Lord Ullin's Daughter
DESCRIPTION: "A chieftain to the Highlands bound, Cries, 'Boatman, do not tarry!'" He and lord Ullin's Daughter are fleeing her father. The boatman fears the storm but takes them for the girl's sake. Lord Ullin finds his daughter dead in her lover's arms. He laments
AUTHOR: Thomas Campbell (1777-1844)
EARLIEST DATE: 1809 (Source: Benet)
KEYWORDS: love elopement river storm death grief father children
FOUND IN: US(Ap,SE)
REFERENCES (5 citations):
Wolfe/Boswell-FolkSongsOfMiddleTennessee 18, p. 33, "Lord Ullin's Daughter" (1 text, 1 tune)
Brown/Schinhan-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore4 329, "Lord Ullin's Daughter" (1 fragment plus a copy of the Campbell text, 1 tune)
Thomas/Leeder-SinginGatherin, pp. 30-31, "Lord Ullin's Daughter" (1 text, 1 tune)
ADDITIONAL: [No author listed], _The Household Treasury of English Song_, T. Nelson and Sons, 1872, pp. 164-166, "Lord Ullin's Daughter" (1 text)
The Ulverston New Poetical Miscellany: Containing a Selection of the Most Fashionable Songs, with Many Originals, Not Inserted in Ashburner's Vocal and Poetic Repository, G. Ashburner, Ulverston, 1812 (available on Google Books), p. 26, "Lord Ullin's Daughter" (1 text)
Roud #3138
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Chieftain's Daughter" (plot)
NOTES [342 words]: NewCentury, p. 199, says of author Thomas Campbell that he was born July 1777 in Glasgow, died June 1844 in Boulougne. He briefly served as Lord Record of the University of Glasgow, and is buried in Westminster Abbey. It lists as his major works "The Pleasures of Hope," "Gertrude of Wyoming," "Lochiel's Warning," "Hohenlindon," "Mariners of England," and "Battle of the Baltic."
Thomson, p. 125, says that "in the Napoleonic Wars the Campbells produced one of the most popular poets of his generation. Thomas Campbell (1777-1844) was the son of a Glasgow tobacco merchant and was born just one year after then trade collapsed when his father was already sixty-seven. After attending Glasgow University he had his first success with 'The Origins of Evil'. Then came 'Lord Ullin's Daughter' and the popular 'Pleasures of Hope,' though Campbell was at the time himself quite close to suicide. Later, he settled in Hamburg and Ratisbon, producing his war poems to suit the heroic mood of the time: 'Hohenlinden', 'Ye Mariners of England' and 'The Battle of the Baltic'. He was also a great supporter of Polish nationalism and when he was buried in Westminster Abbey a handful of earth from the Polish leader Kosciusko's grave was put into his."
The Household Treasury of English Song prints four other Campbell pieces, "Battle of the Baltic,: :Men of England," "Hohenlinden," and "To the Rainbow," and mentions two others, "The Pleasures of Hope" and "Gertrude of Wyoming." Benet calls "Gertrude of Wyoming" his most famous piece and also lists "Hohenlinden," "Lord Ullin's Daughter," and "The Battle of the Baltic." Granger's Index to Poetry lists some three dozen pieces but not "Gertrude of Wyoming."
Despite his great contemporary popularity, of the twentieth century anthologies I checked, none included more than two complete Campbell pieces, and several had none at all.
Of items in the Index, he is probably responsible for "The Exile of Erin (I)" and "The Wounded Hussar"; also (not in the index but well-known) "Ye Mariners of England." - RBW
Bibliography- Benet: William Rose Benet, editor, The Reader's Encyclopdedia, first edition, 1948 (I use the four-volume Crowell edition but usually check it against the single volume fourth edition edited by Bruce Murphy and published 1996 by Harper-Collins)
- NewCentury: Clarence L. Barnhart with William D. Haley, editors, The New Century Handbook of English Literature, revised edition, Meredith Publishing, 1967
- Thomson: Oliver Thomson, The Great Feud: The Campbells & The Macdonalds, Sutton Publishing, 2000
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