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Gil Brenton
"Gil Brenton" is Child ballad 5, Roud 22, existing in several variants. Synopsis A man (often described as a king or lord) has brought home a foreign woman to be his wife. In several variants, the bride is warned that if she is not a maiden (i.e., virgin), she had best send someone else to take her place in the marriage bed, in order to prevent her husband from discovering this fact. She sends her maid in her place. The morning after the wedding, the groom asks the blankets and sheets of the bed, or in some versions the household spirit Billie Blin, if he married a maiden, and they answer that the woman he married was not, and furthermore, she is pregnant. In other variants, the bride informs the bridegroom of her pregnancy without any tests. The groom laments this state of affairs to his mother, who goes to tax his bride with it. The mother-in-law asks who the father of the baby is, and the bride tells how she had gone to the greenwood to gather flowers and been detained th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Child Ballad
The Child Ballads are 305 traditional ballads from England and Scotland, and their American variants, anthologized by Francis James Child during the second half of the 19th century. Their lyrics and Child's studies of them were published as ''The English and Scottish Popular Ballads''. The tunes of most of the ballads were collected and published by Bertrand Harris Bronson in and around the 1960s. History Age and source of the ballads The ballads vary in age; for instance, the manuscript of "Judas" dates to the thirteenth century and a version of " A Gest of Robyn Hode" was printed in the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century. The majority of the ballads, however, date to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Although some are claimed to have very ancient influences, only a handful can be definitively traced to before 1600. Moreover, few of the tunes collected are as old as the words. Nevertheless, Child's collection was far more comprehensive than any previous col ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Little Annie The Goose-Girl
''Vesle Åse Gåsepike'' (''Little Annie the Goose-Girl'') is a Norwegian fairy tale collected by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe in ''Norske Folkeeventyr''. It has also been translated as ''Little Lucy Goosey Girl'', and classified as Aarne-Thompson tale type 870A. Synopsis Little Aase (she is "Annie" or "Lucy" in English versions) worked for the king as a goose-girl. One day, she sat on the road to see the king's son. He warned her not to look to have him, and she declared that if she was to have him, she would. The Prince looked over all the pictures of princesses sent him, and chose one. He had a stone that knew everything and would answer questions, so Aase warned the princess that if there were anything about her that she didn't want the prince to know, she had best not step on the stone that lay beside the bed. The princess asked that Aase get into the bed, and then, when the prince was asleep, Aase would get out and the princess would get in. When Aase got ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prince Heathen
Prince Heathen is Child ballad 104, existing in several variants. The ballad tells the story of a woman held captive by a prince, forcing her to have his child. Synopsis The heroine—Margery May or Margaret—is raped by Prince Heathen, sometimes after he has tried to woo her. Sometimes he tells her he has massacred her family; in all variants, he imprisons her until she bears a child. She has a son and weeps. She tells Prince Heathen she is not weeping for him but because she has nothing to wrap the baby in. His heart softening, the prince gives her silk to wrap the baby in and milk to bath him in, and declares his love for her. Similar ballads A similar ballad, '' Gil Brenton'', features the hero who finally desires to treat the baby well. His motive is the final evidence that the baby is his, and not the softening of heart that Prince Heathen manifests. Recordings *''Prince Heathen'' (1969) Martin Carthy, (with Dave Swarbrick); and previously unreleased John Peel ses ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The White Fisher
The White Fisher is Child ballad 264, and number 3888 in the Roud Folk Song Index. Synopsis A man tells his wife that they have been married only one month and asks why the child is quickening. The woman blames her pregnancy on a priest, or on a kitchen boy. When she gives birth, she tells her husband to toss the baby in the sea to drown, or, in some variants to sink or swim but not return to her without a white fish. Instead, he takes the baby to his mother and claims that he had a sweetheart over the sea, and this is his child. The wife grieves and refuses a drink from him, because having drowned her baby, he would poison her. He tells her that his mother has the child. In some variants, he tells her that she may see him as long as she does not call the child hers. Traditional Recordings The song has been recorded twice from traditional singers; both were recorded in Aberdeenshire, Scotland by James Madison Carpenter in the early 1930s and can be heard on the Vaughan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tam Lin
Tam (or Tamas) Lin (also called Tamlane, Tamlin, Tambling, Tomlin, Tam Lien, Tam-a-Line, Tam Lyn, or Tam Lane) is a character in a legendary ballad originating from the Scottish Borders. It is also associated with a reel of the same name, also known as the Glasgow Reel. The story revolves around the rescue of Tam Lin by his true love from the Queen of the Fairies. The motif of winning a person by holding him through all forms of transformation is found throughout Europe in folktales. The story has been adapted into numerous stories, songs and films. It is listed as the 39th Child Ballad and number 35 in the Roud Folk Song Index. Synopsis Most variants begin with the warning that Tam Lin collects either a possession or the virginity of any maiden who passes through the forest of Carterhaugh. When a young woman, usually called Janet or Margaret, goes to Carterhaugh and plucks a double rose, Tam appears and asks her why she has come without his leave and taken what is his. She ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hind Etin
