Recordings & Info 269. Lady Diamond
CONTENTS:
1) Alternative Titles
2) Traditional Ballad Index
3) Child Collection Index
4) Mainly Norfolk
ATTACHED PAGES: (see left hand column)
1) Roud No. 112: (16 Listings)
Alternate Titles
Lady Daisy
Lady Dysie
Eliza's Bowers
Lady Dysmond
Traditional Ballad Index: Lady Diamond [Child 269]
DESCRIPTION: The king's daughter Lady (Daisy) is with child by a kitchen boy. The king has the boy killed and a token (his heart) sent to Lady Daisy. She dies for love (prompting the king's deep regret)
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST_DATE: 1823 (Sharpe)
KEYWORDS: royalty execution pregnancy death bastard
FOUND_IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES: (9 citations)
Child 269, "Lady Diamond" (5 texts)
Bronson 269, "Lady Diamond" (4 versions)
Dixon XIV, pp. 71-72, "Ladye Diamond" (1 text)
GlenbuchatBallads, pp. 35-36, "Lady Dysmond" (1 text)
Greig #162, p. 3, "Lady Dysie" (1 text fragment)
GreigDuncan6 1224, "Lady Dysie" (2 texts, 2 tunes)
Leach, pp. 635-636, "Lady Diamond" (1 text, correctly titled but erroneously numbered as Child 264)
PBB 37, "Lady Diamond" (1 text)
DT 269, LADYDIAM* LADYDIA2
Roud #112
CROSS_REFERENCES:
cf. "Willie o Winsbury" [Child 100] (plot)
ALTERNATE_TITLES:
Lady Daisy
Eliza's Bowers
NOTES: [A. L. Lloyd writes,] "Boccaccio re-tells [this story] in his tale of Ghismonda and Guiscardo, and in later years it was made into a play in England and elsewhere. Versified into a ballad, it was widely known throughout Western Europe and Scandinavia." - PJS
The link to Boccaccio was noted long before Lloyd; Child mentions it and many non-English analogies, and the link to the Decameron goes back at least to Dixon.
The tale is the first story of the fourth day, told by Fiammetta. In outline, the Decameron account is precisely "Lady Diamond," but there are also substantial differences. In "Lady Diamond," the girl is pregnant and the father forces the truth out of her; in Boccaccio, she is already a widow and her father discovers the truth accidentally; in "Lady Diamond," she dies for love, whereas in the Decameron, she takes poison, and the Italian tale ends with the king's repentance, something rare in the ballad.
With all that said, it's hard to doubt that the two spring from the same sources -- the image of the man's heart in a cup is hard to forget! And the tale was readily available in English; a translation was printed by Wynken de Worde in 1532, probably edited by Robert Copland (Knight/Ohlgren, p. 116). Much of the difference may be simply due to the fact that the Decameron version had to be fleshed out to a full story, while the ballad version, like most ballads, strips much inessential detail.
What is certain, and needs no Boccaccio to tell it, is that a man who got a nobleman's daughter pregnant could expect no mercy. These daughters were intended to cement marriage alliances, and anyone who got them pregnant reduced their value in the marriage market. The punishments could be savage. For instance, Prestwich, p. 109, notes that the French King Philip IV flayed alive the knights who had had affairs with his daughters. By that standard, the king in this song was arguably merciful.
The delivery of a murdered man's heart is also well-attested. Doherty, p. 187, quotes a letter stating that, after the murder of Edward II, his heart (and head) were delivered to his wife Isabella -- although, in this case, she wanted them as proof of his death. - RBW
>>BIBLIOGRAPHY<<
Doherty: Paul Doherty, _Isabella and the Strange Death of Edward II_, Carroll & Graf, 2003
Ohlgren/Matheson: Thomas H. Ohlgren, _Robin Hood: The Early Poems, 1465-1560, Texts, Contexts, and Ideology_, with an Appendix: The Dialects and Languages of Selected Robin Hood Poes by Lister M. Matheson, University of Delaware Press, 2007
Prestwich: Michael Prestwich, _The Three Edwards: War and State in England 1272-1377_, Weidenfeld, 1980 (I use the 2001 Routledge paperback edition)
Child Ballad 269: Lady Diamond
Child --Artist --Title --Album --Year --Length --Have
269 Anne Price Lady Diamond Remember Me 2005 4:54 Yes
269 Bryony Griffith & Will Hampson Lady Diamond + Iron Legs Lady Diamond 2011 No
269 Bushnell's Basin Delegation Lady Diamond A Time in Our Lives 1979 No
269 Carolyn Robson Lady Diamond All the Fine Young Men 2000 No
269 David Cantor Lady Diamond Songs of Now and Then 2006 5:26 Yes
269 Dick Miles Lady Diamond Cheating the Tide 1984 3:27 Yes
269 Ewan MacColl Lady Diamond Blood and Roses - Vol. 2 1981 4:11 Yes
269 Frankie Armstrong Lady Diamond Songs and Ballads 1975 4:14 Yes
269 Frankie Armstrong Lady Diamond 'Till the Grass O'ergrew the Corn - A Collection of Traditional Ballads 1996 5:27 Yes
269 Giordano Dall'Armellina Lady Diamond Ballate Britanniche Del Tempo Che Fu - Medieval Ballads from the British Isles 2001 5:33 Yes
269 Jean Redpath Lady Dysie Jean Redpath 1989 4:16 Yes
269 Jim & Sylvia Barnes Lady Diamond Mungo Jumbo 1991 No
269 Kornog Jesuitmont Première - Music from Brittany 1984 4:49 Yes
269 Kornog Jesuitmont The Celts Rise Again 1998 4:55 Yes
269 Kornog Jesuitmont Celtic Legends of Scotland and Ireland 2001 4:58 Yes
269 Margaret Nelson, Phil Cooper & Paul Goelz Lady Diamond Pretty Susan 1992 3:25 Yes
269 Mary Stewart Robertson Lady Daisy The James Madison Carpenter Collection 1927-1955 No
269 Moira Cameron Lady Diamond Lilies Among the Bushes 1997 No
269 Nigel Eaton & Friends Lady Diamond + New Jig The Music of Hurdy-Gurdy 1995 4:53 Yes
269 Peter & Chris Coe Lady Diamond Open the Door and Let Us In 1972 5:57 Yes
269 Peter & Mary Alice Amidon Lady Diamond Hymns & Ballads 1999 3:49 Yes
269 Rachel Newton Lady Diamond The Shadow Side 2012 4:15 Yes
269 Sorten Muld Kirstin Mark II 1997 9:07 Yes
269 Steeleye Span Lady Diamond Back in Line 1986 4:41 Yes
269 Steeleye Span Lady Diamond Spanning the Years 1995 4:36 Yes
269 Svea Jansson Hertug Fröjdenborg Och Fröken Adelin Den Medeltida Balladen (The Medieval Ballad) - Folk Songs in Sweden 1995 2:04 Yes
269 The Pratie Heads Jesuitmont We Did It! Songs About People Behaving Badly 2010 No
269 The Tannahill Weavers Lady Dysie Passage 1984 4:10 Yes
269 Winnie Campbell Lady Eliza Singing Campbells - Traditions of an Aberdeen Family 1965 No
Mainly Norfolk: Lady Diamond
[Roud 112; Child 269; Ballad Index C269; trad.]
