"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.
"Captain Wedderburn's Courtship" is an old Scottish ballad dating from 1785 or earlier. It is Child Ballad #46, Roud 36. It is known by a number of titles, including "Lord Roslin's Daughter" and "The Laird of Rosslyn's Daughter".
The loathly lady, is a tale type commonly used in medieval literature, most famously in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Wife of Bath's Tale. The motif is that of a woman who appears unattractive but undergoes a transformation upon being approached by a man in spite of her unattractiveness, becoming extremely desirable. It is then revealed that her ugliness was the result of a curse which was broken by the hero's action.
The Famous Flower of Serving-Men or The Lady turned Serving-Man is Child Ballad number 106 and a murder ballad. Child considered it as closely related to the ballad The Lament Of The Border Widow or The Border Widow's Lament.
Fair Annie is Child ballad number 62, existing in several variants.
Lord Thomas and Fair Annet is an English folk ballad.
King Estmere is an English and Scottish Child ballad and number 60 of 305 ballads collected by Francis James Child.
Fause Foodrage is Child ballad 89, existing in several variants.
"Gil Brenton" is Child ballad 5, Roud 22, existing in several variants.
"The Marriage of Sir Gawain" is an English Arthurian ballad, collected as Child Ballad 31. Found in the Percy Folio, it is a fragmented account of the story of Sir Gawain and the loathly lady, which has been preserved in fuller form in the medieval poem The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle. The loathly lady episode itself dates at least back to Geoffrey Chaucer's "Wife of Bath's Tale" from The Canterbury Tales. Unlike most of the Child Ballads, but like the Arthurian "King Arthur and King Cornwall" and "The Boy and the Mantle", "The Marriage of Sir Gawain" is not a folk ballad but a song for professional minstrels.
"The Knight and the Shepherd’s Daughter" is an English ballad, collected by Francis James Child as Child Ballad 110.
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.
Fair Mary of Wallington or Fair Lady of Wallington is Child ballad 91. Child lists at least seven variants of the ballad. The first variant is titled "Fair Mary of Wallington", while another variant is titled "The Bonny Early of Livingston".
"Eppie Morrie" is one of the Child Ballads, and is of Scottish origin. The author and date are unknown, and as is common with ballads of this type and period several versions exist. It was printed in James Maidment's anthology A North Country Garland in 1824. That version is reprinted in James Kinsley's The Oxford Book of Ballads, 1969. Although the lyrics were transcribed by Francis James Child, it is uncertain if the original melody has been retained. The earliest recordings are from the performances of Jimmy MacBeath in 1951 and later Ewan MacColl, a more recent version by Andrew Calhoun forms part of his border folk song anthology Telfer's Cows.
"The Dowie Dens of 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.
Thomas o Yonderdale is Child ballad number 253; Roud number 3890. Child assessed that this "apocryphal" ballad seemed like a recent fabrication from a pastiche of other ballads.
Rape is a major issue in Afghanistan. A number of human rights organizations have criticized the country's rape laws and their enforcement.
In May 2014, Isidro Medrano Garcia, who had been living under the name Tomas Medrano or Tomas Madrano, was arrested and accused by police of kidnapping a 15-year-old girl in 2004 and repeatedly raping her and continuing to hold her captive until 2014. Garcia was accused of forcing the alleged victim to marry him in 2007. As time moved on, the woman had a child with Garcia on October 27, 2010, or in 2012, and they continued to live openly together as a family in Bell Gardens, California, until the woman contacted her sister through Facebook and met with her mother in April 2014. She filed a domestic violence complaint with Bell Gardens police on May 19, 2014. As a married couple, Garcia and the woman had an apparently active social life in the community, including hosting large parties and the woman spending time and running errands by herself, having her own car, and working outside the home. However, police said the woman had tried to escape twice and been severely beaten. Through his attorney, Garcia claimed that the woman made up the story of abuse because the couple was breaking up.
A marry-your-rapist law, marry-the-rapist law or rape-marriage law is a law regarding rape that exonerates a man from prosecution for rape, sexual assault, statutory rape, abduction or similar acts if the offender marries his female victim, or in some jurisdictions at least offers to marry her. The "marry-your-rapist" law is a legal way for such a rapist to avoid punishment and prosecution. Although the terms for this phenomenon were only coined in the 2010s, the practice has existed in a number of legal systems in history, and continues to exist in some societies today in various forms. Such laws were common around the world until the 1970s. Since the late 20th century, the remaining laws of this type have been increasingly challenged and repealed in a number of countries. Laws that authorise courts to authorise an underage marriage on account of the pregnancy of a female minor when she is below the age of consent, commonly with parental consent, can in practice be a way for a statutory rapist to avoid prosecution for the statutory rape of a child.
Sherry Johnson is an activist who advocates for restrictions on child marriage in the United States. She successfully campaigned for tighter restrictions on child marriage in her home state of Florida. Prior to 2018, pregnant children of any age in Florida could get married with a judge's permission. With the passage of the 2018 legislation, children under 17 are prohibited from getting married.
