Hi Richard,

If you can post, text/translation, that would be great. The scope of ballads on this thread are the Carpenter versions and related British and sometimes other foreign ballads. There was already a thread on US versions. We're trying to reach some new conclusions about origin and classification. In some ballads, examining the Carpenter versions are crucial to understanding the British Child ballads as a whole. The Lord Ronald (Randal) Carpenter versions are not unusual-- they confirm however, that at least in Scotland, "Lord Ronald/Donald" is the main Scottish branch-- this contradicts Child's opening remark: "Scott says that the hero was more generally termed Lord Ronald: but in the versions that have come down to us this is not so."

At this point we're exploring Child 12 ballad types and we've seen several examples: The "Henry my son" ballad of the 1900s; the "pretty boy" Irish/Scotch; the "Lord Ronald/Donald" Scottish type; The English "Randal" type and a number of foreign versions which constitute separate ballad types. The "Croodlin Doo" has not been explored-- and no versions of it were found (at least I could find) by Carpenter. The question is: why in 1931 where no versions of Croodlin Doo collected in Scotland?

Since the Carpenter texts have been given, we'll be moving on to Child 13 soon and I'll be assimilating the British and foreign texts of Child 12 for the next week. Any further British and other(foreign) versions of Child 12 or suggestions about ballad origin would be helpful now before we move on. There also a few Carpenter versions of the related "Tommy my boy/Billy Boy" which could be included here.

Richie