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Lord Bateman / Young Beichan

[ Roud 40 ; Master title: Lord Bateman ; Child 53#L ; G/D 5:1023 ; Henry H470 ; Ballad Index C053 ; VWML PG/6/11 , PG/6/12 , CJS2/10/695 ; GlosTrad Roud 40 ; Wiltshire 877 ; DT LORDBATE , LORDBAT5 ; Mudcat 8950 , 37950 ; trad]

Lucy E. Broadwood, J.A. Fuller Maitland: wEnglish County Songs Katherine Campbell: Songs From North-East Scotland J. Collingwood Bruce, John Stokoe: Northumbrian Minstrelsy Paul & Liz Davenport: Down Yorkshire Lanes Nick Dow: Southern Songster Alan Helsdon: Vaughan Williams in Norfolk Gale Huntington, Lani Herrmann, John Moulden: Sam Henry’s Songs of the People Maud Karpeles: The Crystal Spring Alexander Keith: Last Leaves of Traditional Ballads and Ballad Airs Frank Kidson: Traditional Tunes James Kinsley: The Oxford Book of Ballads Ewan MacColl, Peggy Seeger: ravellers’ Songs From England and Scotland John Jacob Niles: The Ballad Book of John Jacob Niles Roy Palmer: Everyman’s Book of British Ballads Songs of the Midlands Steve Roud, Julia Bishop: The New Penguin Book of English Folk Songs Cecil J. Sharp: One Hundred English Folksongs

Both Joseph Taylor and Mr Thompson sang Lord Bateman to Percy Grainger in July 1908 who recorded them on wax cylinders. The recordings were published in 1972 on the Leader LP Unto Brigg Fair. Joseph Taylor’s singing was included in 1996 on the Topic anthology Hidden English: A Celebration of English Traditional Music.

Roby Monroe Hicks of Beech Mountain, North Carolina, sang Young Beham to Anne and Frank Warner in 1951. This track was included in 2000 on the Appleseed anthology Her Bright Smile Haunts Me Still (The Warner Collection Volume 1). The Warners noted:

More commonly known as Lord Bateman (Child No. 53), much of the story of the Turkish lady’s seven years wait and re-uniting with Beham/Bateman is lost in this version.

Roby Monroe’s wife Buna Hicks sang Young Beham on the 1964 Folk-Legacy album The Traditional Music of Beech Mountain, North Carolina, Vol. I. Sandy Paton noted:

This ballad, Child 53, is generally known as Lord Bateman in America and has been quite widely reported. Child says: “This story of Beichan, or Bekie, agrees in the general outline, and also in some details, with a well-known legend about Gilbert Becket, father of St. Thomas. The earlier and more authentic biographies lack this particular bit of romance, but the legend nevertheless goes back to a date not much later than a century after the death of the saint, being found in a manuscript of about 1300.” He then describes the legend in detail and abruptly concludes: “But the ballad, for all that, is not derived from the legend. Stories and ballads of the general cast of Young Beichan are extremely frequent.” He does suggest, however, that the ballad has “been affected” by the legend.

Bronson gives 112 tunes, clearly demonstrating the popularity of the ballad, and observes that its popularity has been frequently “fortified in its verbal text by the broadside press” supported by “a vigorous and consistent musical tradition” which “proves with equal clarity that there has been no interruption in oral tradition.”

This is another ballad which Buna Hicks had to “get together” for me over a period of time. The first time I recorded it, it was extremely fragmentary, consisting of only a few verses and a handful of phrases. At each subsequent visit, however, more of it appeared until, finally, it evolved to its present form.

A.L. Lloyd recorded Lord Bateman in 1953 for his 78rpm record The Shooting of His Dear / Lord Bateman. This recording was included in 2008 on his Fellside CD Ten Thousand Miles Away. He also sang it in 1956 on his and Ewan MacColl’s Riverside anthology The English and Scottish Popular Ballads (The Child Ballads) Volume II. This and his other songs from this anthology were reissued in 2011 on his CD Bramble Briars and Beams of the Sun. Lloyd also sang Lord Bateman live at the Top Lock Folk Club, Runcorn, on 5 November 1972. This concert was published in 2010 on his Fellside CD An Evening With A.L. Lloyd.

Bob Copper reports gathering parts of just two stanzas of Lord Bateman from Frank ‘Mush’ Bond when he was collecting for the BBC in the 1950s; see Chapter 15, pp. 123-134, of his book Songs and Southern Breezes for the details; and the appendix for the words printed below in the lyrics section.

A patched-together version of Thomas Moeran of Mohill, Co. Leitrim, and Jeannie Robertson of Aberdeen singing Lord Bateman was included on the anthology The Child Ballads 1 (The Folk Songs of Britain Volume 4; Caedmon 1961; Topic 1968).

Charlotte Higgins of Blairgowrie, Perthshire, sang Susie Pirate (Lord Bateman) to Maurice Fleming in 1955. This field recording was included in 2011 on the Greentrax anthology Songs and Ballads From Perthshire (Scottish Tradition 24). Another field recording of her singing Lord Bateman to Isabel Sutherland and Joby Blanchard in July 1955 was included in 2012 on the Topic anthology Good People Take Warning (The Voice of the People Volume 23). The Greentrax booklet noted:

A version of the Child ballad Young Beichan (Child 53). Charlotte learned this from her mother. See also Greig-Duncan (no. 1023).

SA 1955.016.2, Charlotte Higgins, Blairgowrie.

The Ritchie Family sang Lord Bateman and the Turkish Lady on the 1958 Folkways album The Ritchie Family of Kentucky on which Jean Ritchie interviews her family, with documentary recordings. She noted:

Our family version of this seems to have been learned by some ancestor from an Eighteenth Century English broadside. The story is about the same as is told in Child’s earlier Scottish version, Young Beichan (Child 53), or in any of the other fourteen variants printed by Professor Child, but the Ritchie song is apparently a much modernized one. It is almost as though some ambitious Eighteenth Century minstral had decided, “Here is a good song but it’s not commercial in its present form”—and proceeded to rewrite Lord Bateman and bring him up to date for the slick modern broadsheet market! If anyone wanted to locate the earliest written forms of this ballad, he would probably find them in Old Norse, but, since these wouldn’t make much sense to the American public, the Ritchies will here give their English, and favorite, version.

Jean Ritchie also sang Lord Bateman in 1960 on her Folkways album British Traditional Ballads in the Southern Mountains, Volume 1. Kenneth S. Goldstein noted:

This is one of the most popular of the Child ballads, and has circulated widely in England, Scotland and America. Part of its textual popularity has undoubtedly been due to the frequency with which it appeared on broadsides and in songsters of the 19^th century, and this also certainly explains the relative textual stability of both English and American versions.

Attempts have been made to indicate the ballad tale is derived from the legend of Gilbert a Becket, father of St. Thomas of Canterbury, who was supposed to have had an adventure similar to that which occurred to the ballad hero. Little credence has been given to this theory, though there is no doubt that the legend has indeed affected the ballad.

In early Scottish texts, the hero’s captors bore a hole through his shoulder and place a draw-tree through it so that he can be worked as a draught-animal. This barbarous treatment has been modified in modern texts, and in Jean Ritchie’s version, learned from her father, Bateman is simply chained to a tree, which, strangely enough, grows inside the prison.

For additional texts and information, see: Child, Volume I, p. 454ff; Coffin, pp. 63-65; Dean-Smith, p. 5; Greig & Keith, pp. 40-43; Bronson, Volume I, pp. 409-465; Brown Collection, Volume II, pp. 50-61; Davis, pp. 102-110).

Ollie Gilbert sang Lord Bateman to Alan Lomax and Shirley Collins at Timbo, Arkansas, in October 1959. This recording was included in 1997 on the Rounder anthology Ozark Frontier (Southern Journey Volume 7). Anna L. Chairetakis noted:

Ollie Gilbert kept a list of the titles of her Child ballads on cash register tape, where she also kept a long string of slightly off-color jokes, reports folklorist W.K. McNeil of Mountain View, Arkansas. Although known to folklorists for her ballads, “and although she looked like everybody’s grandmother,” as McNeil put it, Ollie Gilbert also enjoyed and was locally appreciated for her jokes.

Sandy and Caroline Paton sang Lord Bateman in 1960 on their Topic EP of American songs and ballads sung as lullabies, Hush Little Baby. The liner notes commented:

Perhaps it was during the Crusades that sorties and ballads first became popular in Western Europe about heroes captured by Turks or Arabs, freed by loving Oriental maidens, and pursued home by the said maidens who arrive in the nick of time to marry their man. Germans, Scandinavians, French and Italians all have ballads of this theme, and in England the story of the Oriental girl who follows Thomas a Becket’s father across the sea, and found him by wandering abound the country crying “Gilbert! Gilbert!” has been preserved in a manuscript from about 1300. Clearly Lord Bateman has been influenced by the legend about St Thomas’s father, though the ballad is probably of later date. It remains a firm favourite through the centuries, and gained a new lease of life through its use by music hall comedians in the mid-19^th century. It has shown itself to be very common in all areas of the United States where folk song collecting has been carried out. The present version is considered by some to be local to Kentucky, but in fact more or less identical forms are current in many other areas. It is said that the Patons hit on this way of singing the ballad while Caroline Paton was washing up in the kitchen and listening to her husband, Sandy, singing in another room.

Tom Willett sang Lord Bateman at the age of 84 to Bill Leader and Paul Carter in his home on a caravan site near Ashford, Middlesex, in 1962. This recording was published in the same year on the Willett Family’s Topic album, The Roving Journeymen. Another recording made by Ken Stubbs in c.1960 was included in 2013 on the Willett Family’s anthologies on Forest Track, A-Swinging Down the Lane, and on Musical Traditions Adieu to Old England. Paul Carter noted on the first album:

Mr Willett’s text is very similar to many published versions of this most popular ballad. See for example Kidson’s Traditional Tunes. The singer, however, has lost the verses which introduce Lord Bateman and place him in Turkey—indeed the Turk has become ‘turnkey’. The final verses in which Bateman dismisses the previous bride and her mother are also missing. There can be no doubt that the singer has this song directly or indirectly from a broadside or ballet sheet.

The tune, a good major one, is not one of those usually attached to the text of Lord Bateman. The three-fold repetition of the tonic at the end suggests that it may be Irish in origin.

Caroline Hughes sang one verse of Lord Bateman to Ewan MacColl, Peggy Seeger and Charles Parker in 1963 or 1966. This recording was included in 2014 on her Musical Traditions anthology Sheep-Crook and Black Dog.

Ewan MacColl sang Young Beichan in 1964 on his Folkways album The English and Scottish Popular Ballads: Vol. 2. He noted:

A 12^th century manuscript of a poetical narrative credits Gilbert Becket, father of St. Thomas of Canterbury, with adventures similar to those experienced by the ballad hero. While it is unlikely that the ballad derives from the legend there is little doubt that it has been influenced by it. Learned from Greig and Keith.

