Lord Thomas Stuart [Child 259]

DESCRIPTION: Thomas Stuart gives his lady wide lands as a gift. She desires to see them. They ride out, but Thomas is stricken with pain. He bids her ride on; he himself returns home and dies. She dreams a dreadful dream, returns home, and realizes he is dead
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1823 (A North Countrie Garland, according to Whitelaw-BookOfScottishBallads [Child 259A])
KEYWORDS: love home courting disease death dream
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Child 259, "Lord Thomas Stuart" (1 text)
Greig/Duncan6 1233, "Lord Thomas Stuart" (1 text)
Leach-TheBalladBook, pp. 629-630, "Lord Thomas Stuart" (1 text)
Whitelaw-BookOfScottishBallads, p. 171, "Lord Thomas Stuart" (1 text)

Roud #4024
NOTES [93 words]: Greig/Duncan6 quoting Greig: "Origin unknown - first printed in [James Maidment,] A North Countrie Garland ?1835 [sic] [Edinburgh, 1824]." I don't understand the "?1835"; Child refers to the 1884 reprint of the 1824 edition. It is in A North Countrie Garland, ed James Maidment revised by Edmund Goldsmith, (Edinburgh,1891 reprint of 1824 edition), pp. 11-14.
The dream "that our chamber was full of swine and our bed full of blood" associates pigs with death. That association is also made, and discussed briefly, for "Lady Anne Bothwell's Lament." - BS
Last updated in version 3.2
File: C259

Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Song List

Go to the Ballad Index Instructions
Go to the Ballad Index Bibliography or Discography

The Ballad Index Copyright 2024 by Robert B. Waltz and David G. Engle.