Brown Robin is the 97th
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 '' ...
from the collection of 305
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 ...
s from
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
and
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...
, and their
American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
variants, collected 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 r ...
in the late nineteenth century. The ballad tells the story of a king's daughter who brings her lover, Brown Robin, into the castle and back out without being discovered by the king.
The second variant comes from the ballad "Love Robbie."
[ Accessed 14 February 2012.
]
History
"Love Robbie"
The second variant in Child's ''Popular English and Scottish Ballads'' comes from the ballad "Love Robbie," which dates to as far back as the mid-18th century.
William Christie collected the ballad in
Buckie,
Banffshire
Banffshire ; sco, Coontie o Banffshire; gd, Siorrachd Bhanbh) is a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of Scotland. The county town is Banff, although the largest settlement is Buckie to the west. It borders the Moray ...
, from a Scottish woman whose father and grandfather originally sang the ballad. Her father was a well-known ballad-singer, given the name "Meesic' (Music) "given to him in the end of
he 18thcentury by the populace.
Synopsis
A king's daughter waits on the table at supper and she falls in love with Brown Robin. She gets her father and the porter drunk and takes Robin to her bower. They stay until morning, but he does not think he can escape. After she persuades her father to let her and her maids gather flowers in the woods, she dresses Brown Robin as one of them. They comment that he makes a sturdy lady but let him go.
In some variants, the tale ends there. In others, the porter shoots Brown Robin, and the king hangs him at his daughter's request. In still others, the daughter goes with Brown Robin, and the porter arranges her reconciliation with her father, for which she settles money on him.
References
External links
''Brown Robin''Sacred-texts.com
{{Folk-song-stub
Child Ballads
Scottish folklore
Culture in Moray
Books about Scotland