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Willie and Earl Richard's Daughter is Child ballad 102 (Roud 3910). [1]
It recounts the birth of Robin Hood, but is not part of the Robin Hood cycle; Francis James Child rejected the title The Birth of Robin Hood for it on those grounds. [2]
Willie, or Archibald, and the earl's daughter fall in love, and she becomes pregnant. They steal away to the woods, where she gives birth to a son. In some variants, she survives and nurses him; in others, she dies, and Archibald laments that his son's being alive makes matters worse because he can not nourish the boy.
The earl comes after and recovers the boy, and his daughter, dead or alive. He kisses his grandson and makes him his heir.
The motifs for this ballad come from Willie o Douglas Dale and Leesome Brand . [2]
The ballad was recorded by Spiers and Boden under the title The Birth of Robin Hood on their 2008 album Vagabond; a new recording appeared on their 2011 album The Works, with harmony vocals by Eliza Carthy.
Robin Hood is a legendary heroic outlaw originally depicted in English folklore and subsequently featured in literature, theatre, and cinema. According to legend, he was a highly skilled archer and swordsman. In some versions of the legend, he is depicted as being of noble birth, and in modern retellings he is sometimes depicted as having fought in the Crusades before returning to England to find his lands taken by the Sheriff. In the oldest known versions, he is instead a member of the yeoman class. Traditionally depicted dressed in Lincoln green, he is said to have stolen from the rich to give to the poor.
Willie O Winsbury is Child Ballad 100. The song, of which there are many variants, is a traditional Scottish ballad that dates from at least 1775, and is known under several other names, including "Johnnie Barbour" and "Lord Thomas of Winesberry".
Billy Blind is an English and Lowland Scottish household spirit, much like a brownie. He appears only in ballads, where he frequently advises the characters. It is possible that the character of Billy Blind is a folk memory of the god Woden or Odin from Germanic mythology, in his "more playful aspect" and is speculated to have been the same character as Blind Harie, the "blind man of the game" in Scotland.
Willie's Lady is Child ballad number 6 and Roud #220. The earliest known copy of the ballad is from a recitation transcribed in 1783.
Fair Annie is Child ballad number 62, existing in several variants.
"The Earl of Mar's Daughter" is Child ballad number 270.
"Young Hunting" is a traditional folk song, Roud 47, catalogued by Francis James Child as Child Ballad number 68, and has its origin in Scotland. Like most traditional songs, numerous variants of the song exist worldwide, notably under the title of "Henry Lee" and "Love Henry" in the United States and "Earl Richard" and sometimes "The Proud Girl" in the United Kingdom.
King Estmere is an English and Scottish Child ballad and number 60 of 305 ballads collected by Francis James Child.
"Rose the Red and White Lily" is Child ballad number 103.
Leesome Brand is Child Ballad number 15 and Roud #3301.
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.
Willie o Couglas Dale or Willie O Douglas Dale is Child ballad 101.
Robin Hood and the Tanner is Child ballad 126. It is a late seventeenth-century English broadside ballad and one of several ballads about the medieval folk hero Robin Hood that form part of the Child ballad collection, which is one of the most comprehensive collections of traditional English ballads but has now been subsumed and surpassed by the Roud Folk Song Index.
"Robin Hood's Birth, Breeding, Valor, and Marriage" is Child ballad 149. It recounts Robin Hood's adventures hunting and a romance with Clorinda, the queen of the shepherdesses, a heroine who did not prove able to displace Maid Marian as his sweetheart.
Robin Hood and the Prince of Aragon is Child ballad 129. The song portrays Robin Hood in a tale of chivalrous adventures, such as are uncommon in his ballads, and has seldom been featured in later tales.
"The Knight and the Shepherd’s Daughter" is an English ballad, collected by Francis James Child as Child Ballad 110 and listed as number 67 in the Roud Folk Song Index.
A True Tale of Robin Hood is Child ballad 154, featuring Robin Hood and, indeed, presents a full account of his life, from before his becoming an outlaw, to his death. It describes him as the Earl of Huntington, which is a fairly late development in the ballads. It definitively places him in Richard the Lionhearted's reign.
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.
Robin Hood and the Monk is a Middle English ballad and one of the oldest surviving ballads of Robin Hood. The earliest surviving document with the work is from around 1450, and it may have been composed even earlier in the 15th century. It is also one of the longest ballads at around 2,700 words. It is considered one of the best of the original ballads of Robin Hood.
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