Bonnie Belleen

DESCRIPTION: Lord Ross marries Belleen of Avonwood and takes her to gloomy Todecliff Tower. Ross marries again; a voice heard at the revelrie threatened Ross. Belleen is drowned by a water spirit. Her brothers kill Ross whose ghost "still howls by the Warlock Tree"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1828 (Lyle-Andrew-CrawfurdsCollectionVolume1)
KEYWORDS: infidelity marriage curse abandonment revenge death drowning party brother wife ghost
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Bord))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Lyle-Andrew-CrawfurdsCollectionVolume1 64, "Bonnie Belleen" (1 text)
Roud #3862
NOTES [119 words]: Was this literary piece ever in oral tradition? Lyle-Andrew-CrawfurdsCollectionVolume1 quotes a Crawfurd note: "Peggy Walker committed this from a book which was belonging to Miss Jamieson' [p. 224]. Its references to water spirits, a gloomy tower "that frowns o'er the dashing tide," and haunted warlock trees remind me of "The Warlock Laird of Skene," which Greig admired. However, Lyle-Andrew-CrawfurdsCollectionVolume1 p. xliii quotes the first verse from another source attached to a version of the story -- the rest of the text having been forgotten -- more in line with traditional ballads in which the brothers take offence at an elopement and kill the groom: no water spirits, gloomy tower or ghosts. - BS
Last updated in version 2.6
File: LyCr164

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