Danny Brazil sang Lord Bakeman to Peter Shepheard at Over Bridge, Gloucester on 6 May 1966. This recording was included in 2007 on the Brazil Family’s Musical Tradition anthology Down by the Old Riverside. The accompanying booklet noted:

This was also sung by Lemmie. Interestingly, the Brazils are the only English singers cited in Roud’s Index to call the ballad Lord Bakeman—a title which is very popular in North America—virtually every other English entry is titled Lord Bateman.

It’s a very popular ballad indeed, a.k.a Young Beichan; Roud has 591 entries for it, including 87 sound recordings. Child prints 15 versions, all but one from Scotland. He also cites a number of European examples from Spain to Scandinavia, and mentions the story of Gilbert Becket, father of St Thomas, whose biography is similar to part of the ballad. After collecting a very full set of Lord Bateman from the Sussex Gypsy, Alice Penfold, some years ago, Mike Yates was intrigued to hear the singer’s three daughters arguing among themselves as to whether it really was possible for a man to marry two women on the same day.

Almost half of Roud’s entries are from North America; in these islands it appears to have been about equally popular in England and Scotland—there are only four named singers from Ireland.

Denny Smith sang Lord Bateman on 27 April 1966 to Pete Shepheard in The Tabard bar, North Street, Gloucester, and Wiggy Smith sang four verses of Lord Bateman on 27 June 1998 to Gwilym Davies at the English Country Music Weekend, Postlip Tithe Barn, Gloucestershire. Both recordings were included in 2000 on Wiggy Smith’s Musical Traditions anthology Band of Gold. Rod Stradling notes:

This old ballad is the second most popular song I’ve encountered while surfing the Roud databases—with 480 entries. Its earliest publication is shown as 1792 when it appeared in Buchan’s Scottish Ballad Book pp.29-33, from the singing of Mrs Anna Brown, who called it Young Bekie (the alternative, perhaps older? title of the ballad is Young Beichan). Since that time it has been popular right across the English-speaking world and has been recorded on around 30 occasions, the earliest being Percy Granger’s of Joseph Taylor (1908), the most recent, possibly, being this one of Wiggy in June 1998. Danny Brazil, who died in September 1999, a few days short of his 90^th birthday, had a good version of this ballad, which Mike Yates recorded. I’m also pretty certain that, if one knew where to go, it could still be recorded in this new millennium.

I love this atmospheric recording: an ancient ballad being sung as big trucksroar past on the road outside; then an altercation with a drunk at the other end of the bar—but Denny just carries on regardless.

Isabel Sutherland, who recorded Charlotte Higgins in 1955, sang Lord Bateman herself on her 1966 Topic album Vagrant Songs of Scotland. She noted:

The hero of this ballad is known under many names, among them Beichan, Bekie and Bondwell. This is the only one I know of that refers to the heroine as Susan Pirate (usually she’s called ‘Susie Pye’). William Motherwell writing in his introduction to his Minstrelsy Ancient and Modern in 1827, says: “This popular ballad apparently an English production, exists in many different shapes in Scotland. It is of unquestionable antiquity, and the young Beichan or Bekie whose captivity, sufferings and subsequent marriage with his deliverer it records is no less a personage than the father of the celebrated Thomas a Becket.”

Prof. Child suggests that it is indeed likely that the ballad was affected by the legend—a piece of unhistorical romance—about Gilbert Becket’s adventures as a Saracen captive, his escape and his marriage to a Saracen girl who had followed him to England. Among other theories are those of the editor of Scottish Traditional Versions of Ancient Ballads (Percy Society) who maintained that the hero was one of the ancient and noble border family of Bartram or Bertram. I learned this version from the late Bella Higgins of Blairgowrie, Perthshire, while songcollecting there in August 1955. She introduced the ballad in spoken prose, beginning to sing on verse six, “who owns, who owns all those flocks of sheep?”, then singing verses seven, eight and ten and speaking the remainder in rhyme. It may be that the sixth verse is just particularly easy to remember, but I had the impression that she had always known the ballad in this form.

John Reilly sang Lord Baker at his home in Dublin in winter 1967 to Tom Munnelly. This was released in 1977 on his Topic album of “songs from an Irish traveller”, The Bonny Green Tree. Tom Munnelly noted:

According to the Icelandic Sturlunga Saga, one Thorgils Skardi was visiting Hrafnagill in 1258. His host offered him a choice of diversions—ballad-dancing or saga reading. He chose the latter when he heard that the Saga of Thomas á Becket was available.

The survival of this ballad relating a legend attached to Gilbert Becket, Thomas’s father, as one of the most popular ballads in the English speaking world is due in no small measure to another literary medium: the broadsheet.

John learned Lord Baker from his father, and though neither he nor John were literate it is not unlikely that the retention of this ballad among travellers was assisted by the fact that broadsheet selling was an occupation much favoured by Irish travellers until as recently as the nineteen fifties.

By verse 6 of this recording John has settled into a tune which resembles Anach Chuain. The melodic form of the opening stanzas is very fluid and demonstrates John’s ability to keep the tune malleable until he finds a comfortable fit.

A transcription of this recording appears in Breandán Breathnach, Folkmusic and Dances of Ireland (Dublin 1971, pp.136-9) as a representative of its genre. Alan Bruford wrote of it in Scottish Studies (Vol. 16, p.184), “…it is a remarkable performance, and given that only one Anglo-Irish song could be included, it would be hard to find a more interesting one.”

Sandy Denny recorded Lord Bateman as a demo that didn’t make it on her 1971 album The North Star Grassman and the Ravens. But the demo was included in 2011 on this album’s Deluxe Edition CD reissue, in 2010 on the Sandy Denny Box Set, and in 2012 on a collection of her demos and rarities, The Notes and the Words.

Nic Jones recorded Lord Bateman in 1971 for his eponymous second album on the Trailer label, Nic Jones. He noted:

A number of singers have said to me at different times that in their opinion the story of Bateman is a drag. I have always viewed the ballad as a kind of epitomised Errol Flynn film, possessing great sweep and colour, in spite of a degree of predictability, and as such it deserves to stand as a classic!

Alice Penfolk from Sussex sang Lord Bateman in a recording made by Mike Yates in 1972-75. It was included in 2003 on the Musical Traditions anthology of Gypsy songs and music from South-East England, Here’s Luck to a Man. Rod Stradling noted:

Once an extremely popular ballad; Cecil Sharp said that most singers knew at least a verse or two of it, and Roud has 517 instances listed. Past scholars have suggested a connection between the ballad’s story line and the life of Gilbert Becket, father of St Thomas. According to Professor Child, “That our ballad has been affected by the legend of Gilbert Becket is altogether likely. The name Beckie (found in some versions of the ballad) is very close to Becket.” Child gives similar versions from Scandinavia (Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, the Faroes and Norway), Spain, and Italy. He also mentions that the story is an inverted version of another ballad, Hind Horn (Child 17). In Britain, the earliest known versions of the ballad date from the mid-18^th century, and its popularity was maintained throughout the 19^th century in chapbooks and on broadsides. Some people have linked the story with the later song The Turkish Lady, a version of which is sung by Harry Cox (Norfolk), although this seems unlikely.

Frankie Armstrong sang Lord Bateman in 1973 on her album Out of Love, Hope and Suffering. She also sang it live in 1974 at the Fox Hollow Festival. This recording was included a year later in the festival’s 10^th anniversary album, You Got Magic. Frankie noted on her album:

A remarkably widespread and wildly romantic ballad, purporting to go back to the legend of Gilbert Becket (father of St. Thomas) and his misadventures in the Holy Land. Unlikely, but fun.

The Albion Country Band Mk 1 sang Lord Bateman on Steve Ashley’s 1974 album, Stroll On.

Both Campbell MacLean and Bella Higgins sang Young Beicham on the anthology The Muckle Sangs (Scottish Tradition 5; Tangent 1975; Greentrax 1992). Hamish Henderson noted:

This is a ballad which, like Lord Randall—the archetypal ballad of the ‘false truelove’—has captured the allegiance of singers throughout the English-speaking world, and has crossed many language barriers in its peregrinations round the globe. Here it is not the woman who betrays her lover, but the far-travelled hero who, when he gets home, forgets or seems to forget the woman who has befriended him ‘in furrin parts’, and whom he has promised to marry. In this case, however, the troubles and suffering of the wronged heroine have a happy outcome; constancy and fortitude are rewarded, and the two lovers are re-united. Young Beicham (to give it Kinloch’s—and Child’s—name) may therefore be regarded as the prototype of a large class of romantic adventure stories.

It seems quite likely, as Child remarks, that the ballad has been affected at some stage by the legend of Gilbert Becket (father of St. Thomas, murdered at Canterbury), who is supposed to have been made prisoner by the Saracens in the Holy Land, and to have had adventures very similar to those of the ballad-hero. The names in various versions—‘Bekie’/‘echin’, ‘Beachen’ etc.—lend support to this idea. However, the general theme of the ballad is unquestionably very ancient, and certainly antedates the Becket legend, which may well have been adapted to its narrative framework. Campbell Maclean’s name Beicham recalls the Young Bicham of Mrs. Brown of Falkland.

Like Child 73, Lord Beicham owes a great deal of its universal popularity to print. Both our versions, like those collected by Greig at the beginning of the century, can be shown to be related to an English broadside (printed by Child, II, p.508) which played a great part in stabilizing the text of the ballad. Bronson’s remarks on this particular phenomenon are so well-expressed and so apt that we subjoin them here:

It is natural to suppose that anyone who loved to sing narrative songs, and who had experienced the annoyances of forgetfulness, would be glad to put himself beyond the reach of such annoyance if he could…of course, the breath of life itself lay in the music, which made him wish to keep the songs in mind and perpetuated oral transmission. He would not sing from book, but would merely resort to his copy upon need. Nevertheless, tradition, for at least 300 years, is inextricably bound up with writing, whether printed or manuscript, and we must reckon this element a potent and positive force in our study, rather than the purely negative and deleterious influence it has been too generally accounted.
(Vol. I, p.409).

Examination of all the records at our disposal shows clearly, nevertheless, that Bella Higgins’ beautiful fragment owes as much to orally transmitted and recreated variants as it does to the often printed broadside. The Rev. Campbell Maclean, a native of Sutherlandshire who was minister of Cramond, near Edinburgh, first sang me his two verses of Child 53 in Campbeltown, Argyll, where he earlier had a charge. They provide evidence, if such were needed, that Scots-English balladry must have penetrated the furthest Highlands quite early. (It has indeed been asserted that the songs are a lingua franca which actually precedes the incoming language).

Campbell MacLean, a native Gaelic speaker, got this ballad many years ago from his grandfather—a crofter seaman, and the only person in their community who knew Lord Beicham, so he himself probably learned it while ‘at the fishing’. A slightly different rendering, recorded eighteen years earlier, is in Bronson, IV, Addenda. Maclean’s version is related to one collected by Cecil Sharp from Cheddar Cliffs (Bronson, I). Its last line, in our version, makes it surely among the finest of the many tunes in its group, with its wide leaps and its shadowed ending which matches the close of line 1.

