‘But light now downe, my owne trew loue,
& meeklye hold my steede,
Whilest your father [and your brether] bold
.....
LORD THOMAS AND FAIR ANNET
The Text is from Percy’s Reliques (vol. ii., 1765: vol. iii., 1767). In the latter edition he also gives the English version of the ballad earlier in the same volume.
The Story.—This ballad, as it is one of the most beautiful, is also one of the most popular. It should be compared with Fair Margaret and Sweet William, in which the forlorn maid dies of grief, not by the hand of her rival.
A series of Norse ballads tell much the same tale, but in none is the ‘friends’ will’ a crucial point. Chansons from Burgundy, Bretagne, Provence, and northern Italy, faintly echo the story.
Lord Thomas his mither says that Fair Annet has no ‘gowd and gear’; yet later on we find that Annet’s father can provide her with a horse shod with silver and gold, and four-and-twenty silver bells in his mane; she is attended by a large company, her cleading skinkles, and her belt is of pearl.