"Hind Etin" (Roudbr>33 Child 41) is a folk ballad existing in several variants. Synopsis Lady Margaret goes to the woods, and her breaking a branch is questioned by Hind Etin, who takes her with him into the forest. She bears him seven sons, but laments that they are never christened, nor she herself churched. One day, her oldest son goes hunting with Hind Etin and asks him why his mother always weeps. Hind Etin tells him, and then one day goes hunting without him. The oldest son takes his mother and brothers and brings them out of the woods. In some variants, they are welcomed back; in all, the children are christened, and their mother, churched. Motifs The meeting in the woods is often similar, when not identical, to Tam Lin's meeting with Fair Janet. In some variants, the mother's grief expresses itself as hostility to the children, wishing they were rats and she a cat, as in "Fair Annie"; her comments inspire a child's suggestion that they try to leave, which is acco ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of The Child Ballads
The Child Ballads is the colloquial name given to a collection of 305 ballads collected in the 19th century by Francis James Child Francis James Child (February 1, 1825 – September 11, 1896) was an American scholar, educator, and folklorist, best known today for his collection of English and Scottish ballads now known as the Child Ballads. Child was Boylston professor of ... and originally published in ten volumes between 1882 and 1898 under the title ''The English and Scottish Popular Ballads.'' The ballads Following are synopses of the stories recounted in the ballads in Child's collection. Since Child included multiple versions of most ballads, the details of a story can vary widely. The synopses presented here reflect the summaries in Child's text, but also rely on other sources as well as the ballads themselves. References {{Francis James Child Child Ballads Murder ballads ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tristan And Iseult
Tristan and Iseult, also known as Tristan and Isolde and other names, is a medieval chivalric romance told in numerous variations since the 12th century. Based on a Celtic legend and possibly other sources, the tale is a tragedy about the illicit love between the Cornish knight Tristan and the Irish princess Iseult. It depicts Tristan's mission to escort Iseult from Ireland to marry his uncle, King Mark of Cornwall. On the journey, Tristan and Iseult ingest a love potion, instigating a forbidden love affair between them. The story has had a lasting impact on Western culture. Its different versions exist in many European texts in various languages from the Middle Ages. The earliest instances take two primary forms: the courtly and common branches. The former begins with the 12th-century poems of Thomas of Britain and Béroul, while the latter reflects a now-lost original version. A subsequent version emerged in the 13th century in the wake of the greatly expanded Prose ''Tris ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fairy Tale
A fairy tale (alternative names include fairytale, fairy story, magic tale, or wonder tale) is a short story that belongs to the folklore genre. Such stories typically feature magic (paranormal), magic, incantation, enchantments, and mythical or fanciful beings. In most cultures, there is no clear line separating myth from folk or fairy tale; all these together form the literature of preliterate societies. Fairy tales may be distinguished from other folk narratives such as legends (which generally involve belief in the veracity of the events described) and explicit moral tales, including beast fables. In less technical contexts, the term is also used to describe something blessed with unusual happiness, as in "fairy-tale ending" (a happy ending) or "fairy-tale romance (love), romance". Colloquially, the term "fairy tale" or "fairy story" can also mean any far-fetched story or tall tale; it is used especially of any story that not only is not true, but could not possibly be true ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roud Folk Song Index
The Roud Folk Song Index is a database of around 250,000 references to nearly 25,000 songs collected from oral tradition in the English language from all over the world. It is compiled by Steve Roud (born 1949), a former librarian in the London Borough of Croydon. Roud's Index is a combination of the Broadside Index (printed sources before 1900) and a "field-recording index" compiled by Roud. It subsumes all the previous printed sources known to Francis James Child (the Child Ballads) and includes recordings from 1900 to 1975. Until early 2006, the index was available by a CD subscription; now it can be found online on the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library website, maintained by the English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS). A partial list is also available at List of folk songs by Roud number. Purpose of index The primary function of the Roud Folk Song Index is as a research aid correlating versions of traditional English-language folk song lyrics independently documented ove ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leesome Brand
Leesome Brand is Child Ballad number 15 and Roud #3301. Synopsis Leesome Brand few boyes like in ten years old. An eleven-year-old girl fell in love with him, but nine months later, called on him to saddle horses, take her dowry, and flee with her. They headed to his mother's house, but she went into labour on the way. He went off to hunt, but violated a prohibition she laid on him, either not to hunt a milk-white hind, or to come running when called, and she and his son died. He went home and lamented this to his mother. Some variants stop there. In others, the mother gave him a horn with ointment that restored them both to life. Variants Francis James Child described this ballad as particularly ill-preserved in its Scottish form, requiring consulting foreign variants even to be sure of the plot. One of its variants was so corrupted as to be barely distinguishable from "Sheath and Knife", Child Ballad 16, which laments a death in the same language. The foreign variants of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crow And Pie
Crow and Pie is Child ballad 111. It is one of the oldest preserved ballads, dating to c. 1500. Pie is the now-obsolete original name for the magpie, a bird often connected with sorrow and misfortune. The crow is a scavenger, often thought of as feeding upon the bodies of men hanged or slain in battle, and thus associated with unhallowed and violent death. Synopsis A man encounters a woman in the woods and tries to seduce her, first offering her his love, then a ring and a velvet purse. In each case she repulses him, saying "the crow shall byte yow" (bite you). He rapes her. She requests first that he marry her, then that he give her "some of your good" (representing either a token of the lover's identity, or the "nurse's fee" for raising a bastard child), and finally that he tell her his name. In each case he refuses her, saying "For now the pye hathe peckyd yow" (clearly a sexual metaphor). Finally, she curses him, saying that she will not despair and will "recouer my harte a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
