The Knight's Ghost is Child ballad 265. It tells the story of a woman who learns that her husband has died in battle, after which she locks his men in a cellar and throws the keys in the sea. Her husband's ghost appears to ask that she release his men, assuring her they fought bravely. Francis Child drew the ballad from Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland. [1]
A woman goes to bring her son to the shore to greet her husband, but she receives news that he has been killed in Dunfermling. She invites his men to the castle to drink and takes them down 53 steps to the cellar. She gets them drunk, locks them in the cellar, and throws the keys into the sea. That night her husband's ghost appears at the foot of her bed with the keys and tells her to unlock the cellar. He says his men could not have fought harder for him, wading in red blood to the knee. She asks him when she will die, but he tells her that he has no more power than God has granted him. He assures her she will go to heaven, but before she dies she will remarry to a greater knight than he. They will have nine children: six daughters, and three sons who will fight for king and country. One son will be a duke, the second a knight, the third a laird. [2]
"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.
"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
"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.
"The Fair Flower of Northumberland" is a folk ballad.
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.
"Clerk Colvill" is Child ballad No. 42, otherwise known as "The Mermaid".
Old Robin of Portingale is a Child ballad only found in the Percy Folio.
"Gil Brenton" is Child ballad 5, Roud 22, existing in several variants.
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.
"Brown Robyn's Confession" is Child ballad 57.
"Proud Lady Margaret" is Child ballad 47, existing in several variants.
Will Stewart and John is Child ballad 107, indexed as such in Francis James Child's 19th century collection of English and Scottish ballads.
The King of Love is an Italian fairy tale from Sicily collected by Giuseppe Pitre and translated into English by Thomas Frederick Crane in Italian Popular Tales.
The Twa Knights is a traditional Scottish ballad. It was collected by Francis James Child as Child ballad number 268. It is highly possible that the ballad was popularly unknown in Scotland, and only known through print. It has since been given the Roud number of 303.