Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight
Encyclopedia
"Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight" (Child
#4; Roud
#21) is the English
common name representative of a very large class of Europe
an ballad
s. The subject matter is frequently associated with the genre of the Halewyn
legends circulating in Europe. There are a number of variants with different names (see Textual Variants, below).
The lady of the title is named variously as "Lady Isabel", "the King's daughter" "May Collin", "May Colven", "pretty Polly", or not named at all. Variants of the song usually imply that she is rich and beautiful. The knight is, in some versions, a normal, but villainous, mortal man, but in others he is an "elf
knight
". The term "outlandish knight", which appears in several variants might imply something supernatural about the character, or may be a reference to the border regions between England and Scotland.
Depending on the characteristics of the knight, he may woo the lady by the usual human practices or by supernatural powers. For instance, in some variations he blows a magic horn or sings a magic song, causing the lady to profess love to him:
She is made to leave her parents' house and go with the knight, either by persuasion, coercion, or magical enchantment. In some versions the knight persuades her to steal money from her parents before she leaves.
They arrive at their destination, which in some versions is explicitly named (e.g. "Bunion Bay" or "Wearie's Well") and may be beside the sea or a river, or in a deep wood. He tells her about his previous victims and that she will be the next.
In most versions, he then orders the lady to undress and remove her jewels. In some variants, she then asks him to turn away while she undresses, giving her the opportunity to surprise him and, for example, push him in the sea or "tumble him into the stream". In other variants, she tells him to "lay your head upon my knee", in some cases offering to de-louse
the knight. He agrees, on the condition that should he fall asleep, she shall not harm him while he sleeps. However, she sings a magic song: "Wi a sma charm she lulld him fast asleep". While he sleeps, she ties him up, sometimes with his own belt, then wakes the knight and either stabs him with a dagger or beheads him:
Some variants end at this point, but several include a curious final section in which the lady returns home and engages in conversation with a parrot in a cage. She usually makes a bargain with the bird that she will give it a golden cage if it refrains from telling her father of the escapade with the knight.
, shapeshifting water spirits who usually appear in human form and lure women to their doom with music. Common features between the ballad and these legends include the lord or elf who appears in human form but is actually "otherworldly"; the enchanting of women with music (the horn blowing or fiddle playing of many ballad variants); and the drowning of victims in water.
The ballad also pulled in many elements from the "Heer Halewijn
" song and the Bluebeard
legends of the 13th century, and the stories of a beheading may have also roots in the biblical story of Judith and Holofernes (see Book of Judith).
There have been various other rationalisations, attaching the story to specific locations and historical events: for example to the murder of the Breton Gilles de Laval in the early fifteenth century. The variant May Collean has been attached, as a legend, to the coast of Ayrshire
, where the heroine was said to come from the family Kennedy of Colzean. A rocky promontory called Gamesloup, on the Ayrshire coast, is pointed to by local people as the spot where the knight drowned his victims. This local association is noted by A. L. Lloyd
who quotes it as an example of a ballad which "so strikes the common imagination that people want to make the piece their own by giving it a local setting".
Lloyd also refers to a suggestion, by Leon Pineau, that the ballad is an ancient solar myth, relating to the sun and the seasons of the year. In this interpretation, the villain represents the spirit of night and winter, and the murdered victims are the months of the year: the heroine of the song represents the sun who brings winter to an end.
There has also been an attempt at a psychoanalytical interpretation, by Paul de Keyser. He suggests that, in the singer's subconscious, the villain is the sister of the heroine. His beheading (in some versions) symbolises castration—the punishment for the singer's own incestuous desires.
Lloyd gives much more credence to the Hungarian scholar, Lajos Vargyas, who has suggested that the origins of the song are much earlier and are based in Asia, having then been taken into Europe by the Magyars. One scene which appears in some variants of the ballad is that in which the lady sits beneath a tree whilst the villain places his head in her lap, to be de-loused. She looks up and sees his bloody weapons hanging from the branches of the tree. This image is very close to that depicted in medieval church paintings in Hungary and Slovakia, of St. Ladislaus being de-loused by a woman, beneath a tree from which his weapons and helmet hang. An almost identical image has been found on a sword scabbard, originating from Siberia, dating from 300BC, and now in the Hermitage
collection in Leningrad. It is claimed that the scene crops up in epic ballads of the Mongols
, relating to the abduction of a woman by another tribe. If correct, the basis of the ballad may have survived over 2000 years of oral tradition, and a journey from the mountains of Western Mongolia, to the villages of England.
