Lord Thomas: A Song History
"Lord Thomas and Fair Ellender," often shortened to "Lord Thomas," is one of many titles for the ballad Francis James Child numbered 73, which the Traditional Ballad Index files as "Lord Thomas and Fair Annet" and lists as Roud 4.[1][2] Its plot is a fatal triangle: Lord Thomas lets his mother steer him toward a wealthy bride, the "brown girl," rather than Fair Annet, and at the wedding the bride stabs her rival, after which Thomas kills the bride and then himself.[1] The Index's earliest dated copy is a London broadside of 1677 held in the Bodleian Library.[1] Commentary collected by Mainly Norfolk places the oldest known text between 1663 and 1685, and scholars quoted there disagree over whether the story began in Britain or came from France, with kin in Danish and Norwegian balladry.[2] Percy printed a version, altered from a broadside, in his Reliques of 1765,[2] and the folklorist Kenneth Goldstein noted that Child ranked that Scottish text among the loveliest of all ballads, though American versions seem to descend from a much-reprinted English broadside rather than from Scotland.[3]
Master ES, The Knight and the Lady, engraving, mid-1400s. A medieval knight and lady, shown for the ballad's lovers; it has no connection to the ballad.
The ballad flourished in America: the Index reports Bertrand Bronson's view that among Child ballads only "Barbara Allen" is more popular, and cites a writer who calls it the most widespread Child ballad in the country after that song, often sung as a lullaby.[1] Rod Stradling, writing on Mainly Norfolk, reported 754 entries in Steve Roud's index at the time he wrote, most of them American, as were most of its sound recordings, and adds that Cecil Sharp collected 31 versions in the Southern Appalachians.[2] Bradley Kincaid recorded it as "Fair Ellen," singing with his own guitar, in Chicago on March 7, 1928,[4] and Alan Lomax recorded Texas Gladden singing "Lord Thomas" in 1941.[2] Kentucky singer Jean Ritchie, whose family had sung it for as long as anyone could recall, recorded it for Folkways, and Goldstein's notes observe that her version, learned from her father, leaves out the common ending in which plants spring from the lovers' graves.[2][3] Holly Tannen included it on the 1978 album The Dulcimer Players, and later singers from Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger to Sheila Kay Adams and Martin Simpson have kept it in circulation.[2]
A setting titled simply "Lord Thomas," in DGD tuning, appears in Stephen Seifert's The Early Years, which opens with an introduction to playing and interpreting its tunes and includes recordings that follow the written music at a slow tempo.[5]
Sources
- The Traditional Ballad Index: "Lord Thomas and Fair Annet [Child 73]".
- Mainly Norfolk: "Lord Thomas and Fair Eleanor / Lord Thomas and Fair Annet / The Dun Broon Bride".
- Smithsonian Folkways: "Jean Ritchie, Child Ballads in America, Volume 1 (Folkways FA 2301), notes by Kenneth S. Goldstein".
- Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Gennett matrix 13523. Fair Ellen / Bradley Kincaid".
- Stephen Seifert: "The Early Years".
- Image: Master ES, The Knight and the Lady, engraving, mid-1400s. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.