Talk:Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight

This article as an exemplar of "what good looks like"

TimNelson proposed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Roots music that we use this article as a model of "what good looks like", to be applied to other folk song articles. It looks like a good starting point but I suggest there are some improvements needed to raise it to the standard of an exemplar. I was going to have a go at adding what I can myself but also thought it worth noting the rationale here - others might disagree about what an excellent article would include! Some proposals:

• We should check that all the main variant names redirect to this page and include a mention of the main ones (eg Outlandish Knight) early on in the article, so that someone arriving here by redirection quickly understands why.
• Opening section should include the main points of notability (which I think are that it is very widespread, many variants, extremely old, appears in many collections and publications).
• Some of the prose is very terse and could be expanded.
• The scholarship relies heavily on Child. Need to compare with some of the twentieth century works. For example, Bert Lloyd claims 250 German versions, versus Child's 26. Not sure if Lloyd is just being less exacting about what constitutes a separate variant, or whether many more variants have been found in the 20th century.
• Should make some reference to the parrot that is a mysterious feature of some variants.
• We need to add a section about the music.
• One of the main notability tests that we are relying on for folk music is the fact that a song appears in multiple published works. Perhaps should include a bit about the extent to which this song has been published.
• There must be a lot more recordings than those stated. Not sure whether we try to list them all or how we select the most representative ones.

I'll try and make a start. Bluewave 08:20, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm fairly keen to keep the opening paragraph short, so I've tried to address the variant names by referring to them collectively. I agree there's a lot of room for expansion. As for widely published, well, widely recorded works just as well. As to finding more recordings, I'm sure they exist. My original plan was to let people who knew about them post them here, but if we're making this article good, then we might have to do a little looking around.

-- TimNelson 10:51, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Adaptions

User:Goldenrowley changed the title of the "Music" section to "Adaptions", and then changed "Recordings" to "Musical Recordings". I'm keen to retain the major title "music", so that, while most of the article (to that point) has been about the words, the subsections of "Music" are all about the music.

Goldenrowley commented in his edit "adapatations" of music ->original ballad is the real music. This reflects a commendable concern that a distinction be made between the "original" music and adaptions of it. However, this is a Child Ballad, so, unless there are earlier sources, there is no original tune. I thus think that, where possible, the tune used in a recording should be noted. I guess what I'd like to see is a general policy formulated about how we speak of the interaction between music and words, what the definition of "song" is (words, music, or both -- I think for the purposes of folk songs on Wikipedia, it should be mainly the words), how the "folk process" fits into all this, and that sort of thing. I'm not after an extensive writeup or anything here, just something that we can note on the Wikipedia:WikiProject Roots music guidelines section (or in Template:Traditional Song boilerplate) about how we interact with all this. I'm open to ideas from anyone here.

-- TimNelson 11:46, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I stuck in the first version of the tune that came to hand (noted down by RVW in 1908) into the article. Then I decided to have a look for other variations of the tune in books and the internet and, not only are some of them completely unlike one another, but also I think the total is over 100. So I guess we will be hard-pressed to find the "original tune"! Even a discussion about the tune is going to be quite difficult without straying into OR. However, I definitely feel that an article about a folk song is incomplete without discussing the music. By the way, the "over 100", above, is entirely versions from oral tradition, not folk-rock adaptations. On that point, I don't know whether it is legitimate to distinguish between variations which arise through the "folk process" and those that are deliberate adaptations by (for example) Steeleye Span. In other words, can we really say that if an illiterate Norfolk peasant decides to change the tune, that is part of the "folk tradition", but if Maddy prior does the same thing, it is an artful adaptation?

To give my views on your specific points...

• I agree that for a folk song based in oral tradition (like this one) there is no such thing as the original tune.
• I think a song is defined by both the words and the music. In other parts of Wikipedia it may be difficult to quote the music because of copyright: we should have a much easier time here, where most of the material is in the public domain (so we've got no excuse!)
• Songs are usually indexed by the words, not the tunes, so the article should relate to the words but also include discussion of the tune.
• I think we should make an effort to notate the main tunes that are used. This may be difficult with the present example because there are so many variants. I guess we need to find a reference that has done the hard work for us and has grouped the tune variants together in some way.
• I'm not sure I agree that we should try to use the tune used in a recording. I see the point that this may be the most familiar, but it may be a variant that is only used by one band and they may have tried to copyright it. Dunno about this.
• The standard way to describe a melody in a scholarly work is to use use musical notation. I suggest this could be supplemented (but not replaced) by a midi or ogg file.