The song has also appeared in several published collections of folk songs and ballads, for example:
that feature a "Lord" instead of an elf knight.
Some variations have a parrot at the end, who promises not to tell what happened. In some of these, the parrot is eaten by the cat.
The variations of the ballad vary on some of the key characters and details:
Other titles:
The Dutch song "Heer Halewijn
" is one of the earlier (13th century) versions of this tale, fuller and preserving older elements, including such things as the murderer's head speaking after the heroine has beheaded him, attempting to get her to do tasks for him.
At least 60 French, or French-Canadian versions have been collected and these almost all end in the same location as the English version, on a riverbank or by the sea, a motif only found elsewhere in the extensive and widespread Polish variants.
Numerous German variants are known. Child says 26 German variants but Lloyd, writing more than a century later, claims over 250. In some, the heroine rescues herself; in others her brother rescues her; and in still others, the murderer succeeds but her brother kills him after the fact. In some of them, the dead women reappear as doves and attempt to warn the latest victim.
Eleven Danish variants are known, often including the heroine's meeting with the sister or the men of the murderer and dealing with them as well. An Icelandic version has a very short account of the tale. Other variants are northern Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Magyar.
" (Child Ballad #41), also begins with abduction and rape by an elf, but ends with the pair falling in love and living happily together.
Many of the same motifs are found in Child Ballad 48, "Young Andrew
".
s Fitcher's Bird
and Bluebeard
.
's "May Colvin and the Parrot" illustrates this ballad.
Kentucky artist and ballad singer Daniel Dutton
has a painting of this ballad, titled "False Sir John", on his Ballads of the Barefoot Mind website.
from Mr Hilton of South Walsham, Norfolk, England, in 1908.
Child Ballads
The Child Ballads are a collection of 305 ballads from England and Scotland, and their American variants, collected by Francis James Child in the late nineteenth century...
#4; Roud
Roud Folk Song Index
The Roud Folk Song Index is a database of 300,000 references to over 21,600 songs that have been collected from oral tradition in the English language from all over the world...
#21) is the English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
common name representative of a very large class of Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an ballad
Ballad
A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of British and Irish popular poetry and song from the later medieval period until the 19th century and used extensively across Europe and later the Americas, Australia and North Africa. Many...
s. The subject matter is frequently associated with the genre of the Halewyn
Heer Halewijn
Heer Halewijn is a Dutch-Flemish folk tale which survives in folk ballad. Although the first printed version of the song only appears in an anthology published in 1848, the ballad itself dates back to the 13th century and is one of the oldest Dutch folk songs with ancient subject matter to be...
legends circulating in Europe. There are a number of variants with different names (see Textual Variants, below).
Synopsis
The song appears in many variants but the main theme is that the knight of the title woos the lady with music (i.e. blows a magic horn, or in some variations sings a magic song), or abducts her, and carries her off to a deep wood or seaside, where he tells her that he has killed seven (or more) other women and plans to do the same to her. In many European versions it is made explicit that he proposes to "dishonour" her as well. She, however, distracts him by one of a number of means and then contrives to kill him in her stead.The lady of the title is named variously as "Lady Isabel", "the King's daughter" "May Collin", "May Colven", "pretty Polly", or not named at all. Variants of the song usually imply that she is rich and beautiful. The knight is, in some versions, a normal, but villainous, mortal man, but in others he is an "elf
Elf
An elf is a being of Germanic mythology. The elves were originally thought of as a race of divine beings endowed with magical powers, which they use both for the benefit and the injury of mankind...
knight
Knight
A knight was a member of a class of lower nobility in the High Middle Ages.By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct for the perfect courtly Christian warrior....
