"The Kitchie-Boy" (also known as "Bonny Foot-Boy" or "Earl Richard's Daughter") 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 '' ...
number 252;
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 ...
number 105.
Synopsis
A lady falls in love with the kitchen boy. She manages to speak with him, but he is afraid that her father will kill him. She takes 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 b ...
and has a bonny ship built, and the kitchen boy sets sail in it. When he comes to her father's castle, her father is convinced that he is a
squire
In the Middle Ages, a squire was the shield- or armour-bearer of a knight.
Use of the term evolved over time. Initially, a squire served as a knight's apprentice. Later, a village leader or a lord of the manor might come to be known as a " ...
and a fit suitor. Sometimes, he arrives in disguise and tests her by claiming to have taken a love-token from a dead man, but she refuses him until he reveals the truth.
The father marries him to his daughter. In some variants, nine months later, the daughter reveals the truth at her son's christening, and her father accepts it, as proof of her cunning.
References
External links
Several variants
Child Ballads
Year of song unknown
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