User:TimNelson/Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight

Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight is the English common name representative of a very large class of European ballads. The subject matter is frequently associated with the genre of the Halewyn legends circulating in Europe.

Synopsis
The general plot of variant 1 The Gowans sae Gay, is as follows:

An "Elf-Knight" blows a magic horn (or in the variations sings a magic song), causing a lady (sometimes described as a king's daughter) to profess love to him:
 * If I had yon horn that I hear blawing,
 * And you elf-knight to sleep in my bosom.

The knight carries the lady off to a deep wood or seaside, where he tells her that he has killed seven (or some large number) other women and plans to do the same to her (in many European versions it is made explicit that he proposes to "dishonor" her as well).

The lady or princess (Isabel, May) offers to de-louse the knight, or tells him to "lay your head upon my knee", to which he agrees (on the condition that should he fall asleep, she shall not harm him while he sleeps). She sings a magic song:


 * Wi a sma charm she lulld him fast asleep

While he sleeps, she ties him up, then wakes the elf and beheads him:
 * If seven king's-daughters here ye hae slain,
 * Lye ye here, a husband to them a.

Commentary
Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight is unusual in the English ballad tradition in that the lady saves herself rather than depending on her father, brothers, or fiancee to defend her.

Historical Background
Scholars think the ballad variants all stem from Germanic songs and folklore of the Nix water spirit who lures women to their doom with music, in addition to early Bluebeard-type legends circulating in Europe.

The variant May Collean has been attached, as a legend, to the coast of Ayrshire, where the heroine was said to come from the family Kennedy of Colzean.

Standard References

 * Roud 21
 * Child 4

Textual Variants
Several variations of the ballad were classified by Francis James Child that feature a "Lord" instead of an elf knight.

The ballad is known throughout Europe. The Scandavian and German version (both Low and High German) are the fullest versions, while the southern European ones are rather shorter, and the English versions somewhat brief. The numerous French versions end in the same location as the English version, on a riverbank or by the sea, a motif only found elsewhere in Polish variants, which are extensive and widespread. The Dutch song Heer Halewijn is one of the earlier (13th century) versions of this tale, fuller and preserving older elements, including such things as the murderer's head speaking after the heroine has beheaded him, attempting to get her to do tasks for him. Eleven Danish variants are known, often including the heroine's meeting with the sister or the men of the murderer and dealing with them as well. An Icelandic version has a very short account of the tale. Twenty-six German variants are known. In some, she rescues herself; in others her brother rescues her; and in still others, the murderer succeeds but her brother kills him after the fact. In some of them, the dead women reappear as doves and attempt to warn the latest. Other variants are northern Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Magyar.

The variations of the ballad vary on some of the key characters and details:

Motifs
Another related ballad, Hind Etin (Child Ballad #41), also begins with abduction and rape by an elf, but ends with the pair falling in love and living happily together.

Many of the same motifs are found in Child Ballad 48, Young Andrew.

Literature
Various forms of these ballads show great similarity to the fairy tales Fitcher's Bird and Bluebeard.

Art
Kentucky artist and ballad singer Daniel Dutton has a painting of this ballad, titled "False Sir John," on his Ballads of the Barefoot Mind website

Music recordings

 * Broadside Electric included the tale as False Sir John on the 1993 album Black-edged Visiting Card
 * The tale also appeared as The Elf Knight on the Steeleye Span album Time.
 * The British Folk Group Bellowhead included the version "The Outlandish Knight" on their album Burlesque.