History Literature / ChildBallads

* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: In some variants of "Lady Maisry" (#65), the ballads ends with Lady Maisry's true love declaring one against her family for killing her.

* RobinHood: ''All'' of Book V, or ballads #117-154, deal with the Robin Hood legend, acting as the oldest source for several of the most common incidents in retellings, including Robin's DefeatMeansFriendship first meeting with Little John and the "Golden Arrow" archery contest trap.

* AdaptationalAlternateEnding: "King Orfeo" is a retelling of Orpheus and Eurydice, but Orfeo actually gets his wife back in this one.

** In "Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard" (or "Matty Groves", depending) the jealous Lord Barnard arrives to find his wife in bed with a handsome young servant, and demands the servant get up and get dressed so he can kill him in an honorable duel.

** In some variants of "The Maid and the Palmer" (#21),the Maid's six dead children were fathered by her brother.

* BurnTheWitch: In some versions of the ballad "Young Hunting" (#47; a.k.a. Earl Richard/ Love Henry) the lady gets punished this way for killing her lover. Certain versions also include her trying to pin the murder on her maid, who gets acquitted because she won't burn no matter what the king's men try.
* CreepyCrows: Several ballads depict ravens and crows as creepy, but most especially "The Three Ravens" and its more cynical variant, "The Twa Corbies" (both are #26).
* CreepyUncle: In some variants of "The Maid and the Palmer" (#21),the Maid's six dead children were fathered by her uncle.

* DoubleInLawMarriage: "Rose the Red and White Lily" not only ends with a pair of sisters marrying a pair of brothers, the brothers are their stepbrothers.

** Several ballads, like "Edward", are about someone who has obviously committed a murder trying to explain the blood all over his clothes as coming from his hawk, his horse, etc.

* KarmaHoudini: In some versions of "The Twa Sisters", the older sister gets their lover and all his land scot-free, leaving the miller who robbed the younger sister's corpse (or, in particularly dark iterations, pulled her out while she was still alive to take her gold ring and then threw her back) to take all the blame.
* LawOfInverseFertility: Unmarried women become pregnant very easily, often by extremely unsuitable people, sometimes by their own relatives.

* MamasBabyPapasMaybe: In "Gil Breton", the child's birth comes with magical affirmation of his paternity, to avert this.
* TheMourningAfter: "The Unquiet Grave" (#78) initially plays this straight. In the end, though, it's subverted: The living lover's incessant grief prevents their beloved from resting in peace.
* MurderBallad: If no one's getting stabbed to death or drowned by their own siblings (either by accident or out of jealousy), poisoned by their parents (for making an unapproved marriage), shot or stabbed by a jealous lover or spouse (too many to count), dying of heartbreak and/or shame, or killing themselves, is it really a Child ballad?

** In some variants of "The Maid and the Palmer" (#21),the Maid's six dead children were fathered by her own father.

* ScarpiaUltimatum: The bandit does this to three sisters in "Bonnie Banks o'Fordie" (#14)

* SelkiesAndWereseals: In "The Great Selkie of Sule Skerry" (#113)
* SelfMadeOrphan: In "Jellon Grame" (#90), Jellon's daughter kills him. It's [[JustifiedTrope Justified]], though, because Jellon killed her mother.
* SeparatedByACommonLanguage: Though ostensibly written in English, a lot of the ballads are in old rural dialects that are nigh-indecipherable. However, hearing them sung or recited ''can'' make it easier.
* SiblingTriangle: The older sister's motive in "The Twa Sisters" (#10).
* StandardHeroReward: Subverted in "The ''Golden Vanity''" (#286). The hero is told this is the reward, if he drills holes in the enemy man-o'-war, which he does (In a horribly poetic way: He let the water in, and it dazzled in their eyes, and he sunk them in the Low Lands Low.) He is then [[DidYouActuallyBelieve betrayed by the captain]] and is abandoned to drown in the ocean.
* StockPuzzle: e.g. "Riddles Wisely Expounded" (#1), "Captain Wedderburn's Courtship" (#46)

* TheseQuestionsThree: In "The Devil's Nine Questions", it's the subtype "Riddles Wisely Expounded". The Devil challenges one or several human characters to answer nine (= three times three) riddles, threatening he will take to hell whoever cannot give the right answers. At least that is what he says: [[ArtifactTitle Many variants contain only eight riddles.]] (Sometimes explained as the ninth riddle being "Who is the questioner?", which is implicitly rather than explicitly answered.)
* ThickerThanWater: In "The Death of Robin Hood" (#120), Robin Hood trusts this trope and it gets him killed. Specifically, he goes to have one of his cousins, a nun, treat his illness by bleeding. But his cousin, who harbors a grudge against him of varying reasons, either bleeds him too much or lets her lover kill him.
* TogetherInDeath: The living lover in "The Unquiet Grave" (#78) seems determined to [[DrivenToSuicide prematurely fulfill this trope]], but the ghost of their beloved always begs them to go and [[HerHeartWillGoOn live out the rest of their life instead]]. Also appears in "Fair Margaret and Sweet William" (#74); "Lord Lovel" (Child#75); some variants of "Barbara Allen" (#84). It's also a common motif for the graves of lovers to sprout plants that are intertwined ("Prince Robert", "Lady Alice").
* TraumaticCSection: In "Jellon Grame" (#90), the protagonist gives one to his lover and raises the baby himself.

** The Knight in "The Fair Flower of Northumberland". He promises the Fair Flower he'll marry her if she only breaks him out of jail, but when they get back to his home in Scotland, he cruelly reveals he's already married and abandons her.

* WickedStepmother: In "Kemp Owyne" and "The Laily Worm and the Machrel Sea", the unfortunate protagonists have been transformed into various ugly and dangerous beasts by their wicked stepmothers.

