Version of Lady Isabel and Elf Knight

Subject: Version of Lady Isabel and Elf Knight
From: Roberto
Date: 22 May 05 - 07:19 AM

I've found in two different song books (American) a version of Child #4 whose fist stanza is the following:

There was a Lord in London town
He courted a lady gay
And all that he courted this lady for
Was to take her sweet life away

I'm sure I've heard this recorded, I think by some revival singer from the fifties-sixties, but I can't remember more. Anyone can tell me who recorded this? Thank. Roberto

Subject: RE: Version of Lady Isabel and Elf Knight
From: Bill D
Date: 22 May 05 - 01:31 PM

I have a list of about 40 recordings of this..Betty Smith, Margaret McArthur, Ralph Lee Smith, and Steel Eye Span among others...but the only one I have listened to so far which starts exactly like that is by Shelby Flint.

Subject: RE: Version of Lady Isabel and Elf Knight
From: Bill D
Date: 22 May 05 - 01:33 PM

she did record in the 60s-70s...so this might be the one

Subject: RE: Version of Lady Isabel and Elf Knight
From: GUEST,Malcolm Douglas
Date: 22 May 05 - 02:11 PM

In case the additional information jogs someone's memory, it's presumably an arrangement of the set in Creighton & Senior, Traditional Songs of Nova Scotia, 1950; reprinted in Bronson I, 56-57 and in Lomax, Folk Songs of North America, 18-19. It was sung by William Nelson, Kinsac, Nova Scotia, and begins exactly as above; the only example in Bronson which does.

Subject: RE: Version of Lady Isabel and Elf Knight
From: Bill D
Date: 22 May 05 - 09:37 PM

That version was also recorded by Alan Mills, a Canadian singer who died in 1977. But the version by Shelby Flint looks like the likely candidate for what you remember.