Synopsis

Leesome Brand went to court when ten years old. An eleven-year-old girl fell in love with him, but nine months later, called on him to saddle horses, take her dowry

Dowry

A dowry is the money, goods, or estate that a woman brings forth to the marriage. It contrasts with bride price, which is paid to the bride's parents, and dower, which is property settled on the bride herself by the groom at the time of marriage. The same culture may simultaneously practice both...

, and flee with her. They headed to his mother's house, but she went into labour on the way. He went off to hunt, but violated a prohibition she laid on him, either not to hunt a milk-white hind, or to come running when called, and she and his son died. He went home and lamented this to his mother.

Some variants stop there. In others, the mother gave him a horn with ointment that restored them both to life.

Variants

Francis James Child

Francis 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...

 described this ballad as particularly ill-preserved in its Scottish form, requiring consulting foreign variants even to be sure of the plot. One of its variants was so corrupted as to be barely distinguishable from "Sheath and Knife

Sheath and Knife

"Sheath and Knife" is a folk ballad.-Synopsis:A woman is pregnant with her brother's child. He takes her to the greenwood to have her child, but she dies...

", Child Ballad 16, which laments a death in the same language.

The foreign variants of this ballad include Scandinavian, German, and French forms.

The heroine's difficulty riding, because of her advanced pregnancy, also features in some Scandavian variants of "Gil Brenton

Gil Brenton

Gil Brenton is Child ballad 5, Roud 22, existing in several variants.-Synopsis:A man has brought home a foreign woman to be his wife....

".

"Willie o Douglas Dale

Willie o Douglas Dale

-Synopsis:Willie goes to court, and he and a lady fall in love. When she is pregnant, they flee, but she goes in labor on the way, and gives birth to a son. They go on with the child and reach his father's lands.-Motifs:...

" and "Willie and Earl Richard's Daughter

Willie and Earl Richard's Daughter

Willie and Earl Richard's Daughter is Child ballad 102.It recounts the birth of Robin Hood, but is not part of the Robin Hood cycle; Francis James Child rejected the title The Birth of Robin Hood for it on those grounds.-Synopsis:...

" include similar flights, of the lovers, with the woman being pregnant and giving birth in the woods, although with altered endings.