Bella Higgins’ alternation between spoken and sung words in recounting a story (we had a taste of this in Willie Edward’s Lord Thomas) is wonderfully effective, and at one point she moves from speech into song with no break. Of the spoken sections, one is an actual verse. Bella may be trying to remember the words, and when she is sure of them she might indeed sing rather than speak them. Nevertheless the effect of the spoken verse is pleasing, and reminds us of an important strand in the rich tapestry of tradition which is only now gaining some recognition in the folk revival: that is the value in its own right of spoken verse. There is a beauty in the inflexions and rhythm of spoken poetry—whether oral or art—and an immediacy in the sense of the words, which provide a complement to song itself. Some poets have in fact objected to their verse being set to music!

Although otherwise similar, these two tunes have a different last line; Bella’s lies within a more restricted compass, and its ending—on a fourth higher—alters its flavour radically.

Nimrod Workman sang Lord Baseman in 1976 on his Rounder album Mother Jones’ Will, which was reissued on Musical Traditions with additional recordings. Mark Wilson noted:

It often struck me, in discussing such songs with my informants, that these old ballads probably served the mountain people as useful relics of an older morality, in a manner allied to that which Homer and Virgil provided for more literate audiences. In this vein, I was often told that the antics of Lord Baseman, Mathie Groves and the Carolina Lady would worry my informants greatly as children, leading them to muse upon “the right thing to do” in such situations. As such, the old ballads conveyed a breeze of exoticism into a society where moral evaluation otherwise ran along conventionally constrained rails (even if moral action itself did not). This song was commonly printed in early American songsters and proved well enough known in Victorian England that Thackeray, Dickens and Cruikshank employed it as the center of a burlesque of ‘Ancient Ballade’ scholarship:

The poet has here, by that bold license which only genius can venture upon, surmounted the extreme difficulty of introducing any particular Turk, of assuming a foregone conclusion in the reader’s mind, and adverting in a careless, casual way to a Turk unknown, as to a casual acquaintance. “This Turk he had…”. We have heard of no Turk before, yet this familiar introduction satisfies us at once that we know him well.

As a philosopher of language, I find this delicious.

The name ‘Suslan Pine’ is of considerable antiquity: Kinloch’s Ancient Scottish Ballads has it as ‘Susie Pye’. The admirable Eunice Yeatts MacAlexander performs a comparable Virginian version on MTCD501-2, as did Alice Penfold on MTCD230. Here and elsewhere on this CD, Nimrod’s pronunciation of names varies rather freely through his performances (‘Baseman’ is often rendered as ‘Bayston’, for example). We have not attempted to capture these variations in our transcriptions.

Ian Manuel sang Young Beichan in 1977 on his Topic album The Dales of Caledonia. A.L. Lloyd noted:

Gilbert Becket was St Thomas’s father. Legend tells that on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land he was captured by Saracens and helped to escape by the Arab prince’s daughter. The girl followed him to England and roamed the streets till she found him. They were married, and Thomas was their son. All romance, of course, but the twelfth century story went on circulating down the ages and eventually it was versified and turned into a ballad, evolving in various forms in England and Scotland, including an influential Cockney version illustrated by George Cruickshank in 1839. Ian Manuel’s set, put together from various sources contains some rare felicities that bring new life to this much-sung ballad.

June Tabor sang Lord Bateman in a BBC Radio 1 John Peel session that was recorded on 25 January 1977 and broadcast on 22 February 1977. This recording was published on her BBC EP The Peel Sessions and CD On Air. The CD sleeve notes commented:

Child no. 53, Young Beichan, this text is The Loving Ballad of Lord Bateman, published in 1839 and “derived from the singing of a London vagrant”. The legend goes back to around 1300, and is often associated with Gilbert Becket, father of (St.) Thomas à Becket.

Eunice Yeatts McAlexander sang Lord Bateman to Mike Yates at her home in Meadows of Dan, Patrick County, Virginia, on 7 August 1979. This recording was included in 2002 on the Musical Traditions anthology of songs, tunes and stories from Mike Yates’ Appalachian collections, Far in the Mountains Volume 1. Mike Yates noted:

Professor Child prints fifteen versions of this ballad, all but one from Scotland. He also mentions a number of European examples from Spain to Scandinavia.

Cecil Sharp noted a tune for this ballad from Joe Blackett of Meadows of Dan, Virginia, on 28 August 1918. In 1916 he collected a single verse and tune from Mrs. Zipporah Rice (then a fifteen year-old girl) of Sodom Laurel, who I met in 1980. The ballad was printed in some early American songsters and, according to Mark Wilson, was heard on the radio fairly often. After collecting a very full set of Lord Bateman from a Sussex gypsy some years ago, I was intrigued to hear the singer’s three daughters arguing among themselves as to whether it really was possible for a man to marry two women on the same day.

[…] Some people believe that the folksong The Turkish Lady is a variant of the ballad. For this song, see Rounder’s Harry Cox CD What Will Become of England?.

Christy Moore sang Lord Baker, “from John Reilly with new words and music from Christy”, on Planxty’s 1983 album Words & Music.

Jim & Lynnette Eldon sang Lord Bateman in 1997 on their eponymous CD Jim & Lynnette Eldon.

Arthur Knevett sang Lord Bateman in 1997 on the Fellside anthology Ballads. Paul Adams noted:

Arthur describes this as a “ripping yarn” and it is very much a “Boys Own” adventure ballad which enjoyed widespread popularity. It was regularly printed as a broadside which will have helped its popularity in the oral tradition and stabilised its text (Bronson gives 112 versions, most of them from oral sources). Essentially it is a medieval romance with a happy ending. Arthur’s straightforward declamatory gives a certain nobility to the story. There is a school of thought which says that the adventures described in the ballad actually happened to Gilbert Beckett, father of Thomas à Beckett. Arthur’s source for the song were recordings by Joseph Taylor, the Lincolnshire singer whose songs were collected by Percy Grainger, and A.L. Lloyd. He admits that is has “altered a bit over the years.”

Dan Milner sang Lord Bateman in 1998 on the Folk-Legacy album Irish Ballads & Songs of the Sea. He noted:

This is my own setting of Lord Bateman. Francis James Child, the Harvard scholar who included this ballad in his great collection (Young Beichan, Child 53), thought it to be based on or influenced by the life of Gilbert, father of Thomas à Becket.

John Roberts & Tony Barrand sang Lord Bateman in 1998 on their CD of English folksongs collected by Percy Grainger, Heartoutbursts . Tony Barrand noted:

Grainger recorded a number of versions of Lord Bateman, all quite similar, from the singing of Joseph Taylor, George Wray, Joseph Leaning, and Mr. Thomson. It was one of the most popular of all the ballads, well known among traditional singers on both sides of the Atlantic. It’s certainly a good tale, and it’s nice to have an occasional long ballad that doesn’t end in tragedy and death for all the protagonists.

Chris Wood sang Lord Bateman in 1998 on the collaboration album Wood–Wilson–Carthy. He also recorded it in 2005 for his own CD The Lark Descending; this track was also included in 2011 on the anthology The Rough Guide to English Folk. He noted on the first album:

This CD has been a most enjoyable experience but the cherry on the cake for me is the recording of this song, I’ve been living with for about eight years and the relief finally ’coming out’ is no small thing. Martin [Carthy] tells me that it is the story of Gilbert Becket and Shusha Pye who, after the song finishes, apparently went on to have a son called Thomas. It’s re-written all over the place principally with the intention of shortening it.

Jim Moray sang Lord Bateman in 2003 on his CD Sweet England.

The New Scorpion Band sang Lord Bateman in 2004 on their CD The Downfall of Pears. They noted:

A widespread and popular ballad, the hero being variously Lord Bateman in England, Young Beichan in Scotland and Lord Akeman in Newfoundland. This version was sung to Cecil Sharp by Mr Henry Larcombe of Haselbury Plucknett, Somerset in 1905 [VWML CJS2/10/695, RoudFS/S213519] . The story of the English Lord released from prison by the beautiful Saracen maid is a very old one and, it has been suggested, that it originally derives from the legend of Gilbert, father of St. Thomas à Becket, and ends with a council of bishops being summoned to rule “favourably” on Gilbert’s marriage to his Arabian bride.

We are also informed that the story is known in Turkey and was presented as a stage play, in London, by a visiting Turkish theatrical company in the 1970s. Sophia’s Ottoman music is in the aksak semai rhythmic mode, 10/8 or 3+2+2+3. She would not have encountered such complexities in her new Northumbrian home but she would have found a world of good tunes such as the splendid hornpipe The Marquis of Lorne, with which we leave them at their hastily reorganised wedding feast.

Ed Rennie sang Lord Bateman in 2004 on his Fellside CD Narrative. He noted:

An ancient ballad (Child 53) possibly dating from a story about Thomas à Becket’s father; The tune was collected by Percy Grainger, from Joseph Taylor of Saxby-All-Saints, Lincolnshire, in 1908.

Chris Bartram sang Lord Bateman on his 2005 album Yorkie. See the Musical Traditions Singer’s Songbook entry for Lord Bateman for Chris Bartram’s comments.

John Kirkpatrick sang Lord Bateman in 2007 on his Fledg’ling CD Make No Bones. He noted:

In 1962 Topic Records issued an LP called The Roving Journeymen. It was a selection of brand new recordings of the gypsy singer Tom Willett, born in 1878. and his sons Chris and Ben. Tom was brought up near Copthorne on the Surrey/Sussex border, and worked as a horse dealer—no surprise there!—but married a girl called Miss Smart and also spent a spell training animals in her family’s famous circus. I first heard Tom Willett’s singing in my late teens, and although there are hundreds of recordings of traditional singing that I  just adore, this is the one I always return to time and time again. It takes a while to appreciate the subtleties of his stile, but once you have, time simply stands still. I’ve worn the record out, but I still have to keep playing it.

This is his tune for Lord Bateman Child Ballad No 53, Young Beicham. It’s rather different from most other tunes to the song, and the pace he takes it at would make my longer version last for the whole CD! The story has been around for centuries, and I’ve raided a few other variants to get a fuller picture. It’s taken me forty years to get round to singing this, but I didn’t have to learn it as I realised I knew it already!

Chris Foster sang Lord Bateman on his 2008 album Outsiders. He noted:

Versions of this classic ballad have been recorded all over the English speaking world from the days of wax cylinders onwards and it has proved very popular amongst singers of the British folk scene; so much so that for a long time I resisted the urge to perform it. However, great songs need to be sung, so I pieced this version together from a number of oral and written sources, including Percy Grainger’s 1906 recording of Joseph Taylor and a fine version sung by the great Newfoundland singer Anita Best. I tweaked the tune around a bit from versions I’ve had in my head for years.

