"Proud Lady Margaret" is Child ballad 47, existing in several variants.

Synopsis

A man arrives at the heroine's castle to woo her. She is frequently critical of him, on the grounds that his clothing shows him to be no gentleman. In most variants, he taxes her with riddles such as "What's the first thing in flower?" (primrose), and in the end, she accepts his suit. He reveals that he is her brother and a ghost

Ghost

In traditional belief and fiction, a ghost is the soul or spirit of a deceased person or animal that can appear, in visible form or other manifestation, to the living. Descriptions of the apparition of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to...

, sometimes after she has said she will go with him and he must forbid, as it will kill her. He tells her he has come to curb her haughtiness.

Commentary

This appears to be the compound of two ballads: one of a proud princess being humbled by a clever wooer, and the other of a dead soul rebuking the living.

Many of the elements of this are found in other ballads: the riddles from "Riddles Wisely Expounded

Riddles Wisely Expounded

"Riddles Wisely Expounded" is a traditional English song, dating at least to 1450. It is Child Ballad 1 and Roud 161, and exists in several variants...

", the suitor who proves to be a brother in "The Bonnie Banks o Fordie", the lover who returns as a ghost and must forbid the beloved from following him, as in "The Unquiet Grave

The Unquiet Grave

"The Unquiet Grave" is an English folk song in which a young man mourns his dead love too hard and prevents her from obtaining peace. It is thought to date from 1400 and was collected in 1868 by Francis James Child, as Child Ballad number 78....

".