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Child Maurice or Gil Morrice is Child ballad 83. The earliest known printed version was in 1755 at Glasgow. [1]
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(February 2017) |
Child Maurice or Gil Morrice is Child ballad 83. The earliest known printed version was in 1755 at Glasgow. [1]
The hero sends tokens to his lady and asks her to see him in the woods. Her lord learns of it and comes to where he will meet her, and kills him under the impression that he is her paramour. He brings back the head, and the lady confesses that he was her illegitimate son. Her lord is deeply grieved and declares he would never have killed him if he had known.
John Home based his tragedy Douglas on it. In 1776, Hannah More wrote a poem "Sir Elfred of the Bower" inspired by the song. The ballad serves as the framework as well as the climax of the book Black is the Colour of my True Love's Heart by Ellis Peters.
| Album/Single | Performer | Year | Variant | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The English and Scottish Popular Ballads vol 3 | Ewan MacColl | 1956 | Gil Morice | The earliest known professional recording (8'37"). |
| Blood and Roses Vol 2 | Ewan MacColl | 1981 | Child Maurice | This is a different version from MacColl's 1956 recording. |
| Right of Passage | Martin Carthy | 1988 | Bill Norrie | |
| Kornog | Kornog | 2000 | Child Noryce | The only known version by a French band. |
| The Furrowed Field | Damien Barber | 2000 | Bill Norrie | |
| Songs | Spiers and Boden | 2005 | Child Morris | |
| At Ruskin Mill | Martin Carthy | 2005 | Bill Norrie | The longest recorded version (9'06"). |
The James Madison Carpenter Collection has a recording by Peter Christie, from before 1955. Most of the recorded versions live up to the comment by Robert Burns in a letter dated September 1793: "It is a plaguy length". Martin Carthy's 2005 version is nine minutes long. the version by Spiers and Boden is over seven minutes, slightly longer than MacColl's 1981 version.
Sir Lionel is the younger son of King Bors of Gaunnes and Evaine and brother of Bors the Younger in Arthurian legend since the Lancelot-Grail cycle. He is a double cousin of Lancelot and cousin of Lancelot's younger half-brother Hector de Maris. He later became the subject of one of the famous Child Ballads (#18).
"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.
"The Raggle Taggle Gypsy" (Roud 1, Child 200), is a traditional folk song that originated as a Scottish border ballad, and has been popular throughout Britain, Ireland and North America. It concerns a rich lady who runs off to join the gypsies (or one gypsy). Common alternative names are "Gypsy Davy", "The Raggle Taggle Gypsies O", "The Gypsy Laddie(s)", "Black Jack David" (or "Davy") and "Seven Yellow Gypsies".
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.
"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
"Young Beichan", also known as "Lord Bateman", "Lord Bakeman", "Lord Baker", "Young Bicham" and "Young Bekie", is a traditional folk ballad categorised as Child ballad 53 and Roud 40. The earliest versions date from the late 18th century, but it is probably older, with clear parallels in ballads and folktales across Europe. The song was popular as a broadside ballad in the nineteenth century, and survived well into the twentieth century in the oral tradition in rural areas of most English speaking parts of the world, particularly in England, Scotland and Appalachia.
"Lord Thomas and Fair Annet", also known as "Lord Thomas and Fair Eleanor", is an English folk ballad.
"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.
The Lord of Lorn and the False Steward or The Lord of Lorn and the Flas Steward or The Lord of Lorn is Child ballad number 271.
Lord Lovel is number 75 of the ballads anthologized by Francis James Child during the second half of the 19th century, and exists in several variants. This ballad is originally from England, originating in the Late Middle Ages, with the oldest known versions being found in the regions of Gloucestershire, Somerset, Worcestershire, Warwickshire, and Wiltshire.
The Bonny Birdy is Child ballad 82.
"Gil Brenton" is Child ballad 5, Roud 22, existing in several variants.
"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.
Clerk Saunders is Child ballad 69. It exists in several variants.
Heer Halewijn is a Dutch folk tale which survives in folk ballad. Although the first printed version of the song only appears in an anthology published in 1848, the ballad itself is first written down in the 13th century but dates back to pre-Christian times and is one of the oldest Dutch folk songs with ancient subject matter to be recorded. The story of lord Halewijn itself is even older and contains elements going back to Carolingian times. Many of its mythemes range back to Germanic pre-Christian legends.
"The Dowie Dens o Yarrow", also known as "The Braes of Yarrow" or simply "Yarrow", is a Scottish border ballad. It has many variants and it has been printed as a broadside, as well as published in song collections. It is considered to be a folk standard, and many different singers have performed and recorded it.
Douglas is a blank verse tragedy by John Home. It was first performed in 1756 in Edinburgh.
Edom o Gordon or Captain Car is a traditional Scottish ballad that exists in several versions. The ballad recounts the gruesome events of Gordon's burning down of his enemy's castle that killed the lady of the house, her children and most of the servants.