Child Ballads - Narrative

The King's Dochter Lady Jean

1. 1. 'The King's Dochter Lady Jean,' Motherwell's Manuscript, p. 657.
   2. 'Lady Jean,' Motherwell's Minstrelsy, Appendix, p. xxi.
   Version A
2. Motherwell's Manuscript, p. 275; the first six lines in Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. 189 f. Version B
3. 'Castle Ha's Daughter,' Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, I, 241. Version C
4. 'Bold Burnet's Daughter.'
   1. Buchan's Manuscripts, I, 120.
   2. The same, II, 141.
   Version D

B is the ballad referred to, and partly cited, in Motherwell's preface to 'The Broom blooms bonnie and says it is fair,' Minstrelsy, p. 189. This copy has been extremely injured by tradition; so much so as not to be intelligible in places except by comparison with A. The act described in stanza 9 should be done by the king's daughter's own hand; stanza 12 should be addressed by her to her sister; stanza 13 is composed of fragments of two. C and D have suffered worse, for they have beeu corrupted and vulgarized.

At the beginning there is resemblance to 'Tam Lin' and to 'Hind Etin.'

This page most recently updated on 15-Oct-2011, 10:42:25.
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