Craig Morgan Robson sang Lord Bateman on their 2009 CD Hummingbird’s Feather, and Sarah Morgan sangt, accompanied by Jeff Gillett, live in front of an invited audience at The White Lion, Wherwell, Hampshire, in February 2012. The concert’s recording was released in the same year on their Forest Tracks album The Flowers and the Wine. Craig Morgan Robson noted on their album:

In English Folk Songs (1920) Cecil Sharp comments that he noted nineteen different versions of this ballad. This one came from Henry Larcombe of Haselbury Plucknett near Crewkerne in Somerset. The story of Lord Bateman (or sometimes Beichan or Bekie) has been connected with that of Gilbert Beckett, father of Thomas a Beckett. Whether or not that is true, it is a magnificent tale of seafaring, romance and just a hint of bigamy for good measure. And if that’s not enough, most parties achieve a happy ending as well!

James Findlay sang Lord Bateman in 2009 on his first CD, As I Carelessly Did Stray. He noted:

Child no. 53. A happy ending! Well for all except the young bride who is ditched the very instant that ‘Soph’ steps back on the scene. All its roots seem to stem back to stories of the crusades. Some say that Lord Bateman was Gilbert Becket, father of St Thomas. Probably better sung unaccompanied, so sorry about that. But good story all the same.

Tim Radford played the tune of Lord Bateman in 2009 on his Forest Tracks album of songs, toasts and recitations collected by George B. Gardiner in 1906-07 from the Hampshire gardener George Blake, George Blake’s Legacy. He noted:

Gardiner mss. no. 331 with no original notebook reference, however the music says—Collected 27 September 1906 in Bank, Lyndhurst. One verse only collected. This is the same date and location as no. 335—wThe Jolly Highwayman, and this could have been Henry Stansbridge’s house (as is stated for that song).

The Roud number is 40 and it is also Child Ballad 53, and the text of the single verse is much like the many other versions collected or in print, however the tune is, in Gardiner’s own notes “distinct”, which I take as being different from normal.

I would like to think that Blake knew more than was collected, even though it states—“The rest is wanting”. Gardiner did collect other versions in Portsmouth (Mr. Ansell) H850, Titchfield (Mr. Burgess) H1025 and from Jess Cole, location unknown, H1288.

This is probably my favourite of all of Blake’s tunes and I wish that a full text had been collected. I may in future use another text for this tune.

The Askew Sisters sang Lord Bateman in 2010 on their WildGoose CD Through Lonesome Woods. They noted:

Lord Bateman is perhaps one of the most beautiful and compelling ballads around with its vivid characters and gripping narrative. We originally heard this tune from a recording made in 1967 of John Reilly’s version—Lord Baker—but listening back it seems to have evolved quite a lot since then! The words come from various versions in the Child Ballad collection (no. 53, Young Beichan). The story is very similar to the legend of Gilbert Becket and Shusha Pye, parents of St Thomas à Becket, a tale which can be dated back to 1300. This narrative was also popular in Europe and versions have been found in Scandinavia, Spain and Italy. We like to think of Lord Bateman’s adventure as a bit of a gap year!

This video shows the Hungarian group Simply English singing Lord Bateman at ICWIP Balkan Festival in Pécs, Hungary, on 28 July 2010:

Jon Boden sang Lord Bateman as the 10 April 2011 entry of his project A Folk Song a Day. He noted in his blog:

A ballad I’ve always meant to get around to learning. This version is from Bert Lloyd. I’ve just today been listening to An Evening With A.L. Lloyd, a new release by Fellside which is a whole live gig with Lloyd—all brilliant stuff. He sings this there but adds a few extra verses—perhaps he edited them out later, not sure.

Stephanie Hladowski and Chris Joynes sang Lord Bateman on their 2012 CD The Wild Wild Berry. They noted:

Lord Bateman is from a recording of the singing of Joseph Taylor of Saxby All Saints, Lincolnshire, made in 1908 by Percy Grainger at the Gramophone Company of London.

Andy Turner sang Lord Bateman as the 18 February 2012 entry of his project A Folk Song a Week, referring to Tom Willett as his source. He returned to it in 2017 on Magpie Lane’s CD Three Quarter Time; they noted as the source of their tune Shadrack ‘Shepherd’ Hayden as collected by Cecil Sharp in Bampton, Oxfordshire on 7 September 1909 [VWML CJS2/10/2371] .

This video shows Magpie Lane singing Lord Bateman at their 30^th anniversary concert on 29 April 2023 at Holywell Music Room, Oxford (video by Tim McElwaine):

Thom Ashworth sang Lord Bateman on his 2017 debut EP Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture.

Carol Elizabeth Jones sang Lord Bateman on the 2017 Appalachian ballad tradition anthology Big Bend Killing. Ted Olsen noted:

Lord Bateman no doubt existed for some years prior to its first documentation, under the title Lord Beigham, on a nineteenth century broadside published in Glasgow, Scotland. Percy Grainger made two wax cylinder recordings of this ballad in Brigg, England, in 1908—one by Joseph Taylor and another by a “Mr. Thompson”; these-along with the previously mentioned Grainger recordings—are among the earliest recordings of English-language folk songs. Existing under such alternate names as “Lord Baker”, “Young Beichan”, and “Young Bekie”, this ballad was based on a widely dispersed European folk tale that had also spawned similarly themed ballads in Norway, Italy, and Spain.

Lord Bateman was masterfully sung by Jean Ritchie for her classic Folkways album British Traditional Ballads in the Southern Mountains, Volume (1960). Carol Elizabeth Jones perfectly captures the inherent sweetness in "Lord Bateman, which unlike many traditional ballads ends in happiness for all concerned.

Unthank | Smith sang Lord Bateman on their 2023 album Nowhere and Everywhere. Paul Smith noted:

Rachel [Unthank] brought this song to the table after realising there weren’t any epic ballads in our fledgling repertoire, and its Northumberland setting sealed the deal. This is Child Ballad Number 53, and we based our arrangement on Chris Wood’s exquisite version, only my guitar-playing is a little more … untutored, shall we say.

Alex Cumming sang Young Beichan on his 2024 album Homecoming. He noted:

This was one of the first songs Olive Dame Campell collected when she first encountered folk songs being sung by students and teachers at the Hindman Settlement School in Kentucky in 1907. The other songs she collected during the same visit include The Foolish Boy, Come All You Fair & Tender Ladies and probably her most well-known collected song, Barbara Allen. Young Beichan is a rather wonderful version of the popular ballad, Lord Bateman.

Alison McMorland sang Young Bekie on her 2024 album Some Ballads of Anna Gordon, Mrs. Brown of Falkland.

Lyrics

Joseph Taylor sings Lord Bateman

Lord Bateman was a noble lord,
A noble lord of some high degree;
He shipped himself on board of ship,
Some foreign count-e-ry he would go see.

He sail-ed East, and he sail-ed West,
Until he came to p-roud Turkey,
Where he was taken and put in prison,
Until his life it-e-grew quite weary.

And in this prison there grew a tree,
It grew so large and it grew so strong;
Where he was chain-ed around the middle
Until his life it-e-was almost gone.

His gaoler had but one only daughter,
The fairest creature my two eyes did see.
She stole the keys of her father’s prison
And said Lord Bateman she would set free.

“Now have you got houses, have you got land,
And does Northumberland belong to thee?
And what would you give to that fair young lady
That out of prison would set you free?”

“Yes I’ve got houses and I’ve got land,
And half Northumberland belongs to me.
I would give it all to that fair young lady
That out of prison would set me free.”

That’s what Joseph Taylor sings on the cylinder recording. The following verses which continue the story are from Tony Barrand’s Heartoutbursts. Mr Thomson (more or less) sings the second and third of these verses on Unto Brigg Fair, in addition to those sung by Joseph Taylor (except for the one about the tree).

Tony Barrand sings Lord Bateman (continued)

She took him to her marble parlour,
She gave him cake and a bottle of wine,
And every health that she drank unto him,
“I wish, Lord Bateman, that you were mine.”

“And it’s seven long years I’ll make a vow,
And seven long years I will keep it strong,
If you will wed with no other woman,
Then I’ll not wed with no other man.”

She took him to her father’s harbour,
She gave to him a ship of fame,
“Farewell and adieu to you, Lord Bateman,
I fear I’ll never see you again.”

Now the seven long years were past and gone,
And fourteen days, well-known to me,
She set her foot all in a ship,
And said Lord Bateman she would go see.

And when she’s come to Lord Bateman’s castle,
She knocked so loudly upon the pin,
And who should come down but the proud young porter,
To rise and let this fair lady in.

“Is this here Lord Bateman’s castle,
And is Lord Bateman here within?”
“O yes, oh yes, said the proud young porter,
“He’s just now taken his new bride in.”

“Tell him to bring me a loaf of bread,
A bottle of the very best wine,
And not to forget the fair young lady
As did release him when close confined.”

“What news, what news, my proud young porter?
What news, what news? Now, tell to me.”
“There is the fairest of all young ladies
As ever my two eyes did see.”

“She bid you send her a loaf of bread,
A bottle of the very best wine,
And not to forget the fair young lady
As did release you when close confined.”

Lord Bateman he flew in a passion,
He broke the table in splinters three,
“I’ll wager all my father’s lands and riches
That my Sophia has come from sea.”

Then up and spoke the young bride’s mother,
Who never was known to speak so free,
“What will you do for my only daughter,
If your Sophia has come from sea?”

“I own I wed your only daughter,
She’s neither the better nor the worse for me,
She came to me on a horse and saddle,
She shall ride home in a carriage and three.”

Then he’s prepared another wedding,
And both their hearts so full of glee,
“O never more will I sail the ocean,
Now my Sophia has come to me.”

A.L. Lloyd sings Lord Bateman

Lord Bateman was a noble lord,
A noble lord of some high degree,
Who set his foot on board of ship
Some foreign country would go see.

He sailed East, and he sailed West,
Until he came to proud Turkey.
Where he was taken and put in prison
Until his life it grew quite weary.

This Turkey had but one only daughter,
The fairest creature my eyes did see.
She’s stolen keys from her father’s pillow
And vowed Lord Bateman would be set free.

She took him to her marble parlour
with sugar, cake and the best of wine,
And ev’ry health that she drank unto him,
“O I wish, Lord Bateman, your heart was mine.

For seven long year I’ll make a vow,
For seven long year I’ll keep it strong;
If you don’t not wed to no other woman
I will not wed to no other man.”

With seven long years she did then set sail
Till turf and stone she chanced to spy;
And she went cracking her fair white fingers
As for Lord Bateman she did enquire.

“O isn’t this Lord Bateman’s palace?
And is the noble Lord within?”
“O yes! O yes!” said the brisk young porter,
“He and his new wed bride have just gone in.”

Lord Bateman flew into a passion,
He kicked his table in splinters three;
“I lay my life at that young Sophie
So now my new wed wife, fare well to thee.”

He then prepared another wedding,
With both their hearts so full of glee.
“I’ll sail no more in no foreign country
Now that young Sophia she has crossed the sea.”

Frank ‘Mush’ Bond sings Lord Bateman

Lord Bateman was a rich noble lord
A rich noble lord of some high degree
He travelled east and he travelled west
Until he came unto proud Turkee

Alone I made a bride of your daughter,
She’s none the better nor the worse for me,
You brought her here in a horse and saddle,
You may take her back in a coach and three.

