Lord Thomas and Fair Annet (Child 73, 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...

 4) is an English folk 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...

.

Synopsis

Lord Thomas (or Sweet Willie) is in love with Fair Annet, or Annie, or Elinor, but she has little property. He asks for advice. His father, mother, and brother (or some of them) advise that he should marry the nut-brown maid with a rich dowry. His mother promises to curse him if he marries Annet and bless him if he marries the nut-brown maid. His sister warns her that her dowry may be lost and then he will be stuck with nothing but a hideous bride. Nevertheless, he takes his mother's advice.

Fair Annet dresses as splendidly as she can and goes to the wedding. The nut-brown maid is so jealous that she stabs Annet to death. Lord Thomas stabs both the nut-brown maid and himself to death. A rose grew from Fair Annet's grave, a brier from Lord Thomas's, and they grew together.

Variants

Several Norse variants of this ballad exist, although the man does not reject the woman on advice of his friends in them.

Similarly to this one, in Fair Margaret and Sweet William

Fair Margaret and Sweet William

"Fair Margaret and Sweet William" or Lady Margaret or Lady Margaret and Sweet William is a folk song, collected by Francis James Child as Child ballad number 74...

, the hero rejects the heroine to marry for money; Lord Lovel

Lord Lovel

-Synopsis:A lord tells the lady he loves that he is going in a journey that will take several years. After a time, he longs to see her. He returns whereupon he hears of her death, and dies of grief....

, containing some similar themes, has the heroine die for lack of hope.

Adaptations

This ballad was one of 25 traditional works included in Ballads Weird and Wonderful (1912) and illustrated by Vernon Hill (sculptor)

Vernon Hill (sculptor)

Vernon Hill was a sculptor, lithographer and Illustrator.-Biography:Vernon Hill was born in Halifax and undertook formal training in print-making from an early age, being apprenticed as a lithographer in his early teen....

.

Commentary

The grave plants that grow together are a motif to express true love, also found in many variants of Barbara Allen and of Tristan and Iseult

Tristan and Iseult

The legend of Tristan and Iseult is an influential romance and tragedy, retold in numerous sources with as many variations. The tragic story is of the adulterous love between the Cornish knight Tristan and the Irish princess Iseult...

, and in the legend of Baucis and Philemon

Baucis and Philemon

In Ovid's moralizing fable , which stands on the periphery of Greek mythology and Roman mythology, Baucis and Philemon were an old married couple in the region of Tyana, which Ovid places in Phrygia, and the only ones in their town to welcome disguised gods Zeus and Hermes , thus embodying the...

.

This ballad has no connection with The Nut-Brown Maid

The Nut-Brown Maid

"The Nut-Brown Maid", also known as "The Nut-Brown Maiden", is a ballad included by Thomas Percy in his Reliques of Ancient English Poetry.-Synopsis:...

, in which a nut-brown maid is the heroine.

External links

• Lord Thomas and Fair Ellinor with some history