> Folk Music > Songs > The Lost Lady Found
The Lost Lady Found
[
Roud 901
; Master title: The Lost Lady Found
; Laws Q31
; Ballad Index LQ31
; Bodleian
Roud 901
; GlosTrad
Roud 901
; Wiltshire
373
, 1053
; Mudcat 61558
; trad.]
After his niece is stolen away by gypsies the uncle is accused of her murder and sentenced to death. However, her lover goes in search of her, eventually finds her, takes her back home, saves her uncle from the gallows and they are married. The song was circulated widely on broadsides and has been widely collected in Britain and North America.
Charlie Chettleburgh sang The Lost Lady Found on 27 October 1947 at the Windmill in Sutton, Norfolk. It was broadcast later that year on the BBC Third Programme, which was included in the 2000s on the Snatch'd from Oblivion CD East Anglia Sings.
Harry Cox sang The Lost Lady Found in 1953 to Peter Kennedy. This recording was included in 2000 on his Topic anthology The Bonny Labouring Boy: Traditional Songs and Tunes from a Norfolk Farm Worker.
Jumbo Brightwell sang The Lost Heiress in 1975 in Eastbridge, Suffolk. This recording made by Tony Engle was included in the same year on his Topic album Songs from the Eel's Foot: Traditional Songs and Ballads from Suffolk.
Lucy E. Broadwood collected the tune of The Lost Lady Found in 1893 from the singing of her Lincolnshire nurse, Mrs Hill of Stamford. Percy Grainger included it in his suite for military band, A Lincolnshire Posy. Home Service recorded this suite in 1986 on their LP Alright Jack. A live recording of The Lost Lady Found from the same year was released in 2011 on their Fledg'ling CD Live 1986.
John Roberts and Tony Barrand sang The Lost Lady Found in 1998 on their CD of English folksongs collected by Percy Grainger, Heartoutbursts. This version is an arrangement by Percy Grainger of a text he had collected from Mr. Fred Atkinson in 1905 and the tune collected by Lucy E. Broadwood.
Bob Lewis learned Lost Lady Found from his mother and sang it at the Fife Traditional Singing Festival, Collessie, Fife in May 2009. This recording was included a year later on his festival CD Drive Sorrows Away.
The Dollymops from the Isle of Wight sang The Lost Lady Found in 2013 on their WildGoose CD Wight Cockade. They noted:
Collected by the admirable Lucy Broadwood, doyenne of the early English Folk Song Society, from Georgina Hill, a domestic nurse in the employ of one Captain Arthur Byng, of Bellevue Road, Ryde, Isle of Wight. Lucy Broadwood’s younger sister was married to the Rector of Ryde’s All Saints Parish Church (the Rev John Shearme) and the likelihood is that the good reverend first introduced his sister-in-law to Mrs Hill, during a visit to the Island in August 1893.
Lyrics
John Roberts and Tony Barrand sing The Lost Lady Found |
Bob Lewis sings Lost Lady Found |
---|---|
’Tis of a young damsel that lived all alone, | |
'Twas down in yon valley a fair maid did dwell, |
As she was a walking in the meadows so low, |
Long time she'd been missing and could not be found; |
Long time she’d been missing, nowhere could be found, |
The trustee spoke over with courage so bold, |
And when that her uncle his tale he had told, |
There was a young squire that loved her so, |
It’s of this young squire that lovèd her so, |
He travelled through England, through France and through Spain, |
He travelled through Scotland, through France and through Spain, |
When she saw him, she knew him, and fled to his arms; |
“How came you in Flanders, in Flanders?” said he, |
“Your uncle's in England, in prison does lie, |
“Your uncle’s in prison, in prison doth lie, |
He says, “My dear jewel we’ll order it so, | |
When they came to old England her uncle to see, |
And when that they came old England to view, |
Then from the high gallows they led him away, |
“My parents they left me fifteen thousand pounds, |