"King Henry" is

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 '' ...

32,

Roud 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 ...

3967. It is a version of the tale of the

loathly lady The loathly lady ( cy, dynes gas, Motif D732 in Stith Thompson's motif index), 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 unattr ...

. This form of the tale appears in

Hrólfr Kraki Hrólfr Kraki (Old Norse: ), ''Hroðulf'', ''Rolfo'', ''Roluo'', ''Rolf Krage'' (early 6th century) was a semi-legendary Danish king who appears in both Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian tradition. Both traditions describe him as a Danish Scylding, ...

's saga and also in the Scottish tale " The Daughter Of King Under-Waves". A similar bride is found in "

The Marriage of Sir Gawain "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 medie ...

". The Vaughan Williams catalogue has an entry with Mrs Anna Brown of Fifeshire as the source singer, collected 1792 - 94.

Recordings

Steeleye Span Steeleye Span are a British folk rock band formed in 1969 in England by Fairport Convention bass player Ashley Hutchings and established London folk club duo Tim Hart and Maddy Prior. The band were part of the 1970s British folk revival, and we ...

included a version on the 1972 album '' Below the Salt''.

Martin Carthy Martin Carthy MBE (born 21 May 1941) is an English folk singer and guitarist who has remained one of the most influential figures in British traditional music, inspiring contemporaries such as Bob Dylan and Paul Simon, and later artists such as ...

also recorded a version, currently available on

Shearwater Shearwaters are medium-sized long-winged seabirds in the petrel family Procellariidae The family Procellariidae is a group of seabirds that comprises the fulmarine petrels, the gadfly petrels, the diving petrels, the prions, and the shearwa ...

and '' The Carthy Chronicles: A Journey Through the Folk Revival'' disk 4 'Child:Carthy'. Alexander James Adams, at the time recording as Heather Alexander included "King Henry-Black Nag" on the 2003 album ''Festival Wind''.

Faun The faun (, grc, φαῦνος, ''phaunos'', ) is a half-human and half-goat mythological creature appearing in Greek and Roman mythology. Originally fauns of Roman mythology were spirits (genii) of rustic places, lesser versions of their c ...

translated the song into

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

as "Herr Heinerich" for their album ''Buch der Balladen'' The Furrow Collective recorded this on the album "At Our Next Meeting" (2014). .

References

Child Ballads

Henry Henry may refer to: People *Henry (given name) * Henry (surname) * Henry Lau, Canadian singer and musician who performs under the mononym Henry Royalty * Portuguese royalty ** King-Cardinal Henry, King of Portugal ** Henry, Count of Portugal, ...

{{Folk-song-stub

Recordings

See also

References