Leesome Brand (
Roud 3301,
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 ...
15) is an English-language folk song.
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
A dowry is a payment such as land, property, money, livestock, or a commercial asset that is paid by the bride's (woman's) family to the groom (man) or his family at the time of marriage.
Dowry contrasts with the related concepts of bride price ...
, 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 (February 1, 1825 – September 11, 1896) was an American scholar, educator, and folklorist, best known today for his collection of English and Scottish ballads now known as the Child Ballads. Child was Boylston professor ...
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", 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".
"
Willie o Douglas Dale
Willie o Couglas Dale or Willie O Douglas Dale ( Roud 65, Child 101) is a traditional English-language folk song.
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 "
Willie and Earl Richard's Daughter" include similar flights, of the lovers, with the woman being pregnant and giving birth in the woods, although with altered endings.
[Francis James Child, ''The English and Scottish Popular Ballads'', v 2, p 412, Dover Publications, New York 1965]
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
Child Ballads
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