". The term "outlandish knight", which appears in several variants might imply something supernatural about the character, or may be a reference to the border regions between England and Scotland.
Depending on the characteristics of the knight, he may woo the lady by the usual human practices or by supernatural powers. For instance, in some variations he blows a magic horn or sings a magic song, causing the lady to profess love to him:
- If I had yon horn that I hear blawing,
- And you elf-knight to sleep in my bosom.
She is made to leave her parents' house and go with the knight, either by persuasion, coercion, or magical enchantment. In some versions the knight persuades her to steal money from her parents before she leaves.
- "Now steal me some of your father's gold, and some of your mother's fee,
- And steal the best steed in your father's stable, where there lie thirty three."
They arrive at their destination, which in some versions is explicitly named (e.g. "Bunion Bay" or "Wearie's Well") and may be beside the sea or a river, or in a deep wood. He tells her about his previous victims and that she will be the next.
- "Loup off the steed," says false Sir John, "Your bridal bed you see;
- For I have drowned seven young ladies; the eight one you shall be."
In most versions, he then orders the lady to undress and remove her jewels. In some variants, she then asks him to turn away while she undresses, giving her the opportunity to surprise him and, for example, push him in the sea or "tumble him into the stream". In other variants, she tells him to "lay your head upon my knee", in some cases offering to de-louse
Louse
Lice is the common name for over 3,000 species of wingless insects of the order Phthiraptera; three of which are classified as human disease agents...
the knight. He agrees, on the condition that should he fall asleep, she shall not harm him while he sleeps. However, she sings a magic song: "Wi a sma charm she lulld him fast asleep". While he sleeps, she ties him up, sometimes with his own belt, then wakes the knight and either stabs him with a dagger or beheads him:
- If seven king's-daughters here ye hae slain,
- Lye ye here, a husband to them a.
Some variants end at this point, but several include a curious final section in which the lady returns home and engages in conversation with a parrot in a cage. She usually makes a bargain with the bird that she will give it a golden cage if it refrains from telling her father of the escapade with the knight.
- "Oh hold your tongue, my favourite bird, and tell no tales on me;
- Your cage I will make of the beaten gold, and hang in the willow-tree."
Commentary
"Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight" is unusual in the English and Scottish ballad traditions in that the lady saves herself rather than depending on her father, brothers, or fiancee to defend her.Historical background
The balance of opinion amongst scholars is that the ballad variants all stem from Germanic songs and folklore of the NixNix
The Neck/Nixie are shapeshifting water spirits who usually appear in human form. The spirit has appeared in the myths and legends of all Germanic peoples in Europe....
, shapeshifting water spirits who usually appear in human form and lure women to their doom with music. Common features between the ballad and these legends include the lord or elf who appears in human form but is actually "otherworldly"; the enchanting of women with music (the horn blowing or fiddle playing of many ballad variants); and the drowning of victims in water.
The ballad also pulled in many elements from the "Heer Halewijn
Heer Halewijn
Heer Halewijn is a Dutch-Flemish folk tale which survives in folk ballad. Although the first printed version of the song only appears in an anthology published in 1848, the ballad itself dates back to the 13th century and is one of the oldest Dutch folk songs with ancient subject matter to be...
" song and the Bluebeard
Bluebeard
"Bluebeard" is a French literary folktale written by Charles Perrault and is one of eight tales by the author first published by Barbin in Paris in January 1697 in Histoires ou Contes du temps passé. The tale tells the story of a violent nobleman in the habit of murdering his wives and the...
legends of the 13th century, and the stories of a beheading may have also roots in the biblical story of Judith and Holofernes (see Book of Judith).
There have been various other rationalisations, attaching the story to specific locations and historical events: for example to the murder of the Breton Gilles de Laval in the early fifteenth century. The variant May Collean has been attached, as a legend, to the coast of Ayrshire
Ayrshire
Ayrshire is a registration county, and former administrative county in south-west Scotland, United Kingdom, located on the shores of the Firth of Clyde. Its principal towns include Ayr, Kilmarnock and Irvine. The town of Troon on the coast has hosted the British Open Golf Championship twice in the...