Charlotte Higgins sings Susie Pirate (Lord Bateman)

Send one slice of his wedding cake
And one glass of his wedding wine
And to never forget on a fair young maiden
That once released him from close confine.

“What news, what news my little page boy
You kneel so low down upon your knee?”
“There is a lady all at your door sir
And the bait of her I have never seen
For there is as much jewels around her body
Wad buy your kingdom and others three.”

He kicked the table all with his foot
The cups and saucers he garred them flee
“I’ll bet onie man in my London kingdom
That Susan Pirate come ower the sea.”

Out spokes now the bride’s mother
Very seldom she spoke so free
“You’ll marry now my only daughter
Although Susan Pirate come ower the sea.”

“Take your daughter back home my lady
She’s ne’er the worse or the better of me
She came here upon her horse an saddle
She can ride home on a carriage-an-three.”

Ollie Gilbert sings Lord Bateman

Thar was a man in the state of Georgie,
And he did live to high degree,
But he could never live contented,
Until he taken a voyage on the sea.

He sailed east and he sailed west,
And he sailed till he came to the Turkish shore,
And there he’s caught and put in prison,
No hopes of freedom any more.

The jailer had one only daughter;
And she’s as fair as fair could be.
She stole the keys of her father’s prison,
Saying, “This Lord Batesman I’ll set free.”

“Have you got a house, have you got land?
Have you got money to a high degree?
And w il you give it to a lady
Who did from prison set you free?”

“Yes, I’ve got a house and I’ve got land,
And I’ve got money to a high degree.
And I will give it to a lady,
Who will from prison set me free.”

She taken him to her father’s cellar
And there she treated on wine so strong.
And every glass that she drank with him,
Saying, “Wish Lord Batesman were my own..”

She taken him to her father’s castle,
And there engaged a ship for him.
“Farewell, farewell my own true love,
I’m afraid we’ll never meet again.”

“Three long years we will make the bargain,
Three long years, and here is my hand.
If you will court no other lady.
I’m sure I’ll court no other man.”

Three long years are passed and over,
Three long years just one, two, three.
“I’ll dress myself in my fine jewels,”
Saying, “This Lord Batesman I’ll go see.”

She sailed till she came to Lord Batesmans castle,
She knocked at the door till she made it ring.
“Go out, go out, my poor old servant,
And see who’s there that will come in.”

“Here stands a lady at your door,
And she’s as fair as fair can be.
She wears enough jewelry around her neck
To buy your bride and Comridge Inn.”

“O is this here Lord Batesman’s castle?
O is he here or gone away?“
“O yes, o yes, this is his castle,
He’s just now brought his new bride in.”

“Go tell him to send me a slice of his bread,
And send me a glass of his wine so strong,
And ask him if he remembers the lady
Who set him free when he was bound.”

Jean Ritchie sings Lord Bateman

Lord Bateman was a noble lord,
He thought himself of a high degree,
He could not rest nor be contented
Till he had sailed the old salt sea.

O he sailed east and he sailed to the westward,
He sailed all over to the Turkish shore,
There he got caught and put in prison
Newer to be released any more.

There grew a tree inside of this prison,
There grew a tree both broad and high.
And there they took and bound him prisoner
Till he grew weak and like to die.

Now the Turk he had one only daughter
And she was fair as she could be,
She stole the keys to her father’s prison
And declared Lord Bateman she’d set free.

She took him down to the deepest cellar,
She gave him a drink of the strongest wine;
She threw her loving little arms around him,
Crying, “O Lord Bateman, if you were mine.”

They made a vow, they made a promise,
For seven long years they made it to stand;
He vowed he’d marry no other woman,
She vowed she’d marry no other man.

Well, seven long years has rolled around,
Seven years and they seem like twenty-nine;
It’s she’s packed up all of her gay clothing
And declared Lord Bateman she’d go find.

Well, she sailed east and she sailed to the westward,
She sailed all over to the England shore;
She rode till she came to Lord Bateman’s castle
And she summonsed his porter right down to the door.

“O is this not Lord Bateman’s castle,
And is his Lordship not within?”
“O yes, O yes,” cried the proud young porter,
“He’s a-just now bringing his new bride in.”

“Go bid him to send me a slice of bread,
Go bid him to send me a drink of wine,
And not to forget the Turkish lady
That freed him from his close confine.”

“What’s the news, what’s the news, you proud young porter,
What’s the news, what’s the news, that you brung to me?”
“There stands a lady outside of your castle,
She’s the fairest one I ever did see.

“She has got a gold ring on every finger,
And on one finger she has got three,
And enough gay gold all around her middle
As would buy Northumberland of thee.

“She bids you to send her a slice of bread,
She bids you to send her a drink of wine,
And not to forget the Turkish lady
That freed you from your close confine.”

O up and spoke that new bride’s mother,
She never was known to speak so free,
“Well, what’s to become of my only daughter,
She has just been made a bride to thee.”

“O I’ve done no harm to your only daughter,
And she is the none of the worse tor me;
She came to me with a horse and saddle
And she shall go home in coacharee.”

Lord Bateman he pounded his fist on the table,
And he broke it in pieces one, two, three,
Says, “I’ll forsake all for the Turkish Lady,
She has crossed that old salt sea for me.”

Tom Willett sings Lord Bateman

Now the turnkey had but one only daughter
The finest young girl that ever was seen
She stole the keys of her father’s prison
And swore Lord Bateman she would go and see

Now it’s I’ve got houses and I’ve got land
And half of Northumberland belongs to me
I’ll gave it all to you, fair young lady
Then if out of prison you will let me free

Now it’s seven long years I will wait for you
And two more years to make up nine
Then if you don’t wed with no other woman
Then it’s I won’t wed with no other man

Now the seven long years was gone and passed
And the two more years then to make up nine
She took a ship, sailed across the ocean
Unto she got to Northumberland

Now is this is now Lord Bateman’s castle
And is his lordship with now in
O yes, O yes, cries this proud young porter
I’ve just now taken of his new bride in

Go and ask him for a slice of bread
And a bottle of his very best wine
Tell him not to forget that fair young lady
That out of prison did let him free

Then away, away, goes this proud young porter
And away, away, and away goes him
And when he got to Lord Bateman’s chamber
Down on his bended knees fell him

What news, what news, my proud young porter
What news, what news have you brought to me
O there is the fairest of all young creatures
That ever my two eyes had seen

Now she has got rings on every finger
On some of them she has got three
And as much gay gold hanging round her middle
That would buy half of Northumberland

Now she’s asked you for a slice of bread
And a bottle of your very best wine
And you’re not to forget that fair young lady
That out of prison did let you free

Now Lord Bateman flew all in a passion
His sword he broke in three pieces three
I’ll seek no more for no other fortune
O it’s since Sophia now have crossed the sea.

Caroline Hughes sings a verse of Lord Bateman

Come riddle, come riddle, my bold forester;
He is the keeper of our Queen’s deers.
O wasn’t Lord Bateman the cleverest young fellow
That ever the sun shone on.

Spoken: To wed two brides all on one day.

Buna Hicks sings roung Beham

Young Beham, from the Glasgow town,
The Turkish nation for to see.
The Turks took him as a prisonee
And bound him to a trusty tree.

Through his right shoulder they bored a hole,
And through and through they put a key.
They throwed him in a dark dungeonee
Where daylight he never could see.

The jailer had a beautiful daughter,
A beautiful daughter, oh, was she.

“Have you any house or land?
Have you any buildings free
That you would give to a pretty girl
That set you at your liberty?”

“The Glasgow town it is all mine,
Besides other buildings two or three,
That I would give to a pretty girl
That’d set me at my liberty.”

“Give to me your faith and honor,
Your right hand, you’ll marry me.”
He give to her his faith and honor,
In seven years he’d marry her.

She paid down ninety thousand pounds
And set him at his liberty.

Miss Suzie Price thought the time very long
When seven years come rolling on.
Her old father built her a boat
And over the ocean she did float.

She went till she came to young Beham’s gate;
There she rung the silver bell.
No one was as willing to rise and let her come in
As young Beham was himself.

“Here, old woman, take back your daughter;
I’m sure I’m none the worst of her.”

“Such work, such work a-going on,
Such work, such work I never did see.
Marry one in the morning soon,
And marry the other one in the afternoon.”

Ewan MacColl sings Young Beichan

Young Beichan was a king’s son,
And aye a king’s son was he;
And he went on wi’ a foreign moor,
Unto a foreign land went he.

When he was in a foreign land,
And in among the savage black,
They laid a plot amang themselves,
It was young Beic han for to tak’.

They hae ta’en him Young Beichan,
And put him in a vault o’ stane,
It was daylight and the sun shone bright,
But I wat young Beichan he saw nane.

But it fell oot upon a day,
Young Beichan he did mak’ his moan,
But it was not unto a stock,
Nor yet was it unto a stone.

“If any lady would borrow me,
I would promise to be her son,
If any knight would borrow me,
I would at his bridle run.

“ut if a maiden would borrow me,
I would wed her wi’ a ring,
And all my land and all my houses,
They should a’ be at her command.”

The savage moor had an only dochter,
Her name it was ca’d Susan Pye
And she went in at the prison door,
And kindly ca’d young Beichan by.

“It’s ha’e ye ony land?’ she says,
“Or ha’e ye ony dowry free
Ye could bestow on a lady’s love,
If out o’ prison she would lowse thee?”

“It’s I ha’e lands baith broad and wide,
But they are far beyond the sea,
But all that’s mine, it shall be thine,
If oot o’ prison ye would lowse me.”

So it fell oot upon a day,
Her faither to the hunt did gae,
And she’s stolen the keys fae aneath his heid,
And I wat she set young Beichan free.

She’s gi’en him a steed frae her faither’s stable,
She’s gi’en him a saddle wi’ ivory bane,
And she has gi’en him twa guid greyhoonds,
That they may at his bridle run.

Between them twa they wrote a letter,
Between them twa they hae made a bond,
That for seiven years he would not marry,
Nor yet that she should love a man.

When seiven years were gane and past,
She longed young Beichan for to see.
She’s ta’en her mantle a’ aboot her,
And she’s ta’en shippin’ on the sea.

When she cam’ by young Beichan’s gates,
And knockit gentle at the pin,
“Who is there,” the porter cried,
“That knocks so gentle and would come in?”

“Is not this young Beichan’s gates?
And is that worthy knight at hame?”
“He’s up the stair at his dinner set,
Wi’ his bonnie bride and mony aane.”

She’s put her hand into her pocket,
She’s gi’en the porter a guinea fee;
“Gang up the stair and bring him to me,
And bid him speak one word wi’ me.

“Get first a sheave o’ his white breid,
And then a glass o’ his reid wine,
And bid’ him mind on a lady fair,
That once releived him oot of pine.”

The porter he went up the stairs,
And he fell low down upon his knee.
Young Beichan he pulled him up again,
Says, “What maks a’ this courtesie?”

“Ootside there stands the fairest lady,
That ever my eyes did see,
And she’s got rings on every finger,
And on her mid-finger she’s got three.

“She wants a sheave o’ your white breid,
And then a glass o’ your reid wine,
She bade ye mind on a lady fair,
That once released you out o’ pine.”