Steeleye Span recorded this bloody ballad for their 1986 album Back in Line. It was also included in their 2 CD anthology Spanning the Years.
Frankie Armstrong commented on her version on her 1997 Fellside CD Till the Grass O'ergrew the Corn:
The story of Lady Diamond descends from Guiscardo and Chismonda's tale in Boccaccio's renaissance best-seller The Decameron. The tragedy of those ill-matched lovers was translated into English in 1566, giving rise to several poems and plays, and there is still a kind of Elizabethan quality to the quick and vivid emotions of the actors here. In typical ballad fashion, no one stops for a moment to consider their course of action, and this headlong rush to disaster somehow mobilises our compassion, not only for the unfortunate lovers, but also for the murderous king. Frankie has been singing this song for 25 years or so and still finds its power to move her undimmed. The words she sings are mostly those of Child's C text, collected from Mary Johnson, a dairy maid at Hoddan Castle. Not having a tune, Frankie made this one up while flying the Atlantic at 35,000 feet, so it can probably claim the world altitude record for a ballad melody.
Bryony Griffith sang Lady Diamond in 2011 as the title track of her and Will Hampson's CD Lady Diamond. They got their version from Bronson's Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads, Volume IV, and finished it with the English session tune Iron Legs.
Lyrics
Steeleye Span sing Lady Diamond
There was a lord, a lord lived in the north country
Who was a man of wealth and fame.
He only had one child, a child but only one,
And Lady Diamond was her name.
She did not love a lord, she did not love a king,
She loved a kitchen boy and William was his name.
And though he brought her joy, he also brought her shame,
And he gave his heart to Lady Diamond.
Chorus:
“And his hair shines like gold,” says Lady Diamond,
“And his eyes like crystal balls,” says Lady Diamond,
“Bright as the silver moon,” she says, bright as the sun that shines,
“Bright as the silver moon,” she says, bright as the sun that shines
On Lady Diamond.
It was a winter night, the lord he got no rest,
To Lady Diamond's room he came.
And sat down on the bed just like a wandering ghost,
“Now Lady Diamond tell me plain,”
“Do you love a lord,” he said, “or do you love a king?”
“I love a kitchen boy and William is his name.
And better I love that boy than all your well-bred men,
I have his heart,” says Lady Diamond.
“Where are all my men,” he said, “that I pay meat and fee?”
Go fetch the kitchen boy and bring him here to me.”
They dragged him from the house and hung him on a tree
And they gave his heart to Lady Diamond.
Chorus
Bryony Griffith sings Lady Diamond
There lived a king, and a very great king,
A king of great renown;
And he had a lovely daughter fair,
Lady Diamond was her name, her name,
Lady Diamond was her name.
Now news goes up and news goes down
And news came to the king
That Lady Diamond's round about,
But to her maid do not care, not care,
But to her maid do not care.
As bells were rung and mess was sung
And all were bound for bed
The King's come to his daughter's bower
But he was not welcome there, not there,
But he was not welcome there.
“Rise up, rise up out of your bed,
Rise up, put on your gown,
Come tell to me, my Diamond dear
To whom you go so round, so round,
To whom you go so round.
“Is it a baron or a lord
Or a man of high degree?
Come tell to me, my Diamond dear
And I pray don't lie to me, to me,
And I pray don't lie to me.”
“Well it's not a baron nor a lord
Nor a man of high degree.
But it's my darling kitchen boy
Where but I lie to thee, to thee,
Where but I lie to thee.”
So the king called up his merry, merry men
By one and by two and by three,
And at last came Robin the kitchen boy
And he dashed him to a tree, a tree,
And he dashed him to a tree.
Then he's taken out his bonny, bonny heart
Placed in a cup of gold,
And they've taken it to Lady Diamond's bower
All because she was so bold, so bold,
All because she was so bold.
“Adieu, adieu my father dear
And to this world adieu,
My darling Robin's died for me
I will do the same also, also,
I will do the same also.”
So she's taken up his bonny, bonny heart
And placed it by her heart
And she's washed it with her falling tears
And by morning she was dead, was dead,
And by morning she was dead.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Martin Underwood for lyrics corrections.