, where the heroine was said to come from the family Kennedy of Colzean. A rocky promontory called Gamesloup, on the Ayrshire coast, is pointed to by local people as the spot where the knight drowned his victims. This local association is noted by A. L. Lloyd
A. L. Lloyd
Albert Lancaster Lloyd , usually known as A. L. Lloyd or Bert Lloyd, was an English folk singer and collector of folk songs, and as such was a key figure in the folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s....
who quotes it as an example of a ballad which "so strikes the common imagination that people want to make the piece their own by giving it a local setting".
Lloyd also refers to a suggestion, by Leon Pineau, that the ballad is an ancient solar myth, relating to the sun and the seasons of the year. In this interpretation, the villain represents the spirit of night and winter, and the murdered victims are the months of the year: the heroine of the song represents the sun who brings winter to an end.
There has also been an attempt at a psychoanalytical interpretation, by Paul de Keyser. He suggests that, in the singer's subconscious, the villain is the sister of the heroine. His beheading (in some versions) symbolises castration—the punishment for the singer's own incestuous desires.
Lloyd gives much more credence to the Hungarian scholar, Lajos Vargyas, who has suggested that the origins of the song are much earlier and are based in Asia, having then been taken into Europe by the Magyars. One scene which appears in some variants of the ballad is that in which the lady sits beneath a tree whilst the villain places his head in her lap, to be de-loused. She looks up and sees his bloody weapons hanging from the branches of the tree. This image is very close to that depicted in medieval church paintings in Hungary and Slovakia, of St. Ladislaus being de-loused by a woman, beneath a tree from which his weapons and helmet hang. An almost identical image has been found on a sword scabbard, originating from Siberia, dating from 300BC, and now in the Hermitage
Hermitage Museum
The State Hermitage is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia. One of the largest and oldest museums of the world, it was founded in 1764 by Catherine the Great and has been opened to the public since 1852. Its collections, of which only a small part is on permanent display,...
collection in Leningrad. It is claimed that the scene crops up in epic ballads of the Mongols
Mongols
Mongols ) are a Central-East Asian ethnic group that lives mainly in the countries of Mongolia, China, and Russia. In China, ethnic Mongols can be found mainly in the central north region of China such as Inner Mongolia...
, relating to the abduction of a woman by another tribe. If correct, the basis of the ballad may have survived over 2000 years of oral tradition, and a journey from the mountains of Western Mongolia, to the villages of England.
Standard references
- RoudRoud Folk Song IndexThe Roud Folk Song Index is a database of 300,000 references to over 21,600 songs that have been collected from oral tradition in the English language from all over the world...
21 - Child 4
The song has also appeared in several published collections of folk songs and ballads, for example:
- Arthur Quiller-Couch, (ed.) The Oxford Book of Ballads, 1910.
- Cecil Sharp, English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians, Oxford University Press, London, 1952. vol. 1, p. 7.
- R. Vaughan Williams & A.L. Lloyd, The Penguin Book of English Folk Songs, Penguin Books, 1959, pp. 80–81 (as "The Outlandish Knight")
- Geoffrey Grigson (ed), The Penguin Book of Ballads, Penguin Books, 1975. ISBN 0 14 042 193 9. pp. 40–41
Textual variants
Several variations of the ballad were classified by Francis James ChildFrancis James Child
Francis James Child was an American scholar, educator, and folklorist, best known today for his collection of folk songs known as the Child Ballads. Child was Boylston professor of rhetoric and oratory at Harvard University, where he produced influential editions of English poetry...
that feature a "Lord" instead of an elf knight.
Some variations have a parrot at the end, who promises not to tell what happened. In some of these, the parrot is eaten by the cat.
