Lady Elspat [Child 247]

DESCRIPTION: Lady Elspat and Sweet William plan a tryst, but Elspat's brother's page reports to her mother. The mother takes the boy to court on a charge of robbery. The judge concludes that his only crime is being relatively poor, and frees William to wed Elspat
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1783/1799 (Riewerts-BalladRepertoireOfAnnaGordon-MrsBrownOfFalkland)
KEYWORDS: courting trial reprieve
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (5 citations):
Child 247, "Lady Elspat" (1 text, 2 tunes, but Bronson says the tunes are not proper to the text)
Bronson 247, "Lady Elspat" (2 versions)
Riewerts-BalladRepertoireOfAnnaGordon-MrsBrownOfFalkland, pp. 132-135 "Lady Elspat" (2 parallel texts plus a photo of the badly-transcribed tune; also a reconstructed tune on p. 270 and an alternate tune on p. 271)
Whitelaw-BookOfScottishBallads, pp. 185-186, "Lady Elspat" (1 text)
Quiller-Couch-OxfordBookOfBallads 86, "Lady Elspat" (1 text)
ST C247 (Partial)
Roud #4023
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "William (Willie) Riley (Riley's Trial)" [Laws M10] (plot)
cf. "Mary Acklin (The Squire's Young Daughter)" [Laws M16] (plot)
File: C247

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