Now I see. You meant the verb to "abear," not, as your post seemed to suggest, a nonexistent noun "abore" supposedly meaning "how much has been born, tolerated, abided."

"Prince Borne," "Prince Abided," or "Prince Tolerated" would mean that *he* is the one being tolerated by someone else.

If it means anything at all. And why should it? His name seems to be of no particular importance. We have real no idea of how it got there, and no reason to assume that contains any hidden meaning that one should be aware of in order to comprehend the story. And the story is what ballads are about.

"Abore" could simply be an invention, or it could have been a mishearing of something other than "Robert." If Frank Feeney assumed that "O'Bore" had no meaning beyond being a name, why should any other singers, including us, think differently about "Abore"?