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"The Fair Flower of Northumberland" (Roud 25, Child 9) is a folk ballad. [1]
"The Fair Flower of Northumberland" (Roud 25, Child 9) is a folk ballad. [1]
A Scottish knight is imprisoned by the Earl of Northumberland (or another high official). The knight persuades the Earl's daughter, the titular fair flower, to free him, promising to marry her in Scotland. As soon as they reach his home, he tells her to return to Northumberland as he already has a wife and children. She pleads with him to take her as a servant or to kill her, both of which he refuses. She returns to her home, either alone or with an escort hired by the Scottish knight. In some variants, her father or stepmother complains of how easily her love was won, but in all, her mother or father blames the seduction on Scottish treachery and says that she will have gold and lands to get her a husband.
There are no variants of this ballad in other languages than English and Scots, though many of the elements have parallels. [2] Parts of it parallel "The Nut-Brown Maid", where the hero tells the heroine that he has nothing to give her, and is plighted to another women, but in that ballad, that is only a test, and he reveals himself as her true and wealthy lover. [3]
Many of the same motifs are found in Child Ballad 48, "Young Andrew". [4]
As an example of the same elements in other traditions, several Serbian and Bulgarian ballads about the epic hero Prince Marko have a fairly similar plot: Marko is imprisoned in an Arab country, but is secretly aided and set free by the daughter of the Arab king in exchange for his promise to take her with him and marry her - a promise that he soon regrets and breaks. In some versions, she then asks him to take her at least as his slave, or else kill her. However, unlike the British ballads, the Balkan versions have Marko actually kill the Arab maiden; his motive is that as an Arab she is dark-skinned, which is considered unattractive, and/or that he is afraid of being mocked by his friends at home for having an Arab wife. He then builds numerous monasteries, churches, fountains, roads and other public facilities in her memory, striving to atone for his sin towards her and God. [5] [6] [7]
Sir Aldingar is Child ballad 59. Francis James Child collected three variants, two fragmentary, in The English and Scottish Popular Ballads. All three recount the tale where a rebuffed Sir Aldingar slanders his mistress, Queen Eleanor, and a miraculous champion saves her.
"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. The ballad has been collected in different parts of England, Scotland, Ireland, the US, and Canada. As is the case with most traditional folk songs, there have been countless completely different versions recorded of the same ballad. The first broadside version was printed before 1674, and the roots of the song may be considerably older.
"The Laily Worm and the Machrel of the Sea" is Child ballad number 36.
"Hind Horn" is a traditional English and Scottish folk ballad.
"Hind Etin" is a folk ballad existing in several variants.
Fair Annie is Child ballad number 62, existing in several variants.
Child Waters is Child ballad number 63, existing in several variants.
"Young Waters" is Child ballad number 94.
Leesome Brand is Child Ballad number 15 and Roud #3301.
The Bent Sae Brown is Child ballad 71.
Fause Foodrage is a Scottish murder ballad of the 17th or 18th century. It was first printed by Walter Scott in Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1802). Scott cited Elizabeth, Lady Wardlaw as the ballad's probable author.
The Bonny Birdy is Child ballad 82.
Lady Alice is Child ballad 85. It may be a fragment of a longer ballad that has not been preserved.
"Gil Brenton" is Child ballad 5, Roud 22, existing in several variants.
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.
"Young Andrew" is a folk song catalogued as Child ballad 48.
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.
Clerk Saunders is Child ballad 69. It exists in several variants.
"Proud Lady Margaret" is Child ballad 47, existing in several variants.
