"Sheath and Knife" (
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 ...
3960,
Child
A child ( : children) is a human being between the stages of birth and puberty, or between the developmental period of infancy and puberty. The legal definition of ''child'' generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger ...
16) is a folk
ballad
A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French ''chanson balladée'' or ''ballade'', which were originally "dance songs". Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and ...
.
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 death.
Variants
"
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 he ...
", Child ballad 15, is closely related to this ballad, and some variants are hard to distinguish; the hero laments the death in the same language as "Sheath and Knife".
Other ballads on this theme include "
The Bonny Hind
"The Bonny Hind" is Child ballad number 50 (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 ...
", "
The King's Dochter Lady Jean
"The King's Dochter Lady Jean" is Child ballad No. 52.
Synopsis
The King's youngest Daughter, Jane, is sitting in her bower one day when she is overcome with the urge to gather nuts from the King's forest. She goes to the forest to do so when a fo ...
", and "
Lizie Wan
"Lizie Wan" is Child ballad 51 and a murder ballad. It is also known as "Fair Lizzie".
Synopsis
The heroine (called variously Lizie, Rosie or Lucy) is pregnant with her brother's child. Her brother murders her. He tries to pass off the blood as ...
".
[Francis James Child, ''The English and Scottish Popular Ballads'', v 1, p 185, Dover Publications, New York 1965]
Versions
*
Ewan MacColl
James Henry Miller (25 January 1915 – 22 October 1989), better known by his stage name Ewan MacColl, was a folk singer-songwriter, folk song collector, labour activist and actor. Born in England to Scottish parents, he is known as one of the ...
sang this ballad and it is included on the collection ''Black & White''.
*
Sol Invictus
Sol Invictus (, "Unconquered Sun"), sometimes simply known as Helios, was long considered to be the official sun god of the later Roman Empire. In recent years, however, the scholarly community has become divided on Sol between traditionalists a ...
has a live version on the 1994 album ''The Death of the West''.
*
Maddy Prior
Madelaine Edith Prior MBE (born 14 August 1947) is an English folk singer, best known as the lead vocalist of Steeleye Span. She was born in Blackpool and moved to St Albans in her teens. Her father, Allan Prior, was co-creator of the police dr ...
has a version on her 1998 album ''Flesh & Blood''.
*
Helen Bonchek Schneyer performed an a cappella version on her Folk-Legacy album ''Ballads, Broadsides and Hymns''.
See also
*
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, ...
References
Child Ballads
Incest in fiction
{{Folk-song-stub