Willie o Douglas Dale [Child 101]

DESCRIPTION: Willie goes to serve at the English court. He loves and impregnates the king's daughter, Dame Oliphant. They leave the court; the child is born in the woods, They recruit a shepherdess and sail to Douglas Dale where he is lord and she now lady.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1783/1799 (Riewerts-BalladRepertoireOfAnnaGordon-MrsBrownOfFalkland)
KEYWORDS: love royalty nobility pregnancy escape childbirth home
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (10 citations):
Child 101, "Willie o Douglas Dale" (4 texts)
Bronson 101, "Willie o Douglas Dale" (2 versions)
Riewerts-BalladRepertoireOfAnnaGordon-MrsBrownOfFalkland, pp. 98-105, "Willy o Douglass Dale" (2 parallel texts plus a photo of the badly-transcribed tune; also two reconstructed tunes on p. 265)
Buchan/Moreira-TheGlenbuchatBallads, pp. 63-67, "Dame Oliphant"; pp. 67-71, "William O' Douglassdale" (2 texts)
Greig/Duncan5 1010, "Willie of Douglasdale" (2 texts)
Barry/Eckstorm/Smyth-BritishBalladsFromMaine p. 454, "Willie o Douglas Dale" (notes only)
Leach-TheBalladBook, pp. 310-313, "Willie o Douglas Dale" (1 text)
Buchan-ABookOfScottishBallads 20, "Willie o Douglas Dale" (1 text, 1 tune in appendix) {Bronson's #1}
Whitelaw-BookOfScottishBallads, pp. 175-176, "Earl of Douglas and Dame Oliphant" (1 text)
DT 101, WILDOUG
Roud #65
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Willie and Earl Richard's Daughter" [Child 102] (plot)
NOTES [46 words]: David C. Fowler, A Literary History of the Popular Ballad, Duke University Press, 1968, p. 302, considers this a composed ballad, and suggests that it is "in some respects an anti-'Child Waters' [Child 63], a remaking of the old ballad from the feminine point of view." - RBW
Last updated in version 5.2
File: C101

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