The variations of the ballad vary on some of the key characters and details:
| Lady Isabel variants per Child | Heroine | Villain | # Dead Women | Setting | Parrot | Notes & Source(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Gowans sae gay or Aye as the Gowans grow gay | Lady Isabel | Elf-Knight | 7 | Greenwood | Buchan's Ballads I:22 of N. Scotland; Motherwell's MS p. 563 | |
| The Water o Wearie's Well | King's daughter | Luppen | 7 | Wearie's Well | Buchan's Ballads of the N. of Scotland II:80; Motherwell's MS, Harris MS Harris repertoire The Harris Repertoire consists of two manuscripts, both written by the sisters Amelia and Jane Harris. Containing 29 and 59 ballads and songs respectively, these manuscripts are part of the cornerstone of nineteenth-century ballad collecting... 19 |
|
| May Colvin or May Colvin, or False Sir John | May Colvin | False Sir John | 7 | Sea-side | Yes | year 1776. Herd's MSS I:166; Herd's Ancient & Modern Scottish Songs 1776:193, Motherwell's Minstrelsy p67 |
| May Collin , May Collean or Fause Sir John and May Colvin | May Collin | Sir John, bloody knight | 8 | Bunion Bay | Yes | year 1823. Sharpe's Ballad Book 1823, 17:45; Buchan's Ballads of N. Scotland II:45 |
| The Outlandish Knight | Lady | Outlandish knight | 6 | Sea-side | Yes | Note: This version is "a modernized version" - from "Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of the Peasantry of England" by Dixon:74. The story is performed by UK folk group Bellowhead Bellowhead Bellowhead are an English contemporary folk band originally brought together by John Spiers and Jon Boden. The eleven-piece band plays traditional dance tunes, folk songs and shanties, with arrangements drawing inspiration from a wide diversity of musical styles and influences... on their album Burlesque Burlesque (album) - Personnel :* Jon Boden - lead vocals , fiddle, tambourine* John Spiers - melodeon, anglo-concertina, backing vocals* Benji Kirkpatrick - guitar, bouzouki, mandolin, banjo, backing vocals* Andy Mellon - trumpet, flugelhorn, backing vocals... . |
| The False Knight Outwitted | Lady | Knight | 6 | River-side | Yes | Roxburghe Ballads, III:449 |
| Comparable Song: | ||||||
| Heer Halewijn Heer Halewijn Heer Halewijn is a Dutch-Flemish folk tale which survives in folk ballad. Although the first printed version of the song only appears in an anthology published in 1848, the ballad itself dates back to the 13th century and is one of the oldest Dutch folk songs with ancient subject matter to be... (Dutch) |
Princess | Halewijn | many | Forest & gallowfield | 13th century. (compared to Outlandish Knight and May Colvin or False Sir John) |
Other titles:
- An Outlandish Rover
- The Highway Robber
- The Old Beau
- The False-Hearted Knight
- If I Take Off My Silken Stays
Non-English variants
The ballad is known throughout Europe and is described by Child as the ballad which "has perhaps obtained the widest circulation". He notes that the Scandavian and German versions (both Low and High German) are the fullest versions, while the southern European ones are rather shorter, and the English versions somewhat brief.The Dutch song "Heer Halewijn
Heer Halewijn
Heer Halewijn is a Dutch-Flemish folk tale which survives in folk ballad. Although the first printed version of the song only appears in an anthology published in 1848, the ballad itself dates back to the 13th century and is one of the oldest Dutch folk songs with ancient subject matter to be...
" is one of the earlier (13th century) versions of this tale, fuller and preserving older elements, including such things as the murderer's head speaking after the heroine has beheaded him, attempting to get her to do tasks for him.
At least 60 French, or French-Canadian versions have been collected and these almost all end in the same location as the English version, on a riverbank or by the sea, a motif only found elsewhere in the extensive and widespread Polish variants.
Numerous German variants are known. Child says 26 German variants but Lloyd, writing more than a century later, claims over 250. In some, the heroine rescues herself; in others her brother rescues her; and in still others, the murderer succeeds but her brother kills him after the fact. In some of them, the dead women reappear as doves and attempt to warn the latest victim.
Eleven Danish variants are known, often including the heroine's meeting with the sister or the men of the murderer and dealing with them as well. An Icelandic version has a very short account of the tale. Other variants are northern Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Magyar.
