----- Original Message -----
From: "Mary Seymour" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 04 August 2002 19:15
Subject: [BALLADS] Little Sir William
> Hullo
> This is new member Mary Seymour with a question.
>
> Some time ago I seem to remember reading / being told about / a ballad
called "Little Sir William". [Set in Scottish Borders ? Not in Scott's
Minstrelsey - I've checked.]
>
> Story tells of mother / nurse coming to the school to ask for her child.
Is put off by a range of excuses - he is doing this or that - but really he
is dead ... I think the "little pen knife" comes into it somewhere.
"Little Sir William" is a variant of "Sir Hugh, or, The Jew's Daughter"
(Child no.155, Roud Folk Song Index no.73). Lucy Broadwood published a
Lincolnshire example quoted from Mason's "Nursery Rhymes and Country Songs"
in her "English County Songs" (1893) which is quite likely what you are
looking for. The text also appears in Child's Additions and Corrections,
E&SPB vol.5 pp.240-1.
The text quoted by J L Speranza is identical but for the substitution of
"Schoolwife" for "Jew's wife". Whether this is another variant found in
Somerset I don't know; but I'm inclined to suspect editing by Britten (for
obvious reasons) and perhaps some later confusion over the source.
Malcolm Douglas
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