Leesome Brand [Child 15]

DESCRIPTION: Leesome Brand impregnates his love. When her time comes she has him take her riding, then go hunt, sparing the white hind. He returns to find her and his son dead. He laments his knife and sheath. His mother gives him St. Paul's blood to revive them.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: before 1827 (Motherwell)
KEYWORDS: love pregnancy death hunting resurrection
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (7 citations):
Child 15, "Leesome Brand" (2 texts)
Greig/Duncan2 335, "Lishen Brand" (1 text)
Leach-TheBalladBook, pp. 90-96, "Leesome Brand" (2 texts)
Quiller-Couch-OxfordBookOfBallads 56, "Leesome Brand, or, The Sheath and the Knife" (1 text)
Grigson-PenguinBookOfBallads 52, "Leesome Brand" (1 text)
Buchan-ABookOfScottishBallads 43, "Leesome Brand" (1 text)
Sedley/Carthy-WhoKilledCockRobin, pp. 140-148, "Sheath and Knife" (2 texts, 2 tunes; the "B" text is certainly "Sheath and Knife," but "A" mixes "Sheathe and Knife" and "Leesome Brand" and is filed as the latter by Roud)
Roud #3301
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Sheathe and Knife" [Child 16] (lyrics about the "sheathe and knife")
NOTES [105 words]: The symbol of a knife so fine that no smith can replace it occurs in at least two ballads, "Sheathe and Knife" [Child 16] and "Leesome Brand" [Child 15], also in the Percy Folio version of "The Squire of Low Degree," lines 121-126; for this, see William Edward Mead, The Squyr of Lowe Degre: A Middle English Metrical Romance, Ginn & Company, 1904, p. 34.
I do not know if it has any significance, but many Arthurian romances also feature a hunter pursuing a white stag. A white hind with antlers occurs in Marie of France's Breton Lay "Guigemar," which has other interesting parallels to this piece although a different plot. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.7
File: C015

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