and under the title Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard is one of the Child ballads collected by 19th-century American scholar Francis James Child.
"Allison Gross", also known as "Alison Cross", is a traditional folk ballad. It tells the story of "the ugliest witch in the north country" who tries to persuade a man to become her lover and then punishes him by a transformation.
"Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight" is the English common name representative of a very large class of European ballads.
The Famous Flower of Serving-Men or The Lady Turned Serving-Man is a traditional English language folk song and murder ballad. Child considered it as closely related to the ballad "The Lament of the Border Widow" or "The Border Widow's Lament".
"Unusually, it is possible to give a precise date and authorship to this ballad. It was written by the prolific balladeer, Laurence Price, and published in July 1656, under the title of The famous Flower of Serving-Men. Or, The Lady turn'd Serving-Man. It lasted in the mouths of ordinary people for three hundred years: what a tribute to the work of any writer, leave alone the obscure Laurence Price. Oral tradition, however, has made changes. The original has twenty-eight verses and a fairy-tale ending: “And then for fear of further strife, / he took Sweet William to be his Wife: / The like before was never seen, / A Serving-man to be a Queen”. – Roy Palmer, A Book of British Ballads
"Hind Horn" is a traditional English and Scottish folk ballad.
"The Fair Flower of Northumberland" is a folk ballad.
The Bent Sae Brown is an English-language folk song.
"The Bonny Hind" is a traditional English-language folk song.
Old Robin of Portingale is an English-language folk song, catalogued as Roud 3971 and Child 80, and only found in the Percy Folio.
Lady Alice is Child ballad 85. It may be a fragment of a longer ballad that has not been preserved.
"Gil Brenton" is an English-language folk song, existing in several variants.
Brown Robin is a traditional English-language folk song. The ballad tells the story of a king's daughter who brings her lover, Brown Robin, into the castle and back out without being discovered by the king. The second variant comes from the ballad "Love Robbie."
"Erlinton" is an English-language folk ballad. One variant features Robin Hood, but this variant forces the folk hero into a ballad structure where he does not fit naturally.
"Babylon", also called "The Bonnie Banks o' Fordie" or "The Banks o' Airdrie" is an English-language folk song.
Mr. Motherwell gives a version under the title of Babylon; or, the Bonny Banks o' Fordie; and Mr. Kinloch gives another under the title of The Duke of Perth's Three Daughters. Previous editors have attempted to find a local habitation for this tradition, and have associated it with the family of Drummond, of Perth. As a legend exactly similar is current in Denmark, this appears a bootless quest.
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.
"The King's Dochter Lady Jean", also called "The King's Daughter," "Fair Rosie Ann," or "Queen Jane", is an English-language folk song.
Will Stewart and John is an English-language folk song, catalogued as Roud 3973 and Child 107.
Thomas o Yonderdale is an English-language folk song, catalogued as Child ballad number 253 and Roud number 3890. Child assessed that this "apocryphal" ballad seemed like a recent fabrication from a pastiche of other ballads.