Fair Captive, The

DESCRIPTION: An infant white girl is abducted and raised by Indians. She considers herself fully Indian, albeit with skin paled by moonlight. When the Indians and whites make peace, she's returned to her parents; betrothed to a white, she runs off on her wedding day.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1938 (recording, Warde Ford)
LONG DESCRIPTION: An infant white girl is abducted and raised lovingly by Indians, taken as daughter by the chief. She considers herself fully Indian, albeit with skin paled by moonlight. When the Indians and whites make peace, she's returned to her parents; betrothed to a white man, she runs off on her wedding day. (She dies of grief in the woods, mourned by the chief's son)
KEYWORDS: captivity wedding return separation abduction escape baby family Indians(Am.)
FOUND IN: US(MW)
Roud #15491
RECORDINGS:
Pat Ford, "The Fair Captive" (tr. only; in AMMEM/Cowell)
Warde Ford, "The Fair Captive" (AFS A4201 B1, 1938, tr.; in AMMEM/Cowell)
Robert Walker, "The Fair Captive" [fragment] (tr. only; in AMMEM/Cowell)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Aged Indian" (plot elements)
cf. "Olban (Alban) or The White Captive" [Laws H15]
cf. "The Aged Indian (Uncle Tohido)" (plot elements)
NOTES [77 words]: Ford mentions that his source, Charles E. Walker, learned it about 1900 from another singer. It's quite literary-sounding. It's not, however, the same song as, "Olban/The White Captive -- not even close.
Ford also recorded a fragment, AFS A4205 A2, which is misidentified on the on AMMEM website as "The Fair Captive." It's not -- it's "The Lady Leroy." - PJS
It's interesting to see what is almost certainly a "white" song with such sympathy for Indians. - RBW
File: RcTFC

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