Pretty Polly (I) (Moll Boy's Courtship) [Laws O14]

DESCRIPTION: A married man comes courting Polly. While she is attracted, she cannot wed a married man. He offers to kill his wife; she begs him not to, promising to wait seven years for him. His wife conveniently dies just before the deadline; the two are married
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1827 (Lyle-Andrew-CrawfurdsCollectionVolume1)
KEYWORDS: courting love marriage death floatingverses
FOUND IN: US(Ap,MW,SE) Britain(England(North),Scotland(Aber,Bord))
REFERENCES (12 citations):
Laws O14, "Pretty Polly (Moll Boy's Courtship)"
Gardham-EarliestVersions, "SIR ARTHUR AND CHARMING MOLLY"
Greig/Duncan2 226, "Charming Mall Boy" (1 text)
Lyle-Andrew-CrawfurdsCollectionVolume1 35, "Mall Bowie" (1 text)
Bell-Combined-EarlyBallads-CustomsBalladsSongsPeasantryEngland, pp. 456-457, "Sir Arthur and Charming Mollee" (1 text)
Stokoe/Reay-SongsAndBalladsOfNorthernEngland, pp. 10-11, "Sir Arthur and Charming Mollee" (1 text, 1 tune)
Purslow-TheConstantLovers,pp. 93-94, "SIr Arthur and Charming Molly" (1 composite text, 1 tune)
Eddy-BalladsAndSongsFromOhio 56, "Pretty Polly" (1 text, with one floating verse from "The Cuckoo" and two from "On Top of Old Smokey")
Gardner/Chickering-BalladsAndSongsOfSouthernMichigan 68, "The Charming Moll Boy" (1 text)
Morris-FolksongsOfFlorida, #182, "Charming Nancy" (1 text)
Logan-APedlarsPack, pp. 348-349, "Moll Boy's Courtship" (1 text)
DT 594, PRETPOL
ST LO14 (Full)
Roud #195
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Noble Lord Hawkins
NOTES [74 words]: According to Stokoe (slightly amplifying Bell), "the Sir Arthur named is no less a personage than Sir Arthur Haslerigg, the Governor of Tynemouth Castle during the protectorate of Oliver Cromwell." Bell seems to be the only source for this assertion.
"Kittredge discusses the use of the cuckoo stanza (number 8 [in the Eddy-BalladsAndSongsFromOhio text]) in Journal 30, PP7 350-j52, i 'Ballads and Songs'" (note from the Digital Tradition). - RBW
Last updated in version 6.8
File: LO14

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