The stair it was full fifteen steps,
But I wat he made nane but three,
He’s catched her in his arms twa,
And he has kissed her tenderly.

“Gie me my hand and troth,” she said,
“For my native country I maun see,
For since ye’ve met wi another lady,
My hand and troth you must gie to me.”

“O no, O no, madam,” he said,
“O no, O no and this maunna be,
For since ye lowsed me oot o’ pine,
Rewarded now it’s you must be.”

He took her by the milk white hand,
And led her to the marriage stane,
He changed her name fae Susan Pye,
And he called her, “My dear Lady Jane”.

Then oot and spak the young bride’s mither,
She was never lent to speak so free;
“Will ye forsake my only dochter,
Though your fair Susan has crossed the sea?”

“Tis true that I hae wed your dochter,
She’s nane the better or the waur for me;
She cam here on a hired horse,
I send her hame in a chariot free.”

I wot na who would hae done the like,
Or yet if ever the like was seen,
To wed a lady in the mornin’ early,
And choose anither one long ere e’en.

Danny Brazil sings Lord Bakeman

Lord Bakeman was a noble lord,
A noble lord of high agree;
He paid his passage to a foreign nation,
Saying strange countries he’d go and see.

He sailed East and he sailed West,
Until he came to proud Turkey;
There he was taken and put in prison,
’Til his poor life it was almost done in.

Now in this prison there grew a tree,
It grew so stout and it grew so strong;
There as he was chained all round his middle,
’Til his poor life it was almost gone.

The turnkey had but one only daughter,
The finest lady you ever saw;
She stole the keys of her father’s prison,
Saying Lord Bakeman she’d go and see.

“Are you, are you, are you Lord Bakeman?
Or are you any high agree?
Or what would you give to a fair young lady,
If it’s out of prison she’d set you free?”

“O yes, oh yes I am Lord Bakeman,
And I am in a high agree.
I have houses and I have lands,
Part of Northumberland belongs to me;
I would give it all to a fair young lady,
If it’s out of prison she’d set me free.”

She took him to her father’s parlours,
She give him a glass all of the best of wine,
And every health that she drunk unto him,
Saying, “I wish Lord Bakeman that you were mine.

“Now seven long years we will make a vow,
And seven long days to remember strong,
If you don’t wed to no other woman,
For it’s I won’t wed to no other man.”

The seven long years it being gone and past,
The seven long days to remember strong.
This fair maid she packed up her clothing,
Saying Lord Bakeman she’d go and find.

Now she sailed East and she sailed West,
Until she came to Northumberland,
There she saw one of the finest castles,
That ever her two eyes did see.

Now when she came to Lord Bakeman’s castle,
She boldly ringed all at the bell;
There was none so ready but that young proud porter,
To answer that gay lady at the door.

“Is this Lord Bakeman’s castle?
Or is it any high agree?”
“O yes this is Lord Bakeman’s castle,
And he’s just now after taking his bride in.”

“Tell him send me a slice of his best of cake,
And a glass all of his best of wine,
And he’s not to forget that fair young lady,
That oncet released him from close confine.”

Away, away run the young proud porter,
Away, away, away run he,
Until he come to Lord Bakeman’s chamber,
Down on his bended knees he fell.

“What news, what news, my young proud porter,
What news, what news come tell to me.”
“For here is one of the finest ladies,
That ever my two eyes did see.

“She’s got rings on every finger,
If she’s got one, for she have got ten;
She’s got enough gay gold hingin round her middle,
That would buy Northumberland all out free.

“You’re to send her a slice of your best of cake,
And a glass all of your best of wine;
And you’re not to forget that fair young lady,
That once released you from close confine.”

Lord Bakeman he flew in a passion,
His sword he splintered up in three
“I’d rather have her than ten hundred guineas,
My proud young Susan she’s across the sea.”

For up spoke the young bride’s mother,
Never known to speak so loud before;
“What will you do with my only daughter,
Since Sophia has crossed the sea?”

“I’ll own I’ve made a bride of your daughter,
She’s none the better and the worse for me;
For she came to me on her horse and saddle,
And she may go back in a coach and three.”

Denny Smith sings Lord Bateman

Lord Bateman was, oh a noble lord
Some noble lord of high degree
He put his foot on aboard of shipping
Some foreign counteree, oh he would go and see

He sailèd East and he sailèd West
Until he came to proud Turkey
’Til he was locked up and put in prison
Unto his dear life, oh it was all awry.

Now in this prison there growed a tree
It growed so stout and manfully
But he was chainded all by his middle
Unto his dear life, oh it was almost gone.

Now the jailkeeper had one ondlye daughter
One ondlye daughter of high degree
She stole the keys of her father’s prison
She swore Lord Bateman, oh she would go and see
She stole the keys of her father’s prison
She swore Lord Bateman that she would set free.

Now when she gets up to Lord Bateman’s prison
But when, oh she got up to him
“What would you give to a fair young maiden
That’s out of prison that would set you free?”

“Now I have got houses, I have got land
Part of Northumblimands belongs to me
I would give it all to a fair young maiden
That’s out of prison that would set me free.”

She took him to her father’s parlour
She give him a glass of the best of wine
And every time that she raised the glass
She said, “O Lord Bakeman I wish you were mine.

“Now seven long years I would make a promise
And seven long days to remember strong
If you would wed with no other woman
And it’s I would wed with no other man.”

She took him to her father’s harbour
She give him a ship of noted fame
And as he sailèd out o’er the ocean
She said, “O Lord Bateman I’ll ne’er see you again.”

Now seven long year it being gone and past
And seven long days to remember strong
Till one day she packed up her rich gay clotherie
And unto Northumblimand she did sailèd on.

Now she sailèd North, she sailèd West
Until she come all to Turkey
There she saw was the finest castle
That ever her two eyes did set upon.

But when she got to Lord Bateman’s castle
She boldlye ringèd all at the bell
There was none so ready but that young proud porter
To answer that gay lady at the door.

“Now is this, oh Lord Bateman’s castle?
Or is it it’s here his noble Lord?”
“O yes gay lady, he’s just returnin’
For he’s just retaken of his new bride in.”

“Now you tell him to send me a slice of his best of bread
Likewise a glass of his best wine
In remembranct of, oh a fair young maiden
That’s ’leased him from prison whilst he was close confine.”

Now away, oh away went this young proud porter
And away, oh away, oh then went he
But when he got to Lord Bateman’s parlour
But he fell upon his bended knee.

“Come rise, come rise, my young proud porter
Come rise, come rise, and tell to me.
“That the finest, gayest, ever saw young lady
She’s at your door, oh a-standing by.

“She have got rings on every finger
She have got most like every three
She’s more plain gold hangin’ round her middle
That would buy some of this half wild counteree.”

“And she asks you to send her a slice of bread
Likewise a glass of your best of wine
In remembranct of oh a fair young maiden
That leased him from prison whilst he was close confine.”

O jugs and bottles he did kick down
Tables, swords, he made them fly
“I’d rather have it nor ten hundred guineas
My proud young Susan she’s across the sea.”
O the bells did a-ring and the bands did a-play
Lord Bateman married two brides one day.

Campbell MacLean sings Young Beicham

Lord Beicham was a noble lord,
A noble lord of high degree.
He set his ships upon the ocean;
Some foreign country he would go see.

He sailed East and he sailed West
Until he came to Turkey;
There he was taken and put in prison,
Until his life was a misery

Bella Higgins sings Young Beicham

(Spoken) This girl…came tae his big domains, his house, a big house, and she met in with his herd-boy, and she says to the herd-boy,

“Who owns, who owns all those flocks of sheep?
Who owns, who owns all those herds of kye?
Who owns, who owns all those wealthy towers,
And many more as I pass by?”

(Spoken) Then the boy says,

“Lord Bateman owns all those flocks of sheep.
Lord Bateman owns all those herds of kye.
Lord Bateman owns all those richly towers.
And many more as you pass by.”

(Spoken) So she put her hand all intae her pocket, she drew out sovereigns they were three; “Take you this, my little herd boy, for that good tidings ye have brought tae me.”

She put her hand all into her pocket.
She pulled out sovereigns and they were three;
“O take you this, my little herd-boy.
For this good tidings you’ve gave to me.”

(Spoken) So she left the boy and she went up tae his castle, and she rang the bell,…So the pageboy came till her, and she says to the page-boy to tell his master to…

“Send out one slice of his weddin cake,
And one glass of his wedding wine;
And to ne’er forget on a fair young lady
That onst released him from close confine.”

(Spoken) So the page-boy run up the stair, and Lord Bateman says till him:

“What news, what news, my little page-boy.
When ye kneel so low down upon your knee?…”

Out spakes his young bride’s mother.
And oh what an angry woman was she:
“You’ll have to wed my youngest daughter.
Although Susan Pirate’s came o’er the sea.”

Wiggy Smith sings Lord Bateman

Lord Bateman was a noble lord
A noble squire of a degree
And he stepped his foot on aboard of shipping
That some foreign country he would go and see.

For he sailed north and then sailed west
Until they got to the grand Turkey
And there he was put into that prison
Until his life it did get quite weary.

Lord Bateman had a lonely daughter
That lonely daughter of high degree
And then she swore she would take him from prison
And at last Lord Bateman then she did set fee.

For there is a knock upon your doorstep
There is a lady here to see
She’s enough plain gold all around her middle
For to set young Bateman and his captain free.

John Reilly sings Lord Baker

There was a lord who lived in this place
He bein’ a lord of a high renown,
For he left his foot upon a ship board
And swore strange countries that he’d go find.

For he travelled east and he travelled west
(And half the south and the east also)
Until he’rived into Turkey land
There he was taken and bound in prison
Until his life it was quite wearee.

O a Turkey bold had one only daughter,
As fair a lady as your eyes could see,
For she stole the keys of her dado’s harbour
And swore Lord Baker that she’d set free.

Saying, “You have houses and you have living
And all Northumber belongs to thee;
What would you give to that fair young lady?
It is out of trouble would set you free?”

Saying, “I have houses and I have living
And all Northumber belongs to me;
I would them all to that fair young lady
It is out of trouble would set me free.”

For she brought him down to her dado’s harbour
And filled for him was the ship of fame.
And at every toast that she did drink round him,
“I wish Lord Baker that you were mine.”

For they’ve made a vow and for seven year,
And seven more for to keep it strong,
Saying, “If you don’t wed with no other fair maid
I’m sure I’ll wed with no other man.”

O seven year it was past and over
And seven more it was rolling on,
When she bundled up all her gold and clothing
And swore Lord Baker that she’d go find.

For she travelled east and she travelled west
Until she came to the palace of fame,
“Who is that? Who’s that?” replies the porter,
“That knocks so gently and can’t get in?”

“Is this Lord Baker’s house?” replies the lady,
“Or is his lordship himself within?”
“This is Lord Baker’s palace”, replies the porter,
“But this very day took a new bride in.”

“Will you tell him send me a cut of his wedding cake
And a glass of his wine, it being ere so strong,
And to remember that fair young lady
Who did release him in Turkey land?”