So I think my suggestion for a guideline would be: "The article should include a section on the melody of the song. Copyright permitting, the section should include an image of the melody in standard music notation. Audio files in midi or ogg format could also help. Where the same song is often sung to multiple tunes, this should be explained. In this case, a balance will need to be found in giving an authoritative discussion about the melodies without overloading the article with music examples. Some folk songs regularly use tunes borrowed from other songs: in this case, make a reference to the other song's article. The section on recordings should make reference to the version of the tune that features in particular recordings." Bluewave 13:42, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you Tim for inviting me to comment. In the edit you mention ("adaptations") I based it on discussions of literature an, intended merely to identify and separate the original (pre-modern) melody and song from what seem to me moderm instrumental and thematic adaptations, such as modern musicians who use instruments that did not exist in the Middle Ages (like electric guitars and synthezers). I am not very musically educated, but note the table has some publication dates that help date the Child Ballads back several centuries or Late Middle Ages. I'd consider the Child list the "originals" and anything else later that changes it an "adaptation." Goldenrowley 04:54, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I still think we need to separate out the "adaptations" from the "prime material" with headings, for example tv shows and comedy parrot go to adaptations. I think Tim meant to provide a music section and I misunderstood it to be the "adapation" section. Let's do both. Goldenrowley 05:26, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I take your point that a "modern" version (eg guitars, synthesisers, drums) does seem to be pretty clearly an adaptation. Perhaps there is an even more clear-cut point that any arrangement for multiple instruments and harmonisation is an adaptation, in that all the "folk" versions are for a single, unaccompanied voice. Any harmonisation presumably calls on some application of musical theory and is therefore outside the "folk process". However, I don't agree that the Child list can be regarded as the "originals". For a start, Child includes at least 7 versions of this ballad (which one is the original?); secondly, he compiled his list from other secondary sources (Buchan, Motherwell, etc (don't they have a better claim to be original?); finally, with several hundred variants (in Britain alone) of this song having been noted down from oral tradition, I would challenge the whole idea of an "original". Bluewave 08:45, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I am glad to be speaking to some knowledgeable people. Could we set up a section for adaptations, and put them at the end they're more of the children andnot the folk song. We could allow the hsitory and analysis section to debate/converse on possible originals. I'd just like to move clearly adapted versions, although need help to identify them musically -- see Bluebeard for a suggested clean format. Goldenrowley 18:54, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Lets have a look at adaptions. Your cited example was Bluebeard. I'm interested in looking at the differences between Bluebeard and what we see on this page:

• Bluebeard has a single original source, and adaptions. These are adaptions of the words. Any "versions" of Bluebeard are either:
  • A reprint of the original
  • A retelling of the original in other words
  • A transmediation of Bluebeard from print into another medium (movies, play, whatever)

OTOH, with the song referred to, 1) There are 8 "Original" version of the words, 2) we have no information on the "original" tunes. I suggest that we consider this page to represent (as it says in the heading) a "class of songs", rather than a parent with descendants. The way I see it, it's like arguing whether the Welsh are descended from the Scots or the other way round -- we know there's some relation if you go back far enough, but the common parent is unrecorded -- thus the Welsh and the Scots are both "adaptions" of an original Celtic nation, but it's pointless to list them both under adaptions, as *everything* (ie. both the Scots and the Welsh) is an adaption, there are no non-adapted versions.

My point is, something like From a Distance is an article about a song. This article is about a group of songs.

I guess what all this shows is that we need an article on the Folk process.

-- TimNelson 10:40, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Ok good presentation. Yes I can agree with you now. Goldenrowley 15:18, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Two points: 1. Most ballads and folksongs come in many versions, and were sung to different tunes; having a sample of music is completely useless unless you specify which version of the lyrics the music corresponds to. Also, considering the number of versions that many folksongs have, and the variety of tunes that correspond, a music sample is most valuable for, firstly, the relatively small number of cases where matching words and music are known from before 1650 (or whatever cutoff seems reasonable), because of their rarity, and secondly, songs that served as tunes for a large number of different lyrics (such as "Lay the Bent to the Bonnie Broom"), because of their utility.

