- Fair Annie
Fair Annie is
Child ballad number 62, existing in several variants. [Francis James Child , "English and Scottish Popular Ballads", [http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/child/ch062.htm "Fair Annie"] ]ynopsis
A lord tells Fair Annie to prepare a welcome for his bride, and to look like a maiden. Annie laments that she has borne him seven sons and is pregnant with the eighth; she can not look like a maiden. She welcomes the bride but laments her fate, even wishing her sons evil, that they might be rats and she a cat. The bride comes to ask her why she grieves, and then asks her what her family was before the lord stole her. Then she reveals that she is Annie's full sister and will give her her dowry, so that Annie can marry the lord instead of her; she is a maiden still and so can return home.
Variants
Several Scandavian variants exist: the Swedish "Skön Anna" and the Danish "Skjön Anna". In them, the hero is a man who has newly become king, after the death of his father; his long-term leman, Anneck, tries to get him to make her his wife, and the queen mother supports her. When the son refuses and choses a bride, Anneck wishes to speak with her; the queen mother brings her to the other woman, and her account makes the bride make the realization. [Francis James Child, "The English and Scottish Popular Ballads", v 2, p 65, Dover Publications, New York 1965]
Marie de France retold this story in herlai , "Le Fresne", where the heroine is not kidnapped but abandoned with birth tokens; she was one of a pair of twins, which was regarded as proof of adultery, and a servant abandoned her to save her life. The bride in "Le Fresne" is, in fact, the other twin. [Francis James Child, "The English and Scottish Popular Ballads", v 2, p 67-8, Dover Publications, New York 1965]Motifs
In some variants of "
Hind Etin ", the captive mother expresses her grief in hostility to her children in the same language as this ballad. [Francis James Child, "The English and Scottish Popular Ballads", v 1, p 361, Dover Publications, New York 1965]ee also
*
Lord Thomas and Fair Annet References
External links
* [http://www.bartleby.com/101/372.html"Fair Annie"]
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