In goes, in goes, was the young bold porter
And kneel down gently on his right knee.
“Rise up, rise up, it’s my young bold porter,
What news, what news have you got for me?”

Saying, “I have news of a greatest person
As fair a lady as my eyes could see,
She’s at the gate waiting for your charitee.

“She wears a gold ring on every finger,
And on the middle one where she wears three.
And she has more gold hung around her middle
Then’d buy Lord Thumber and family.

“She told you send her a cut of your wedding cake
And a glass of your wine, ere being ere so strong,
And to remember that fair young lady
Who did release you in Turkey land.”

For he caught the sword just by the middle
And he cut the wedding cake in pieces three,
Down comes, down comes, was the young bride’s mother,
“O what will I do for my daughter dear?”

“I owned your daughter is none discover,
And none the better is she to me.
Your daughter came with one pack of gold
I’ll revert her home, love, with thirty-three.”

Nic Jones sings Lord Bateman

Lord Bateman was a noble lord,
A noble lord of high degree,
And he shipped himself on board a sailing ship,
Some foreign lands he would go and see.

He sailed East, and he sailed West,
Until he came to proud Turkey.
And he was taken and put in prison
Until his life was quite weary.

The Turkman had one only daughter,
The fairest lady me eyes did see.
And she’s stolen the keys of her father’s prison
And said Lord Bateman she would set free.

“Have you got houses, have you got lands?
And does Northumb’rland belong to thee?
And what would you give to the fair young lady,
As would release you and set you free?”

“O I’ve got houses and I’ve got lands,
And half Northumb’rland belongs to me;
And I’d grant it all to the fair young lady,
As would release me and let me free.”

She’s taken him to her father’s hall
And given to him a glass of wine.
And ev’ry health that she drank unto him was
“I wish, Lord Bateman, that you were mine.

For seven long years I’ll make a vow,
And seven long years I’ll keep it strong;
If you will wed with no other lady
Then I will wed no other man.”

She’s taken him to her father’s harbour,
And given to him a ship of fame:
“Farewell, farewell to you, Lord Bateman,
I fear I never shall see you again.”

Seven long years were up and past
These seven long years as I tell to thee
And she’s packed up all of her gay clothing,
And said Lord Bateman she would go see.

When she’s come to Bateman’s castle,
So boldly then she did ring the bell.
“Who’s there? Who’s there?” Cried the proud young porter,
“Who is there, come to me tell.”

“Isn’t this here Lord Bateman’s castle?
And is Lord Bateman here within?”
“O yes! O yes!” cried the proud young porter,
“He’s just now taken his new bride in.”

“Tell him to bring me a slice off bread,
And bring a bottle of the best of wine;
And not to forget the fair young lady
That did release him when close confined.”

Away and away went the young proud young porter,
Away and away and away went he,
And when he’s come to Bateman’s chamber,
Down he fell upon bended knees.

“What news, what news,” says Lord Bateman
“What news have you now brought to me?”
“There is the fairest of fine young ladies
That ever my own two eyes did see.”

“She bids you bring her a slice of bread,
And bring a bottle of the very best wine;
And not to forget the fair young lady,
That did release you when close confined.”

Bateman arose all in a passion,
He’s broken his sword in splinters three;
“O I’d have give up all of my father’s riches
If my Sophia have a-crossed the sea.”

O then up spoke the young bride’s mother
Who was never heard to speak so free:
“You’ll not forget my only daughter
If but Sophia has come from sea.”

Then up spoke the young bride’s mother
Who never was heard to speak so free:
“What will you give to me only daughter
If your Sophia’s come from sea.”

“I own I wed your only daughter;
She’s neither the better nor worse for me.
She came to me on a horse and saddle;
She’ll go home in a carriage and three.”

Bateman’s prepared another wedding,
With all their hearts so full of glee.
“O never more will I range the ocean
Now my Sophia’s come from sea.”

Alice Penfolk sings Lord Bateman

Lord Bateman was a noble fellow,
And a noble fellow we’ll all agree.
For it’s he was bound in iron so strong,
Until his life was a misery.

Say, “I have houses and I have land.
Three parts of Northumberland belongs to me.
But I’ll free-ly give it, O, to any young lady,
If out of prison she’ll set me free.”

Now this bailiff had one only daughter,
One only daughter, we’ll all agree.
For she stole the keys of her father’s prison,
And she swor’d Lord Bateman she would set free.

She took him down to her father’s parlour,
They drank many a bottle of the best of wine.
And it’s every time that she emptied her glasses,
She wished in her heart, “Lord Bateman were mine.”

Now she pack-ed up all her gay clothing,
And she swor’d Lord Bateman she would go and find.
It’s when she got to Lord Bateman’s castle,
Saying, “Is this the Lord? O is he inn?”
“O yes fair maiden, but you cannot see him,
As he’s just taken one of his new brides in.”

“Go and tell [him] to send some of his bread,
Likewise a bottle of the best of wine.
Never to forget, O, the fair young lady,
Who did set him free when he were close confined.”

Now away and away went this young porter,
And away and away, and away went he.
Until he got to Lord Bateman’s parlour,
Then down on his knees, O, did he bow.

“Rise up rise up, my own young porter.
And tell me true what you have to say.’
“O it’s yonder’s hills there stands a lady.
She’s about the fairest lady, as ever me eyes did see.”

“She tells you to send some of your bread,
Likewise a bottle of the best of wine.
Never to forget, O, that fair young lady,
Who did set you free when you were close confine.”

O it’s then Lord Bateman fell in a passage [passion?]
And his sword he broke into splinters three.
Say, “I’ll free-ly part, O, from all my riches,
If that’s a fact she have crossed the sea.”

Now, it’s wasn’t Lord Bateman a noble fellow,
For he wed two brides all in one day.

Frankie Armstrong sings Lord Bateman

Lord Bateman was a noble lord
A noble lord of some high degree
He shipped himself on board of a ship
Some foreign country he would go see

He sailed east and he sailed west
Until he came to proud Turkey
And there Lord Bateman was taken prisoner
Til of his life he grew quite weary

This Turkey had but one only daughter
The fairest woman that your eyes did see
And she stole the keys to her father’s prison
And swore Lord Bateman she would go see

O have you houses and have you land
And does Northumberland belong to thee
And what would you give to a fair young woman
If out of prison she’d set you free?

O I have houses and I have land
And half Northumberland belongs to me
And I’d give them all to a fair young woman
If out of prison she’d set me free.

She’s taken him to her father’s cellar
She’s given to him a cup of wine
And every glass she drank to him
I wish Lord Bateman that you were mine.

For seven long years we’ll make a vow
We’ll hold it fast and we’ll keep it strong
If you will wed with no other woman
Then I’ll not wed with no other man

She’s taken him to her father’s harbour
She’s given to him a ship of fame
Farewell farewell to you Lord Bateman
I fear I shan’t see you again.

Now seven long years they have passed and gone
And fourteen days well known to me
She packed up all her gay clothing
And swore Lord Bateman she would go see

And when she came to Lord Bateman’s castle
So loudly she pulled at the bell
Who’s there who’s there cried the young porter
Who’s there who’s there come quickly tell.

O is this good Lord Bateman’s castle
And is his lordship here within?
O yes O yes cried the young porter
For he’s just taken his new bride in.

Tell him to bring me a loaf of bread
And a bottle of the very best wine
And not forgetting that fair young woman
Who did release him when close confined.

Away away ran the young porter
Away away in haste ran he
Til he came to Lord Bateman’s chamber
And there he fell on his bended knee

What news what news Lord Bateman cried
What news what news hast thou for me?
O there is the fairest of all young women
That ever my two eyes did see

And she bids you bring her a loaf of bread
And a bottle of the very best wine
And not forgetting that fair young woman
Who did release you when close confine

Lord Bateman then in a passion flew
He broke his sword in pieces three
O I’ll not wed with no other woman
Now that my Sophy has crossed the sea

And outen spake the young bride’s mother
She was never known to speak so free:
What will you do with my only daughter.
Now that your Sophy has crossed the sea?

I own I made a bride of your daughter
She’s none the better nor the worse for me
She came to me on a horse and saddle
She will go home in a coach and three

Lord Bateman then prepared another marriage
And both their hearts were filled with glee
O I’ll not sail to some foreign country
Now that my Sophy has come to me.

Nimrod Workman sings Lord Baseman

There lived a man, a man of honor,
Noble man of high degree
Who could nor would not be contented
’Til he sailed a voyage all over sea.

He sailed east and he sailed west Nimrod Workman
Sailed all near some Turkish shore
There he was caught and put in prison
For seven long years to stay or more.

They bored a hole through his left shoulder
Tied him to some ostrich(?) tree
They threw him in to a dungeon cell
Where daylight he might never see.

And this old king he had a daughter
Noble daughter of a high degree
She stole them keys to her father’s prison
And vowed Lord Baseman she’d set free.

She said, “Honey, have you land or have you living
Have you living of a high degree?
What would you give to this Turkish lady
Out of these prisons would set you free?”

“Honey, I’ve got gold and I’ve got silver
I am living of a high degree
But I’d give my all to a Turkish lady
Out of these prisons would set me free.”

She took him to her father’s parlour
Called for a glass of strongest wine
Every health she drunk unto him
Saying, “Lord Baseman I wish you was mine.”

Suslan Pine she had a ship
Set it floating all on the deep
She shipped Lord Baseman across the sea
And wished him safe in his own country.

She said, “I’ve got a bargain to make with you
You wed no woman nor me with no man
When seven long years has passed and over
Then I’ll cross these raging mains.”

Then seven long years had passed and gone
And the eighth they were returning on
She took her gold staff in her hand
To seek Lord Baseman in that foreign land.

She traveled ’til she came to Lord Baseman’s dwelling
There she rung most modestly
“Who’s there, who’s there?” cried a proud young porter
“That knocks so makes these whole valleys ring?”

“Is this your place, Lord Baseman’s dwelling?
Or is your noble lord within?”
“Yes, O yes,” cried this proud young porter,
“But he’s just this day took a new bride in.”

“Go ask him for three cuts of bread,
One bottle of the most strongest wine
Ask him if [he] do not remember
Who freed him from them cold iron bounds?”

Away this proud young porter ran
Fell upon his bended knee
“I’ll bet, I’ll bet,” Lord Baseman said,
“Sweet Suslan Pine done crossed the sea”

She had a gay gold ring on every finger
Round her middle gold diamonds three
She got gold enough around her neck
To buy your bride and her company.

Lord Baseman risen from his table
Table leaves he’s split in three
“Yonder stands the most fairest damsel
That my two eyes did ever see.”

“Curse Suslan Pine”, the old man said,
“Curse Suslan Pine from across the sea
Would you forsake your new wedded little wife
For that Suslan Pine from across the sea?”

“Old man, old man, I married your daughter
She is none yet worse to me
She came to me in a horse and buggy
She can ride back home all in her courtship free.”

Took Suslan Pine by her lily white hand
Led her over the marble wall
Married two wives in the morning soon
Sweet Suslan Pine at twelve o’clock at noon.