Songs that refer to Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight
The dialogue between the Lady and the parrot, which appears in some versions, was made into a comic song: "Tell Tale Polly", published in Charley Fox's Minstrel Companion (ca. 1860).Motifs
Another related ballad, "Hind EtinHind Etin
"Hind Etin" is a folk ballad existing in several variants.-Synopsis:Lady Margaret goes to the woods, and her breaking a branch is questioned by Hind Etin, who takes her with him into the forest. She bears him seven sons, but laments that they are never christened, nor she herself churched...
" (Child Ballad #41), also begins with abduction and rape by an elf, but ends with the pair falling in love and living happily together.
Many of the same motifs are found in Child Ballad 48, "Young Andrew
Young Andrew
-Synopsis:Andrew seduces Helen and tells her he will fulfill his promise to marry her only if she brings him her father's gold. She does. He robs her not only of it but all her clothing. She goes home, naked. Her father is furious. Her heart breaks, killing her, and her father regrets it...
".
Literature
Various forms of these ballads show great similarity to the fairy taleFairy tale
A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...
s Fitcher's Bird
Fitcher's Bird
Fitcher's Bird is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, tale number 46.It is Aarne-Thompson type 311, the heroine rescues herself and her sisters. Another tale of this type is How the Devil Married Three Sisters. It is closely related to the tale Bluebeard...
and Bluebeard
Bluebeard
"Bluebeard" is a French literary folktale written by Charles Perrault and is one of eight tales by the author first published by Barbin in Paris in January 1697 in Histoires ou Contes du temps passé. The tale tells the story of a violent nobleman in the habit of murdering his wives and the...
.
Art
Arthur RackhamArthur Rackham
Arthur Rackham was an English book illustrator.-Biography:Rackham was born in London as one of 12 children. At the age of 18, he worked as a clerk at the Westminster Fire Office and began studying part-time at the Lambeth School of Art.In 1892 he left his job and started working for The...
's "May Colvin and the Parrot" illustrates this ballad.
Kentucky artist and ballad singer Daniel Dutton
Daniel Dutton
Daniel Dutton, born 1959 near Somerset, Kentucky, is a contemporary artist, lyricist, composer, artistic director, and amateur filmmaker, whose work combines visual, musical, and narrative arts. He is best known for his first opera, The Stone Man....
has a painting of this ballad, titled "False Sir John", on his Ballads of the Barefoot Mind website.
Music
Variants of the song are commonly sung to several different tunes. The following tune was collected by Ralph Vaughan WilliamsRalph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams OM was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many...
from Mr Hilton of South Walsham, Norfolk, England, in 1908.
Recordings
| Album/Single | Performer | Year | Variant | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Love, Death and The Lady Love, Death and the Lady Love, Death and the Lady is an album by Shirley and Dolly Collins.This is a companion-piece to Anthems in Eden , but with a darker tone to it. Many of the same instrumentalists are present , but used more sparsely. The figure of Death appears as a character in the title track... |
Shirley Shirley Collins Shirley Elizabeth Collins MBE is a British folksinger who was a significant contributor to the English Folk Revival of the 1960s and 1970s... and Dolly Collins Dolly Collins Dorothy Ann Collins, known as Dolly Collins , was an English folk musician, arranger and composer. She was the older sister of Shirley Collins.... |
1970 | The Outlandish Knight | |
| Ballads and Songs | Nic Jones Nic Jones Nicolas Paul "Nic" Jones is an English folk singer, fingerstyle guitarist and fiddle player whose professional career spanned the years 1964-1982. He recorded five solo albums, and was a frequent guest performer.-Biography:... |
1970 | The Outlandish Knight | Version from Cecil Sharp's English Folk Songs |
| Shearwater | Martin Carthy Martin Carthy Martin Carthy MBE is an English folk singer and guitarist who has remained one of the most influential figures in British traditional music, inspiring contemporaries such as Bob Dylan and Paul Simon and later artists such as Richard Thompson since he emerged as a young musician in the early days... |