2. A version can be modern without involving synthesizers. Most ballad tunes in readily accessible popular sources (and the vast majority in recordings) have been modified to bring them into line with modern ideas of tonality and melody. If the goal in providing a music sample is to allow the reader to recognize (and perhaps sing) modern performances of the song, then a modernized score is ideal. If, on the other hand, the goal is to give an example of how a "period" performance would have sounded, a modern score is useless. In either case, the source of the music selection should be described sufficiently to allow the reader to judge its appropriateness for their own purposes. -- JRBrown (talk) 00:11, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Another recording- I'm not sure how to add this

Jean Ritchie recorded this song in 1960 under the name "False Sir John." I'm not sure exactly how to add this to the chart, and I didn't want to mess up the formatting. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.192.99.185 (talk) 02:30, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Another Recording

Garrison Keillor and Richard Dworsky preformed this on "A Prairie Home Companion" on July 14, 2012. The song can be heard in Segment 3 and is titled "Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight"

http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/programs/2012/07/14/

JahanaSpurg (talk) 04:32, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Gilles de Rais

I have deleted the words "murder of" because it was not murder, but an ecclesiastical judicial execution supported by confession. What happened is that Gilles was born to the two wealthiest people in France, and after the French nobility were decimated at Agincourt, the French rethought their armed forces and developed a strong artillery arm, the first power to do so. As a result, when they eventually rose under Joan of Arc to kick the English out, artillery became a prized weapon and France led the world for the next hundred years. Gilles served as Joan's lieutenant, and it may be surmised that he invested his family fortune in it: certainly on his retirement from the army he was a much poorer man, possibly interested in the early chmystry research into black gunpowder, and with a taste for the miraculous, one interested in producing alchemical gold! That led to a misinterpretation of one of the instructions in the alchemical grimoire, which just reads "The Massacre of the Innocents", which is why these works by the Breugel family are ranked alongside their other alchemical paintings. Gilles' brother paid him a visit to find out what the state of the family fortune really was, and was horrified to find a large number of children's skulls in the bailey: the charges against him which followed were for the murder of a couple of hundred children, he himself admitted to something like 800, and a sociological survey suggested maybe 2000 or more. Gilles was burned at the stake at Nantes, a sea town, in 1440, which may echo in this group of songs. It is also to be noted that An de Montmorency, Constable of France, was Catherine de'Medicis' collaborator in the Ruggieri workings which led Diane de Poitiers to abandon Chaumont after Catherine forced her to swap chateaux with the prettier Chenonceaux - where chalked pentacles and other alchemical symbols were found in the attics of the bridge extension at Easter 1990. I speak from first hand witness. Also, the heretical charge on which the Counts of Hoornes and Egmont, also members of the de Montmorency family, were executed at Brussels in 1568 was provoked by alchemical workings after they ran out of funds defending the Flemish and Phillip II refused them a state subsidy. In this, they were working in the wake of Phillip's own 1560 workings (Private letters to his Secretary Pedro de la Hoya in the Simancas Royal Archives, reported in the Spanish edition of Prof René Taylor's study of the rationale of the Escorial). In 1600, the family were eventually paid in full the considerable sum of 40000 moutons d'or by the alchemist responsible, who got away. Furthermore, an interest in the subject has been noted in both Ian Huntley, the Soham child murder, and Marc Dutroux, who killed at least six children in Belgium in the 1990s.

I now sing high tenor in the Cecil Sharp House Choir, where we have cut the final "parrot" verses after the drowning because they seem stylistically to have been imported from another ballad: however, following an appeal from Martin Carthy on Sunday in a Sources concert at the Royal Festival Hall, I'm going to suggest a rephrasing of the verses to bring out the virginity question better, as the symbolism has been lost. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.196.46.25 (talk) 13:10, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

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Is this a model article?

I have some concerns about this article as a model.

The article seems to be based on a theoretical idea of the relationship of the ballad and all its associated forms with European ballads and stories. This may or may not be true - I'm not saying the theory shouldn't be mentioned - but it dominates the structure of the article, which in my opinion doesn't give a balanced view. The introduction itself makes this assumption:

""Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight" (Child #4; Roud #21) is the English common name representative of a very large class of European ballads."

