Leesome Brand is Child Ballad number 15 and

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 ...

#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 A dowry is a payment, such as property or money, paid by the bride's family to the groom or his family at the time of marriage. Dowry contrasts with the related concepts of bride price and dower. While bride price or bride service is a payment ...

, 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 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 ...

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 "Sheath and Knife" (Roud 3960, Child 16) is a folk ballad. Synopsis A woman is pregnant with her brother's child. He takes her to the greenwood to have her child, but she dies (or he kills her at her request). He buries her and laments her deat ...

", Child Ballad 16, which laments a death in the same language. The foreign variants of this ballad include Scandinavian, German, and French forms. The heroine's difficulty riding, because of her advanced pregnancy, also features in some Scandavian variants of " Gil Brenton". "

Willie o Douglas Dale Willie o Couglas Dale or Willie O Douglas Dale is Child ballad 101. Synopsis Willie goes to court, and he and a lady fall in love. When she is pregnant, they flee, but she goes in labor on the way, and gives birth to a son. They go on with the ...

" and " Willie and Earl Richard's Daughter" include similar flights, of the lovers, with the woman being pregnant and giving birth in the woods, although with altered endings.Francis James Child, ''The English and Scottish Popular Ballads'', v 2, p 412, Dover Publications, New York 1965

References

Child Ballads {{Folk-song-stub

Synopsis

Variants

See also

References