''Erlinton'' (

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 ...

24) is #8 of the

Child Ballads 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 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 Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

, and their American 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 ...

in the late nineteenth century. The collection was published as ''The English and Scottish Popular Ballads'' between 1882 and 1898 by

Houghton Mifflin The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , ''asteriskos'', "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star. Computer scientists and mathematicians often voc ...

in ten volumes and later reissued in a five volume edition. One variant features

Robin Hood Robin Hood is a legendary heroic outlaw originally depicted in English folklore and subsequently featured in literature and film. According to legend, he was a highly skilled archer and swordsman. In some versions of the legend, he is dep ...

, but this variant forces the folk hero into a ballad structure where he does not fit naturally.

Synopsis

Erlinton imprisons his daughter in her bower, to keep her from sinning. She persuades her sister to go to the woods with her, and escapes her with her lover Willie. They are attacked, by knights or outlaws, but he fights and kills them all, and they escape. In the Robin Hood variant, Robin sees a woman walking in the woods and persuades her to run away with him; unlike the other variants, they are not already lovers and she does not need to escape her father. Her brothers attack, but Robin kills all of them except the youngest.

Commentary

This ballad has many similarities with Child ballad 7, '' Earl Brand'', where the lovers' escape ends in their deaths, and the fight scenes often have details in common across variants.

only reluctantly separated them, but concluded that because the lovers' assailants are her kin in ''Earl Brand'' and strangers in ''Erlinton'', they were separate types.Francis James Child, ''The English and Scottish Popular Ballads'', v 1, p 106, Dover Publications, New York 1965

References

Child Ballads Robin Hood ballads {{Folk-song-stub

Synopsis

Commentary

See also

References