"The Queen of Elfan's Nourice" or "The Queen of Elfland's Nourice" (
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. Roud's Index is a combination of the Broadsid ...
3723,
Child
A child () is a human being between the stages of childbirth, birth and puberty, or between the Development of the human body, developmental period of infancy and puberty. The term may also refer to an unborn human being. In English-speaking ...
40) is an English-language folk song, although fragmentary in form.
Synopsis
A mortal woman laments being taken from her four-day-old son. The
Queen
Queen most commonly refers to:
* Queen regnant, a female monarch of a kingdom
* Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king
* Queen (band), a British rock band
Queen or QUEEN may also refer to:
Monarchy
* Queen dowager, the widow of a king
* Q ...
of
Elfland promises that if she
nurses
Nursing is a health care profession that "integrates the art and science of caring and focuses on the protection, promotion, and optimization of health and human functioning; prevention of illness and injury; facilitation of healing; and alle ...
the queen's child, she will be returned. The Queen then points out their path: the road to Elfland, rather than to
Heaven
Heaven, or the Heavens, is a common Religious cosmology, religious cosmological or supernatural place where beings such as deity, deities, angels, souls, saints, or Veneration of the dead, venerated ancestors are said to originate, be throne, ...
or
Hell
In religion and folklore, hell is a location or state in the afterlife in which souls are subjected to punishment after death. Religions with a linear divine history sometimes depict hells as eternal destinations, such as Christianity and I ...
.
Motifs
The path to Elfland appears to be taken from the ballad "
Thomas the Rhymer
Sir Thomas de Ercildoun, better remembered as Thomas the Rhymer (fl. c. 1220 – 1298), also known as Thomas Learmont or True Thomas, was a Scottish laird and reputed prophet from Earlston (then called "Erceldoune") in the Borders. Tho ...
" rather than be a part of this tale.
The plot of the ballad revolves about a common piece of folklore, the
taking of human woman to Elfland to nurse fairy babies; women were often regarded as being in particular danger of being taken by the fairies immediately after giving birth.
This ballad was one of 25 traditional works included in ''Ballads Weird and Wonderful'' (1912) and illustrated by
Vernon Hill.
See also
*
List of the Child Ballads
is the colloquial name given to a collection of 305 ballads collected in the 19th century by Francis James Child and originally published in ten volumes between 1882 and 1898 under the title ''The English and Scottish Popular Ballads.''
The ba ...
References
External links
''The Queen of Elfan's Nourice''
Child Ballads
Fictional nannies
Northumbrian folklore
Scottish folklore
Elves
Year of song unknown
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