In fact, the common name for this ballad is "The Outlandish Knight" (as a rough approximation of "commonness", the Roud Index gives 356 entries for "Outlandish Knight" and 123 for "Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight"). The frequency of use of both names may have more to do with the preferences of folklorists than that of singers, and Roud lists 68 different names for the song:

"Billy Came Over the Main White Ocean", "Castle By the Sea", "Don't Prittle Nor Prattle", "Doors of Ivory", "False Hearted Knight", "False Hearted William", "False Lover John", "False Knight Outwitted, the (a New Song)", "Fair Ellender", "False William", "Fause Sir John", "Fause Sir John and May Colvin", "Go Bring Me Some of Your Mother's Gold", "Go Steal Your Father's Weight in Gold", "He Followed Me Up He Followed Me Down", "He Mounted on His Milk-white Nag", "Highway Robber", "If I Take Off My Silken Stay", "In Oxford Town", "Indeed Pretty Polly", "The King's Daughter", "The King of Spain's Daughter", "King's Daughter; Or Six Fair Maids", "King's Seven Daughters", "The Knight and the Chief's Daughter", "Lady Isabel", "Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight", "Lady Isabel and the Elfin-knight" "Lady Isabel and the Elf King", "Little Billy", "Little Golden", "Mary Goldan", "May Collean", "May Collin", "May Collin and the Knight", "May Colven", "The North Strand", "An Outlandish Rover", Outlandish Knight. "The Outlandish Dream", "Pretty Polly", "Lovin' Polly", "The Parrot Song", "Miss Mary's Parrot","A Man From the North Land", "A Man in the Land Or the Dapple Grey", "My Pretty Cold Rain", "My Pretty Colinn", "Pretty Gold Lee", "Polly and William", "Pretty Nancy", "The Robber and the Lady", The Salt-water Sea The Seven Sisters The Seventh King's Daughters The Seventh Sister She Borrowed Some of Her Father's, The Six Fair Maids, Six King's Daughters, Turn Your Back to the Leaves of the Trees "The Water O' the Weary Wa's", Wearies Wells, Willie Came Over the Ocean Willie Came Over the Ocean, Wilson, Young Jimmie, The Young Officer.

Child uses the Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight title to group all examples, but Child A is the only English language version I can find that uses the description "elf-knight" for the villain of the piece, and as others have pointed out, in many versions the only supernatural element is the talking parrot.

The parrot motif itself is treated in the article as a piece of extraneous fluff, but it occurs in most collected versions, and in what is quite possibly the earliest printed version, Child F.

The article consistently blurs the distinction between the ballad as it has been found in English speaking countries and the European ballads it has been associated with, as in the synopsis where it is suggested that: "In other variants, she tells him to "lay your head upon my knee", in some cases offering to de-louse the knight. He agrees, on the condition that should he fall asleep, she shall not harm him while he sleeps. However, she sings a magic song: "Wi a sma charm she lulld him fast asleep". While he sleeps, she ties him up, sometimes with his own belt, then wakes the knight and either stabs him with a dagger or beheads him:" In fact Child A is the only English language version I can find in which the knight is stabbed rather than drowned - the delousing, promise, and beheading all come from continental ballads

The article hardly deals with the ballad as folklore, yet it is one of the Child ballads most frequently collected in England and North America (in both countries in the "Outlandish Knight" variant) . It is less common in Scotland.

There's an article here: http://www.jstor.org/stable/537249?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents which at least demonstrates that ideas about the ballad's origin are controversial.

The gist of what I am trying to say is that the article has the cart before the horse. It states a theory - that the British versions are related to the Continental ones, and indeed that the Continental versions are related to each other - as if it were a fact, and makes that the basis of its approach instead of dealing with the ballad as a cultural object in its own right, and discussing the theory as a relevant aspect, but not an assumption of, the article.

I'd be interested in other peoples' comments. I'd like to change the introduction and synopsis, but don't want to upset anyone Joe Fogey (talk) 13:01, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Indeed, Child's source for "Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight", Buchan, uses a different title "The Gowans sae Green", and published "Fause Sir John and May Colvin" as a separate ballad. Joe Fogey (talk) 16:44, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Having left this ^^ here for a while, I've altered the introduction and synopsis section to show the relationships and differences between the ballads. I intend to rewrite more later. Joe Fogey (talk) 15:37, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

I've now changed the "Historical Background" section. Joe Fogey (talk) 14:11, 22 March 2017 (UTC)