* MoralityBallad: The constant use of DeathBySex in many of the ballads results in this trope.

* DeathBySex: ''Very'' common.

** The protagonist of "The Rantin Laddie" (#240) gives birth to her lover's bastard child, and is thereafter confined in the kitchen, scorned by her family, avoided by her friends, and even disrespected by the servants. In a rare happy ending for this trope, she manages to send a letter to the father of the child (the titular Rantin' Laddie), who arrives to rescue her.

* BrotherSisterIncest: "Sheath and Knife" (#16), "The Bonny Hind" (#50), "Lizie Wan" (#51), "The King's Dochter Lady Jean" (#52), and "Brown Robyn's Confession" (#57)

* IncestIsRelative:
** In some variants of "The Maid and the Palmer" (#21),the Maid's six dead children were fathered by [[BrotherSisterIncest her brother]], [[CreepyUncle her uncle]], [[KissingCousins her cousin]], or [[ParentalIncest her own father]].
** In "Brown Robyn's Confession" (#57), the protagonist confesses to having fathered two children on [[ParentalIncest his mother]] and five on [[BrotherSisterIncest his sister]].

* ParentalMarriageVeto: ''Very'' common.

In the late 19th century, Harvard professor Francis James Child was concerned that the tradition of [[FolkMusic folk songs]] in the British Isles was endangered--songs were dying out, unrecorded. He made it his personal mission to collect as many traditional folk songs as he could from England and Scotland. (Including Ireland, he felt, was way too ambitious a goal.)

* StuffedIntoTheFridge: A noblewoman and her infant son in "Lamkin" (#93) are brutally murdered because her killers harbor a grudge against her husband.

%%* KingArthur

* YourCheatingHeart: "The Boy and the Mantle" is about a boy who brings a magical mantle that cannot be worn by an unfaithful wife to King Arthur's court. Only one lady can wear it. He then brings a boar's head that can't be carved by an unfaithful husband's knife, and only that lady's husband can carve it, meaning every single other couple there is cheating on each other.

%% * ActuallyIAmHim: Played for tragedy in "Bonnie Banks o'Fordie" (#14)

* BedroomAdulteryScene: In "Our Goodman" (#274) the husband finds more and more evidence that his wife is cheating on him, until he finally catches the lover in the bedroom. [[ImplausibleDeniability The wife tries to explain he's really a milkmaid.]] The husband sarcastically notes that he's never seen a milkmaid with a ''beard'' before.

* DistressedDude: Tam Lin.

* ImplausibleDeniability: "Our Goodman" (#274) is all about a cheating wife trying to explain away evidence of her infidelity. It starts when the husband notices a strange horse outside his house, and she tries to claim it's actually a cow sent by a relative. The lies get more ridiculous from there.

* LawOfInverseFertility: Unmarried women become pregnant very easily.

%%* MurderBallad: Tons and Tons.

* TogetherInDeath: The living lover in "The Unquiet Grave" (#78) seems determined to [[DrivenToSuicide prematurely fulfill this trope]], but the ghost of their beloved always begs them to go and [[HerHeartWillGoOn live out the rest of their life instead]]. Also appears in "Fair Margaret and Sweet William" (#74); "Lord Lovel" (Child#75); some variants of "Barbara Allen" (#84).

* UngratefulBastard: The Captain in "The Golden Vanity" (#286). He abandons the cabin-boy who sank the enemy ship for him to drown in the ocean.

%%* WickedStepmother

** "Lamkin" (#93) goes into graphic detail about the murder of a baby and his mother. * DisproportionateRetribution: In the versions of the ballad that give him a motive, Lamkin is a stonemason who brutally murders a lord's wife and infant son because the lord didn't pay him.

* DisproportionateRetribution: In the versions of the ballad that give him a motive, Lamkin is a stonemason who brutally murders a lord's wife and infant son because the lord didn't pay him.

* InfantImmortality: Averted in many ballads:
** "The Cruel Mother" (#20) and "The Maid and the Palmer" (#21) are about mothers who killed or kill their own infants.
** "Sir Patrick Spens" (#58) may be based on the ill-fated voyage of seven-year-old Margaret, Maid of Norway (and heiress to the Scottish crown) from Norway to Scotland. As in real life, she dies in the ballad--though in a shipwreck rather than of an illness.
** "Lamkin" (#93) goes into graphic detail about the murder of a baby and his mother.

* YourCheatingHeart: In some versions of "Twa Sisters", the problem isn't just that the man they both love goes for the younger one--it's that he courts them both at the same time.

** In "Queen Elanor's Confession" (#156), Eleanor of Aquitaine confesses to, among other things, having lost her virginity to William Marshal. Given that Eleanor had her first child, Marie of France, two years ''before'' Marshal was born, that is very unlikely.

* AbhorrentAdmirer: "Kemp Owyne" (#34), "Alison Gross" (#35)

* HistoricalVillainUpgrade: To UsefulNotes/EleanorOfAquitaine and William Marshal in "Queen Elanor's Confession" (#156). Whatever their faults (and there were many), they didn't have an affair with each other, kill Rosamund de Clifford, or plot to poison Henry II.

%% Zero context examples have been commented out. Please provide context before uncommenting.

* DistressedDude: Tam Lin

[[IThoughtItMeant Has nothing to do with children.]]

* VillainProtagonist: Lamkin or Long Lankin in "Lankin" (#93), who murders a woman and a child either because [[DisproportionateRetribution her husband didn't pay him for building a castle]] or just ForTheEvulz.

** In "Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight" (#4), the Elf knight entices the protagonist to run away with him (though whether by means of flattery or magic depends on the version) and turns out to be TheBluebeard who intends her to rape and kill her, as he's done to numerous other women in the past. She outwits him, though, and kills himself instead.