1972 | The Outlandish Knight | |
| Black-edged Visiting Card Black-edged Visiting Card Black-edged Visiting Card is the title of the first album by Broadside Electric. It was released on December 1, 1992 in the United States.-Track listing:#New York Girls / Yoshke / Sailor's Hornpipe – 5:57... |
Broadside Electric Broadside Electric Broadside Electric are an American electric folk band from Philadelphia. Formed in 1990, they are still active in 2011... |
1993 | False Sir John | The parrot was left out |
| Time Time (Steeleye Span album) Time is an album by Steeleye Span. The album was released in 1996, after a seven year hiatus. The impetus for the album was a 25th anniversary reunion tour the year before, during which most of the former members of the band performed together... |
Steeleye Span Steeleye Span Steeleye Span are an English folk-rock band, formed in 1969 and remaining active today. Along with Fairport Convention they are amongst the best known acts of the British folk revival, and were among the most commercially successful, thanks to their hit singles "Gaudete" and "All Around My Hat".... |
1996 | The Elf Knight | The tune used here is by Bob Johnson Bob Johnson (musician) Robert "Bob" Johnson is a British guitarist formerly in the electric folk band Steeleye Span from 1972–77 and again from 1980-2001.... |
| Play On Light | Sileas Sileas Síleas is a Scottish harp duo. Patsy Seddon plays electric harp and gut-strung harp, and Mary Macmaster plays electric harp and metal-strung harp. Together they make up part of the all-women folk band The Poozies.... |
1999 | May Colvin | |
| Think Before You Think | Danú Danú Danú is an Irish traditional music band.The members of Danú met in Waterford in Southeastern Ireland in 1994. After performing in the Festival Interceltique de Lorient in 2005, the then thrown-together group decided to consolidate as a band.... |
2000 | The Outlandish Knight | |
| The Ballad Tree | Alison McMorland and Geordie McIntyre | 2003 | May Colvin | |
| Bellow | Spiers and Boden Spiers and Boden Spiers and Boden are an English folk duo. John Spiers plays melodeon and concertina, while Jon Boden sings and plays fiddle and guitar while stamping the rhythm on a stomp box.-Biography:... |
2003 | The Outlandish Knight | |
| Burlesque Burlesque (album) - Personnel :* Jon Boden - lead vocals , fiddle, tambourine* John Spiers - melodeon, anglo-concertina, backing vocals* Benji Kirkpatrick - guitar, bouzouki, mandolin, banjo, backing vocals* Andy Mellon - trumpet, flugelhorn, backing vocals... |
Bellowhead Bellowhead Bellowhead are an English contemporary folk band originally brought together by John Spiers and Jon Boden. The eleven-piece band plays traditional dance tunes, folk songs and shanties, with arrangements drawing inspiration from a wide diversity of musical styles and influences... |
2006 | The Outlandish Knight | |
| Too Long Away | Emily Smith Emily Smith (singer) Emily Smith is a Scottish folk singer from Dumfries and Galloway. She went to school at Wallace Hall Academy and has a degree in Scottish music from The Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. She is married to New Zealand-born fiddle player Jamie McClennan.Dumfries & Galloway's EMILY SMITH is... |
2008 | May Colvin | |
| Legendary Series, Rural Rhythm - Vol. 12 | J. E. Mainer J. E. Mainer J. E. Mainer was an American old time fiddler who followed in the wake of Gid Tanner and his Skillet Lickers.-Biography:... & The Mountaineers |
c.a. 1950 | Six King's Daughters | The lead here is sung by banjoist Morris Herbert |
Further reading
- Francis James Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, Volume 1, New York: Dover Publications, 1965.
- Meijer, Reinder. Literature of the Low Countries: A Short History of Dutch Literature in the Netherlands and Belgium. New York: Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1971, page 35.
- Marcello Sorce Keller, "Sul castel di mirabel: Life of a Ballad in Oral Tradition and Choral Practice", Ethnomusicology, XXX(1986), no. 3, 449-469.
External links
- "Scottish Ballads Online" Child Ballad #4: Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight Seven variants from Francis J Child's collection with a further 3 from the appendix and a link to versions from the living tradition.