The Cruel Brother
Synopsis
A knight (or lord) courts a lady. She tells him he must win the consent of her kin. He neglects that of her brother John. John mortally stabs her on her wedding day. She lives long enough to make various bequests, such as clothing to her mother, a fan to her sister; John invariably receives "a gallows to hang him on" and his wife may receive grief for her entire life and his children that they would have to beg, though the wife may get a widow's weeds and a quiet life, or his son the grace of God to be a man.
Motifs
The bride's bequests are highly typical of ballads, and similar bequests are found in ballads throughout Europe.[2]
gollark: They're with DS now, they can't respond to you.
gollark: One alternative interpretation I read somewhere was coordination problems - people don't do much because they feel like it won't be useful unless other people also do.
gollark: I'm not saying that they shouldn't care, to clarify, but that people don't, telling them their preferences are wrong is not really a winning strategy, and the lack of concern of most richer countries for poorer ones reflects most people's demonstrated attitudes.
gollark: Yes, exactly.
gollark: (also, global prosperity is generally going up, illiteracy & extreme poverty going down, etc.)
See also
References
- Francis James Child, English and Scottish Popular Ballads, "The Cruel Brother"
- Francis James Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, v 1, p 143-4, Dover Publications, New York 1965
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