Eunice Yeatts McAlexander sings Lord Bateman

Spoken: I’ll sing the ballad of Lord Bateman.

There was a rich man lived in England,
And an only son had he.
He never, never could be contented,
Till he set sail upon the sea.

He sailed to the East and he sailed to the West,
He sailed till he came to the Turkish shore;
And there he was taken and put in prison,
Where he could see nor hear no more.

That old Turk had an only daughter,
And she was beautiful to see.
“What would you bestow upon any fair maiden,
Who out of this prison would set you free?”

“O I have land and I have living,
And I have a castle of high degree.
All this I bestow upon any fair maiden,
Who out of this prison would set me free.”

She took him in her father’s parlour,
She gave him of her father’s wine.
And every health that she drank unto him,
Was, “I wish’d Lord Bateman you’d be mine.”

“Seven long years I’ll wait with patience,
Seven long years and one day more.
And then if you don’t cross over to me,
Some other woman I must adore.”

Seven long years had passed and gone,
Seven long years and three weeks beside.
Then Susan gathered up her silks and finery
And thought she would cross the rolling tide.

She sailed till she came to Lord Bateman’s castle,
Then she made the valley ring.
Saying, “If this is Lord Bateman’s castle,
Surely there’s a noble heart within.”

Downstairs ran the proud young porter,
Open and bade the (?) come in.
Saying, “Yes, this is Lord Bateman’s castle
And today he’s taken a new bride in.”

“Go ask him for three cuts of his bread,
And a bottle of his wine so strong.
And ask him if he does remember
Who freed him from his dying thong?”

Upstairs ran the proud young porter,
Down before Lord Bateman on his knee.
Saying, “At your gate is the prettiest creature
That ever my two eyes did see.”

Then up started proud Lord Bateman,
And a mighty oath swear he.
“I’ll forfeit all my land and living,
If Susan Pye has crossed the sea.”

Then upspake the new bride’s father,
Saying, “Today I would rather she’d have died.
To think that for some other woman,
You would forsake your lawful bride.”

“It is true I’ve married your daughter,
But she is none the worse of me.
While Susan came with her horse and saddle,
And paid my way across the briny sea.”

Chris Wood sings Lord Bateman

Lord Bateman was a noble lord,
A noble lord of high degree.
He put himself on board a ship
Some foreign country he would go see.

He sailed East and he sailed West,
Sailed in to proud Turkey;
But he was taken and put in prison
Until his life grew quite weary.

In their prisons they grew a tree,
They grew it stout and grew it strong,
And he was chained up all by the middle
Until his life was almost gone.

But Turkey had one only daughter,
As fair a lady as ever did see.
She shed her tear, she set her mind,
And she swore Lord Bateman she would go see.

“Do you have land, do you have living,
Does Northumberland belong to thee?
What would you give to a brave young lady
If out of prison she set you free?”

“I have land, land and I have living
And half Northumberland belongs to me.
I’d give it all to a brave young lady
If out of prison she would set me.”

She stole the key from her fathers pillow,
Poured Lord Bateman her fathers wine;
Every health they drank together,
“O I wish Lord Bateman you were mine.”

She’s took him down to her father’s harbour,
Found for him the ship of fame.
“Farewell, farewell, farewell Lord Bateman,
I’m sure I’ll never see your face again.”

Seven long years were gone and past,
From her heart she had not ken free.
She’s packed up all her gold clothing,
Swore Lord Bateman she would go see.

When she came to London city
She cried Lord Bateman through the town,
Every stranger that did pass by her
Did lead her on too Northumberland.

“Is this called Lord Bateman’s castle?
Is his lordship here within?”
“O yes, oh yes,” cried the proud young porter,
Pray tell what news I may give to him.”

“Go tell him send me a cut of bread,
Go tell him send me a cup of wine,
And to remember the brave young lady
Who did release him when he was confined.”

Away, away tore the proud young porter.
Away, away, away went he.
He cried, “Lord Bateman, my lord and master
I’m sure Sophia has crossed the sea.”

“She has got rings, rings on every finger,
And round her middle one she wears three.
She has more gold all about her person
For to buy Northumberland from under thee.”

“She tells you send her a cut of bread
And tells you send her a cup of wine,
And to remember the brave young lady
Who did release you when you were confined.”

Lord Bateman then in silence fell
From his heart he had not been free,
“I’ll give you all my Father’s stable
If my Sophia has crossed the sea.”

Bateman then too his true love flew
From their hearts they had not ken free
He’s kissed her hand and he’s kissed her cheek
And neither man nor woman speak
And never was love so complete
Since brave Sophia have acrossed the sea.

Chris Bartram sings Lord Bateman

Lord Bateman was a noble lord;
A noble lord of a high degree.
He put his foot on board a ship, boys,
And he said strange countries he would go and see.

And he sailore east and he sailored west
Until he came to proud Turkey
But this Turkish king had him put in prison
Until his life, to him, seemed quite weary.

For, in that prison, there stood a tree
That grew so very very stout and strong
And he was chained there around the middle
Until he hoped his life might not be long.

But this Turkish king had one only daughter;
The fairest jewel any eye did ever see.
She stole the keys to her father’s prison
And she said, “Lord Bateman, I will set you free.”

Then she took him down to her father’s hall
And she gave him bread and water and a bottle of the very best of wine;
And he embraced her and he told her,
“O my dear jewel, I wish you could be mine.

“For I have got houses and I have got land,
For half of Northumberland belongs to me.
I’ll give it all to you, my jewel,
For out of prison you have set me free.”

Then she took him down to her father’s harbour
And he has mounted on his ship again.
And he embraced her and he told her,
“O my dear jewel, I know we’ll meet again.”

“For seven long years you must wait, my jewel;
Then you must come to Northumberland.
And I’ll not wed any other woman
and you’ll not wed with any other man.”

“And my new-made bride; her I will give over.
She’s none the better or the worst of me.
She came to me riding on a pony;
Now she will leave with a coach and three.
She came to me riding on a pony;
Now she will leave with a coach and three.”

Chris Foster sings Lord Bateman

Lord Bateman was a noble youth
A noble youth of some high degree
He shipped himself on board a vessel
Some foreign country he would go see

He sailed east and he sailed west
until he came to proud Turkey
Where he was taken and put in prison
Until his life it grew quite weary

And in the middle of this prison
There grew a tree both stout and strong
Where he was chained all about his middle
Until his life it was nearly gone

The Turkish gaoler he had a daughter
The fairest creature you ever did see
She stole the keys to her father’s prison
And swore Lord Bateman she would set free

“Have you got silver, and have you got gold?
Have you got lands in your own country?
What would you give to a bold young woman
Who out of prison would set you free?”

“Yes I’ve got silver and I’ve got gold
And I’ve got lands in my own country
And I’d give them all to any woman
Who out of prison would set me free.”

She took him to her father’s cellar
And she gave to him a glass of wine
And every health that she drank to him
Was, “I wish, Lord Bateman that you were mine.”

“For seven years we will make a promise
And for seven years we will keep it strong
That if you wed with no other woman
Then I’ll not marry with no other man.”

Then she took him to her father’s harbour
And gave to him a ship of fame
Saying, “Fare thee well, farewell Lord Bateman
I fear I’ll never see your face again.”

Now seven years were passed and over
And forty days I tell to thee
When she packed up all her gay gold clothing
And to find Lord Bateman then she put to sea.

And when she came to Lord Bateman’s castle
So boldly then she rang the bell
“Who’s there, who’s there?” cried the proud young porter
“Who rings so boldly, come quickly tell?”

She said, “Is this Lord Bateman’s castle?
And is his lordship now within?”
“O yes, this is Lord Bateman’s castle
And he’s just taken his new bride in.”

“Go and bid him send me a slice of cake
And a bottle of his best red wine
And bid him remember the bold young woman
Who did release him when he was confined.”

Away then went that proud young porter
And quickly to his lord went he
And when he came to Lord Bateman’s chamber
There he went down on his bended knee

“What news, what news, O my proud young porter?
What news, what news do you bring to me?”
“Well there is one of the fairest women
That ever my two eyes did see

And she’s got golden rings on every finger
And on her middle one she has got three
There’s enough gold lace all about her clothing
To buy your castle and your lands from thee.”

“And she bids you send her a slice of cake
And a bottle of your best red wine
She bids you remember the brave young woman
Who did release you when you were confined.”

Now when Lord Bateman he heard this news
He smashed his sword in splinters three
He said, “I’ll give away all of my father’s riches
If my Sophia has crossed the sea.”

Then up and spoke the young bride’s mother
She had never been heard to speak so free
“You’ll not disgrace my only daughter
Although Sophia has crossed the sea.”

Then Lord Bateman said to the young bride’s mother
She’ll be none the better nor the worse for me
She came to me on a horse and saddle
Now she’ll ride home in a coach and three.”

Then he prepared another wedding
And both their hearts were full of glee
He said, “I’ll roam no more into foreign countries
Since my Sophia has come to me.”

Carol Elizabeth Jones sings Lord Bateman

Lord Bateman was a noble soldier,
He thought himself of high degree,
But he would not rest nor be contented
Until he’d sailed the old salt sea.

O he sailed to the east and he sailed to the westward,
He sailed all over to the Turkish shore;
There he got caught and put in prison,
Never to be released anymore.

The Turk he had a lovely daughter,
And she was fair as she could be;
he stole the key to her father’s prison
And swore Lord Bateman she’d set free.

She took him down to the deepest cellar,
Gave him a drink of the strongest wine:
She threw her loving arms around him
And said, “Lord Bateman, if you were mine.”

They made a vow, they made a promise,
For seven long years to make it stand,
That he would marry no other woman
And she would marry no other man.

Now seven long years had rolled around
Those seven long years seemed liko twenty-nine;
She packed up all her gay young clothing
And swore Lord Bateman she’d go find.

She sailed to the east and she sailed to the westward,
She sailed all over to the English shore;
She rode ’til she came to Lord Bateman’s castle
And summoned a porter to the door.

“O is this not Lord Bateman’s castle,
And is his lordship not within?”
“O yes, O yes,” said the gay young porter,
“He’s just now bringing his new bride in.”

“"Go tell him to bring me a piece of bread,
Go tell him to bring me a glass of wine,
And not to forget the Turkish lady
Who freed him from his close confines.”

“What news, what news, my gay young sorter,
What news, what news brings you to me?“
”There stands a lady outside your castle,
The finest lady you ever did see.

“She has gold rings on every finger,
And on some fingers she has three;
She has enough gold around her middle
To buy Northumberland from thee.”

Then up and spoke the new bride’s mother,
She was often known to speak so free,
Said, “What’s to become of my only daughter,
Who’s just become a bride to thee?”

“No harm will come your only daughter,
She is none the worse for me;
She came to me with a horse and saddle
And she’ll go home with a coach and three.”

Lord Bateman pounded his fist on the table,
He broke it into pieces one, two, three,
Said, “I’ll not forsake my Turkish lady
Who saved me from my slavery.”

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Tony Barrand and Wolfgang Hell.